4th of July Weekend

Unlike Easter this year, we were lucky to have Matt home for the Fourth of July weekend. Actually Matt was home for 5 days, and that was a surprise to me. I thought that he was coming home on Thursday night, and found out that he was really coming home on Wednesday night! And, then I thought that he was going back to work on Monday, but found out he was really home until Tuesday! Nice for us!

On Friday morning, Matt got up and played paintball with the usual crew from our ward. He's always happy when there is a paintball game planned and he is home for it. That afternoon, my brother Chris and sis-in-law America came up from Ft. Lauderdale for the weekend. Chris is in PA school right now, so he practiced looking into our ears and looking at our eyes with his instruments. Momo got her Dr set out and looked as well! That night I got to go out for a girls' night out with my mom and my sister Stephanie, along with America, her sister Angela and their mom Ana. We went and saw The Proposal. It was way funny, and I had a blast being out with the girls. Thanks Matt for taking the kids for the evening!

On Saturday we went to the Bergers' house for a BBQ and some fireworks.

Andrea Jarvis and Red Red.

Sweet Momo with her firecracker hair-puffs!

The BBQ was yummy, and Reddin ate a whole piece of watermelon. Travis got a piece of watermelon and put Reddin on his lap, and then he let Reddin go to town on it! It was pretty cute, since he just barely turned 6 months! While we were eating there was a major downpour. We thought that might stop the fireworks for the night, but after checking the forecast, we saw that it would pass, and it did! Got to love the FL rain! The storms usually hang around for about 30 minutes to maybe an hour!

We took the kids to the front and let them do sparklers.

My brother Chris and his wife America (7 months pregnant with Liliana!)

Then we headed out back for the rest of the fireworks. I'm not sure if the kids have nearly as much fun as the dads! I swear the inner-boy comes out in them all when explosives are involved. It was a good time! After that we cleaned up and headed home.

This morning we took Mattie bowling with her friend Lilli, who is visiting from Nebraska. Matt and I decided to join in, and it was my first time bowling with the bumpers. That was probably a good thing, since I haven't bowled since before Mattie was born!

Our extended weekend was a lot of fun, and hope that everyone else had a great one as well! We are extremely grateful for this wonderful country that we live in, and can't even begin to express our gratitude to the men and women who fight with honor for us to continue to enjoy our blessed USA. A HUGE thank you to all of you wonderfully brave soldiers!

Mattie Mo Sings a Solo

As promised here is the post with the solo Mattie sang at Wyatt Jarvis' baptism the day before Easter...

About a month before Wyatt's baptism, his mother Rebekah called me up and asked if Mattie would be able to sing a solo at his baptism. Wyatt wanted Mattie to sing "I am a Child of God". This of course was Mattie's favorite song, and she likes to sing it all of the time. The only problem was that she skipped some of the words here and there. I asked Mattie if it was something that she wanted to do and she said that it was! I told Rebekah that I would work on it with her, and that maybe she would be ready in time to sing it. We started singing it all of the time, at home, in the car and just about everywhere else!

Finally the day arrived, and Mattie was very excited. I wondered if she really understood what she needed to do. I got her ready for the baptism. I let her pick out whatever dress it was that she wanted to wear, and she picked the pillow-case dress Ama made for her. When we were all done getting ready we headed to the church. The baptism started and she was set to sing after Wyatt was baptized and before the talk on the Holy Ghost. When it came time for Momo's solo, I wondered if she was going to chicken out when she got up in front of everybody. (There were probably about 40+ people at the baptism!) I walked up to the front with her, and I told her whenever she was ready to go ahead and start. She looked at me and asked, "Now?" I nodded my head and she looked out at everyone and... started SINGING! She did great and brought tears to eyes, including mine. I was so proud of my little 3 and a half year old! I was only sad that Matthew had to miss it. We recorded it for Daddy, so here it is:

The rest of the baptism was so great and so special! Thanks to Wyatt for asking Mattie to share her budding talent with others.

Easter 2009

It finally happened, Matt had to work on a holiday! I know that we have been super blessed to have him home on all of the other holidays so far, so I guess I had to be ok with him being gone for one of them! He did try very hard to get off, so that he could be home, but it just didn't happen for us this time.

The kids and I started out the Easter weekend the same way as we do every year, by going to the Berger's house to dye eggs and have an Easter egg hunt. Mattie got a glitter dye set from Ama, and she had a fun time using it! Matthew's mom hand painted Easter pails for her children when he was small, and so I have tried to carry on that tradition for our family. I'm not nearly as good as Teresa, but I have had fun making them. I didn't quite get Reddin's pail finished before Easter, so that's on my "to do" list. This year Mattie and Amelia even got their own fenced in area to look for eggs! Mattie of course got way too much candy from the hunt.

After eating a lunch on egg salad sandwiches, we went home to get ready for Wyatt Jarvis' baptism. That event gets a post all of its own though, because our little Mattie sang a solo at the baptism!

On Easter morning, Mattie found her basket full of yummy things left for her from the Easter Bunny. She was very excited to show Reddin his bucket too. Reddin got some fun little gifts from the Easter Bunny as well. She had a great morning getting all junked up on sugar! We have afternoon church this year, so we had the morning to get ready. Matt helped Mo pick out her dress this year. He liked it because he said it reminded him of neapolitan ice cream! I got to pick out Red's outfit. It was actually the one I almost picked out for his blessing, so it was on SALE. We had a fun Easter, but we missed Matt very much. The joys of being married to an airline pilot!

Menzie Family-Winter 2009

I know that I am very far behind in posting this, but I still really wanted to! In the beginning of January my very talented sister-in-law Emily flew in from Utah to take pictures of Reddin and the rest of us. We were very grateful to Brett and the boys for allowing us to steal Emily for a couple days! Emily also did pictures for my sister Stephanie and her family. It took most of the day, but the pictures turned out beautifully! That night we all went out for sushi at Thai Thai 2. We had some yummy spicy crab rolls and some eel rolls. Emily flew out the next day, so it was a super quick trip, but we really enjoyed our time with her.

(Warning: Because there were SO many great ones, I had a hard time deciding which ones to post, so I just went ahead and posted a bunch!)