JOY

Is there a rewind button somewhere I can press so I can play last night's *temple trip with Christina over and over and over again?  What an experience...pure joy for Wayne and I.

*If you are reading this and you are not familiar with temples and their role in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and would like to know more, this Q&A on mormon.org is a helpful resource.

When my niece, Lauren (who is off to swim for BYU and start her college career in a few days) turned 12, my sister shared that on L's birthday they took her to the temple.  I loved that plan.  Granted, the temple isn't necessarily going to be open on all of our kids' 12th birthdays, but we can plan on taking them on, or as close to their b-days as possible.  Now having followed through, I can say that this is definitely a worthwhile tradition.  Thanks, sis, for the idea.

I loved that Christina wanted me to be with her every step of the way.  I loved having her walk in my footsteps in the temple.  I took a mental picture of Christina's beautiful, peaceful countenance as she served.  After being there for so many firsts in Christina's life, I'm glad that I (& Wayne) got to be there for her first temple trip.  I'm glad it was me, her mom, showing her the way and not one of her YW advisers (no offense!).  Wayne and I promised Christina that we would take her to the temple anytime she wants to go, all she has to do is ask.  I hope her love for our temple grows through temple service.  This was a very special introduction, and for me it will be one of my most treasured temple experiences. 

On our way home we stopped for a late dinner at P.F. Chang's...delish.

Some of our fun memories (quite possibly the "you had to be there" kind):  

At dinner we asked Christina to rate our Chinese as we read the Chinese characters on our fortune cookies.  She gave us a 3 out of 4.  She thought about it and said she'd "probably rate [Wayne's] Spanish a 4 out of 4."  (Wayne speaks Spanish like a native).

We parked 2 spaces from the mall entrance, but I jokingly asked Wayne to pick us up at the curb, and HE DID!  Christina and I laughed while we stood there watching him play along.  When he drove up I pointed at the door....I just had to see how far I could take this:)  Wayne hopped out of the car and we giggled as he ran around and opened our door.  Such a gentleman!

As we drove home we talked about lots of things, spiritual, intellectual (leave it to Wayne to bring up probability), and then things got a little lighter and nonsensical.  Wayne said, "Christina, if you ever wonder what we do on date night...this is it, minus the kissing."  Christina was surprised..."It IS?"   Oh my heavens, we laughed a lot.

I love our Sweetpea.  I love being her mom.  I've fallen flat on my face many times trying to figure out my role as a mother, and I'm thankful Christina is quick to forgive and has such a loving heart.  She is a beautiful soul.

I wish I had a video of our kids singing "Happy Birthday" to Nina tonight.  Grace and Thomas moved their pointer finger over their lips the whole time, so it sounded like they were singing underwater, and Caroline sang our standard "cha-cha-cha" in between each line, only she added the shake the bootie move.  Of course our sweet babysitter had arrived and was watching our nutty family show our true colors.  I have no idea where that underwater thing came from!  

We put flowers from our Small Farm excursion around her cake & Wayne put a Mike & Ike's (Nina loves them) "C" on top.  Cake was served with a scoop of Wayne's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch ice-cream....yum, yum.

Happy birthday, SweetPea!

Loves Forever,

Mom