Happy Birthday Melly wa!!!

Happy Birthday Melanie! Today is my sweet cousins birthday, so as she did for me I decided to declare my love for her in a post. First I have to say that while looking through my pictures I was very sad to notice that I had very few pictures of her. I have tons of pictures of events that I know we were both at, or pictures where I knew she was standing behind the camera like at my kids baptisms for example. I have tons of pictures of her while we were kids and from before I went digital but no scanner, so Mel you lucked out on some of what could be very embarrassing shots and know that from now on I am going to make sure that we get more pictures together! I am so so so so (that's 4 so's) lucky to have Melanie in my life. She is truly one of the greatest people I have ever known and I feel honored to be able to call her my friend. I think of the saying "Family by chance, friends by choice" and have to give a shout out to my mother and my aunt Susie for getting pregnant within a year of each other, both having girls, therefore giving us the chance to be not only family but great friends as well, so thanks! Anyways, Mel and I have been pals for as long as I can remember. Even after she moved when we were kids, and further away, for a while as adults, whenever we got back together it was buddies as usual like we've never spent a day apart. I cherish my friendship with Melanie so much. She has been someone to look up to and someone with qualities that I admire and will work a life time to achieve. I don't know if she realizes but Melanie just being Melanie, was the greatest example of faith and goodness and one of the main reasons I even started thinking about going to the Temple. She was there for me to answer all my questions but never pushed. Obviously Temple blessings cant be topped and I will always have Melanie to thank for leading me in that direction. Not only is she a woman with such great faith and goodness to be admired she is such a great friend and so much stinkin' fun! I have the best time when we are together, we have so much in common which gives us so many options of things to go do together. No matter what we do it is always a blast. For a while now we have been scrap booking together ,the picture above is from when we were at a scrap-away in Park City and stopped at the outlets to shop (cute cousin/friend Katie and Little baby Zayla also pictured).
This is Melanie with Paige when she came to see me at the hospital. Another great thing about Melanie is that she is so great with kids. All my kids just absolutely love her (and gorgeous). We went on vacation with them years ago and we all had so much fun. Ever since then my kids have wanted to go somewhere with them again (which we need to do) but are always so excited to do anything when they know that Melanie will be there and mad when they are not invited. Everyone that knows Melanie knows what a great person she is, and I have already wrote a ton and realize that I can go on forever writing about what I like about about her, so I am going so stop now and sum it up with a list (I know, shocker), a list of the things that Mel has been for me.

• Someone who by example lead me and my family to the temple.
• Someone I know I can always count on.
• Someone I can trust.
• Someone I can be exactly who I am with and know that she will love me for it.
• Someone I can eat in the car with.
• Someone who brought me book club (which I love).
• Someone who brought me Race for the Cure (which is such a neat and special day and I love).
• Someone I can sing "9 to 5" with walking down the street and she doesn't cringe when she hears how awful my voice really is.
• Someone who will listen to my goals and is always supportive and encouraging every time I start over.
• Someone that makes Family Reunions bearable.
• Someone who always knows the perfect thing to say to make me feel better.
• Someone who likes pedicures and spa treatments as much as I do.
• Someone who likes Mania as much as I do.
• Someone no matter where we are or what the situation is always makes me feel better knowing shes around.
• Someone my kids adore.
• Someone that my husband knows my time spent away from him and with you is always good for me.
• Someone that knows the words to every song on 99.5 and other stations as well.
• Someone that claims to hate country music but I remember very vividly her listening to Sawyer Brown on many occasions.
• Some one that has her very own Walmart.
• Someone who has always been a example and someone for me to look up to.
• Someone I would hate to disappoint making her the angel on my shoulder when I am faced with a choice of right or wrong.
• Someone who is such a good and cute mom, and I love hearing about how much she loves her son.
• Someone I love and am so grateful that she is in my life.
• Someone who I know will be one of my greatest influences in my life.
• Someone who for every year from now on will dress up like a witch and dance around Gardner's Village with me for as long as we both can walk and after that can push me in a wheel chair.
• Someone that I am so proud and lucky to have as a friend.

OK my list to sum things up was very long, just think if I would of wrote about all of them how long it would of been. I love you Melanie, you are a truly genuine and special person. I hope you have a awesome Birthday, you deserve it and so much more!