A Marvelous Work

As you can see from the pictures, Samantha is a very good big sister. She is always supplying Anna with toys, "helping" change her diapers, and wiping her face after she eats. She is a little mother. She helps the younger children in nursery. She finds chairs for them and toys for them. Last night we had some friends over for dinner. They have a 1 year-old and Samantha was literally hovering over her the entire evening. She would bend down and ask her if she wanted things, and she found some stickers and put them on Kya's dress. She also helped to remove the safety gate from the top of the stairs for Kya. She's a big help!

So we had 2 baptisms in our ward this last weekend and my good friend Kristin went through the temple (thus the title of the posting). Her year anniversary from her baptism was last Monday, so she's really been doing awesome!! I'm so proud of her! She's a very good example to me. Her life's not exactly a bed of roses, but she has a lot of optimism, and I'm so glad that I have her for my friend. So this was a very good week for our ward. It is so cool to see the gospel spreading first-hand. This ward is really awesome, and I'm so happy to be a part of it!

Well, I absolutely cannot believe that General Conference is this weekend. It will be our second one since living in Mass. We have been here for over 6 months now, and time is flying by as usual. We look forward to this summer with all of our visitors. It will be good motivation for getting all of our projects finished! And we have lots of opportunities for our visitors to do service projects around the house :)

Paul will be going to Maryland in 2 weeks for work, so I will be home alone from the 14th to the 18th. Kind of a bummer, but we'll make it. If anyone wants to come visit, I'm open that week!

Bye-Bye Binky

Yes, the binky has been kicked to the curb . . . finally. So today will now go down in history as the first time Samantha will sleep without her beloved pacifier. I'm not looking forward to it. But it had to happen sometime. Today when Samantha was refusing to take a nap, which doesn't happen very often, I said to her (noncommittally), "maybe it's time to throw binky away." She said, "Okay," and walked right into the bathroom and threw her binky in the garbage, so I went with it. I gathered the garbage sack up and walked it outside to the big garbage and said, "Say bye-bye to binky," and Samantha said, "bye-bye binky!" I explained to her that binky will not be coming back, that binky is now broken, and that was that. Please everyone start praying for me now!

Well, many of you have been pestering (for lack of a better word) me about joining the "blogging world". The perfectionist in me did not want to start because I knew it would take too much of my time to get my page looking adorable and inspiring. So, setting my perfectionism aside, I have now begun my blog! Don't expect to see any frills or fluffs, but I will try to post pictures and daily happenings for those of you who are interested. I really have enjoyed reading everyone else's blogs, and it really is a good way to keep up on everyone's comings and goings.

Life in Mass (short for Massachusetts, and used for good reason) is going very well! It's still a little surreal to be living across the country from all of our family and friends, but we have made some very good friends here, and we love being the "Mormons" on the block. We have yet to meet a lot of our new neighbors. We have met our next door neighbor. His name is Walter Zina - isn't that awesome? Of course some of you will recognize the last name because the name of our road is Zina Road. Yep. His family has lived on this road for years and years and years - back a few generations at least. He likes to give us lots of suggestions for improving our property :). He really is super nice and has already helped us out by snowblowing our driveway and bringing us new steel supports for our mailbox that got taken out by the snowplow. He's great!

Samantha and Anna are doing great! When Anna wakes up from her naps, I say to Samantha in an excited voice, "Anna's awake!" And Samantha screams, "ANNA's AWAKE!!" and runs to Anna's room and says in the most high-pitch squeal "HI, ANNA!, You awake?! Want to play?!" Of course Anna gives her an amazing reception of smiles and laughs! What can I say, I have the two cutest girls in the world! The same thing happens when Paul comes home from work. We run to the window when he drives up, and then Samantha waits on the stairs when he opens the door. There is nothing better than a two-year old waiting to smother you with hugs and kisses when you get home (except maybe a cute wife ready to do the same :))

Well, there you have it. My first official posting. Thanks for reading! Have a great day!