General Conference

General Conference is inspiring. It is uplifting. It is humbling. It is powerful. It is spiritual. When I was a little girl, I dreaded conference weekend. It was hard to sit and listen to eight hours of talks. (Two sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday). And now, that time just flies by and I find myself wanting more!! Not only do I want more, I NEED more! I found myself really tuning into the following talks. 

Elder Rasband, who spoke on prayer and faith. Sister Reeves, who spoke on morality and purity. Elder Zwick, who spoke on communication and love. President Uchtdorf, spoke on gratitude. It was SUPERB!!! President Monson spoke on the importance of kindness, especially to those who do not believe as we do. I feel so blessed to hear from our church leaders every six months. I'm so grateful that my children are growing up listening, just as I did and tuning in to what the prophet has to say to us. I make it a little more enjoyable for them to watch and listen than it was for me when I was a child.

Fruit Loop necklaces

They also did conference packets where they listened for certain words, or could color pictures, and do cross word puzzles. 

Caught Joe folding his arms for the prayer. 

 Traditional Conference Scones!

Joe liked them too!

During the last session, Nathan and Joe were out back getting some wiggles out. I happened to look out to see Nathan being so sweet to his younger brother. Something about listening to good things, and then seeing your kids doing good things make me teary happy! 

Life is good!

*Late last night, my dad called to tell me that my sweet Grandma passed away. She was a month shy of her 101st birthday! I'll have to write a post all about her. She was remarkable! Although normally death brings feelings of great sadness, I couldn't be very sad. I just keep thinking of her tremendous reunion with her beloved Preston and her parents and siblings. She was the last to go of her family and has been without grandpa for 40 years. I am the lucky one to have called her Grandma!

Hospital Stay

I've learned recently, that I have really taken health for granted. I LOVE learning about health and diet, and really enjoy teaching my children the importance of eating well and the benefits that come when we don't indulge in too much sugar! (That said, we still have a ways to improve). It's no secret that I will look to natural methods when we are sick, before I grab for over the counter drugs.

Holland started to get sick a week and a half ago. Joe had been sick and he just LOVES to kiss and hug her. I tried hard to stop it from happening, but there were a couple of times he snuck it in. I started to apply the essential oils and nursing her more regularly, but she consistently had a fever and wasn't showing any signs of getting better. I asked Aaron to give her a blessing and decided I would take her into see the doctor the following morning if there was no improvement through the night. He called our Home Teacher to assist him in the blessing. Our home teacher happens to also be a Physicians Assistant, and offered to check her ears and do a small checkup on her stats. After the blessing, our friend checked Holland. Her ears were good (I thought for sure she had an ear infection and that's why she was getting the fever), but when he checked her oxygen level, it registered at 87. NOT GOOD! He said I needed to take her to the instacare right away. It was 8:30 already, so I got her in the car and we went. I was only in there for 10 minutes and they said I needed to take her to the ER right away. What? Really? I could tell she was sick, but I had NO IDEA it was so bad.

Long story short, little Miss has RSV.  Two days in the hospital proved that I am truly thankful for hospitals. (Secretly, I hate them, but they sure have their place and I am beyond thankful we were there). Oxygen and suction treatments have been my best friend this past week. For Holland, not so much!

Two days ago, Holland got the go ahead to only have oxygen at night. Phew! because I don't think she could handle that in her nose all day long, for one more day! Between that in her nose, and her monitor going off in the night when she dipped below 88, I think we are both done with this! Good riddance! Well, good riddance as soon as we are totally done with it.

No Time to Write

Too much has taken place since I last blogged. Bummer! I hate when I let too much time pass. It's so hard to catch up.  Quick version

Valentines Day

As you can see, no complaints for Valentines Day!

My Birthday seems to only get better as I get older! Who would have guessed? Aaron sent me to Ikea for the day to buy new dishes, bathroom stuff, dish towels, etc. It's been a long time needed! Then, he took me to the ritzy "Roof" restaurant. It did not disappoint!

Seriously, I'm spoiled by him. Bummer this picture isn't better. Quite the view eh? I ate until I was sick since I likely won't be back to eat there...maybe ever! I thank Heavenly Father every day for my life. 35 years has been pretty darn good to me!

Grandpa

My dad is a pretty great man. He's simple in so many ways. He's not a man of the world, and has never sought for worldly riches. He worked hard to provide for his very large family and has served faithfully in the church all of his life. One of my greatest memories is the time he took to make us a hot breakfast every morning before school growing up. He'd wake us up at 5:45 to read from the scriptures, pray as a family, then we'd eat together before all of us went our separate ways for the day. I look back on that time and think of the safety he provided for us kids by doing this each day. I felt so safe at home and knew that my parents loved and trusted in God.

My dad is also just fun. Like, crazy fun. He used to call my mom on his way home from work on a Friday and say "I'm on my way home, why don't we pack up and take the kids camping!" He would do this all the time and I can say now that my love of camping and being in the mountains is because my dad made it a big part of my childhood. He used to whip up the yummiest dutch oven dinners, tell us crazy/hilarious bedtime stories, and could roast smores' better than anyone I know; even still to this day.

There's a few things in life that dad enjoys. Working, whether it be projects around the house, making his famous denim quilts, yard work, gardening, or building something, he's always doing something. He also always looks forward to having us all together. As crazy as it is when we are all together, and the volume can be deafening sometimes, I know he loves it.

