Sunday Thoughts

Several weeks ago we had a Relief Society Lesson about Love, and it was taught by a sister who is a therapist (I've mentioned her before) so her lessons are taught from that perspective and are very interesting.

She asked us to ask ourselves,  

"How do I show up in my family?" 

"What are my roles 

and how do I fulfill them?" 

We are daughters, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, friends, wives, aunts, step mothers, great grandmothers and so on, but how do we love in those roles? Are we a source of support, love, guidance and nurture or are we critical, withholding, enabling and rude?

• We need to be consciously doing our part, not just checking things off the list (i.e., prayer, scripture study, Family Home Evening, serving our families and so on).
• Get clear about how you define love in your family (interesting thought isn't it?).
• Why did God establish eternal families? To teach us how to love; having children helps us become more like God. (But it's an incredibly slow process for some of us!)
• There are lots of ways to express love.
• How do we teach this concept of family and love?
• How do we teach our children? Example is the best way to teach them.
• The adversary doesn't take a day off and he is constantly attacking the family.
• Families can be together forever. Can is an action word, we need to our part to have an eternal family.

**Thoughts??**

Creative Friday--Just the Girls Edition

Michelle and Eva came to our house again this week (we've hardly been to their house for Creative Fridays this summer) and it was a little strange because we were missing Landon (who was at scout camp) and Lucas (who didn't come because Landon wasn't here).

At one point Michelle received a text from Max (who was home sick) asking if he should turn off the sprinkler that she had left on (with instructions to turn it off when the timer rang) when she'd left several hours before! She was left wondering if their yard was flooded.

Michelle made these cute flannel circles to attach to hair clips, and she made these very cool flowers out of pages of a book. When she first started cutting them out I had no idea how they were going to turn into flowers, but she did it.

Since Michelle is still (so impressive) sticking to her no carbs/no snacking diet I was on my own for treats. I had a pack of Fun-Size M&Ms which were part of an amazing birthday gift from Amie (which I still haven't blogged about) so I cracked into those and found it comical that each package (I ate several) contained between 6-8 M&Ms...really?! I guess that's a radical way to do portion control.

Aren't these cool?

We hardly saw Whitney and Eva because they were busy creating homes for their creatures (toy snakes and Hello Kitties). It's a little sad that whenever Michelle gives Eva notice that they're going to be leaving soon she is crushed because she and Whitney just got to the best part of their game...it happens every time.

I wrote 9 thank you notes!

We weren't happy with the day's self-portrait, but we're dedicated to documentation so here it is.

Whitney gave Eva this entire bag of Hello Kitty toys. I was delighted by her generosity and that we now have a little bit less stuff!

**Have you ever made paper flowers?

Do you ever forget the sprinklers are on?

Could you possibly eat just 8 M&Ms?**

Comment Window Tidbit: We're getting a hand-me-down table and chairs today and I'm hoping they're going to fit in our house, otherwise we're just giving ourselves a big project to take care of.

Denver Trip Day 7--Friday

Friday morning was spent packing and straightening things up for our departure...this is always the worst part of any trip.

I had to take a picture of Kristi's amazing writing desk because I am so in love with it! This one of her amazing Craig's List finds ($60!).

We stuck little post-it thank you notes all over the house, and Landon stuck this one inside Jeff's scriptures.

Car self-portrait before departing.

Farewell Highlands Ranch!

The kids did a good job entertaining themselves, but the drive home always feels twice as long as the anticipation-filled drive there.

Our Which Wich cups are our only souvenirs.

We took a different route home so as to avoid all that winding canyon driving, but it took us over an hour just to get out of town because of all the traffic.

It wasn't as pretty as the drive there, but it was still nice. I call these "Simpsons" clouds.

We continued to listen to Fablehaven, but I tried to read my book for awhile too.

Randy managed to drive all 10 hours again!

This now concludes our vacation posts...regular,
riveting blogging will resume shortly.

**Can you read in the car?

Do you mind driving through winding canyons?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Randy's parents have been staying with us all week, so I've been too busy to blog.

Denver Trip Day 6--Thursday

I spent the morning of day 6 blogging about the other days of our trip, so I didn't take any new photos. Kristi spent the morning getting things ready for their trip to South Dakota (they were leaving that evening), so I just did my own thing and stayed out of the way.

For lunch Kristi took us to this awesome sandwich place (which we conveniently had a gift card for).

The kids were a little skeptical about going to a sandwich place since they're both rather picky, but they quickly caught the vision of this place and ended up loving it; they both ordered pizza sandwiches.

Sweet fancy Moses, this is the glorious sandwich I got! It was roast beef on a toasted white roll with lettuce, pickles, tomato, onion strings, mustard, ranch and mayo. It was glorious...seriously a sandwich to dream about and remember...I'm salivating as I type this...it was beyond good.

After our scrumptious lunch we walked a few doors down to this frozen yogurt place because we also just happened to have a gift card for there. They have like 10 flavors of yogurt and you can sample them all and then serve yourself.

It was a major hit!

Landon wanted to add another jumping picture to his stash. He has them in a file on the computer and likes to watch them as a slideshow.

Randy chose to do some glorious, guest-suite napping because he could.

The kids watched Nacho Libre, they all know it by heart and love to quote it to each other.

When Jeff came home Randy showed him the target he and Landon used to sight Jeff's pellet gun (aka Rabbit Exterminator) for him.

I'm sure Jeff will put this in a very special place.

Annie Kate and Landon finished the 1000 piece puzzle!

This is the only photo I took of the kids all together during the whole trip, I'm not sure how this is possible.

