Category: May

Tiger Sanctuary

Once baseball gets started it is not very often that we find ourselves with a free Saturday but a few weeks ago we had a few hour stretch on a Saturday so we decided to go and check out a Tiger Sanctuary that we heard about that is only a few miles from our house. We actually heard about it from a guy that Ryan works with. He lives right across the road from it and he wakes up to the lions roar every morning. I think that would be pretty cool. Lions roars are pretty awesome sounding, way better than an obnoxious beep from an alarm or rooster crow. Not that either of those wake me up every morning either I’m just saying that seems like a very invigorating, get up and get going, sound to wake up to in the mornings.

It was a pretty cool adventure. The kids all liked it. While we were waiting for our tour guide to get us we walked around the little shop and they have a giant beehive with plexi glass for walls so you can watch the bees inside their hive and see what they do and what it looks like. The were even able to find the queen bee that was laying eggs.

When our tour guide came and got us we walked around the sanctuary and got to meet all the animals. They have around 37 animals there in all. They were all animals that had been rescued from situations or injuries that won’t allow them to be in the wild anymore on their own. They had 6-8 tigers, a few lynx, servals, a pair of foxes, a leopard, a lion and a lioness, and a handful of other animals that I had never heard of before that we saw. Our guide told us a lot about each animal and also told us each of the animals individual stories and about their personalities. The tour was almost an hour long and the kids were interested the whole time, and new most of the animals by name when we were done. One of the things that stood out to me the most that I didn’t know before we went is that a fox makes oil on its skin that smells just like a skunk. It is a self defense mechanism. That is of course why the people that thought it would be ‘fun’ to have a pet fox got rid of him when he started making that smell. Boy did he stink!!

The last two animals we saw were wolves. They were both losing their winter coat and there was wolf fur all over the place back in their area. Our guide grabbed a handful of it and let the kids feel how soft it was. Emilee immediately started running around collecting as much of it as she could. She was very disappointed when her dad said she could not bring it home. She went from disappointed to mad when she looked at me to see if I would over ride dad and let her keep it and instead I said not only could she not take it home, she could not take it in the van. Gross. That is all we need, a giant ball of wolf hair spread all over the car and house.

Despite the wolf fur set back, we all had a good time and it was a cool place to see.

  • The animals were much more active then in zoos, the kids liked seeing them up and moving around.
  • This tiger was rescued from the circus.
  • Emilee begging to keep just a little wolf fur, oh and the really cool stick she couldn’t live without too.

Girls Camp 2018

Allison had to be convinced to go to Girls Scout Camp at first. She was a little perterbed that it wasn’t actually camping. It would be more accurately described as a day camp I guess. She wanted to spend the night. She said she would still go once she found out that her bestie Carlee was going to be there though. She ended up being very happy that she went.

We made all her ‘swaps’ to trade. I have a picture of some of those in an earlier post. She ended up with over 50 when she was all done making them. She put about half on her hat for the first day, it was so heavy it kept falling off of her head. Ironically she traded some the first day then decided that she liked hers the best so she stopped trading so she could keep her own.

She was up and ready to go everyday without any proding. She laid everything out the night before then wrote a list to check off in the morning to make sure she had everything, even though she had already checked everything off on the list she made to pack everything the night before. Hehehe! That is a little bit of myself coming out in her-makes a momma proud. We share the love of making lists. Hahaha! Actually, I have seen Ryan do that too when he has a fun golf trip the next day or he is leaving on his annual Vegas Guys Trip.

She had a blast. The bus ride to and from the camp was about 40 minutes and that was one of the best parts. There were lots of crafts to do, they went fishing, hiking, zip lining, had a cook out, archery, and a little free time to make sure there was plenty of time to swap their swaps.

Camp was Tuesday thru Friday. When I was picking her up on Thursday I heard someone yell, “Bye Taylor, see you tomorrow.” To which Alli said, “Bye see you tomorrow.”  I looked at her with a questioning look and she said, “Oh, I told everyone that my name is Taylor this week.” I don’t know where she comes up with her ideas sometimes.

