Hair Salon and Satan minions!

 Alegra set up a hair salon Sunday morning to do my hair for church. It included snacks and all!  

Cutie!

The Millers had the kids dress up in things like - entertainment, woke, seduction, intelligence (Cruz), worldly, discouragement (Alegra), vanity, and Lazy.  They had all these scenarios where the kids (and I) could see how satan and his minions (all these things) deceive us and take our time and attention away from the love our Heavenly Father and Jesus has to share with us.  

Taking the Science Fair project to District!

 Lexi and Soren were 4 of 64 students selected to represent Granite Elementary at the District Science Fair  tonight!

Soren and Lexi had to wait an entire day to find out if their project was selected to go from District to State.  Unfortunately, their project wasn't selected to move on, but they had such a fun time doing it together.  Lexi was a bit bummed when she got in the car, but she held it together.  

Girls Night Out

 Grammy took us to the Little Mermaid at Hale Center Theater yesterday after school.  It was so good!!

hanging out

 

Erin, June's mom, sent me a few of this pictures of June and Alegra when they were little playing soccer....they have been at it a long time!

Sunday night game night!

Movie hang out time this weekend!

MLK ski day

 The snow keeps on falling and Cruz was able to go skiing with his friends on MLK *Martin Luther King Day*.  Near the end of the day he hit a jump wrong and ended up kneeing himself in the face.  He looks pretty beat up.  Luckily no eye or nose damage, just bruised and bloody!

Sunday thoughts

 I shared the following message with my siblings, their spouses,  Shawn, and my mom.  

Hello Family:

I just wanted to share a few things I came across last week.  The first is from the world wide devotional that Elder Holland spoke at last Sunday evening. I haven't had a chance to listen to it but someone I follow shared his apostolic blessing he said at the end. I thought it was very powerful, so I typed it and it is below:

An apostolic blessing – for this New Year regarding things I know with certainty and things you will always need

 

 I BLESS YOU - that the simple but exquisite power inherent in the principles of salvation such as faith and hope and charity will always be evident and efficacious in your life.

 

I BLESS YOU – to know, as I most assuredly do, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is personally precious, everlastingly hopeful and eternally true.  I testify with apostolic authority that that is so, and as such is the only unfailing answer to life’s many challenges, yours and mine, the only way to be exalted in the grandeur of eternity.

 

I BLESS ANY – among you, who might be speaking these days of a faith crisis.  Real faith, life changing faith, Abrahamic faith, is always in crisis, that’s how you find out if it’s faith at all.  I promise you that more faith will mean less crisis until finally God says, Well done, though good and faithful servant.  

 

I BLESS EVERY – single solitary one of you to know that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly that, the Church of Jesus Christ.  And that only through the ordinances and opportunities it provides can one fully come unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.  

 

I BLESS EACH ONE of you, Individually, and by name, with every gift you need for this quest.

 

AND I BLESS YOU, plead with you, to patiently persevere, as your Father in Heaven in His wisdom, finds the best way to FREQUENTLY give you what you ask, but UNFAILINGLY give you what you need.  

 

The second thought that really struck a cord with me was from a speaker in church today. He talked about how in John 6 some of Jesus's disciples walk with Him for a bit and then choose to walk away from Him.  He gave 3 ways to help us continue to choose to walk with Jesus - this is by REMEMBERING!

1) Remembering our Own Experiences -importance of writing these down when we have felt God's love and felt glimpses of eternity in our own life. 

2) Remembering Our Family Experiences over generations - through genealogy, talking to grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. 

3) Remembering what God has done for his people - through scripture study. 

Just wanted to share these thoughts I have been thinking about this past week and today.

BYU Basketball

 Grammy took Shawn, Lexi, and I to the BYU basketball game Saturday night.  Alegra had a birthday party and Cruz had to work.  We had a fun night and Lexi really enjoyed her Cougar Tail :).

Earlier in the day - Lexi putting her time in!

Friday Ski Day

 The kids had a day off of school on Friday and all I asked them for on my birthday was if they would ski the morning with me.  I kinda thought that meant no complaining, which some of that occurred.  But we went and had a great morning.  Cruz's friend Andrew came up and he stayed with him and the girls and I headed home.  Grammy met us for lunch at the house with salads from Cafe Rio to continue the birthday celebrations!  Bobbi came over later that night with a cake and flowers and we ran to get a girls night out dinner!  The birthday celebration keeps going..... :)

My 48th birthday!

 I had a nice day celebrating my birthday. I was able to go to the gym and get a workout in, meet Shawn and my mom at the Pancake House for brunch, went to work from 12 - 3:15 (left a little early to get Cruz from school), picked up fun drinks, did carpool, and then met the whole family at Porcupines for dinner. I love being with my crew!  

On Sunday, January 8th -Cruz drove me out to daybreak (to get some driving time in) and I took some homemade cookies to my good friend Melanie Kirkland.  I don't see her much but it was nice to make a surprise stop for her birthday! 

My girls - Shawn sent this picture to me from the restaurant.

Getting Ready for the Science Fair

 

Lexi and Soren are doing their 5th grade Science Fair project together.  Soren came over a couple of times this weekend to work on their idea - "which water bottle keeps water the coldest".  Soren left out of town this weekend, so they really had to get to work!  They were cute together!

Good advice

 

New Year's Eve Night

 The girls babysat Rebecca and David's kids till about 1:00 p.m. - when they left for the airport.  Shawn and I worked on lots of laundry and then cleaned the house.  Shawn was going to go up to ski at 1:00 but they closed the canyon because we were getting so much rain/snow.  So he helped me clean. Late afternoon the girls, Shawn, and I went to the grocery store, Target, and picked up High Note. We had a mellow night at home watching a movie and celebrating New Year's Eve together!  Cruz went into work at about 3:30 and didn't get home till about 11:30 p.m.  

Small Martnielles for the win!