{Visiting Houston}

My parents recently divorced. It's a long story.

Anyways...

I went to Houston for 5 days to help my mom pack and get her ready to move into her new home. I went all by myself! Flying solo! No kids! It was crazy!

I left really early Wednesday morning and was able to stay until early Monday morning. 

Dan picked me up from the airport and then we went out to eat with Momma dearest for dinner. Good ol' TexMex.... Gotta love Texas.

I spent all day Thursday packing and cleaning the house.

It's pretty hard to go and pack up your childhood home, but I'm glad I could be there to help my mom.

My mother-in-law, Kristen joined me Thursday morning to help with cleaning and packing. It was nice to have some great company :)

Mom's now back to teaching and I got to visit her classroom and her teacher friends Thursday afternoon. She's the cutest teacher. Check out her cute room:

MOM!

Friday morning I spent the morning doing more packing, more cleaning, moving boxes, etc. It was a sweaty morning. 

Had to take some pictures of the old place... Here's my empty purple bedroom....

Empty rooms.

Also found some old memories, like my letterman jacket! Decided to take a selfie. Isn't that all high schoolers do nowadays?

Friday afternoon a bunch of mom's friends met me at her new house to clean. We scrubbed the whole house. Mom has good friends. 

These ladies went above and beyond.

I'm not surprised, Mom is a favorite. And everyone loves her. But still, the generosity and love that has been shown by her friends during this crazy time has been astounding.

Her new house is adorable. It's going to be so lovely once she gets all of her things in there and turns it into a home.

 

Friday evening I went to choir practice with Mom and Dan. Afterwards we went out for empanadas. Delicious. 

I have no pictures from Saturday.... But Mom and I were busy running all around the town getting things together. We even got her a new cellphone! A smartphone! An iphone! Welcome to the 21st century, mom! It was a good, long day.

Sunday we went to church and Dan and his girlfriend, Kim, joined us.

Kim, Mom, and I were all matchy matchy... it was adorbs.

After church was dinner and games... It was super fun! It was great to be able to get to know Kim a bit! 

It was a great time with mom! Glad I could go down there and spend some one on one time with her and help her get ready for her big move.

{Recently enjoyed things}

Cloudy morning reading by the fireplace

 Outside playtime

  

We took this little lady's crib wall down a couple weeks ago. Overall she's done really well with it!

Sometimes she still fights against the nap, but overall, successful!

General conference weekend. It was a good time to just chill with the family all weekend.

The house was destroyed by the end of it, but all is well.

Dance parties with friends

These two little girls love their daddy and love to sit and wait for him to come home from work.  

One evening when I was at choir practice, the girls went over with Daddy to help our neighbor plant some flowers in their yard. What great helpers!

{Evette's Birthday Celebration}

We had a little family birthday celebration for this little kiddo. 

My mom joined in for the opening of the presents.

This little girl is so loved by her family.

For this birthday, Evette graduated from duplos to legos! She'd be asking for legos for a few months now. She insisted that they were better to build with, which is true. I was so excited!

So excited, I made her a lego table! This helps to keep the majority of the legos off of the floor. I got this coffee table for free off of craigslist, and it was pretty rough. But I sanded and stained it, and then glued some of the big base pieces onto the table. It's so much fun! We've all put in a ton of time with this!

A couple days after her birthday we had some of her friend's families over for a little birthday celebration. Not a birthday party cause of no balloons, decorations, games, or party favors and I wanted all the parents to come too, so that Sean and I could have fun as well :). Definitely not your "pinterest worthy" party, but I wanted her to know that we were focusing on spending time with some of our favorite people and not so much worried about the other stuff. It was great!

Evette surrounded by all of her boyfriends. I love this picture!

We had burgers and hotdogs for dinner

Evette requested a dinosaur cake. This is what I came up with:

It was pretty delicious!!

I'm so grateful to be surrounded by good friends for both Sean and I and for my kids. We had a grand time!

{Happy 4th Birthday!!!}

This little one turned 4 years old last month! I cannot believe she's getting so big!

She's pretty tall, 75th percentile for both height and weight. 

