Love, Watch Over, and Strengthen

As I read the Visiting Teaching message for April, it really made me sit back and take stock.  The Savior ministered one by one, and as a visiting teacher in our church, that is what I should be striving to do.  Can the sisters I visit truly say that 1) my visiting teacher helps me grow spiritually; 2) I know my visiting teacher cares deeply about me and my family; and 3) if I have problems, I know my visiting teacher will take action without waiting to be asked?

Wow...it made me stop and think.  I definitely have lots of room for improvement and with that in mind, I am going to try and do more to love, watch over, and strengthen my sisters.

Our wonderful book, "Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society" has the basic ideas of what I need to be doing...

*Pray daily for her and her family

*Seek inspiration to know her and her family

*Visit her regularly to learn how she is doing and to comfort and strengthen her

*Stay in frequent contact through visits, phone call, letters, e-mail, text messages, and simple acts of kindness (I would add facebook, as I do converse with some of my sister there)

*Greet her at church meetings (and I would add, anywhere I might run into her)

*Help her when she has an emergency, illness, or other urgent need

*Teach her the Gospel from the scriptures and the visiting teaching messages

*Inspire her by setting a good example

My work is cut out for me...but I know I can do it! I do love my sisters and Ipray for them, I also visit them, but there is so much more I should be doing.  I have a renewed desire to be more like the Savior and "minister" to my sisters.  This message was timely for me.  If you are a sister in our church, do you know your visiting teachers love you?  How do you know that?

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband!  I don't know what I ever did to deserve him, but he is the BEST!  I made him his favorite dinner, and favorite dessert, and then we did his favorite thing...watched Frozen Planet...and played games with the kids!  Thanks to the kids who came over and helped us celebrate!  His birthday present is in the mail...hasn't come yet, but we will have fun experimenting and making tasty dehyrated foods (fruit leather, jerky, dried fruits) when it arrives!  Happy Birthday Dave!  You are not getting older, you are getting better!  Love you!

Completed projects!

Before Amanda arrived, I had wanted to get shelves hung up in the new "guest" room.  My friend Teri has these wonderful long shelves above her sewing machines in her sewing room and I thought, "That would be perfect for my room!"  She was about to tell me where I could buy long boards and I suddenly remembered, I have two long shelves out in my garage that we brought from Arizona!  (I won't even tell you how long we have been lugging these boards around!)  They are over 9 feet long and PERFECT!  They were shelves in our girls' room in AZ and they were such nice hard wood that we brought them with us!   I have plenty of grey paint leftover so I decided to paint them (and their brackets) and we could hopefully get them hung before Amanda and the boys arrived.

 It took a couple of days to get the painting done.  Both sides, two coats of paint on each.  But they are going to be great!  Then Dave went into the spare room to find the studs in the wall.  Unfortunately, they are not properly aligned to just hang 9 foot shelves!  Unsure what I wanted next, I waited for Amanda to arrive - as she is my interior decorator - and she helped me figure out how to hang them and we only had to cut a little over 1 foot off of each of them!

 My handy dandy handymen, Joel and Dave, got to work and cut them, and hung them.  They make a great team!

 Ta da!  This is the finished product above my computer/sewing table.  They aren't decorated or organized yet, but I am thrilled to have them up and to have a place to put cute baskets with my projects and supplies up and out of the way!  And of course pictures and other cute things on the top shelf which is too high for "stuff" I use.  I like them and am so happy for all the helpers who got them out of my garage and up onto the wall!

 This is a cute project Amanda brought with her.  She made me an apron!  Isn't it cute? 

 While she was here she covered this cute bulletin board for my grey and yellow room and made a cute little throw pillow for the bed! 

 And of course we had to make some cards!  She needed cards to take home, so we made wedding cards, and thank you cards...here's a sample...

 ...and birthday cards!  This was our birthday card production line...they were fun and turned out cute!  And we both got plenty of cards to fill our card baskets!

We had so much fun getting projects done and starting others...Amanda, you are my inspiration!  Come visit me again soon!!

All good things must come to an end...

The sad day for Grandma came at last...on Tuesday the 10th we went to the airport.  As we were driving to the airport, Amanda got a message from the airlines on her phone that the flight was delayed an hour.  Now what?  So we went to Michael's and found a few more things for me to finish up some projects and then to the Burger King drive through for some chicken nuggets for the boys.  We would go to the airport and get checked in and wait a little longer...

 David loves going inside the big tree they have there...Jacob liked it too, but was more interested in his ice water...

