I usually don’t post much directly about church, but this is one I just can’t not post about.  I woke up to the news this morning that the Prophet of The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (which I belong to) passed last night.  I was so surprised at how hard it hit me.  I’ve never met him, but he is one of the people I hold in the highest of regards. 

I think it hit me so hard too because he was the first Prophet I saw come into his position since becoming a member of the Church.  Which meant I had already seen one prophet pass away as it is a lifelong position, but as Eric and I had just joined the church at that time I hadn’t had the opportunity to learn from him yet.  But for the last several years the life of my family has been richly blessed by the words President Hinckley brought to us from Heavenly Father.

He was the oldest Prophet our Church has had.  He has helped to accomplish so many things during his time as the Prophet of our church.  The numbers of temples has more than doubled.  He was the first Prophet to visit Spain and a number of African nations.  He has written many books.  One of the things I learned as I’ve received different emails today is while the Olympics were in Salt Lake City he requested that the church refrain from proselytizing visitors.  While he worked so hard to help people understand us more he did it in a way where no one felt like the Church was being shoved down their throat. 

But as sad as I am that I won’t be hearing his voice live anymore during conferences I do take comfort in knowing that he is now with his wife that passed away a couple years back.  And I know he is with Heavenly Father.

I so meant to blog last night before going to bed.  It was one of those great days that deserved to be blogged about.  But, time got away from me.

Yesterday the girls had a snow day.  A no school day.  I was so happy about it for different reasons.  That meant I could at last get pictures of the girls playing in the snow this winter to go on the awesome page packet Diane (DK Designs) designed!  And it meant I got to spend an entire day with all three of my girls in the middle of the week.  I did take pictures and will try to post those before the day ends…

For those who don’t know, I have decided I am so tired of being overweight and I really want to be around to hold my grandchildren one day.  So I started Weight Watchers again a week ago yesterday.  The first time I was on Weight Watchers, I lost over 40 pounds.  I think my mistake was I started by going to meetings with a friend and when she wasn’t able to go to the same meeting anymore, I didn’t make it as big of a priority.

So yesterday was my first weigh in since starting back on the WW plan and I lost 5.4 pounds!  I was so excited I was almost in tears!  My first week the first time I was on WW I had only lost 2 pounds.  But this time around I was more familiar with the plan and I knew that not eating all of my points wasn’t going to do me any favors on the scale.  OMG though.  The first couple of days back on the plan, while I felt like I was eating all the time, I thought I was going to starve to death! 

Jackie got a birthday card and gift in the mail from my Mom yesterday.  It meant so much to me.  Not to put my Mom out there on the spot, and most everyone who knows me knows she had some issues and made some mistakes while I was a child that resulted in me not being able to live with her from about 10 years on.  And as a result we didn’t have the typical Mother daughter relationship.  While I know she loves her grandchildren very much, it is a rare occasion for my daughters to get a card from my Mom on or near their birthday. 

So while the older girls were in Mutual and Activity days, Erica and I decided to try giving my Mom a call last night to thank her.  This resulted in one of the longest and best phone calls I can recall ever having with my Mom.  It really meant so much to both of us.  And she sounded like she was so happy and doing so well.   Of course we exchanged emails and blog addresses.  And when I woke up this morning, she had already commented on my blog!  Yay!

Okay, I really have to get going.  Erica woke up really congested this morning which resulted in no Art class at Gymboree today and she is desperately needing to be put down for a nap.  Not that she is very excited about it.  I promise I will do my best to get snow pictures up before I go to bed tonight though…

I am now the Mother of a teenager!  Yikes!  I feel like I’ve just aged at least another 10 years!

My first baby girl was born 13 years ago today!  I remember the whole ordeal well.  She was just excited to meet me as I was to her as I was in and out of the hospital for the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy several times with preterm labor.  Then much to my delight on January 8th, 1995 the Doctor let my Jacquelynn Marie enter this world.  She was so beautiful in all her 9 pounds 3 1/2 ounces.  And oh all the hair that girl had!  I wish I had one of her baby pictures on my laptop so I could share with you.

But here is one of her at 13 years old blowing out her candles!  And she still has such thick hair and is so beautiful!

Since we gave her everything she wanted for Christmas she and Eric and I were out of ideas as to what to give her for Christmas, so we gave her a generous amount of cash instead.  So between what we paid her for her report card, what was left from Disneyworld and now her birthday she can really buy something big.  I’m pretty excited to see what she ends up getting.  She’s my frugal girl, so I know it won’t be just blown on something petty.

