Love and Spam

I have let my blog go this month.  I have been feeling very quiet, but I figured that I would do a little hodge podge post to catch up on recent events.  

From left to right:  I'm bringing sexy back yet again in my super swag paper doctor shorts.  Those things are pretty awesome, if you haven't had the chance to sport a pair.  My dilapidated body woes never seem to cease.  I will spare you the drama because I'm over it, but I'm going in for an injection tomorrow morning- hoping for a miracle.  (btw my insurance stinks and I'm going to have to pay out of pocket- it's done in a surgical suite - can you say cha ching?) It is "the year of miracles" according to our family goals this year, so here's to hope….and a tan for those pasty legs! Oh my sunshine, where art thou?

Jordyn has gone loom crazy.  I'm starting to have flashbacks to the 80's when she decides to wear all of her creations at once.  I am currently sitting next to a gigantic pile of rubber bands and a loom with the beginnings of a poodle being created on it.  She had to walk away out of frustration.  Apparently the guy on the youtube video was making no sense.  Poor girl.  

The cleaning product.  Well, I bought it the other day on the sole basis that it is Watkins.  It reminds me of my grandma.  My mom's mom.  She used to sell Watkins and while I was spraying down all the counters in the kitchen I had a nice little trip down memory lane.  If I were awesome, I'd have more to say about that, but I'm not, so I don't.  

This morning Jordyn was extremely nervous about getting her expander placed.  I thought she would handle the procedure well (which she did) but I'm worried about the day to day with it.  She went to school even though her mouth tasted "disgusting" and she couldn't control her drool because of the metal in her mouth.  What a little trooper.  Hopefully she's doing alright.  We're probably going to have to have ice cream for dinner to lift her spirits.  

Emma has been receiving college information nonstop since she took the PSAT.  She had a really high score.  I asked her if she was flattered that she was only in 10th grade and getting all this mail and she said " puff, no!  It's just spam!  Who said I wanted to be an engineer, anyway!"  I'm guessing that with her being in the super computing challenge and her scores they assumed that she wants to be an engineer.  Her email box if full of questionnaires that she refuses to take.  One of her friends that is a senior just pulled off the most awesome thing in Emma's book.  She's a senior and her parents made her apply to a certain college that she has no intentions of attending.  She actually wrote in her application that the only reason she was applying was because of her parents and 'this is why I won't go to your school' and 'even if I get accepted I won't go'……she got a scholarship from them.  hahaha Awesome!

Now for the forced love.  I've come up with a new parenting style in my home. My 2 oldest do not like to be touched or show affection of any kind.  I'm worried about them and I'm trying to correct some things so I came up with "hug therapy."  It's going quite well.  hahaha.  My 2 youngest cannot get enough hugs and shower me with verbal love.  After we were done looking at all of Emma's spam we somehow got into a crazy debate about moroccan shoes which somehow started because they were mocking my new shoes.  I did a search right then and there and showed the results to Jared and then I tried to reenact a scene from a skit…..only problem…I couldn't remember what they said.  I did the action and then just stood there trying to remember the phrase that went with it.  Ethan was there to save the day and said "mom, it's 'balance restored'" while doing the action too.  It was awesome.  My 2 oldest think I am the weirdest person in the world.  Ethan, on the other hand, said "mom you are the most interesting mom I know.  I don't know any other mom that would do that.  You're awesome."  To which I said, "and that is why Ethan is my favorite."  The 2 oldest continued to scoff and ridicule and then I remembered that they hadn't received their "therapy" for the day yet.  Jared ran into the closet forgetting that there was no way out.  The handle is missing on the inside.  I had to rescue him….he was trapped…..he got his therapy even though he was trying to actually crawl on the shelf to get away from me.   A moms gotta do what a moms gotta do!

Crossing Over

My little man did it.  He graduated from Webelo's AND he earned his arrow of light.  We were pretty excited that he earned the arrow of light.  We weren't as dedicated when Jared was going through and he didn't have as awesome of leaders as Ethan has had, so he never earned the arrow of light.  But he did just earn his Eagle so hopefully Ethan will continue strong in the program and get his as well.  We are so proud of our boys and their accomplishments.  

 Part of the ceremony tonight was to also cross the bridge into the 11 year old scouts.  Pretty exciting.  He is a real boy scout now…..which means he is growing up.  I guess it was bound to happen some time.  My husband turned to me during the ceremony and said "Ethan managed to make it all the way through webelos without a single patch or troop number sewn to his shirt…awesome"  then he proceeded to fist bump me.  Yep, I'm that kinda awesome Mom who can't seem to find the will to sew all the patches on his shirt.  Honestly, it was so much effort ripping all of Jared's off the shirt so he could use it that I had no will to sew all of his on after….I guess nowhere in 12 months I found the will.    Oops.  Does he look like he cares?  Jared has all of his sewn on his sash because…well... he has to have them on there for his eagle review!

