Christmas 2012

A lovely day had by all...

This is our new doll family. We can officially call this the year of the sock monkey. Notice all four of them here. Perfect really...two large (parent) monkeys and two small (baby) monkeys. The girls both love them. Q carries them all over and T chomps their poor little legs.

This is really T's present. She loves to bounce in it, but big sister can't resist it either. She will sit in it happily and bounce and play. She is also pretty happy to help T play with all the toys when she is in it and had her cracking up yesterday. I love the sound of my girls laughing together.

Our First Christmas angel! She had such a fun day. We truly are blessed with two fantastic girls.

Our poor Q was so sick these past few days. She was pretty miserable Christmas Eve and Day. It made the days longer but we were just happy to be together as a family. We hope that your Christmas was Merry! Best wishes to you and yours for a fabulous 2013!

To My Daughters

Dear Girls,
 
I feel as if there might be some wisdom somewhere in a few of the things I have learned in the past few years. I have felt strongly in recent days that I need to write these things down before I move on and forget a thing or two. So, here I am. Writing you this letter late at night. The house is quiet. You are both asleep. The dogs sleep at my feet. Yet, I feel restless. I am anxious. I am agitated. So, I will share the things that haunt my thoughts and pray that something resembling wisdom will manifest itself. Perhaps my heart and my mind will find a little peace tonight.
 
There are so many things that I want for you. I want you to be healthy. I want you to be strong. I want you to be intelligent and develop some common sense. I want you to always retain some childlike innocence. I want you to read and travel. I want you to be good at math and sports. I want you to have drive and desire. I want you to have vision. I want you to be spiritual. I want you to have a testimony. I want you to KNOW always and forever how much I LOVE YOU!
 
I hope you get to make mistakes, and I hope you learn from them. I hope you are best friends. I hope you find true love and get to have families of your own. I hope you roll around in the mud. I hope you challenge yourself. I hope you challenge your beliefs. I hope you question EVERYTHING! I hope you learn from each other. I hope you make lots of friends and find comfort in those friendships.
 
I know you will not be perfect. I certainly don't want you to be. I know you will not always choose the right. I know that you will make hard things look easy. I know that you both have amazing potential. I know this world will be better because you are in it. I know that sometimes you will hurt, and I know I won't always be able to protect you. I know that you were sent to me from a loving Father who knew exactly what He was doing when He gave you to me. I know you may not always feel that way. I know that you are the best decision--the best thing--I ever did.

I feel overwhelmed with life right now. This happens to everyone, but when I am drowning, I look into your eyes--both of you--and I know that somehow everything will be okay. You give me strength. You are my strength. You are my heart. You are my soul. I love you.

Love,

Momma

A Year Ago...

Okay, I meant to write this one on November 27th. It was on that day a year ago that I stood in the bathroom doorway staring at disbelief at the test in my hand. It was on that day that I looked at Nick and said, "Hey, babe?" quiet as a mouse. I cannot believe that it has been just over a year since we discovered that we would be parents again. Admittedly, I was terrified. Today, that terror seems silly. We have been blessed with the most amazing addition to this family in our Tessa Marie, and while I questioned it a year ago, my Heavenly Father knew exactly what He was doing--because He always does.

Thankful November

http://greekpeak.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/thanksgiving-event.jpg

I love Thanksgiving. I love that everyone gets to focus so much on the things for which they are thankful. I love the smells, the feelings, the love, the happiness that permeats the air. I love the pie, the turkey, the tradition that comes with this holiday. Thanksgiving kicks off the holiday season for me in a big way. I mean, Hallmark Channel is already showing Chrsitmas movies on the weekends, and I am already watching them--diligently.

I also love to see people update their Facebook status to be thankful for something new daily. I always start this month thinking that we really should always express our thanks for the things with which we are blessed, and that maybe this next year I will be better about expressing thanks all year round. I don't know if this is something I do, but I do know that there are days during this month when I have trouble picking what to post as my thankful status for the day...not because I can't think of anything, but because there is just so much. I am a lucky, lucky girl.

The Best Advice: Last October Topic



http://www.cajon.k12.ca.us/schools/loscoches/advice/advice.htm



Holy WOW! I picked some hard topics this month. I've been thinking for three days about this one, and I figured that I should really just start writing about it and hope that that triggers something. I think that I have been given lots of snippets of wonderful wisdom from lots and lots of people whom I love and respect. Perhaps I should just share some of those.

When I was eighteen, our Laurel class at church had a long conversation with our Bishop about the unfair treatment of people in the world--particularly homosexuals--by those claiming to be Christians. If I rememeber correctly, this was during a time when there seemed to be a huge outbreak of a certain congregation boycotting funeral services of those who were homosexual. It bothered me quite a bit that anyone who claimed to know God could treat another human being with so much disrespect, and I just remember my Bishop reminding us over and over that our God is a loving God, of all people. People don't have to agree with the way others live their life, but people do need to respect others for the good people that they are.

