Packhorse

Apparently, my children think I'm a packhorse.

(in front of our duplex)

As the boys and I were walking home from school yesterday, one by one each child started asking me to hold things.  I usually end up with Hyrum's backpack but that is it.  But with this warmer weather we are having, it started to really pile up yesterday!  Needless to say, I was sweating by the time we got home!

Beware: Really Loud!

Just some Sunday fun :)

Happy Valentine's Day, My Love

 (David and I at Zucca in South Ogden for lunch)

So to keep in theme with David's Batman underwear, I thought I would tie his gift in.

Happy Valentine's Day, my love!

Hundred Dollar Bill

Over the weekend I got a text from Poppy that he and Nanny wanted to pay for the boys to see the new Lego movie.  So I told Levi what Poppy had wrote.  Levi got all excited and said, "Poppy is coming here?!" He was disappointed when I told him no but loved that Nanny and Poppy would send them money so they could do that.

So, yesterday I checked the mail while the boys were at school.  I saw that there was a letter from my Mom and Dad.  I opened it up and there was a hundred dollar bill in there!  I am so glad that I opened it up before they did because I knew they would freak out...so of course I brought the camera when I picked them up from school.  

 At first Brigham thought the hundred dollar bill was fake but then...

LOOK AT THOSE FACES!

We went and bought them each a book that night and a new Xbox controller so all the boys (yes, even the biggest boy of them all...David :) could play together now.  The rest is for this Saturday and the movie.  

As they were freaking out about the money, a parent with a student walked by and she said, "I wish they were my grandparents!"  The little girl that was with her was freaking out about the money to and I didn't want her to feel bad so I made sure that she knew that the boys don't get to see some of their grandparents very often.  I thought about it and it kind of made me sad.  My parents and grandparents haven't seen Hyrum and Brigham for 2 years now.  It makes me all the more excited for me and Brigham to go see them this coming up summer.

Safe Haven

I have really been enjoying my calling in Primary (Sunday school for children) this go around.  It seems I almost always am called in Primary.  I would rather just go to classes but being an active member of our church, well, that just isn't going to happen.  They are going to snatch you up as soon as possible into a calling.  But I have said for some time now, if I am going to get a calling please let it be in Primary.  

Interesting enough, though, we were here for almost 3 months before I even got this calling.  That is, by far, the longest I have went without being asked to a calling once moving into a new ward (church).  David still hasn't been called.  Though he might as well have been because he always helps in my class.  I sure do love him for that.

Anyways, the reason I bring Primary up is because even though I am most comfortable in there than in other callings (Besides the one time I was called into Young Women's in Grove, OK.  That was just all around special.  Those girls really felt like family.  I guess that is what happens when you grow up around most of their parents :), I have to admit that I don't always feel the spirit in there.  At least not the strong, powerful feelings that sometimes come with the spirit.  Granted, it seems I am almost always put into Jr. Primary, and the whole time I seem to be just trying to get my class (or Hyrum in the row in front or behind my class....or sometimes in my class) to be still and listen.

This time I am in Sr. Primary and I am loving it.  It is so quiet in there.  I have felt the spirit multiple times in there.  And when we separate into classes and it is my turn to teach just the 8-9 year olds, I feel like I am growing spiritually.  I will study before hand but on a couple of occations, while teaching, I have came across something in the manual or scriptures and something new will come into my mind.  It will be as clear as only knowledge can be and I will feel the spirit fill me up knowing that the Lord doesn't just want me to teach these little ones, but wants me to grow as well.

 So I have been having these great insights in Primary since moving here.  Sacrament meeting has been the usual.  It gets better and better as the kids grow up.  They can stay quiet longer and so I feel like I can actually listen.  But this last Sunday was just so good.  Brother Simpson shared some ideas on keeping our homes spiritually safe.  He used the words, "Safe Haven."  I often use this phrase when describing our home.  Not that it is a perfect save haven, but that it is something I truly strive for.  It is why I am so picky about all entertainment that is brought into our home.  It is why David and I don't yell at each other, ever.  It is why we don't curse.

I teared up as I listened to all the wonderful things this man was suggesting should be done in a Christ centered home.  I felt so good and I didn't know why until David leaned over and whispered in my ear that this is why he loves me so much.  That I take so seriously the safety of our home.

