2013 Christmas Card

This year, we have been coast to coast--Atlantic to Pacific, moved away from lifelong friends and added another girl to our family. Through all of this, we have been blessed with the guidance of the Lord. He has guided us from North Carolina to Utah, from 2 to 3 children and from our own faulty notions and habits to a more excellent way. Each of us, as well, have experience His guidance in our lives.

Devin - I have felt the guidance of the Lord as I have been confronted with complex problems ranging from calculating the concentration of plutonium in a nuclear waste recycling facility to convincing an irrational, sick and sleep-deprived toddler to sleep. In all cases, He has inspired me to find the solutions that evaded me on my own. With his help and guidance, I earned my masters degree in Nuclear Engineering. When presented with an opportunity to finish my graduate work at the University of Utah, the Lord helped this stubborn man to accept the change and move forward. Through all of the changes and challenges, the Lord has helped me to not give into the stress and fatigue and to keep my mind focused on what matters most.

Joslyn - When I reflected on this year I thought I haven't done anything but grow a baby while being sick, sleep deprived and cranky. I think of all the times I fell asleep while doing something else (or all the times I wanted to be sleeping but wasn't). I thought frequently throughout the year- at least I laugh more than I cry. I've grown in my appreciation and understanding of God, who gives all to His children. Its amazing that God gives me strength over and over to have patience, love, and joy in my role as mom. I'm also so grateful for my life lines with family close by again as our little family grows. This year, I started "Cambry" school which later became "Cambry and Vienna" school. It has been fun and rewarding to watch their little minds grow and understand new concepts.


Cambry (3) - Cambry has been learning, growing and exploring so much this year. The advancement of her verbal skills has really allowed her to express all of the connections that she is making. It has also allowed her sense of humor to really surface. Here are some quotes from this year:

Cambry: "Excuse me swing"
Joslyn: "Is the swing in your way?"
C: "No, I just tooted on the swing. Oh excuse me again swing. Excuse me another again swing."

Cambry's rendition of "5 Little Monkeys":
"Mama called the doctor and bumped his head"

Teaching Vienna how to climb rocks:
"EE-en-a (Vienna), you just need to hold on to your wobbles like this."

C: "Daddy, do you see what my shirt says?"
D: "What does it say?"
C: "It says Daddy's under my covers" (Actually says "spell")

While sitting on the potty:
"Hey can you help me hold my dress? I don't have 3 arms."

D: "Do you want to go sit on Santa's lap and tell him what you want for Christmas?"
C: "Maybe, he can just stand up"

In addition to her sense of humor, her care and compassion have really come through in words and actions this year.

To a sobbing Vienna:
"EE-en-a, do you need a hug and a snuggle?" {gives her a hug}

"It's alright EE-en-a. Want to go home and slide down the slide? Okay, here" {hands her a rock}

Vienna (2) - Vienna is a comic relief so much of the time. She has two volumes: loud and louder. She is so expressive and demands attention, laughs, snuggles, and love. People tell us frequently how she's their favorite. She just wiggles her way into people's hearts. She loves to dance and sing. Every night after dinner she gives us a little performance in the kitchen.  She follows the philosophy "better to ask for forgiveness than permission" and seems to know when her parents are too tired to stop her. She's learned colors and shapes without words ("point to the triangle"). We switched a couple months ago from mom and dad reading scriptures to the family, to having the girls repeat the words we read. An amazing thing has happened: Vienna's vocabulary has doubled! She used to just say "Deh" for just about everything, but she's sounding out words and pronouncing many words right. The scriptures ARE true!






Myla (3 mo.) -  Heavenly. Angelic. Gift from God. Pure joy. That's what this child is in our family. She sleeps more than babies should, she cries less, she smiles at everyone, her laugh melts our hearts. Her older sisters love and dote on her constantly, and they are rewarded with big smiles and giggles and chatter. She is such a calm blessing in our family ever since she was born in September. From her first minutes on earth, we were surprised how alert she is. We thought at first maybe it was because she's the first baby I had naturally, but she continues to be extremely alert and aware of her surroundings. We are so humbled and happy to have her in our family.

