Change

The last few weeks I have been reflecting upon the seasons and time of year.  I see everyone's gratitude posts on facebook.  I am truly grateful for so many things.  As I think about all of those things I fell such an overwhelming feeling of gratitude.  I feel so blessed.  I try to teach my kids to be grateful and it is hard to understand when everything you see is what you have.  For example, I try to teach my kids that there are people who have no home, no clothes, no food and that we have so much.  I feel we have excess of everything, we have 2 cars to drive, more clothes and food than we probably really need, a great house to live and that has heat.  We have great jobs, opportunities to attend school, anyway I could go on and on.  But the point of all of this is:  As we approach the holiday season, let us try to make a sacrifice on our part for someone who may not have as much as we do.  It could be locally, internationally, wherever you may want.  I know this can be hard, but I also know the blessing that will come from giving of yourself are immense. 

Jaxon, my 4 year old, when we were talking about this, I asked him what he thought he could do, if he would be willing to give something up of his.  He looked at me and told he could give his train set to somebody that didn't have toys.  Keep in mind, he just got this train set last year for Christmas.  It was easy for him.  I kept asking him questions to make sure he knew what he was doing and his response was, " Can I just play with it one more time?"

I was overwhelmed with everything I think, that he didn't have to think twice about it.  He said that that is what Jesus would want him to do.  I know that the kids these days come stronger in spirit to withstand the temptations of Satan.  It may not be that easy for everyone or even myself but we can do it. 

If you are looking for something check out this blog Here about a simple sticker project to help kids in Argentina.  I know the girl who is spearheading this and it is such a great way to help.

In other news,  I got released from being in the Primary Presidency.  This time around it has been almost 3 years.  Total time in primary since I got married:  approximately 9 years.  I have been married for just 10 years.  I wrote 5 primary programs.  It was easy for me.  It was kind of a relief, I thought.  Until I got my new calling and now I may want to go back.  I am now the teacher of the 14 year old for Sunday school.  I looked at the curriculum.  It is new for the youth, with not really a lesson plan.  It is teaching as the Savior taught, guided by the spirit.  After looking at it, I was overwhelmed and decided I want to go back to primary.  That was where I knew what I was doing, I was comfortable, it was easy, second nature.  But I also know there wasn't much growth there for me right now and I need the change.  I have known I have needed the change for awhile and really tried to have a better attitude about it and change.  I felt like I did better the last few months.  Well I got that change and I am uncomfortable and it will be good for me and I will grow.

Good Things
1.   Change
2.  Growth
3.  Learning through the eyes of a child

Lambs skin

A couple of weeks ago, I went down to Salt Lake to attend the Relief Society Conference.  It was so good.  I  loved it.  The seats were so amazing.  Right by the stairs going up to the podium.  We were sitting among apostle's wives and daughters.  So much fun.  Got to shake Sister Dew's hand and chat just for a brief second. 

The general relief society presidency all spoke and really liked each of their talks.  Then President Eyring spoke.  He told such a touching story about his daughter that had a baby 15 weeks early obviously unexpected.  As they were at the hospital which was 20 minutes away, the Bishop came to visit them.  His first encouraging words to the couple were "My team has it under control".  I thought that was a funny statement.  Yet as I thought more about it, it is true.  What he meant by that was, there was a sister arranged for meals to be brought in, and others had arranged to drive the mother back and forth to the hospital, and others to watch the older two girls while the mother was gone and so forth.  All of these little arrangements had been made out of service.  As I thought about this, wondering if something like that happened in my own ward, what would have happened.  I pondered and decided it would have been the same thing.  "My team has it under control."  My ward would have gone above and beyond to make similiar arrangements to accomodate any situation.  The church is amazing.  It is all these people that have the same common belief system all working to grow closer to Christ.  And it is such a true example of Sister Dibbs statement.  I am a Mormon, I know it, I live it, I love it. 

