Conference weekend...

I just love Conference weekends... cuz I love conference and cuz I love Spring and Fall. Maybe I would like Summer and Winter better if we had conference then too! I loved hearing our Prophet speak of course but probably my favorite talk was the one Jeffrey R Holland gave on Christ.... a perfect talk for the Easter season. On Sunday the fam came over, so along with being spiritually fed we always make sure we are physically fed too! We ended Conference with a yummy baked potato bar and then a marathon game of Phase 10. We would probably still be playing, but some of us had to go to school and work the next day! I didn't get the camera out til we started playing and getting goofy!

Update from Brazil...

Here's the latest from our missionary:

Oí família We baptized again this week! We baptized the son of Lucelena who was baptized 2 weeks ago, his name is marco. This week also i was on a division all week with elder clemens. He is an assistant to the president and it was fun being with him. He is from iowa and he has a wicked american accent when we talks in portuguese. Sometimes it makes me kringe but i don´t know how he does it because he has the second most baptisms in the mission. This week we also did something really fun. To announce the activity we had at the church we all went to some of the schools close to the church. Elder clemens and i spoke in english and elder deboer and enlder souza translated. Elder souza didn´t really translate because he doesn´t know english he just announced the activity. We acted like we just got here yesterday and we knew absolutly no portuguese. Everyone was all excited two americans were in their class and the `english´ teachers didn´t know what the crap we were saying, it was pretty funny.But we had almost 50 investigators at church this week which was awesome! Also this week something else happened..... I got transferred. Today I´m headed back to goias to a city called anâpolis. Anâpolis has the world record for number of churches in one city. I´ll be comps with another brazilian but i forgot his name right now. It will be fun, this city baptizes a ton of people every month.Thanks for all the happy birthday´s. I´m already 20... wow.I better get going I have another 7-8 hours on the bus in front of me.Até mais!Elder Lewis

Happy anniversary to...

Awwww... just two young lovebirds... (YES... young!)

Yesterday was our Anniversary! We had to work , but after we went to Black Angus and ate and ate and ate... it was WAY yum but the best part was being with my hubby and just talkin and reminiscing! Great man... great times.... great life! Our wedding day

Spongemama Squarepants and Trent's "I'm Ready" 18 party!

Trent thought he was going to just have a family dinner for his birthday... but Spongemama and the fam did a little planning to make his 18th a little more exciting. Since Trent is the last kid... I wanted to do a kid party like when everyone was young. Occassionally I would dress up for these things so... I made a Spongemama appearance. And why did we pick a Spongebob theme you might wonder?... Let's just say Trent is a Spongebob fan! Well... I like Spongebob too... and so do "some" of the fam as well. Here are some highlights:

The hostess... Spongemama... I'm ready!

Welcome sign

Everything is festive...

Spongebob krispie treats and Patrick Star sugar cookies made by Kristin. Aren't they so cute?!? They were way yummy too!

Trent picked the menu... Chicken parmesean and spaghetti!

Table for two!

Playing the "Who's the most like Spongebob" game. People had to vote on family members that had characteristics or features like Spongebob... oh what an honor to be a winner!

One of the lucky winners and her great prize package. Erin won for hands and smile most like Spongebob.

Trent was showered with Spongebob stuff... I didn't even know Spongebob had a greats hits CD!

Awwww.... how cute!

Wow... that box of fruit snacks came with a bonus!

The smoke alarm didn't even go off after blowing out all those candles... no that's not a cake... It's candles on top of magic cookie bars... one of Trent's favorites!

So what does it feel like to have all my kids be... well ... adults now?!?... Hmmm ... let me think...


How cute.. this is a pic of the kids right before Brandon left and Dustin was still in Afghanistan...
When Dustin was visiting... whoa... getting a little silly!

Well... it didn't take too much thought... ya know what... kids will always be kids! It's absolutely GREAT to be their mom!

Birthday Boys!

Happy Birthday to Brandon and Trent! Saturday was Brandon's and Today is Trent's. Their birthdays have always been a big occassion and this is the first time since Trent's first birthday that they haven't been celebrated together! For YEARS... whatever we got Brandon for his birthday we HAD to get Trent also. It was great fun! So Happy Birthday to the "little" boys
(we finally had to drop the "little" part) who are still affectionately know in this family as "the boys"! I can't believe you guys are this OLD!

News and pics from Brazil!

Here's a few pics and excerpts from the latest from Brandon in Brazil!

Hey family,Here's some more pics of what i did this week. This week we did a service project and we helped an investigator build a wall. Everything here is built with those bricks that you see. Also, there´s no measuring involved, just lay the bricks down as strait as possible.

We also helped with the bithday party of the son of our bishop. Birthday parties for the first two years are really special occasions, then after, nothing special.

This week we also had a baptism but the pic won´t download for some reason. But we baptized a lady named Lecelena, and she is a middle aged lady that just accepted everything we said. She stoped drinking coffee in one day she reads the bom everyday and has a super strong testimony already. She also has a son that we will baptise this week ...But the kicker is the the drain broke and we had to empty the font with buckets. We had to do it twice because we found out it was broken when we went to fill up the font and it was already full. That was fun.

Then afterward, we went to our favorite spot to eat açaí. I don´t know if you can see it very well but it is like something you would buy at jamba juice.P-day... We can´t do anything on p-day! We can´t play sports, go to museums or anything like that, and we have to be wearing our missionary clothes. So on p-day we just go use the internet, go to the store to buy our food for the week and then just chill at home. Not anything exciting.

Comment from mom... I think Brandon looks great in his pictures!

Slowly...

The remodeling continues... a little s l o w but still making progress. We have a pile of wood flooring, a pile of tile, a pile of baseboards and molding, a pile of paint and a pile of related accessories that go along with those projects. Now we just need a BIG pile of time! The latest step is this lovely shade of graham cracker being painted in the bathroom remodel:There's Michaelangelo hard at work again!