New Family Tradition?

Last year it was Chewbacca and Han Solo. This year I found this:



I guess I can't be surprised when new visitors show up in our nativity every year. We would like to welcome Col. Mustard, Miss Peacock, and Professor Plum. No one will be turned away!

Story #2: Being "Healthy"

A few months ago I bought a scale. Yes, in all the 13 years that we have been married, I've never owned one. My kids LOVE this thing. They think it is so great to get on it every day. Oh, to weigh 40 lbs again!

Before Kate and Becca step on it they always say, "Let's see how healthy I am." They step up on it and a number in the 30s flashes up on the screen. They are so happy."I'm so healthy," they always say. You can't do anything, but clap for them and join in their enthusiasm!

The other day I was on the scale. I try to do this without them around because they know how to read numbers. I really don't feel like them spreading the word of how much I weigh. Yes. They would tell people. Anyway- Becca was walking in the hall and ran in because I was on the scale. I tried to jump off, but the stupid screen stayed on way too long. Becca says, " Mom, you're so healthy! You have 3 numbers. That's so healthy!" She was so proud of me. It made me laugh. I guess I should be grateful that I am so "healthy." I only have THREE numbers!

Funny Story #1 that Made Last Week Bearable

Life has been a little chaotic for me. I can't believe how the time is flying by! I think last week would have been dreadful if it hadn't been for a few instances that made me laugh, take it all in, and say, "It's not so bad."

My kids are funny, but the one child of mine that has more personality than her little body can handle is Becca! Holy cow can she make us laugh. She takes everything in, she's quite the sponge.

We have been watching a lot of the holiday movies on, after all they're only on once a year. My kid's favorites have been the Home Alone stories. I will say none of the sequels are as good as the original. I'm sure you all know the story about Kevin. He's tired of his family being mean to him, so he wishes he had no family. It comes true (he thinks, anyway) and he's alone for Christmas.

Becca believes her family is mean as well. And lately anytime any one gets upset with her, or she gets in trouble, she marches to the top of the stairs and loudly proclaims to all of us, " I wish I didn't have any family! I wish I was alone! I'm livin' alone, I'm livin' alone!" Every time she does this it makes me laugh inside. We all choose to ignore her, but she is heard.

I hope she soon forgets this movie and we can all go back to our normal routine without having to be reminded each day how terrible we make her 4 year-old life.

Stay tuned for # 2! I figure I'll break it up. It will save me and you more time!

Sharing Testimonies

During our testimony meeting yesterday, Becca informed me that she wanted to go up and talk. I told her, "No, you have to know what to say."

She pestered me with, " Can I go up now? It's my turn, Mom." She did this over and over. She was so determined to talk into that microphone. I just kept remembering that they suggest you let your little ones go up if they are able to do it themselves.

I finally said, " Becca you have to go up and tell what you know about Jesus. What do you know about Jesus?" I knew this would quiet her because clearly she is only four years old, so what would she really know?

She said to me, " I know Jesus healed the blind man." I was caught off guard and a little embarrassed.

"What else do you know?" I asked her, this time a little more humbly.

"He blesses our food. He loves me," she replied. Now I felt awful! My little 4 year old has a testimony of Jesus. Who am I to tell her that she can't share it? The Spirit confirmed to me that she was to bear her testimony that day. I had in me that same feeling we all get when we know it is our turn, but this time it was for Becca.

We got up there and she wouldn't do it without help, but she told everyone that she knows Jesus healed a blind man and that he blesses our food. She was too fast to say that he loved her, but she knows it.

I don't know why she needed to share it that day. Maybe for someone, but maybe for her own little experience. A memory came back to me yesterday of when I was probably 5 or 6. I was in a blue hounds-tooth dress and I was wearing a white faux fur coat. It was either three-quarter sleeved, or a little too small. I was in our old ward in Mesa, AZ. I was up at the stand sharing my testimony. I don't recall all that I said, but for some reason I do remember "burying" my testimony.

Ever since I was little I never really had the fear of getting up and saying what I knew to be true. Perhaps this will be the same with Becca. At least, I hope, she will always remember the day she first bore her testimony!

Time is so Precious!!

I can't believe it is already December!! I feel like it should still be September. October and November flew by and it scares me that this month will be the exact same. Does anyone else feel the same way? I know our life is crazy, so it could make time pass quickly.

On Sunday, the lesson for the Young Women was on managing your time wisely. I prepared the lesson, but because of my lack of planning and not realizing it was the 5th Sunday, it was not my turn to teach. After feeling upset, I soon realized that I actually needed that lesson. I never learned to do that when I was young. I don't know where I was when that lesson was given!

I took notes and have started applying points from the manual. If you want you can review it here. There are 6 steps they give that help you manage your time.

Our time on this earth comes and goes so fast! I think it is important to make the most of it. There will come a time we will want it back if we were wasteful.

This is taken from The Viewpoint in the Church News, June 7, 2008:

"In an address during the April 1974 general conference, President Spencer W. Kimball read the following by an anonymous author who wrote of the priceless worth of time:

'And in my dreams I came to a beautiful building, somehow like a bank, and yet not a bank because the brass marker said, 'Time for Sale.'

'I saw a man, breathless and pale, painfully pull himself up the stairs like a sick man. I heard him say: 'The doctor told me that I was five years too late in going to see him. I will buy those five years now — and then he can save my life.'

'Then came another man; also who said to the clerk: 'When it was too late, I discovered that God had given me great capacities and endowments, and I failed to develop them. Sell me ten years so that I can be the man I would have been.'

'Then came a younger man to say: 'The company has told me that starting next month I can have a big job if I am prepared to take it. But I am not prepared. Give me two years of time so that I will be prepared to take the job next month.'

'So they came, ill, hopeless, despondent, worried, unhappy — and they left smiling, each man with a look of unutterable pleasure on his face, for he had what he so desperately needed and wanted — time.

'Then I awakened, glad that I had what those men had not, and what they could never buy — time. Time to do so many things I wanted to do, that I must do. If that morning I whistled at my work, it was because a great happiness filled my heart. For I still had time, if I used it well' (Ensign, May 1974, pp. 87-88)."

I read this last year and was so impressed with it. I don't want to be the guy on the other side saying, "If only I would have..."

Just another thing for me to work on!