Shelby is a teenager!

Shelby wanted to go to PrimRose Retreat for her birthday. She invited he best friends for a great time.
They dressed up and walked the cat walk. They had a great time goofing off and helping each other come up with great outfits. It is such a blessing to have such great girls in Shelby's life.
It was fun to watch the girls have a lot of "good clean fun". Karaoke was got some of the "quieter" girls up having some fun.
Mani/Pedi's for everyone! This was some of the girls first time at the spa getting nails done. We loved every bit of it.

Thanks to all the great girls for helping make turning a teenager so much fun for Shelby!

The Heralders Choir

Shelby has wanted to sing in a choir for so long. She loves to sing, and has a beautiful voice. The choir went to the Thomas Jefferson Education convention and performed there. These are pictures of their family concert. Next they will be doing "Seusical the Musical".

American Girls

Taylor joined a book club this month. It is an American Girl group. They are starting with Felicity. Taylor had a great time with the girls. Getting Taylor excited about reading is a feat in itself. She hurried and read the first book so she would be ready. This week the girls discussed the first book, Williamsburg (looking at a city map), 13 original colonies, idiomatic expressions, and built a character profile of Felicity.

Chain of Love

My friend, Saedi, posted this on her blog and I participated with the promise that I would keep the chain going. So here it goes...The first five people to comment on this post will get something in the mail (or hand delivered) from me. My friend promised something homemade, but I can't guarantee that, so it might be semi-homemade...who knows? It will be though, I can promise that. The catch is that if you are one of the five to comment, you do have to post a similar post on your blog. This keeps us all busy and thinking of others. Hope you decide to participate!!!

Dreams really do come true. Ours came wrapped in Baby Blue!

Today Ricky is 9 years old.

I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. We were so excited to be having a boy. Knowing that this might be the last baby, and having two girls, we were excited to be blessed with this wonderful baby boy.

Ricky is such a great kid. He is thoughtful and kind. He is strong. He knows that his Heavenly Father loves him. He is a great brother and friend. We are so blessed to have him in our family. We enjoy his enthusiasm for life. Every day is wonderful in his eyes, and even the simple things are exciting to him. He loves to make all things a fun game. He smiles all the time and we can't help but smile with him.

Yesterday we had a party for him with 7 of his good buddies. Of course he wanted it to be a football party. So I went to Oriental Trading company (love it) and we found a couple of games to start the party off with. Then we had a good old fashioned two hand touch football game in our backyard. It was a really great time. This morning he is up early putting together a lego gift he got from his friends (who are brothers) Dallin and Chris Bunker. He can't wait to go shopping and spend the money Grandma Susie sent him.

He is truly spoiled. But what really was special to him was how much everyone around him cared about him. He was so excited to read Grandma's card. It was a Looney Tunes card and he loved that. He read the words inside and smiled so big. He feels so loved by those around him, and I thank you for being such an import part in his life.

We love you Ricky!

Nobody else like him, he's unique - - this one. How fortunate we are that he is our son.

Building bug

All three kids started an Inventions class last week and came home with the building bug. Ricky and Taylor have been in the basement building this TeePee. It has a kitchen with a "fire". I love that they want to use their imaginations and build. They used the spare wood that was in the basement. The put boxes down so it has a floor. They didn't use any nails. They got it to stand up on its own.

Soldier Hollow cross country skiing

Well I have tried to teach my kids to always be willing to try new things. So when the opportunity came for us to try cross country skiing...off we went.

To quote Ricky, "Cross country skiing is a lot different than down hill skiing."

We had different ideas about it. Ricky hated it. He said it was to much work. Taylor thought it was alright. I thought if we had some lessons it might have gone better. Shelby went out with some of her friends, and even though she wasn't as good as they were, she didn't quit and had a good time of it.