Hope's First Primary Talk

Unfortunately, I am blogging about this several months after the fact, so I can't recall many details, but here are the big parts.

Hope got to give her first primary talk! Apparently she offered to do it instead of being asked, which I think is very cool. She loves to do stuff like that and doesn't get too scared or embarrassed. Hopefully that courage will continue throughout her life. At first, I tried to get her to memorize her talk. After the first line she wasn't having it and I didn't want to turn it into something she was dreading, so I resolved to just whisper the whole thing in her ear. She did awesome. I am so proud of my sunshine Hope and her little testimony that seems to grow stronger and more beautiful every day. I am so grateful that my children know who they are, why they are here and that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them.

This is a copy of her talk.

"There are many ways that Heavenly Father can talk to you through the Holy Ghost. He can speak to you through the scriptures. One very important way that Heavenly Father talks to His children is through His living prophets. When the prophet speaks, he is telling us things that Heavenly Father wants us to know.

Our prophet today is Thomas S. Monson. Heavenly Father uses the prophet as his mouthpiece to deliver messages he wants us to hear. Each April and October the prophet and other general authorities speak to us in a special meeting called General Conference. They tell us things the Savior would if He were here. Their words are like scriptures and will teach us and help us choose the right. I am thankful I can listen to Heavenly Father's messages for me by listening to the prophet."

They Know

Saturday Ben threw his back out while doing yard work. The kids and I were all outside helping when Hope asked what was wrong with daddy. I looked over to see him on the ground unable to speak or move. I thought he had had a heart attack. We were all very scared. Ben is a strong man and to see him like that was disturbing and I could have sworn that my heart stopped beating for at least a second or two. The girls kept asking him questions and trying to get close to him, so I asked Noah to take them back to their rooms so I could try to help Ben.

After Ben was able to stand I went back to check on the kids. Noah had turned on his church music and moved Hope's little table into his room. They were all sitting around it making Ben get-well soon cards. Thinking about how cute and thoughtful my children are I went back to my room to listen in case Ben needed me while he was in the shower. Yes, even though he had just been in severe pain and barely able to move, he INSISTED on taking a shower the minute he could stand. I've learned over the last 48 hours that he is even more stubborn than I thought. Anyway, while I was waiting I overheard Eden tell her brother and sister that they should say a prayer. Then her tiny 3 year old voice prayed for her daddy.

 I smiled with pride and thought about how lucky they are to know where to look for peace and comfort. Noah had immediately played his church hymns for them to listen to and Eden needed no prompting to ask her Heavenly Father to help her earthly father.

Taking three kids to church by myself has not always been easy (although it is getting easier as Miss Chevious gets older), but I'm so glad that I stuck with it. So many - okay EVERY-  Sunday mornings  I dreaded wrestling with two of my three children in the congregation while trying to feel the spirit. I often wondered "why even go"? I knew they needed it though, and I am grateful for the strength I received to push through the dread and often time embarrassment of sacrament with Miss Chevious.

I am grateful that Ben and I have had family prayer every night for the last year and that we continue to do it. I am grateful that they have heard us ask Heavenly Father to bless family members who have been sick and have seen them get well and know that Heavenly Father heard their prayers. I am grateful that Hope and Noah have CDs of hymns that they listen to while falling asleep and that we sing primary songs every night before prayer. Once again, I have often wondered what good it is all doing. The singing and praying, trying unsuccessfully to get the younger children to be reverent during family prayer. "Why am I even doing this?" is something I've asked myself frequently.
Last Saturday I got my answer.

Eden's Joy School Graduation Party

Little Eden made some cute friends this year and LOVED school- except when I was teaching. I don't think she actually considered it school when I didn't drop her off somewhere. She was so excited each Wednesday morning (she called it her "school day")...until after preschool was over and then she was so disappointed that she didn't get to go somewhere for school.

This year she learned the days of the week, how to trace, how to glue lots of things, how to color with effort instead of just scribbling, and lots of social skills. All the girls learned this little saying, "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." Which is actually something that Hope learned from one of her classmates early in the year and I applied during preschool when all the girls wanted the purple cup. I only have two purple cups. Lesson learned....buy the same color for all the girls. Which is why I brought them all a purple balloon for graduation.





For graduation we had a water party in Mrs. Sandi's backyard. The kids had a picnic and then played in water.



Eden & Lilah watering flowers.



Eden with Mrs. Sandi (Brooke's mom).



Eden with Carter (Lilia's little brother). Eden kept jumping and landing on her bum in the pool with would splash poor Carter in the face. Thank goodness he loved it.



