Birthday time!

It's birthday time for Mariah!! Happy 14th girl!

I love Mariah because:

• she is fun to laugh with.
• she is so generous and giving.
• she knows how to play and have a good time.
• she is definitely the most loving one of the bunch of us.
• she is innocent and pure.
  
• she truly cares about others and how they are doing.
• she is so happy and bubbly.
• she is quick to forgive and always has a listening ear.
• she has the prettiest hair and always looks cute with her matching clothes, shoes, and accessories.
• she is the most avid reader I know; she will probably have the biggest vocabulary ever.
• she is full of spontaneity and creativity.
• she knows her worth as a daughter of God and she isn't afraid to be unique.
• she is meek and humble.

Thanks, Mariah, for being such a good example to all of us. I hope you had a great birthday!!

House update

Remember way back, when we announced we had decided to build a house? Well, it turns out that some people didn't keep their end of the contract and lost our business. We are so thankful that the Lord is watching out for us and blessing us with new opportunities. We have found a different home that will meet our family's needs and wants.

Specs:
1800 sq. ft.
4 bed/2.5 bath
Tile in all wet areas
Granite countertops
Landscaped front and back yards
Gated community

Here are some pictures of it:

Here is the curb-appeal shot. I promise it has a door...I just forgot to close it while taking the pic.

Here is our living room, with the family room through the opening.

This is our kitchen, minus the appliances, which we bought this weekend for a great deal!

Here is the upstairs hallway looking from the master bedroom, showing doorways to the
laundry room, 3 bedrooms, the guest bath.

This is our nice backyard.
(Comes with free wooden table...the free table sealed the deal for us. That was a must-have in our minds :) Oh, and I'll have lemons soon because we have a lemon tree!)

We love this house, and we can't wait to move in!

There's a Twister coming!

Ok, not a real twister, but a cute couple dressed up like Twister:

At the Thornock family party...thanks Mike & Susie!

(Thanks to Janelle for the pic.)

I'm a slacker

Ok, I know, I know...my posting days seem to be dwindling. I have a few posts coming up that I'm excited for including Halloween, a tag, and a house update, but in the meantime, I just wanted to say how pleased and grateful I am that all 3 of the marriage initiatives (California, Arizona, and Florida) passed. What a blessing that is! Youth who weren't old enough to vote got involved as much as they could and helped out with the initiative here in Arizona. They even went to such lengths as to fast for such results. What great youth we have these days! And although the presidential results turned out to be less-than-desirable, it's nice to know that laws concerning marriage between man and woman will stay intact for a little while longer.

Oh, and I'm so glad the November Ensign FINALLY came. It's my relief for when I'm at work. If I can read one talk during my lunch break, then my day goes so much better. Today I read Elder Perry's talk about the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Here is a quote from it that I especially loved: "One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: 'The best is yet to be.'"