San Antonio Temple Trip

This last weekend was obviously special as it was Easter. Its a special holiday on its own, but this year we had an experience I'll never forget. Everyone is out of school here for Good Friday, so we were able to plan a temple trip for our entire stake youth group. It was a lot of work and planning. We challenged each youth to find their own names. They each had to find 10 names to be able to attend. The temple is about 4 hours from McAllen. So many of the youth and ward youth leaders didn't have much experience doing family history, but the excitement that developed and the work that was done was inspiring for me! 

Brett was off work so we decided to take the whole family. I'm still nursing Tyson, so I couldn't leave him anyway. We decided to make a family trip of it. We drove down the day before and went to the temple to pick up the names that the youth had submitted. There were over 800 names to have their baptisms and confirmations done! These are all family names from our youth and they worked hard to find these names. 

We decided to go to the San Antonio Zoo as well. Kayla is at such a fun age. She knows all the animals and is so full of excitement at experiencing new things. The Zoo was a hit for all of us!

These hippos were awesome! They were right up against the glass and were moving all over. They backed up right against the glass with their giant bums and Kayla thought it was hilarious. 

Thanks to a good friend, Kayla knows how to make an elephant sound and its hilarious. She was really excited to see the elephants. 

Tyson, as always, was a champ. He's such a blessing with his mild nature and big smiley face. I just that boy so much!

Family photo!

 

Brett took Kayla on the carousel and she was probably the happiest kid on the earth! She was quite upset when it was over and she ran right through the gates to get back on. She's really getting fun and more adventurous. She loves being independent and I love watching her grow up. 

They had a petting portion with pigs and goats and Kayla had a ball! She was much more happy about the goats than the pigs though. 

We had dinner at Steak and Shake, which Brett loves. Tyson was very determined to get in on the shake eating! I haven't started him on any food yet because I'm waiting until after our trip, but I think he'll be pretty excited when he can start eating food. :)

 

The next morning started off early for us, but not as early as the rest of our group! They left McAllen at 3:15 AM! We all met at a local Stake Center and used that as our base. 

We had an action packed day. We divided the 109 youth into 10 groups. They then took turns doing Baptisms at the temple, doing a service project on the temple grounds, and doing activities back at the stake center. We did a lot of shuffling kids back and forth and trying to keep everyone organized. 

We were also on food duty. We ordered pizza from Costco and completely filled the car! We left Tyson at the church with other leaders and its a good thing because he wouldn't have fit!

                            

I was so grateful to everyone that helped take care of the kids. I was so busy and Brett ended up spending the whole second half of the day in the temple so I had a lot of help. Kayla is recently potty trained so I was nervous she'd have an accident with all the driving and with different people taking care of her but she did great! 

I felt like I only saw Tyson when I needed to feed him. He had a good time being taken care of by a variety of people. Everyone kept complimenting me on how great of a baby he is. I'm grateful our kids are such troopers!

One of the best things was driving the youth back and forth and hearing their experiences doing temple work for their own ancestors. It makes all the work and planning completely worth it. I'm so proud of our youth taking Elder Andersen's temple challenge seriously. I pray they will continue to take their own names for temple trips and set that goal. 

We snapped one group photo as we were all getting ready to leave and I will cherish it. I'm so blessed to have the calling I do and the memories it gives me. My own testimony continues to grow as I watch these youth learn and grow testimonies of their own. The future of the church is in good hands!

Grandma Jean Came to Town

Two days after my mom left in November, Brett's mom came for a nice long visit. I can't imagine how much more stressed I would have been without both of these ladies being with us for over a month total. It was seriously such a blessing! 

RaeJean specializes in food and service! I can learn a lot from her and always do when I'm with her. We made a lot of delicious food and she waited on us hand and foot. We tried some great new recipes from Brett's sister's blog Garnish and Glaze. We also made some things I've always wanted to learn but haven't tried. 

We made this amazing key lime pie!

We checked out the flea market in search of hair bows and whatever other treasures we might stumble upon!

We made German pancakes in our muffie tins! They make adorable mini personal treats!

On a rainy and cold (for the RGV), we headed to the outlet malls and the Island. We did some shopping and decided to hit up the sea turtle refuge. Kayla loved it. Tyson, not so much. ;)

Tyson's face! haha!