 We let him out of the stroller so he could burn off a little energy before the flight.  He is looking at the pictures of the snow...he and David ran around and through the tree a dozen times...

 This is Jacob saying "cheese!"  Only he says it, "meeeee"...and he's in his cute little flip flops that he calls "fwop fwops."  I'm gonna miss that cute little face!!

 David and Mommy going around and around....

It was almost time to go through security, so I tried to get one last picture of the three of them...Jacob wanted to run some more...



So we just got one of David and Mommy.  How I am going to miss them!  It has been such a FUN FUN time with them all here.  I loved every minute of it!  I am so sad they have to go back...but I know their daddy misses them and they have pre-school and T-ball and other fun things awaiting them there.  Thank you for coming to visit Grandma and bringing such sunshine with you!!!  It rained a full three days after they left...it fit my mood.  Love you my Georgia peaches!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I can't let April 13th go by without wishing my mom a happy birthday!  If she was still with us she would be 78!  wow...when I was with her sisters last summer, I found this picture that I had never before seen!  It's a copy of a copy, so not the greatest quality...but I still love it!  My mom is the one on the right, with her dad's hand on her shoulder.  3 of her 5 sisters are in this picture and her youngest brother.  I am sure there are probably more pictures I have never seen, and I sure wish I could find them and get good copies!  Oh well, I will treasure this one.  Love and miss you Mom...would love to go to lunch and just visit and eat something chocolate together!  Happy Birthday!

At the Car Wash...

We decided we needed to take Grandpa's car through the car wash and then give it a good vacuuming.  A new car wash just opened up by us and we thought it would be really fun!  The girl working there drew smiley faces on the boys' windows with soap...and gave them a sucker!  Then we went through the wash. 

 David loved it!  He squealed and laughed through the whole thing!

 Jacob was a little more somber and unsure of it...

 We thought it was cool that the foams are in different colors!  David had a fun time!

Jacob was still unsure and had curled his legs up and just kept looking...his momma tried to reassure him that all was well, but he wasn't having too much fun...by the time we went through the giant blow dryers and got around to the vacuums...Jacob was doing fine and enjoying his sucker!

The next day we did Grandma's car!  David loved it again and Jacob held his mom's hand...

Now we are singing the "At the Car Wash" song.  You are too...admit it.

Random acts of cuteness...

Just some fun pictures of different happenings at Grandma's house!  Like Jacob enjoying his green smoothie!

 David helping at the eagle project...

 Jacob and his stickers...

 Modeling the pajamas and pillows grandma made...the floor pillow was a hit, and they each got their own little pillow too...David's is a monkey pillow and Jacob's is a puppy pillow.  We had fun sewing such cute projects!

 Uncle Clark's "real" monster truck!

 And playing Mario Cart with Uncle Clif...

 Jugheads!  Grandpa uses these milk jugs on his tomato plants in the garden, but they double as very fancy hats!

 Smart person that invented this kind of grocery cart!

 Do you want fries with that?

 In-N-Out has great stickers for cute little customers!

This almost wraps up our visit...two more posts to come!

Easter weekend...

Friday after our drive up to the lake, we decided we better get those Easter eggs dyed!  After all, our Easter Bunny comes on Saturday...so David and his mommy made some really pretty eggs!

 Jacob was happy to just play with Grandma's "candles" at the table...

 He stacks the little battery operated votives and turns them off and on...

 Then Saturday morning...there were Easter baskets freshly delivered from the Easter Bunny!  And coincidentally, Uncle Clif arrived late Friday night from BYU-Idaho.  (He is sleeping on the couch while the boys open their baskets) What fun!

 And of course it isn't complete without an Easter Egg hunt!  (Please excuse the state of my back yard...there is work to be done there!)

 Jacob and David did a great job finding all the eggs!

 Ashley brought some of the eggs that you break on your head and all this confetti comes out!  David broke one on her head...

 ...and on Jacob's head...

 ...and he even got Uncle Clif!

 Amanda made us a yummy Cafe Rio pork dinner...complete with salad, dressing, lime rice and guacamole.  Everyone loved it!

Then on Sunday we got ready for church...the boys looking very handsome in their Easter clothes!

 Jacob didn't want to smile, but doesn't he look so sweet?

 Mommy looked great too!

 We had barbecued tri tip and Amanda made the cutest little carrots out of our silverware and napkins...love having her around to do the special little things!

 And the day would not be complete without a visit with Daddy!  Isn't technology wonderful?

Happy Easter 2012!  We love this day to remember our Savior and all that He did for us...we are truly blessed!