Overall, ‘Taylor’ had a fun time and was glad she went. She is getting older and able to do more activities and be a little busier with her own stuff. It is helping her a lot to be happier and more satisfied. Sometimes she struggles with not getting to do everything that Matthew does, and has a hard time accepting that he is four years older than her. Someday that won’t be that big of a difference but right now it is pretty signifigant. She is very independent and motivated so she thinks that qualifies her to do anything an 11 year old can do. It is not just the age difference though. Matthew and her have very different personalities and their responsibility and realiability play a roll in it too which she doesn’t understand. I don’t expect her to grasp that either, it can just make for some frusterating repetative conversations for both of us.

She is still loving gymnastics, she decided to sign up to do Girl Scouts again next year, and is looking forward to resuming piano in the Fall as well. Top that off with being in 3rd grade and she should feel pretty busy with her own things going on.

Memorial Day and Grandma Terry’s Birthday.

The first couple weeks of summer were pretty hopping. I worked quite a bit. The girls went to Ms. Cristi or Ms Sheila’s house. They came home exhausted each day from playing with all the other kids and swimming. Emilee usually came home and crashed on the couch for a bit if she made it home at all before she fell asleep. Alli is a little less pleasant when she is tired so we had some rough nights with that. Matthew is ‘to old’ to have a babysitter but to young to watch the girls all day so he chose to stay home while I worked. He did some chores to earn electronics. He played with his neighbor friends too. I have two days left in June that I agreed to work and then I am unavailable the rest of summer.

We have hit the pool as much as we have had time too. Our neighborhood is owned by the same person that owns the neighborhoods east and west of us so they have combined all the amenities for all the neighborhoods to use. That gives us access to four pools which is really nice. One of the pools is pretty big and has a slide so most people tend to go to that one so we avoid that one and have the others to ourselves or very little company if there are others there. We try and invite cousins and friends to come swim with us too.

I went to a Starlight Theater show with some friends called #imomsohard. It was a comedy show about being a mom. I heard about it a few months ago and thought it would be a fun girls night out so when I asked Lori, Janae, and Liz were available and wanted to go. There were a lot of funny jokes, some about being late and making crazy arrangements to get places and things done with kids and family. We all had a good laugh at those inparticular. Between the four of us we had to arrange three babysitters, three chauffers for four different kids, and it took three cars to get us all there because we had to leave from baseball games, girls camp and work to get there. At some point we all said we might just skip because it was such a hassle to make all the arrangements to get there but we did it! We all made it and we were all glad once we got there and got to visit and laugh together for an hour and a half before we went to pick up kids, drop babysitters off and put everyone to bed.

Memorial weekend always feels like the official kick off to summer for me. The beginning of May this year was still pretty cold and I always wonder if they pools will really be able to open at the end of the month. But they do, and it is plenty warm! We don’t have a plan that we do every year for Memorial Day. Sometimes we stay home and work on projects, invite friends over to BBQ, or occasionally go some place. This year we went to Lincoln. Becky and her family came to visit Grandma and Grandpa Terry so we went up to see everyone and our Terry cousins came too. It was a relaxing weekend. We got out the slip-n-slide and sprinklers. Lauren’s kids and ours are getting old enough they pretty much police themselves and entertain themselves so sometimes we slip out to go shopping, or go to a movie, or get our nails done or something. There is usually some kind of game going on too. It was also Grandma Terry’s birthday on Monday. The kids decorated some cupcakes for her and she received many pictures and drawings they made. We sang her Happy Birthday. She seemed to be feeling pretty good so we got to spend more time with her too. I love the picture of her and Alli making faces at each other. We had a nice BBQ lunch and came back a little early on Monday to make it to baseball practice.

Sarah returns!

A few weeks ago Ryan and Matthew had something going on and it was a gorgeous night so we went to a park to play. I was pushing the girls in the swings and realized that I knew the person standing next to us. Her name was Nikki and her younger sister Sarah was my kids first babysitter. She used to watch them when I worked in the summer and then through out the school year for dates and stuff. The kids LOVE her. She was their main babysitter for about 4 years until she moved to California. They still talk about her and remember all the amazing times they had with Sarah.  She is graduated now and actually just got back from a mission about a month ago. Her parents are still in California but she came to visit her sister for a few days and happened to be on her way to meet Nikki at the park. My kids were over the moon excited when she showed up. They were running and playing tag with her within 5 minutes and so excited to see her.

