Category Archives: Bonus Baby

Multiple Personalities and These Girls of Mine

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I have multiple personalities.

Only two.

What does this have to do with these beautiful and darling girls?

Well, all of my life I have struggled with these two sides to me. My two personalities.

First of all, I am silly, fun, happy, energetic, and I giggle at inappropriate times. In fact, I laugh a lot more than your average person.

Second, I am very serious, ready to learn, responsible, and I love to be alone.

At certain times my serious side gets so frustrated with my silly and fun side. I have thoughts come to my mind like, “Why do you do that? You’re so annoying!” after I just had a blast and maybe had a little too much fun (like that’s possible). Then my silly side gets after my serious side, with thoughts like, “You need to lighten up! You take things way too serious!” It was a constant battle; that is, until I figured it out.

Now I just smile and love all of me. It’s ok to have two sides to yourself.

The girls are both so much like me, except that Kelsey is like my serious side and Emily is like my silly side. (Or at least as of the moment that I’m writing this post.) Which means that Kelsey is always getting after Emily for being too silly. And Emily is annoyed at Kelsey for being too serious.

Now we mostly just laugh about it! Both personalities are needed in this world of ours.

They are both beautiful, loving, wonderful, responsible, happy and amazing girls, and I feel so blessed to have them in my life. I am so grateful for the things I learn from them.

Preparing Our Missionary, Part 2!

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Once one of our children has decided to serve a mission, they meet with our Bishop.

They go to lds.org and start filling out their application for missionary service.

Make an appointment with the dentist and the doctor to make sure they are healthy and ready to serve. Emily had to have her wisdom teeth extracted, so they wouldn’t be a problem while she is gone.

Make sure all immunizations are current.

This can take some time.

Meanwhile, start letting everyone know the happy news. We are going to have a missionary in the family.

What a blessing.

Preparing Our Missionary! Part 1

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As many of you know, we will be having a new missionary in our family. Our daughter Emily will soon be entering missionary service. She will be leaving the country, and serving in another part of the world. I thought it would be neat to share how, and what we are doing to prepare our missionary.

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Probably the number one thing we have done to prepare our missionary started at Emily’s birth. She has been loved and taught that she is an amazing girl with many gifts.  We have raised her with a love of service and a testimony of the gospel. Both my husband and I have served as missionaries. We love doing missionary work, and hope to be able to serve missions in the future. We have taught our children it is a blessing to work, and to look for opportunities to bless others. Emily is a great example of this, she loves to help and love other people. So the first thing is to prepare them while their young and then pray that the desire to serve a mission enters their heart.

Below is Emily at 3 months old. Squishy.

Can It Get Busier? Don’t Answer That.

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Well, I have been quite the slacker on the blog lately. I can honestly say that life is giving me a boat load of wonderful busyness and blessings.

  1. Our sweet “Bonus Baby” Emily is busily getting ready for her LDS Mission.
  2. I was given a wonderful and busy calling of Primary President in our new LDS Ward. (We didn’t move, our LDS Stake was reorganized.)
  3. And our “First Born” son Riley, just got engaged to his sweetheart, Janet.

They say things come in 3’s. I don’t know who they are, but they nailed it here. I am not at all complaining. I feel so blessed to have exciting things to look forward to. I have always done my best, and been my best self, when a lot is expected of me. I do have a bit of a scatter brain sometimes though. I’ll give you an example of what happened last Friday.

