While I Was Reading...

While reading in the scriptures with Husband Man and on my own, sometimes things really touch me and I want to share them in hopes that they touch someone else as well. I have two things I just wanted to share.

The first is one I read last night in the book of Jeremiah. Husband Man and I have been reading through the Old Testament together since we got married... and three years later we're still going!
But there is a story in the beginning of the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah that really stood out to me:

1 Thus saith the Lord unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.

 2 So I got a girdle according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins.

 3 And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying,

 4 Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.

 5 So I went, and hid it by Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.

 6 And it came to pass after many days, that the Lord said unto me, Arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.

 7 Then I went to Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it: and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.

 8 Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

 9 Thus saith the Lord, After this manner will I mar the ^apride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem.

 10 This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the ^aimagination of their heart, and ^bwalk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing.

 11 For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not ^ahear.

So as I started to read this, my thought process went something like this: A girdle? Ok, a little strange... don't wash it? Weird... Go hide it? Ok... what on earth??
Admittedly, a lot of my thought processes go like this when reading the Old Testament. But when I got to the end of this story, something struck me. All the Lord asked was something simple, and all Jeremiah did was do it. There wasn't any questioning (that we know of, haha), there wasn't any dawdling... The Lord spoke, and Jeremiah followed. The end. That simple. And as a result, the Lord was able to teach Jeremiah something, and give him more wisdom and understanding.

I turned to Husband Man, and I wondered out loud how many times the Lord tried to ask me to do something so simple, and I wouldn't do it because it seemed weird or I was embarrassed to do it, or whatever. I wondered what I could have had learned by now, but hadn't because of my silly and petty reasons.

Just something to think about.

In my personal reading, I can across a quote from Ezra Taft Benson that really touched me:

"When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities." (Ensign, May 1988, 4).

I hope that I can remember that quote as our lives continue, as more kids come, as more things require our attention and our time. I'm grateful for the happiness I feel as I try to make Christ and His Gospel the center of our home.

FHE Monday #4

This was just a simple activity. I love seeing how well I know my husband, especially after three years of marriage.

We started with a song, bouncing Gummy Bear, and we held him while we prayed and read a scripture. Then we let him play while we did this activity.

The book gave us a list of questions that we could ask, and I was supposed to guess what Husband Man would say. So the first question was something like "What famous person from history would you like to meet?" and I know that there are a lot of people my hubby would like to meet. I guessed Captain Moroni, and was right. Then he listed off a few other people he would like to meet from history, and then tried to guess who I would like to meet. We did a bunch of these questions, and some were harder than I thought! You could easily make up your own-- favorite food? Favorite song? Favorite actor/actress? Dream location to live? What would you do with a thousand dollars?

If we couldn't guess it then we would tell each other what we would have said. The book told us to write our answers on paper, and if they matched then the spouse was correct, but we thought that was too much work and possibly too difficult... so if you think you know your spouse perfectly, then do it that way! After three years I don't profess to know everything about Husband Man, but I know I'm getting better. I wouldn't have been able to answer these questions when we were first married!

Then we grabbed Gummy Bear and sang a closing song and said a prayer to end it. I'm sure he has no idea what was going on, but we were paying attention to him and he loved it! I still enjoy the wonderful feeling that is in our home after Family Home Evening. This is a good resolution!

FHE Monday #3

In my last post I mentioned that we are going to do better about Family Home Evening, and today, even though we didn't have it until 10 PM, we held FHE and I am so happy about it!!

When I was visiting Husband Man's family for Thanksgiving, we went to church with them on Sunday and in Relief Society his mom gave the lesson. I can't remember what her original topic was about, but the these are the things that touched me the most:

Pattern of Prayer
Library of Learning
Legacy of Love
Treasure of Testimony
Family Home Evening should have an opening prayer, a purpose, and a closing prayer. (And music.)

Looking over these simple notes I had taken, I realised that FHE can help us develop all of those things, and can be a great way to help our children feel and learn these ideas. It can also help us guide our FHEs so that they can guide and uplift and teach our children.

Anyways, this evening we did a time capsule. When I was going through my things at my parents' house, I discovered a time capsule I had done when I was about ten or eleven, probably with a church activity. I opened it, and read all kinds of goofy stuff-- I liked pink and grey, only wanted one kid, and the thing I remembered most was that my friends had just moved away. I really
thought it would be fun to do one every couple or few years as a family, and open them in the future. We picked a few questions and had each person in the family answer them, things like favorite color, food, scripture or scripture story, and how many kids we wanted (or brothers and sisters). We kept it mostly silly, but tried to have a question or two that was gospel-related. We also did a small family section that told where we lived, what callings we had, etc.