When the girls told Matthew about it later that night he was pretty disappointed he didn’t get to see her. She ended up stopping by later that week for a few minutes to see Matthew too. I thought he might be ‘to cool’ but he was just as happy as the girls and had perma grin the whole time she was there. Emilee couldn’t get close enough to her and Allison was trying to tell and show her everything about her life in ten minutes. It was pretty cute. I love that they have those fun memories of her babysitting them. I think Matthew was 6 the last time she watched them. Emilee was only 1-2 so she doesn’t even have any actual memories of her but the older two have built her up so much she loves her by association. I am glad we ran into her. She was only here for a week then headed home for a bit before going to school, so it was good timing.

Summer begins!

Well yesterday was Matthew and Allison’s last day of school, and today was Emilee’s so we are officially in summer mode!

Emilee and I went to the elementary school for the last hour or so to watch the 5th grade slide show with Matthew and eat treats with him while they signed t-shirts and year books. Then we went to Alli’s class and ate popsicles and danced and took silly pictures with her. Then the whole school lined up in the halls and all the 5th graders walked through the school for their ‘final walk’ while everyone cheered and gave them a high five. It was a fun time.

Emi had a fun time today for her last day and got her little preschool diploma and gave Ms. Cristi a big hug. She will see her a few times over the summer when I work, but once kindergarten starts next year we probably won’t see Ms. Cristi to often anymore. She is an awesome teacher. Allison and Emilee love her to death. They love her so much that Matthew holds a grudge against me for not having him go to her for preschool. (It was her first year and I already had him enrolled in another one when I found out she was going to do it). Apparently his preschool experience was hardly bearable.

Switching topics a little, a few years ago we started working with a therapist with Allison to help her deal with her emotions a little better. One of the things he wanted us to start implementing right away was a ticket system that basically for doing things we want her to do she earns tickets and then can use those tickets to do things she wants to do. It is supposed to help her learn cause/effect, choice/consequence, need/wants, etc. We started out all gung-ho and did good and then have been off and on after the first little while with it. I won’t bore you with all the details as to why but it has become a pain in my butt. Everytime we go see him I know he is going to ask me if we are doing it, and I always go in with the intentions of telling him where he can stick his stupid ticket system, and then I always leave telling him we will rally and try again. He is a good therapist…or at least good at getting you to agree with him to do something. So we go home try it again and start the cycle over again. Again, I won’t bore you with details as to why it falls apart and all the different things we have tried, but two years later we haven’t figured out how to make it maintainable…until now…I think…I hope.

I found an app the other day called Chore Monster. Basically it is the same thing her therapist has been wanting us to do. The app tells them their chores for the day and when they do it they get points and they can use the points for rewards. Same thing. Being electronic for some reason makes a huge difference for me. There is a parent app that goes with it called Mothershp. So I had to basically plug in the ‘master chore chart’ and the rewards and then the kids can get on any of our phones or ipads and find their chart. I can totally cater it to each kid and make it more specific for one and general for another. It is easy to change if something isn’t working (without certain kids even realizing it and throwing a fit), I don’t have to redo a whole chart or carry stupid tickets everywhere with me, or remember to get or give tickets because I didn’t have them on me. They don’t get lost, they can’t be torn up, scribbled on, or leave me mean notes. The parents are the only one with access to changing things. All the kids have to do it click ‘done’ or ‘claim’. I can even set it up for Matthew that he can just basically use it as a reference so he knows what his jobs are because he doesn’t need to be monitored as much, except for his electronic usage which this will do too. For the girls I get a notification when they complete a chore so I can approve it or not, which is awesome because I can check it right then to make sure it was done right or not. Which leads into another thing we are working on this summer.

Each summer we make a bucket list of fun activities we want to do. Each summer I also have to adjust and let go of my house being as clean as I like it all the time, which is something I like and want but I don’t want it to be more important than other things to me. I do feel like the kids should help contribute to keeping the house clean though since we all live in it and they should learn to care for their surroundings. So, last night Ryan and I told the kids that along with our regular bucket list we were going to have a summer theme too. We had a mini family meeting to tell them that the theme we picked for this summer is ‘Work hard and play hard’. We even made a poster to hang up to remind everyone of the theme everyday. Then we talked about using our time wisely and doing our jobs we are supposed to do, to the best of our ability and try our hardest the first time. We talked about how learning to work is good thing and helps them become responsible capable people. All things that Ryan and I have been wanting to improve and work on lately. Then we showed them the app and how it works.

