Ryan loves to create. One day he came home from school with a suit of armor made out of paper, but he was worried that he couldn't get the helmet just right. So he and Paul spent some time on a Saturday working on this.
This spring break we did some organizing and cleaning. We cleaned out a storage room in the basement and Paul built these amazing shelves for the laundry room so we could have a place for our food storage and other items. I have an old washer and dryer, but they keep working great so I can't complain.
Then we bought this shelving unit so that I could have all of my preschool supplies in the preschool and be organized.
Then we moved Alyssa down to the basement and made the storage room into her new bedroom. Now she doesn't have to share a bathroom with her three brothers, only three classes of preschoolers (it's a trade off).
Alyssa's old room is now Ryan's room. He chose a Star Wars Theme. He loves his new room and he loves getting his picture taken so he wanted to be in some of the photos of his new room.
Now all the kids will have their own room and I love feeling like everything is clean and organized, if only for a little while.
Alyssa shares a birthday with my dad, March 5th. My parents always try to come down to the Springs so that we can all celebrate together.
I love this picture of my sweet girl. She has a beautiful smile and laugh.
Alyssa is now fourteen years old! I am so happy and honored to be her mother. She is such a beautiful girl, inside and out. She loves the Lord and has a strong testimony. She has also worked hard and just finished reading The Book of Mormon and finished all the requirements for her YW personal progress medallion. She also got her patriarchal blessing and it is amazing to me to be able to see her through the Lord's eyes and hear some of the amazing adventures that are going to be part of her future. She is a wonderful person and she will have a great life because of the choices she is making now. She is an example to me of faith, love, and righteousness.
I love my "Dida" (that's what she used to call herself before she could say her name). I lovingly call her that sometimes, she doesn't really like it (but hey a mom's gotta have something, right?).
Our Christmas was fun, but I am sad that we didn't get much snow over the holidays. I actually really like the snow, well only until March and then I'm ready for Spring. This year we didn't get much at all and it was a little disappointing. We love to sled, build snowmen, make forts, and have snowball fights but it didn't happen this year. We still managed to have a great Christmas. Alyssa got a Sony Reader from Santa and lots of make-up and books (her favorite). Tyler got a lot of Lego sets and a huge Slave One, Boba Fett's ship, from Santa. Brayden got a Nintendo DS from Santa, he has been begging and pleading for one. Ryan got an Imaginext Bat cave with an action figure Batman.
We stayed home and had a great turkey dinner and enjoyed the day together!
Alyssa had a wonderful experience with Band this year. One of the exciting things they did was that they played for the "Colorado Music Educators Association". Only two middle schools were selected to play and her school was one of them. They are one of the best middle school bands in Colorado and she loves playing trombone in the band, did I mention that she is first chair trombone! She also just recently competed in a Solo/Ensemble competition. She got a superior rating and did a great job!
She also loves Jazz Band. She has made some great friends and they get to travel to different places in Colorado and perform.
Alyssa was in the Veteran's Day parade, marching with the TMS marching band. She loves playing the trombone, she is first chair trombone!
I would also like to add that my dad is a veteran. He joined the Air Force when he was 19 years old. When he joined the military the Vietnam war was going on, and he wanted to represent America and defend the freedoms for which it stands. He never did go to Vietnam, he worked with technology and ended up meeting my mom instead (she worked at the dry cleaners on the base). He served our country for 20 years.
