Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!

Today was Samarrah's first day as a sunbeam!!

She has been asking for a while now about going to big kid primary. She was so excited. She picked out her outfit, and did great in Sunbeams!!! We teach the 10 year olds so their was a little overlap where we were in Primary with her, and I just about cried. She is getting so big so fast!

I made the kids church bags to hold their books and crayons. It is so nice having them carry their own bags. They love having their own bags with their own toys and books.

I had to include a picture of my handsome man, he is so adorable!

Yesterday my mom braided Samarrah's hair for the first time. THe braiding went well, the combing beforehand not so much! We need to get her in for a haircut, but her hair is a learning process, and we are definetly still learning. She loved having her braids, and she looked like such a cutie!

Five...WOW...

Wow I cannot believe we have been married for 5 years today! Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday and sometimes it seems like decades ago.

It has been a wild ride. I did not know someone could learn and grow so much in such a short amount of time. We have learned how to do that together, how to work through the trials life throws at us and stay close to the Spirit for comfort and knowledge of the path our family should take.

It has been a fun 5 years full of lots of love and laughter. There has been a lot of bumps along the way, but we have survived them so far, and are thankful for all that we have. Having our Anniversary on New Years Eve is nice because the New Year really is a new year for us for our marriage!

We are so grateful for these two kiddies. We are grateful that we chose to be sealed for eternity and they are ours FOREVER. We love them so much!

So here is to another year and hopefully many many more to come. I love you babe. You are an amazing Father and Husband. I cannot imagine our life without you. I am happy we get to spend forever together!

( We have a ton of pictures from all of our Christmas activities so check back for those in the New Year. We wish you all a GREAT New Year!!!)

Thanksgiving finally...

So I guess as long as I post Thanksgiving before Christmas I am okay right? Well here it is. Thanksgiving was a blast, my brother, sister-in-law, and niece came to visit making our family complete. We went on a walk at the wetlands. It was beautiful who knew there was water like that in Vegas? We had a great thanksgiving day, the kids all loved playing with each other, there was much dancing and singing! We had our traditional thanksgiving barbecue of burgers and hot dogs, it was super yummy! It was so great to have everone together, That's definetly what makes a holiday special..family. Love all you guys! We are excited for the Christmas season and enjoying being together!

At Thanksgiving when all of the grandkids were in town we took them out to take pictures. I made them all outfits out of the cutest fall colored plaid. We had four kids under the age of four, it was a trial, but we got lots of cute personality pictures. Here are just a few, I will post more when I have time to edit them, we took TONS of pictures!

A few weekends ago we took the kids to the target children book festival. It was so much fun we got about 10 free books. The kids got their hands painted and got animal balloons. It was right after my mom broke her arm, she had to hold it up for 5 days, so we put her in a wheelchair with a box and pillow to prop up her arm and we were good to go. The kids had a blast and love reading their new books!

Halloweeeeeen

So I am an uber slacker and am just now posting Halloween. We had a lot of fun this year, we went to the ward trunk or treat and had a blast trick or treating with friends, and the kids got TONS of candy! We cut ourselves a super cute pumpkin, and on Halloween we braved the crowds at towns square and took kids trick or treating, it was crazy crowded, but a great memory for us. I let the kids pick what they wanted to be this year, I would love to have them match, but I figure they have to wear it so let them choose. Samarrah wanted to be a butterfly so I made her a tutu dress and some antenna, gave her some wings and she was good to go. Ayo kept saying he wanted to be a car car driver (race car driver) I tried for so long to convince him he wanted to be something easier to make...but in the end I went and got some black and white checkered fabric and made him pants and added long sleeves to his cars birthday shirt and he was good to go. So I guess if he felt like a car car driver that's what matters. It was so fun to see them get into it this year. Childhood is magical!