This afternoon in the mail Emma got her full drivers license and it had her 18 yr and 21 year land mark dates on it.  Seeing that she will be 21 in the year 2018 freaked me out!  I'm seriously not ready for my kids to grow up.  Jordyn was in the orthodontist office today getting set up for braces.  My baby.  My last kid in braces….well Ethan still has phase 2, but you know what I mean! Crazy!  The new patient coordinator asked her if she was the baby and she said, "well, no.  I'm the littlest." 

 Sniff sniff. Tear tear.  

Money IS Math

This is just a little observation I have on the sadness of our society in regards to applied math.  We are talking basic math skills.  Minimum requirements for graduation from high school type math.  Simple addition and subtraction.  What everyone must know to engage in trade.  Goods for money.

I wish I could say it happens less often than not, but sadly it does not.  Let's take 2 instances that happened to me today.  First stop - Pei Wei.  I was out running errands and decided to grab a bite to eat while listening to some talk radio in the car - one of my favorite pastimes.  The bill was something like $6.48.  I handed the early 20's gentleman $12.00.  And here is where the dance begins...

I usually get a very strange look like I don't know how to count when I am working out what kind of change I want back.  My remark is either "just watch and wait for the magic, I promise it will work"  or I explain (like I did today) what I am trying to do.  The gentleman looked at me quizzically and probably had "blond" thoughts running through his head while I was having "educational" thoughts running through mine- while I observed his various piercings... he placed the 2 1 dollar bills on the counter and said "it's only 6.48 don't you just want to use the 10?"  I smiled ever so politely and said, "no, I want a 5 back from you."  He just shrugged his shoulders probably thinking I was a ding dong-when  low and behold, the cash register told him to give me a 5.  Really?  Really?  Are we graduating people from high school that deal with money all day long who are not able to put that kind of an equation together?

It happened again later when I owed $87.59 and I gave her $100.09….just .09 of the .59  She looked and counted it a couple of times and finally just entered the amount she was given and then slammed the door closed before giving me my change.  She probably would have been way too confused if I would have had 3.00 to give her in addition… mind blown!

It is always refreshing when you go somewhere and someone actually counts back your change to you in the way that gets you back to the amount you gave them.  Example.  You buy an item for 8.00 and you give the cashier 10.00 she would count back your 2.00 by saying: "8, 9,10 is your change."  You start with the amount of sale and then count each dollar back.  That is a rare bird indeed that you find that knows how to do that.  But from now on I'm going to give those rare birds a fist bump and congratulate them on keeping it classy!

Why oh why does no one know how to count money anymore? I also wonder how many of those are college educated with a worthless degree but hey! - they possibly "found themselves"  meanwhile they can't even count.  It saddens me.

Best Day of Ethan's Life - Ever!

What does it look like cramming 7 people into a car for a 7 hour drive?  

This!  Everyone survived in tact, so we're calling it a successful road trip!  Jared cannot be separated from his laptop for any length of time so he was seated right next to a plug to keep charged up for the duration.  

 Dad did some research to find something fun for us to do while we were in AZ.  He's still not sure how he found this ostrich farm or why Heavenly Father was looking down on Ethan so fondly to make this expedition happen.  As you can see by Jared's posture he thought this was the dumbest waste of time we could ever do and, no matter what, he was determined to not have fun at a "lame farm." (I told him that if there were a Dr Who convention I would have forced everyone to go to that with him) Emma wasn't exactly sold on the idea either, mostly because it was an hour drive, but as you can see…the fun began right away for her.  

 I gave Ethan his very own collage because, look at the amount of joy that it is on that kids face.  I thought he was going to explode from excitement.  If an ostrich would have dealt a deathly kick to the face and killed him, he would have died the happiest kid ever and with love in his heart for that ostrich. He thoroughly enjoyed everything there was to do on the farm which made it all the more enjoyable for me.  

The ostriches did prove to be feisty little/big things.  If you weren't careful you about got your hand taken off by them.  They can reach a lot farther than you think and so you've got to watch out.  I'm pretty sure we all got bit.

 ok, so there are seriously a TON of pictures.  Sorry, I hate choosing and believe me when I say, there are lots more that aren't here.  We fed donkeys, goats, baby goats, ostriches, ducks and birds.  We even went on a "monster truck ride."  It was a tour with a tiny bit of semi action.  nothing to write home about, but the lady was entertaining and had some fun facts for us.  I was not enjoying the dirt bath we received, especially since it was day 1 hair- no bueno.  