The other thing that I have thought about since that time.  As we walked through Temple Square, it was beautiful weather and scenery.  As we got closer to the conference center, directly across the street actually, there was a lady dressed in a nice dress with a basket full of tissues wrapped in a ribbon.  She would hand them out to people saying "this meeting is going to be a tear jerker".  Most people thought it was a little weird but maybe she knew.  As we got closer to the conference, we found out that inside that nicely wrapped tissue package, was some literature against the church.  My sister made the statement that it was like "a wolf wearing lamb's skin".  I have thought a lot about that.  The world makes it so easy to find things that initially looks okay and after examining may not be.  It can be found on the internet, at school, and sadly enough among friends.  This is how Satan works.  Little by little he can eek into our lives if we are not prepared spiritually.  Sometimes the sin starts small and you may think it is harmless but can quickly expand to destroy lives.  Just like that little piece of paper stuffed into the tissue.  You didn't know it was there at first glance.

Over the past couple of months, we have had neighborhood children constantly over at our house.  My kids are overly friendly , which can be good and bad.  As a mother, I am always trying to protect them from harm.  After a day when some older kids were using language that I didn't like and punching each other, we left and I talked with my kids about the friends that make.  I just told them that we get to choose our friends and we want to choose friends who lift us up and are good examples to us.  As we were talking about it Jaxon says, "but Mom, they were nice".  Isn't that the same?  They are nice but yet they swear and wear immodest clothes and do naughty things, but they are nice.  On the outside they may seem nice, but what is on the inside is sneaking slowly into our lives.  I hope you see the parallel, it is hard to explain.  Let us always be caution as to what we let in, you never know where Satan is lurking.

Good Things
1.  Choosing the Right
2.  Recognizing the lure
3.  Having the gospel and knowing what is right

It's coming....

I love summer.  I really do.  It has been a pretty hot summer and I have loved every minute of it.  I haven't complained of the heat.  Here is my theory..You see I thought I liked winter.  As a kid it was great.  All the snowman building and fort building was so fun.  But now that the kids want to do all those things, it is not nearly as much fun plus it is cold, bone chilling cold.  And I am a wimp when it comes to cold.  So this summer has been exceptionally great.  My garden has been maybe the best garden I have had.  It seemed like everything was mass producing.  The peppers slightly out of control along with the weeds.  I kept a pretty good handle on it though.  Yesterday, I told Brian we needed to start getting our yard ready for winter.  He looked at me and said, "that's depressing". 

I used to like fall a lot.  But now I just realize that winter will be next.  I don't complain about the heat anymore, because when it is freezing cold, I will realize how awesome the heat really was.

Blah, blah.  Anyway.  I was looking through my blog, reading stuff and decided that I still need to blog.  It is a great way to document things and someday I will make it into a book.  Last month, our beloved hard drive on our Mac died.  It is 5 years old, which in computer hard drive life, I guess is old.  Out of the blue she died and so did all my pictures.  They were miracously able to recover everything else but not my pictures.  It was a sad day.  I can not do anything about it though.  Deep down I am hoping the guy at the Mac store will find some new knowledge he had never unearthed in his brain and figure it out.  But I don't anticipate that happening.  Is the lesson learned?  I have about 900 pics on a jump drive.  But I think I lost thousands of pics.  It will be okay.

I am boring.  In July, we went down to Heber Valley Camp, where mom and dad are on their service mission.  Such a cool place.  We stayed in cabins that had bunks in.  Did a challenge course and enjoyed one another's company.  The day before we hiked Ensign Peak, did some shopping, swam in a pool and fun things.  The following week we went to Island Park with Brian's family for a reunion.  It was also fun.  We went to Wade Lake, played horseshoes, again enjoyed company and had a good time.  Brian finished up his 2nd semester of nursing school..  We took the kids to the parade, saw fireworks, and had good times. 

