Better Late Than Never

 
For you poor suckers who have been waiting since August to see more pictures from Jordin's wedding...here you go. Don't blame me. I just got them from Jordi. (Pictures courtesy of Faculty Photography in Kansas City.)

Here are my favorites:

Jordin waiting for the wedding to begin and being kept away from Ramon. She is looking a little nervous. :)

The bridesmaids

The sisters...and niece. Not sure what Stacey is looking at? :)

The groomsmen

 

Clearly Tyler, Kirk, House and Kameron didn't get the memo that you aren't supposed to grin...you are supposed to look tough!! Ha ha.

The cutest flower girls ever!!

Groomsmen with Groom and cute RJ

Bridesmaid with Flower Girls and the Bride

Us

Kelley and Elle with Stacey and River. (John and Dane weren't able to come)

Tyler getting ready to walk Jordi down the aisle. So cute!!

Ramon and Uncle Ronny (the preacher) walking down the aisle

 Ken and Mom

 

 Kirk and Me

 Khalil and cute little RJ

Kameron carrying the broom for them to jump over and ushering all the flower girls down the aisle. Cute Jaylah as the #1 flower girl.

Here come Jordin and Tyler

Ramon looking at his bride-to-be in all her glory!! Love this picture.

The bridesmaids watching Jordin walk down the aisle. The water works begin!!

Not a dry eye in this group

The Hill Family

The Hills and their wedding party

Our family minus a couple of people

Now...LET THE PARTY BEGIN!!

The wedding party dancing into the reception. My favorite part!!

Unfortunately for you there isn't a close-up of me and Kirk. We had some SWEET moves!!

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Hill!!

Dancing into the reception

 

Bryn couldn't help herself. She had to jump in there and dance too. :)

The mothers doing the Unity Sand ceremony

 Jordin and Ramon doing their part of the ceremony

The other Uncle Ronnie (Love him!!) making a toast to the happy couple. 

 

Love that sister of mine

Jordin making her speech

Ramon looks pretty darn happy!!

And so does she!!

Such a great day for Jaylah

The First Dance

Jaylah and Kameron on the dance floor

Flower girl gettin' down. GO AILEY!! GO AILEY!!

 Bryn making a run for the dance floor with her Daddy

 

Jordi and Kelley

 The party was over but these three girls: Jaylah, Bryn and Elle were still dancing!!

Love these guys and absolutely cannot wait until they move to Spokane this summer. Woohoo!!

 

Emotional

What a week it has been. I have been brought to my knees in prayer more times than I can count during the past week. It has been heart-wrenching. The tragedy in Connecticut  has cut deep. The faces, the parents, the responders, the images... I can't just blog about the fun and silly things that have happened around our house. Another day.

Let's start with the tragic events in Connecticut. I watched the events unfold throughout the day. In the morning while hustling my kids out the door I saw on the news that there was a shooting at an elementary school back east with a few injuries. I uttered a silent prayer. I dropped my kids off with a hasty kiss and I love you. As I drove away from my children's idyllic, close-knit elementary school feeling good about where they were. I again uttered a silent prayer for my own kids' safety and for the school in CT that all would be well. It was only upon returning home after preschool and a few errands that I learned the true horror. I sank to my knees. I couldn't drag myself away from the TV even though I couldn't bear to watch. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I am still praying. Once you are a mother every child is your child. I thought of my kids school and the toll that 20 lost children and 6 adult staff would take. HUGE. IMMENSE. We know our principle and love him. The teachers there feel like family. We know the kids...or at least the majority of the families we have interacted with in one way or another. 20 kids and 6 staff lost...catastrophic.

I was so happy and grateful that it was an early release day (I had just cursed early release two days prior) now I embraced it whole-heartily. As I pulled into the carpool line and saw Kameron and Ailey smiling and waving at me I cried...tears of joy and gratitude...and sorrow...for those parents who wouldn't have this experience. As they climbed in the car I hugged them long and hard and told them how much I loved them. The aid that helped them in looked at me with tears in her eyes too. Teachers huddled outside the kindergarten door talking quietly. As I drove away from my children's school I prayed for those not so fortunate that day.

We are an affectionate family. We hug, kiss, cuddle, and tell one another we love each other. But still...we hugged and cuddled, and told each other we loved each other through out the weekend...and we prayed as a family...and we talked.

We talked about the tragedy in varying degrees with our school age kids. We tried to keep them away from the news as much as possible. We answered questions as best we could. I dried the tears of our, at times, self-absorbed teenager as she talked about how the big brothers and sisters from the high school in Newtown rushed to the elementary school to make sure their siblings were safe. We tried our best to answer hard hard questions. How could this happen? Why did he do that? Who could kill little kids? Where is it safe? How do you answer that question? How do you tell them the truth...that there is no safe place.

Tyler and I had long, hard, emotional conversations...about things like gun control, school safety precautions and the lack thereof, mental illness, evil in the world...and the unanswerable...such as ...how do we keep our children safe? How do we prepare them to live in a world like this that is only going to get worse? How do we teach them to live each day to the fullest and without regrets while not teaching them to live in fear?

Things have changed so drastically since we were kids. So many things that I took for granted as a child my kids haven't experienced. The carefree, innocent, running wild around town childhood I had growing up, my children have never experienced...or only in small doses. What kind of world will they see when they are parents? How much worse will it be? Or are we already there?  To use the old frog analogy but with a different twist...are we the frogs in the pot...thinking it can still get a lot hotter (worse) while we are already swimming in boiling water?

