THE WEDDING RECEPTION WITHOUT A GROOM!

There are special spirits sent down from Heavenly Father, some are so special he has blessed them with a coat of armor to protect them from all the evils of this world, but that special coat of armor makes them a little bit different from the rest of us, it's a coat of armor we call Down Syndrome.

Anneisa is one of those special spirits and she has the same dreams every girl does...to have her own wedding someday. She collects the wedding magazines, has cut out pictures of how she wants her own wedding day to be, what she wants the bridesmaids to wear, her colors, etc.  Last year for Christmas her parents got her a wedding dress and this year they threw her a wedding reception. She will not be able to have a groom while here upon this earth, but some day when she gets to Heaven, she will have the most perfect and amazing man waiting for her.  But, in the meantime, her family decided to make her dreams come true and they threw her her very own wedding reception with everything she wanted!

Jared and I were lucky enough to be invited to be apart of the most amazing wedding reception. I never have felt the spirit so strong at a reception as we did that night. The day started out with Emma and I going over to bring table cloths and table cloth toppers to iron and help set up, she even got out of ballet to help (shhh, don't tell).

It was really neat to see all the people who had come to help set up, decorate and do what they can to just be apart of it.

A little bit before the reception started they had a private wedding ceremony for Anneisa where she got to walk down the aisle and her dad presented her with a ring. 

 Here she is with her family

That night we got Grandma Jensen to come and babysit so that Jared and I could out to dinner together before heading over to the reception. We arrived at the reception half way through and found the table to place our gift on (the movie Bride Wars, Tostitos Queso Dip, Cheez-its and some popcorn - yes, everything was on the bridal registry), the table had spilled over with gifts, this bride had more gifts then other receptions we had been to, clearly she is loved by many.  After we placed the gift there we turn to find the beautiful bride doing a dollar dance - She had so many dollars her mom had to start holding them for her. After that she had the sweetest daddy/daughter dance and about half way through she let go of her dad and did a solo dance, she was loving life and everyone in the room couldn't help, but smile from ear to ear.

After the dancing she cut her cake and then everyone there got to participate in a Dr. Pepper (her favorite drink) toast. It was hard not to let your eyes get all watery during that part listening to all the sweet/funny things everyone had to say about her. This was a pretty amazing reception for an amazing girl and this was an experience which Jared and I will not soon forget!

Stacia, Me, Taya and Anneisa.

MUSTACHE MONDAY!

Spirit week has started and Eli was very excited for his first time! He requested a curly mustache and Emma and Maddy had super cute pink ones from Stephanie :) Happy day! 

 

ELEKTROLYTES!

SAS brought the Electrolytes (Season 7 winner of America's Best Dance Crew) to the studio and held workshops all day on Saturday for the kids to get a chance to come and dance with them. Emma had so much fun doing it and of course afterwards, she needed pictures with them! She was workin' up a dang good sweat in there!

Emma and Bella

Rylee, Emma, Bella and George Jones

Marcus Jones and Emma

Emma and Nico Banuelos

Emma, Sal Banuelos and Bella

Emma, Ben Barnett and Bella

LES MISERABLES!

I finally got to see Les Miserables! I have wanted to see it since high school! A lot of the weekends that we would be at Megan's house, her brother Mathew was always watching the PBS special of it and I grew to love the music.

Many years later, not only did I get to see it finally, but Jared is the one who was willing to purchase the tickets for us to go see it together.

It was all I had hoped for and more! I truly enjoyed myself and loved that I was doing it with my best friend!

1992 NEW ERA MAGAZINE

My cousin, Preston, is serving a mission right now in Washington and he had to prepare a talk for Sacrament. While going through different church magazines looking for information he came across a 1992 New Era magazine and found this little gem in it! He cut it out and mailed it to my grandma so she could give it to us. We were cracking up at it. The magazine asked about praying before church basketball games and Jared submitted his response and picture :)

A BASEBALL STATE CHAMP!

