February

We started this month celebrating Heather's birthday...and mostly we celebrated by passing this little cutie around. :) Heather's birthday is the exact same day as my dad's but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of us taking my dad his fish for his birthday. :) 

 Sis Cochrane and Sis Jensen came over on their P-day to add some brown to Sis Jensen's hair. Hailey serenaded them on her ukulele. :)

We received the missionary bear outfit in the mail from Amazon and recycled Hailey's little bear...off came the "Chick's Rule" outfit and on went the missionary outfit and tag. :) We took the Elder Morrow missionary tag from a stocking I ordered for Bryson for Christmas that he sent back so I could use it again next year. This little bear will come on our adventures with us over the next two years in place of the REAL Elder Morrow.

Basketball came to an end. What a great experience that was for Hailey to try out and make the freshman basketball team. She learned so much over the season and had a lot of fun with the girls on her team. We had a team dinner at our house about half way through the season and boy are those girls loud and fun! :)

 ...if you're looking for Hailey in this picture, she's the one on the ground with her leg in the air. :)

 We LOVE LOVE LOVE getting pictures from Bryson...so awesome to see his cute face. In this picture they are getting ready to eat an "Insanity Wing" that they had to sign a waiver to eat because they are so hot. They lived, but just barely. :)

 This is the Valentines Box we sent Bryson. Brian's picture is my favorite. :)

 North Carolina was part of that huge storm that tore through the country and they are NOT used to getting that much snow. The towns completely shut down and he said everyone barricaded themselves in their houses. Bryson couldn't believe the chaos such small amounts of snow could cause. :)

 We went to our 2nd Utah Temple of the year...Mt. Timpanogos. Hailey and Courtney got to be Sis Cochrane's "companions" for the morning and Sis Jensen went on splits with other missionaries. Their mission president allowed this because Courtney is one of Sis Cochrane's converts.Of course we had to take a picture with the Elder Morrow bear.

 We actually made it in to do baptisms this time (unlike the Draper temple that day) and were only there about an hour. We went on a Saturday morning about 9:30 and that seemed to be a good time to go.

 Yep, Hailey literally laid on the ground outside the temple to get the Angel Moroni in the picture.

 Hailey asked for my keys while I went back in to get Brian...they had him do a few more baptisms so we went out and took pictures while he finished up. I THOUGHT they were just going to go SIT in the car, but low and behold, as Brian and I are walking through the parking lot we see our Expedition coming towards us. Our FOURTEEN year old daughter is driving. Wow, breaking the law in the temple parking lot...there's something definitely wrong with that. :)

 We stopped for lunch at Kneaders afterwards and of course needed one more picture with Elder Morrow Bear since that is one of his favorite places to eat.

 Elder Morrow Bear also has a companion. :) Courtney's mom gave her a missionary bear for Valentines Day she brought him down for a companion picture.

 We had stake conference this month and during the adult session I got to hold this little sweetheart. I fed her at the very beginning and she slept peacefully throughout the rest of the meeting. The Spencer's recently found out that she has permanent, moderate to severe hearing loss so she will be getting hearing aids soon. When I first told Hailey about Cece's hearing, her immediate response was that she was going to switch from Spanish to ASL in school next year. Hailey loves the Spencer girls and would do anything for them!

 Funny little face she was making...hilarious! I think she's practicing for selfies and snapchat!

 The worst day of the month was on President's Day! Nick and Nick Jackson went up to Strawberry Reservoir to ice fish. Around 10:00 that morning we received an email from Bryson that a horrible double shooting had taken place between his member fellow-shipper and his investigator leaving the investigator dead. It's a long story involving drugs and self-defense, but Bryson was devastated! He had just heard the news from the investigator's sister who they were also teaching and he was not sure how he was going to handle the situation. We were devastated for him. This investigator had already had his baptismal interview and was set to be baptized the following Saturday. Our hearts were broken for him, the member who was also shot 5 times, the sister and our son. We didn't know any other way to help but to say a quick prayer and send him an email. I left a little while later to go run errands, but I pulled into the temple parking lot to say a quick prayer of gratitude that Bryson was not somehow caught in the crossfire and that he was safe. My phone rang as I was praying and I let it go to voicemail. Right when I was done, I picked up my phone and checked the message. It was the Wasatch County Sheriff's office telling me that Nick had been in a head on collision in the canyon but he was fine. They needed me to call because he was a minor. I immediately called and asked several times if he was really okay and if Nick Jackson and the people in the other car were okay. All 5 people involved were okay and all 5 people were wearing their seat belts. They were going to bring Nick and Nick to the sheriff's office in Heber where I needed to pick them up. They didn't have cell service where they were so it seemed like an excruciatingly long time till I heard Nick's voice.

 After I picked up the Nick's we headed over to the tow yard where they were going to be bringing Nick's car so we could get everything out of it while we were up there.

 The dent in the drivers side door was made by the hood flying over that direction.

 You can see Nick's front grill and bumper inside his car in the picture below. I feel like these boys were kept in a protective bubble inside this car. For the second time that day, I was saying a prayer of gratitude that my son was alive and not seriously injured. I also wanted to put Hailey immediately into her room and not let her go anywhere the rest of the day with the track record we had with the boys that day. I'm not sure this mother's heart could have taken one more thing.