Right before I graduated with my BA, when I was looking at where to student teach, I had a professor flat out reject my first choice of school district. She didn't actually have to approve it, but I was seeking her advice, and she told me that I really needed to expand my horizons and step outside my box. So, I did, and it turned into one of the most incredible experiences of my life and led to my first teaching job. I am a person who gets comfortable pretty easily and doesn't step outside my box very often. However, everytime I have sucked it up and stepped outside my box, I have been blessed with an incredible experience and my life has greatly changed--for the better. I am experiencing this now, and I am about to embark on another great adventure that takes me out of my comfort zone--MAJORLY! I am hoping more blessings will abound.


   

Serenity What?!

Heaven help me, I've been thinking about the serenity prayer all day long. I have never liked the serenity prayer. I don't know why. Maybe because I don't really understand it. Maybe because I don't know how or why so many people draw from it the strength that they do. Even as I have recently come into contact with an organization that seems to rely heavily on this mantra, I have resisted it.

I have been raised in a religion that subscribes to very few SET prayers--meaning that we do not say the same prayer over and over during our meetings. We do have a few prayers that we say over and over again, but these are used to perform baptisims or when blessing the sacrament. To me, the serenity prayer just has never carried any meaning.

And yet, I cannot get it out of my head today.

Maybe it is because of the lesson we had in Relief Society today. Our lesson revolved around the talk, by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, titled, "The Merciful Obtain Mercy". Presdient Uchtdorf spoke much about judging and forgiving and loving one another. When I listened to him speak last April, I was struck by his words and reveled in the truth. We need to stop judging one another. Today, as I listened to the words and experiences of those around me, I was struck in a much different way.

It isn't a secret that I have been feeling judged lately. I think that comes with the territory of having to humble myself to accept help from people when I really don't want to and in turn being angry that I have to. As I was sitting there wondering how I was even going to make it through the lesson today, there it was. This dang serenity prayer popped into my head, and I thought, "What?!"

So, I did what any normal person would do--I ignored it. And then there it was again and again and again. There are lots of things I cannot change about my life and my circumstances right now. The problem is that sometimes I want to find Doc Brown, send some people back in time and make them do things over. If only. Too often my conversations with God have been, why? and why me? and why now? and how am I ever going to survive?

Then, I wake up, and another day has dawned, and I have two amazing girls, and a family who loves and supports me, and a home, and a job, and while not everything is perfect, and I have A LOT of changing and growing and accepting and healing to do, I know that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me. He watches over me and helps me make good choices for my daughters each day. Not everyone has to agree with the choices that I make. I am not a perfect person or perfect mother or perfect wife. I never will be, and I won't pretend that I am.

I think I have been given a good amount of courage lately. The serenity and the wisdom, however...I'll work on it because I know I have to be humble enough to accept those things, and I know I'm not. Not now anyway.

Read It! (Week 4 Topic)

You know, I picked this topic thinking that it would be an easy one for me. As an English teacher, I was always excited about books and had a book in mind that people just NEEDED to read. But...as I have been pondering this topic over the past several days, I have come to realize that I don't know if there is just ONE book that I think everyone should read.

I know that this novel changed my life. It is one of the first books I read in school that had a direct impact on my soul! Does that seem a little dramatic? Well, it was. Boo Radley, Scout, Aticus, racism, a fight for equal rights, and the absolute failure of people to do what it right? Yeah, my first reading of this book in eighth grade was life altering. I know that most people were forced to read this in high school or junior high, but read it again. Really READ it! Then call me and we can cry together.

Let's not act schocked that this is included here. If you know me even a little, you know that I LOVE this book. However, some may be shocked to know that I did not love this novel the first time I read it. It was a little too deep and dark for me. Yeah, I know. Gatsby? Dark? Okay, so it is not dark in a traditional sense, but really? Unrequited love? Used and abused? Money as the root of all evil? A painted and tainted world. Ummm...yeah. Gatsby is dark in a deliciously colorful way. READ it!

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli: He was my childhood Forrest Gump. All I can say is, read this one to your children. It was kind of magical for me.

I have written about these books before. Mom used to read them to us. Every night. I love them. These are books that should be read out loud. Pictures are painted. An entire world comes to life through the pages of these stories. Adventures happen. Wars are won. People are rescued. And Aslan...oh, Aslan. Aslan is my childhood testimony of a loving Father in Heaven. Through these stories, I truly came to understand what it means to be loved by my Heavenly Father as I heard/read the sacrifices, the power, the concern and the wisdom Aslan showed to Peter, Edward, Susan, and Lucy. READ it!

There are so many more. I would be here all day, so I will stop with these few. Books are powerful. They allow me to learn and understand other's lives and experiences. Books help me escape and let me live in a fantasy world. I mean, who isn't waiting for an owl to bring their acceptance letter to Hogwarts? I hope that Q and T will wait for that one day too.