temples

Here is a neat website, Temples to Dot the Earth, that shows a map of the world and where all the Temples are located. The church website also has a world map and information on each of the Temples, with an interactive map. Also, here is a link to a video the church has on why we build Temples and lists newly announced Temples.

Our lesson in Relief Society was based on Sister Alred's talk, Holy Temples, Sacred Covenants from October 2008 conference about Temples. The sister who taught the lesson mentioned that four years ago she and her husband set a goal to go the the Temple every week and in those four years they have only missed one week (and the weeks that the Temple is closed for cleaning). What an accomplishment. This motivates me to set a better goal for myself. I have the opportunity to go to the Temple often, with the Temple only being 10 minutes away, now I need to set it as a priority and just "do it".

Funny Kids

Tonight I had family council with the kids (Jeremy was at work, but we needed to have a family meeting anyways) and we were discussing some problems - namely the boys constantly fighting with each other and then running to me to tattle on each other. We were discussing a specific situation that happened earlier trying to re-enact and figure out a better solution. I asked Charlie if he couldn't have asked Tom to help him in a while rather than trying to force him to help at that minute.

Tom: yea, I would have said "I will help you in two minutes"
Charlie: that wouldn't help. I don't know how long two minutes is and neither do you"

That made me laugh so hard. It is true, they don't really understand time yet, so how would it help for Tom to give a specific time frame when neither of them has a point of reference for that.

The other funny;
Last night, in the middle of the night, about 3 am sometime Jeremy, who is at work at the hospital, gets a call from Charlie.
Dad: What's going on Charlie?
Charlie: I can't find mom.
Dad: did you look in her bed?
Char: she's not there, just Becca is
Dad: did you look downstairs?
For a few minutes Jer has Char look around the house and alas, I am not to be found. Then Jeremy says: did you turn the light on in her room and make sure she is not in there?
Char: no, I don't want to turn the light on, Becca is in there and I don't want to wake her up.
Dad: well, just turn the light on and check real quick.

Cut over to me, dead asleep in my bed, bright light in the eyes, Charlie on the phone, "oh, there she is" and I'm wondering why Charlie is on the phone in the middle of the night and who is talking to.

Kids are just too funny. I couldn't figure out how Charlie knew Jeremy's work number to call him at work, but apparently he had called Jeremy on his cell phone, which usually doesn't work in the hospital and on the rare times it does Jeremy doesn't usually answer it. Maybe it was heavenly intervention so a scared little boy could find his "lost" mom in the middle of the night.

Unleashing the Dormant Spirit

I have no words for this video - except that it is powerful and you will be so glad that you watched it.

SUMMARY: In a BYU Devotional, given on May 14, 1996, Elder F. Enzio Busche of the Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (www.mormon.org) gave advice to those listening on how to become a disciple of Christ.

REFERENCE: The speech was entitled "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" and can be found here.

last day of spring break

Today was the last day of spring break and what a beautiful day it was - sunny all day long and it got up to 82 degrees. This morning we spent some time in the backyard cleaning up and getting the garden area ready. I wanted to plant tomorrow, but then someone told me it is supposed to get really cold this weekend - maybe I'll wait a week. The kids have been looking forward all weak to going to the Cotton Mill Park. It is farther away - only 20 minutes, but compared to the park we usually go to that is only 5 minutes away, it is far - so we don't go very often, but the kids love it so much. It is a fun park, there are some very unusual toys to play on. There is also a great hill for rolling down - one of Tom's favorite things.
St. George is getting more parks all the time, so a favorite thing for many is to try out all the different parks. My kids name them according to their own connections - grandpa's park (the Bloomington Hills Circle Park) near where grandpa used to live, Steve's Park (Hidden Valley Park) because it is near uncle Steve's house, Dallin's park (Vernon Worthen Park) because that is where cousin Dallin had his birthday party 3 years ago, Tylers park (Bloomington Hills north park) near where their friend Tyler lives - and other parks don't have such descriptive names that I remember them, but really there are about 6 different parks we frequent and then there are at least 4 other parks we go to sometimes. One of my favorite parks is by Coral Canyon, which is far from our house, so we have only been a time or two. I guess because my kids are young and the days are so nice in St. George we spent a fair amount of time at the park.

jeremy passed the GRE test

Jeremy took the GRE test on Monday and passed with a score of 1010! Yea! Now we can apply to graduate school for nurse anesthesia. The schools we are considering are back east - Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Florida. We won't be going until next January - we missed the deadlines for the programs that start in the fall.



