Book of Mormon Challenge

Have I mentioned lately that Jason will be getting the priesthood soon? I haven’t? Oh well, in April my boy becomes a deacon and will be serving the sacrament and preparing the sacrament and learning the responsibilities of a priesthood holder.

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.

Posted in My babies | 4 Comments

Enough with the procrastinating, already!

I feel like I have spent the last six months or so dropping balls all around. I have been struggling with keeping my house clean while I’ve been busy with so many other things. Today I put everything else on the back burner and I focused on getting my house under control. I constructed the boys’ bunk beds, trundle beds for both the girls and the boys rooms. I also deep cleaned through all the toy boxes and closets and threw out a whole ton of stuff.

I have been asked to take some pictures of our newly constructed basement and thought that I better do it now, while everything is in it’s place. I took the camera with me while I cleaned and then wouldn’t let the kids come in the room until I had cleaned it adn then documented that I did in fact do something today.

Our new playroom

My storage room

The boys’ room

The main floor

Bonus room

Girls room

I was tempted to take pictures of my linen closet and my laundry area but that isn’t going to be interesting to anyone but me. I just wish I could have stayed on top of things better so I wouldn’t have to invest an entire day to cleaning but on the bright side it’s done now!

 

Posted in House and Home | 2 Comments

Happy Birthday Baby!

I am very excited about having a renewed energy about blogging because it gives me the chance of writing about how much I love my little woman, Jocelyn. Jocelyn turned 10 today and although I feel like we’ve been celebrating for days I still had a great time enjoying this young woman who was once my baby.

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!

Posted in Holidays, My babies | Leave a comment

Breaking out of the cabin fever

I don’t know what happened but Mother Nature decided that she hates us. She must have gone on vacation or forgotten her distaste for canada because we have been having a fantastic winter. Then Mother Nature threw minus 50 at us. Seriously! It was fifty degrees below freezing. I have never felt anything so cold in my entire life. We didn’t leave the house for a week. All of the kids’ activities were canceled and many stores in town shut down entirely because they didn’t want to go to work and they knew that no one was out shopping.

When the weather finally broke we were anxious to burn off some energy and no one wanted it more than Daisy. The poor girl didn’t need to be inside so much since her winter coat keeps her plenty warm. We decided to go to one of the dog parks today. I have become somewhat addicted to the dog parks. I love to watch Daisy run around and play with the other dogs and I enjoy talking with dog owners. Everyone is so friendly and easy going as they’re walking along with their pets. I try to go every day or two and on this day we decided to try a new (to us) park. It turned out to be deserted except for two awfully behaving dogs that I didn’t want anywhere near my dog. Thankfully the owner just kept on trucking right past us.

The kids and I had a blast even though we were alone.

Don’t let all that snow fool you. It was great weather. We ended up stripping out of almost all of our winter gear. I always make the kids carry it around though because Alberta weather can change on a dime.

Posted in My babies | 1 Comment

A soft place to sleep

We didn’t quite get the basement finished for Christmas like we had hoped. We did get to move in the week after Christmas though. It’s been so busy though that we haven’t been able to move into the rooms all at once. We’ve been moving in piece by piece. Right now Jason is sleeping on his mattress on the floor until Chuck and I get his bed built.

With a soft mattress on the floor Daisy has taken to sleeping with the boys. Right on top of Jason’s mattress. I think she might be a bit of a blanket hog though. Jason’s not complaining so I’m not going to worry about it. Daisy is going to be pretty sad once we get that bed put back together.

Posted in My babies | Leave a comment