So we sang "Families Can Be Together Forever", Husband Man gave an opening prayer and did the scripture (he chose one about Noah, since Gummy Bear received a Fisher Price Noah's Ark in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa S), and I led the time capsule activity. Then we sang the "I love Daddy, he loves me" song and I "helped" Gummy Bear say a closing prayer. When it was over, we blew raspberries with Gummy Bear (his newest thing). I felt such warmth and happiness, and I know that we were doing the right thing. (Finally!)

Blowing raspberries!

I think this is going to be a great goal for this year!

Gummy Bear: 6 Months Old

Gummy Bear has been growing way. too. quickly. these last few weeks! At his six month checkup today he weighed 18 pounds 13 ounces (72%), measured 27.5 inches long (82%), and his head was 45cm (90%). He still has a gigantic cranium! And he's definitely a long baby. My mom encouraged me to buy a pair of Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls at a yard sale, and when I pulled them out yesterday they just looked like they would be balloon pants on him. The nurse said his BMI was about 50%, so he has chub... he just puts most of his energy into getting taller!

It makes sense that he is in high percentiles because he LOVES to eat. He eats rice cereal or oatmeal, a variety of baby fruits and baby veggies. He loves all of them, and recognises the jars now when we open them. The only one he maybe doesn't like is the carrots. I don't know if it's a texture thing or what, but he always makes tons of goofy faces and noises when we feed them to him. He also loves formula, though, and for the most part holds his own bottle... until he gets bored, and then it becomes Mom's job again.

He still loves his bunny rattle and his elephant toy, and preference towards eating cloth over smooth toys. Sometimes he is perfectly content to just chew on a burp rag. On the other hand... he is getting very opinionated! If he doesn't want to play with a certain toy, then he just ignores it. If he is done sitting in the walker, then he will let us know. He is always a busy little boy, moving here and there and eating this and chewing that, talking or squealing or smacking toys on things, smiling and whining... When he's whining he puts his head down on the floor, kind of like in the picture above, being a drama queen! We just shake our heads at him and tell him he's silly.

He is quickly getting mobile. He rolled everywhere for a while, and now he army crawls across the room with record speed. A couple of days ago he started to crawl on top of things instead of just crawling up to them and touching them. I was sitting on the floor, and suddenly he was crawling over the walker (it was collapsed), around and over my lap, and then over to and on top of the humidifier. Today we caught him pulling himself up on his knees while using the walker as leverage. My mom made a guess that he would skip formal crawling (hands and knees instead of army crawling) and go right to walking... I suspect she could be right!

The johnny jumper is one of his favorites, too. He will stand in that for a while, walking forwards and around and dancing when he gets excited. The best doorway for the jumper is our bedroom door, and just inside the door is the cabinet we got to store his clothes, the sheets, and the towels. He has figured out how to open the lower cabinet doors, and he pulls out the washcloths and eats them and throws them on the floor. We had the ironing board tucked between the cabinet and the wall, but he found that and pulled it out. We're pretty sure he dropped it on his toes once, so that is now sitting out in the hallway. If you help him stand up by hold his hands, he wobbles a lot but he loves to walk forward. Sometimes he will pick up one foot really high and forget to move the other foot, and we just walk him around and laugh and laugh!

He still charms everyone everywhere we go, and still loves to flirt with the ladies. In Walmart today, for example, I went up to refill a prescription and the lady in the pharmacy caught sight of him as I was walking up and she smiled at him and talked to him for a minute before she said, "Oh, I'm sorry. What can I do for you?" I just laughed. He loves attention and has definitely figured out what he needs to do to get it. We love him so much!

Oh yeah-- he drools a ton, but no sign of teeth yet!

Christmas and the New Year!

Husband Man was able to get a whole week off so we could go and visit my native people for the week of Christmas. It was so much fun, and SO CRAZY!

Quick breakdown:

21- arrive in the evening at my parents' house

22- church and a big house party

24- Christmas Eve: feed elders and stay up until 1AM finishing Christmas gifts

25- my baby sister wakes everyone up at o'dark in the morning (I think I literally saw sunrise while I got out of bed), stockings, breakfast, presents, down time, huge dinner......

26- extended family starts to arrive, and our annual day-after-Christmas swimming trip

28- everyone is here (my dad's eight siblings and their spouses and... 38-ish children?), family talent show (an hour and a half long, holy cow), forty minutes to change and turn the church gym into a reception (while I ran to Walmart again), large reception

29- church, packing, family dinner, packing, return home

The wonderful thing is that my baby sister and her fiance, my foster brother, and all my grandparents were there for Christmas. It was amazing for us all to be together! And Gummy Bear enjoyed all the attention he received the entire week. He and Grandma S are besties, and when my aunts and uncles showed up everyone wanted to hold GB and say hello.

So when I got to my parents' house, she heard I had only given GB fruits and rice cereal and oatmeal and told me I needed to get him on veggies. Within the first few days GB had sampled pizza crust, peppermint candy cane, pistachio pudding, cool whip, Cheerios, animal crackers, the crust of french bread, mashed potatoes, ice cream........ and been introduced to beans, peas, squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes. At one point in the week I changed no less than 5 diapers in 24 hours. I kid you not. After talking to his dad later in the week, Husband Man informed me that introducing everything like that all at once will cause problems. Nowwww you tell me! My life is suddenly filled with so much poop......

(Sorry if that was a little TMI, but............)

Anyways, after we got home and spent a few days cleaning up it was time for the new year to roll in! Husband Man worked Monday and Tuesday (New Years Eve), but then Tuesday night he had to chaperone a youth activity at church. So I went and played games with a friend in the ward whose husband also had to be at the activity. It was so much fun! We had cake, and sparkling cider, and chatted. Husband Man had New Years Day off (our best guess was that his company didn't want people with hangovers showing up to work, haha) and we had a lazy day doing whatever. It was so nice, to just spend the time together and relax and play games!

The new year is always so exciting, a chance to use the new year as a fresh start to achieve goals and try harder to be a better person. Shortly after New Years, Husband Man and I decided we would write down four family goals and three personal goals each that we wanted to achieve by the end of the year. (And if we post them, then we really have to make sure we achieve them! Hahaha!) We tried to think of goals that would increase health, spiritual health, and financial safety:

1. For a financial goal, we decided that we would try and save up a certain amount each month to reach a goal by the end of the year. Husband Man is on salary, and looking ahead we know that in the next few years we could potentially be looking at purchasing a second car, maybe putting a down payment on a house... We really felt like it would be a good idea to save as much as we can.

2. This is a financial/spiritual combination goal: we are trying to pay our tithing every month. Since we have been married we pay tithing on every penny that enters our home. When we were in college, we even paid tithing on our pell grants, and we definitely felt the blessings of giving that money back to the Lord and His church. What we aren't so good at? Paying our tithing monthly. Instead it gets forgotten, and then suddenly we're using 80% of a paycheck to catch up. It would be much easier on our bank accounts if we just did it every month.

3. For a spiritual goal, we decided we are going to try and have Family Home Evening every Monday. I know, I know, we are already supposed to do that... but we are HORRIBLE at it! Now that Gummy Bear is starting to understand more and more things, we want to set the pattern now.

4. We needed a physical goal, so we set it that we should exercise twice a week at least. I don't feel like either of us needs to lose weight, but I have turned into a weakling pansy since I had Gummy Bear and Husband Man has been talking about trimming up as well. We've tried to set more specific exercise times, such as exercising every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, but that never seemed to work. So we are going to make it a little more broad, and hopefully it will feel like more of a choice rather than forcing ourselves to do it.

For personal goals, I'm really proud of Husband Man's choices.
1. Read "Miracle of Forgiveness". (He told me it used to be required missionary reading, but they removed the requirement right before his mission.)
2. Finish first draft of The Dream. (That's the codename he's given his novel that he is working on.)
3. 33" waist. (What? You said you weren't worried about losing weight! Don't worry, he said as long as he is fit and active then if his waist never goes back to 33" he'll understand. It's the principle of the goal!)

My personal goals:
1. Maintain a regular journal. (And GB's journal too.) I've been trying to do this, but the longer it goes the more I don't want to spend hours catching up! But I know that it is super, super important, so here it is.
2. Write every day, whether it is on my novel or on the blog(s). (This is coupled by the fact that I was allowed to have cable so long as I worked on my novel, so now I have tons of reasons to write! Haha)
3. Finish at least one project every month. I am one of those people who starts projects or gets all the materials for a project, and then never finishes it... but enough is enough! Time to actually do some pinterest projects!

I am so excited for the opportunities we are offering ourselves. And the best part is that we have chosen goals that will allow us to evaluate how we are doing each month, or even each week. There is always time to improve, and just because you fail at your resolutions in January doesn't mean you have to wait until next January to try again. We figure that if you are doing better by the end of the year, then you have succeeded!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Here is to 2014! Woohoo!