 Aside from feeding the goats mouth to mouth and almost loosing hands by the ostriches, the birds were next on the list of entertaining.  We all had some pretty hilarious facial expression as we got attacked by birds.  We didn't even get the lids taken off the little food cups before we were descended upon.  Those little beaks can work a lid off like nobody's business.  It was crazy.  Jordyn even got pooped on.  Good times!

I would also like to point out that Jared did in fact, enjoy himself.  I mean seriously, how could you not?  I don't care who you are, that was fun right there!

Home

We did it!  We made it to the open house of the Gilbert Temple.  

The process for going through the tour was down to a science and they did a great job of moving everyone through.  We weren't outside inline for more than 20 minutes before we got to see a 14 minute video presentation before proceeding into the temple.

 After all we went through to get there I couldn't control my emotions.  It started when that darn video started playing in the stake center.  It was a presentation about temples and eternal families.  We had a very small group.  Just the 7 of us and a mother daughter behind us.  I was sitting in the front row and having a hard time hiding my face from the sister missionaries.  I don't like getting all blubbery in front of people. 

It got worse when we actual stepped foot inside the temple and I was trying to point out things and tell the kids -as best I could considering the pace we were moving- about what they were seeing.  I was worried about being too emotional and having the kids think I was trying too hard to force some spiritual experience on them and I didn't want them to get emotional because I was crying and not be able to trust their own emotions….does that make sense?  So I was trying the best I could to keep the tears to a minimum.  My husband thought it was adorable and reminded me that it wasn't even a dedicated building yet.  It was already dedicated in my heart.

Aside from all the structural stunning features and the fact that it is the 6th largest temple, I was experiencing something other than esthetics.  The best way to describe it would be to say, it feels like home.  It feels like a fullness of ones potential realized.  The individual purpose and plan for me is realized and is glorious. The profound truth that families are eternal is found within.  I think of all my ancestors and what they have done for me and what I am doing for my posterity.  I marvel that love is eternal.  God is my real father in heaven.  I belong to him and understand what that means.  There were also new feelings brought on by being there with my entire family.  The one my husband and I created here.  It was kinda like my own vision of the tree of life and sharing it with my children.  

Time is short.  There is much to be done.  Let's do it!

Hopefully my children will write of their own experience going through the open house.  We had a great conversation after.  It was fun to talk about the different things we noticed and felt.   I am hoping this will turn into one of those experiences that they can hold onto for the rest of their lives when storms of fear and doubt descend upon them, they can look back on this day and remember what they felt and knew.  Like in Elder Holland's talk 'Lord I Believe'- "hold fast to what you already know"

ps, I asked Jared why he always looks like he is ready to kill someone in all our pictures.  He said, "because I am."  Nice! lol

One last thing.  We got home just in time to go to our stake youth fireside about the Mutual theme for 2014.  It goes along with this post perfectly.  It is Moroni 10:32 

"Yea, ^acome unto Christ, and be ^bperfected in him, and ^cdenyyourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and ^dlove God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be ^eperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

Forward With Faith

I'm pretty sure my immune system is shutting down on me.  I am not someone who gets sick and when I do it's usually for a day.  I got sick at the New Year then I was well, but not great for a week and then on Saturday I was having a hard time talking myself into doing much of anything.  By Sunday I had a strange dry spot in my throat that was causing me to cough.  I got pegged after church to sub for one of the seminary teachers for the next day.  What happens while I'm preparing the lesson?  A full blown cough emerges.

My husband just asked me what I was doing.  I told him that I was writing about going forward with faith.  He said "we do that all the time"  you should call it "forward with the flu" or "forward with faith and the flu."

Back to seminary preparation..... It was a good lesson.  It was King Lamoi and Ammon and Aaron and King Lamoni's dad (who doesn't have a name)  I had to combine 2 lessons which was hard to because they both had so much good stuff in them. All I could do as my cough worsened and my body began to ache was to pray that I could pull myself together enough and pull my sorry body out of bed the next morning at 5 to get myself there.  I prayed that my cough would be gone enough to be able to teach and went forward with faith.  It worked and as of last night, no one in the seminary class was infected with my illness.  The lesson went pretty good and hopefully I got a couple of those questions in that will stick with them for awhile and cause their hearts to change.  

By Tuesday my cough was subsiding and I had lots to do to prepare for a joint activity I was in charge of on Wed and the house to get ready for Emma's friend to come hang out with our animals while we left on our pilgrimage to the gilbert temple open house.  I was moving full steam ahead trying to ignore the fact that my body was not doing that great.

Wed I was sensing trouble and by the time evening hit,  I knew I was in trouble and was going to have to offer up pleadings again that I could pull it together enough to get the activity set up for the other leaders so that I could go to a mother daughter activity with my youngest that was during the same time.  I was again moving forward with faith.  I set up all the pvc pipes and got the floor all taped for human foosball before meeting Jordyn for her activity.  The thought of letting her down on such a special event wasn't a possibility.  I had a resurgence of energy and made it through.

