Caution: now entering 2017...

Just look at that new Sunbeam! She was pretty excited to go to Primary until we got to the room and she instantly felt really shy.

 This little lady went to Senior Primary!

 We went to the children's museum in Phoenix.

 Boston giving a ride to Baby B.

 Working at the hot dog stand

 It was barefoot weather perfect

 Senoritas? Senors?

 El Guapo

 Happy 4th Birthday Brooklyn!

Brooklyn at 4 years old:

• She is hilarious. She makes jokes, teases, and laughs all day long.
• She is in size 4 clothes
• She can write her name, use scissors, and has known her numbers and alphabet a long time
• She is quite flexible even though we haven't worked on it at all. I have a feeling she will be a natural dancer
• She loves to tell stories. One day she began a story with: “So there I was...” – Ryan and I got such a kick out of that. Where did she get that phrase?
• She started Primary and is doing great.
• She is very artistic and spends a lot of time painting and coloring daily. She is pretty meticulous and stays within the lines
• She loves reading books as well as listening to short audio books in the car. Our ULTIMATE favorite audio book right now is “Skippy Jon Jones Snow What”. All of us love it (including me) and we've almost got it memorized.

 She wanted rainbow cupcakes

 This girl was excited to finally get her own set of tools like her siblings. 

 She loved her new jammies

 She also got a random bag of skinny balloons. None of us really know how to make animals or anything special, so we just kind of winged it. 

 Uncle Devin came over for a quick visit with Daphne. Brooklyn made herself comfortable really quickly.

 More silly balloon fun

 Brooklyn loves to work on her 'homework'. She is pretty proficient in writing her letters and numbers. 

 This is just a weird picture, but it reminds me to tell you about my calling at church. Remember that time when my husband was the Bishop and his wife had 3 callings? Yes, you read that correctly. THREE!!! I mean, I'm usually a pretty chill person who is always willing to serve, but really? REALLY? Yeah. I kinda kaboshed that pretty quickly. So at that time, I was a Relief Society Teacher and I was on the Relief Society Activities Committee. Then in September, I was called to be the Scout Committee Chairman over Cubs and Boy Scouts. 

That last calling came as a shocker. I have NEVER, EVER, EVER done anything with Scouts before, so I had positively no idea what I was doing. Oh yeah, and all the rechartering stuff was due later that month. Rad. Luckily I had the old committee chairwoman to help me step by step. She was amazing. She was in a different ward and still came to help me. Whew! 

I was released from the Relief Society teacher calling in December, so now I'm back down to two callings. 

I'll be honest, January 2017 was not my favorite. We had to say goodbye to Baby B. It was so hard. It was so, so, so hard. It was awful. Bleh. However, it did make me aware of the wonderful people around me. It made me aware that I have a network or support group of friends who I can turn to when I am struggling. It made me aware of how truly blessed I am. All my life I have had my needs met. I have never known poverty. I have lots of love in my life. That sure makes it easier to look forward to the many tomorrows!