Flowers

My sweet heart gave me some tulips for our anniversary along with 2 dozen roses. I LOVE them!!! He truly knows how to melt my heart. There is just something about a flower that brings peace and calm into my life. I love having them in our house. I especially enjoy taking pictures of them if you haven't already figured that out. :) This has been a good week of enjoying some beautiful white tulips and red roses. I'm so grateful for flowers. I always think of this quote when I think of flowers.

"Parents who have surrendered the sweetest and smallest flowers from the family's garden need to remember our Heavenly Father. He has promised a special reward to those who now suffer in silence, who spend long days and longer nights through their trying times of bereavement. Our Creator has promised glory. He said, "For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but nigh at hand." (D&C 58:4) That promised glory includes the blessing of reunion with each child who has left the family circle to help surviving members of the family to draw nearer to God. Those children still live and are a heritage to the Lord."
Russell M. Nelson

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15 years...

Today we celebrated our 15th anniversary. Can't believe it's been 15 years....15 wonderful years. I didn't think my love for him could grow anymore than on that day 15 years ago but it has and it continues to grow. I look forward to many more years and most importantly eternity with this man. I'm the luckiest person in the world to have such an amazing husband. Today we spent the day together just the 2 of us and it was great. Thanks mom and dad for taking the kids so we could spend time together reminiscing on the past 15 years and dreaming of the next 15 and so forth. I feel so blessed to have such a loving and supportive husband. He truly is the greatest! We look forward to the day when we both get to raise and watch Wyatt grow up. It will be marvelous. And the best part is we will never have to say goodbye to him ever again because he will be ours forever.

Roses

My sweet husband gave me a dozen roses for Valentines day. I LOVE them! They are so beautiful and delicate. I have been taking many pictures of them this week. It has been fun having them to enjoy.

After a couple of days they really blossomed outward. So pretty!

Can you tell I love taking pictures of flowers? That is really one way I truly enjoy them. Taking pictures of them and noticing the little things about them that make them so beautiful. I also tried a bunch of different settings on my camera. It's been kind of a learning experience for me as well. Love learning new things!
A couple of random pictures I took on Valentines day. Our table all set for our candlelight dinner and then another Valentines tradition...sugar cookies. Yum!

Dance

We have been busy the last couple of months with many dance perfomances with the girls. This is Hay's first year and she is LOVING it! I think what she loves the most is that she finally gets to do what her sister has been doing for a couple of years now. They have had fun and have gotten to perform at many half-times. Today they got to perform at the college girls basketball half time. They did great!



Before the performance.
Hay dances to "Single Ladies" and gets to put this big ring on during the dance. She loves it!

Em is improving more and more each year. She really enjoys dancing and performing.

Valentines 2011

Each year for Valentines day we have a tradition of having a heart waffle breakfast. We received a heart waffle iron many years ago for our wedding. It's been a fun little tradition each year.

I'm finding that these red and white flower plates I bought at Walmart on clearance last summer are coming in handy for many holiday celebrations. I love white and red together.
I bought these heart glasses a few years ago. They have been fun to use at our breakfast and candle light dinners each year.
I kept up the festive lights from Christmas and we have enjoyed many dinners this winter under them. This morning we enjoyed them as we ate breakfast. I'm taking them down after today.

Gave my sweetheart some hugs and kisses.

I saw these darling heart marshmallows and had to get them. We had hot chocolate last week using them.
An after school snack Hay and I made for Ty and Em. Saw this idea on my amazing friends blog. She is so creative and it's been fun to try some of her ideas.

The mailboxes have been so fun. Hay was asking this morning if we were going to keep the mailboxes out. I told her that they were only for valentines and that after today they would be put up until next year. She was so sad to hear that. She wants to keep them out all year around. Needless to say it's been a big success and truly brought some LOVE into our home. It will definitely be something we will continue to do each year.

