Our Family Project

I know I've been really superficial with my grateful days entries.  But, for some reason, I felt like most of the entries from last year were really deep and serious.  And, this year, I wanted to include a few that were just little things that I am grateful for.  Turns out, I am grateful for A LOT of little things. Tonight it is Sardines. Jon and I had a really good discussion this evening.  Today was the second time in the last month that he has taken me with him to visit people in the ward.  Actually, to be more accurate, we went to visit two widows that are his home teaching families.  On the way home we were talking about his new schedule regarding church meetings and such.  He said that he had someone tell him to do as much as possible on Sundays and one other day during the week, and then leave the rest of the nights during the week for family. I told him that I would prefer that he let Sunday be the Sabbath Day and spend most of the time...

In March, our son was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was such a sweet moment for us all.  My in-laws were able to come down from Idaho for the baptism and celebrate his birthday with us.  It was such a fun time. About two weeks before his baptism, I took him out to a local park to get his picture taken for his invitations.  He was so great!  Andrew would stand there and look at the camera lens for minutes on end.  I just snapped away.  After about 10 minutes I had some great photos, but I just couldn't stop.  We walked around and I had him pose in many different areas.  In the end, I used the photo below for his baptism invitation, and the photo above for his birthday party invitation.  I forgot to include the date and time for his baptism on the invitation, oops!  So, we had to include a little paper with the pertinent information on it.  That mommy-memory of mine! Andrew had a S...

This week, the goal is making my children a priority.  Because of some recent events, we felt it was important to prepare our children for a/the time when they are faced with the decision to remain physically pure, and to know when another person may be touching them inappropriately. We decided to broach the subject during a Family Home Evening lesson.  I found a great lesson online that was exactly what I felt was right for our family.  It was so perfect. The lesson started out by talking about how our bodies are temples.  We read about the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple as found in the Doctrine and Covenants.  The specific verse we read was this: "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;" We talked about how we are supposed to treat our bodies like the temples are treated. ...

Saturday I had the opportunity to spend my morning at the church with several other women.  There were 6-8 different projects we could work on ... and each project was going to a different charity.  There was a table all set up for assembling hygiene kits, one section of the room was filled with two quilting frames and women were tying quilts, at another table women were making hair flowers and headbands, and on another table some women (and young women) were putting together art kits.  I brought my sewing machine to help sew together drawstring bags for children in foster care.   I lugged in my machine and set it up, then walked over to the table to get some fabric.  I quickly found out that the women who were in charge of this activity were well prepared.  There were stacks of pillowcases, a bag filled with canvas cords, and another pile of old t-shirts.  The woman in charge of the bag area explained to me that we were cutting off the sleeves and ...

I am so grateful for my ability to make choices.  Within the last couple of days, I've read the testimony of Elizabeth Smart, and she emphasized several times that Brian David Mitchell took away her ability to choose through threatening her death and that of her family.  Reading about everything that she went through at the hands of another person has really made me so grateful that I can choose what to do with my life each day.  I can choose to wake up and clean, or I can choose to stay in bed and sleep all day.  I can choose to treat my children and those around me with respect and love, or I can choose to treat everyone with disdain and rudeness.  Each day I make choices, and I do not have a "Lucifer-figure" in my life demanding I do what he/she wants me to do.  I am so grateful that I have always had the ability to choose.  Yes, Elizabeth Smart still had a choice ... to do what Mitchell wanted her to do, or to die (according to his threats).  ...

This last weekend we attended General Conference for our church.  Actually, we weren't really there in attendance because the meeting itself is located in Utah, but we did participate by watching the conference on the TV .  Our church leaders spoke to all of the members of our church during five general sessions on Saturday and Sunday.  Each session is two hours long and includes songs and speakers.  I think we got to hear from the prophet during each session. For me, General Conference is like going to the dentist for a hygiene appointment.  There are some similarities between the two: Each occurs every six months. During both a dental hygiene visit, and during General Conference I find myself evaluating how I am taking care of myself (with the hygiene visit it is purely about my teeth, with General Conference it is about my spirit). I receive instructions on how to do better (Hygiene visit: brushing my teeth and flossing; General Conference: making ...