I think that Daisy liked being outside too!

David found a friend to go running around with so he wasn’t available for this spontaneous snapshot but I still love this picture.

Jocelyn is growing up so fast. Every once in a while I feel like I can catch a glimpse of her as a young woman, not a little girl and it makes me proud and scares me all at once.

This water is freezing cold and the kids were challenging each other to stand in it the longest.

I left my camera at a girlfriends so I’m going to do a Camera Phone Post. All these pictures are from my cellphone so ignore them if they’re a little fuzzy.A friend of mine from the homeschool group invited my kids and I to come play on her ranch. I love being able to take the kids to places that are connected to the earth and to the history of this area as a ranch town. We climbed up rows and rows of hay bales and then ran along them playing tag. We walked through acres of land and explored the original home that is more than a hundred years old. They now use that small house as a bed and breakfast. I love how sweet my kids were and respectful of the antiques that were all over that small house. My favorite was the horses. I love being close to such large animals!

We had a lot of fun on the ranch! It’s hard not to wish for acres of land for the kids to explore through. I especially liked the wooded area. We walked through trees that reminded me of scenes from the Lord of the Rings until we wandered onto the spot that my friends family uses for paintball. There’s a fort for hiding behind and it’s covered in paint from the paint balls. I don’t remember there being paintball in the Lord of the Rings but I wasn’t paying close attention.

This past weekend was Jason’s birthday and my parents came from Washington. We had so much fun. First we had Jason’s party which was a scavenger hunt on bikes. The boys had to bike all over town and then ended up at the movie house to watch the new Three Stooges movie. I figured slapstick comedy is what 12 year old boys like. I think it went over well because the boys came out quoting every line!

London is a friend from church.

Liam is Tammy’s oldest.

(There were a couple other boys but I don’t know if they want pictures of their kids online so I stuck to friends of mine.)

Grandma and Grandpa brought bonnets from Nauvoo for the girls. They tried to wear them all weekend.

Grandpa wasn’t ready to give the bonnets up just yet. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep it. It’s a god look on dad!

Grandma and I were busy in the kitchen making yummy stuff for a family gathering after the ordination. I didn’t want to have to do much on Sunday so we prepared everything on Saturday. Laurelyn was very helpful when it came time to make cookies and brownies.

Grandpa helped too!

I wish I had taken more pictures because I missed out on some great moments. Jason’s face when he came out of his movie and he saw that Grandpa was there was cute. We took Grandma and Grandpa walking along the river and it got windy so Grandma snuggled Laurelyn warmer by tucking her under sweater. I loved the look on Grandpa’s face after dinner at a yummy Brazilian BBQ place called Gaucho’s. I love being able to share things that I love about living here with my parents. More than anything I wish that I could be closer to family but I still love where I am. There’s so much to love about living here and I like sharing some of it with my mom and dad.

I had a moment of worry that the weekend wasn’t going like I had wanted because it’s hard to fit some quiet, spiritual family time when there’s a birthday party and a Sunday gathering to do. I snuggled in bed with Jason this morning and talked to him about how he felt about getting the priesthood and he said some thoughtful things and told me things I didn’t know. His dad had talked to him a couple times last week about what it means to get the priesthood, his Aunt Amber and Uncle Lance had called and talked to him about their thoughts and feelings about him getting the priesthood and he told me that he’s been reading called Preparation in the Priesthood: “I Need Your Help” by Elder Eyring. We snuggled up and talked about how he felt while he was surrounded by priesthood holders that are important to him and his Dad gave him a blessing. I forget sometimes how great he is and what a wonderful little man he’s becoming. I can’t believe that Thursday will be his first Young Mens activity!

It turns out that on quiet days in my house we mostly end up snuggling the dog, Daisy.

Part of the attraction to staying inside was also because David has been struggling with a chest cough. It rattles, it shakes and it sounds nasty yet he still runs around as if nothing wrong. Aw, the strength of young boys. It’s taken all week but now Laurelyn has the cough. It turns out that she comforts herself the same way David does. In the arms of her dog.

I found several pictures on my camera that I absolutely loved and I had to add them. Be ready to smile!

Laurelyn was showing me how she can hi-ya. You don’t know what a hi-ya is? Well, it’s this….

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I want to have strong, faithful children. I have tried to so some things like having the kids write their own primary talks by reading scriptures that pertain to the topic and talking about stories from our family that might help and then praying as they get up to the primary pulpit that they don’t refer to all the yelling mom did as we ran out the door late to church again.

I’m starting to feel like there is so much more that I can be doing for the family but also for me personally. I feel like I have drifted pretty far from my Savior while still feeling grounded in my faith. I need to get better at the daily things that help bring me closer to the spiritual. We use to be really good at FHE and scripture reading but we’ve slowed down a lot. So, for FHE tonight I talked to the kids about how we behave different when we’ve been reading our scriptures and when we’ve been playing on the computers. We have taken up a family (kid) challenge to not watch tv or go on the computers for a WHOLE MONTH! That’s going to be a real struggle for Jason and Laurelyn especially. Jason loves his computer games and Laurelyn loves her movies. We can do it though!

I have also printed off some reading charts and we have a family challenge to see who can personally read the Book of Mormon first. We’re in Mosiah as a family but we’re all starting at the beginning again and racing to the finish. Whoever gets to the end first gets to choose their prize! (Without reason of course. Jason immediately asked for $100, the booger.)

I’m hoping that getting our determination together on family scripture study, fhe, and personal scripture study that we can start to feel closer to the Spirit, all of us.

I took a very long hiatus from blogging while I was busy with other things but two years ago I wrote a blog post just for Jocelyn for her birthday. It starts out with Jocelyn’s birth story because when I was growing up my mom started the tradition of telling us our birth story on our birthdays. I’ve tried to keep that same tradition with my kids and they love it. If you want to read my birthday blog post, and I highly recommend it, it’s linked to here. 

Jocelyn inspires me to be a better person because she is so thoughtful and loving. She helps remind me that being a great friend is one of our greatest responsibilities. I am lucky to be her mother and I hope to be worthy of the position.

Happy Birthday sweetheart!