We ate at our very very favorite place at the Island, Burger Fi. Their burgers, fries and custard concretes are to die for. We haven't eaten at any other place since we discovered this one! 

What's cuter than a baby in a tiny ball cap!? 

Ever since I met RaeJean, I have wanted to have a Thanksgiving dinner with her. I know that she goes above and beyond and food and presentation and since she was here in November, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with her. I was so excited to have some of her homemade holiday goodness! We made stuffing from scratch that we prepared days in advance. We had turkey, sweet potatoe casserole, mashed potatoes, my favorite rolls, jello pretzel salad, and tollhouse cookie pie! Trust me, it was all amazing! We had Brett's old roommate from college Jason who was temporarily living here over to join us for the evening. We played games after and all had a great 'Thanksgiving' day! 

She's a little turkey! Check out that cute dress from Grandma Jean!

Me and my kiddos!

Love this handsome little man! He's about 3 weeks old here. 

Trying to get a family photo is.....interesting! Haha!

Our delicious spread and the lady of the hour!

Kayla loved her yummy dinner!

My adorable little babies!

Bath time for this kiddo!

He's got the chubbiest cheeks! I swear they grow every day! :)

We went shopping at the mall with Grandma. Kayla and I had fun making her look like a robber. :)

The weather was pretty up and down while Rae Jean visited! We had sunny weather and heat a couple days and really cold rainy weather for most of the days. We did get a pool day in though one last time before the pool closed in late November. I really love our pool!

Tyson's one and only time out enjoying the pool. No, he didn't get in, but he got a little sunshine.

Grandma and her grandkids!

Brett got his diploma in the mail finally! We are sure proud of our daddy!

Here's another delicious meal. Homemade pizza that looks much prettier than mine ever do. 

It's even been cool enough to need our warm jammies!

RaeJean also taught me to make homemade egg noodles. They are delicious and a lot of work, but we had fun making them. Kayla kept snatching them off the counter while they dried. 

Tyson got some good snuggles in with Grandma Jean. Kayla did too! Ever since Tyson was born, Kayla started waking up really early. Both our mom's were good to get up with her so we could sleep in. Thankfully we got her sleeping longer again. 

We loved having Grandma Jean here! I really loved getting to know her better and we bonded a lot while she was here, watching Gilmore Girls while Brett was at work and the kids were asleep. We were all sad to see her go and miss her!

Its hard living so far from family especially when we don't know when we'll see anyone again. Having our moms here was wonderful but having them leave is so sad!

Kayla showing Tyson the ropes on how the playmat works. 

Kayla in her Christmas jammies!

Tyson turned 1 month old right after Grandma left. He weighed in at a whopping 12# 6oz! He gained 2 lbs in 2 weeks! Nothing wrong with his eating!

We had a really nice day on the real Thanksgiving too and even though RaeJean had gone home, I'm including that here since we had already celebrated with her. 

We had the Merino's over for apple crisp the night before. They brought their daughter Chloe in her turkey dress and we took photos. Unfortunately, we didn't get a great one of the dresses but the girls are so cute together! 

On Thanksgiving morning, Kayla took on the important task of looking for deals with us. :)

We decorated the tree and listened to Christmas music and relaxed since we didn't have a big meal to make. 

Kayla entertained Tyson while we made our Mexican Thanksgiving dinner. We decided to have fajitas with some delicious meat from a local meat market we just found. 

To keep the Thanksgiving spirit alive, we decided to make Thankful Turkeys with Kayla. She loved playing in the paint and we had fun asking her what she's thankful for.  She really sad everything on her list when we talked about what it means to be thankful for things. It is basically all the things she loves. 

Her list includes mommy, daddy, tyson, grandpas (which is what she calls grandma and grandpa), cousins, princesses, baby Jesus, church, friends, the playgroud, the pool, candy, popcorn, Elmo, hugs, ponytails (or horsies as she calls them), music, and dancing. We love our happy little toddler!

Here's our little family during our not so festive but yummy meal. 

We have lots to be thankful for this year! Especially having our mom's here to take care of us. We're so very blessed!