Happy Birthday Mary Rose!!!

Mary Rose Estep turns 1 year old today. It has been probably the fastest year of my life!

Look at those teeth!! She has 5 now, 3 top and 2 bottom.

Mary Rose loves honey nut cheerios, ice cream, and pizza crust. Her favorite person right now is her big brother Jesse. She clings to him like a little monkey and cries if he tries to get someone else to hold her.

She's not walking yet, but she can stand up on her own and balances pretty good. Mary Rose is also a fast crawler.

Her favorite mommy and daddy toys are mommy's phone and the remote control. Her favorite baby toy is a baby book that crinkles when you squeeze it.

Mary Rose's favorite colors are pink and purple because she doesn't have a choice. :)

She's not talking yet, but she makes all kinds of talking-style noises like da-da-da-da and she mimics words pretty good. She's great at saying "ow!" whenever someone gets hurt and says ow!

Mary Rosetta is the youngest of 9 children and she has 4 brothers and 4 sisters.

Happy Birthday, Sugar Bear!

One out of Two isn't bad.

I was right on President Eyring but the second counselor is Dieter F. Uchtdorf, which is much harder to pronounce, though fortunately his English has gotten better over the past few years, even though he'd spoken English his entire adult life (a requirement to be an airline pilot, even in Germany).

I'm reminded of the saying, "The King is dead, God save the King" that is used in England when a monarch dies. It signifies that death does not leave the country leaderless, nor does it do so with the LDS Church. Upon President Hinckley's death, President Monson assumed leadership as the President of the Quorum of Apostles which became the highest governing body in the Church. President Monson had already had that position for nearly 13 years and Boyd K. Packer was "acting" president. President Packer is now in his own right President of the Quorum of Apostles, though a new Apostle has not been named.

Obligatory First Presidency Prediction

Since President Hinckley died, there needs to be a new first presidency in the Church. That will be announced in just over a half hour. Since we Mormons just love to speculate on such things, I'm going to give my own "predictions" here.

President Monson will be the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (duh!)

I speculate that he will choose as his counselors Henry B. Eyring and L. Tom Perry (my alternate guess would be Dallin H. Oaks)

A new apostle could also be announced today (but probably in April at General Conference) and my totally "pulled out of my butt" speculation is that it will be one of the following:

Gerald N. Lund
Claudio R. M. Costa
Earl C. Tingey
Marlin K. Jensen
Lance B. Wickman

Again, these are all just guesses. I claim no knowledge (nor prophecy) so when I'm wrong just shut up. :)