Valentine’s Day

Anna was counting down on her own little calendar the days until Valentines day, marked with a little red heart,  for about a month. She was pretty excited.

We read lots of Valentine books we checked out from the library all week long, we stuck hearts all over the window, we even colored and cut valentines out of the red and pink construction paper to give to family, neighbors, and friends to get ready for the day. Anna cut all of her valentines out herself.

The girls woke up to pink matching skirts they were pretty excited about in the morning. They had a Valentines day party at music makers then we came home and decorated Valentine’s cookies with Elizabeth and Benjamin and had picnic in our front yard.

To carry on our tradition of a picnic dinner for Valentines day even though Kent now gets home after dark, we had a picnic dinner with Kent in the living room which was pretty fun itself.

I just love all my Valentines!

Ok, enough with the pictures!”"

Grace Teresa’s Baby Blessing

Grace was blessed Feb 2, 2014 during Sacrament meeting in the Los Altos ward.

Participants in her blessing were: Kent Slack, Ron Fosson, Charles Powell, Jacob Patterson, Brian Patterson, and Bishop Pindar.

She wore the dress her grandmother, Teresa Slack, made, using the same material as her temple dress. It is also the same dress her two older sisters were blessed in.

She was given a beautiful blessing that she would have charily, be a strength and bring joy to others amongst other things. She is a special little girl and are so grateful to have her in our family (even though she tries to eat her hand quite often).

Our New Temple

On Feb 12 we went as a family to the open house of our new Temple, The Gilbert Temple. It was neat to have our whole little family together and to show the girls the inside of a temple.
Anna loved seeing the temple. She got a pamphlet of the temple with pictures of all of its rooms before we went in. As we were walking from room to room Anna would open the pamphlet and find the picture of each room we were in. There were a lot of stairs. Every time we went up or down the stairs Anna would hold up both sides of her dress like a princess to walk up or down. When we walked into the celestial room Anna said pointing to the Chandelier, “wow look at all those sparkly lights, so pretty.”
At the entry Elise would not let them put the shoe covers over her shoes. She started screaming if we tried. I had to carry her until I finally convinced her to put them on. Inside she was delighted by it all and wanted to touch everything. She also had to walk up and down all the stairs “all by herself,” even if it meant we were the last ones from our group to make it into each room.  When we walked into the baptistery Elise pointed and said aloud in an excited voice, “an ocean!” It was cute. She like looking at all the “cows” too.
It is a beautiful temple. I loved the agave design found throughout the temple; on the windows, carpets, wood, vases, etc. The reception of the temple and the amount of people that have come through to see it has been amazing to us. Thousands every day!
It is neat to have a new temple in the area, in our own temple district. It is OUR new temple; how neat. Kent has been working with the youth as they are preparing for the cultural celebration. The dedication will be March 2nd which we feel blessed to have another House of the Lord in this land. Our Stake President gave all the primary children their own picture of the temple to hang on their walls.
Ever since the open house started and many many non-members have been through to see it, I have had a lot more opportunities at work and elsewhere to talk about the gospel and our church to others. It has been a great blessing to the people of this area. We are grateful for this new temple and hope to be able to go there often.

Anna sings a song to Grace

Here is a little video that is sure to give you a smile or two. Dayna was working and I needed to make dinner, so I asked Anna and Elise to please play with Grace so that I could set her down without her fussing. This was the result. It was so cute that I had to put off making dinner and record this. (0:48- is the best phrase out of nowhere "it's so sad if you get bitten by a lion").