Mary's 15th Birthday

As you know, Mary's birthday is January 5th. For her birthday she had her friends Bella, Madi, Nikki, Sara, and Alyssa over.

The girls in the kitchen at the regional New Year's Eve dance, minus Bella.

They played Murder in the Dark and ate snacks. They were very, very loud.

Flowers from her daddy.

She is such a cute girl. I absolutely love her and she is a delight to have as a daughter.

My Birthday AND Easter

When I was a little girl in elementary school--8? 10?--my mom used her perpetual calendar to figure out that my birthday would finally be on Easter when I turned 41. Of course that seemed a million  years away back then. But lo and behold, the blessed day finally arrived and what a treat it was to celebrate my special day on THE most special day of the year.

Mary decorated this egg for me.

Since Easter always coincides with spring break the kids were off school. Bryce took the twins to Utah while I worked full-time hours for Clinique bonus time. (I was incredibly busy.) Mary went with Nikki's family to the beach in southern California. Tyce stayed here. The boys were back on Saturday night but Mary didn't come home until late on Sunday. She is my cheerleader and fan so I definitely did miss my sweet girl that day.

But we had a great day of General Conference and Easter gifts AND birthday things.

Instead of a cake Bryce made me these awesome fruit cones!

Are these beautiful or what?

Oooh, pretty.

 Harrison made me a giant poster. Forty-one puppies for 41 years!

Very sweet.

 Cameron's card came with candy!

I'm a smartie.

 My handsome boys and I.

Serious one.

Harrison's face!

Some highlights were these messages:

From Bryce: Happy Birthday to the love of my life! One of the hardest working and most compassionate people I know. I can never keep up with her enthusiasm to do good. I hope we fill your day with a few of your favorite things.

 From my dad: Happy Birthday to our beautiful daughter, Rebecca Jones. Her sweet spirit is a blessing to our family and to anyone who knows her. It is a blessing to be her dad.

 I am grateful for wonderful people in my life and I am glad to be alive another year.

California Adventure

Next day, California Adventure! This was my first time, though the second (or more) for the others. We spent part of the day here and then went back to Disneyland to do some of the things we liked the most.

Highlights of California Adventure were the Cars ride, where Harrison got to drive us all; playing in the snow at Frozen; and the Toy Story ride. Mary loved the roller coasters. The rest of us endured them to varying degrees.

When all was said and done we rode the Indiana Jones ride 6 times! At the end Bryce wanted us to take a family picture with "cousin Indy" but it was super crowded. So we went into a gift shop to try on hats. I only have a snake around my neck and I cut off Tyce's head and will it surprise you to hear that Harrison utterly refused to pose with us? Well, to get the perfect picture I guess this means that we'll have to go back. That'd be fine with me.

Disneyland Overload

Had a blast at the happiest place on earth! We got our tax refund and headed off to California. The kids were surprisingly nice to each other--like strangely, overly nice. I guess they didn't want to ruin a good thing with their normal behavior.

Bryce had the good idea to give the kids Visa gift cards for the trip so they could pay for their own food and souvenirs as they saw fit. Two of the kids were frugal, so much so that they had a lot of money left over. Two of them spent every last dime. One of them blew the entire amount the very first day and had absolutely no money left over for food. On the one hand he loved his purchases. On the other, he begged and cried for better food than granola bars and beef jerky from a backpack.

The two nights we spent were awful because of people's significant sleep issues but somehow the days were pretty good. Sometimes it feels like Bryce and I are up 24 hours a day.

However. We had a lot of fun though and I'm really glad we went.