I dreamed a dream....

For Martin Luther King day, Allie and her classmates were to write their "dream" down on paper.
Later, her teacher slid this across the desk to me at parent/teacher conference and said, "I get the biggest kick out of her! My husband now asks for me to read 'Allie White's' papers to him!"

It really is hilarious-and oh, so Allie!


(Click on the pictures to make them bigger)



As you can imagine, me and Paul laughed for hours. Oh, I love her! And heaven forbid she has to go to "losa vages" to perform for thousand of "pepole" ;)

Come What May & Love It

A few days ago, our friends from high school found out that their little boy has an inoperable brain tumor. Everyone has been in a state of shock and sadness with this news. I can't even think about it without crying. Their little boy, Dylan, is Allie's age and I just can't even imagine what they are all going through right now. We have been praying like crazy for them-praying for a miracle for them-and all the while asking, "Why?!" "How can this happen?" "How will they get through this?" No answer seemed to help. It just sucks.
Whenever these things happen, it promptly puts perspective in one's life. I believe Ryan, Dylan's dad, said it best with this comment shortly after they received the diagnosis:

"hug your kids, tell them you love them, forget about the 'stupid crap' in life and the things that drive you crazy about them. Children are the greatest gift God has bestowed upon his children here on earth. And there is no guarantee tomorrow, we are only promised today so love them, love them for the blessings they are and cherish the time we are all granted to spend with them during this mortal existence!"

Then my friend sent me an email of Elder Wirthlin's popular conference talk. Sometimes our limited "vision" gets in the way of this life, but we have been promised eternal life and that our families will be together forever. There is comfort in that and in this message......


So for now, I am going to do what Ryan has asked: I'm going to cherish my children. I'm going to go down and play on the Wii with Easton, I'm going to spend the next hour reading to Olivia and take Allie to see Secret Garden and then tonight, thank my father in heaven profusely for the blessings that they are in my life.

~To follow Dylan's story, please go HERE.~

Disney, Macbeth & More....

*This post was created in the wee hours of night-I apologize for bad grammer, spelling and unorganized pictures-HA!*

So at the end of January we took off for eight days to sunny southern California to visit Disneyland and Sea World. First of all you should know that me and Paul are NUTTY for Disneyland. We love everything about it. The rides, the food(churros), the music....ALL OF IT! We will be going there long after we having little kids to take. To us, it really is one of the happiest places on earth. As I mentioned in my previous post, we decided to leave Olivia home with the Grandma's. We were so sad not to have her with us-but once we got there we knew we had made the right decision. The first day we got there we had one mission: To get Easton into the Star Wars Training. They only pick a certain amount of kids from the audience, so we knew we needed to get there and make sure to get him in. Now here is where going in January plays in your favor: He got in three times! He got to fight Darth Maul AND Darth Vader. I can NOT explain to you how excited he was. The highlight of his little life-for sure! The below picture is going to be blown up and hung in his room. He really and truly believes that he is now a trained padawan. haha.......that is what I love about Disney! The magic! Seriously though, what I love most about vacation is just getting away from every day life and enjoying each other's company. I love all of us sleeping in a hotel room together-talking with the lights out and just having FUN! I think I could go anywhere with this little posse of mine and just about be the happiest girl in the world. These pictures are in no particular order....but you'll get the idea.
Peter Pan!!!-me and Allie's favorite!! I think it is every one's favorite though because even in January there is always a line for it.

We drove down and went to Sea World. Every time I go there I get a little sad because I am just positive that I was supposed to be a trainer. I want to jump in and swim with those dolphins SO bad. Aren't they cute?! I missed my calling in life. ;)

Easton petting the stingrays. We bought squid for him to feed them and he was brave enough to do it! He loved those things!

I'm not even joking-I cry every single time I see the Shamu show. I know, I know. I can't help it.

The beach! We had no idea how much our kids would LOVE going to the beach. That was magical in itself. I sat there in the sand watching them run back and forth on the beach and listening to them laugh and thought, "This really is heaven." I wanted to sit there for hours-so we did. As pretty and magical as these pictures turned out, they don't do the moment justice. I will never as long as I live forget this day. I sat there in the sand and let my heart overflow with gratitude. We decided right then and there that our next family vacation will be somewhere on a beach. We just want days and days by the water digging in the sand. :)

Just a random picture of Allie. Can you believe how grown up she looks? I swear to you that I just gave birth to her a year or two ago. ;)
This picture can serve as "hope" for Olivia. This head used to be bald too. haha...

Somewhere in the middle of drab winter we got a few days that hinted at Spring. We took full advantage of it. I don't think Olivia remembered what outside looked like. haha...

Since Valentine's Day was on a Monday night and me and Paul had gone out earlier that weekend to celebrate, I thought I would do something fun for the kids that night. So we had a everything RED dinner.

Red velvet cream cheese cupcakes. COULD NOT PUT THEM DOWN! It was like a sickness. I had to finally throw them out to stop eating them. haha.....(They are at Costco, just in case you want to go up a size or two. ;)

Heart shaped pizza......that didn't really end up looking like a heart when it was cooked.

On the way home from Disneyland I got a phone call from the director that Allie worked with in "Annie" asking if she would be interested in being in Macbeth at the high school. It was a shock and was exciting all at the same time. Of course she wanted to do it! So from the minute we got home we were thrown into that busy schedule-but she loved every minute of it. This was her favorite experience to date and here is why: back in November I took her to Phantom of the Opera at the High School-a life changing experience for her(no joke) and she got to work with all of the same kids that were in that play. She felt like she was among celebrities-HA! I was a little worried about her spending up to 20 hours a week with high school kids, but they were all SO good with her and they are such good kids that it was nothing but a positive experience for her and the fact that her dad(in the play) was the Phantom and her sister(in the play) was Christine-well it just about made her life complete. She had to work really hard to get all of her lines down, Shakespeare is not an easy thing. Just as an example, here is just ONE of her lines:

"Then the liars and swearers are fools for there are swearers and fools enow to beat the honest men and hang up them."

She had a bunch like that and she did so good with it. I was the one to run lines with her and I STILL can't remember them. haha.

So I found this boy to be darling. I sat in the audience figuring out how old Allie would be when he would get home from a mission and she would still be to young. DANG! haha.........

Michelle Dean (aka....Christine) and now Allie's best friend. ;)

So in the end she gets stabbed to death. :( Ha. She DID so good at it. It is really hard to do a death scene and she nailed it. (If I do say so myself) I have video of it and I am hoping to upload it to YouTube. If I do-I will put the link on here.

What else has been going on? Easton and Paul have been skiing together quite a bit. Easton is getting SO good at it. I wish I had pictures-but Paul refuses to take the camera skiing. Olivia has turned into quite the little "player" She spends hours in her room creating tea parties for her babies. So cute.The other day I walked out into my family room and looked around at this mess and then I thought, "One day I won't have toys in my house. There won't be tea sets strewn about with light sabers in the middle. haha!" I had to take a picture-because I really do love having my kids around. I let the whole house look like this all day. I just waited until they had gone to bed to pick it up. It was nice. :)
Paul has been in Florida and apparently he missed me because these arrived one day. That or he was feeling the guilt of hanging out on the beach in 80 degree weather. ;) Whatever the reason, they made me smile and they are gorgeous and bring a little bit of spring into our house. I think I will keep him.

And now I am off to spend the entire weekend in Boise with my best friends-no husbands and NO kids! WAHOO!! Let the shopping, eating and laughing begin! ;)