Dear Friends and Family,

I am enjoying this moment. Chocolate chip pancakes are all in happy tummies and the kitchen is cleaned up. Allison is curled up on the couch snuggling with Midnight her new guinea pig (more on that in a moment) and there is temporarily only happy sounds in our house. Robyn has come up with a new torture this week that involves a constant whine. I am sure it only seems like she is constantly talking and in a very loud voice. But it seems like I and Jeremy have said "just stop talking" to Robyn WAY too much this week. I either need to develop a higher tolerance or laugh about it more!

Yesterday was one of those days where Jeremy and I sit on the couch with kids in bed at 9 and just look at each other and say "it was a great, busy day and now I am pooped out!". I went to a Relief Society event in the morning, then back to have us all go to Spencer's last basketball game, picking up celebratory team doughnuts on the way. Jeremy and Spencer were able to go to the last BYU basketball game and cheer and boo themselves hoarse and have a great time. Girls and I cleaned the office partway, boys finished that night. Taylor and Meredith went out for ice cream with Taylor laughing and clapping the whole way at having Meredith all to himself. It might have also been the lack of screech girl voices, but perhaps I am projecting. Allison had a friend over for a late night and along with Robyn we headed to the pet store. Our original goal was to find a cat proof hamster cage that we could lock. But we were convinced that a guinea pig would be a hardier, better pet for Allison and since we already had to buy a new cage... So Allison adopted a black female guinea pig that she named Midnight. It snuggles up with her and is constantly squeaking to her with contentment when she pets it. So Allison is just beaming and Midnight is getting lots of love.

Yesterday though made me really appreciate our friends. One friend went and picked up the basketball tickets for Jeremy. Another friend drove Jeremy and Spencer down to the game. Another friend came over to fix our broken kitchen drawer and wouldn't let us pay him. And another friend, our home teacher, showed up with a pie and tickets for a U of U gymnastics meet in a few weeks. All I could think of was how lucky we truly are in our friends.

It was a little bit of a churchy week. Wednesday night we had a late night ward temple night where we first met with the Temple Presidency and then attended a session at 8:30. It was really neat but made for some yawns Thursday morning. Thursday was our big Stake Relief Society meeting that we have been planning. We had Sister Thompson of the general presidency come speak to us. First she spoke to all the laurels and their moms and then to all the sisters. It was a 4 Stake event so I was a little surprised that we didn't have to use all the overflow rooms but everyone left with smiles on their faces, so I would call it a success.

Been working this week to clean up some projects. I finally finished up the girls' aprons. I made all the girl cousins aprons for Christmas but my own girls got theirs just a bit later. On the plus side I think they keep getting cuter, the more I make of them.


Robyn still coughs when she first wakes up in the morning but it keeps getting better. First part of the week she was up a lot coughing and not being able to stop. Hence a week of crabbiness. But by mid-week she was back at preschool and having friends over.
Kids are all good. Allison is playing with friends as much as possible. She had two after school play dates this week which means she is doing piano and homework after dinner. Makes me realize how much I like our get everything done right after school routine. She was excited this week that she tested out of Lincoln's in class reading program. They are going to let her go with the third graders for reading time and see if that helps keep her from getting bored. Spencer is either reading these James Patterson for kid books he found or working on his comic sketches. Lately he has a hard time concentrating if there is any other noise going on. Makes him very upset. I am sure he or us will learn to deal with it. His biggest news of the week is that he got a 100% on his math test - his first time ever. Cut his hair this week and filled up our dustpan. Its so nice to see his face again.

Taylor has been signing more at school really well if cut up oranges or pineapple are being offered. His feet are almost healed up. They are teaching him to carry a small basket as he walks - a more functional task.

Friday I was able to go to breakfast with two of my best friends, Kate and Allison at Kneaders. Combine amazing french toast, good friends, a little girl happy to sit at a table with a cookie, a box of my little ponies and her friend Tally for an hour and a half and it was a wonderful morning. They had a plaque there I really liked: "Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy Kneaders which is sort of the same thing".

Jeremy continues to work hard and balance work, family, church and photo stuff. He had one photo shoot this week. And he had one photo night where he attended to do a dry run of the video broadcast for his upcoming photo camp. He just doesn't have enough hours in the day.

This week we get to see my brother Daniel and his family. All of us are counting down the days and its forcing me in a good way to deal with all the cleaning up/fixing things I keep not doing. And delegating to Jeremy the most unpleasant one of getting our garbage disposal working again and fixing the ice maker.

Love to you all, Heather