Just Some Thoughts

I like these two scriptures written by brothers who were both prophets.

2Ne 5:27 "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness."
and
Jacob 7:26 "...the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days."

When I was young, I worried that there was something wrong with me because I did not feel happy and never had been. About the age of 21, I took notice of this scripture in Jacob, and it changed things for me. If a prophet of God who had seen the Savior while still a child could mourn out his day, then it was ok if I was mourning mine and all of my worry went away.

Another 20-ish years later, I have learned to live after the manner of happiness, but it is not what I thought it would be when I was a teen. I thought happiness was glamour, popularity, and a problem free life. I have learned that "living after the manner of happiness" is living a Godly life. It is seeking for God and getting to know who He is. It's learning to keep the commandments. It's continual repentance. It's continually growing in gospel knowledge. It's accepting that life is difficult and there will often be reasons to mourn. It's living and associating with others who are also "living after the manner of happiness." And mostly it is a confirmation from the Holy Ghost that how you are living is right.

I feel power in both of these scriptures. I need both of these scriptures. I needed to know that living after the manner of happiness didn't exclude mourning and sorrow and difficulties, and that it is a state that can be claimed by anyone who wants it.

Ruth's Senior Picture and Seminary Graduation

This Week at Our House # 21

1. Ugh, John was offered a job interview, but they wanted him to travel to New Jersey on his own cost instead of just skyping. But at least interviews are starting to come.
2. I was intending to have home school go through Friday, but it was the end of year and we all knew it, so I gave up on Wednesday. But I don't think elementary kids do anything the last 2 to 3 days of school anyway.
3. Ruth had seminary graduation. There were 20 graduates in this stake. They did a pretty big deal with a big buffet and the food in the South is always good. We enjoyed that.
4. Kate has her second try at the ACT in 2 more weeks. She will be spending these next two weeks studying and preparing.
5. Johnny was very sweet and stayed home to do the dishes and help John with the little kids instead of going to seminary graduation.
6. I gave the kids a list of things they had to get done each day during summer break and then I said I would be fairly free about computer games and movies. Adam took advantage of this policy and spent as much time as he possibly could on computer games. That meant he was spending a good 8 hours a day glued to the computer. So now I have to change that rule, at least for Adam. The other kids were very reasonable mostly played card games, toys, or outside.
7. Rachel loves playing card games. She is always getting large groups of kids together to play cards. I love playing skip-o with her, but she loves monopoly deal and plays it a lot of everyone else.
8. Anya caught a whole bunch of tadpoles and a few frogs. The tadpoles seem to be doing well. They have more than doubled in size. I wonder if we will get to see them turn into frogs.
9. Joseph has been catching toads and frogs, putting them in buckets over night and hoping they will be there in the morning. But they have not been there yet. 
10. During sharing time in primary, they asked all of the little kids what they did to help their dad. Josh made the whole room laugh when he said, "I help my dad eat donuts."
11. Arwen and Susan have been playing together a lot more. It's mostly cute and sometimes a little too much fight.
12. Suzy has a lot more words now. She will repeat just about anything we tell her to say, but she is also just starting to talk to us some.

This Week's Pictures

This Week at Our House #20

1. John had an hr interview Monday afternoon but we haven't heard anymore, do it may be another dead end.
2. I am looking for a job too. I applied for a bunch and then lost my phone, which isn't good. But is dead somewhere in the house, so it will be found eventually.
3. Ruth is counting down the days until graduation. Seminary graduation is next Sunday and high school graduation is June 9th. She is almost there.
4. Kate has finished reading the Old Testament! She will read the New Testament next year for seminary and then she will have finished reading the complete standard works. I am so proud of my oldest 3 kids. Johnny and Ruth have already finished reading the standard works, so they will all have finished before high school graduation. And they all read their scriptures everyday without reminders.
5. Johnny was mildly sick for a couple of days this week. He does so much to help around the house all of the time, so that even though he was sick, I was really happy that he just got a couple of days to do absolutely nothing. 
6. When we first moved here we were surprised at how much electricity cost here. So I told the kids that I would give them candy for every 10 lights they turned off. When Susan started playing in the toilets, I added closing bathroom doors to the list. Adam has been a champion, getting 100 points in one week. It's made a huge difference in our electric bill. It went down by almost half. We also shut off heat and air conditioning, but I am sure keeping lights off is helping a lot too.
7. Rachel is the other champion of turning off lights and closing bathroom doors. The kids call it "getting light points". 
8. Every now and then Anya likes to just play by herself. I think it is cute, but it annoys Rachel because Rachel always wants someone to play with.
9. Joseph caught a toad that croaked a lot and he really liked it. It escaped while we were at church and he just cried and cried about it.
10. Josh spilled his entire bowl of cereal and milk. I grasped for patience, stripped off his clothes and sent him to John who was in the shower. He came naked and crying to John. John asked why he was in trouble and he said, "I don't know." John asked what happened and Josh said, "I don't know." 
11. Arwen has formed a love of kissing and comes and kisses me several times a day. 
12. I bought some onsies for Suzy, so now she cannot take off her diaper. I was fretting that I would have to potty train her young, so I am very pleased with this solution. 