When I finally got back home and had to pull everything together for the trip so that when I picked the kids up early from school we were all packed and ready.  I found myself laying on the floor with the thought of lifting something as light as a sock too much effort for my body.  At this point I started thinking that my immune system must be shutting down because surely I couldn't be getting worse after already being sick since Sunday.  I found myself again moving forward with faith.

I slept pretty horribly and at midnight went downstairs to see if I had a fever because I was feeling like death.  It was only 99 but I prayed that I could somehow pull through this and that sleep would cure me.  We are taking my niece with us and she has been so excited so I couldn't let her down.  My friend was looking forward to our visit and then the most important part of the trip....  Providing a spiritual experience for my kids.  By 5 I felt like I was burning up and my body was aching so terribly that I drug myself down the stairs again to check and I had a 101.5 fever.  Crap.  I still did not except defeat.  Evil dude was not going to keep us from the temple.

I decided to wake up my husband at this point and give him the bad news and tell him that I needed a blessing.  I was willing to accept an non anointed blessing because I didn't think calling anyone was an option.  I decided to stay downstairs and eat an early breakfast so I could take a bunch of advil and move forward with faith.  At 6 am a knock was at the door and our sweet neighbor and friend came over to help Nate give me a blessing.  My husband hates to call people and hates to bug people so this was a pretty big deal.  I felt very loved.  My fever has been gone since then except as I'm sitting in the car on our way and typing this I started feeling that feverish feeling again... It's not too  bad, just 100.5.  But I don't feel like dying so that's good.

The wife of the man that came over txt me and told me that she would pray for me so that we could go on our trip.  I told her that nasty dude was not winning this battle.  She said "of course he's not, we've go the priesthood."  So true,  We do have the priesthood and that gives us a huge advantage.  We may loose some of the battles, but we will never loose the war.

My friend in Az called me a couple hours later and told me that her kids were dropping like flies to the flu.  The only hitch that gave us is that we were going to send a couple of the kids to stay with her while the rest of us stayed in a hotel. Our room isn't big enough for 7 of us to stay in.  It is a problem that is easily solved with more money for another hotel room.  Again just moving forward with faith.  I know I was supposed to ask my niece to come with us, so a little extra money when doing the right thing against powers not of our control is nothing but a thing.

I have a picture we took of our family's feet standing on a log that is hanging in our family room and below the picture it says "faith in every footstep."  I love it.  The Lord expects you to keep moving forward and not sit around waiting for conditions to make themselves perfect.  There is no faith in that.  So we just have to pray and have faith and when we are doing the right things we will be given the strength to accomplish those things.

There is an important element to the phrase, "move forward with faith"  you can't forget the last part of that, which is the most important and where the power is.. "move forward in faith of Christ"  if I were at my home computer and not on my mini, I would look up the scripture and quote it because their is power in the scriptures, so I'll just have to leave it for individual study.

Hopefully we don't have anymore hurdles for this trip, but I know if we do we can be strengthened in all things thru faith in Jesus Christ.  

As I gave this the once over before hitting "publish"  we got pulled over...luckily it was just a warning.  Oh dear

In Print

It came in the mail yesterday.  My largest blog book to date.  

The kids saw it sitting on the counter and couldn't believe how huge it was.  I have every year since I started blogging in 2007.  The one from 2013 was the size of 3 previous years.  The cool thing is what my kids find enjoyable to mock me about…..my super spiritualness.  They tease me about it all the time.  Just the other night when I was reminding my husband that he was our sherpa Jared (my science kid who places a large value on worldly knowledge) paid me one of the biggest compliments he could by saying that I was the trainer of all sherpas.  I'll take it because the kids have no doubt in their mind what their Mom believes.  

One of the phrases of the Book of Mormon that I remind myself of all the time is found in Alma 56:

47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the ^aliberty of their ^bfathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their ^cmothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their ^amothers, saying: We ^bdo not doubt our mothers knew it.

There they all are.  All 7 years.  I will admit that it gives me a certain amount of pride to see the legacy I'm leaving for my posterity.  That they will know who we were and what we believed and hopefully gain strength and testimony from it.  It has already strengthened my own testimony to go back and read.  The natural man seems too eager to forget what he already knows.  

There is a quote by Benjamin Franklin that Elder Oaks used in a book I just read by him, "Life's Lessons Learned" 

"In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility."

I love that!  It makes me chuckle at it's truthfulness!  

There are the previous 6 years.  I'm either going to have to make more copies or figure out who to will them all to :)  I just need to combine more years and do them in paperback so each of the kids can have them.  