Of course there was some skeptisism and baching but today was our first day and it went pretty good. They like that it is an app too so they get to use the phone or ipad to see their jobs and use an electronic.  The app also gives them a ticket everytime they complete or cash in their points. Just a fun little side thing the app does is there is a little wheel they can spin with each ticket and win a ‘prize’. It is totally silly, the prizes are another spin if they get a smiley face, if they get a sad face it is a bag of hammers, or a dirty sock, or Matthew got a bag of farts last night. The wheel is just a little bonus. They don’t actually get anything from spinning but they think it is hilarious to see what is in the bag.

Today was our first day of implementing it. The kids got up and got their jobs done and then started using their points to play. It worked pretty good, they all did their jobs, they all have plenty of points, they all had fun doing things. It was a good day. Crossing my fingers that it keeps working.

We also started crossing a few things off our Summer Bucket List too.  We went to lunch with dad. We got new books to ready at the library (first of many times this summer). We went swimming (also first of many times). AND we always have a night or two that we go fire fly hunting. A friend of ours told us about a really cool place she found that has tons of fire flies so the girls and I went to check it out tonight. It was amazing, there were thousands of them, we will have to take dad and Matthew with us another time (they were at a baseball thing). I took some pictures and videos but they don’t do it justice.

 

My turn for the short straw.

Last week my turn to speak in sacrament came around again. Considering the size of our ward and the fact that I spoke once already in the last three years we have been here I thought I would have another five years before it was my turn again, but I was not so lucky. My kids don’t believe I have to do anything I don’t like to do. They apparently think that, laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, cleaning up after all of them, and telling them not to fight a million times a day is my idea of a great time.

I don’t so much mind the writing of the talk. It is the giving I could do without.

I take that back. I don’t really like anything to do with it but if I had the option to write a talk for someone else to give I would take it over giving it myself. Oh well, it is done and over with now so hopefully I have a few good years to not do it again. I spoke with a friend of ours, Marc Dunn that is on the high council. He said he has spoken around 30 times in the last two years plus probably done 20 lessons on top of that so I could take my time, people hear enough from him. I told him I am really glad I will never be on the high council and my talk was 10 minutes top, maybe 11 if I spoke slowly but considering my nerves it most likely wouldn’t happen and would probably be closer to 9 minutes. He is an awesome speaker though and could easily fill the whole hour and keep people interested.

So here is my talk. My topic was- why we need covenants.

Introduction

A few years back when I was a junior in high school I had decided that I was interested in health care and wanted to go to college to work in some sort of health care profession, maybe a nurse. A short time after making that decision, I came across an opportunity to work part time as a dental assistant in a dental office after school. I was pretty excited and set a goal to do my best and learn as much as I could. About 30 minutes into my first day I was observing a very simple orthodontic procedure and the next thing I knew I woke up on the floor with the doctor, his assistant and the patient standing over me and asking me if I was ok because I had passed out. I was pretty embarrassed but everyone was very kind and made sure I was ok and assured me it was ok, no big deal, no harm done, etc. I worked passed my embarrassment and dared show up again the next day, and once again woke up laying on the floor after passing out. I was mortified and sure that I was going to go home and never show my face in that office again. The dentist must have been really shorthanded though because he pulled me aside and convinced me to give it another try and suggested I should start observing from a chair while I learned everything. With a lot of encouragement I made the goal to get over my embarrassment go to work again, the next day and give it another go. This time I remained fully conscious and successfully made it through the day, and the next and then for two more years until I graduated high school. I quickly realized that I really liked dentistry and decided I wanted to go to school to become a dental hygienist.

So I set my end goal to graduate with my degree as a dental hygienist then began the path to accomplish that goal.  Applying to colleges, getting good grades, completing the required courses-including much to my dismay a public speaking class, applying to the program itself, getting accepted, more courses, exams, clinicals, passing boards and licensing and finally graduating and being able to work as a Dental hygienist. It took a lot of time, hard work, effort, sacrifice, learning and preparing along the way to reach the goal. But the excitement and sense of accomplishment I felt when I reached my goal was strong and potent enough that I can recall those feelings easily over 15 years later.

