Temple Night

 Last thursday night was the best.  I knew that it was going to be a wonderful night, but I had no idea how fulfilling, satisfying, and AWESOME taking your children thru the temple could actually be!  We were so blessed to be able to have Almost all of our family there along with some dear friends.  We filled the whole room. 


Just one last picture and update on Joseph and then, we will leave him alone!  This is one of my favorite pictures.  It was when Joseph FINALLY got his Eagle and the family was able to come and celebrate with us. 

Have you ever seen that movie, "The RM"?  There is a scene in there where the missionary gets home and he is catching up on all his sibling's lives.  He is talking to his twin brothers and says, "So you have almost got your Eagles?" And they say, "MOM, has almost got our Eagles!"  YEA, I can TOTALLY relate!

My, my how time does fly

How in the world does this cute little toothless bald baby... Turn into this handsome young man in the blink of an eye?!?!

Aren't they SO cute??

Joseph and his sweet, beautiful date getting ready to head to the prom. Next time this year, he will be heading off to college. I don't think that I am ready. In fact, I think I will go and cry right now.

Poem Book

This morning as the boys were getting out of the car at school, Joseph pulled something out of his backpack and tossed it thru the window at me. "Here, this is my poem book project that I did a few weeks ago," he said as he rushed into the building before the bell rang. I wasn't surprised to see that he had made an A on the project. He is very on top of his studies and takes his grades very seriously.

Out of the 13 poems in his book, the majority of them were about the things that he holds dear to his heart. Sports. In particular, wrestling and football. The boy eats, breaths, sleeps, and daydreams sports. He can tell you who won any Super Bowl, what the score was and who made the most awesome play of the game. He lives for statistics. He not only can quote the facts, he can play the game. In short, he is a sports freak.

Each of the poems had to be very specific. A Haiku, Metaphor, Limerick, etc. That is why when I was reading all of his poems, one in particular stuck out to me. It was entitled Tribute.

It read:

Mom;

You have always been there for me.

Even through the hard times

I know you will never back down in the face of fear.

I love you and hope you will be in my life forever.



I could hardly see after I read this poem. Yes, I know he had to write it for a grade, but, he could have written about anybody.

The teacher would write notes on each of the poems to let him know how each one was graded. On this particular poem, she wrote: "shorter than what was asked for"

This was the best poem out of the book. What more could he have written I ask?

Friday Foto September 11, 2009

Who is this?

Anybody that never knew Joseph, Parker, or Caden when they were younger, they aren't missing much. Just Kidding! What I meant was they each have a twin in the younger part of our family. Joseph's is Gabriel, Abigail is the female version of Parker, and Jacob looks a little like Caden. The ones that look the most alike are Joseph and Gabriel.

This is Joseph at about age 6 at the temple in Atlanta. They had a Primary activity day and we all traveled down to Atlanta, the closest temple at that time.
We tell Joseph quite frequently what an example he is to the younger children in the family. He is such a responsible, hardworking, and worthy young man. He has a burden to bear. Whatever he does there are 6 people following his every move. He knows that whatever his decisions are, the rest will base their lives on him. We are so thankful to have Joseph as our oldest son.