Sunday, February 20, 2011

Love post 19 and 20

My love post 19 and 20 go together. This weekend was Stake Conference. Saturday was one of those crazy busy days. We had like 4 different things to be at all at the same time. Ryan and I divided and conquered the best we could. By the time 7:00 p.m. rolled around I was exhausted and for just a second decided I was not going to go to the adult session of Stake Conference. Boy am I glad I did not entertain that thought for long.

It was amazing!!! I am so glad I did not miss it. I left feeling uplifted, inspired and ready to try harder to be better. The Temple President and his wife were there and they gave amazing talks.
Here are some of the things that hit me real hard.
Sister Layton:
It is such a good feeling to grow.
With each and every calling we grow. We have to do it ourselves. No one can do it for us.
Satan is rampant at this time. We need the Temple even more so now than ever.
If we go to the temple often we will be reminded of our blessings that will help us get by day to day.
Even in our strength we need to be more diligent because Satan is more diligent.
Pres Layton:
How do we honor sacred places and sacred things.
Do we go to the temple casually or do we feel and hear the blessings and promises when we go?
Do we get something out of it everytime we go?
Are the words we hear in the temple engraven on our minds?
As we firmly plant them in our mind, you can repeat them. Slowly as you go more and more they will move from your mind to your heart.
They will protect you. They will become part of your life.
You will know your Heavenly Father loves you.
You will feel his strength and comfort and peace in your life.
If we do not appreciate sacred things, we will lose them.
Pres Killian:
He talked about how we become more Holy.
Not just good, but Holy.
Individually-prayers will make us be more holy.
It is not the length of prayer that matters but the depth.
Are prayers should not be just memorized repeats.
Are we praying to get it out of the way or are we actually communicating with our Heavenly Father?
Scriptures-we become more Holy as we read our scriptures.
The word of God is virtue. Heavenly Father is perfect, sinless as we read his words we will feel he is virtue and it will change our hearts.
Service- do we serve others.
Do we serve or spouses, our kids.
Do we take care of their needs, do we speak to them with kindness.
Families-we have to strive to be better everyday.
Do we look out for each others interest.
Are we kind to our families, are we critical, sarcastic.
Do we serve and lift each other, do we kneel down together and pray for each other.
Are we looking out for each other.
As we do these things it becomes habit and tradtion, it will be our way of life and just come naturally.
Stake Primary President-(I didn't catch her name) but her talk was sooo good too.
She too talked about being more Holy.
Once we know the Gospel it then become about how we strive to live it.
We must stand in holy places.
The more we stand there, the more Holy we become.
She talked about the Hymn (131) More Holiness Give Me.
There is the one line that talks about more longing for home.
At first she thought about it being our home in heaven, but then realized it should also be our earthly home. Is our home a safe place that our children what to come home too?
Where they know they are loved, they know they are guarded from the world in our home.
There are unavoidable places in the world. Unholy places. We have to be in the world but not of it.
Unholy places pull us down.
We need to be sure we are in the Holy places more often than not.
She said we should go home and write our own verse to the Hymn. like
more temple attandance
more fasting with purpose
more praying for others
what else do we individually need to add to it to be more holy.
As I listened to her talk I kept asking myself, I wonder how Heavenly Father feels about the way I am raising his children. Is he happy with my parenting? There is definately room for much much improvement.
Day 20
Pres Bradshaw-Little children are holy, become like little children
FHE helps us to become more Holy.
Everybody in the house should have their own copy of the conference Ensign.
keep it with your scriptures, mark it up, use it daily.
Only our homes can compare to the temple in Holiness.
Youth speaker- obedience
the student who listens to his teacher, completes his homework and participates finds that school is much easier. The student who does not pay attention and do what is asked of him, struggles and has a harder time.
Obedience is like that, as we obey we are blessed and things become easier.
Not sure the next speakers name but he talked on marriage.
The best place to solidify your marriage is in the temple. The more we go, the stronger the marriage.
Elder Keel-we go thru things that are not easy.
We need to find opportunity to learn.
We need prayer, as we humble ourselves we learn to overcome.
Sister Bradshaw-
We are either moving forward in our testimony or falling behind.
We never just stay put. It takes constant nurishment. ALWAYS!
I LOVED conference. I love my leaders who inpire me to try a whole lot harder to be more HOLY!

Love post #17 and 18

Love #17
I LOVE making this yummy crockpot whole chicken recipe my sister Kathey gave me. It smells heavenly and is super easy. I've blogged about it before here. I love making this at the beginning of the week and just have it on hand for other meals thru out the week.

Some of my favorite meals to use it for are
Poppy Seed Chicken

Chicken Pillows
Chicken enchiladas and
Chicken pot pie to name a few.
Today I made a whole chicken and was able to make a lot of yummy meals with it and that just makes me happy!
Love Post #18-Service
That chicken that I made yesterday was perfect for some freezer meals I took to my friend who's husband has been in a comma and in the hospital for 5 weeks. He is on the mend and we hope coming home on Thursday. She is such an amazing women and always doing for others. I wanted to help her out and knowing that she spends all her time at work and then straight to the hospital I figured some meals would come in handy.
Becca didn't have dance or preschool this day (I get so much more done when she is gone) so she was right there and I caught myself getting frusterated with all of her little interruptions because I wanted to get these meals delivered before my friend had to go to work, and she was slowing me down. I was very grateful for the promptings of the spirit that clearly said to me, "don't miss out on the opportunity to teach her about service....This is totally her thing she will love it". I was very grateful for that gentle reminder. To be completely honest, I don't love cooking with little helpers. Sure cookies and bread are fun, but we are usually in a rush to get dinner on and I just have that I can do it so much faster and less messy without your help attitude. So I hesitated for a minute but then after I gave in and blew the bubbles she was begging me to do with her, I said do you want to help me do a fun surprise for my friend. I then told her their daddy is sick and their Mommy has to take care of him and they need someone to help make dinner. I asked if she wanted to help and she was all over that. She was adorable and kept saying "whats next, Mommy?" She was my cheese sprinkler, cracker crusher and of course she loved stiring. I know we BOTH felt really good by the time we finished cooking. And I am so sooo grateful I slowed down and let Becca be apart of the service I was trying to give.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Love post #16

A couple of weeks ago our family went to the youth Roadshow our stake put on. It was adorable, and my kids lOVED it. Well...all on her own, Becca set up some chairs and did a roadshow for us.
The trampoline was her stage/castle.
she was Rapunzel and of course....
Daddy was her prince charming. She did a lot of her little turns and twirls that she has learned in dance and was singing made up song one after another. :)
Curtain call...what a darling cast!
The audiance all loved it.
I love my sweet, talented, supportive, fun,creative little family.
We sure love spending time together.

Love post day 15

I love that ever since our cousin Jefferson AKA Indy came and put on this awesome adventurous party for Kyle's birthday that my boys can always be found in Indy clothes too.

They want to be just like Jeff, he's pretty awesome!!!

Should have stuck with Pizza!

This is something I put together for my primary class. I got up extra early on Valentines and delievered them. I hope the kids enjoyed finding their little surprise and maybe even got to use them at school or on homework.

Anytime we get a package in the mail for special occasions. We place it in the chine hutch and don't open it until the day of. Well we got this fun valentines package in the mail so in the hutch it went. I didn't forget about it, but I was planning on having it on the table for the boys when they got home from school. They had other plans. As we were walking out the door, they insisted they neeeded to open their package. So we let them bring it in the car and they opened it on the way to school.

they all LOVED the treats and surprises inside. We sure love our cousins and wish we could be celebrating with them.

Every year for valentines day I order a heart shaped pizza, or make one myself. Well this year I decided to try something different and made little individual heart shaped meat loafs. Now in all of my almost 13 years of marriage I have NEVER burnt a meal that couldn't be saved. This meal was a total distater. I wish I had a good excuse for it like I was out of the room or on the phone or something, but I wasn't. I was right there. Just decorating the table all valentinesy and just excited for the little treats and surprizes I had planned. well all of the sudden I smelt the awful burnt meatloafs and pulled them out. They were rock hard and black all the way thru.

The kids all came to take a look. Sweet Kyle said, "it's ok Mom, I"ll give it a try anyway" haha...I said, no that's ok son, these are pretty bad.
as I was taking care of our rock hard hearts, I heard the gravy boil over. Ooops!!!!
well...at least we still had pink mashed potatos. I thought Becca would be excited for those, but she looked at them and said, "I don't like those" I said, "sure you do, they are just pink potato's" she said, "we don't eat piiiink mommy" haha. Ok whatever.

The boys tried them and liked them.
Next year I think I'll just stick with the good ol' heart shaped pizza.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Day 14

Today with it being valentines day, of course my LOVE post is about my amazing husband. He is the absolute most perfect man for me. He is my very best friend. He knows exactly what to do when I need cheering up, he is an adorable father. Years ago there was a self -help guru on Larry King. Larry King asked, "What's the secret to a good marriage?" there is no way to answer that in a sound bite right?! I'll never forget what he said. "There's only one thing that is important. It's that you feel that you are the most important thing in the other persons life" That gives me chills. Although my husband LOVES his job, gives his best to his church duties, is incredible with his children, and does anything for anyone without a moments hesitation. Even will all those things I know with out a doubt that I am important to him and that I am his whole world and he is mine. He doesn't just go all out on my birthday, anniversaries or special holidays etc..., but he truly is an all out kind of guy every day of our marriage and I love him for that.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Day 13,

I LOVE the age and stage of life that Becca is in. She is just so adorable and I love that she is as girly as they come.

She loved all of her presents and cards and phone calls from loved ones. I love that my kids always want to look at their scrapbook on their birthday. She was so cute and would giggle at every picture of Baby Becca. :) We did pink cupcakes with pink sprinkles per her request. Kyle made her an adorable card with some of my old stickers in my scrapbook stash. It was a fun day full of excitement and LOVE
Here is her Birthday interview:
1. What is your favorite color-pink and purple
2. What is your favorite toy-kitchen and makeup
3. How do you know Mommy loves you-because I love you too
4. What makes you mad-being naughty
5. what makes you happy-cleaning up
6. Who is the smartest person you know-Dad because he knows how to get us places
7. If you had a million dollars what would you buy-milk
8. What is your facorite dinner-chicken and pepperoni pizza
9. What is your favorite show-pink panther
10. What does daddy always say to you-myyyyy baby
11. What does Mommy always say-you bet
12. What is your favorite game-dominos
13. What is your favorite treat-princess fruit snacks

Happy Birthday, Becca! We hope you know how loved you are!