More Visitors!

***I wrote this post like 6 weeks ago or something. I still never got the pictures, but I'm just going to post it and move on since I'm so behind.***

My computer is being too slow and dumb to load pictures, so I'm just going to have to write down what I want and add pictures later.

My cute sister-in-law Kerri, and her two darling girls Jane and Lyla flew all the way from Germany BY HERSELF. We were lucky enough to have her down here in Texas from the 12th-18th. On Wednesday, the 13th I drove into Houston and my mom babysat our kids while Kerri and I went to the temple together. We did initiatory work instead of  regular endowment session. I had a really neat experience while in the temple. During one of the names, I could feel my daughter's spirit so strong! Not as like a baby though. It was just her, but her spirit was mature and older and equal to mine. I knew she was right there with me, and it felt like those words in the blessing were just for me, and tears were just streaming down my face it was such a sweet and powerful experience. Not only me, but the temple worker who was there giving the blessing was also crying really hard and told me afterwards that she had just felt this really strong connection to the early saints and when they used to give each other blessings before they gave birth. It was so memorable and I was really grateful for that tender mercy. I'm getting so excited to hold and meet this sweet babe.

I went home later that afternoon so Brynlee could make it to her dance camp. I had signed her up long before. She had a fun time, and I love it because it's about 5 minutes from our house! :) I am thinking I want to sort of only give my kids two options of extra curricular activities. We have soccer fields and a little dance studio super close to our house so I'd like to just say you can pick one of those two things and then I don't have to drive all over the place. Anything and everything else is a half hour away. Anyways...they did a different dance style each night for 4 nights and she had a lot of fun. I wanted her to get a taste of each of them so she's sure of what she wants to do if I enroll her in anything.

Thursday the 14th, my mom and Kerri and Cami and their kids all came out here to our house! We got to celebrate sweet Lyla's first birthday! They all stayed the night and we had fun swimming and playing around the next day. They left in the afternoon. I was so glad I got to know Kerri a little bit better and now the kids will have real memories of playing with their Germany cousins instead of just google hangouts on Sundays :).

That evening we had been invited to go swimming with a couple families in our ward. The couple that invited us doesn't have any kids, and the other family that came has one little boy in nursery with Briggs. I felt bad that we severely dominated their pool, but it was fun to get to know them better. We're still trying to make friends and get to know people in this ward. Then we went home and put the kids to bed. A couple hours later my cousin Elise and her family arrived! They're on their way to Virginia for a family reunion and I was so glad they stopped here on the way. I haven't seen her in years! Our kids were getting along so well and it's only too bad we couldn't be with them longer. It was a short but sweet visit.

Madison is currently obsessed with becoming a police officer when she grows up. She and her cousin Sam really got into the movie Zootopia and each take one of the main characters and role play the movie out. My mom has been so nice to further indulge this fantasy with getting them police officer costumes. She can often be seen wearing her hat and badge around the house, even the pants too. The other day we got pulled over by a cop because he wanted to let me know one of my brake lights was out (which Kenny had told me a couple days before we just hadn't gotten around to getting it fixed). But Madi was very happy to see a real live police officer in action. Then this weekend we had another cop show up at our house looking for one of the daughters of the people that used to live in this house before us. I gave him the information I had and that was it. But as soon as Madi saw him she ran and got her hat and came back out to the door. He laughed when he saw her and complimented her on her "nice hat" haha. She was so pleased!