This Week's Pictures

This Week at Our House # 19

1. There may be a little bit of hope in the job search or at least after months of silence, we are starting to hear things. This week, the kids caught, a frog that could jump very high and escaped several times before escaping forever, a toad that they still have, and a crayfish that they thought was nasty, but kept for two days. North Carolina is a naturally funner place for kids to explore, even in their own little yards.
2. We went to the beach on Tuesday because it has been hot. That is always such a nice thing to do. We all love the beach. I didn't get a chance to swim much, but I had a lot of fun taking a very excited Suzy into to jump the waves and then having her fall asleep on me later as I watched John and the kids splash in the waves.
3. Ruth went by herself to find John who was at the bathrooms at the beach and a creepy looking guy followed her. When she got up to the bathrooms the guy stopped her and said, "Has anyone told you that you are pretty?" He then asked her her age. She said 18, and then he paused and asked if she had a number. Ruth said, "Nope, but I have a dad,"and waved at John and said "hi" as he came out of the bathroom. He later found us on the beach. I was a bit stunned at the guy seeking out my daughters who were surrounded by family and wearing modest swimwear when there were very many girls there alone of just in twos and wearing bikinis.
4. Kate is very mature. I talk to her a lot and I am always impressed with her strength, discernment and judgment. 
5. Before we go to bed at night, Johnny always ask John and I what he can get for us. He often brings us water and snacks.
6. Adam whistles all the time, and if he is not whistling, he is humming or singing. But if Adam is awake and inside, there is constant music coming from Adam.
7. Rachel is such a picky eater, I have always had a hard time getting her to eat the food I am make. For a time, she could just starve herself sick until we bought her favorite junk foods: chips and ice cream. I finally got wise about it and have been forcing her to eat healthy and regularly, and now that she is 10, she can prepare food the way she wants it, so I always have her make her own breakfast and lunch and then make her eat it.
8. Anya is a good reader. She reads out loud smoothly and quickly. But I have a hard time getting her to pay attention when I read to her. She really does not listen to anyone at all.
9. I bought a book for Joseph for school. He got it Friday afternoon and read the whole thing. It's not a hard book, but I was still pleased that he was excited enough to read it all. Though now I am stuck with deciding what to read next.
10. I am in the process of deciding what sort of curriculum will work best for Josh for kindergarten. Joseph and Anya learned to read quickly and easily at that age, and Adam and Rachel did not. I think Josh may be a little slower and the best course of action would be to wait a full year on reading and focus his kindergarten on simple phonics, books I read to him, and then on his talent for building things.
11. Arwen was a little sick near the end of the week. She had a low grade fever and a bad cough. I used breathe, a doterra essential oil on her chest and feet and her cough went away after one application. I really do feel like essential oils have been a huge blessing to the health of our family.
12. Susan surprised me at the beach. Up until this trip, she was afraid of the water and stayed away, only playing in the sand. This time, she ran right to the water and played next to it. As soon as I came near her, she screamed with delight and ran full speed into the water. I was so grateful that she waited for me. I allowed her to get knocked around a little, to give her an idea of the force of the water, but mostly, we enjoyed playing safely in the waves together.