Almost every day of our lives we have goals that we are trying to achieve. Some goals are reached after a short term-a day, a week a month. Some longer, a year, 5 years, a decade, some goals can take a lifetime to achieve. Whatever the goal is there are steps along the way, milestones that have to be reached to move you along. These milestones help you stay focused and continue to progress to the goal until you are finally ready and capable to achieve it. If we don’t make a plan and have those steps or milestones along the way, our goal stays a want, a hope or a dream instead of a reality. No matter how hard I wanted or hoped to be a hygienist, if I wasn’t willing to take the steps and accomplish each of them along the way, my end result would not be a dental hygienist.

Before we came to earth our Heavenly Father presented us with His ultimate goal. In Moses 1:39 God states his goal, “For Behold this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Our Father in Heavens goal is for each of us is to return to Him and live with Him again.

The fact that all of us are here on earth right now is evidence to us that before each of us came to earth we all choose to follow that plan and have the same goal as our Father in Heaven and return to him again. I am sure were all pretty excited and anxious for our chance to come here and prove ourselves and return to Him. When we come to earth we go through the veil and can no longer remember our lives before. We all start a new path that can lead us any number of directions. Some of us find the Saviors path and start down it quickly in our lives, others find it later, and others might even wait until after leaving this earth to find the path again. Coming to earth, rediscovering the truths we knew before and finding our way back to our Father in Heaven looks different for each and every one of us. But whatever the path we take, there are required check points along the way. Covenants and ordinances that we must make and keep to receive eternal life.

After our Father in Heaven told us his goal, He presented us with His plan to achieve that goal.  A perfect plan with steps and milestones along the way for us to follow that allows us to course correct and make adjustments when needed so we can follow his plan even though we are not perfect. He accounted for any possible mistake or trouble or heart ache including death we could possibly encounter through the Saviors sacrifice and atonement. Then made that atoning power available to us through the priesthood, which is the power of God. And through the priesthood we have been given ordinances and covenants that we can make with him. These covenants are the stepping stones along the path to return to him.

Last October in general conference Elder Renlund stated, a covenant is a promise and commitment between you and God. Covenants we make with God are serious and solemn. We should prepare for, learn about, and enter such covenants with the intent to honor them. A covenant becomes a pledge of self.

In 2011 at General Conference Elder Russell M Nelson said, the greatest compliment that can be earned here in this life is to be known as a covenant keeper. The rewards for a covenant keeper will be realized both here and hereafter

The first covenant we make on earth is baptism and we are able to renew that covenant each Sunday by partaking of the sacrament. Making this covenant is our first commitment to begin the journey back to our heavenly home. Other covenants we can enter with God are Receiving the priesthood for men and honoring the priesthood for women and magnifying our callings for men and women. Receiving our temple endowments and entering a celestial marriage covenant are also steps along the path to returning to our Heavenly Father. Many of the Lord’s commandments are in the form of covenants promising specific blessings—tithing, or the word of wisdom for example. As we increase our obedience in his commandments we fulfill our covenants with Him. In Alma 37:6 we are taught, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; Each commandment we obey and covenant we make and keep builds toward the next to help prepare us and enable us to be ready to make and keep more covenants with God. Fulfilling the covenants we make is a constant reminder to our minds and spirits to stay focused on our goal and stay close to our Father in Heaven and strengthens our testimony of all the gospel principles.

Making covenants is not a passive activity. It requires vigilance, effort, faith, humility, hope, self-evaluation and determination to do our best to live up to the covenants we make with our Heavenly Father.

We have been given the information we need. Heavenly Father has told us his goal and given us his plan. All the steps we need to complete that goal have been put into place. The Savior came to earth and fulfilled his mission. He overcame death and provided us with an everlasting atonement to use and take full advantage of to make up for where we fall short. We have been given the priesthood and all the keys we need to make covenants and obey and follow the commandments of god. We have been given Prophets to lead and guide us directly. We have the Book of Mormon and other scriptures, prayer, revelation, the Holy Ghost and many other tools to use on our path to immortality and eternal life. We made the choice to come to earth and prove our obedience.

