Fast Sunday's

I HAD to snap these pictures of what our house is like when fasting ends on Fast Sunday (the first Sunday of every month).  Mark and I decided that 3pm is when we have dinner on Fast Sunday.  Fasting is supposed to begin after dinner on Saturday night and last until dinner on Sunday night.  When 3pm hits it is a free for all in the kitchen.  I try to have a regular dinner ready to go, but if I don't have it ready RIGHT THEN, just move out of the way because you might get run over in the stampede for the kitchen.

MORGAN is THIRTEEN!

Morgan hit a major milestone this year as she STARTED JUNIOR HIGH!  I always laugh when I take my kids to and from Junior High because the girls are all SO MUCH taller than the boys at that age!  They tower over them!  It just makes me chuckle.

Anyway, Morgan has grown more talented and more beautiful every year.  She is an AMAZING writer.  Like, BEYOND amazing.  I love to read anything she writes.  It's so descriptive - like I'm reading a professional author's novel!  She has become very talented at doing her hair.  I had a mom tell me that she always looks forward to seeing how Morgan does her hair each week when she comes to church.  Morgan is very creative.  She loves to create beautiful and crafty things.  She likes to design.  She will cut apart a shirt and reinvent it into a completely different piece of clothing.

Anyway, today we were able to celebrate her birthday! Grandma and grandpa Bybee came, along with Josh, Sarah, and Jace.

She received a new Nintendo DS game from Colton...

Some lip gloss, earrings, and a necklace from Kyle...

A beautiful heat resistant case for her flat iron, handmade by grandma from grandma and grandpa Bybee...

A selection of sparkly nail polishes from Mark and I...

Mark and I also gave her a series of books she had asked for called, "Pretty Little Liars",

...and another series she was VERY excited about!

I also found her this SO CUTE dress!  She was very excited.

We LOVE our little girl!  Even though she is now the same height as me, she will ALWAYS be our little girl.  She is an adorable sweetheart who amazes me with her strength and her conviction.  I am so excited to see where she decides to go with her life.

My sister Brittany surprised us by stopping by for a few hours the same night we were celebrating Morgan's birthday.  Her birthday was a few days later, so my mom (knowing Brittany was coming) surprised her with a birthday cake!  Brittany has a new job on a cruise ship, so we won't get to see much of her since they usually work for several months at a time without even a day off.  She wanted to see us before leaving, so she drove from California to leave her car with my mom and dad, spend a few hours with us, then hop on a plane to get ready for her cruise!

The next night Morgan invited some friends over for a birthday party.  They had  pizza and then opened presents.

Then they played a game of 007.  This game involved us driving them (slowly) in the back of Mark's truck, over to the other side of our subdivision.  We dropped them off and the adults (me and my parents in Mark's truck, and Mark on his bike) drove back to my house and then slowly started driving back through the neighborhood toward where we had dropped them off.  The idea was for us to spot them before they could get back to our house.  If we spotted them, they had to come jump in the truck while we searched for the rest of the crew.  Bryan, Colton, and Kyle were playing too.  The kids split up into teams so no one was by themselves.  We had a BLAST!  We played three times before it was 10pm and time for kids to go home.  It was a fun party!

Saturday Nights with the CARROLL'S

We have some of the greatest friends.  We've known Josh and Sarah since the day we moved into the same apartments as them in Houston, Texas.  They were in our new ward and we became fast friends.  We've known them now for 12 years!  In Houston we would get together almost every weekend to hangout and play Cranium, or watch movies, or play the Wii.  They've babysat our kids when we've left town, and supported us and our children through a lot of milestones.  WE LOVE THEM!

When we moved to Arizona we REALLY missed them.  Lucky for us, they moved only a couple miles from us a couple years ago.  Now we're back to our regular Saturday night get togethers and LOVING IT!

Their son, Jace just fits right in with Colton and Kyle.  They love to play with him - especially Kyle.  It gives him the chance to be in the "big brother" role.  That's new for him since he is my youngest.

Here they are kicking back on our beanbag watching a movie together.  I love how Jace feels totally comfortable laying his feet across Colton, and Colton loves it!

Wolves visit the new Gilbert Temple!

Kyle is LOVING cub scouts!  For their activity today they visited the new Gilbert, Arizona temple, which is under construction.  We are SO EXCITED to have a Temple right across from our neighborhood!  We can't wait for it to be finished!  We found out it was going to be built just a few months before we moved here.  When we heard it was going to be 1/4 mile from our new house we just thought that it was perfect.  For us, the temple is a symbol of our ability to be together as a family FOREVER, not just "until death do us part".  Being married in the temple, by someone who holds the priesthood, "seals us" to our family so that if we keep our Heavenly Father's commandments, we can be with our family forever.

A temporary Visitor's Center was set up in a trailer adjacent to the construction site.  Our little Wolf den got to go inside and talk with someone about the temple.  They got to look at plans of the temple.  The highlight was when they each got to pick out a stone from a piece of granite that was supposed to be used on the temple, but had broken into a lot of pieces.  They let people who come by take a piece of the temple home with them!  The stone used for the temple has a lot of sparkly pieces in it that shine when you rotate the stone in the sun.  What a fun souvenir!