In August, was Jaxon's birthday.  He turned 4.  He was so excited.  He is a sports kid and wants to play ball all the time.  Both kids learned to ride their bikes.  We go on family bike rides now.  That is fun.  We pulled up one section of weed mat, got bark, need lots more.  Brian and I went to Sun Valley for the whopping 10 year anniversary.  We went to a thrift store ( right up my alley).  Had some good food and enjoyed a weekend away.  School started for everyone but Brooke.  Reagan in first grade, Jaxon in preschool and Brian's 3rd semester.  It is half over (this part).  It has gone pretty fast to me, maybe Brian not so much.  Just to think that he could apply to grad school next fall.  Wow.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  No pictures, because well there are none.

Good Things:
1. Having some routine
2. Learning
3. Being so blessed.

Where we are...

We have been busy.  We mostly manage to keep up with life.  So this is what we have going on.  School is out and  Reagan was sad to leave her teacher.  We are getting back into reading after a few weeks break.

 This is the look of the backseat on days when my kids are at grandma's or Ashlee's house.  Exhausted.  They do have lots of fun but are so tired at the end of the day from all that playing.

 My family got together for FHE for some hotdogs and some minute to win it games.  This is putting a cookie on your forehead and trying to get it to your mouth without using your hands.  Most were successful.  We had some other games that were pretty funny too.  It was a good night.

 Free fishing day was a couple of weeks ago.  We try to take our kids, cause well it is free and otherwise we would have to get a license.  Our previous fishing was unsuccessful.  We started the day out, went to a stocked pond where there were 40 other people trying to  catch free fish too.  It was freezing cold.  The sun was shining but the wind was howling and it was cold.  Apparently the fish wanted to be bought and not donated.  Not many bites for others and not a single bite for us.  However, we didn't stay for long due to the freezing conditions.  The kids thought it was mostly fun.

 Jaxon was super convinced that he could cast by himself and tried but got caught.  I struggled a little myself.  I finally got a good cast only to get hooked on someone's line.

Reagan learned how to ride her bike last week.  She did not want to take the training wheels off but we did anyway and she learned in about 20 minutes.

Jaxon decided he wanted a cape.  So I cut around a t-shirt and made a cape.  I told him I would make a J on the back of it.

A week before fishing we took the kids golfing.  Hilarious.  I did not whiff it even a single time.  So proud of myself.  The kids had lots of fun..I think.  They said they wanted to go again.  They did pretty good.  The funniest part of the day was when Jaxon went to putt and was being really careful to line up when he saw a bug.  It immediately caused him to lose focus and then proceeded to try to stomp on it.  I was laughing so hard.

Brian is ready to be done with the semester.  He is doing well.  We are keeping busy with yard, garden, kids, church, work and whatever else falls in between all of those.

Birthday Girl

Reagan was excited to be turning 6.  She has thought about what kind of cake she wanted me to make for months now.  She finally decided on a Strawberry Shortcake Cake.  She went to school.  It was I day.  Which means you bring something that starts with the letter I.  Since it was her birthday on I day, she took ice cream.  (Explanation below).  She wanted hot dogs for her birthday dinner.  Jaxon came down with the stomach flu the night before so I talked her into French toast (with homemade french bread) and sausage.  It was a much better choice.  She got a dress from Gramma Carter, a dollhouse from Gramma Crandall, and clothes and a jewelry beading set from us.  When asked how her birthday was, she replied "good, maybe too good".  Glad to know we did not disappoint.  She got the stomach flu the following day. 

We celebrated with cake on the Sunday before with Kadri's birthday too.  Kadri is Reagan's cousin who was turning 2.

