February All Ready?!

 i have been terrible about taking pictures lately!  can it be february all ready!??  i can't believe it.  it seems like so much is going on all the time and i really have to focus on what is 'good, better, best.' and i sometimes fail.  but i am aware more than i once was, and i hope i'll choose what is the best for our family!  we got out of the inversion (btw, it is gone!!) a couple saturdays ago and took bentley skiing for the first time at bogus!  i invited camille along and we had a great time with her.  it was such a nice day compared to the fog in the valley!  bridon had a blast zooming up and down.  ben stayed home with the girls and had a freezer meal waiting for us.  thank you ben!  he was then gone for 5 days to a conference,so we did a few projects including the super bowl shirts below.  and, of course, bridon did some dressing up and shooting to pass the time indoors. we also had a playdate with friends and fun dinner with our cousins.

 bridon wanted the seahawks (along with the mcclain family who stayed for the game) and bentley rooted for the broncos, along with all the rest of us!  ben has been a denver fan since he was a kid.  we had a bit of a circus picking up the tshirts in town and then i helped the boys do their own 'screen' printing.  they turned out pretty great, actually!  too bad the broncos flopped.  bentley also made us some bronco headwear that ellee and i are sporting.

 on february 1st, jessica received her endowments.  we went to the 10:00 session and got all the kids dropped off in their respective places in time to make it!  bentley has been doing a basketball clinic on saturdays to learn a little more and this was his last one.  anyhow, the temple was great, as it always is...and it was special to be with all of the family!!  i can now somewhat gather what it is like to see your children make good choices.  i think emerson will just follow me, so i must be a good example.  the pic below, she found my little box of my grandma's jewelry and esp had so much fun with the clip on earrings!:) not sure about ellee yet.  and my boys, well, there is hope!!! :) if they will leave the axes and drills and naughty friends alone :)  and remember to use their free agency.  jessica is getting married in march.  we had a shower for her that afternoon and i did the games...thus the stuffed marshmallow face!  she got some great stuff and i even had time to make her a burlap monogram, so that was fun.

 great news of the past couple of weeks was my visit to the rhematologist.  i felt he was very thorough and took a good look at my case.  in the end, he feels i had a strep outbreak that entered and flared up thru the whole 'herpes' episode' and ended up causing what they call reactive arthritis.  it is not permanent but can cripple you for up to 6 weeks and then subsides.  this is exactly what happened to me.   he gave me his personal phone number and said he hoped to never see me again!  if this is true, i have one huge blessing to be thankful for.  it almost seems like a second chance in a way....to try harder, to be better with a healthy body and not a sick one.  that is a miracle.