May 2019 - 10 Anos

We celebrated our 10th Anniversary this month! The cemetery put Joshua's headstone in place on our anniversary, so we grabbed Chick-Fil-A with the kids to celebrate 10 years together and headed down to Benjamin. On our second trip there later this month I opened up Facebook on my phone right as we were pulling off the freeway and I got this prompted memory of Great Grandma Ludlow holding baby Alexa. It was a sweet reminder that she is taking care of our little boy now, part of the reason that Kyle wanted to bury Joshua next to her. The timing of the photo memory was a tender mercy.

Thrive gave us a voucher to Sundance for Christmas so we saved it for our anniversary and enjoyed an absolutely wonderful weekend up in the mountains. Sara and Jason were kind enough to watch our kids so we could get away. We saw Avengers Endgame, did a soap making class, a couples massage, had dinner at the Tree Room, and thoroughly enjoyed our cabin tucked up in the mountains.

Alexa has been getting ready for her upcoming baptism. We got illustrated versions of the scriptures from the Distribution Center and she has been studying and reading them a lot. Her goal was to read the 170-page Book of Mormon Stories book before her baptism, which she did easily and also finished the New Testament. She has studied really hard and continues to amaze me. Kyle and I always said that we would not want our kids to be baptized at 8 just because they can, particularly if they do not want to and / or are not ready (don't understand what it is or why, aren't ready to make that commitment, etc.). I don't like the stigma that no matter what you will get baptized right away as soon as you turn 8 because some kids may not be ready or not want to, and need to understand the covenant. Sometimes I think there's a little too much peer pressure on parents and kids alike, and we promised each other early in our marriage that we would not rush our kids into it. I know there's already pressure on them growing up in the Church and wanting to make good choices, but as much as possible I want it to be a personal understanding and decision, not just to please their parents or church leaders or family. Alexa is pretty incredible. She has blown me away. I think she knows more about scripture stories, gospel doctrine, baptism, the Savior's ministry, and the meaning of things than most adults. She taught our family a Home Evening lesson about baptism and everything you promise to the Lord and what He promises you in return.

We did a quick trip to Vegas / St. George to return Bob Luna's truck. We crashed at Shauna's place and ran over to Thunder Junction Saturday morning for the splash pad and train ride. We got home Saturday night in time for Mother's Day and Kyle's birthday on the same day.

Sweet Alexa woke up early and made breakfast all on her own. She wanted to make breakfast in bed for both of us since it was a double holiday. Cute girl made scrambled eggs, bacon, and juice and brought it all to us on a tray in bed. The eggs were quite runny and needed a few more minutes in the pan, but the juice was the best part. She made grape Kool-Aid but didn't realize you had to add sugar to it and said it didn't taste sweet enough...so she added hot chocolate powder to make it taste sweeter. Hahaha. She did amazing considering that she is 7, but man did we have a good laugh.

She also gave all of us massages so that we could relax :). And made me some dice as a gift, one with a number on it and the other with a nice thing she would do. For example, 5 hugs. Or kisses, cuddles, etc. What a sweet, sweet girl.

Alexa's birthday came next. She got a rainbow unicorn umbrella, rain boots, live caterpillars that turned into butterflies, clothes, and books. She wanted to dye a chunk of her hair blue for her birthday and we had fun doing it together after the boys were in bed. The dye lasted about 3 weeks.