Jeff and Randy said goodbye with a movie quote, "Brothers don't shake hands, brothers hug!"

Whitney is sort of a reluctant hugger.

I had their family pose in the laundry room doorway as they were leaving for their trip. It was kind of funny that we were staying at their house while they were leaving, but they wanted to get half their road trip done on Thursday night and we weren't leaving until Friday morning.

Peace!

We stood and waved goodbye and then Landon race the van down the street. Good times.

We went to a nearby pizza place for dinner after they left. It's the same place they took us to last summer, so I knew it going to be good.

Our last beautiful sunset sky of the trip.

Landon had Randy take this jumping photo of him while lying down on the ground, he's always thinking about jumping these photos.

Our time in Denver went so quickly. We felt totally relaxed, welcome and spoiled so it was bittersweet to have to get everything repacked to go home. 

**Can you quote Nacho Libre?

What do you get on your pizza?

Are you a reluctant hugger?

What's your favorite kind of sandwich?**

Sunday Thoughts

Today in church we heard a talk from our High Council speaker about Desire and then our Relief Society lesson was on President Oaks' conference talk entitled Desire, so that is on my mind.

{This is supposed to represent introspection}

The speaker said...

• Desire is what we want most, what is in our hearts. Our desire to embrace the light of Christ and His love.
• The temple is a great source of light in our lives.
• Being temple worthy and always having a desire to do the Lord's will are the most important things we can do.
• The more we learn about Jesus the more we desire to be like Him.
• Our very beings are changed as we embrace the light of Christ.
• If we are humble enough to ask, our weaknesses can be made strong. We can feel His strength and overcome our weaknesses.
• What happens to our desires as we go through hardship and affliction? Often they turn us closer to God.

Then from Dallin H. Oaks' talk...

"Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions. The desires we act on determine our changing, our achieving, and our becoming."

"Readjusting our desires to give highest priority to the things of eternity is not easy. We are all tempted to desire that worldly quartet of property, prominence, pride, and power. We might desire these, but we should not fix them as our highest priorities."


The teacher of this lesson asked us to question ourselves to see what our deepest desires are and if they are in alignment with God. She also said, "It takes work."

I feel like I am constantly at odds as I try to nurture myself spiritually while battling my mortal self. I haven't ever really contemplated the subject of desire, so I think I need to have a meeting with myself. I think I know what my ultimate goals/heart's desires are but I'm feeling like maybe my daily behaviors and thoughts don't necessarily jive with those things...no wonder I feel like I'm constantly at odds with myself!

**Thoughts??**

Comment Window Tidbit: I feel completely derailed from our vacation! I need to start over again with walking everyday, sleeping normal hours and taking care of business.

Denver Trip Day 5--Wednesday

I'm finding that I took less photos each day, so these daily recaps are going to be shorter each day of the trip.

Wednesday was another pool day and Kristi had gone to the store (again!) that morning and bought more of the inter tube floaties because the kids all wanted the one she had bought a couple days earlier. I thought Caroline's method of blowing it up was interesting, it was sort of a down dog technique (that's a neighbor kid in the background).

This time Randy hoisted Caroline for our shade visors, I'm so glad they have those at their pool!

The kids appeared to be enjoying themselves.

I read this Conference talk before getting out my book for the day. I wasn't able to sleep the night before so I read (hooray for my headlight) in bed for 3.5 hours (while surrounded by a symphony of family snoring) and finished two of the books I'd been reading!

I borrowed this book from Michelle and could tell by the first paragraph that it was my kind of book.

"When I visit the back corners of my life again after so long a time, littlest things jump out first. The oilcloth, tiny blue windmills on white squares, worn to colorless smears at our four places at the kitchen table. Our father's pungent coffee, so strong it was almost ambulatory, which he gulped down from suppertime until bedtime and then slept serenely as a sphinx. The pesky wind, the one element we could count on at Marias Coulee, whistling into some weather-cracked cranny of this house as if invited in."

Annie Kate modeling the new tubes.

The clouds blew in and made things rather chilly, but Randy and the kids stayed in the pool.

Kristi had left for awhile to go to the dentist (apparently she's not flossing her top teeth regularly) but then returned to lounge in the shade for a short time until the thunder clouds got serious and the lightning (which is also abnormally large here) started showing off.

So we made a speedy departure from the pool, drove home to change clothes and then went to a 2:30 movie (The Zookeeper). The movie was entertaining/stupid and Kristi said, "I've never laughed so much in such a bad movie before."

The sun was shining again when we came out of the theater though, go figure. Rather than try to squeeze everyone in for a self-portrait we had Annie Kate's friend take this photo of us.

Back at the house the puzzle was really coming together.

Kristi made another fabulous dinner, this time it was chicken enchiladas with beans and rice (my kids even ate them!).

Later that night Kristi and I went back to the movies to see Larry Crowne (which we both really liked) and took this scary self-portrait...in my defense, we had been at the pool that day so I was make-up free and had hastily pulled back my hair, plus the one who holds the camera always gets more than her fair share of face in the picture.

Jeff was home from his meetings when we returned (that man is oh so busy) so we got to see him for a little bit before he and Kristi could catch up on their day.

I came down to the guest suite to blog (you're welcome) at this table. I'm getting used to not having a mouse, but it's like having one hand tied behind my back.

**How often do you read Conference talks?

Have you had to flee the pool due to lightning?

Have you seen The Zookeeper or Larry Crowne?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Kristi has been working on me all week to get a Facebook account, and she has made a pretty good case for it but I'm still hesitant.