S spiritual S special F forces

So, on Saturday I went with the hubby and saw…..wait for it…..a….rated….R….movie!  I know, I know.  What kind of example am I?  One that has her own brain and makes her own decisions, that's who.  I think it's the first rated R movie i've seen in, i don't know, forever because my own mind chooses obedience -most of the time.   I walked away from the movie with zero regret but a stronger resolve to enlist in the special forces of life.  I love hero movies and stories.  They resonate with my soul.  This was a hero movie -"The Lone Survivor."

I have been reading Elder Bednar's book "Increase in Learning…." Yep, I'm going there!  I'm going to get all spiritual after my confession :)  My husband has begun to worry about my state of mind because I am getting frustrated in my ability level.  I'm comparing myself to someone on the spiritual olympic team and I can't even qualify for an event!  I was born with the attitude that "if (insert name) can do it, than I can do it" and "how hard can it be?"  Well, this kind of attitude can leave you frustrated with yourself if you're not careful.  You need a certain amount of frustration to propel you forward but not too much that you give up.

Anyway, all I can say about the book is that it is inspiring while also producing feelings of defeatism.  I'll explain.

A few days before I saw the movie and after feeling like a major failure in my calling because I can't seem to inspire anyone to do anything (insert a big Yes!  I know, it's the holy ghost that does the inspiring, I'm just the outlet), I ended up giving my president a pep talk for the very same thing.  After everyone left the bus stop we stood there and I ended up comforting her over the same things I was struggling with.  Isn't life interesting how it works sometimes?  I got to give myself a pep talk by giving it to someone else.  That's why charity never faileth.

It's frustrating when you've been given all the tools for success, but then you have to remember that everything is on the Lord's timetable and everyone has free/moral agency and all you can do is strive to have the spirit with you and go where you are supposed to go as best as you can figure out.  I feel like we are living in a time when the world's pull on our youth is so strong it feels debilitating sometimes.  As leaders we are on the battlefield for souls and some of our youth are sitting down on the battle field and refusing to pick up their guns and go to the front lines.  We've also got dissenters which is equally heartbreaking.  Our job as leaders on the field is to never accept defeat and to keep pushing forward and to give tons of "you can do this!" pep talks.

After formulating this analogy of the battlefield I saw the movie.  It only reinforced the feelings that I've been having.  I told my husband that everyone should enter into navy seal training.  That's one of the big things wrong with us.  Our give up attitude.  This is too hard.  I shouldn't have to do this.  Expecting a lot of people is too cruel.  Everyone is special.  All love is good.  Tolerance and compassion have been twisted and defiled.  Whatever you have should be mine too.  I should never temper any desire.  Work hard for something you want, what's that?  (while I'm listing crappy things- this healthcare debacle will go down as the biggest theft of the american people's money of all time) All poisonous attitudes that could be cured by some seal training.  So, how do you convince someone to enter into spiritual special forces training?  I got sick with despair thinking about how hard it will be.  I picture the scene at the end of  Red Dawn -he newer one- (which was barely tolerable as a movie -the old one was better- especially because of the acting) where what's his name is standing on the hill telling everyone that he's not there to convince anyone to do anything because what they needed to do was hard and people were going to die, but it would be worth it - at least that's essentially what he said.

Back to my book and what got despair creeping in was Elder Bednar's answer to everything.  "What doctrine or principle, if understood", would help me understand xyz.  You've got to do the work yourself and it's hard and committed work!  That's the only way you are going to be converted.  You have to be an agent who acts, not one who is acted upon.  Our youth are used to being acted upon.  I realized that the principles in this book, if implemented, were the special forces training that I was thinking about.  There have been so many great articles about the new teaching method and how positive the response has been and all the awesome success stories.  Me?  Not so much.  I feel like I am surrounded by the taliban and there are only 4 of us to the couple hundred of them.  What I've got to remember is the attitude of those brave men.  "It's not over until you're dead."  There is no time to think or entertain the idea of hope being lost.  You fight with everything you got, take the hits that you get and keep moving forward.  You never quit until your body gives out.  The adversary would love nothing more than me to feel like the odds were not in my favor and I should just give up.  

I've got a son that is super into science and we just got in an argument about cryogenics saturday night. If he can't explain it by science it doesn't exists or if it can be explained by science it holds no spiritual value.  My goal is to get him to feel and recognize the spirit.  We were talking specifically about the soul and the heart.  I'm also having a hard time trying to find the balance between letting him make his own decisions and making some of them for him because he isn't capable of forcing himself out of his comfort zone.  There are lots of battlefields.