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Hawaiian Hitfest Baseball Tournament

This past weekend was the Hawaiian Hitfest Baseball Tournament. It is the biggest baseball tournament in the US, at least according to Twitter that is what they say. They have over 700 teams competing in the tournament. It was a pretty rainy weekend so the original game schedule was moved around ten times working around the rain, it finally got sunny enough to get the final rounds in though.

First game we won 12-2. Second game was probably our worst game ever. Ever. We lost 9-1. We were run ruled and only one of our ten batters batted more than once. It was rough. Our next game was canceled for rain, and we thought we were out of the tournament. We squeaked in the final games, we were lucky to get the very last spot. After that it was single elimination and we played until we lost the second to the last game and took 3rd place in our division. They had to play hard and work their way back up to the top after the big loss. The first game back in the finals the boys were on fire! Everyone was hitting awesome and our defense was unstoppable. Derrick on our team is a really powerful hitter, he has been really close to a home run for a while, he finally got not one but two homeruns back to back. It was pretty exciting good baseball!

The last few picture are Alli and Emilee playing around. They spend their time at the playground, climbing trees, riding scooters, playing in the dirt, eating junk food, and any other games they can think of with all their baseball buddies. All the siblings have fun playing together.

Last preschool field trip…

This is our last week of school and we are continuing with last weeks crazy end of the year schedule with concerts, awards, field trips, parties, and everything else! Only two days left!

Emilee’s preschool teacher Ms. Cristi had her daughter get married last week so her preschool schedule has been rearranged a little but yesterday after much much much anticipation from Emilee her preschool field trip to the Arboretum finally arrived.

Most days I have to drag Emilee out of bed if we plan on being anywhere before 10am. If left to her own choices she will gladly sleep until somewhere between 9-10 in the morning. But she was so excited for her field trip that she woke up on her own, took her pajamas off that she wore over her clothes for the day (to save time obviously) and finished getting ready and was waiting in the car for when it was time to go by 7:30 am. It was pretty impressive. Especially since the field trip didn’t start until 8:30.

The Arboretum is a beautiful fun place that we have been to a few times but never with both pre-kindergarten classes, Ms. Cristi and most of everyone’s parent and some siblings. It was a pretty big crowd. Emilee isn’t my most outdoorsy kiddo. If we pick blueberries or strawberries or do something at a farm she is less than impressed and immediately begins requesting to go home or at the very least wait in the car. But so far this summer she has been really aware and into the flowers when they started blooming and loves walking around and finding all different kids of flowers.  The Arboretum does not disappoint for options of flowers. It is so pretty. The kids of course had a great time and played hard. We had a snack mid morning and read a story and then played hard some more. When we got home Emilee went straight to the couch and took a nap for two hours.

We had a busy weekend with baseball and late nights, and I have worked lately so she plays with friends all day long at preschool or Ms Sheila’s day care, plus her ‘early’ morning so she was ready to catch up on some sleep.

They were all nicely lined up for this first picture but I was to slow before they took off again, so I got an action shot.

Checking out the Coy fish in the pond.

Back to Relief Society…for a Sunday.

Mother’s Day weekend was a really nice weekend. At church they had the young women take over all of the primary classes so all the women could go to Relief Society together. It has been a while since I have been to that class. They have a new lesson format now. Everyone sits in a circle and it is more of a discussion then a lesson. Today we talked about how we can lead our families in the gospel in our homes. It was a good discussion. I have had a few thoughts I have been mulling over for a bit. After the discussion today I added a few more thoughts to my list. Some of the specific things that have been on my mind are; raising a sin resistant generation, helping my kids having strong relationships with each other and being each others best friends and strongest advocates, having a strong service minded work ethic, doing your best at whatever you are doing.

Doing your best at whatever you are doing.

This is going to be a big focus of our summer. More often than not lately when my kids are asked to do something and they try and squeak by with the bare minimum expectations. It is tricky with school because I am easily distracted with getting them out the door or to other activities so I don’t notice until they are gone. Summer is a great chance for them to develop and reinforce good habits because we can take all day for them to try, and try again until they get it right.

Strong service minded work ethic.

How is this for sounding like a crochety grumpy old lady-kids in general these days are getting so soft, whiny, and whimpy. I tell my kids all the time when they have to do something they don’t want to that they are so lucky I am teaching them to be a successful, independent, confident, happy, capable person. They usually practice their grumbling at this point.

