Wednesday January 9 (add pictures)

I helped in the office today.

When I got home, I made my dinner menu list and then grocery shopping.

I got home in time to make it to my Beehive Presidency meeting.

Then after the meeting, the kids came home.

I made a yummy dinner tonight that all the kiddos really liked, it is called black bean and sweet potato flautas :)

I got the recipe from Stacia.

She is helping me be a better meal planner.

I really want to be good at making good healthy meals for my family, but I am so bad at it!!!!

But practice makes perfect, right?!?!?

Tonight we had a fun YW activity.

We did a little get-to-know you of the new little Beehives coming in.

Then we made little clipboards for them to put little reminders each week of what their challenge for YW is.

Since we go two weeks between YW, we will for sure forget without a reminder!!!!

Anyway, I think they turned out cute.

Then I had a YW board meeting and just got home from that.

Fun stuff ahead for these YW!!!!!

Tuesday January 8

It was a very lovely day today :)

Dad and I went to the gym.

Then we got showered and headed to the temple.

We have been excited to get to the temple to experience the changes that have happened there.

I am very pleased with the changes.

It was packed full and it was pretty fun because I got to sit on the males side of the room and I got to sit right by Brent.

I loved it.

I had a thought.

You know how we have been told things ahead of time to prepare us for these changes that happen.

For example, being told to keep the sabbath day holy, and now we see if was to be able to do this Come Follow Me program.

Or when we were given the Proclamation to the Family, not knowing why that was such a big deal then.

And now we see the importance of that document.

Well, I was thinking about the push for Family History work.

And I thought today that there will come a point that, unless we come with our own names to the temple, we might not be able to attend.

Because there will be so much work done, there won't be as many names provided for us.

So right now, if we prepare and get names, then we will always be able to attend the temple.

I can't wait to start being better at that!

We got home and Dad got to work cutting some stuff for me for our YW activity tomorrow.

I had to leave and got to a YW leader meeting.

Lots of changes and lots to talk about.

But all good and exciting!

By the time I got home, all the kids were home from school.

Dad took the little ones to Piano and Madi was at work.

I took Cassi to the high school for the basketball games, which Madi went to after work as well.

This evening, Elsie is deciding to work better on her PT home exercises.

She did some walking on the treadmill and then I stretched her out.

This will be so great for her if I can get her to continue working on it.

Porter got some reading done, he has some book reports due soon.

Elsie has been a rock star with reading her scriptures.

She read her Come, Follow Me stuff and then she got her B of M reading done just now.

She has been wanting to read more and more herself, and it is pretty dang cool!!!!

Monday January 7

The kids all went back to school today.

I guess I didn't realize how exhausted I was from the break until I sat down after they all left.

And I fell asleep for a couple hours!!!!!

So not a lot got done this morning :)

But then I did get the kitchen cleaned and got a run in.

I didn't have to pick Elsie up early because her speech therapist was sick and had to cancel, but I did take her to PT.

Boy was she worn out and tired!

She got some good stretches, then it was hard to get her to do other stuff.

But she did play a obstacle game, so that worked out.

When we came home, the roads were packed with backed up cars.

We got to sit for a bit in line right in front of the temple :)

When we came home, Dad made a yummy taco dinner.

We all cleaned up and then had FHE.

We talked about how we can eat better and take care of our bodies better...…

Still working with our families theme this year.

Fortify and conquer.

You can't win a war with a weak body!!!!

And a strong healthy body will also help it be easier to have a strong mind and strong heart and strong spirit.

After that talk, we played Cover your Assets :)

Sunday January 6

What a nice day we had.

9:00 church makes for a long day and lots of time to spend as a family!!!!!

We all got up and ready and to church on time.

It was fast Sunday today and we had some good testimonies shared.

Stacia and I delivered some invites to the new Beehives that will be coming to the activity this week.

Then I went to Sunday school and it was filled to the brim.

There was great discussion about the Come Follow Me lesson this past week.

I see that there will be so much value we can gain from each other when we have this discussion type thing.

