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!