I want them to do service. I feel like they are fairly willing to do service for others. Ryan and I have talked about increasing the frequency of serving others and  finding more opportunities for them to serve. Harvesters Food Pantry is always needing volunteers. Matthew has actually done this and likes doing it and wants to do it more, the minimum age is 8, so when Alli turns 8 it will be nice they can both go. We have done tray favors for meals on wheels before too. I want to find some not so fun service things too. It is great to enjoy your service but I want them to do some things that are hard work too so they understand ‘being fun’ isn’t a requirement for service. The point is serving others however they need it. Summer will be a good opportunity for them to learn to serve each other more too. I see glimpses of this from all of them occasionally, which makes me all warm and gooey inside. Tying in with my other thought of them being best friends and advocates for each other I want them to find more ways to serve each other.  This past Saturday we had 2.5 tons of rocks delivered to our driveway. Ryan and I put in a few edged beds around our house that we wanted filled with rocks. We had all the kids shoveling, hauling, and placing rocks. It only took us a few hours but I liked all of us working on a big work project together. I remember many Saturday work projects with my family growing up. They are fond memories, I don’t remember how fond of what I was doing at the time I was, but it taught me to appreciate working and to work hard. I want my kids to learn that too. I told them every time they look at those rocks now they can think of how their hard work put them there and helped make our yard look nicer. Emilee considers all the rocks her giant rock collection now so she was tickled, Allison rolled her eyes, and Matthew gave me a sarcastic thumbs up. I think its working.

Best friends and advocates.

This one to me kind of ties in with becoming a sin resistant generation too. I want them to always have two best buddies that they can always rely on to help them, and stick by them. This one can be the most frustrating to me sometimes because it seems like the exact opposite is happening with all their fighting and digging at each other. I want them to develop close relationships with each other and support each other in their triumphs and failures. I’m still thinking on better ways to foster this. This talk from General Conference a few years ago is one I really liked and have read and thought about several times since.

Sin Resistant Generation by Joy D. Jones

The title itself just caught me when she said it. I think it is similar to the phrase, ‘in the world but not of it’ but for some reason  ‘sin resistant’ is more clear to me than the other. I of course don’t want my kids to go looking for bad situations, but I think that is one of the biggest differences between when I was young and my kids now. For the most part I had to go to the bad situations, on a normal basis I wasn’t in situations or circumstances that were against the gospel. Today I feel like the opinions and beliefs and norms of society are more and more contradictory of the gospel so just going to school, or participating in regular activities can present situations that I would have never had to face. Pornography, gender issues, sex, drugs, anti-christian/religion were all around when I was young but they weren’t considered normal, ok and even taught in school in some cases.  I thought her talk was a clear and direct approach and reminder for the things to help our family be able to understand, and know our beliefs clearly and firmly.

I know the ‘primary answers’ to help our family develop this. I of course want to renew our efforts to read together daily, morning and night prayer and have weekly FHE. Our last few FHE lessons have been focusing on our kids starting to do those things on their own. They all have some good strengths. Emilee is our best little prayer. She is very good at remembering her prayers before bed. Alli is our most frequent scripture reader on her own. Matthew is good at internalizing and applying things we talk about with scriptures. In the morning for prayers most of the time we now have three kids kneeling on the floor with their little bums lined up in the air waiting to say prayers without to much push back. It makes me happy to see them start to develop their own habits and testimonies. We also have been trying to focus more on what we are reading and understand it, then just reading. It took me a while to learn that. I have read the scriptures many times but most of those times it was just reading without the pondering part. I want to help my kids learn how to do that early in their lives. One last thing before I’m done. Each year the primary has a new song that is released that they focus on with the theme. I always love to hear what the new song is. They have without fail been some of my favorite primary songs. I get goose bumps when I hear a group of primary children sing them. It’s powerful. ‘If the Savior Stood Beside Me’, and ‘God Gave Us Families’ are awesome songs. This year the song is called ‘I Will Be What I Believe’ I LOVE IT. We listen to it all the time, and I got the piano music so I can play and the kids can sing it. I think it goes along perfect with being a sin resistant generation too.