Leah's Birthday part 1

Leah turned 12 on January 17th!  I adjust to change in life pretty easily, so I'm excited for her to be in the Young Women's program at church!  Jared is having a harder time adjusting.  :)  One thing that did hit me hard though was one of our gifts to her.  In my family growing up it was a tradition for a daughter when she turned 12 to receive a hope chest to start filling towards her adult life.  My brother received an awesome tool cabinet when he turned 12.  We decided to do the same thing for our children with the change that Jared wanted to make the hope chests.  I'll post a picture of the completed chest when he finishes it (he just needs to do some final sanding and staining). The thing that hit me hard was the idea of filling that chest and realizing that it won't be very long before she's out of the house!  Yikes!!

The title for this post is appropriate, because we celebrated Leah's birthday in several shifts.  We were sad that Jared was out of town for her birthday, so we invited our friends the Angells to celebrate with us.  Sammy made Chop Suey per Leah's request and we enjoyed a nice birthday dinner that reflected Leah's diverse tastes:  Chop Suey, German potato dumplings, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, and German chocolate cake with a batman figure on top.

On Monday, we had the special opportunity to take Leah for her first temple trip to do some work for some of our ancestors.  It was a very sacred time.  It's a wonderful feeling to have a child with you in the temple!