Lincoln's 4th Birthday

We had a great time on Lincoln's 4th birthday. Despite the fact that we woke up to SNOW... I had been planning to have his party outside.
Once Linc was awake, we let him start opening his gifts.



For months Lincoln has known EXACTLY what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted a BAT CAVE. Every time we went to the store, we had to take a stroll down the toy aisle so that he could look at the bat cave box.
We knew that we HAD to get this for him.



He was so excited about his bat cave, he could hardly stand it.

We had Linc eat his birthday pancake before playing with the bat cave. He was grinning from ear to ear while David and I sang to him.
After the pancake, it was PLAY TIME!

It was time to decorate for the party!




The cake was fun and I was happy with how it turned out. Lincoln liked it too!

Look at that handsome birthday boy!


Since there was snow on the ground, we had to have the party indoors. I had 18 three and four year old kids running through my house! AAHHH! Fortunately, I had lots of friends who stayed to help control the chaos.

One of the activities was to make robots from pretzels and marshmallows. That was fun!





We also colored robots and played pin the robot on the spaceship.





Another thing we did was make robot costumes from paper bags. The kids really liked this one... especially Austin. :)


Opening presents was really fun. Linc really enjoyed seeing what all of his friends brought for him.




Next, it was time for cake and ice cream. I was pretty nervous what my house would look like after the cake, but it wasn't too bad. Lincoln was so happy that his friends came to help him celebrate turning 4. It was a great day!



Happy Birthday, Linco!

Jeffrey R. Holland at Stake Conference

We had our stake conference this weekend and I loved every minute. We were privileged to be visited by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. The Saturday night session was so great. All the speakers were fantastic, but Elder Holland's talk completely spoke to me. He spoke about trials in life and how it does not mean anything about whether Heavenly Father loves you or not. Of course Heavenly Father loves ALL of his children. It was nice to be reminded of that fact. I have had some trials in my life lately and I have started to wonder if I am being punished in some way. Elder Holland said that we can not think that way. If it were true that Heavenly Father only gives trials to those he does not love or wants to punish, that means that all the wonderful people we read about in the scriptures would be being punished by Heavenly Father. That's not true. It was so good for me to hear that.
Also, Elder Holland referred to this life as "the second act." He said that the second act of a show is always the worst. No one wants to go to only the second act of the play. The first act and the final act are always the best.
He reminded us that when life gets hard, we should not abandon the church. He compared that mode of thinking to being in a ship in the middle of a storm. He said that to jump out of the ship in the storm would be silly and a very bad idea. It's true! When life gets hard, the last thing that we should do is abandon our beliefs and/or our church.
I had a very spiritually uplifting week and I am reminded of how blessed we are to have God's chosen servants to speak to us and give us such inspiring words to follow.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started our Valentine's morning by opening our valentines to each other and eating pink pancakes.




Later that day, the Joy School kids came over and we had our Valentine's party. The kids had a great time exchanging valentines to each other and seeing all the special valentines from their friends.







David and I have given up on the idea of a Valentine Date Night. It's too hard to find a baby sitter.... Plus, it's fun to celebrate Valentine's Day as a family because it gives the chance to really show that you love your family. We took Linc to dinner in Hurricane and then headed to see the movie, Gnomeo and Juliet. Lincoln watched the entire movie. He could not take his eyes off the screen. However, when the time comes in the movie when you think Gnomeo and Juliet pass away, Lincoln started to cry and said he wanted to go home. He was so sad! It took some time, but we were able to show him that Gnomeo and Juliet are okay in the end.

We had a great day together. I sure love my family!

A Day in Zion

A few weeks ago, we decided to spend the day in beautiful Zion National Park.


Linc and I hiked most of the way to the middle pools. He walked the entire way! We were almost there when he decided he was ready to turn around and go find daddy.




Linc sure loves his dad.




We had a great day.
After the park, we stopped in Springdale and ate some yummy ice cream.
I love days like this!