Artichokes, New Beginnings

If all I have to blog about after 3 weeks is that we ate artichokes, I guess we're living a boring life right now.Lauren begged me to buy some artichokes because we saw them on sale at Broulims. I cooked them, we each ate one and it was a good Sunday meal. Landon dipped his in spicy mayonnaise, Emma and I preferred ranch dressing and Lauren went au naturel. Good times.Emma had New Beginnings last week. She had several opportunities to speak and perform in a skit in front of everyone and I was amazed at how confident she has become over the last year when she first started the YW program. She stood up straight, spoke clearly and acted like she was in charge of everyone. She loves the girls in our ward and feels really comfortable with all of them. It's such a huge blessing to be in a group of YW where you feel accepted and loved. There are so many groups that have cliques, or snotty girls that make you feel like you don't want to be there. We're counting our blessings that Emma is so happy right now. She's been reading her Book of Mormon and writing in her journal everyday since the new year started. I'm glad she's so self-motivated, because otherwise we'd ruin her! She keeps us from falling too far off the straight and narrow.

17 years of good eating is evident by this awful picture. We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday by going to Stockman's and window shopping around Idaho Falls. The girls stayed home (I love that they can do that!!) and we really enjoyed the time together. Stockman's is far and away our favorite steak restaurant.

My @#$% calling is keeping me super busy these first two months of the year. I think it might ease up a little after mid-March. We have 9 ward conferences, individual meetings with each ward YW presidency prior to ward conferences, 9 New Beginnings, our regular meetings plus extra meetings and firesides and trainings because our stake is doing the @#$% Martin's Cove pioneer trek in August. I'm in charge of the music committee for the trek, of all things. Landon's doing driver's ed now in addition to whatever extra jobs the school district can think to make him do for free, so I guess we've been busier than normal. Above all, we're all super excited about the upcoming baby LeFevre. The underlying excitement and anticipation makes all this other crap doable.