New Nibbling and time in Mesa

My sister had her baby on the 5th. His name is Theodore and we are calling him "Teddy".

We went up to Mesa to see our new cousin and to help my sister out in any way I could.

his cousin (on the other side of the family) Maggie was born the same day at the same hospital

NOT TWINS

As they were getting ready to be discharged from the hospital he has what we started calling "breathing attack episodes"

It  was scary. He would stop breathing and turn blue.

Many theories were given why this was happening

eventually they moved him to Cardon Children's Hospital.

He still hadn't been home yet. They monitored him for seven days and found nothing.

Finally after being 13 days old he was release to go home for the first time. They are going to have to keep a monitor on him for a month but at least they are home. I think my sister handled the whole thing very grown up. I am grateful that prayers have been answered and they are now home as a family.

Teaching "Families Can be Together Forever"

I made up some quick visuals using MOSTLY coloring pages from the church website.

You can download them by right click and saving as

OR

download as a zip file {here} at box.net

I Hope they call my Parents on a mission....

My parents put in their papers to serve an 18 month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We are very proud of them and happy for their choice to serve the LORD. They made the choice not long after General Conference back in October. They didn't tell us for a little while that they were preparing to do so. And they put their papers in hoping to have their call by Christmas. But it didn't come in time for Christmas. Instead it came 1/11. We went up to Mesa for a super quick trip to be there for it and support them.

they received their call to Thailand. It is where my dad served his mission as a young adult and where they wanted to go and have always felt that they belonged serving their mission there.

We are proud of their choice. I know it can't be easy. They currently have five grandbabies that will be hard to leave and one that is on the say that will be over a year when they get home. Also they have three grown sons that we are all hopeful will get married, coming home for those weddings if they happen while my parents are gone will not be financially possible for my parents and they will have to celebrate from afar. Missions never come at convenient times.  I learned this as a JR missionary when I served as a young adult. I was in college and felt strongly that I was to serve a mission. It was a very hard choice for me. But I knew I would be blessed if I followed the promptings and served. I know our family will be blessed for their service. Already we have seen blessings, like the absolute best job we could have hoped for being dropped into my husband's lap at the most opportune moment. We are already being blessed.

Its a Celebration

We have been offered and accepted a job!! Not just any job, but the absolute best job we could have hoped the Lord would bless us with. And yes we have been BLESSED. I am so grateful that we have a loving Father in Heaven who knows us and our needs. He wants to bless us and will bless us if we let Him and in the right timing. 

First of all we have been unemployed since September. Over and over again we have been reminded over the past few months that Heavenly Father is mindful of us and our needs. As we prayed the answer I felt more than once was "why are you worried, haven't I taken care of you". Yes He was taking care of us. He showed that love over and over again. And even though we still did not have a job I knew that He loved us and was blessing us daily. Not all answers to prayers are "no" "yes" or "not now" sometimes the answer is "calm yourself, see how you have been blessed". As I reflected on the answer I was given there are two scriptures that came to mind. One my mother pointed out to me "consider the lilies" Luke 12:27. I have never been able to comprehend this scripture. But in the light of our trials I have a new found understanding and love for this scripture. The lilies are lovely and blessed by the LORD, they don't worry about if the sun will ever rise again or will they get what they need. Instead they just grow and flourish and trust that God will provide. They hold up their part by looking beautiful to honor God, and God provides for them. The other scripture is the second found in the promise Moroni gives everyone who wants to know if the Book of Mormon is from God or some other source. After exhorting us to read the Book of Mormon, he then exhorts us to "remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things..." then he exhorts us to pray about the Book of Mormon and ask God about if it is truth or not. I promise I know that if you ask God with pure intents God will answer your prayers. But the reason I mention this here is Moroni points out something I feel is over looked or not always looked at in personal ways. God has been merciful unto all mankind. He sent his Son to be our Savoir. We should be satisfied that was more than we all deserve. That is a huge blessing. But on top of the mercy God has shown the entire human race with that sacrifice. He still listens to all our prayers,  He answers our prayers, and He blesses all so much. I know that if all of us stopped wanting what we don't have and looked at our lives through God's eyes, we'd see that we are so blessed, more than we can ever understand. Take a moment today and reflect. Then thank God for how merciful He has been in your life. It is humbling to think about.
Next the LORD's timing is a beautiful thing. That Tuesday we received the offer was the day my husband tested with the local police department. He had done really well on the written test, and had felt really confident about the PT test. Only to fall a little short by being disqualified.  We were devastated. We had been really counting on this. Yes this wasn't the end, we could test again. We were looking at other police departments. But this police department would mean not moving and being employed by the end of March. Which was the earliest any of the current jobs we were looking were hiring to start. We were all feeling really low when my husband, out of the blue, received a call offering him the job he applied for back in August and we were told was filled and he wasn't selected for in October. When my husband relayed this to me, I cried. I am not a crying female, but the past months have been an emotional roller coaster and all the pent up emotion was released in tears of joy, gratitude  and unbelief. We finally had a job, we made it through the drought. We have later come to learn that the timing was even more of a serendipitous blessing and has humbled us further. Since as of the same day we received our final offer an announcement was made that there is a hiring freeze in the Army for all civilian hiring effective imminently. We stepped onto the canyon wall as the bridge crumbled under our feet behind us. There is no other way to put it, then to say, I am in awe at the blessing we have been given. The Lord knows us and will bless us in His timing. 
All my life I have struggled with His plan for me and my plan for me. So rarely have I felt those plans converge. But I have always seen the wisdom in His plan if only in hind sight. This is what I wanted for us. For my husband to get this job, for us to stay put in our home, and for us to not move and stay in our ward with our callings. However, I had accepted that if that wasn't Heavenly Father's plan for our family, then no matter how much I didn't want something else, I was ready to accept it and move on. I am so grateful that sometimes what we plan we want is also the same plan He had in mind for us.

