February 4th-6th

 President Brenda came down on the 4th and I officially passed the baton to her. She stayed a few hours and we talked about all the things. Kitty gave me bags of stuff, but i put most of that into our closet at the stake center. I passed on birthday cards and baby onesies and lifesaver mints and temple hankies. And 5 years worth of collected knowledge. And, I think maybe most importantly, my full confidence that she’s the lady for the job and that I will be cheering her on and supporting her stewardship as she makes decisions and changes and leads. It was wonderful and after I texted with Elizabeth to see how she was doing passing the mantle to Nicole. Having a friend to transition with - 10/10 recommend. And a sweet family scripture power hour in our room.

I love when my dad’s Facebook memories come up. This was when Matt and I were dating and he took us flying over Seattle. He let my dad fly the plane and it was just a fun and social evening, 21+ years ago. 

More of Ruby’s fashion adventure!

I call this one “Ruby is my spirit animal.” I loooove her disgruntled face and wrist roll and snazzy ensemble. 

Delaney found a fun and cute phone case. And because Alli loves yellow so much, our family had lots of yellow phones and iPads. (because we buy her old ones when she trades up)

A very excited Mimi watching a very loving daddy dress up a very precious Ruby!

Ruby’s fashion adventure! I suggested they make her a Facebook #, but they have minds of their own. 

❤️❤️❤️

The young women came to one of Frankie’s games, but the weird 4:39 time made it hard for most of them to come. It was fun to have some of her leaders sharing their love. 

I call this one “Teacher Frankie goes to school!”

The future educators have been going to the different elementary schools talking to the 5th graders. 

Most of the TAM students go to one or two schools, but this week Frankie will hit her fifth. 

She loves going and it was fun to see her picture in the Tech Center newsletter. I sometimes don’t read through the 3 newsletters I get, but I was glad I did this week. 

February 7th-9th

More of cute Delaney’s ballet! She kept correcting one of the girls and finally had them put a paper between their knees and dance en pointe across the room. It was hard and almost everyone had to go back at least once.

Check out those muscles! So proud of how hard she’s working! And so happy that she’s found something she loves. 

Peace walk info. ✌🏼 

February was a cold one! And then a warmish one and then a cold one again. Seems like we broke several daily records. 

FaceTiming with the babes is always fun! And we all love Ruby’s tough to please exterior. 🤣 And those cheekies!!!

I ❤️ this picture! I ❤️ baby overalls and I ❤️ baby bows and in❤️ these two!

Christian is such a happy daddy. He often FaceTimes when Jeanne’s at work and this day he was getting Ruby dressed, so he’ll let me pick her outfits and he’ll humor me by adding a hair bow. I had looked for the ones I used to glue on the girls heads but couldn’t find any. 

Matt and I helped at the Parshley’s son’s funeral that week too. Mourning with those that mourn is hard and sad, but so close to God. I helped McKenzie and Amber and Meredith in the kitchen and it was a sweet service. Losing a child is unimaginable. I wish we could circle Melissa and take a portion of her pain, but I can only do my teeny tiny little part. And check in on her and pray for her. 

On the night of the 6th to the morning of the 7th Matt and I were WARM monitors. I know the middle of the night role is the most difficult to staff, so we did that one 11-3. It was a beautiful night and that is a beautiful church as we were leaving. And so so so cold. 

And since I’m working my way backwards from the 9th - the view from sitting in the WARM volunteer room. 

We didn’t have any issues and even though Matt walked around a bit, I stayed put. I would hate to make any noise and wake people up. I got a lot of paperwork things done and I love the WARM program, so that makes the middle of the night shift easier. 

Walk for Peace

I had been seeing the monks walk for peace on my social media for a few weeks. A groups of about 20 Buddhist monks set off from Texas to walk 2300 miles to DC. They walked to promote peace, mindfulness, and compassion. As they passed through cities on their way I saw so many people out waving at them and being moved by just being together. It was really beautiful and I wanted to be part of it. I talked to the girls about seeing them in Virginia and they said they’d rather wait for DC. 

Out of order pictures. 🤗

We took the metro into the city and walked to Embassy Row where we found us a spot on a corner and waited with a couple hundred other people. 

After the monks passed 👆🏼 I would have followed along but the girls didn’t want to, and that was fine. 

Waiting for them to pass. Tons of police escorts. 👇🏻 

Another after. 👇🏻 it was such a nice feeling being with people just collectively gathering and hoping for peace. No clue their views on anything else, just all there for peace. 

We just waved and waved, it was so near to see them. 

People had flowers they were sharing. Some were giving to the monks and then the monks were giving them to people. A monk gave me a flower that I passed on to one of the girls. 

Then this guy gave me another flower that I passed on to another girl. 

We were all pretty hungry, so we made our way towards the White House and found a little pizza, salad, sandwich place that was really good. 

Adi got pizza, d and I got sandwiches and Frankie got a salad and they were all super tasty. 

The White House was fenced and we couldn’t get anywhere near it. So sad that we can’t even see the peoples house. 👎🏼 

We continued on to the mall and it got to be golden hour. 

We love spending time in DC, even though we don’t do it much. Literally every time we’re there we say, why don’t we come more often?

We wanted to get to the metro before it got dark, so we started heading home shortly after this. 

We had some good heartfelt conversations. It was a sweet day in DC with ma girls. Totally worth leaving school early. 

Beauty and the Beast

We had a full house in nursery! Including 2 new brothers whose names none of us knew  🤣 I taught about how Jesus created the world for me, except I’m pretty sure I said Heavenly Father did. 🤷‍♀️ The kids were super attentive and idk. Even as I was saying it my brain was like, not exactly, but I just powered through. 🤣 Jackie took pictures today, so i’m rubbing off on her. I have a tendency to do that. 🤗

I worked on our dinner last night and got myself all set up for success today. Then when I woke up I finished prepping so that when we got home from church I had dinner on the table within 30 minutes. We had to move fast because of the postponed fireside’s from last week. Anyway, I was scrolling Facebook, as one does, and came across a Disney movie page. She’s working her way through every Disney movie with themed dinners and I was like yes please. Today was our first one, and I decided to go in her order. 

Everything was super tasty! The Enchanted Rose drink - a frozen strawberry cup up like a rose and frozen in a mini cupcake tin. Pizza Roses- pizza dough cut into strips with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, and pepperoni on it, all wrapped up and baked in cupcake tins. Beef Ragout, that I was pronouncing rag-out because I’ve never seen Ragu spelled like that. 🤣 We even found the special papperdelle noodles at Trader Joe’s yesterday! And then Grey Stuff Cupcakes. We watched Brauty and the Beast that we borrowed from Alecia and it was just simple and sweet. Now I’m excited for next week. Inspo 👇🏻 . 

I’ve been posting Senior Sunday most Sundays for our girl. I just go back through my blog and find pics. I wanted a little girl shot and when I saw her with this pizza I was like, wait, hold my dirty soda!

Very similar to our recent trip to DC! I love this girl and her love of pizza!

Frankie is driving up to the fireside tonight at the Calvert building. A youth and a parent fireside all in one. 

Also, today is 4 years since we lost my mom. I miss her every day.