Happy 11th Birthday Madalyn!!!

Today is Madalyn's 11th birthday. She has brought so much joy to our family! She has been lucky enough to already celebrate two time already.
Here she is on Father's Day celebrating with the Jones' side. That was a busy day celebrating Father's Day, Rachel's graduation from high school and Madalyn's birthday. We had yummy food and a good time with the Jones' cousins as usual :o)!
Next she had her friend party on Friday. Nevermind that Friday was Ryan and I's 16th wedding anniversary. I know you are jealous that we got to celebrate our anniversary with a bunch of 10-12 year old girls yappin and screamin' ! We did not mind sacrificing our anniversary for Madalyn as we will have plenty of years without her once she grows up. She only turns 11 once :o)!

The party started with pizza (Madalyn's favorite), two truths and one lie game, a scavenger hunt inwhich the girls had to follow clues to find the following: marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and skewers. After the girls went swimming in the pool, made smores and then watched "Camp Rock" a new Disney movie on the Disney Channel.

The girls would compete on the best "themed" jump.
Trevor and I making smores- yum!
Madalyn got to blow out the "burning marshmallow" as her candle after ther girls all sang "Happy Birthday"
Yum!!!

Today we will finish the celebrating with dinner at Claim Jumper with the rest of the family.

How many are there with your name?

I saw this on a friends blog and she had 14 people in the US with the same name. I have that times 1,000!!! I guess there are a lot of Jones' around :o)! I can only imagine if I searched Ryan's name......

HowManyOfMe.com

There are1,408 people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Schools out Summer Vacation!

Congratulations to Madalyn on her graduation from 5th grade! Now off to Middle School!!!!
Madalyn received a number of awards at her graduation. The one she is most proud of is her Academic Achievement Award signed by President Bush.
Here is Mackenzie posing after the final choral performance and awards ceremony. She was voted "Best Performer" by her peers in 6th grade. The next day she came home with another award for "Most Outgoing" voted by her peers in 6th grade. Needless to say she is not shy :o)! Way to go girl.....

chchchanges....

Like the popular Beatles song....chchchanges that change the world. We have had some changes to our ward recently that might not change the world, but they certainly affect our community of close knit families. Once again our ward has split- this time in half. Yes, our ward had gotten so big that we had to be split in half. It has been a big change to go from a ward of 700 to a ward of 350...everyone will now actually have a calling (or two :o))! To be exact our small community is now part of three different wards!

Since I have been primary president I have seen our ward split twice. The first time we lost about 20 kids. This time we went from 185 kids in the primary and 60 in the nursery to 92 kids in primary and 30 in nursery. I know that 185 kids are alot, but I must admit that my heart was so sad today- I was missing the other 93 kids who are now in the "other" ward. Our primary seemed so tiny!!!! It has truly been a blessing for me to see these kids grow in the gospel and gain a testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. It has been a thrill to see the deacons pass the sacrament who once were the Val 11 and 12 boys who did not want to sing in primary. I will miss all you wonderful children (and youth now too) who are now apart of a different ward. You have all brought so much joy into my life. For those of you I still get to see on a weekly basis- I am so excited to be your primary president! This is a challenging, but rewarding calling. I would not trade the past 2 1/2 years I have had to spend with each of you for anything. I love watching each of you grow up and gain a testimony!