The last thing I know that dad loves, almost goes without saying. Dad loves his BYU cougars! I think it's fair to say that he's a die hard! Mom is a good sport and goes to most of the games with him, but Nathan had the special treat of going to his first cougars basketball game with Grandpa. He was given pretty much everything he wanted. Hotdog, drinks, popcorn, candy. You name it, he got it.

Thanks dad, for being such a great man and for loving us all so much! We sure do love you.

We Love FLA

Monday's are kinda a big deal around here. It's probably the only thing we can actually get to on time because we can't WAIT to get there. One of the greatest parts of homeschooling is creating something you want for your family. The Family Leadership Academy is the best kept secret in all of homeschooling.

10:00 am class for Hannah and Nathan
Heroes in the Book of Mormon. It is just as cool as it sounds! Yesterday's hero was Lehi and his dream about the Tree of Life!
The kids did a faith walk which had plenty of bumps along the way. I was a deceiver and tried to get them to let go of the rope. Their only instruction was to hold to the rope and do not let go. Follow it to the end. It was pretty neat to see the kids huddle together on the rope and encourage each other to hold on and not let go. Those who did let go, were quickly encouraged to come back from their friends. When they were all done and gathered in their classroom, I was excited to realize that only a few drew the parallel of this exercise to Lehi's dream and the iron rod...until one little boy shouted out while one of the mom's was talking about this experience, "hey, it's like the iron rod!" Then all the light bulbs went on and the children understood the meaning of what they just experienced. Then, when we talked about how some moms were trying to tempt them off the rope, that's what Satan does. He tempts us to fall away from that iron rod so we can't make it to the tree of life. We pointed out how some walked the rope with friends who helped them to stay on course and still others who had finished the course came running around to help the rest make it to the end. Isn't that so how life is? We aren't alone are we? We have friends who are good examples to help keep us on the straight and narrow, and then we have others that we can't see, who've been here before and they too act as support and encouragement. It was awesome! Loved it!!

 Here's Hannah coloring a tree in her copy of the Book of Mormon to remind her of this story and of Lehi; a true scripture hero!

12:00 Nathan and Abigail have Geography. This day they flew to Fiji and now I really want to go to Fiji with my whole family.

12:00 Hannah has a jump rope class and it kicks bootie! No picture
1:00 Hannah has Polkadots. It's a singing and dancing group of adorable girls. Here they are practicing the song "Sisters". They'll perform it for some elderly at a nursing home soon.

Nathan has a exercise class. He doesn't love it.

Abby's class is called Nibble and Scribble. And that's exactly what she does. Good fun!

2:00 Hannah has a craft/sewing class. They just finished a cross stitch of a little dog and their newest project is a pillowcase that they will donate to a hospital for children with cancer. Love that she's learning these things.
Nathan has Legos during this time and he's in heaven! He loves everything about this class.
Abby goes to Five in a Row. A fun class where she's read a book to while eating a snack and then they do a fun activity that goes with the book.

Our last hour Hannah is taking a Great Women in Literature class. Yesterday's class was on "A Little Princess". Taught by a mom and daughter on the attributes of a princess and specifically Sara in this book. So good. So good. So good. Then the girls were given a craft to make; mirrors that they could glue jewels on to make into crowns so they could see themselves as princesses all the time.

Nathan stays in Lego's and Abby hangs out with me or Nathan, depending on her mood. Then we pile back in the car, Joe crashes before we even make it out of the parking lot and I sigh another huge sigh that we made it through another Monday and my heart is full to the brim of the bounty of goodness that comes to us from these wonderful families. The other moms have become some of my greatest friends and biggest support to me. And each time I'm with them, I try really hard not to be sad that my time with this group is coming to an end at the end of this school year. Wish they could all move to Idaho with me!

Chubby Hands

Don't you love chubby hands? I do. Like, I really love them a lot. I love when those chubby hands take hold of my finger and walk with me. Or when those chubby hands grab for something, anything. It's the first thing I miss when my babies start thinning out.

Joe still has plenty of chub on him and I don't see him growing out of it anytime soon. He's handled his baby sister much better than I thought he would. In fact, he's down right sweet to her. I'm so glad he's still my baby too.

Holland is 2 months

"The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Romans 8:16

This cutie patootie is growing, but fortunately not too fast. 

weight: 10# 14.5oz 26%

length: 21.7" 9%

head circ: 38.5 cm 44%

She's cooing, rolling over from tummy to back, smiling, and sleeping enough for me to not be a grouch. I love her to pieces!

A New Year

I'm a fan of new starts. New goals. New adventures. Starting over. Yes! 2013 was a pretty great year overall for us. Highlight of course was giving birth to Holland and having her apart of our family. She is the perfect medicine for me. The calm I needed in my life.

Aaron and I both are goal oriented people. We write them down and look at them often to keep ourselves in check. We've been able to check quite a few of our personal goals off the list. For FHE this week we talked to the kids about goals and asked if they wanted to set a goal to work on this year. We encouraged their goal to be something that was in line with our family motto: Live to Serve, Learn to Achieve, Listen to Love. This is what they decided.

Hannah - "To serve Nathan so my relationship with him will be stronger".
Nathan - "Exercise and run in a race with dad".
Abigail - "Learn to ride my bike without training wheels".

I was pretty pleased with their choices. And they were their choices.

I have a slew of goals for myself. Most of them have to do with homeschooling and reading and becoming a better mentor for my children. I'm taking a reading and writing class this semester at our Family Leadership Academy. Our first assignment is Cymbeline by Shakespeare. I read a plot summary and was totally lost, soooo it should be a good challenge for me.

Here's to a great 2014!