Lilia, Brooke, Eden & Lilah



Singing ABC's & the Days of the Week song.



Getting her diploma that Mrs. Aubrie (Lilia's mom) made. They are super cute and I'm so glad she thought to do it.

 

Aubrie was also thoughtful enough to get a picture of the first and last day and give a copy to all the moms. Thanks Aubrie!!!

 First Day

Last Day

 

Brooke, Lilia, Lilah & Eden

Look how they've grown into little ladies!

Valentine's Day 2013

This year, Hope needed to make a box for her Valentine party at school. I found several cute ideas on Pinterest and let her pick which one she liked best. Of course she chose the horse. It was daddy's idea to make it a unicorn though. Since it was mostly cutting and hot gluing pieces together, daddy and I assembled the box and Hope drew on it.

 

 

It is hard to see from the picture, but she drew all over it. She gave it a "Cutey Mark" (which is the mark that My Little Ponies have on their hip) and drew hearts and eyes...oh, and a butt crack. :)

 

I also got to help with the party and made sugar cookies and frosting for the kids to decorate cookies. Hope and Eden enjoyed playing with the dough scraps. Amazingly enough they didn't eat the dough.

 

 

Daddy brought home Valentine treat bags for the girls with a balloon and stuffed unicorns. They were quite excited.

 

 

 

But not as excited as daddy. Look at his face. He loves his girls!

 

*On a side note, last week Hope was the spotlight student and on Friday I got to read a story to her class. Since it was also "Dad's & Donuts Day", Ben took the morning off so he could be there for the story too. At one point in the morning I turned the corner to walk down the hall and Ben was headed my way with a big smile on his face. I asked what he was smiling about and he said, "Hope's the spotlight student. That's exciting!"*

 

 



Las Vegas With the Maxwells

This past weekend Ben's brother, Ian, celebrated his 21st birthday in Las Vegas and Jeff was generous enough to make sure we were there to celebrate with them. The girls have never met their aunts Amanda and Emily. They only met uncle Ian and Grandma Patty once, and they always love to see grandpa Jeff, so they were very excited.

We drove, which we were a little nervous about with Hope and Eden, but they did surprisingly well. There were no complaints from Hope and Eden only had one real outburst on the way there and one on the way back. We were thinking they might sleep for at least a couple of hours, but no one slept on the way there (besides mom cause I was sick and yes, okay, driving makes me sleepy) and Hope and Eden took only a short nap on the way back. Noah had some new books to read so he was fine...until when we arrived home and he learned that he had to get back in the car and drive another hour and half to Grantsville. He was pretty upset about that.

It was dark when we got there so Las Vegas was quite a sight as we drove up to it. The kids were amazed at all the lights and the cool buildings. Then we got to the strip and pulled up right behind a driving billboard with three fully clothes women who wanted nothing to do with anyone being advertised. Imagine the extreme opposite of what I described and then imagine my horror of having my 11 year old son in the back seat. The spiritual assault of the city was pretty smothering until I was talking with Ben about it that night and realized that I just can't let all the bad stuff get in the way of all the good and that it is better for our children to be exposed to this kind of thing with us (so we can talk with them about it), than being exposed on their own or with their friends. Amazingly, the only thing Hope had a comment about was a guy dressed up like a Transformer on the side of the street to which she said, "They have weird people here." Of all the drunken half-naked people surrounding us, she chose that to focus on. Thank goodness! Noah had more of a problem ignoring the "sin" part of the city, but hopefully when he looks back on it, he will mostly remember family and a lot of cool buildings.

The kids thought our hotel room was awesome cause it had hide-a-way beds and two rooms. They ran around till dad decided to be a party pooper and told them to stop. 

The next day, Eden found one of her favorite things about Vegas - the complimentary soap. She carried around till she unwrapped it and I took it away, then she was off to find another...which she did...several times.

When the girls met Amanda and Emily they both became really quiet and just stared with smiles on their faces. I could tell they thought their aunts were beautiful. Right away Hope seemed to want to make up for lost time and be around them as much as possible. She held Amanda's hand for quite a while, walking around the hotels and asking her LOTS of questions.

Aunt Emily and Amanda were both great sports about it, and it was nice to see the girls getting to know more of their family. Hope was very impressed with Grandma and Grandpa's hotel. It had beautiful gardens with ponds full of huge Koi and some flamingos!!! All day and the next morning Hope kept saying she wanted to go back to Grandpa's hotel.

