Wait, She's 15?!?

Happy Birthday Caitlyn!!
I'm having a hard time believing she's fifteen years old already. Where in the world has the time gone? It doesn't feel like that long ago when Brook and I were busy in our lives, getting ready for our first baby. I was student teaching at Ogden High and Brook was going to school and working at the bank. We thought we had three more months to finish up things and prepare for her. Caitlyn, however, had different things in mind. She decided to visit us early (13 weeks early) and bless our lives in ways that we had no idea about. We are so lucky to Caitlyn! It has been so much fun to watch her grow from a bald baby with huge blue eyes into a beautiful young woman with a heart of gold. She is a great daughter and sister and we just treasure her in our family.

It was fun to celebrate her birthday with her yesterday. She started the day by breakfasting with friends at the local IHOP before school and she finished the day by celebrating with a family birthday dinner and cake. She felt the need to keep reminding us that next year she can DRIVE and DATE at this time. Geez Caitlyn, let us catch our breath first. :)

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

FIFTEEN things we love about Caitlyn:
1. Her laugh
2. Her sense of humor
3. The way she asks daily if Mom needs any help
4. Her relationships with her siblings
5. Her shining example
6. Her blue eyes
7. Her artistic abilities
8. Her determination
9. Her taste in books
10. Her smile
11. Her talent in writing
12. Her dependability
13. Her efforts not to be critical of others
14. The way she puts up with us
15. The way she loves her friends

Family Book Idea

Thank goodness for my friends who got me motivated to start this thing. When Jeni Rhees sent me a link to her new blog, I fell in love with the idea instantly and thought, "I can do this." I decided to use our blog as our family journal and record our lives. It has been so much fun and I've loved doing it. I'm not a scrapbooker, so this has been my offering to our family history. My sister directed me to a website, http://www.blurb.com/, which publishes books, and I published our family blog into hardback bookform. It was an experiement at first, but we just got our book for 2008 and I love it. I'll probably change some things next year, but overall, it's good. I wish I had a book called 1970-something from my childhood! Wouldn't that be fun? The idea is to get a copy for each of the kids and keep it for them until they get older. This year's book is an 8 x 10 hardback book with 85 pages and cost about $40. I'm sure that the 2009 book will be bigger as I got a late start on this last book, but the pricing isn't crazy for more pages. I just thought I'd share the idea in case anyone is interested.

Draper Temple

Today we had the privilege of taking a tour of the new LDS temple in Draper. It's just a few minutes from our home if we go up the mountain, over Suncrest. The kids were out of school and Brook met us during his lunchbreak. It was a great experience. Brook and I each remember going to the Logan temple when we were children and taking a tour through it. It left an impression on each of us. I hope touring this temple leaves the same impression on my children. I hope that they will come to understand what a sacred and special place modern day temples are.

The volunteers in the district have the tours down to a science. We met at a local church building, watched a video about temples and why they are so special to us, and then borded a bus which took us to the temple.

The Draper temple is truly beautiful on the inside! There is great craftsmanship in that building. The colors are calming and gorgeous. There are also some great painted murals which reflect the geography around us and the beautiful places to be seen here in the Wasatch mountains. Many of the rooms have extrememly high ceilings which make the rooms look very majestic. My favorite room was probably the bride's dressing room. It's a lovely, perfect setting for a young bride to prepare for her wedding. Actually, I loved it all. I loved seeing it, and I loved being there with my family. I'm grateful for each of them and that families can be forever.