Our Altus Church Building

 At 8:00 this morning Rich got a text from Mary, a co-worker. She lives near our church and said she saw smoke outside her bedroom window so her husband sent up his drone and saw that it was our church building. These are the pictures she sent us.

We were so sad! 

Each time we move I am always excited to see our new church building because I know what a big part of our lives it will be. It is the place where we meet new friends who become like family. It is the place where we listen to faith building talks and lessons each Sunday. It is the place where our kids go to youth activities every Wednesday with friends and leaders they look up to. It becomes like a second home, a place where so many memories are made. 

We've been in Altus for 2 years, one of those years we haven't really been able to attend church in our building because of the pandemic, but we have already developed a love and appreciation for that building. Those walls have housed spiritual growth as Aidan first began passing the sacrament there. Both Maya and Arabella had their first Young Women's activity and Eva her first Activity Days. These are milestones that are special to us and we are grateful that they got to have them in this special building. This would have been the building where Eva would have been baptized in August. 

We are so sad about the loss of our church building but it is still just a building. It can be rebuilt and it will be rebuilt! Thankfully, nobody was inside and none of the firefighters were hurt. For this we are so grateful.

I heard from a friend that the firefighters had gone in and pulled out the artwork of Christ. This touched my heart! I'm sure they only did it because they felt that they could do it safely but for them to go into a building that is on fire at all, and pause to not let a painting of Christ go up in flames got me choked up. I have always admired what they do but my appreciation for them, and their consideration and thoughtfulness, has grown.

We are anxious to hear about plans to rebuild and super hopeful it'll be quickly so we can get back to gathering with our Altus ward members who have become family.

Missouri Visit

 Our plans to go home for Christmas fell through because of COVID so we decided we would squeeze in a quick visit in January! We only had 5 days but they were a good 5 days. 

We were excited for Clover to be reunited with her litter sister, Ellie. Clover is an alpha and sadly hasn't had very much exposure to other dogs(again, COVID) so she barked and barked at Ellie the first couple of hours. I was disappointed that she didn't remember her since Ellie stayed with us for 2 weeks. It didn't take long for Clover to realize that she could play with her instead of bark at her.

Soon, they were the 3 amigas!

Lily was completely fascinated by grandma's fishtanks. It was so cute to watch her.

We got to celebrate Rebecca's birthday while we were there and Maya was so excited to help Julie with the cake!

We were recently introduced to this really fun game called Skull King. So, we brought it along to play and  had an epic ending.

Sadly, we only got a few hours to visit with our Branson family. In those hours we squeezed in some quality cousin time, delicious dinner and homemade cinnamon rolls! Next time we will make sure we get more time because these kiddos sure love each other.

It was a quick 5 days but we were grateful to get to go. We were welcomed back home by a beautiful Oklahoma sunset.

2020 Photo Dump

We did this crazy thing...

Lily's mom had another litter and apparently we just couldn't resist the idea of having another dog as great as Lily. Clover is now 4 1/2 months old and finally to the point where I mostly trust her not to pee everywhere. She does, however, chew up all of our headphone cords. We've lost 3 headphones to the teething stage. She is sweet and cuddly and so playful! We love our little Clover!

August, the Wojo's came to visit so we celebrated Aidan and Eva's birthday!

The birthday girl on her actual birthday, August 20th!

School started on Aidan's actual birthday, August 21st. My big 13 year old starting 7th grade!

September brought another birthday our way. Maya turned 12!

Her favorite, green enchiladas for dinner.

Maya is definitely a pre-teen. She is now into makeup and cute nails. She got cute fake nails for her birthday.

This happened in October. We have another man in our house!

Halloween!

December! Time to decorate and welcome Christopher, our elf.

December also means we get to celebrate this girls birthday!!! She is doing virtual school so once she finished her work for the day we got busy checking off her birthday wishlist. First, we met up with dad for lunch at Donuts and Fried Rice. Then, we hit up Joey's for some homemade ice cream and then ended our day with her favorite dinner, Hawaiian Haystacks and "a very chocolatey cake".

All of our Christmas plans fell through because several family members on both sides had COVID so instead stayed home for Christmas and New Years. We did take an overnight trip to Dallas just for a little adventure and to break up the many days of chillin' at home. It was exactly what we needed!

We came home to find a box of sweaters and jackets from Grandma Josie.

We got home on Christmas Eve and spent the day getting ready for Santa to come!

Santa did come and we are so glad he kept things simple. Christopher also came bearing gifts. Hot cocoa and mugs for the kids to enjoy with their breakfast.

Maya was so excited to get makeup for Christmas! She's also lucky to have 2 very willing subjects to practice on. She worked on Eva's eyes for an hour and Eva waited for the results patiently. Look at my gorgeous girls!

The library was our best friend during the kids Christmas break. The big kids are really into Manga, Eva is loving Mo Willems and Arabella is re-reading her favorite series, Spirit Animals.

Our New Year was also chill. Well, it was chill for everyone except for me and Maya. We decided we wanted to make several dips and finger foods, some we've never made before and some that were a lot of work but didn't work out. It was so fun having a buddy in the kitchen! She never quit and she made some pretty dang good stuff!

The girls dreams came true and they woke up to snow...if this tiny amount even counts, haha! Well, they made it count and somehow managed to make a tiny snowman. So cute!

That concludes our 2020. Hopefully this meme is NOT accurate. We are so ready for a fresh year!