Introductions

After reading many fun blogs from friends and family, we figured we'd do well to finally get involved in the blogging world, so here it goes.

I thought for our first post I'd introduce our family starting with the youngest.

Amelia, 3 1/2 months old, is the star of our family as she learns to interact by smiling, laughing, and making cute baby sounds. She is by far our biggest baby and has outgrown almost all of her 3-6 month clothes already!

BJ, our 2-year-old, comes next. He has become one of the big kids since the birth of his little sister, but still loves to snuggle with Mommy. Some of his favorites: kissing Amelia, hitting anything with anything (preferably a ball with a bat), and swordfighting. Everything he does has a sound effect, which, I have to admit, are better than any sound effects I've done in my entire life! What a kid!

Next comes Christian, our big 5 1/2 year old. He has loved having his sister home from school this summer, and looks forward to starting kindergarten in the fall and being able to ride his bike to school with Abbie. He told me once that he wants to be "one of those guys that stands up in front of people and makes them laugh" and that about describes his favorite pasttime. He's great at making people happy and taking care of his sisters and brother!

Abbie is our happy and helpful 7 11/12 year old. She will be turning 8 in just a few short weeks! She is excited to have a birthday and even more excited to be baptized in September! Boy, time sure does fly by! Her favorites recently are reading, writing stories, writing notes, and taking care of her little sister. I don't know if I say it out loud every day, but I sure feel grateful to have her as my firstborn! She has become such a fun friend and fantastic helper to me!

I don't have anything super exciting to post. The days just seem to be filled with taking care of kids, nursing baby, cleaning the house, doing laundry, and teaching violin. Since the birth of little Mia (short for Amelia), I've realized that being a mom of four kids means many things, most of which is giving up almost complete control. This is still a learning process for me and some days all I can do is just pray to get through the day and still be "fun mom."

Laren is busy as ever working at the Spanish Fork High Seminary 8 hours and continuing his work toward his Masters degree in Family and Human Development. He still serves in his calling as Elders Quorum president and on top of all of this, he manages to be a loving and devoted father and husband. How does he do it all? Not sure. But we're grateful to have him whenever we can get him!

Well, that's a brief intro of each of our family members. Our email addresses are jolaren@yahoo.com and jolaren@gmail.com. Phone number is (801) 423-7916. Keep in touch with us! We'd love to hear from any and all of our family and friends!