The highlights - 11/12

Last weekend (11/2) we went to the tri-cities for a couple of different reasons, but the trip was first created to support the auction that was being put on by Donna Tracy and the two stakes to help Christina and Nathan. It was a huge success! They raised over $20,000!!! I had the privilege of creating the program and that was a great experience in itself getting quotes from Christina. It was a lot of fun decorating with my mom and sister, Carrie. I almost went to tears many times through out the day just looking at everyone helping. People I knew from growing up to people I didn't know but they knew what this was going to. It was amazing! Because I had almost cried so many times, I chose not to wear mascara when I was putting make up on for the evening. It proved to be a wise choice. During the slide show Sonja (high) Yearsly put together, I was standing next to Mike and Tallia, Brian, and Philip. With almost every picture there was a memory there and you could just feel the love between us and the tears just flowed. I am so grateful for all those who helped out that night. I don't know if we made a small or large dent in their expenses, but I do know that people came together that night to show their love and that in itself helped our family immensely. 

The other parts of that weekend we got to see Cecily be baptized and baby Clark be blessed. We also got to hang out with Brian's family and my family. Jed got to hang out with cousins... Lots and lots of cousins! Here are some pictures:

He thought it was pretty cool that Merian, Eliza, and Derek were crawling with him.

He loves to play cars.

That was when we first got there, so Jed had just woken up, so that's why he looks so out of place. 

In other news:

Elijah has been amazing with his school responsibilities. He signed up for crossing guard AND student leadership both early morning things and he (mostly) gets himself up every morning and rides his bike to get to school.

Quianna loves seminary - even though it is at 6am. For those who don't know, seminary is like Sunday school, but during the day. In the tri-cities, they have released time seminary so that it is just another class during the school day where we study the scriptures and learn more about the gospel. Here in Spokane, they don't have a seminary building across the high schools and they don't have release time so the whole stake meets at the stake center at 6:00 in the morning! Quianna is even the seminary freshmen class president!

Jed has started to raise his hands when we say touchdown! It's his new trick and he loves it!

He has also has started to try and give zurberts (sp?). The other day when we were playing on the bed, my shirt came up and revealed my belly. He saw it and bent down with his open mouth as if he was going to blow on it. It was super cute. I started to laugh and then he realized he did something funny so he did it again. Now when ever he sees my stomach, he tries to do that. Sometimes he succeeds at blowing and making the sound. 

For the months of November and December we are doing a service project each week, something that we did last December for a new Christmas tradition, and this year we extended it to November.We all came up with ideas and then Brian extended family callings. Quianna is our service project coordinator. She helps plan everything. Elijah is our financial clerk - he's in charge of our budget. We sustained them and Brian gave them father blessings to help them in their family callings. I hope it will help them find ownership on our service projects.