Back to life.....

The funeral for Granny held Friday the 16th (on Mike's birthday) was beautiful and a, true testament to the way she lived her life. Many of her grandchildren spoke of her positive influence on their lives and of her fun spunk and humor. All of her grandchildren were there too, flying in from New Jersey, Minnesota, Alaska and California. There were lots of tears but lots of laughs also....she was a funny lady! Mike's youngest brother, Len, officiated the funeral and I know that Granny was looking down so proud of him!!!

The whole Mjolsnes family

All of Granny's grandchildren

Mike's mom with her boys

It has been a long 2 weeks since her passing and many of us are emotionally drained and many of us have gotten sick to top it all off. This is mid-winter break week for the kids though and we will use this time to relax, get well and rejuvenate.

In the midst of all the family stuff last week we still had to squeeze in a few other events. Hailey and Kyla both participated in a beautiful ceremony at our church on Wednesday evening. They both were dressed like beautiful princess' and along with others in their youth group they both made a pledge and covenant to live out a life of sexual purity and integrity. It was such a beautiful evening and Mike and I were so extremely proud of them both. I didn't take any pictures (crazy if you know me) but there was an official photographer there taking photos so as soon as I get those I will post them because they looked gorgeous!!!!

Mike also didn't forget all his special girls on Valentine's day. When we came down for breakfast on Wednesday morning there was beautiful breakfast table set with flowers, presents and Valentine chocolates for all of his girls, including little Gracie. He bought us all new Bibles, I got the Bible Experience (mp3 version to load on my Zune), Hailey got a cool small red metal encased Bible which is easy to carry around, Kyla got a Faithgirlz Bible with corresponding journal and Grace got her 1st Bible too! What a special man I am married to. It was such a stressful week for him with all the funeral arranging and with work but he still remembered his girls.

Then on Thursday night Hailey's history class was showcasing projects with the theme "Tragedy to Triumph". Hailey and her friend Alli partnered up to create a project about the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz. They even were able to personally interview a woman who survived the ordeal as a little girl. Their presentation was wonderful and they are going to take their project to the regional competition in a couple weeks.

Since Mike's birthday landed on the same day as the funeral, we made sure that when he came home on Friday night there was some fun surprises waiting for him and then we made him a special dinner last night with his favorite apple pie dessert. We will get to do a more formal celebration later in the week with family. Happy birthday honey!!!! One more year until the big one!!!!

Also......My Firefly secret pal rocks!!!! I love all the cute ribbons (especially the cherry one!), the socks and tights! What a wonderful treat in a very hectic week!!! Thank you so much!

Finally, we didn't get to do any Chinese New Year celebrating this year but I hope everyone has a happy "Year of the Pig"!!! Hopefully this will be the year we see a speed up in the referrals and we get to bring our babies home!!!