Our darling Emily needs a background check to go on her mission. It’s not for the church, it’s for the countries she is going to be serving in. In order to accomplish this we: Had to get her fingerprinted at the jail in the county where we live. Take the finger prints, an application for a background check, a cover letter explaining what we want, and when we want it, to the FBI, and a cashiers check for $18.00. I went to the post office and paid for two express mail envelopes; one to send everything in, and one for them to send the back ground check back to us. So, I get everything together and head to the bank for a cashiers check, then off to the post office. I got to the post office, and waited in line for about 15 minutes. I got the envelopes and stepped aside to write the addresses on them and then filled them and the postal worker took them. I headed for home. As I parked in the garage, I suddenly realized I forgot to put the check in the envelope. I was sooo frustrated. The thought came to me, “Go back right now and see if you can get the check put in the envelope.” So I backed out and went straight to the post office…again. I waited in line for the same worker. I came up and said, “Do you remember me?” The postal worker said, “Express mail? Right?” I said, “Yes, I forgot to put the check in the envelope 🙁” The worker said, “I can open it up for you.” I said, “YES! Thank you so much!” I went out into the car and just cried. Then I said a prayer of thanks. I had spent a lot of money to send the things in the envelope, if they didn’t get the check, I’d have to start all over. I am so thankful that worked out!!

Our Next Missionary!

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Emily received her mission call this past Thursday, Valentines Day. We were all so excited for her to open it! We called family and friends to come and watch her open her call. We probably had 40-50 people at our house. We had cell phones on speaker, so others could hear too. Then she open it.

“You are here by called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the West Indies Mission.”

Now you know why she has that look on her face!! Wow, we are all so excited! She will leave in May. Of course I will be posting what she writes home weekly, so if you would like to see how she is doing, you can check on Mondays.

We are so proud of Emily. She is in so many ways a “Bonus Baby”. She has been a blessing to me from the start. What a sweetheart!

Happy Valentines Day!

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My cute little Emily and her friend Sam had a great idea for Valentines Day.

They decided since they don’t have a sweetheart to give a Valentine to this year that they didn’t want to let it get them down. So they decorated sugar cookies and delivered them to friends and left an anonymous note telling them they were loved.

How sweet.

When they got home from delivering their treats they were just smiling and laughing and talking about how much fun it was to drop off the treat and run for the get away car. I think Emily even slipped on some ice once and “bought the farm”. What darling girls they are!!

Tomorrow is Valentines Day. I have always felt like it’s not just about my sweetheart, it’s about all of the ones I love. My favorite tradition for Valentines Day it to have a candle lite dinner with my whole family. When the kids were little, they thought it was so neat to eat dinner by candle lite. So that’s what we’ll be doing on Valentines Day.

Also, my “Bonus Baby” Emily is waiting for a mission call right now. It should come tomorrow!! So hopefully, we’ll have our candle lite dinner, then a mission call opening party with friends and family! I sure hope it comes, it should.

I hope you have someone, or lots of someones to love tomorrow. If not deliver some love to someone who needs it, you’ll feel better I promise!

Happy Valentines Day!! Love, Joy

Twins?

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These two darling girls where born on the same day.

They lovingly refer to themselves as “twins.”

I’ve always said, “They held hands on the slippery slide from heaven to earth.” They really aren’t twins in the real sense of the word. You could call them “Sister’s from different misters.”

The one on the left is, of course my “Bonus baby”, Emily. The one on the right is Linsey. Linsey’s mom is one of my best friends, Lilli. Before our baby’s were born, I called my best friend Lilli to tell her I was expecting, and she said, “Guess what? I am expecting too!” And the neatest part is that we were due days apart. By the miracle of modern medicine our baby’s were born on the same day, only about two hours apart.

It has been such a fun thing for Lilli and I to have our baby’s at the same time and raise them together. I totally recommend it. Having friends that go through similar experiences together makes life fun.

We’re All Together!

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Life really is awesome! Yes, there are ups and downs, but it really is awesome!

Falling asleep the other night I thought to myself,”My whole family is here right now.” We haven’t been together for 2 1/2 years.

Riley joined the army and left for boot camp for 5 months. Alex left on his mission and was gone for two years. Kelsey left on her mission and was gone for a year and a half. She returned this past Thursday.

I am so happy to have my whole family together. I’m not sure I have the words to express the gratitude I feel, but after that thought came to my mind the other night, I said a prayer thanking Father in Heaven for the gift of family, and for my children and their safe return. To be all together Dad, Mom, and all the kids is such a great place to be. I am so grateful for the love we share.

…..Family…..

I love them!