Piano Festival

Madisen has been practicing really hard on her 2 piano pieces for over a month. She had Festival this last weekend and she did great! We are so proud of her. She got a 47/50 and with that a Superior rating. She was so so nervous and forgot a few basic things on her pieces but overall did very well. She was glad to be done with it, and to be honest, so was I!! It was very stressful at times!

We are going to go to Orange Leaf to celebrate tonight!

Bishop Newman

My dad is one of my heroes. He is always looking to serve others. He is most generous and kind. He loves playing with his grandkids and you can always find him rolling around on the floor or building with Legos with the kids. He was always one of the hardest workers I know just to provide for our family.  

He is also a great inventor! He has invented some pretty amazing things for his company that now reaches around the world. I am so proud of my dad and all that he has accomplished. And of course my mom was always by his side encouraging him on. They are a team. 

My dad is also very caring and compassionate. We pray that both my mom and my dad have the guidance they need and the spirit with them during these next 5 years as serving as Bishop.  All these traits with the Spirit helping him with decisions for the ward, will help him to become even better than he is now, if that is even possible! ;) But really, we know he is going to be a great Bishop. Congrats Dad (and Mom). Or should I say, Bishop Newman! :) You'll do great! We love you so much!

15th Rental Truck

We moved again! 

We sold our beautiful house on Silver Creek Way... 

You are probably wondering, what are our plans now? Well, there is a newer subdivision in our ward boundary and the lots are all 1 acre or more. Ryan and I found a lot that would suit our family well and the price was great for 1 acre. So we bought the lot back in October with the idea that we would build a new house someday. 

I am going to miss my kitchen! I loved it! It was so open and big.

We are going to miss that house, and mostly our neighbors and the neighborhood. We love the neighborhood, but the house layout was just not working for us. We could have lived there a bit longer than we did and been ok, but the market is so good right now in Twin that we thought it would be best to sell now and make a profit on our house, than to lose money on it. So that's what we decided to do. We sold it, "For Sale by Owner" not thinking it would sale too fast, but within 5 months it sold! We are very happy it did and sold for what we were asking, which was such a blessing! The family that bought it are really good friends with the Clarks, the family that lives across the street, who we always pulled practical jokes on one another. We will miss the Clarks! And all of our great ward members that we lived so close to. We are renting a duplex and it's just down the street and around the corner from our old house, so we aren't far, but it's still not ever going to be the same.

This being our 15th move since being married, we were able to pack up our house and garage and clean the entire house in 3 days and be moved in and be unpacked in this place in 3 days. So 6 days wasn't too bad, and we rested on the 7th ;). This move really did me in though. I realized that I am so done with moving!!! 

We want to start building by Oct/Nov of this year so the house should be done by May/June next year. So hopefully the house we plan to build will be our house that we live in forever, because I am done with packing, unpacking, cleaning and moving! I don't plan on renting one more moving truck, EVER after that! :)

Here's our "home" for the next year and a half, while we get our plans ready for the building process...

Front Door

Living room

Kitchen/walk out to mudroom and garage...

Kid's Bathroom

Avery and Emily's room

 Madisen's Room

Laundry

Office/Craft Room/ Exercise Room!

 Our Bedroom

Our walk-in closet and bathroom

"Happiest Place on Earth!" Day #1

On Thursday, Feb 12th we woke the girls up at 5am and pretended like we were getting ready for school. They got dressed, made their beds and headed downstairs for breakfast. That's when they got the surprise of their life! We recorded the whole thing on video, but now that I make books of my blog every year, a video will obviously not work in a book! ;)

We decided to give them their Valentine's present early. They each opened a bag, in it was; skittles, heart chocolates and other candy. I bought one of those GIANT size Valentines cards...

  Before they opened and read the card however, I told them we had some bad news thought but some good news too.  I shared with them the bad news first, which was that they wouldn't be going to school that day, and that they would miss their class Valentine's parties. Avery looked as if she had had been punched in the gut. SO very quickly I had to remedy the situation before wailing and gnashing of teeth could occur! 

Madison read the card, which read, "

On the back on the card, read this message: 

Madisen read, "Get in the car!! We are leaving for" and then she stopped reading and her eyes got wide and she just stared.. She just stared and stared at the words on the back for like 30 seconds and wouldn't read the rest no matter how many times we kept telling her to read it.  And Avery still being on the verge of tears didn't understand what was going on and Emily just looked tired and confused. Finally after about 5 times of asking her to continue to read it, she did. And the other 2 girls were both speechless! Haha!

We kept telling them over and over again that we are going to Disneyland and finally it sunk in and then there were cheers and smiles and laugher. Phew! 

Lesson learned: Never give a child bad news before giving them good news. It just ruins it and it takes a minute for them to go from complete agony to utter excitement. :)

And here is the first day at Disney Land! We got there super early, so we were first in line and second to ride Space Mountain, which always has a ridiculous wait time.  We had such a great time and we were so glad Mom and Bob and Dan decided to join us. Thanks for making this trip a memorable one!