Arise and Shine!
Young Women in Excellence

Young Women in Excellence is an event in which young women are recognized for the good things they are doing. It is a celebration of Personal Progress. Each young woman shares a value experience or value project she has completed during the year that exhibits excellence. Her presentation may include talents and skills she has developed through her Personal Progress goals. Parents are invited to attend.
Give serious thought to the values you might focus on for this event. You may work with a family member, another young woman, or others. It may include shared thoughts or feelings about special events, demonstration of obtained personal goals, or something personal gained from lessons learned in or out of church class.



The project I will be sharing is:                How it helped me to arise and shine:
It's your time to
S H I N E


**(this is the text for the cards we are going to pass out on Sunday to the girls in Young Womens.  It's almost time for our YW in Excellence and hopefully this will get the wheels turning and the girls thinking about all the good and fun and great things over the past year.  You can't really see, but the text had a darling big yellow and white sunburst behind it...)  well anyway, I kindof adapted this idea from something I saw on pinterest, but made it more personal.

look out world... here comes Andy

All ready for his first day of preschool.

he had to have a football shirt, there's a little bit of talk about football around our house lately...

what a cute little man!

feeling grateful!

...so for the past year we have been working on finishing our basement... BIG PROJECT!

We've done as much of it on our own as we could and then called in the professionals where we needed them.  We're not quite done, but sooo close.  I can hardly wait.  I have been packed and ready to move down for several months now...   A few last touches and we will be done, but this particular fireplace wall has got to be my favorite part.  I am so happy and amazed at how nice it turned out to be.

I was at family dollar in town today and found this $5 decoration.  Pretty much summs it up for me!  WE Are Blessed!  I am blessed!!!  I've been feeling that way a lot lately, I don't know if it's because my kids are gone, the house is quiet and I have a lot of time to think about my life and my happiness... or what?  But I do realize that I have a lot to be thankful for... I'll spare you all the list... it's a long one!

first day of school... 6:45 am Mason (14) 8th grade, Sadie (11)  6th grade, Nick (8)  3rd grade.

"don't smile Nick, whatever you do!!!"

Um... somebody was extremely excited for school today!!!!!!

and so darling, might I add...

it was a lot of hair to curl but we had plenty of time.. she was up at 1 am, and then again at 6, dressed by 6:15!  It's a miracle!!  It may only be this one day, but it happened and I have pictures to prove it!  (She's not such a morning person!)  Had to be to the bus by 7:05 and had a 40 lb back pack to carry!!!  Wow, we did it!  Now... what to do, what to do...  CLEAN!!!!!

it's been a while... i've missed you blogger world...

This has been a good summer...  Brigham City Temple Open House

I am a gardener... look at my harvest!

4th of July Derby in Delta...

Andy was LOVIN EVERY MINUTE OF IT.. OH YA!

We spent time with cousins in the mountains

hiked to a water fall

did some lake fishing with some of our favorite fisher-people 

everyone caught one!!!!

the best fisherwomen of all...

and the loot

cousins are the best!

family reunions and memories to last a lifetime

all 3 months in a nutshell...

Andy's 4th birthday

It all started with this great idea to make a checkerboard cake... and he wanted "blue frosting"  well, so I went to work with the pastry bags and piped them into the pans, blue and white and so on... I thought it would turn out just fine.... Mom had pans that were specifically designed for such things, but I thought free form would work just as well...  He loved the blue frosting and the sprinkles and was really excited for the party and mostly the cake.  Fast forward through the longest day of a 4 year olds life... waiting for everyone to be in the same place at the same time to open presents, eat dinner and finally have CAKE!  Cut into cake, and awwwww well, not quite what I had hoped for with the checkerboard effect, but oh well!  It tasted good to a 4 year old and that's all that mattered. 

Can you believe, by the way, my baby is a 4 year old soon to be preschool boy?  NO, ME EITHER!!!!  there's something not right about that.  I hate to see him grow up, but love watching it all happen and getting to have him as my best little pal ever!  Andy is a special little boy!  Hope I made his day as special as a Mom can, in more ways than cake!