#5 Daughter-In-Law (almost)

Today is Aleigh Joy Mellinger's birthday.  In about a year or maybe a little less she will be my daughter-in-law.  Even though we have traveled a rather rocky road to get to where we are today, I can honestly say that I love this girl like she was my own daughter.  She and Hunter fell in love waayyy too young and she was not a member of our faith so we faced many challenges in the early years.  Luckily, we were all singing from the same page in our goal to get Hunter on a mission so they were very obedient to our guidelines for their relationship.  Also, very luckily, she developed a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and had a strong desire to join our church.  During the early years I kept my distance from her because we were trying not to treat her any different from Hunter's other female friends.  The day he left for his mission it was like the floodgates opened and my feelings for her could finally come out into the open.  We had achieved our goal of getting our boy, worthily, out on his mission and I was finally free to love Aleigh.  That turned out to be exceptionally easy to do.  A few months after Hunter left she was able to be baptized into our faith and I discovered that she is the most like me of all my daughters-in-law.  I get along with her so well and she is like a sister to Savannah.  Everyone in our family loves her to pieces and can't wait until she becomes "Forever Moore".  She is very talented in baking and crafting and shopping.  She is very friendly and kind and sweet.  Her testimony is stronger than many life-long members and she is eager to learn what makes a marriage celestial.  She can't wait to give me grandbabies (yayyy!) and I know she will love my son with all of her heart forever.  Since my family has shrunk down to nearly nothing I really treasure our Sunday nights when she comes over for dinner and Family Night and she

loves making the treat every time:)  She is a wonderful girl and I'm so glad she is going to be in our family.  Happy Birthday, Aleigh Joy.  I love you!!!