I am a lame mom and I have been putting off this blog post far too long because I knew it would take me forever to write ... and now I don't even remember all the good details so I am sorry Eli. Good thing your awesome dad is adding what he remembers as well :)

At the end of Eli's second season of t-ball in which his team was undefeated, the league came to his coach and another team's coach and ask them to put together a team to represent the city of Chandler in the state playoffs. Eli was asked to be part of the Chandler team. It was not going to be t-ball though, it was going to be machine pitch, we were excited and nervous all at the same time.

The little boys practiced and practiced and practiced AND PRACTICED!. They practiced in the heat and they never complained. I was impressed by them. This league had all the playoff games and championship game jammed packed into 5 games (1 Thursday night, 1 Friday night, 1 Saturday morning, 1 Saturday night and then the championship game on Sunday).

Jared and I made a bad parenting decision that weekend, one which I will regret forever. No, not the playing on Sunday part (we have made our own family rule regarding that decision), we had to be at two different places at the same time and someone was going to lose out. Eli had 2 games on Saturday and Emma had 3 recitals on Saturday...Jared was dancing with her in the daddy/daughter dance and long story short...we had Brad Strauss take Eli to his game Saturday night while Jared and I were at Emma's recital. We were very happy to be at Emma's recital supporting her, but someone needed to be at Eli's game. He deserved that. I feel we let him down. I am sorry buddy. We prayed all night long, PLEASE let them win this last game so we can all go as a family and support Eli on Sunday.  Jared was getting texts all though out the game with updates on the score, we were up, down, up, down ...

Finally at the end, Chandler was down by 1 run with 2 outs in the bottom of the final inning with runners on 2nd and 3rd when Eli went up to bat.  Maybe it was a good thing Jared wasn't there.  He probably would have passed out from the stress.  Eli got a base hit and the runner on 3rd went home, to tie the game, and the runner on 2nd stayed.  The first base coach then told Eli that if he makes it to 3rd then they'll win the game (since that means the runner on 2nd would have been forced home).  Then to tell it in Eli's words (with a shoulder shrug, as a matter of fact), "so I went home and we won".  We missed the best game of the series - dang it.

The next day we all got up and went to Eli's game, his wicked hot game. They did great. It got a bit intense there for a couple of innings when they were tied with us and then a tiny bit ahead of us, but Chandler came back to win and beat out Queen Creek, North Scottsdale, Ahwatukee Blue, Ahwatukee White. Jared couldn't sit with us on the bleachers, he had to walk around, it was too much for him :) We couldn't have been more proud of our little buddy, he is an amazing little athlete!

 This is the new coach they brought from the other Chandler t-ball team, Coach Simon

 Coach Mike - he LOVES Eli, while at bat if Eli missed the first ball, he would always yell at Eli, "smile Eli" and it always made him relax and he would have great hits! He loved Eli's smile!

  Coach Matt - He is amazing what he does for all these kiddos and we have been so lucky to get to play on his teams. 

 

Team Chandler

 

 warm-ups

 The team before the game Thursday night - a little hyped up

 Aidan Yen and Eli

 Chilling in the dug out during the final game

 Champions: Eli, Zach Strauss and Aidan Yen

 At bat against Ahwatukee Blue

 on first base...

 end of a game they won

Ready in outfield Thursday night

 

At bat Friday night

 Pledge of Allegiance, Championship game

 Chandler is the winner! The Coach made them remove their hats to show respect to the losers, I mean the other team.

 Eli getting his medal

 Chandler State Champs

After the game Coach Simon set it up with Barros for us to all go there and have a team party...

 Taking a picture in front of the banner, the players thought it was fun to bite their medals.

 Eli and Ben Hosman (Coach Mike's son)

 

 Oh yes, 3 of Eli's biggest fans :)

Game 1: Chandler vs Ahwatukee - we spanked them, thanks heavens for the run rule...
Game 2: Chandler vs Queen Creek - they didn't stand a chance 18-3
Game 3: Chandler vs Scottsdale - 13-0
Game 4 Semi-finals: Chandler vs Casa Grande 22-21
Game 5 Finals: Chandler vs ? 14-8

Eli's baseball team made it in 2 different papers for their game!