 Tuesday we went to our 3rd Utah Temple...the Provo Temple. Once again, Courtney and Hailey were able to be Sis Cochrane's companions since this temple is also in her mission boundaries. They told us we came at the busiest time of day and we were there almost 2 hours. But it was a peaceful wait and for me it's a treat to sit quietly and think about the gospel in our lives and the blessing it is to be able to enter into these temples and do this important work. I was grateful to be there with this awesome group of kids that I love with all my heart!

 ...and this is what happens to Elder Morrow Bear when the REAL Elder Morrow is in trouble! I slid my foot into a shoe (that I obviously haven't worn in awhile) and there was a GIANT fake SPIDER in the toe of the shoe...put there by that stinker Bryson before he left. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a few seconds. Therefore, this is the picture Elder Morrow will see when he opens his email on Monday and I'm sure he'll know EXACTLY what I found!!!!!

 Last but not least, these cute little chicks came to live with us. I think they are so cute and adorable now...but I know what's coming...they're going to turn into big ugly chickens that live in the coup in my backyard. Nick wants to start up his egg business again so he's pretty excited about these little chicks. But anyone that knows Nick knows that he would be pretty excited about just about ANY animal that came to live with us. :)

And with that, February is coming to an end. We look forward to what March will bring.

January

We made a goal this year with Courtney to go to every temple in Utah to do baptisms for the dead. We started this month at the Draper Temple. We met there at 9:30 on a Saturday morning and quickly found out it was the busiest the temple had been in a long time (the workers told us they had actually not ever  experienced a morning that busy). :) Courtney had an appointment later in the morning so she needed to leave by 11:30. They had already been confirmed, but in those two hours, they had not made it to do baptisms yet, so we spent a lovely couple of hours in the temple but didn't actually get to do the baptisms. :) They used Brian's help with confirmations for our kids, plus a few other groups so that was nice he got to do that.

It was a special experience though to be a part of Courtney's first time in the Temple.

 So just like the rest of us, missionaries have bad days too...as evidenced by Sis Cochrane's face in the pictures below. :) They showed up in their cute matching sweatshirts that they got on sale at Footlocker but their faces were not matching...and one was trying hard to cheer up the other one...which as you can see from the second picture, the other one was really appreciating the efforts...hahaha!

 I, however, was particularly appreciative when they showed up on a Sunday morning and made our family cinnamon role pancakes before we all headed over to church together.

 On Martin Luther King Day, Hailey and I spent the morning at the movies with these little cuties...and their mom (who is also a cutie). :) Even though they had seen Frozen a couple times before, they willingly came with us and Ellie sat between me and Hailey and sang all the songs along with them...word for word...with even some actions thrown in...VERY impressive! :)

 In the afternoon, the sisters came over (it was their P-day) and before we left for our ice skating adventure, Sis Dahl cleaned my kitchen one last time. She is being transferred...which is obviously part of the missionary experience but I've got to say it's a little devastating to me! :( I will miss her...and it doesn't have as much to do with the fact that she cleans my kitchen as you would think. :) I have grown to love her so much over the last few months and I am so grateful we got to know her!!!

 They were trying to be all fancy for the picture...

 ...and then this happened. :)

 Taking a little rest on the benches where hockey players would sit. I am actually standing on the ice in my skates not holding onto anything to take this picture...was pretty proud of myself.

 They're cool like that! :) Only I wish I could've gotten the picture about 5 seconds later where Hailey slid down onto her bum while the sisters tried to catch her...pretty awesome!

Photo bomb!

 Then the dreaded night came where we had to say goodbye to Sis Dahl. I knew I would get emotional so I wrote her a letter rather than trying to tell her how I/we felt about her. She made a difference to my family, she taught Courtney the gospel lessons, she influenced Nick and Hailey about missions and she endeared herself to me and Brian in a thousand different ways. We will miss her!

 The next night Sis. Cochrane brought her new companion over. Sis Jensen is from Minnesota and has been on her mission about 10 months. We look forward to getting to know her better.

 I have now been added to Sis Dahl's email group so I also got a picture of her and her new companion Sis Love over in Vernal. She is loving it there!! Lots of work to be done and she is the gal to do it!!!

 Probably the most exciting January event was the addition of Cece to the Spencer family. She is a GORGEOUS baby and so tiny. We instantly fell in love with her and Ellie did such a great job sharing her with us even though it was very hard for her to not be the one holding her for a few minutes. She is an awesome big sister!! :)

 Sis Dahl and Sis Cochrane had a tradition of sending out holiday cards for each holiday and Sis Cochrane is carrying on the tradition with Sis Jensen. They got these awesome pepto bismol pink outfits at DI and made a heart of paint samples for the Valentines Day shoot. They kindly invited Nick and Hailey to join in the photo shoot as well...who just happened to be wearing appropriate colors. :)

 Not sure why these last two pictures flipped order, but lastly, Sis Cochrane had the great idea to send Sis Dahl a Hump Day package (1/2 way through her mission) and I made the cookies for the package. Sadly, these 7 letters took me far longer than it should to frost perfectly...I don't know why I'm so lame in this area, but it was a labor of love. :)

And that was our January. Onward to February!