I have also been called out (by my family) on my focusing too much on the things we don't do instead of the things we are doing.  I feel that we are too quick to make excuses for ourselves and it frustrates me.  I've got more of the attitude "yeah, you're hands blown off, so what?  Use the other one." When you see an olympic team, it makes you want to be on that team…..at least for me.  But I've got to keep the hopes up of my family of making that team.  So, I've got to work harder at celebrating the successes and looking for ways to encourage rather than discourage and lighten up…..although, when you're on the battlefield and have a perfect understanding of what's at stake, it's easier said than done, but I've got to try.

A couple of the stand out things from the book that I like are:  (it helps if you can get Elder B's voice in your head while you read these)
The nature of our spirt
Knowledge is the head
Understanding is the heart (or according to my son, the brain stem)
Intelligence is what we become as we act in accordance to what we know and feel

"If you give an answer to a question that information will never be retained but if you seek it out for yourself you will always remember it.  Some lessons are better caught than taught."

So, I'm in the spiritual special forces or SSF.  My job is to do the best I can and keep from ringing the "washout" bell and having to place my helmet on the ground next to the others who've quit.  The great thing that I have (we all have) is access to the atonement to make up for all that I (we) lack so that I never need ring the bell.  

Matthew 11:29

28 ¶^aCome unto me, all ye that ^blabour and are heavy laden, and I will give you ^crest.

 29 Take my ^ayoke upon you, and ^blearn of me; for I am ^cmeek and^dlowly in ^eheart: and ye shall find ^frest unto your souls.

 30 For my yoke is ^aeasy, and my burden is light.

The Bee Honor

I have successfully completed the requirements for the "Honor Bee."  I was recognized in church on Sunday along with one of my Mia Maids that received her personal progress award along with her advancement certificate to Laurels and a couple of boys had birthdays with advancements as well.  Oh and there were 2 youth baptisms that got recognized.  I was the lone adult pretending to be a youth.  We are having a hard time keeping the girls motivated, so I like to lead out by example.

As an adult and leader it is pretty easy to meet the requirements by simply being alive.  I used encouraging Jared on getting his Eagle paperwork completed and what goes along with that.  I used family history and temple attendance and teaching lessons and mutual activities.  Helping Emma get her honor bee hours.  When you track your progress online it is very easy to calculate your hours because there is a little counter built in.  Super easy.  I'm going for a second one now because I need one to go on my gold necklace.  :0)  Then, depending on how long I'm in yw this time, I just may start pp again or wait and do it again with Jordyn when she enters yw in 2 1/2 years…..YOWZA! Official old lady status when that happens!

The requirements are:

What Do I Do When I Complete Personal Progress? 

Completing the Personal Progress program is a significant step in strengthening your faith and testimony and preparing for temple covenants. You have learned how to make commitments, carry them out, and report your progress. This process should continue as you remain on the path to the temple and continue to develop qualities that will help you throughout your life. You may continue your progress by earning an Honor Bee or by beginning Personal Progress again.

Earn an Honor Bee

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. A daily habit of scripture study will strengthen your faith and help you receive personal inspiration and guidance throughout your life. If you read just five minutes a day, you can complete the entire Book of Mormon in one year.

2

Serve others for a total of 40 hours. Where possible, some of these hours should include mentoring another young woman with her Personal Progress. This should be done under the direction of the ward or branch Young Women presidency. As you help another young woman, you may want to:

• Be her friend.
• Be an example of a righteous daughter of God.
• Encourage her to work with her parents in selecting appropriate value experiences and projects.
• Help her follow through with value experiences and projects.
• Help her keep records of value experiences and projects.
• Help her understand the gospel principles that the value experiences and projects teach.
• Encourage her to read the Book of Mormon, and discuss with her what she is reading.
• Encourage her to share value experiences and projects with her family.

Dinner Anyone?

Every year the kids make resolutions to try new foods.  They do this because all of them, with the exception of Ethan, hardly eat anything.  Emma's goal was to try fish (we had salmon) and Jared's was to try a banana  (he eats 0 fruits or vegetables)  Last year Emma made the goal to try a hamburger and was completely successful (by successful I mean she will eat most of one if nothing else is available and the patty is thin enough).  I almost forgot - she also started eating ham sandwiches…if they are on a roll and she started eating eggs and bacon on a english muffin.  Jared was supposed to try a fruit or vegetable and I'm pretty sure he tried one of both and met with the same outcome as dinner on Tuesday night.  

On Tuesday night Emma and Jared decided to dare each other to try their foods.  Neither of them trusted the other to go first and then have the other follow thru after -which was probably wise since Jared always finds the loophole in any dare he agrees to.  They had decided to both go at the same time but then Jared decided to just get it over with and go first.  