On a new less serious note,
That night after receiving our offer we went out to dinner with my in-laws. It was good to go out with out our children. Then my husband and I went to see LINCOLN, we enjoyed it. But as my husband put it to someone else- if you don't enjoy history or politics and movies about those two things make you want to dig your eyes out, you best not be seeing this movie. 

Family Photos 2013

Taking family photos are synonymous with doing it at the Temple, for me at least. When going to the Temple isn't possible I will settle for green grass or just formal clothes but that's what I think we need.

I am also learning that with little kids they become "done" really fast and less is more. We only took about 6 photos/ shots literally 6. My brother did them for us. I then photoshoped the few little things.

I'm grateful for my brother's willingness to meet us at the Temple and my family (specifically my husband's) willingness to deal with my notion of family photos

It was a great way to start the new year, taking photos of our family at the temple.

"The Family is of God" song

I know most of the primaries around the world learned this song back in January, if they were going to learn it. But in discussing the Primary Program we decided we wanted something different to open the program with, something not really know, but would be a strong opening. I had suggested previously that we could use "The Family is of God" for a special musical number, and at this point renewed my suggestion, and added we could teach the 1st verse to the whole primary. The presidency thought this was a great idea. So now we are going to open with "The Family is of God" before anything is even said.

This left me with two songs to teach this month, "Families can be Together Forever" and "The Family is of God". I had already started to teach "Families can be Together Forever" and the SR primary already had it down. So this past Sunday I started teaching to the SR primary "The Family is of God". I was surprised how many of the children already knew it (1-we gave them a CD with all the songs on it at the beginning of the year 2-we have a semi transit ward seeing how we are near an army training post). I agonized all week over how to teach it and after checking out some other blogs and also talked to my sister who is the chorister in her ward and they already learned this song. I was still not feeling anything. Saturday night I was getting ready for bed and I remembered that the Friend's web page has lots of coloring pictures of families. I went to the computer and was able to find some great pictures to teach the song. I wish there were more clip art picture and coloring pictures on the Friends site. There are already a good number, they are so helpful, especially if your stake is strict on ONLY using Church approved pictures. I just always wish there was more. I don't have old copies of the Friend and I don't want to cut up my current Friend.

picture 1-Our Father has a family, It's me, it's you, all others too: we are His children.

picture 2- He sent each one of us to earth, through birth, to live and learn here in families.

picture 3 (chorus)- God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be-

picture 4 (chorus)- This is how He Shares his love, for the family is of God.

I quickly colored them and glued them to a background. To put them in my book later I typed out the words too. I was so grateful for the bit of inspiration that worked best for me.

Aug Song and the continual quest for a reverent wiggle song

The Aug song is "Families Can Be Together Forever". I had each child draw a picture of their family and then hold it up when you sing the word "family" or "families". It worked well, especially for JR primary. They enjoyed holding up their picture and show it off. The only problem with this is that the 2nd verse doesn't contain the word "family" until you get to the chorus, and the 1st verse only has the word once. But they all hold their picture waiting for that word. The idea came from our Stake Primary music leader. Her suggestion was to have each child bring with them a picture of their family. Yes this would be better in that it would not take any time away from Singing Time, but I don't want to be only the phone all day on Saturday trying to remind them to bring their picture, and what if they forget or their family doesn't have a current picture. Also I really really dislike (wanted to use hate but I guess I don't hate) making phone calls, and our primary is HUGE, making phone calls to all those families would not be fun. Also growing up I never got the feeling my parents were too happy to have to remember to bring stuff for us, I don't want any parent to feel overwhelmed with it. This way no has to remember anything but me.
In the ever continual quest to find a reverent song that is good for the wiggles and yet calming rather than riling them up, today we did 'Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" But instead of doing the song faster each time (which I'm being to hate because the children are so rowdy after the song is over), this time we sang the song slower and softer each subsequent time until we only moved our lips and were moving in almost slow motion. Then I had the children sit back down on their seat and be quite and reverent. And guess what-they were. Yeah for a good wiggle and quite song.

Aug Song: Families Can Be Together Forever

Aug. song: Families Can Be Together Forever

I wanted to make this song really simple, especailly since most of the children know, at least the first verse, already.

I found visual helps in the primary chorister box I inherited. I don't know how much I like them, but they are already ready for me.

Most likely I will use them, just because I haven't done anything I think is better. The previous chorister cut these picture out the Ensign and the Children's Friend, so they were nothing fancy, and there is no reason they should be.

The biggest thing that I plan on doing is..... start singing time by having each child draw a picture of their family. Then when we sing the word (in any of its forms) "FAMILY" everyone will hold up their picture of their family.