Lilly's baptism

Lilly was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on January 25, 2014 by her father.

She wore the same dress that I wore in 1988 at my own baptism.

 It was a lovely day to celebrate Lilly with friends and family. After the baptism, talks from Nana and Grandma, and a beautiful musical number from Lilly and Aunt Valerie, we had a nice luncheon. We had family and friends traveling from various distances and wanted to make sure everyone had something to eat. Our house just wasn't big enough, so we utilized our church gym.

Lilly's happy and sweet spirit shone through and brought happiness to everyone that day.

8 is great!

Lilly turned 8 on January 23, 2014.

Opening presents first thing in the morning before school.

Lego!

New birthday cake tradition is to take our traditional mother's day cake (chocolate wafers with whipped cream, aka zebra cake, aka refrigerator cake, aka Russell family traditional cake, aka my mom) and turn it into a number cake. Which means no baking cakes! Which is my specialty, to not bake cakes.

After cake, Lilly was able to drink from our new traditional celebratory goblet.  Lilly won this goblet at the Corning Museum Of Glass, glass demonstration that was made AT the Corning Museum Of Glass. It was pretty thrilling for her, she also learned that she wants to be a gaffer. 

Lego birthday building.

Happy 8th birthday to my sweet Lilly girl.

More Snow day play

Warming up.

 Sledding at night!

Snow day...again

We are on our second snow day this week and we had 8 inches of snow this morning.  The kids were up building snowmen before 9AM.

Jim sweetly went into work late so he could shovel us out and build a snow man for Lilly.

Lilly added all the details.  She loves to wear Jack's "ninja" mask.

Lilly asked me to build another snow man. Jack said it was Olaf and that he loved him.  Jack said "he wants warm hugs from me."

Jim came home from work and built HIS snow man with the kids.

(Jack is giving this snow man warm hugs.)

It started snowing and got pretty cold. We have another two hour delay tomorrow. So happy that winter doesn't last forever.

Christmas 2013 pictures

Upwards 2014

Last year Lilly played basketball for upwards. This year they added a new K-2 cheer squad and Lilly opted to cheer.

She seems to be enjoying cheer, when I asked her which she preferred (basketball or cheer) she said cheer.  Upon further questioning she said she preferred cheering because they had snack time during the games for cheer leaders.

Either way, she is having fun and is adorable. Here are the cheer highlights from today's game.

Christmas (2013)

Jim gave me an early Christmas gift this year. It was a new lens for my camera.

Pics by Lilly: