Living with Joy

Let us relish life as we live it, find joy in the journey, and share our love with friends and family.                    Thomas S Monson

Today I took the kids to the park. It wasn't too hot, but we still didn't stay too long, 85 and humid brings on the sweat quick.
Becca has been asking to go to the "swing park". Last year she was scared of swings and this year she loves them. She loves underdogs so she can go high. She asks me to push her again and again and again and again and I do because it brings her joy.

Becca lives life with joy! She has a quick smile and an infectious laugh. She is fun to be around. She is very creative and imaginative.
Last night I was studying my scriptures and Becca went and found hers and sat at the table next to me. She asked for my pencils that I use to mark in my scriptures. She said she wanted to study like me. She can't read yet, but she sees that I highlight in my scriptures.

I don't condone such marking of scriptures usually, but she wasn't being destructive, she was following my example of how I study, however her marking is much more excessive and exuberant than mine. This is now her favorite page in her scriptures, because it's the one she studied. It's all a learning process. Charlie used to over highlight in his scriptures and now he is learning to be more selective. I have to admit all the pretty colors on Becca's page make that page look like a happy page.

I love my girls. I can't believe they are both sooooo blond. They are cute little stinkers.
As Lydia was falling asleep tonight she was murmuring "pretty mommy, pretty", what a sweetie.

“Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend … when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.”

I have an abundance in my life and I enjoy happiness in my life. I am thankful for that joy and abundance.

These are the faces I love.

Botanical Gardens

I took our kids to the Botanical Gardens in Naples, we went with my neighbor Liz and her kids.

It has a Kids Garden where the kids spent hours (literally) playing and having fun. In this picture Tom is carrying a watering can. The kids spent a lot of time filling and re-filling and watering the plants and flowers. The little house in the background had table and chairs inside and brooms for the kids to sweep.

They were so busy at work. I wish I could inspire such voluntary, intense effort at home. They each were so busy helping and cleaning and watering, and I just sat back and watched.

It was a hot day - almost 100 degrees. I sat in the shade and that helped, but getting wet is what helped the most.

We didn't come prepared with swim suits or towels, so the kids just got wet in their clothes. I didn't want to walk around wet, so I just splashed a little on my head and neck to cool me off.

Lydia didn't like wearing wet clothes, so she took them off. I tried to persuade her to put them back on, but to no avail. So I let her go all natural.

More watering going on. This really was a favorite activity. This was such a beautiful place.

 I would love a back yard like this. If these gardens were closer we'd be there at least once a week, if not more often, but it's at about 40-45 minutes away. A little too far to go too often, especially with all the other driving around we do here - it is all so spread out and we don't live near by anything.

Giant lilypads

Those giant floating green things are lilypads. The little ones in the foreground are more of what I think of when I imagine lilypads. The large ones are very thick and the underside is poky, like a cactus. The fun thing about the botanical gardens was seeing a variety of plants.

Watch Out

You better watch out, my boys are armed and dangerous.

And they are ready to get you

 

This sweet get-up is from the dollar store (so I don't think they still have all the pieces in working order), but they spent a week working hard doing their daily chores to earn the points needed to acquire them. It's all in the right motivation.

Except for this morning for the past few weeks they (Tom, Charlie and Becca) have been making their beds and getting dressed every morning with no reminders from me. It's a beautiful thing.

Beautiful Message for Mothers

As mothers we always need support and help. We are doing the work of God, raising our children to return to live with Him.
"The love of a true mother comes nearer to being like the love of God than any other kind of love."

Here is a beautiful that will warm your heart and make you truly glad you are a mother, and know that what we are doing is the most important thing in the world.





I really appreciated seeing them show mothers with "real" children, that were uncooperative and being children, to help remind me it's not just my children that behave that way.

Raising Righteous Kids

I don't want to merely raise kids that "aren't bad", I want to raise kids that are good, pure, kind and praiseworthy.

I am very proactive and protective in the things that my kids are allowed to see and do.

This picture of Lydia shows her sweetness and her innocence.
I want to protect and preserve that innocence.

We are taught to seek after anything that is lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy.
Things that kids see and hear stick in their brains and become part of who they are.

I don't want them to be exposed to things that "aren't bad", I want them to be exposed to all things lovely and praiseworthy.

I want them to see and hear things that teach morals and values, that show them how to be kind, not sarcastic, that show them how to love one another, not every man for himself.


As I try to make sense of concepts in my mind I often try to link a concept with imagery to see if I am figuring it out. As I was thinking about this idea of "not bad" verses good tonight I had the following thought come to mind:

As a mother I am like a designer helping a room come to it's full potential.

Am I going to allow the room to do what ever it wants and allow anything and everything become part of it

Or am I going to be more selective and show it it's true potential.

To come to Zion, it is not enough for you or me to be somewhat less wicked than others. We are to become not only good but holy men and women. Recalling Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s phrase, let us once and for all establish our residence in Zion and give up the summer cottage in Babylon" (see Neal A. Maxwell, A Wonderful Flood of Light [1990], 47)

After I typed this post I found someone else who posted on a similar theme, check out her posting. To quote Chocolate on my Cranium "What signals am I sending to my children when I allow them to see or read or listen to things that are mostly good instead of all-the-way-good, the best? As the mother I need to set the example. I have a responsibility to teach my children between good and evil."

Getting Prepared

It's raining outside - as it does about every afternoon at this time.
The thunder is treacherous sounding and is a daily reminder to get prepared for an emergency.
This morning the power went out, for maybe 3 minutes, but still long enough for me to contemplate if I had any idea where a flashlight was or what we would eat if the power stayed off.

A year ago I bought food for our 72-hour kits, then we ate it when 6 months rolled around, but I never bought replacement food. I might have to do MRE's again. Then I will only have to replace it every 5 years or so.

Here are some links to information I want to keep track of:
 365 Days of Premade Meals
72 hour kit - list of everything you could possibly need
72-hour kit easy meals
Freezer Bag Cooking
Year supply of food, one month at a time
Lessons From the Hurricane

Our Visit to Utah

Courage

Right now, now that I am feeling good and past a couple challenging weeks, it is already hard to remember the hard times (of fighting exhaustion and the lack of desire to do anything) because I feel so good today.

So today is not the day that I need a reminder about faith and courage, but surely enough that kind of day will come again and when it does I can re-read this passage from an article on Meridian Magazine about courage:

President Henry B. Eyring tells the tender story of being with his father during the famous scientist’s last days, through the end of a long struggle with bone cancer. In great pain, it was hard work to move him from a chair to his bed, and the nights were long.
President Eyring said, “One night when I was not with him and the pain seemed more than he could bear, he somehow got out of bed and on his knees beside it—I know not how. He pled with God to know why he was suffering so. And the next morning he said, with quiet firmness, "I know why now. God needs brave sons.”

It takes brave sons and brave daughters to live with faith in a difficult world. It is easy to be cynical, easy to give up. It demands nothing of us, if our faith blows over in the first strong wind. Our faith and courage have to surmount strong winds of even gale strength. That’s how we know who we are. That’s how we find out who He is, when he encircles us in the arms of his love.
But we must be warned too, that it is in our deepest exigencies that Satan comes calling. He would like to zap our courage, turn our insides to putty. He wants us to think our faith is unwarranted and useless. He wants our memory to be marred so that every trace of what we know about God is revised out of our life by our terror or discouragement.

Brigham Young used to describe our challenge: "The men and women who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom will find that they must battle every day."1 We battle not just against the conditions of a fallen world, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” but more significantly, “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Satan is ever nipping at our heels with his insidious suggestions that we should fear, that we cannot do it, that we are all alone, that our lives will come to nothing.
He is a tenacious sort who does not give up. Thus, on our journey, even after we’ve received times of revelation and conviction, even after we’ve been to the mountain and felt God, even after we’ve seen rescue before, he will still send his fiery darts at us attempting to make our hearts faint. Courage is not just for one time when we’ve been assaulted or one moment of desperation; it is the mode we must have for every, every day.