As she is still getting settled into her new school and hasn’t made very many close friends yet, we just did the family thing.  We let her choose where she wanted to eat dinner and she wanted to go to her favorite Sushi restaurant, Kato.  So feeling brave tonight I ordered a couple pieces of sushi for myself.  Went the safe ones, the Philadelphia Roll and California Roll of course.  And then I thought the Sweet Shrimp looked good.  Until they brought it out.  Nothing like the picture.  Well the back half was.  And then they took the head part of the shrimp and deep fried it and stood it up on the plate.  Here’s a picture so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about:

By this point I had already humiliated my poor Eric by taking pictures of it.  They were all over at the Sushi bar laughing, so I sucked it up and at that whole thing shell and all.  The one thing though I couldn’t make myself eat though were the eyes.  Even the girls couldn’t infinity dog dare me enough for that.

It was a nice evening though.  Jackie was happy and that is all that matters.  Happy Birthday my dear, sweet, beautiful, smart teenage daughter.  You know though no matter how old you get, you will always be my baby?!

Since we were here at Disneyworld on Christmas Day…

Santa came to our house a few days early:

Amongst the many, many gifts Santa brought this year and Mommy and Daddy bought, these were their big gifts:

For those that missed it, Eric called me while he was out on his last business trip of the year and asked me how I felt about celebrating Christmas a little bit early.  Convinced that I am married to a workaholic I thought he was about to tell me he was going to be on a business trip during Christmas.  Just as I was about to be frustrated with him, he quickly told me that he had bought our Park Hopper tickets and reserved our “villa” in Orlando and we were going to be at Disneyworld for Christmas!

I was probably just as excited as the girls were.  This was my very first time I had ever been.  I’ve been to Disneyland several times, but never Disneyworld!

So this spur of the moment announcement meant I had to quickly finish my Christmas shopping, wrap all the presents, get everyone packed and ready to celebrate Christmas before leaving the Friday before Christmas. Mission accomplished.

It was a wonderful Christmas!  Our best ever!  The girls got every single last thing on their lists and then some.  And they were so very thankful.

After three days on the road we arrived in Florida, checked into our hotel eagerly awaiting the next 5 days!  We spent Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day at Magic Kingdom and Eric became a roller coaster aficionado!  The girls had a blast.  And they were surprised by a visit by Grandma and Papa for a few days of it even.

Day 3 we went to Epcot where later that night after we were all tucked into bed Jackie got food poisoning.  We all decided it was a blessing in disguise as we took that next day to rest and relax and even got some time out by the pool and left us rested for the rest of our trip. 

The day after our day of rest we went back to Epcot to see all the worlds.  This was by far my favorite part.  I loved seeing all the different cultures of all the different countries!  China and Japan got most of our money.  Ally and Erica bought those puppets that are controlled the strings attached to the wooden x’s.  And in Japan we bought each of the girls kimonos.

Here is Erica…

Ally…

And Jackie…

As much as we wanted to hit Animal Kingdom, MGM and the rest of Magic Kingdom we realized this was not going to be our last trip to Disneyworld and why stress out about seeing the rest of everything in just one short day.  So we took our time exploring the Animal Kingdom.

And were we ever glad we did.  The only thing Erica wanted to do even more than anything else was to see Pooh Bear.  And would you believe the first Disney characters we came across were Pooh and the Gang!  Of course Jackie was way too cool to be seen with them.  Ally was very willing to pose with the gang with Erica.

Our last full day in Orlando was a shopping day!  We went to Downtown Disney and hit the stores.  Between that, what the girls bought in the parks and the shopping we did at the Prime Outlet we filled an entire large suitcase with goodies we felt we just could not live without taking home with us.  Did a few loads of laundry, swam in the hotel swimming pool one last time and managed to cram everything into our suitcases and a few extra totes before hitting two days on the road to home.

I was a little sad that we spent New Year’s Eve on the road instead of at the new house, but we made the best of it.  We stayed up late and watched the New Year come in, in Nashville, Tennessee.  It was an amazing, unforgettable trip that will never be forgotten.  I can’t wait for our next trip!

Okay, so we’ve hit Christmas and Disneyworld.  That brings us to Jackie’s report card!  She brought it home yesterday and it consisted of 4 A’s and 3 B’s!  I was so proud of her!  I never brought home any report card that ever looked that awesome!  Of course we rewarded her very generously for her hard work!  Looking forward to seeing Ally’s next week.

I’m so excited about this new year!  This past year was an amazing year and Eric finished it so awesome for us!  This new year will be an amazing year!  Heavenly Father has poured out his blessings unto our family even when we didn’t feel worthy and I know with this next year rededicating ourselves to our priorities he will pour out his blessings onto us so much that we won’t have enough room to receive them all!

Here’s to an exciting 2008!