What's a parent to do? Pray...it's the only answer I have.

The tragedy in CT wasn't the only event that brought us down hard on our knees.  Nothing strikes fear in the heart of a parent like hearing the words "We'd like to refer your son to a pediatric cardiologist." Kameron's heart murmur sounded a little different than the run of the mill heart murmur. Our pediatrician told us not to worry he just wanted Kameron checked out by an expert. Yeah, easier said than done. Even though I didn't think Kam had a serious problem it was still impossible not to worry about the what-ifs. Kam is fine...just an innocent heart murmur nothing serious. Thank goodness.

We also worried about a beloved uncle who was experiencing a scary health crisis, in addition to the cancer he is already bravely fighting. As my mom and her siblings drove through the night to gather in his hospital room to give love and support...our family was on our knees as we prayed and fasted. Even the little ones would not be left out of fasting and praying. They HAD to be a part of it. They refused to be left out. The faith of children is a beautiful and inspiring thing. They called home during the day to check in during his surgery and to see if I had "heard anything"...they fasted and prayed for good news. It came.


Now...this mother's heart needs some Christmas cheer, some joy, happiness, and silliness.Yet, I will continue to pray for those who will not receive it this year.

I am grateful for prayer.

Oh Happy Day!!

I finally got my dang blog to upload pictures again. I feel like someone has taken duct tape off my mouth. I didn't realize how much I would miss posting pictures and blogging. It is such a great outlet for my thoughts and feelings and a photo journal of our family. So good news. I am back!!


Here's what you missed:

1.) Thanksgiving

 This year, at our house, we added a Thankful Tree to the decor. After grousing about cutting the branches and making the leaves it turned out to be really great. Everyone added lots of things that they were thankful for and it was fun to read all the new additions each day.  The thankful tree will return next year.

 This was before it was even fully loaded. Some people wrote funny things, some wrote sweet things and some wrote really touching things. It was great!!

At preschool Bryn made a bevvy of Thanksgiving hats which traveled with her to my Mom's house to wear on the big day.

I present...

The Pilgrim (which she demanded was really an elf hat)

And the Indian

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving up at my Mom's house. It was seriously one of the best. We had so much fun, ate amazing food, hung out, created things for our Sisters Creed Christmas Sale and RELAXED. It was awesome.  It was a small gathering this year. Stacey was hosting some of John's family at her house and Kelley went down to join them. Kirk and Jordin and their families weren't able to travel out this year and even Ken was spending Thanksgiving with his son's family. Regardless, it was fantastic to have my mom all to ourselves and create some new Thanksgiving traditions. Pie anyone? Ha ha.

The day after we met up with family out at the lake...Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, Granny. It was a lot of fun. I am THANKFUL to have such loving relatives who are freaking hilarious and amazing cooks. Hopefully all of my laughing worked off some of Jen's delicious treats. (Totally forgot to take pictures...you know...due to all the laughing and eating.)

 

 My mom decorated in an all white theme and it was gorgeous. We, as is our tradition, ate by candlelight and it was beautiful...as is everything she does. We are thankful for her!!

Here are a few grainy iPhone pictures:

We were up until the wee hours of the morning making rolls and pies. Tyler too. He is the roll master. We always use his Grandma Kofford's Parker House Roll recipe. It is the BEST!!

The master at work.

 

  The master with her willing assistant.

 My mom put up her Christmas tree...but not any Christmas decorations or ornaments. I really liked that idea. You still got this gorgeous glowing tree but without all the Christmas hoopla. Nice.

II.) We had our big Christmas Sale. It was wildly successful and so much fun!!

 III.) We decorated our house and put up our three trees. Yes, three. We live in a dollhouse sized house but we have three trees. It's awesome. Things are getting quite festive around here.

IV.) We have hung out quite a lot with cousins on various occasions.

Bryn and Elle

Haylee and Ailey

Kameron and Grace

  

 Bryn and Gavin...they totally crack me up

V.) We welcomed this DARLING GIRL to the family!! Congratulations to Hannah and Justin. There really couldn't be a family and extended family more excited for this sweet baby's arrival.

The beautiful Paige Noel

There has been more...another visit from Crazy Ernie the Urban Logger. Remember him?  Luckily not to our house. We aren't stupid...but one of our neighbors is. Clearly he didn't get the memo the last time Ernie and his band of idiots visited our neighborhood. (A post all it's own.)

We attended a Nutcracker party and dressed up for A Night in Bethlehem Party. Tyler got called to be the 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum. Kameron was made a deacon and has been passing the Sacrament with great aplomb and got to give his first talk in Sacrament Meeting last Sunday as a Youth Speaker. He did a great job!! We have worried and prayed for and, as of yesterday, rejoiced about a favorite uncle. Found out that a dear friend is moving to Chicago and I am totally bummed. We got to go to Parent Teacher conference and have it confirmed that we have some smart and awesome kids. Reilly and Kam had their check-ups and it is confirmed that Reilly is blind as a bat and Kam has a heart murmur. (Join the club...I do, Ailey does, and so does Bryn).

So things continue on...regardless of the lack of blogging. But if there is one thing that I know it is:

I LOVE BLOGGING!!