*Grandma Patty, Grandpa Jeff, Noah, a flamingo, Hope, Eden and Daddy*

I know what you're thinking, "Wow, she actually posted a pic with her in it...and her eyes are closed." Well, if I were going to be picky I wouldn't have posted it cause of my ginormous rear, not the closed-eyes...but I need to just get over it. Besides those points this is a very cute picture of my beautiful little family. Eden was trying out some funky new camera faces that day, as you can see.

There was also a big bird cage inside with parakeets in it that the kids thought were cute. One of them tilted it's head all the way over to one side and then back again several times looking at Hope. She thought this was adorable. Okay, me...I did, it was freaking precious and when I think about I still want to say, "awww."

In another hotel there was a big fish tank where we stopped to take some pictures.

Eden and Grandma Patty had a conversation about the statue in the water. During this trip we have learned that Eden does not care for statues. The fact that this one was sunken in a fish tank may or may not have helped. We'll see.

I posted this second shot because I LOVE Noah's pose.

In the next hotel we saw gondola's in a big indoor river. Eden loved the boats and kept saying she couldn't reach it.

There's little sunshine with her hair in her face. On the days she doesn't want to wear a barrette, her bangs fall in her face and are long enough now that she has started to chew on them.

Then we saw a beautiful Chinese garden.

It was wonderful to spend time with the Maxwells and get to know them better. We definitely need to do it more. Especially since the girls are saying how much they miss everyone already. Thanks to Grandpa Jeff for making sure we got out there and to Uncle Ian for letting us celebrate his birthday with him. We love you guys!

Blessed

Sometime during my teenage years I received a very special present from my mom. She had kept the little white dress I was blessed in when I was only a few weeks old. Since then I knew I would be dressing my own little girls in that very dress on their blessing day.

Well, life doesn't always go as planned...

Hope and Eden were given a name and a blessing on January 20, 2013. I knew that Brother Brian Jensen would be the man I asked to do it. Not only was he the first Bishop that Ben and I met with as a couple, he also officiated at our wedding.

It just so happens that the girls have matching cream colored dresses and I planned to dress them in their matching Sunday outfits for the special occasion. Well, Hope wasn't having it. At first I was going to insist she wear it, despite her tears and overly dramatic sobs, but then I realized that this wasn't about what she was wearing. Originally I had wanted her to wear my blessing dress and that didn't work out either, so what did it matter as long as she is happy excited about the day?

 

 

Pictures didn't go as planned either. No one wanted to pose (normally) for pictures before church, and I took my camera to church so I could get some photos of everyone who stood in the circle with the girls, but I forgot. Here is what I did get.

 

 

The blessings were simple and beautiful and something else that I did not do but intended to, was to take some paper so I could write down everything I could remember afterwards.

 

What I remember from Eden's blessing:

she was blessed with happiness

her happy voice fills our home and will continue to

 

What I remember from Hope's blessing:

she was blessed with an eagerness to learn

and with many other ventures

she was blessed for the gospel to be an important part of her life

and to know her Heavenly Father knows and loves her

 

I was concerned that it would scare the girls because they've never had a blessing before, but they were perfect. They sat in my lap during their blessings and didn't move or make noises, which for Eden is a small miracle. I think that she was feeling the spirit and reverence naturally followed.

 

The day wasn't what I had been picturing for the last 20 or so years, but it was special. Life doesn't always go as planned, in fact, it usually doesn't, but that doesn't mean it isn't beautiful and meaningful anyway. Now I will save my blessing dress for my granddaughters.



It Snowed...

A lot!

And the weird thing is that the day before this happened was quite a perfect Fall day in my opinion, even a little on the warm side. But that's Utah for you.

While I was pregnant with Eden, Ben took Noah and Hope sledding. I made a post about it here. As I watched the kids and Ben play in the snow I thought of that post and realized that I was watching what would become one of my favorite memories.

On Friday there was some of this...

 

 

(Hope making snowballs to throw at Zoe) 

and some of this of course.

 

 

They are doing "cheers" with their hot chocolate.

After Eden woke up from her nap and had her drink, there was this.

 

 

 

then more of this.

 

 

Hope told Eden that she looked like a little farm girl in her snow suit.

When we woke up Saturday there was even more snow!!!! After extremely cold and red toes we decided that snow boots were a necessity and we made a shopping trip.

Then there was this

 

 

that turned into this.

 

 

Our neighbor across the street called to say how much she enjoyed it and would enjoy if for the rest of the season.

Then Eden, exhausted by all the fun, took a nap on mommy's bed

 

 

and daddy and Hope went into the backyard to do this.

 

 

We sure missed Noah this weekend. Hopefully there will be plenty more snow-filled days ahead for Noah to join in on all the fun. But in the meantime...

 

 

that is one big snowman.