"...lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy." (Matt 2:9-10)

Our Heavenly Father in his great mercy has not left us alone to seek out Christ, but has given us "stars" to guide us in our lives to paths that lead us closer to Christ. May we all seek Christ by finding and following stars that bring us closer to him so that we, like the wise men of old, may rejoice.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

The day after Thanksgiving, we whipped out the Christmas decorations. The girls were really excited.

 Both of them really got into hanging the ornaments. Needless to say, we had a lot of ornaments down low and not so many up high on the tree

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A couple days later, a big snow storm blew through. The girls were so excited to get out and play in it.

 They had a ton of fun, but that's when I realized our North Carolina winter gear isn't going to cut it. We have since gotten them warm, waterproof boots and snow pants. I feel a lot better about them playing out in the snow now.

The Christmas lights looked so cool with the snow

This year for Christmas, the girls did chores to earn presents to give to each other. They were both so excited to fill up their chore charts with stickers so that they could get presents for each other. After, Cambry filled out her chore chart. She said to me: "Can I have a another chore chart?" It just blows me away how giving our girls. They each got to go to the store and pick out a present for each other and Myla. Here they are with their chore charts and wrapped presents that they got for their sisters.

Temple Square Lights

On the last warm day of the year (we now call 40's warm...), we went to temple square with the Rappleyes and my sister's family. It is so great to be here around Christmas time again. It was so fun to experience this with our girls who are excited about everything (except posing for pictures obviously).

It was so fun to wear Myla- I could feel her little neck riveting in all directions, until her neck got too tired.

Sisters! There were never such devoted sisters.

Rappleye Crew

We had so much fun finding all the nativity sets from different cultures.

When we got to this one the girls "Shh"ed us because they are all sleeping. hashtag asian eyes

C and V loved holding Aimee's hands for lots of the evening.

Watching the main nativity with the Luke 2 reading (sorry about that blinding flash Cambers).

Hot chocolate and brownies at our house afterwards, and Myla got some snuggles from grandma

Lost Phone Pics

I just got a new phone and had lots of pics on my old phone that I wanted to keep.  I'm not sure if I already posted some of these, but better be safe than sorry. Here they are:

In the spring we walked to the park by our house.  The park was having a big event the next day and lots of people were setting booths up. V waved to a cute little old man, and he gave her a huge bag of kettle corn.

Cute sisters holding hands on our walk... so long ago. Probably like May.

Me and Jess. Hood River, Oregon in June. Way cool/famous waterfall, can't remember the name. I totally embraced the goober look deciding- I'm pregnant, I can do what I want

Bells Canyon waterfall on Labor Day

Monkey Cambry

Can't remember anything about this pic, but they're both really darling.

My first outing by myself with all 3 girls at Clark Planetarium in September. Success, although I didn't take any more pics.

Bounce houses at the movie theater on Saturday morning in October

Dancing at the LDS history museum

Goofy Myla faces

We were on our way home from the store and I hear Vienna repeating "uh oh, uh oh! UH OH!" Most things with her are a crisis, so I frequently tune it out. When she got really insistent, I look back and see her covered in the thick elmers glue-like lotion. hahaha.  

Play date with the Elkingtons. My girls were so happy they could jump on a couch and not get in trouble. (excuse the blurry pic... that's why I got a new phone).

My choice to be home

I've known I needed to document this experience for awhile. I kept putting it off until finally tonight I couldn't sleep because I knew it needed to be done, and so here I am- typing away in the middle of the night, when sleep is so precious at the stage of life I'm in. I guess its that important.