We do have an old guy in the ward who wants everyone to stand when they comment, which might deter some people from commenting...……

We will see how it goes.

We talked about how we can gain and nurture our own testimonies.

In this day, we must know why we believe what we believe.

Just blindly believing won't be enough.

Now is the time.

Reading through the scriptures.....it is all stuff we have read before.

But now is the time to be DOER'S!

We need to ASK.

We need to SEARCH.

We need to allow God to GUIDE us.

Our minds need to be READY to receive truths.

Listen to the SPIRIT to help us know what is wrong and what is right.

We must FAST and PRAY.

All the primary answers, but now we need ACTION!!!!

I am so excited about the personal study I have been able to do so far.

We have to be responsible for our own learning.

I am excited to learn and grow and do what I can to FORTIFY my testimony.

I have loved the discussions we have had together as a family.

These big kids have so much to say and such great thoughts.

The little ones have great questions and I love that they are participating in our discussions.

Another great thing that is happening, they are having a chance to read out loud.

For our family scripture study, I just read to them all.

Well, now we are doing it all together.

They all follow along and we share the reading.

Some great things are happening and will continue to happen as we do it.

First, Elsie does not like to read, especially out loud.

But by giving her smaller verses to read, she is getting more and more excited and wanting to read more and more.

Tonight when I took her to bed, she wanted to read her scriptures on her own.

Usually at night, I have been having the scriptures read to the little ones from the Gospel App.

But tonight, she wanted to read.

She would stop me when she wanted to read a verse, she would read as much as she wanted and then we would keep going like that.

It was great, and she was so excited!

With Porter, he is getting a great chance to work on his T and TH sounds.

He is doing a great job recognizing the letters and pronouncing it correctly.

It really is great, and will continue to be great.

Dad made a great dinner, a full chicken on the Traeger grill, and it was juicy!

After dinner and clean up we did some Come, Follow Me together.

We read about how Heavenly Father made it possible for Elisabeth to have John the Baptist.

He made it possible for Christ to be born of Mary, a virgin.

Both things seemed impossible…...but he did it.

Think of all the things in our lives that seem impossible or too hard.

How can we not KNOW that Heavenly Father can move mountains for us.

We must TRUST in him.

Trust in his plan.

Because 'With God nothing shall be impossible' (Luke 1:37)

Then tonight, we went to the Morgans for some brownies and Ice cream.

Sydney goes back to Hawaii tomorrow.

She is putting her papers in soon.

School ends in April and she could be on her mission as soon as May.

Pretty exciting!!!!

We just love the Morgan family.

Saturday January 5 (add pictures)

No internet.

After our workouts, dad and I went shopping.

I got him.... Or told him.... That his Christmas gift is a gun safe.

So today, that's what we went shopping for.

Well..... We ended up coming home with a new kitchen table.

So that's fun.

Cassi has friends over tonight, so it ended up being a late night.

Hopefully everyone is happy and chipper for 9 a.m. church!!!!!

Friday January 4

We are running out of days to sleep in!!!!

Today the boys, my boys, Dad and Port, played some games together.

Then they headed out after lunch to build Port's work bench.

That was part of his birthday gift.....to build a bench with Dad.

It turned out pretty great, and the boy is very excited!

Elsie hung out with Sierra for a few hours today.

Madi hung out with Kara.

Cassi spent time with some of her friends before babysitting this evening.

I got the Christmas stuff packed up and put away and the basement cleaned up.

Now I am ready to get the classroom thing put together downstairs!!!!

Thursday January 3

I woke up early to take Cassi to her ortho appt this morning.

Two more weeks and she gets to get them off.

She is pretty excited!!!!

Well, I got home and I was not feeling good.

I had a weird headache and it was turning into a migraine.

So I laid down and was down for a few hours.

Port and Dad played the Wii together....then Port did homework with Max at his house.

Dad took Madi to her dentist appt to see about when we need to get her wisdom teeth out.

Looks like we need to do it soon.

She has one that is pushing right on a nerve.

No fun!

Madi did work today for a few hours.

