Happy Valentine's Day Melanie!

Happy Valentines Day Babe! You are truly amazing...as a wife, as a mother, as a sister, as a daughter. You get more beautiful every day and I am more in love with you now than the day we were married. It is a wonderful feeling to know that we are sealed together for eternity! I love you Melanie.


I appreciate you...

Melanie…I appreciate you doing the laundry, even though you don’t have to

I appreciate you folding my clothes, even though you don’t have to

I appreciate you quickly removing my pants and shirts from the dryer to fold and hang them, even though I complain the few times you don’t

I appreciate you cooking a wonderful dinner every night, even though you don’t have to

I appreciate you cleaning up after everyone, even though you don’t have to

I appreciate you keeping the house clean, even though I complain the few times it’s not

I appreciate how you teach and take care of our children, because you want to

I appreciate how you love and take care of me, because you want to

I appreciate when you are patient with me, even though I sometimes get upset

I guess what I am trying to say, is that I LOVE you and appreciate all you do every day for our family, even though you don’t have to…but because you love us.

Love Bryce

Happy 7th Birthday, Lucy!

We celebrated Lucy's bday last week. She has been counting down the days for about 3 months now! We had a special day, starting with birthday pancakes, mom volunteering in her classroom, lunch with her (and James, Annabell, and William) at school, special lasagna birthday dinner, presents, treasure cake (yes, that is supposed to be a treasure box; see the treasures coming out??), and dance party! One of Lucy's presents was a colored disco ball and some party music. We danced the night away! Happy 7th birthday, Lucy! We love you!

Three and a Half Months

William tried out his wagon yesterday for the first time. He loved it (until Caleb ran super fast over our bumpy backyard)! Thanks goodness for a 50 degree day! I thought North Carolina had 50 degree days everyday in the winter!



William has started to sleep better during the nights. Although he is not on a consistant schedule yet, he will sleep most nights for at least 8 hours in a row. This morning when he woke up happily, I went in to get him out and found two extra kids in his crib. He surprisingly didn't seem to mind though.

Lucy, can you hold William?

Lucy is usually so good to help out with William. He was being really fussy with me so I asked her to hold him for a minute so I could help Caleb with piano. With confidence, she swooped him up and calmed him down. Next thing I knew, they were reading books together! It was so sweet - I had to take a picture! Thanks, Lucy!

Free Samples

I have recently really gotten into coupon shopping - which has taken me to a lot of coupon blogs. They don't only tell you about where to get the best deals with your coupons, but I've found tons of free samples, hot online deals, and just basic savings all around. So, sometime in the last month, I saw that if you became a facebook fan of Tide, they would send you a free sample in the mail - so, I became a fan (I really am a fan of Tide!), and yesterday I got this in the mail:

Free sample, what? Its huge! It is a full sized-bottle of Tide stain release! I couldn't believe it. I was so excited, I had James take a picture (obviously)! I have found that I really love free stuff! Does that mean I'm a sucker for handouts? Maybe. Or, maybe I just like finding really good deals!

I do have to give credit to my sister, Michelle, for telling me about a RS activity where sister Layton came and talked about her magic basket full of freebies or awesome deals (shampoo, lotion, toothpaste, contact solution) that made me want to start a collection of my own. And also, thanks to Melissa Layton Brimhall for pointing me to all the blogs and for giving me the basics to get me started! I am WAY elementary with all this couponing stuff - but its fun and addicting, and you get free stuff in the mail!

William's Blessing Day

We blessed William today. Bryce gave him a beautiful blessing. We were able to have Bryce, cousin Peter, Bishopric, home teaching companion (Bother Gunn), and Friend Alan Taylor join in the circle. William was perfectly quiet the whole time. He looked good in his white tux!

Carr Visit

We were so lucky to have Bryce's cousin, Peter, and his family come to visit us this week! They live in DC, so they have been the only family remotely close to us for years - the kids have loved getting together with them when we can. We spent time together at home playing our new Wii, playing outside (yes! the weather warmed up!), touring ECU campus, playing games and watching movies. On New Year's Eve we even went down to the beach! Caleb thought we were crazy for going to the beach in December, but everyone ended up having a great time!