January Happenings

January was a pretty uneventful month- with two super fun things right smack in the middle. Ella grew and grew, but was still pretty much set on being rocked during her three naps a day. I didn't get much done anywhere, at all. We made a New Years resolution to get back into the habit of our morning scripture study. We did really good for a few weeks and need to get back to it again. There really is a sense of unity in our family when we read every morning together. It was our wards turn to clean the church this month so we did that every Saturday. Other than Macy's birthday and Baptism (yay!!) it was just an ordinary month.

  Macy has been very into all things sciency lately. From the shows she watches to the things she reads to the gifts her asked for for Christmas- all things were Science! Of course she would want a Science Birthday party- and let me tell you- we delivered. She had about 10 friends from school walk home with her and we got started. Kyle is always our party DJ and stepped right in to get it all done. I actually woke up that morning with a migraine (blurred vision, numb face, the works) so he was able to get enough down time in the day to get the experiments ready and the cake baked. I did help him with the frosting- but he pulled off a great party. The first experiment was a bubble one. We cut up water bottle, put a thin towel on the end, dipped in a soap solution, and out came long bubble. The kids had a blast with this one. It looked like it snowed by the time they were done. Then we did the lava lamps, and they made their own ice cream. We accidently got salt in the kids ice cream so that didn't work too well. Luckily we had backup ice cream for them to eat. She had a great time at her party and so did all the kids.

 The next weekend (January 21st, 2017) Kyle baptized Macy a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was so excited to be baptized and we were so proud of her decision. We talked a lot about what it means to be baptized and always made sure she knew that it was just her decision and she didn't have to, but she made sure we knew that she wanted to. We had the Gardners from Joseph City, Marie, Kathleen and David, My parents, Steven and Meghan, and Derek, Alison, Chris, Brelee, and Emali drove up to join us. There was a MASSIVE snow storm that Friday night (like the news said "if you're planning on going up North, don't) so Chris left Tucson early and made it here in about 6 1/2 hours (it usually takes MAYBE 4), and Derek and Alison called to see if we could postpone until Saturday afternoon so they could come. We made the arrangments and it all worked out great. We had a small luncheon for those that attended the baptism in the church Multi-Purpose room and it went great. It really was a great weekend. I was so glad we did her Birthday Party and Baptism on different weekends. We were able to just focus on one thing at a time and I feel like it really made her baptism it's own special day.