Our ward leaders have encouraged we adults to do our personal progress again. I did mine as a youth, and would like to do it again with my daughters, however, there is now a new program that the church has come out with called the Honor Bee program.

The Honor Bee charm was historically given to young women who were willing to do more than was required. To continue your progress, you may earn an Honor Bee to accompany your Young Womanhood Recognition medallion. You may earn an Honor Bee charm after completing both of the following requirements*:

1. Read the Book of Mormon again

2. Serve others for a total of 40 hours.

Since I use my blog as my journal, I am going to keep track of my service hours in my blog. As parents and church leaders we could easily earn 40 hours of service in just a few days. I thought that this would be a neat opportunity, though, to push myself to do things here at home or with my calling that may be lacking. If any of you want to do it with me, let me know! It would be fun to plan together!

Charley Rose

What a sweet baby! On Thursday, Heather gave birth to our fifth grandchild, Charlotte Rose Ensminger. I have to say that Heather was a trooper. If she was hurting, she didn't complain much. Charley weighed 8 pounds and 1 ounce. She was rather long. Maybe she'll be tall like her daddy! What a great Father's Day present for Clark! Our family sees a lot of Heather in her features, but Heather's family sees a lot of Clark. Maybe she's a perfect combo. She has very dark hair and very dark eyes. They're so dark that I would be surprised if they turned blue. So far, she seems to be a little bit darker complected. We'll see if that changes. At first, she appeared to have curly hair. Here are some pictures. She is absolutely perfect!

Nauvoo

We just had the most wonderful trip with our friends to Nauvoo. It was wonderful! Nauvoo is the city that the early members of our church built as a refuge from persecution. In it's time it rivaled Chicago in size. Eventually the members had to leave from mob threats, however, it has been restored in it's original state for people to visit. Even the temple has been rebuilt. It was gorgeous!
This is the girls eating gingerbread cookies at the bakery. The recipe is original.


This is the rocking horse that John Taylor made for his son. When the family was leaving Nauvoo, his son was crying. They asked him what was wrong. He told his parents that he missed his rocking horse. John Taylor returned home, even though his life was being sought, to retrieve the rocking horse.

This is a picture of the trail that the saints took to leave their beautiful city. Far in the distance you can see the temple. This was one of the most special parts of the town.


Here the girls are practicing writing on slates like the pioneers did in the old school house.
Little Emma hugging her namesake.
Check out Emma's expression in this picture!

This is the room where the prophet and his brother were murdered. You can still see the tiny hole in the door where a bullet went through and killed Hyrum.
At the carthage jail visitor's center, all of the girls were looking at pass a long cards. I told them that they could take one, but that they should give them to someone who doesn't go to our church. Ally was so consumed with who she should give her card to. She ran up to this lady wearing the black shirt, gave her the card, and then ran off because she was so embarrassed. It was adorable.
More stories are to come. I wanted to go ahead and post the pictures.

Memorial Day Weekend in Winchester

Check out these adorable pics from our visit to Winchester. My grandmother went all out in planning everything. It was adorable!

Ally's Field Day

Check out our little athlete! Her kindergarten class won first place at field day!

Easter Part 2

We had yet another wonderful Easter weekend. Saturday and Sunday we watched conference on TV. The speakers were wonderful and it was nice to be reminded of what it is that we are celebrating this weekend. I walked away with a greater desire to strengthen my family and home and to all and all be my best self. Also on Saturday we attempted another egg hunt. This time Ally and Emma knew what they were doing and did some serious egg hunting! Some of the eggs had tickets inside that you could take to a pavilion and trade for a prize. Ally had two tickets so I slipped one to Emma with neither one of them realizing what I was doing. Both girls took their tickets to be redeemed for something special. Ally got a really cute pink and white teddy bear, one of the bigger prizes. Emma turned in her ticket proudly and got a tiny bunny eraser! Not noticing Ally's nice stuffed animal Emma turned to Ally and said, "Ally, look what I got!" in a nana-booboo tone! John and I were dying laughing! She never really seemed to catch on that once again, she got jipped! Later the girls helped us decorate our cake for Easter and dyed eggs. On Sunday we had Clark and Heather and the missionaries over for dinner. It was a wonderful sequal to last weekend.

Easter Part 1

Easter came a little early for us! We decided to go down to my mom and dad's for Easter a weekend early since conference is on Easter weekend. This year we attended the Athens Egg hunt at their very large park. I could not believe how many kids and parents were there! Hundreds! The egg hunt only lasted for about a minute. Ally found three eggs and Emma none! There were so many older kids who rushed in front of the little ones. One lady walked by Emma and dropped an egg in her basket. John and I were getting tickled at the the expressions on the girls' faces when we were trying to take their picture. They perked up quickly, though. We drove across the highway to the russel stover outlet and picked out chocolate bunnies and jelly beans!
As Nana and Mommy were driving home the Easter bunny was spotted. He must have heard that we were doing Easter early so he dropped of the girls' baskets at his favorite location-under Nana and Poppy's magnolia tree!

We squeezed in time for a nap and woke up Sunday morning and got ready for church in our Easter dresses. Ally and Emma had fun posing for pictures. We came home later and had Easter dinner. All and all, it was a wonderful visit.