And then it hit me.  I have felt some guilt for not being the ideal housewife.  Before Oklahoma, I had to have the house cleaned almost always.  Wait...funny memory.  One time we were visiting Oklahoma while we were living in Idaho at the time.  We were over at April and Elton's house and I was cleaning.  Everytime we visit Oklahoma, we stay with the Moore Family and so to pay them back I usually like to cook for them or clean.  Just to give you an idea of how much of a clean fanatic I used to be, Elton came into the room I was cleaning and said something like, "I'm sure glad you came all this way to spend time with us while cleaning the whole time."

Ok, so back to what I realized.  So I used to always have a clean home and I cooked a lot.  Not always, but a lot.  Fast forward.  I am now the housewife that yes, volunteers a lot in the boy's classrooms, but other than that I don't feel like I do what a typical housewife should do.  I try to clean but it is hard now having older kids with lots of stuff in a tiny apartment.  I try to cook every night but there are a lot of times that I make it real easy and it is pizza (and I don't mean home-made) or spaghetti.  I rarely craft anymore.  

I am surrounded by so many stay at home friends who seem to be so talented in just about anything homemade...as well as their houses being clean.  That just isn't me anymore and it has been that way since Oklahoma.  That's a long time.  Here and there I feel guilty about it.  But when David whispered to me what he did, at that moment I knew I was ok.  I was more than ok.  So for 5 or so years, as I have felt nudges of guilt here and there, I finally see it.  I have put the right priorities first.  Those other things can come later.

My home is a Safe Haven from the world.

Walking the Fiery Path

I want to remember tonight and what the Lord has taught David and I.

David and I have struggled with where to plant our little family here.  We were lead a certain direction but it was so hard to find a home with the things that were important to me.  There are so many details to this chapter in our lives but they aren't important.  All I want to remember is that through a few months of searching for the right house, we finally know what is best eternally for our family.

So many things in life get in the way of me seeing things in an eternal perspective but it was made real clear tonight that sometimes harder things lead to lessons learned that can only lead to wisdom.  You have no idea how different of thinking that is for me, unless you were in this odd brain of mine.  I love easy ways out.  I don't like trials.  I just want to be told what to do but ever since Oklahoma, I have slowly learned, trial by trial, that He is molding me.  And honestly, I love it.  I still can't believe I can say that.

I read an amazing quote the other night by John Pontius.  He said, "All my life, I have been praying to understand God's will in my life.  I'm still not very good at understanding it.  I keep getting hit by freight trains I should have seen coming and then realizing, after the fact, that the freight train was the only way God could fully answer my prayer."  A few paragraphs later he said, "These days I think back on my life, and I can see that many things I did learn the easy way - but everything of grand eternal value I learned by freight trains crashing into me.  I look at every spiritual refinement I may possess now, and it all came as a result of walking the fiery path, not flying over it."

Alisa, please remember this.

Super Bowl

So last night was the Super Bowl.  We aren't huge fans of watching sports on TV here.  We would rather be there watching.  Though, maybe that is more me.  David and Levi do like watching some sports on TV.  But either way, we don't watch them often.  Probably more because we rarely have cable.  When we moved here, one of the perks of living at James Place Apartments is that it has free cable.  But until last week, we never went to pick up the box for it.  David and I just didn't want it in our home.  I knew we would have to be monitoring it when the kids were watching and I didn't want to be pulled into wanting, myself, to be watching it a lot.  

But with the Super Bowl coming as well as the Winter Olympics coming, we gave in.  And I wanted to make it special so I asked everyone what they wanted the night before.

Daddy got his chicken wings, Levi had chocolate chip cupcakes and root beer, Brigham had Doritos Dinamita Chile Limon with Sprite, and Hyrum had his french fries.  Spoiled boys!

I could care less about the game but I stayed in the living room with them while I worked on some cards I was making (thanks to mom and dad getting me card kits that come in the mail :).  

Brigham was his usual funny self, without him even knowing it.  My favorites were:

-Before the game started, an opera singer sang the national anthem.  Just as expected she sang loud with super high notes.  Towards the end Brigham says, "That lady is going to break that thing!"  Speaking of the microphone, I'm assuming.  Or maybe even our TV.  

-About halfway through the game Brigham says, "How did the Broncos get into the Super Bowl anyway?!"  (The Seahawks won by quite a bit.  43-8)

The reason these things are so funny is that he isn't trying to be funny at all.  He was talking like they were facts or just obvious things.  David and I lay in bed last night laughing at him as we recounted all his "quotes" during the Super Bowl.  He sure keeps things alive in our home!