8 is Great!

My camera turned up! Someone from the theater called last week and had found it so I am happy now. Here's our Bug with her fancy chicken fingers and french fries meal.
Here is the birthday girl outside the theater.
And here is the dear Lady and her sweet Daddy yesterday at her baptism. The woman that gave a talk on baptism compared a testimony to a tree, that whether it is a sapling or a redwood, it is still a tree, and a testimony can be small or big, it is still a testimony. So I asked Leah what kind of tree she is and she said, "a sapling" and I asked her if she believed Joseph Smith was a prophet? "Yes", does she believe the Book of Mormon? "Yes", does she believe Jesus lived and was resurrected for us? "Yes". So we decided her tree is rather larger than a sapling, maybe even a regular sized tree. I sure like this part of being a Mom.

She got her very own set of scriptures with her name on them and she had them out ready to go to church with her this morning before she was even dressed. She is so excited about Activity Days and gets to go to her first meeting on Tuesday! It is such an exciting time for our little Lady Bug!

Leah is 8

Our Leah turned 8 yesterday! She is growing up so very quickly. So to celebrate she and I went to a matinee showing of Arizona Broadway Theater's Annie Get Your Gun. It was so much fun, I had borrowed the movie from the library a couple of weeks ago in preparation of this event so we already knew the music and the story. It was dinner theater so we got to eat fancy food and be fancy girls at the fancy theater. On the way there we stopped at Walmart (cuz we're fancy) and got Leah a new birthday outfit. She kept turning towards me and whispering, "I like my new outfit!" every once in a while during the show.

That picture shows it, I did take pictures of our theater experience but I seem to have misplaced my camera (argh) and I feel sick about the lost pictures of our adventure more than anything else. Anyways, onwards and upwards, so after the wonderful show we came home to get ready real quick for the pizza party which happened about 15 minutes after we got back!

Almost all of her cousins were there and aunts and uncles and so on and so forth. She asked if she could have a friend come over for the party but I am just not ready for that yet, I told her next year, for sure next year (argh).

It was a wild and crazy party, I'll tell you that much. But we had fun times and she had a great and hopefully memorable day.

What's up with the turtle cake, you ask? Well, she asked for a watermelon cake with ladybugs so the middle part is a watermelon (work with me here people) and there are pink ladybugs around it (I ran out of pink frosting and so there are two green leaves? peeled kiwis? Who knows, I ran out of time. But there had to be 8 of them because, well, you should know why by now!

Bragging

So this past weekend was the annual Youth Olympics Track and Field Events and it was so much fun! This was the second year of my Ryan being involved. A Brief History:
*Youth Olympics is a three week long event held every year for the past 30+ years in our Stake.
*All youth ages 14-18 are eligible to compete.
*Events vary from chess, bike racing, public speaking, scholastics, racquetball, table tennis, volleyball, Fine Arts (a talent show), cooking, sewing, woodworking, sculpture, drawing, photography, track and field events, etc. Just about anything a person can be talented in they can display plus they have the opportunity to try something they may have never done.
*I did it when I was a young whipper-snapper but for some reason I think it's almost more fun to watch the kids participate now (I don't have to fret about hitting the dang volleyball when I'm awkward and 15 and have too many arms and legs).
*It is a lot of work for the event coordinators and the leaders but it is so much fun, the kids are so supportive of each other, even across ward boundaries.

So anyways, back to Track and Field. When I was a kid it was my least favorite event but now that I'm married to the fastest man alive, it is pretty interesting. Thanks to the event they tack onto the end of the Track and Field event, my sweetie gets to sprint and everyone stops and stares as he goes flying down the track. For the past couple of years they have done a "Leader Relay Race" and I think it is for this event that my sweetie is the YM President (that plus all of his wonderful leadership skills). A member of the bishopric has to run anchor and there have to be 2 men and 2 women each running 100m, preferably they are to be YM and YW leaders. Betty Merrill, Meggan Neilson, my Ryan, and Bishop McDowell ran for our team. It was a fantastic race, Betty did great, all the runners were about even when she handed it off to Meggan and Meggan was very fast with her long legs she was ahead when she handed it off to my Ryan who was like a rocket, he was amazing, I love watching him run. We had a very big lead when he handed it off to Bishop who chugged across the finish line well ahead of the Manistee Ranch team. It was so fun! People asked me what teams were next and other details but I had no idea, I watched Ryan, then I watched Bishop, then I started watching Ryan again and totally ignored the rest of the race. I like him. Amanda videoed it and I'll see if I can post it but I think I can find a picture. . .
One more thing, they have a 2 mile race that anyone can run in, even old folks and so I "ran" that race with Amanda. Well, she ran it then she came back and "ran" with me the last 1/2 mile. But I finished the race and I wasn't last and I'm not nearly as sore anymore. (I'm NOT in shape, but I'm resolved to fix that)

Congratulations to the Stevensons

Congratulations on your new baby boy Kirsti and Brad! We are glad everything went well :) We love you!

Holey Rusted Metal Batman!

Who knows why it took me so long to figure out that this poor old water heater was completely rusted out and leaking? To be fair to me, on the other side of the wall sits the washer that has historically not loved to drain so I thought the flooding was due to all the laundry. However, I eventually did figure it out and we had to get a new one (yeah). My genius hubby said he wanted to get a tankless one though so I had a feeling it was going to be difficult but it sounded like a good idea to me. So he did his research and found just the right one and it was on Craigslist for a good deal so he got it and now look at our nifty water heater, it is so small! But we took a nice long well deserved (after crawling around in the attic) shower after the installation was complete (at 11:30pm - way past our bedtime) and it was so very nice. Ahhh. . . how spoiled am I to get hot water, a comfy house and a genius darling husband who can do all this fancy stuff for us? Major thanks have to go out to Terry and Kurt Hess for their help, and minor thanks to Justin for his.

Interview Me

Here are my answers Machelle :) If any of my lovely blog readers want me to interview them, send me your email (unless I already have it) and I'll send you questions.

1.)What is the weirdest thing you have EVER done to impress someone when you were young and... "cough" old?
When I was young. . . maybe it was that I ate orange peels, maybe I've blocked out all the really weird things because I'm sure there were many much of those. Now that I'm old it's probably what I did a couple of weeks ago, for a Holiday White Elephant gift I got a pair of red tights with silver snowflakes on them, so I put them on after church one Sunday along with a pair of black shorts and a green shirt. . boy was I one hot mama, I had almost finished laughing at myself in the mirror when Ryan came in and looked at me and whatever serious thing he wanted to talk about was muffled in mocking laughter. I still wore the outfit all day and he secretly loved it. So now whenever he is getting frisky I just ask if he'd like me to go slip into my snowflake stockings. . .
2.)What is the grossest thing you would eat for $100.00, and swallow it?
I'd probably eat just about anything, I've got a strong stomach plus I'm so poor!!
3.)Who would want you to interview the most in the whole world?
One of the 12 apostles, they all seem so very nice and I'm sure it would be a lovely conversation. They probably have tons of neat stories to tell.
4.)If you were given a genie in a bottle what would your three wishes be?
New kitchen cabinets and countertops, always clean bathrooms, and kids that fight LESS (let's be reasonable people).
5.) What was the saddest moment in your life?
See, now that one is a bit personal, but it was when my sister got divorced.

Smile Pretty

We attempted a Livingstone family photo shoot while all the kids were in town over the holidays.

I think the pictures turned out very nicely considering they were taken New Years Day and many of the models had been out partying like it was 1999 all night! Rock On!