Favorite Teacher

Each of my girls have had a teacher that has really impacted their lives. Mrs. Lemmon Ashley's 2nd grade teacher is that for her. 2nd grade was the best year for her. She is the baby in our house and I think that that sometimes has held her back. Madison and Allison sometimes baby her and I don't always give her responsibilities that the others had at her age. I guess deep down I don't want her to grow up. Mrs. Lemmon gave her a lot of responsibilities and she thrived in her classroom. Mrs. Lemmon had a baby in October and we stopped in today to meet little Genevive. Ashley was on cloud 9 to be invited over to meet her.

10-2 Season

Allison finished her basketball season today. The last game was a hard game and the girls were a little out of sink. It was a hard lose but the girls have nothing to be ashamed of they had a great season. A 10-2 record is amazing. I can't wait to see what they do next year and in the years to come.

Madison and crutches

It has been almost three weeks since Madison had surgery. She was kind of excited to use crutches but now she is singing a different tune. They are harder then she anticipated and even the attention that she gets does make up for how hard it is. Getting to seminary is the hardest. The parking lot seems like 100 miles on crutches. Before the surgery, I mentioned that if the snow stuck around I would have to drive her. I planted a little seed and she asks me if I will come drive her. I have done it a few times for her but can't do it every day. I feel bad. We had her appointment last week and she is counting down to the 18th when she can start putting weight on her knee. Despite the hard times she is staying in good spirits. Tonight she found a way to take Macie to bed with her.

It was funny, when Madison would talk or breath Macie would cover her face. I think she was telling Madison that she had bad breath.

Christmas tree

When we sold our house and we started packing things up the builder thought that our house would be finished before Christmas. I didn't want to put a tree up and then move it so never planned on putting a tree up in our rental. The house got started later then was planned so our date of completion got pushed to February 6th. All of our Christmas stuff is at the back of the storage unit and we didn't plan on putting up a tree but the girls were not on board with that idea. Some of our ornaments were close enough to get but we didn't have a tree to put them on. We threw a few ideas around of what to do but didn't want to spend much money. Well we got lucky. We were driving around and someone had a Christmas tree on their curb that had a sign saying it was free. Some of the light didn't work but hey it was a tree just what the girls wanted. It is a really nice tree and will probably keep it around for a while. We can string it with new lights.

We always let Madison pick if we put the tree up before her birthday. This is the first year that she didn't want it up so we waited till tonight to do it. We didn't have all our ornaments but the girls were still able to make the tree look nice.


I think minimizing this year will be a good way to help bring the true spirit of Christmas into our home. Many blessings have come to us in the transition period in our life.

16

Madison is 16 years old. I can not believe that she is 16 years old. Where has the time gone? Last night we went out to dinner for her birthday pick. She chose Cafe Ole like has many times before but tried the new Meridian one instead of heading all the way in to Boise. Her knee was hurting so she wasn't in the best mood so we didn't do the singing thing with the sombrero like years past.

She did like having her jasmine dip though. She missed sharing it with Grammy.

Today we went to church and she advanced to the Laurel Class. She has made some friends in the Mia Maid class so she is not ready to move up to Laurels. This ward has been so friendly so I am sure that she will make friends in Laurels or in a few months her friends will start moving up to Laurels.

Tonight we had a special dinner for Madison's birthday. Lydia came over to celebrate with us.

Madison has been a little busy with school and basketball so she didn't get to give input on her dinner but she said did good and picked what she would have picked.

Homemade Olive Garden. It is one our families favorite meal. I did ask her is she wanted a pie instead of cake like last year. She opted for the pie. I agree, I am not much of a cake fan either.

I know that we put candles in her pie last year but I do not remember having such a hard time with the candles. They would not stay up so Lydia held them while Madison lit them. We couldn't find out lighter so Madison was using matches. It was a funny time getting the candles lit.

It was fun celebrating Madison's 16th birthday. I can not imagine our family without her. I also can't believe she is 16. Kevin and I are not ready for her to start dating.

NHS

Madison works hard at school and is taking some pretty hard classes. Tonight we attended the induction ceremony for NHS. We are so proud of her and the academic accomplishments that she has made. When we got there and saw the stage that Madison had to walk across to get her certificate she told us that she was not going up. Well we all know I am with pictures so Kevin suggested that Allison go up. I was secretly hoping Madison would just go up but she wouldn't. Allison went up. It was funny because we knew several people in the audience and one person on the stage. It was funny and will be a great story to tell for the years to come.

Allison came down and said that the stage was too narrow and Madison would not have been able to walk across it with her crutches. Allison thought it was funny because she will be the only one that gets inducted into NHS twice. She has great goals. It was refreshing to see Allison help Madison out. I love seeing their sisterly love.

Love my front door

They started painting the inside of the house. Ashley and I went and took a look around but it was dark and phone died after I took the picture of the front door. We didn't get to see much but I got a peek at the front door.

I love the color. I am so glad Kevin went along with me for the front door.