When I got up, I felt better and then I took the rest of Christmas stuff down.

It is all in the basement, I just need to get it all put away in the boxes now.

So, not a very crazy day today...but I am happy my head is feeling better!!!!!

Wednesday January 2

Today was the day to eat Bubbles tree down :)

It is a tradition that the kids all love!!!!

Bubbles has been putting popcorn balls, gingerbread men, jolly rancher cookies and other edible decorations on her tree for years.....since her kids were young.

We are just lucky to participate in the annual eating down of the tree.

We sure love having them in our lives.

Not just because we get to eat down their tree, but they really are the best of people.

We are excited to get started helping them on their kitchen renovation.

I know she will just love it!

She loves entertaining and this will be the perfect thing for her to have more people all together like she loves :)

I got a lot more Christmas put away....almost done.

This evening Dad and I decided to go out on a date.

We went to the movie 'Welcome to Marwin'.

We liked it, it is pretty deep, and sad, but also good and I liked the message.

One of the quotes is 'You have to love your pain. The pain gives you rocket fuel'.

That's a good one!

Tuesday January 1 2019

Well, dad got up a little early to get a brisket into the smoker for dinner tonight, but then hopped back in bed :)

Madi had a breakfast date this morning, so she was up before anyone in the house was.

Port had a fun time at the Morgan's and fell asleep a little after 2, then woke up at 7.

He hung at the Morgan's for a bit before coming home.

After a good run, I got ready for the day and when Port came home, we decided to go to the movies.

WELL, that is what everyone else thought to do as well.

We got our tickets and went in to find that the only seats available were the front row, we sat there and quickly decided it would not work!

Why in the world do they even have seats there?!?!?!

We decided to go get our money back and then watch a movie at home :)

Which ended up being a really fun time anyway.

Well, we had Bubble and Eldon over for dinner tonight.

That is why Brent was making the brisket :)

It was a nice evening with good food!

After they left, we sat down as a family to talk about our last year, and how we did with our last years theme, 'Knitting our hearts together'.

They talked about Hawaii, the trip to Yellowstone, seeing the Tetons and Buffalo, trips to see family, and just doing stuff together.

We talked about how we still fought, but also had a great time together.

We know it is impossible to not fight.....but we can try harder.

We can still do better and try to knit our hearts together.

So them we talked about coming up with a new family theme for 2019.

When I started reading the B of M in October, I can across this scripture and it really stuck with me.

And I haven't; gotten it out of my head.

So I shared it with the family and they agreed it would make a great theme for this year.

It comes from Jabob 7:25

It says:

Wherefore, the People of Nephi did fortify against them with their arms, and with all their might, trusting in the God and rock of their salvation; wherefore, they became as yet, conquerors of their enemies.

How great is that????

We came up with the theme of:

FORTIFY AND CONQUER

Never has there been a more important time for us to fortify ourselves, our testimonies and our families.

When it speaks of fortifying themselves with arms....it makes me think of this new Come Follow Me program.

It will be a tool for us to fight against our enemies.

There are so many enemies fighting against our family.

Whether it be the stress of the world, being impatient with each other, or even bigger things.....

We need to fortify and conquer those enemies.

I look forward to this year.

I am excited to have a program that will help us along with our family theme for the year....keep us accountable and help us remember our goals!

Anyway...pretty cool.

Then at scripture study tonight we read in Alma 2 about how the Nephites were outnumbered by the Lamanites and Amlicites.

But the Nephites were able to conquer because they were strengthened by the hand of the Lord.

So just like the Nephites, we can conquer our enemies with the Lord on our side.

I just love when things work together like that.

It shows me that I have a Heavenly Father who watches out for me and my family.

❤

Port convinced Dad to let him stay up a little bit longer while I blog :)

Love my boys...

Monday December 31 (add pictures)

Well, that's it.

The year is done and over.

On to the new year with lots of new and awesome plans :)

We had a fun party tonight at the Morgan's house.

But it is so late and we must sleep!!!!!

Pictures tomorrow!

:)