Violin Recital

Last week the girls had another performance at school for violin. This time it was a recital where they got to play individual songs while being accompanied by the piano. Hayley played Twinkle, little star and Emily played a Fiddle song. They both did a great job as always. This time they got to wear Sunday dress clothes instead of the school uniforms. They didn't plan their outfits but they ended up matching each other. Of course I had to take a picture of them together all matchy.:)

This experience is one of those times I wished I would have taken my camera but I didn't. Dang it!

Last month in our city we had a new airport open. We decided to go to the dedication. So, we checked the kids out of school, picked up my parents and drove to the new airport. Well, everyone else in the world decided to go to it as well and we got stuck in traffic and missed the whole ceremony. One of the apostle of our church was there and we were hoping to see him but missed the whole thing. After the dedication they all flew away in a plane. What we didn't know was that they would return later to the airport.

We finally got to the airport and enjoyed touring it. Such a nice little airport. They did such a great job with it. The kids enjoyed the brownies and cookies that they were serving to the public. It was a fun experience. They had TVs throughout the airport broadcasting the different things that were happening. We were about to leave when we noticed that all the people from the dedication were on the TV again. We thought it might be a rerun but decided to go and see if maybe they had returned from their plane ride. They had and we miraculously came to the exact spot that President Dieter F. Uchtdorf was coming through. He came to us and gave Hay a high 5, shook my hand and then reached around to shake Em's hand because she was hiding behind me. He then shook Ty's hand. . It was such a neat experience to be in the presence of a living apostle. We just stayed and watched as he interacted with everyone. Such an amazing man. It was a fun experience and one I think my kids will always remember.

So grateful for the gospel and for living apostles that teach and give us pure doctrine to follow by. I don't know what I would do without the knowledge I have of eternal life and the blessings we will receive. I love all the comforting quotes I have on my sidebar many from apostles and prophets.

Heaven in our home

Because someone we love is in Heaven, we have some Heaven in our Home.

A sweet friend gave this to me and I LOVE it! So, TRUE! Love you Wyatt!

Macie Mae

Isn't she cute? I just had to add this picture my niece took of Macie Mae. I still love her sad puppy dog eyes. I'm totally surprised at what she has added to our family. I never in a million years thought we would have a dog. My sweet husband told the primary kids when we got her "that a complete miracle had happened at our house that week"...it truly was a miracle. I have to say I felt like our little family needed a dog for a long time but I resisted the thoughts and impressions. I started having dreams about puppies...seriously??? It took a good year for me to finally cave and now I can see why we needed her in our life. Ty hated her at first...was not happy about it but now I would say he loves her and enjoys having her to pal around with. I had no idea...but grateful for the inspiration and miracle she has brought to our family.

Volume 2 "No Empty Chairs"

For Christmas I got my 2nd volume of "No Empty Chairs". I was surprised to see that it had so many pages. I didn't think I had posted that much. I've debated for a while now if I should continue to blog about our family and the things we are doing. I've established some traditions that will most likely not change with regards to Wyatt and I will continue to take pictures and write about those occasions. Some things will not change. My feelings that I continue to feel over him will not change. I will continue to ache for him. I will continue to think about him every single day for the rest of my life and I will continue to want to talk about him here on the blog. So, I've decided I will continue on. I love having this book each year that documents what the kids are doing, some of my "Wyatt moments" the tender mercies in my life and the different things I'm leaning to enjoy and do since Wyatt's death. In a way it's our little family history book and I enjoy looking at it and seeing the progress I've made, how the kids are growing up and the things they are doing. I will often refer to it to remind me of the traditions we have established for each holiday that includes and remembers Wyatt in some way. I guess what it has shown me the most is that I've learned to live again. I've learned to enjoy the simple things in my life and will continue to enjoy those things and so much more.


For those of you that may want to know which company I use to print up my blog it's called "Blog2Print." It's easy...that is why I chose it. Not the cutest but the quality is great!