This scrapbook page is another stretch out of my comfort zone of design, I'm playing around with more of the trendy design aspects that seem to currently be popular. I really like the effect of the small picture in the lower corner. The tutorial for this effect is on Jessica Sprague's web page (sugar city girls will remember her name as Jessica Bills). She has lots of really neat tutorials. I am currently taking her photo enhancement class and am learning lots.

Here is my spring mosaic - I did not take these pictures - I just put them into a mosaic. I hope my friend Heather doesn't think I'm too much of a copy cat, but she just does so many wonderful things that I want to try for myself - thanks for always inspiring me and then telling me where to go find stuff Heather - you are the best!
Don't these pictures just bring such a feeling of newness and a breath of fresh air - I love it!

Great Conference Idea

Here is a great conference idea. Go to this blog to read all the details.

Spring

Here is a different type of scrap page for me. I usually don't do the cutesy thing - but this kit was too precious to pass up - and the kit was free (from Shabby Princess), it doesn't get better than that - well, except that the photo of Lydia is just way too cute.

hey

Little Lou waking up from a nap. She just had the sweetest face - she is so quick to smile. I really need to do her 6 month photos before she's not 6 months anymore. I've hardly got my camera out at all this past month.

The words on the picture is my copyright watermark. I don't know if is really necessary, but my blog isn't private and usually I don't just post an individual picture, usually only scrap pages. My husband asked why my blog isn't private, I don't know - maybe I should, I just like to think that the world is good and innocent and that there are no problems in blog land.

Why is it that some go private? I need feedback - what are the reasons, what are the pros and cons, if I don't go private what are some cautions I should keep in mind?

just one more

I just had to add one more layout that I did. I love this picture of Becca, and I copied this layout from one I found online. Sometimes I don't like trying to copy someone else's layout because I can't get mine to look the same and I like the original better, but over all I think this turned out well.

Charlie reading

Charlie's reading skills are really taking off. I started teaching him to read last summer using "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons", which is a great book for teaching kids to read. He was a reluctant learner and didn't really want to do lessons very often. We still have never made through all the lessons. I think it was when I started having him read in the Book of Mormon that he got more into reading. He knows his letter sounds really well and can sound things out, but as we all know, most words are not phonetic and can't be sounded out - there are letter combinations that are common, and knowing those helps, but really a lot of words are sight words. As we would read in the Book of Mormon I would just let him choose a verse and then we would go through, him sounding out the words that he could and me telling him the words he didn't know. It really didn't take too many times of the same word until he had it down and I didn't have to tell him any more. We would put a sticker by the verse he had read and then next time we read in the Book of Mormon he would read that same verse again. We haven't done this on a consistent basis at all, but still I'm amazed at his reading skills.

I figure if I'm bored reading the grade level readers he must be too - actually I remember feeling that way when I was a kid - who wants to read 3 letter words over and over and over and over. Kids can learn much more quickly than we give them credit for. Sure, there are foundational skills that they need, but on the other side they need books that are interesting to read - sentences that make sense and that are worth reading.

Today Charlie sat down with a "Magic Tree House" book, which is definately not a Kindergarten level book - maybe 3rd grade or something. He had to ask me quite a few words, but was able to read 8 pages. Again, he only had to ask for the same word a time or two and then started recognizing it on his own. It's so fun to watch the magic of reading come alive for Charlie. Like I said, he has been a reluctant reader, but is coming around and as his skill level develops he is loving it more and more. I think he is too much like me - he wants to do everything well - now, not in time through practice, just instantly do things well now.

Digital scrapbooking

My friend Heather inspired me to make a new chore chart. The last one I made for my kids was just words because I didn't have any cute stickers or graphics (these are from The Lily Pad). I'm going to laminate them and then they can make x's on the empty spaces when they have completed their tasks. I'm really hoping to help them develop some good habits. So far we are hit and miss, which I know is my fault, I'm hoping this will help us all be more consistent.


