Happy Birthday Tavian!

My little Bubba is not a baby anymore! Tavian turned two on Tuesday. It was such a good day for him and so nice that we all were able to be together. He's such a big part of our family I can't remember what it was like before him. He has the softest touch and the sweetest most sharing personality I've ever seen. He has a constant smile on his face and is always pushing himself to do more and better. This last Sunday I offered my hand to help him out of the car and he almost took it, then with a determined look on his face pushed my hand away, said "Take away me momma" and got himself out. I love my little Tavie! We all worked together to make it a special day for him.
Eliana and I got up first thing in the morning and blew up a whole bunch of balloons. The above picture is Tavian right after he woke up. He has such a fun loving nature and with all the squeals you'd think we had just given him the best most amazing gift ever.
Grandma and Grandpa came in the afternoon with lunch and presents. Here's Tavian opening up one from Mom and Daddy. He had so many presents he got distracted by the first ones and didn't want to open the last ones. That was great for Eliana though because she "helped" him by opening the last one.
Eliana loved Tavian's gifts as much as he did and the two of them made noise the rest of the day on all Tavie's new toys. These are music playing maracas. He also got a keyboard and a play guitar so you can imagine the joyful noises that exuded from our home!
Even Grandpa took a turn jamming on the new keyboard.
Tavian didn't want to blow out the candle himself so we all helped him with that. This was my first attempt at a character cake so I am pretty proud of it.
And here's proof on Bubba's face that he enjoyed the cake. He and Grandpa are great buddies. Thanks so much Mom and Dad for helping make Bubba's day a special one.

Ben and kids

For those of you who know my brother Ben, this is him with his kids, Alex and Landon from this last month when Mom and Dad visited him. We don't get to see him very often so it's nice to know he's well.

Fish Fumbles

Eliana had a goldfish that died a couple weeks ago. It was so sad for her that I got the kids some more goldfish about a week ago. They were so excited Tavian was practically screaming "Fishies! Fishies!" and Eliana was very particular about which fishes she got and she had to carry it herself to the front of the store and paid for it with her own coins. We came home and I let them put rocks and seashells in the tank. We named them and then Eliana took pictures of the fishies. Here's one (cropped of course).Our one goldfish lived for a year in a one gallon tank so I figured 4 goldfish would be fine in a 10 gallon tank. All but one died so I bought 3 more and they all died leaving just the one again. Some lady at Petco told me that you need 10 gallons of water per goldfish. It must be true because the same thing happened a year ago when I bought the 10 gallon tank. I was so bugged when the goldfish kept dying that I put the one goldfish in a one gallon tank and it lived there for a year. I thought I had a bully fish, but apparently not because several goldfish have died this time too and just one is alive. In other words, even though you can buy the fish for 12 cents each you have to spend a small fortune on the tank and equipment to go with it if you want more than one goldfish. Crazy huh? Thanks for letting me share.

Correction to Previous Post

This is where the Leon Mexico Mission is and where my bro will be serving.

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Jonathan's Mission Call

Jonathan received his mission call to the Leon, Mexico Mission. It's on the peninsula on the west side of Mexico. We're so excited for him! That means of course that he has to learn spanish, which makes me laugh because he can't put two words together to make sense in spanish. Julio and I were laughing to tears one time because he was pretending to speak spanish by just putting a bunch of words together. I've put a map of Leon on the blog if you're curious where it is. CONGRATULATIONS JONATHAN!! I'm so proud of my big little bro!

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