Explanation 1:  I bought ice cream cups to the school and put them in the freezer.  I told the substitute teacher exactly where they were and what they were for.  When I went to pick Reagan up, I asked if she had the left over ice cream, she said they ate it all and that there wasn't enough and the teacher had to go the lunch room to get more.  I asked why there wasn't enough.  I had bought 36 cups for 24 children, in my eye plenty.  Well, I went to the freezer where I put them and they were all still there.  The teacher had got the half opened box of ice cream sandwiches and when she didn't have enough then went to the lunch room to get more.  I am not sure of whose those were but they are gone now.  Sorry.  She probably thought I was out of my mind for not bringing enough.  It was a little frustrating. 

Explanation 2:  I got the jewelry box of yes 10,000 beads because it was cheaper than buying them all separately.  They are sooo tiny.  I need reading glasses to see the hole and I have good vision.  Can't wait till they are all over the floor.  The kicker of it all is she can't really do it herself.  So I have to help her or do it for her.  I told Brian that I didn't buy them for me.  So beware when you buy a jewelry set.

Easter Egg Hunt

In our house we never have big plans  for Easter.  I stopped making dresses and such a few years ago because well, I would really stress about it and I decided that I was missing the whole point of it.  So Easter is really pretty uneventful at our house.  So we decided to take our kids to the Easter Egg Hunt.  A large on at that.  We found their age group.  We waited still they said go and watched all the other kids go hunt for eggs while our kids stood there.  After a bit of encouragement they took a few steps out and stopped, sat on the ground, and Reagan began to cry.  There were so many kids and is was scary to her.  Meanwhile Jaxon picked up the eggs around them.  Needless to say, we won't be doing that again.  On the way back to the car, Brian and I, both decided our kids are not aggressive and don't really have that killer instinct.  We also decided that maybe Soccer wouldn't be the best thing for Reagan.  Jaxon maybe.  As for Reagan she wants to take piano lessons.  Non- confrontational.  She is passive.  That is okay, because she is very nurturing and caring. 

When the Easter Egg hunts had less kids (like less than 6) they were both okay to run and get the eggs and candy.


Before the Hunt

 

During the Hunt

Jaxon

It really is true that kids do say the darndest things.  Jaxon really might win the contest in this category.  We went to my sister's house for a few days at the end of March.  It seemed like he was saying crazy things all the time.  For the most part, all of these come in the form of prayer.

While at my sister's house, he prayed that B would clean her room, that we wouldn't throw toys at the walls, and lots of others.  I can't really remember them all.  I wish that I could remember or that I would write them down.  When we got back home, he prayed that we would get rid of all of our pets.  When I asked him what pets we had (none), he said all of the cats that pee and poop in our flowerbeds.  We tried to explain to him that they were not our pets but stray cats.

The above picture are just a small (very small) selection that Jaxon has taken.  Apparently he has a passion for photography or a slight obsession with my camera.  He did this unbeknownst to me.  He is a good kid and keeps us laughing a lot.

I like to call it Enlightenment

I just had what was really a "Duh" moment, but I will call it enlightenment moment.  It sounds better and doesn't make me look nearly as dumb.

All day today I have had to get after the kids.  It has been a continuous round of "stop touching her, looking at him, pick up your stuff, stop fighting and more", all day.  I have had it.  Tonight as I was telling Reagan for what seemed the the fortieth time to do something I had a thought occur to me.  It was this:  Perhaps that is how the Lord feels.  He is constantly beckoning me to read my scriptures, say my prayers, have more patience, be kinder, do more service, those little reminders that we need.  And the kicker of it all, he does it all kindly, no threats of spankens, or no snacks or tv time.

I am telling my kids a lot, that if they would just listen to me and do what I ask them to do, they would get in less trouble.  After all, I am trying to help them.  Isn't the same true of the Lord and us?

Each day we go through life in our various day to day activities and we are being told to stop fighting, be kind, be careful, pray and he will answer, think of others more and the list goes on and on.  Yet, if we would just listen to the Lord and do what he asks of us, don't we get in trouble less and have more time for the spirit to be with us.

The answer is yes to all, both the kids and me.  If we would just listen and do what we are asked, he is just trying to help, to make things easier.  It is so very simple, yet so complex.