My family has texture issues.  Banana's for a texturally challenged person is pretty horrifying because they have a slimy mushiness to them.  Jared couldn't even touch it with his fingers without grossing out.  There was nothing texturally wrong with the salmon for Emma, just taste problems.  Ethan was so amused by this entire process that he filmed the 10 minute torture session.  In both cases it ended with gagging and spiting it out in the sink.  Jordyn was supposed to try some banana as well and she just up and left crying at the mere mention of the task.   That is her plate between Emma and Jared with the empty chair.  We all laughed and said "she gone!" (gone is pronounced gawn)

Fun family times for dinner!

With my snobby genes and Nate's texture genes our poor kids have hardly a chance when it comes to eating!  We're not sure what happened with Ethan, but he eats practically anything and loves to tell me how good of a cook I am.  I think he was sent to our family to keep me from giving up entirely on cooking for my family. At least the kids are trying.  You only fail when you fail to try.  I'm also hoping for some maturation of the taste buds that will come with age.  I was really picky as a kid and love most things now as an adult.  I just kept trying things over and over until I liked them.  Nate grew up surviving off of toast and applesauce and you would hardly know it now.  So, there's hope.  There's always hope :0)

For Fun

Jared decided he needed to challenge his mind a little more this year.  What did he think would be super fun?  Learning Mandarin. It was right up his ally of fun and excitement.  He is the only kid in his school that has taken it in the last 3 years.  The teacher that oversees his language doesn't know Mandarin so I'm not sure how she grades his notes- the class is online, but his notes have to be checked by a live person.  

He is loving how hard it is and everyday he's got something new to tell me about what he's learning.  Everyday he is also coming to me with the realization that this is going to be a lot harder than he thought.  There is excitement in his eyes when he tells me how to know what each component of the characters mean that ultimately make up one word.  He is loving it and I love that he has something to love.  He's had to write a couple of songs and stories for the class and it's been fun.  I got one of the songs stuck in my head- except I was just making up a bunch of gibberish because I didn't know the words.  

After a semester of this language, I had a crazy thought.  Maybe he would have even more fun if he could try and read The Book of Mormon in Mandarin.  It was pretty confusing online trying to figure out what to order so I ended up ordering 2.  One is completely in Hanzi which is the characters for Mandarin and the other is the language study edition.  The study edition has 3 columns - english, hanzi and pinyin (the written word form of the language)

The books arrived in the mail today and he was pretty stoked.  I keep reminding him that this is no guarantee that he will actually serve a mission in China for the church but he can enjoy the language and go there on his own.  The other added bonus is that when China comes to collect their debts and it looks like we are playing out the movie Red Dawn - he will know what's going on.  Wolverines!!! ;0)

Ethan is Eleven

Here he is, the birthday boy.  Eleven years ago at around 5 am while I was trying to sleep down on the couch, my water broke.  The one and only child that broke their own water.  It was pretty miraculous timing because my husband was on his way out the door to fly his plane down to Artesia to see patients in his clinic there (which he has neither the plane nor the Artesia clinic anymore).  He would have missed the birth had he got on the plane.  As it was, I almost didn't make it to the hospital in time.  I got back into a room and on the table just in time for him to make his grand entrance into the world. 

Not only did he score lunch with me today, we went out to dinner at the place of his choosing tonight to celebrate.  He got an 8 oz stake and was happy as could be that we let him order it.  

 Ethan wanted to blow out the candles on the apple crisp instead of the cupcakes because the kids thought it was more funny.  Plus he just genuinely loved that I made it for him.  It looks like we've got some budding picture actors among us.   

 So, I'm a lazy mom.  He got to open his presents directly from the box they were shipped in.  Yep, I'm a rock star!  Seriously though, what's the point in wrapping?  I don't get it.  He got what he wanted and that's all that matters.  I haven't decided if I should start worrying about his mental state.  He really wanted a ski mask with a skull on it.  I got the least scary one I could find.  

Jared was pretending to be evil with his evil cat while we sampled all 6 of the cupcakes I bought.  They were nothing to get excited about, but they weren't bad….which is pretty good….i've tried plenty of cupcakes in my life that I've paid good money for and spit them out….these made it through to digestion.  Jared didn't eat a single one.  He doesn't like chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream but is obsessed with chocolate milk and is always talking about cocoa beans.  strange kid….that's a picture of him eating air because he doesn't eat fruit either so the apple crisp was a no go for him as well.  

Ethan is a joyful, loving, smart, adventurous kid and I love being on this journey with him, seeing the world through his eyes.  

And Then There Was One

Thursday at 11:55 pm while deep in REM sleep, I got an angry txt from my oldest:

When we took in the 2 kittens we already had Zazzles.  There was no way I was becoming "one of those people"  who had a kajillion cats.  So, naturally they needed to be outdoor cats.  Well, Zazzles got hit by a car in October and now Micah has gone missing.  

