A staring contest

Here is a picture of our 4 year old. She is a happy, smiley, loving child.

 One day, we decided to have a staring contest. Her eyes got big and wide, and so did her mouth.

 The bigger she tried to open her eyes, the bigger her mouth. As long as her mouth was open, her eyes stayed wide. She also was jumping in place, and giggling.

Needless to say, I lost. I was laughing at her funny expression. She was hilarious. I wish we could get her to open that wide for the dentist!

The greatest 12 year old I know

I can hardly believe that my oldest daughter turned 12!

She was quite excited for her birthday this year. I made cupcakes for her class, (I think this will be the last year for that) and birthday dinner and cake. She didn't have any requests for dinner, just something yummy and not seafood! She doesn't like any type of seafood. Her birthday cake request was ice cream cake, so I called up my sister, who had the best ice cream cake recipe I know of, and Emma loved it.

She also got to go to her first Young Women's activity on her birthday. Her youth leaders came over and welcomed her to the group that afternoon and she was off to the activity that night. She was very excited.

She is such a caring, loving, wonderful daughter. She is beautiful and talented. We feel blessed to have her in our family.  We love you -E-.

Other changes for -E- came along after her birthday. Another B--Braces. She is still sore and eating only mashed potatoes, soft bread and oatmeal, but is handling it just fine.

Skiing for the first time

I finally took -L- skiing. She was eager to learn. She has been hearing about skiing from the older two kids over the past few winters. Unfortunately, the ski school program through the public school was discontinued this year. So, -N- and -E- got snowboarding and skiing lessons for Christmas. I told -L- I would take her up sometime during the season.  I decided to take -L- last week, just to give it a try, and she loved it! Another ski buddy for me. :)  Of course, I only took her on the rope tow for the first day. She mastered it very quickly.  The day started out overcast, but then the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. Most of the time, I felt like I was shouting out food orders: Pizza, pizza!  French fries, french fries! Our next trip to the slopes she will get to ride the big lifts.