Good Things
1.  Knowledge
2.  The spirit
3.  Aha moments

Halloween 2011, just a few months late

Here are the Halloween Happenings.  It was pretty uneventful.  I worked, Brian worked, Reagan wore her costume to school, and well,  Jaxon went to Grandma's sans costume.  When we came home, we went Trick-or-Treating to about 5 houses and came home.  Jaxon proceeded to eat too much candy, that didn't set well with him and well you can guess the rest.  The kids wanted to wear the same costumes from last year and I let them.  All was well the next morning, which was Brian's birthday.  He had a great day too.
Oh yeah,  we carved pumpkins too. 

New Year, I wish for a new me?

On New Year's Eve, we went to Island Park for a fun day at the cabin.  There was a family leaving the cabin as we were coming into the cabin.  I had put all of our snow clothes and stuff in a black garbage bag, because that is what you do right?  I put it behind the couch, in front of the door.  Well, when it was time to go play in the snow, I couldn't find our black bag.  It turns out that the people leaving grabbed our black bag thinking it was their stuff and took it home.  They were too far to turn around so we made do.  Jaxon wore some warm-up pants and cross country ski boots.  Reagan wore a jacket with her legs in the armholes for pants and swim shoes.  They were not happy about it at all.  But we made do.  They had fun sledding still even with their makeshift clothing. 

About a week after that,  Reagan asked me what was stealing.  I told her that stealing was when someone takes something that is not theirs.  In response, she says to me, "Like when the other people took our snow clothes?"  I told her no, stealing is taking something on purpose.  What happened at the cabin was just an accident.  She understood, I think.

Then we came home for a happening evening of games and food.  It was fun.  We watched the ball drop at 10pm and went to bed.

With a new year, comes new goals right?  I think so.  I made up my list of goals that I would like to work on for the year.  And that is just what I doing, working on them. 

Christmas time

Wow,  time goes so fast and it really has been a long time since I have blogged.  I tried to update my blog design and instead made a big mess.  It has been so long since I have changed it, I forgot how.  Oh well, I will figure it out in my spare time. 

Well, since it has been so long, I probably should blog about Christmas first.

Christmas was great.  In our family, we really try to focus on the Savior instead of Santa.  So far it is working. Santa doesn't come to our house.  The kids get it drilled in their heads that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because of Jesus' birth.  I really like it that way.  For a while I was really mixed about the whole thing and then I decided that I felt like I was telling my kids a big fib, which they get in trouble for if they do that.  Brian told the kids that a long time ago there was a guy named St. Nicholas who went around and gave all the kids presents and they dubbed him "Santa Claus".  But that was a long time ago and he died.  Well, I did not know he told them that, so one day we are driving down the road and Reagan asks me, "Mom, if Santa Claus is dead, does that mean the Easter bunny is dead too?"  Needless to say, I was a bit puzzled.  Well anyway.  One fun thing we did this year was I got all our Christmas related books out and individually wrapped them in wrapping paper.  Every night the kids took turns in opening one book.  We would read the book and the kids really looked forward to it each night.

In the past, I have been very insistent upon having a homemade Christmas, meaning mostly the gifts.  This time, I didn't do that.  I don't know if I was overly tired, stressed, just didn't feel up to it or D.  ALL OF THE ABOVE.  And, it was fine.  I didn't make my kids jammies, church outfits, or anything and Christmas still happened and the kids didn't notice that they did not even get jammies. 

It was good though and very relaxed.  It was nice to go to church on Christmas and enjoy the day and the meaning of Christmas more. 

On Christmas morning, both of the kids came into our room and asked to go downstairs and see what was for breakfast.  I asked them if they wanted to open presents first and they said they wanted breakfast first.  So when we got downstairs and Jaxon saw all the presents he said "um, I actually changed my mind, I want to open presents first".  And we did.