The next morning I awoke to a lecture from Jared (as close to crying as he gets over mushy feelings) about the insanity of us keeping the cats outside when we are only getting them killed.  Upon his instance we loaded up in the car and went driving around to look for him.  I didn't tell the kids that the only thing we were looking for was his remains on the side of the road.  It was unlikely that we were going to see him trolloping through the mesa and call him over to the car for a lift home.  Our search was fruitless, so we are left to imagine what happened to him - the kid's theory is that someone found him and decided to keep him - we'll go with that.

And then there was one.  Because of our cat killing track record, I caved and let Butterscotch be an indoor cat.  We have concluded that he hatched an evil plan to get rid of the other 2 so he could live indoors.  Butter has taken to crying a lot though and staring out the window.  I think he is still calling to  his brother.  How sad is that?  He is the calmest cat of the 3 so I guess that's a plus.  I just pray that he sticks around for a bit because I'm not sure how much more pet death the kids can handle.  

Speaking of death…..I am seriously bummed that my favorite addiction will no longer be available to me.  What a world, what a world!  It is totally making me super sad.

OK, something that has nothing to do with death but I'm throwing it in anyway.  Today is Ethan's 11th birthday.  On my way home from the temple this morning I decided to stop in a new cupcake place to get some for his birthday.  Hopefully they are good, but few know how to make a good cupcake so my expectations aren't too high but my fingers are crossed.

When I asked Ethan what kind of dessert he wanted he said he wanted apple pie.  Jared was on the ready with a joke "stick candles in a cake and it's a birthday cake, stick candles in a pie and grandma's drunk in the kitchen."  I forget who says that joke, but it is someone and it is seriously funny!  I showed Ethan a picture of the cupcakes when I took a special lunch to him at school this afternoon and asked if he still wanted the pie and if he wanted me to make it or buy it…..as you can see from the below pic…I made him an apple crisp….with my canned apple pie filling….I'm getting frighteningly low on it and I'm gonna need to can some more soon!

 

 Since I'm doing unrelated things…..I had 2 yw to buy birthday gifts for yesterday and so we got to enjoy some ice-cream as well because- well- I was already there getting it for the girls- so of course we needed some too.  Nate knows that one of my pet peeves is when he sticks his spoon directly into the container of ice cream.  I caught him in the process and begged him to get another spoon.  Well, he did... and then he had 2 spoons that he ate out of the carton with!  

Happy New Year!

Well, I'm off to a slow start this year keeping up on the 'ole blog.  I've had quite a lot on my mind, but none of it's ready to share here, so I've just been keeping quiet.  

We did have an awesome New Year celebration though.  There is so much I could say if this were not my public journal.  I can say that this coming together was not even a possibility 1 year ago.  Life can change dramatically in the course of just 1 year.  Actually in 1 moment that leads to lots of small moments strung together that change your life- if you will let Heavenly Father guide you.  It's takes a truck load of humility and trust to accomplish such a feat, but it is amazing to behold what the Lord can do if only you let him.  

This last year taught me that I don't have everything figured out and that's ok.  I have recently read a couple of amazing books by amazing men that are opening my eyes as to how to seek truth and the difference between wisdom and knowledge and how to live as a disciple of Christ- because it is hard to figure out.  I have to stop myself from getting jealous over the opportunities that I was not given to be raised and brought up among the great leaders of the church.  I wasn't placed in the preverbal petri dish of spiritual awesomeness to be nourished and shaped into greatness.  I sometimes wish that I could just stand in the shadow or touch the sleeve of some of my favorite apostles and a little bit of their spiritual maturity would rub off on me.  Kinda like the lady who touched the garment of Christ.  

For all my wishing about living in shadows, I read another great book about David and Goliath that has helped me to see what I really do have.  You see, I have been given a spiritual petri dish to be nourished in.  I just didn't see the gift for what it was.  I am lucky to be surrounded by "ordinarily" great people.  I have several people in my life whom I admire greatly.  Every opportunity I've been given has strengthened me.  I get to be a big fish in a little pond in my part of the vineyard instead of being a little fish in a big pond living among so many righteous people (don't get me wrong -  there are plenty of unrighteous among the righteous).   

I've always preferred the mission field because I tried out living in a big pond for awhile and didn't do very well- it brought out the rebel in me :0)   Reading those books about great men had me yearning for a more perceived perfect environment which I now know I don't need, because if I did, the Lord would get me there.  So, long story short - I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be….until I'm not ;0)

I had to include all the pics we took because Ethan and Bridger were crack ups.  

There's nothing you can't accomplish with the Lord on your side.  Our family goal this year or more accurately put- family motto- is "the year of miracles" and "in all things increase our faith"

Happy New Year!