Paul said in Hebrews, “Call to remembrance the former days, in which after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions” (Hebrews 10:32). What? Again and again we must exercise courage, and again and again we must seek deliverance? Yes!
It is not once, but becomes the pattern of our lives, that even after we’ve received revelation, even after we’ve seen God’s hand, we will be assaulted by Satan, tempted to despair, and must look again for the Deliverer.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said we need encouragement because we face opposition often “after enlightened decisions have been made, after moments of revelation and conviction have given us a peace and an assurance we thought we would never lose. 2
We know it well. The job we were inspired to take becomes more difficult than we imagined. The way we were shown to go is fraught with thorns and thistles. The marriage we were impressed to enter includes illness, economic deprivation and times we are strangers to each other. The child we feel so connected to at birth becomes our biggest problem in life. The investigator slated for baptism does not show up.

Paul therefore advises, “Cast not away therefore your confidence.” This is a powerful admonition because he makes it a question of our own agency. He says, “You decide to ‘cast not away therefore your confidence.’” You choose to be brave. It is in your hands to be courageous and faithful—even if you must wait and then wait again for deliverance.
He says, “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him” (Hebrews 10:38). Even in our difficult times we can choose to draw back or press forward with hope.
He assures us that we can have courage because God will come. “For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Hebrews 10: 35,36).

When the wait seems long, I think of what the Duke of Wellington, who won the Battle of Waterloo, said of his British soldiers. He said they were not braver than other soldiers; they were just brave five minutes longer.
When our courage and faith, flag, we can choose to be brave five minutes longer, five days longer—or if need be, and things are tough enough, we can take it minute by minute with our hand in the Lord’s.

Joseph Smith, who always impresses with his faith and boldness, said it this way, “Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage...and on, on to the victory” (D&C 128: 22).
Again, a choice, a decision. We decide to cast away our fear, instead of cast away our confidence.
Joseph Smith can say that, because he knows God, and courage for life’s journey will always be a product of that knowledge.
When life is too much and courage would falter, remember what you know. Remember Who you know, the One whose face will be so familiar to you when you see your Father again. He is perfectly capable of doing His own work which He proclaims is saving you.

To add to this beautiful message, if you need some soul soothing music try these beautiful songs (scroll down in the blog post and you will see the link for download)  that you can download for free that I am enjoying immensely.

Beach Day

Where are all their faces - well, in a hurry to get to the beach apparently.

We tried out a new beach at Sanibel Island, it was beautiful, but I'm not sure it was worth the hour drive. I love the top picture of Lydia - a very determined walk, and the skipping one of Becca.

The boys were busy at work catching fish.

Can you see it?

How about now?

There are two fish (not broken in half like Jeremy thought when he saw the picture).

It's so fun to watch my boys work together, they really are best friends and are always working together on some project or other.

My Best Helper

Lydia is my best helper. At 21 months old she is the perfect 'mommy helper'. This photo is a common occurrence - she climbs on the counter and gets my keys, sunglasses, and phone - because these are the things that mommy needs when we leave the house, and it is her cue to me that she wants to go somewhere.

She is also really good at helping me with other things. She is really good at picking up and at taking things to the trash. The cutest is when she helps with dishes. She knows where the silverware drawer is and can reach her little hand up just high enough to get the silverware up and over the drawer and gets it in there in a hap-hazard fashion.

The cutest is watching her climb out of the van and pushing the button that closes the door - she has to stand up on tip-toe and reach as high as she can to reach the button, but she loves to be the last one out of the van so she can close the door.

Lydia radiate pure sweetness and she gets such joy out of life. Today she was peering down in a crack in the sidewalk saying "bug, look mom, bug" and she wanted me to get down and look at the bug.

She has thus far been a bit timid at the pool, but tonight when we were there she was warming up to the idea of getting in with us. At first when I was trying to coax her into the pool she would run away and say "no" and if any of the other kids would get near her, she would bolt away. Later Becca was jumping into the pool to me and it caught Lydia's attention and she wanted to try to. Then I was doing "ring around the rosies" with Becca and Lydia really wanted to do that. She wanted it again and again and was even okay when I would dunk her on the "all fall down" and she would say "ashes, ashes" to indicate that she wanted to do it again.

These are my joy

Lydia likes to hide, especially if I am asking her to come to me - like to come get dressed.

Do you see the feet?

Here's the cute face peeking out.

Cute, cute. I don't know how I got such blond little girls, my hair is as dark as theirs is blond.

Friends at first are friends at last.

These are my joy.