Sweet 16!

As I type this, and until two days from now, we have TWO 16-year olds!  The newest in the "16 Club", is Raegan Fawn.

Raegan is a beautiful girl.  Just look at her.

Raegan has many friends and admirers.  One boy in particular, we'll call him "The Whittler" has been anxiously waiting for both his and her 16th birthday to be able to FINALLY take her on a dream date.  He showered her with chocolates and rhinestones after Seminary, and also a cute invite for the "first date".  But sadly for the Whittler, he's not the only one interested.  I guess we'll have to watch and see how the competition goes.

Raegan is so smart, and almost always gets straight A's in school.  In fact, of her class of 300+ students, she is SIXTH academically. Last year she was THE Geometry student of the year, and this year was only beat out by one other student to be the Algebra II student of the year.  She stars on the EHS dance team, loves being in the Choraliers with all her friends, and is loved wherever she goes.  She's basically as tall as I am, which is crazy to have a daughter that I almost look eye-to-eye with now!  

She had a fun party with her friends the Friday night after her big day, and has her big first date scheduled for this week.  She is also scheduled to take her driver's test this week to finally get her license.  We'll have 4 drivers in Elko!  

Raegan has a strong testimony of the gospel, and we have always been impressed at how sensitive she is to the Spirit.  She willingly shares the gospel with any/all of her friends who are not members and has  been a great influence on them.  She's planning on a mission in 3 years.  She is so good-natured and easy to laugh, she's amazing at anything she does. She helps around the house (the five minutes per day that she's home) and is so good with all the sisters and little brother.  She's almost done with Personal Progress.  She is an honor student in Seminary.  She's had an early morning paper route for a year now, and cosistently wakes up at 4am to deliver her papers, get home to get ready, leave for school by 6am, practice dance afterwards until 5:15, then have Choraliers, Young Women, and/or homework.  We can't say she's not tired, but she gets it done.  We love having Raegan in our home.  She's LEGIT.  Happy Sweet 16, Raeg!

Happy Birthday Scarly Boo!

Scarlett is FIVE.  I can't believe it.  I remember so well the Conference Sunday morning that Brent and I drove to Jordan Valley Hospital where I was going to have my baby number 6 via C-section.  I was so nervous!  It all went well, and when they said, "It's a baby GIRL!", we said, "Of course!"  I loved being wheeled back to my recovery room, totally numb, happy that we were all well, and watching General Conference while we held our new, sweet baby girl number six.  That was five years ago!

Even though Scarlett's first experience of this Earth life was listening to General Conference, she wasn't real thrilled that her 5th birthday was four hours of doing just that.  To make it more exciting, we took her to get her second favorite food, doughnuts, before the first session.

Her very favorite food is cold cereal.  She is basically alive and functioning in this life all thanks to Malt  O Meal.  But Donuts N' Mor helped us out on her birthday.  

Because of GC we didn't want to invite friends over, so we made a little tea party in the living room.

You can see Scarlett was ALL OVER this beautiful dress.  She wore it every day for about two weeks.

Scarlett is such a sweetie girl.  She has sparkly brown eyes, loves everything Barbie and princess and pink, and begs begs begs to play with cousins and friends every day.  She just finished a year of a neighborhood pre-school where all the other mothers raved about her talents in coloring and writing.  We keep saying she's going to be the smartest girl in Kindergarten this fall.  Every morning after breakfast she turns on the music on the computer and dances and sings to Bieber, One Direction, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, and anything else she can find.  She's growing being exposed to a little more than Barney and Teletubbies, thanks to five older sisters.  We cut her hair short before the cruise, and it's daaaaaaaaarling on her.  She claims she wants it long, but I think she feels like million bucks when everyone comments on how cute she looks.  

We love this little chica.  Happy fifth Scarlett!

Spring Break

Last year for Spring Break we were in Twin Falls, Idaho for a week of swimming and fun.  I'll have to find the pictures we took a whole year ago and post them.  But this year, Brent was working, and Romney and Raegan left for their long-awaited choir trip to San Francisco to perfom at the Festival of Gold.  So, the rest of us stayed in good ol' Elko Belko.

One cold and snowy night this last winter after returning from watching a half time performance by the EHS dance team, we came home and were just getting ready for bed when we heard a horrible car-crashing sound outside.  It was so loud, we ran to the window panicking that it was Romney and Raegan returning from the High school and hitting into someone right outside our window.  Luckily, the only fatality in the crash was our mailbox across the street.  We looked outside just in time to see a white truck backing up and fish-tailing down the street away from the bank of mailboxes that he had just knocked of it's post, leaving letters and metal all over the lawn of the people across the street.  It was exciting!

We had a police man come investigate, and then someone from the post office was called to come and gather all the mail from the snow.  It was some good entertainment!  Well, week after week went by, and then month after month, and the mailbox stump sat lonely on the lawn across the street.  It was a pain to drive a full five minutes to the post office to pick up our mail, and hence only happened every couple of weeks.  Well finally, over Spring Break, the mailbox was replaced.

 Like I said, we didn't miss a second of the action.  Spring Break was a success.

Livie is 'Leven

Alivia woke up to this:

 She was so excited about the bike!  We name all our bikes, and "Mongoose" has been fought over for a couple of years by Alivia and Landrie.  Now Mongoose has a friend.
We have a tradition that the night before the birthday as we gather around for family prayer, we tell the story of how the birthday person came into the world.  The girls about have each of their stories memorized by now, but they still like to hear them every year on their birthday eve.  Alivia was born while we lived in West Jordan, and was just a few days old on her first Easter.  I remember getting the older three girls ready for church Easter morning in their matching dresses (made by Mommy, what a life saver!) and peeking at little tiny newborn Livie sucking her thumb on the couch.  She found that thumb right off the bat, and it remained her friend for quite a few years of her life.

 Alivia has always made friends easily, and will be the first to tell you that she is very well-loved at school by both her classmates AND her teacher.  She is the smartest girl in the class, of course, and her teacher has asked her to do extra assignments to keep her busy.  Most recently, Mrs. Wilkinson asked if Alivia would do a power point presentation on our church.  Alivia has been doing a lot of research on Joseph Smith so that her teacher and the other students will want to learn more about him.  These are some of her adoring fans that came to her party.

We didn't get a photo of the jewelry-making activity, but all the girls went home with several pairs of new earrings to wear, along with the regular party favor we live to give..CHIPS.  They had a great time because, why else, it was a party for ALIVIA.

Alivia is a gem.  She's funny, very attentive to the younger siblings and crazy about Hartman, loves to drive to Utah any time we're going--even if it's just for a half of a day.  She's made a great impression on both her school teachers that she's had in Elko, and has a strong testimony of the gospel.  Her Primary teacher right now also thinks she is just the greatest girl ever.  She asked at the end of last year to remain with Alivia's class because she loves her so much.  Alivia gets straight A+'s, is a great artist, and eager to do everything she does all together as a family.  We love our Alivia.  I can't believe she only has one more year in Primary! Happy 11th Birthday, Livie Pie!