She's a spunky little thing. Loves to learn, loves to laugh, loves to wrestle fight. She's all sorts of verbal, and her communication skills are impressive. So many stories, so many jokes, so many questions.

She still naps about 3-4 times a week, goes to bed between 7-8pm, depending on whether she got a nap or not. 

She eats everything and anything. She has a pretty sophisticated palate for a 4 year old. She loves sushi, mussels, curry, brussel sprouts, and eggplant. She's the opposite of a picky eater. She also loves normal kid food like pretzels and mac n' cheese.

She loves school and has a great group of friends that she loves. It's fun to see her imagination and ingenuity grow. 

I'm so proud of what a great kid she's growing up to be.

She's a ray of sunshine for our little family.

{Zoe}

One of my worst nightmares became a reality this week. A dear friend of mine, Zoe Hastings, was murdered.

Shortly after we moved to Dallas in 2012, Sean and I taught Sunday School to a group of 16-18 year olds in the ward. It was the best calling ever. This kids became such great friends to us. Since the age difference wasn't too huge (so I'd like to think), it felt like they were younger siblings to us. We loved these kids. We got to meet with them every Sunday, we had all sorts of parties at our house, some of the boys mowed our lawn, some of the girls and boys babysat Evette, and we loved them all - like family. We've always prayed for them, hoped for them, worried about them, went to their sporting events, cheered them on in mission calls, scholastic ventures, and marriages. I love those guys.

Zoe was one of those kids. I had never met someone so kind before. She was so happy. Light radiated from her. She was kind to everyone. Never an ill word or anything of the sort. She looked for those on the side of the group, she laughed with instead of at people - she was just kind. Not a polite kind of nice, but you could tell she actually loved everyone she met. She saw people for who they really were. She loved her family. She was never "too cool" to show affection and love to her parents or her younger siblings. You could tell her siblings looked up to her and loved her. Whenever I would pick her up to babysit, there was always a sibling or two that she was just spending time with that would come and hug and kiss her goodbye. It was so sweet. I loved having Zoe as a babysitter. I loved the drive to pick her up and drop her off at the house. It was so fun to get to know her and to sit and talk with her. Sometimes we stayed in the car even after arriving at her house just to visit a little bit longer.

She knew what was important, and she didn't get distracted. She had fun, lived life, and loved everyone. She was a perfect example of Christlike love.

I first heard that she went missing, and then a few hours later, they had found her body. Brutally murdered, van in the creek. This is like one of those horrible stories that you hear about and you think, "How could that even happen? Geesh! Poor family...." and then you move on. But this time I cannot just move on, because I love Zoe and her entire family. I am so mad. I am so angry. I am so heartbroken. I cannot imagine the terror during her last few moments on this earth.  I know that death is a natural part of life, but murder is not, and that takes this whole situation to a new level.

All day yesterday I could hardly do anything - I was numb, I was panicked. My heart was aching. I felt physically sick. So much crying. So much anger. So much fear. Fear of this terrible and wicked world we live in. Fear for my friends, fear for myself, fear for my own daughters.

I have wanted to scream and shout and cry and yell and say all sorts of terrible things. And I have done all of that to a degree.

I've felt guilty living my life. I've felt guilty playing with my kids, reading them goodnight stories, hugging them tight. It's just not fair that through no fault of their own, the Hastings family cannot do that with Zoe anymore. How can I keep living my life with a hole in my heart and only glimpsing the pain that her family is feeling? How can I carry on without being paralyzed by fear of what might happen to me or my family or my friends?

But then, I think of sweet Zoe. Sweet, kind, loving Zoe. You know what she would say? She would say, "Come on guys! I'm fine! You know where I am! You know you'll see me again!!!! Keep on going! Life is great! Go laugh, go smile! I'll see you later, don't worry."

Zoe had an eternal perspective. She loved her Heavenly Father and Savior, and it was obvious.

Micah 4:4-5
"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever."

Revelations 21:4
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

So, although I feel like curling up in a ball and crying forever, I must live. I must live like Zoe did, with faith, with courage, with love. I must walk on. I must walk in the name of our Lord, and have faith in the promise that eventually the former things will be passed away and there will be no more pain.

'Til we meet again, sweet friend....