"Mom! Dad! I 'tomadoed' my room!"

{For 18 months – Jan ’17 to Jul ’18 – I’m posting our letter to Miranda while she's on her mission to Cochabamba, Bolivia.  Our letter titles are taken from a list of family sayings & catchphrases we recorded onto a pillowcase she has with her.  You can read her adventures on her mission blog: www.hermanamadsen.blogspot.com!}

Oh Kiddo. I'm so glad I wrote that down somewhere so I would remember that you used to clean your room and sit on your bed and call anxiously for us to come see the surprise.  You were so proud of tornado-ing your room... and your little 3 year old words made it even better.  =)

I forgot to say last week that it was Keri & Higbee's last night visiting - It was so good to see them!  So that is little Claire that Kierste's holding, and of course little Lily.

Monday, the Timberline Times was emailed again, and right now the boys have a really fun, young principal, Mr. Glahn.  The boys saw him in Tim Timmerman, a movie they were watching last week.  But his comments about the Valentine's dance made me laugh.  That happens to be Dad & my song.

It was also really windy and cold on Monday, but the twins wanted to go huddle together in a blanket & play on the tramp.

That night during FHE, we played around on FaceApp.  It would do your face in Hollywood, hitman, old, pirate, male, female, etc.  Here's some of ours.  You'll just have to guess which filter is on because they're all different.  =)

Youngest to not-the-youngest, with Dad at work.

And yours.  Of course, the Hollywood one looks THE SAME:

Tuesday, the 3 littles prepared their Valentine's. What other kids can put their AUNT'S FACE on a Valentine, and their friends will think it's cool?  For select friends, the twins did baby pictures of themselves.  They were so cute.  But for those other friends who might be tempted to tease them about baby pictures, they did Studio C.

The girls made their boxes for their classroom:

That night, Dad & the boys brought home some Valentine flowers for the girls.  It was so thoughtful =)

Valentine's Day hit us like a boulder!!  I helped in Connor's class:

H&K had a fun party, too.  Someone brought those mouth spreaders for a game, then let them keep them:

When I got home, I had this cookie on the doorstep from the RS presidency. Everyone is so mindful of you being out on a mission, and constantly ask me about you.  Notice the cookie is the earth:

I took a picture of Daddy's flowers to me.  What beautiful flowers!!!!!!!!!!

Seth dropped off this special Valentine's everything for Kierste after school:

I dropped off dinner to a single, lonely lady in our ward, and then met everyone at Blue Lemon for dinner:

That night, McKenna Bland came home.  =)  

And Valentine's Day was officially over!!!

Dad's been having some fun ski days.  I think we should call him Captain Ice Beard:

Thursday, Chloe got groomed again.  They left her hair so long around her face this time, that she's still blind to us.  I think I need to trim it so she can see... she keeps accidentally walking too close to Xena and getting swiped with THE CLAW.  But look how cute she is!!!

And Zeus has been jealous of every single attention moment we give the other animals.  He comes from clear across the house if we mention another animal and start to pet them.  So here he is.  This gentle giant is dominated by every other pet in the house (except Julianna - he doesn't even know she exists!).

Thursday night, Morgan had a small-group choir performance.  What a handsome kid.

These appeared on Carlie's art IG when she was supposed to be doing homework that night...

Friday, Dad went down skiing and lost a ski.  He put this one up while he searched the place he went down, and a skier called out that he scraped over it WAY DOWN THE HILL.  It had gone about 8 inches under the snow, and KEPT GOING down the hill under the layer of snow.  Crazy!  And so glad he found it.

Morgan went with his Art class to the Springville Art Museum to the All-State High School competition exhibit, and this is the piece he turned into a meme...

And fully missed his own second cousin's artwork that he KNEW would be there.  Jaden's cool painting:

ALSO ON FRIDAY WAS MATURATION. Notice Talia's face.  Hahaha!

Kierste got chosen to come up and participate:

And then we hit JCW's to answer any followup questions... oh my gosh.

That night we got another post from Carlie:

Saturday was windy and cold again, but these kids are too energetic to keep inside.  I had to get a picture of Connor listening to his iPod with these minion headphones.  He inherits all the good stuff.

A miracle happened Saturday.  The kitties sat near each other without hissing or growling, and Sterling tried to play with Xena!  Then they coexisted in the back yard for a few min, and Xena went off to explore, and the big cat tagged along!!!  It's official. We're going to keep her.  Once we have her spayed, we can finalize the adoption, and AVCC won't be able to shame me and hunt me down when we take her claws.  I'm sorry, but if she wants to have the best cat life in the world, she gets to stop puncturing the leather, and flossing the embroidery on the other couch... she's going to have an aMAZing life here with us: mice in the field, big loving kitty brother, warm house, Friskies dry & wet catfood, cat tree to escape the dogs, cat door to go out into the field any time she wants.  She is going to be in kitty paradise here.

That night, CarMorDer went to Black Panther, the new Marvel.  It's supposedly "epic."  Dad & I will have to try it out sometime soon.  =)

And tonight, we celebrated Marky (& Arianny's) birthday.  She was SO STINKIN' CUTE with everything.

And it is storming really hard tonight, for the FIRST TIME this winter.  This is our big blizzard that's laying down the feet of snow... so exciting.  There's no school tomorrow, so the kids are going to play in it all day and get sick from drinking a truckload of hot chocolate.  #squadgoals

Leftover Valentine's memes:

Ok, we've been watching the Olympics... we chose CURLING the other night, and I'm so surprised how into it we got.  Why?!?!?!  But here's a great Olympics meme:

Because it's blizzarding, and rabbits need food:

And some from the files:

And a serious:

And I love this too:

LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!  I hope the week was a tiny bit drier, and that you had fun helping people.  I can't wait to talk to you.

Hey, in the scriptures we've been learning how important it is to keep a record and to study our written language because of the examples of the Nephites bringing and keeping records, and the people of Zarahemla not bringing or keeping records.  When the people of Mosiah found them, their language was corrupted, and their religion was lost.  They had to be taught their own language again, and be baptized into their own church again.  And how important it is to fulfill your callings in the church.  In Omni, the records get handed down from one person to another with the same charge as Nephi, Jacob, and the ones after them, to keep a record of the people.  But these guys all in a row report that there wasn't much to say.  We need to always be asking Heavenly Father what ways we can magnify or fulfill callings that we don't think we can do.  We lost so much information during all those years where they said they were just fighting in wars... Moroni, Mormon, Helaman all fought in wars through their life, and the stories during their times are rich with messages for us.  The war chapters are some of my favorites.

Hope you're sleeping well and talk to you soon!!!

Mama