Reciprocity

This is my dear Marian. I can't help but love you. I've heard it said, a mother loves her baby the first time she holds the child in her arms. Although true, this love I feel now is 1000 times stronger. You  are so much more than a ball of screaming, crying, wiggling cells that I grew inside of me. There are a few ages of my children that I find truly joyful. 18 months -2 years has been one of them.

You can do so much on your own. And you showing love to us is my favorite.
We are so lucky to have you. 

When life gets hard, I want to remember these moments. You love to be held and we love to hold you.

Nice how you just fit on my hip and when you are sleepy you melt onto my shoulder.
There is nothing better than holding your child when she wants to be held and you want to hold her.

My First Chocolate Cake From Scratch

Dear Cathie,
This is what I do when Ben leaves me for the young men of our ward and I have just gotten off the phone with you and I miss you and have no one to keep me from doing bad things.







I let the girls "help" me make this and they stay up way way past bed time and then after we can eat no more cake or drink no more whole milk, we have 3/4 of a HUGE chocolate cake left.

This was so good. So we called our neighbor over to take 1/2 of the cake away. 2 days later we are still having chocolate cake for breakfast and my daughter who didn't speak until 6 weeks ago is saying,"Mommy, I want some chocolate cake! Please. Yummmy!"

Girls Weekend at Disney Land

First Day of School

Abbey's first day of Kindergarden and Amelia's first day of big girl pre-school. They are growing up! They both look so happy.

Summer of 2011

Trip to the Shore

Gibbs Reunion New Hampshire

What is Your Calling In Life?

I ran across this article in BYU Magazine. Abbey liked the art and begged me to read it. After the first page she was board and confused but I couldn't put it down. I'm still feeling like I am waking up from a long winter of postpartum. Marian turned a year in March but every day feels like a beautiful new beginning. It is as if I say to myself, "yesterday I must have been depressed because today I feel so much better." This article was inspiring and helped me see more meaning in the small, small, mundane, meaningless (did I say mundane? Maybe I should have capitalized it) things I do everyday. As a mother, I don't have a 9-5 as we all hear on Mother's Day, "a mother's work is never done." but the reason I work so hard is because what I do has real meaning. At least I feel that way today after having read "What Is Your Calling In Life" by Jeffery A Thompson.

Guess where we were!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Making Cookies with Daddy!

It is the last chance to home teach this month and so the girls helped their dad fulfill his duty. They had so much fun. My favorite was the matching red aprons.

Abbey's favorite part was
dumping in the sugar and flour. (And yes Beth that is your mixer)

Amelia's favorite part was
eating the dough, we made her wait until the cookies were all mixed together before she got to taste, hence the sad face.

And Marian,
she was feeling left out. In the end we put and apron on her and she got to "mix" the dough too.