This Week's Pictures

This Week at Our House #18

1. Our Utah ward almost never had a fathers and sons camp out, so John was pretty happy to take all four boys to the one our stake had this weekend. The campsite was a church-owned one and it had a shooting range, a lake with free boats, and cabins! They enjoyed shooting our 22-rifle, boating, and the campfire. The stake provided a dinner that all the boys mentioned as excellent. The one downside was that Adam and Johnny packed for the trip and they brought 2 sleeping bags and one pillow for 5 guys. John got the boys all snuggled together underneath the 2 sleeping bags and then stayed up cold all night. I said I would have just come home. But he stuck it out for the sake of the boys.
2. I took Ruth, Kate, and Johnny to the Temple to do baptisms Saturday night. John was going to, but because he didn't sleep at all Friday night, we thought it best that he did not attempt the 3 hours of driving that it takes.Ruth, Kate, and Johnny had spent the last two weeks gathering family file names and that made the trip even more special. It was wonderful to be there with my kids. We thought about how in a year Ruth will be taking out her endowments to go on a mission and Adam will be joining the youth for baptisms. Life is still good despite the hard things, and I have been blessed with 10 really great kids a husband who is a strong spiritual leader and teaches are children the scriptures and right from wrong every single day. 
3. Ruth got up early Saturday morning to do the laundry and clean all of the bathrooms for mothers day. She is such a great kid. I hope she has a daughter just like her.
4. On Friday night after the boys left, Kate helped me do a super around the edges clean of the upstairs and didn't even complain about how messy the boys room was. The boys clean their room everyday, but they shove, so it needs a girl's touch every now and then.
5. Johnny was going to write a poem for mothers day on Friday, couldn't think of anything, went and played Zelda on the wii and then neglected doing phyisics before he left for fathers and sons. But I think he had a lot of fun boy camping, boating, and shooting guns.
6. Adam loved shooting the 22-rifle at fathers and sons. He must like North Carolina because nearly every father and son brought a gun, and he thought that was awesome. He came home with a bunch of different bullet casings that he collected to show me.
7. Rachel stayed up until 3am with John on Wednesday night and then was annoyed that I still expected her to do her school work the next day and then thought we were mean sending her to bed at 11pm, the next night.
8. Anya takes such good care of Susan for me. Anya takes her outside and plays with her and pushes her on the swings. We don't have a fenced in backyard, so we have to keep a close eye on Susan if she is going to go out at all and Anya is really good at being those eyes. 
9. Joseph did not like being in a canoe apparently. John said that he almost cried. When he got home, he admitted to me that it scared him, but he had to be a tough little guy and not admit fear while at the campground.
10. Arwen's hair seemed to grow a lot in one week, or it was just really humid. But all week long,  it was wild and curly and sticking up all over the place and I was out of little hairbands. Every time I told Arwen her hair was a wild curly mess, she would pat her head and very happily say, "My hair has grown now."
11. Suzy has been taking off her diaper. Eventually, I am going to get to the store and buy her a bunch of onsies so she can't get to her diaper. Today we put duct tape around it and she cried for over an hour because she could not get it off.

This Week's Pictures or Johnny's Funny Faces

Mothers Day Poetry and More

Mothers Day
I love all of the homemade gifts I get for mothers day every year-- especially the little things the kids say and write. Here are my Mothers Day Poems

From Anya
Roses are red.
Vilet are blue.
Sherger is swieet.
And so are you.
I hope your day.
And I love

From Adam
Roses are red
Daisys are yellow
Chocolate is brown
So here's some chocolate.

From Rachel
Dragons are scary
cookies shouldn't be hairy
I can't rhyme with ary
So this poem is threw

From Kate

Roses are red
But theses ones are pink
Mother I love you,
At least I think

I do not think that I can be
any good at poetry.
So I drew a picture for
My sweet mother to adore.
Colors stain my clenched hand
As I create flowers rather bland.
But the only rhyme that I can find,
Is half witted and unkind.
So this trial number two,
To make a poem good for you.
Poems are hard to create
And even harder to relate.
That I think of you to say
In a silly rhyming way,
Only this, mom you deserve
Because of how you faithfully Serve
Us children, we need to,
be better children for you.

And Ruth asked each of the kids a few questions about me and wrote it down:
Adam
color: green
age: 40
food: cake
Favorite Child: Ruth
How mom met dad: I don't know. It was like a church activity.

Joseph
color: green
age: 40
food: peanut butter
Favorite Child: Johnny
How mom met dad: Ah, I can't even guess that way. why do I have to answer all these questions. Why can't someone else. Hey, are you writing this down?

Josh

color: green, actually it is pink, pink, pink, pink
age: I don't know. I just know I am 5 years old.
food: what.... vanilla
Favorite Child: Susan
How mom met dad: ohm..ohm...ohm...

Arwen
color: blue or pink
age: 9, my favorite color is pink
food: brown and gum
Favorite Child: me!
How mom met dad: umm sandwiches and she eats peanut butter.

Anya
color: green

age: 50 something
food: salad
Favorite Child: me!
How mom met dad: I don't know how to make sense of how people meet.

Johnny
color: green
age: 40
food: chocolate
Favorite Child: Susan
How mom met dad: I honestly don't remember.

Rachel
color: green
age: She is 30, I mean 40
food: I think she likes salad.
Favorite Child: Susan
How mom met dad: At school. I have no idea. Dad saw her, thought she was pretty, talked to her, didn't like her. Mom liked him and then they talked to each other for a long time. The end.

Kate
color: blue green I was just kidding.
age: 40
food: chocolate
Favorite Child: me! Oh yeah, do Susan.
How mom met dad: They talk too much.

Dad
color: green
age: 41, she is 4 years younger than me... 40!
food: Italian food
Favorite Child: I have no idea
How mom met dad: There was a ward picnic...