My baby girl is 19!!!

Wow! How fast the years do fly! McKayla is 19 today. . . it's so crazy because I can remember 19 years ago having a brand newborn baby girl in my arms just about an hour old. She is such a gift in our home from the moment she arrived in just 2 short hours and 1 push! She has always been my angel. Sure she has had her mischievious moments, like the time she hid in her closet with her chicken costume on, nearly giving us a heart attack because she was nowhere to be found. Or the time that she talked Chris in to crossing busy 7800 south to go and visit their old friends (whose mother called to let us know). . . they were only 4 and 5 1/2. Or the time that she licked all the frosting off of her newly decorated birthday cake (that her mom slaved over!!) before anyone got a chance to see it. As you can see, these are some pretty mischievious moments, lol. I am so proud of her and the way she can light up a room just with her presence and beautiful smile! She is such a go-getter, I know that she will be able to acheive whatever she sets out do and will be very successful doing it! This is your day sweetie... Enjoy every minute of it! I love you to the sun and the moon and down again, and around the world and back again! I love you the "mostest" and wish you lots of beautiful birthdays ahead!

Good News. . . Bad News

It's always good to start with the bad news. So the bad news is . . . Chris is coming home early from his mission. O.K. now that you have picked your jaw up off the floor do you want the good news? The good news is . . . . Chris is coming home!!!! It took me a bit, but now that I have recovered from the initial shock and disappointment of getting that phone call from the stake President,(definitely not the phone call you want to get on a Monday morning!)I am getting very excited to see him! We have missed him a lot. He served faithfully and diligently for 1 year and has learned and grown sooo much, and we are so very proud of him. I can't wait to hear more about all the things he has experienced this past year. As a lot of you may already know, he has really struggled pretty much the whole year. We are so proud of him for making it a year and we know, and he knows, it is going to be rough for a while until he adjusts and people accept it. That is why I thought it might be good to give everyone the heads up here. We are really hoping that people can try to be understanding and support and love him without needing to know a reason. It has been really, really tough for him, as I am sure it is for all missionaries, and he is already good at beating himself up for not being able to complete it, without having to hear it from everyone else as well. We LOVE our ward and I have no doubt that you will be supportive and good to him, I just wanted to give you notice, so that when he shows up with us on Sunday at church, the rumors wouldn't start flying, lol. Please feel free to come and give him a big "welcome home" hug and words of encouragement. I know he would really love and appreciate that! Actually, we are not sure the exact day yet because ironically, he is having a difficult time being able to leave Mexico (considering it was sooo hard to finally get him to Mexico). Passport issues and such, but we do know it will be as soon as possible. And since I can't post without a photo here is a fun one of Cody. Him and I were goofing around trying to get some cool photos. I just want to tell everyone thank you so much for being such great friends.

Chicago!!!

I can not even begin to tell you how fun Chicago was so here is a slide show so you can see for yourself! We got to go see the blue man group the Joffrey Ballet, Xanadu (which was so cool and brought back lots of fun memories from the 80's, lol), and we toured all over the city. We drove down President Obama's street to see his home which was barricade by the secret service!! We got to see the view from the Hancock tower, visited the field museum, lake Michigan, the famous Chicago "bean", and lots of great places to eat. We even got to have lunch with Mike's cousin Michelle who is 7 months pregnant with the cutest little pregnant belly. The only bad part was that it was FREEZING!!! But we got used to it after a while. It was really alot of fun to spend time with Saydie and was a much needed vacation. Here are some pictures but I still have more to download so I will probably post more later.