Recently I studied the effects of a righteous woman. I began to study this because of an experience I had where I needed reassurance from Heavenly Father that I was doing the right thing. In October Devin participated in the Global Nuclear Conference with some of the brightest minds in the world in nuclear power. I got to attend a very eloquent banquet with him at the close of the conference. I sat at a table with some fascinating men and women. After talking to one woman about her work she said, “Now, what do you do?” and after a little hesitation, I said to her, “I get to stay home with my 3 beautiful daughters.” She looked at me and said, “Oh… That’s sweet.” but looking at me like that's anything but sweet. Another woman near me said, “Ya, the cost of day care is really expensive.” It started out being really funny to me that they thought the only reason a woman would chose to stay at home was because she was too stupid or too poor to afford day care. But as the evening wore on I began thinking, “I have a brain too. Maybe it is time for me to make my mark again working full time.”

Unfortunately, the next few days I spent my time being wounded, angry and put out because of my "unlucky predicament" to be at home with my kids. Thankfully after a few days of making everyone around me miserable, I turned to the scriptures for answers. 

In the Book of Mormon, I studied the story of a murderous people that were converted to God. The King made a speech to these people about all the murders they committed and said, “Now, my best beloved brethren… let us stain our swords no more…” and asks them to bury their weapons. I thought a lot about what the women in this story went through, and tried to see this experience through their perspective. These women allowed their husbands (and perhaps contributed themselves) to bury all their weapons of war. It sounds like most of the time these weapons were used in the offense. When the women urged or consented to their husbands to bury their weapons that left the man defenseless to protect his wife and children from others that would try to destroy them. That's a lot of faith!

Later, their enemies came into their land ready for battle. These newly converted women let their husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, etc. go up to the battlefront. They knew perfectly well this could be their last embrace or kiss, and these men they love might never make it back home. These women knew that the swords would stay buried, and these men were leaving empty handed with not so much as a shield or a rock in their hand to defend themselves.

And still, these women let them go. They might have to raise their children without a help meet, or grow up without a patriarch or big brother, or outlive their son, or have fewer opportunities to marry, but their faith outweighed their fear. 

Many of these men did die, and many of these women faced mortality without their valiant men. But these women taught their children through their example and their words to put God first, and everything will be ok. I know that because of the account of their sons later on in the Book of Mormon, when they were put in a scary situation on the battle front, “they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God will deliver them” (Alma 56:47). I want to be like those mothers, that let their children know God through their daily actions and choices. How could my kids learn that from me if I spent all day apart from them? Isn't this life preparation to meet God after all? How could a salary compensate for missed learning and teaching opportunities with my daughters?! It can't.

Julie B. Beck a past General RS President said Children are being born into a world where they “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).1 However, mothers need not fear. When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on their children.

I am thankful for the opportunity I had to remove the philosophies of popular culture out of my heart, although I'm positive I'll have to relearn this multiple times. I've had my eyes opened and eternal perspective expanded to cherish my role as mother and nurturer to my daughters.

Thanksgiving with the Airharts

I didn't take too many pictures, but I did happen to get this muffin top bowl of roll dough. Rolls are so satisfying for me to make. Not sure why.

Here are all the different pies- banana, chocolate oreo, pumpkin, caramel apple, tollhouse cookie, blueberry. YUM! All that I tasted were delicious!

After dinner football time (sidenote- the Beck's silver pumpkins were awesome!). Oh and Jake surprised us- he just waltzed in during dinner- he just moved to Texas for his new job! That was a great addition to our party.

my little pie eaters

I'm so thankful for these wonderful people! We had a happy evening together.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Swim

We went to the Lion Club for the first time, and this place is seriously awesome!! Way to go city of Holladay for making something this fantastic.

Myla was so happy in her car seat for the whole time we were there. Every time I checked on her, she'd smile at me and continue to blow bubbles, play with her hands, or check out the scenery. Thank you angel baby for being so low maintenance. God must've known I would fall apart completely to have another baby that was constantly crying... or even slightly cranky.

This lazy river was a hit. The girls went around in it over and over.

Cambry especially loved being back in the water. She is a little fish.

Jordan, Margaret and Gwenyth came too. It was so fun. Living by family again is the best. (No one told me I had black eyes dang it!). 

Gweny was so happy to be in the water splashing around. I'm so grateful we're finding so many ways to make the cold winter enjoyable, and so many people to enjoy it with.