I am teaching a photoshop elements class for a Relief Society enrichment activity so I have been putting together a class outline. The above page of Charlie was the result of me learning about masking - what an awesome time saving feature that I never knew about. This pink page below of Becca is my sample of what we will learn to do in the class. Since it is a beginning class I made up most of the page and the class will just learn how to add a photo and the text. If any one sticks with the class then I will show more details and skills.


However, today I found a great resource for those of us who are trying to learn digital scrapbooking using photoshop elements. Two Peas in a Bucket (a digi scrapbook website) has free video tutorials which are amazing. On the right side of the page is a section called class lessons and so far they have 7 lessons posted. It is incredible to watch someone doing it rather than trying to read it out of a book, or even someones post online. My skill level has increased much just today from watching some of those videos.

super hero

Tom is a funny boy - very creative and imaginative. The green thing on his face is from a two pack of juice bottles and even when it was still on the bottles he saw the possibilities a green piece of plastic had. He was carrying the green thing around and asked me for some tape. Next thing I knew he had it safely taped to his face and was a super hero - it was just bonus that his shirt matched his mask - made it look like an authentic outfit. He made me take pictures of him from all sides (thus the shot of the back of his head). I was surprised at how well scotch tape held that on his face - it didn't come off until he pulled it off.

Tom really is a super kid - he loves to be helpful. Right now his big thing is his birthday - which isn't until July, but talking to him you would think his birthday is next week. Every day he tells me the details of his birthday party - a pinata, swimming, birthday cake, camping out, cousins, etc. - and that he is so excited that he will get transformers for his birthday.
Tom also really loves his preschool and every day that it is not preschool (Sun, Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat) he is counting down to when preschool is (Tue, Thur). I'm surprised that he is still so excited every time for preschool.

The next big holiday around here is St. Patricks day. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have never really made a big deal out of St. Patricks, but looks like this year we are going to go all out. Last week when were at Target the boys convinced me that they needed green shirts for St. P - they did not want to get pinched and they didn't want a shirt that just had some green on it, they needed green shirts. Target only had one green shirt to choose from - so they got matching green shirts. Today Charlie informed me that he wants to have a party on St. Patricks and have all the cousins come - I'm not much of a party person, so they will have to convince dad to help them put a party together.

Sunshine and warm weather

The sunshine and warm weather has gotten us outside, therefore my house is a mess and I am never at the computer anymore. Tuesday the kids and I spent the afternoon in the "jungle" - an empty lot kiddie-corner behind us. The neighbor next to the empty lot has a trampoline and let the kids jump on it. Today we (except for Charlie, who was at school today) spent the afternoon at the park with my cousin Annie and her baby, Ellie. After we picked Charlie up from school and he found out we had spent the afternoon at the park he also wanted to go the park, so I obliged - I didn't want to go home and have to face the mess - it is seriously bad - tomorrow I'm dedicating the day to cleaning the house (the kids are grounded tomorrow - so they have nothing else to do anyway, except help me clean).
Yesterday afternoon was spent at the dentist. Poor Charlie, who has already had two molars pulled had to have another tooth pulled and a silver cap put on the tooth behind that one. His molars are nothing but trouble. The dentist is doubting how long the silver cap will save that tooth - it might have to be pulled before it's natural time to fall out. I'm hoping the problem is just with his baby teeth and that his permanent teeth won't be so troublesome - but seeing that my molars are all fake or full of fillings isn't a good omen for him.

My sister Susan has been in Hawaii for the past week (hi Sue) - how lovely would that be - a week in the beautiful tropics with no concerns or responsibilities. A vacation sounds very nice about now - except, as much as I love and adore my children it would have to be a kidless vacation. Jeremy and I took a kidless vacation 3 years ago (when I was pregnant with Becca) to the California coast and the Sequoias - it was a great vacation. The year after that we went with kids (and Aunt Deb along to help us with the 3 kids) to San Diego and Sea World. I love San Diego - that was our third time there - and that is still where I would like to go on another vacation. Jeremy thinks he would like to go on our next vacation to Disneyland - I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Last year, as a test run, we took our kids to the Lagoon. It was great and we had a lot of fun, so I'm not sure what my hesitation is about Disneyland - well, except for the cost. I figure, well the kids loved the Lagoon, it was fun, they want to go again, why not just go to the Lagoon - I just have a hard time shelling out so much money for an amusement park. Of course I've never been to Disneyland before, but can it really be worth that much more money?