Another Call To FHE with the Smith's

As we learned in one of my posts, FHE can be kind of a challenge here. Well tonight was a mix of that and just good ole laughs.

Brandon


has been working on earning his religious badge for scouts and trying to complete his

Faith In God (hereafter referred to as FIG). He asked me last week if he could be in charge of FHE this week. Of course I said yes because who wouldn't?

So it is with great bewilderment that halfway through the lesson tonight, I still had not pinpointed the exact topic he had chosen. So far we had covered the sacrament and why it is important to renew you baptismal covenants each week, The First Vision, and how our prayers are answered when we ask in sincerity. Here are a few highlights of each topic:

The first vision: We learned that Joseph Smith wrote a lengthy but excellent account of The First vision that takes about 30 minutes to read when taking turns with EVERYONE in the family.

Our Prayers Are Answered When We Ask In Sincerity: This important lesson was taught by the account of the first vision. Jordan was brave enough to admit that at times she is saying her prayers and finds herself with spiritual ADD because she can't remember if she finished the prayer or not and has to start all over. We all laughed a nervous laugh as if we could relate.

She also told a story of a man (she couldn't remember who but he was a youth speaker, she thinks it was Thoreau Baily but can't quite remember) who was praying to know if the church was true and he thought for sure when his prayer was over he was going to see angels all around him. When he opened his eyes, he saw a light fill his room. He fell to the floor in astonishment. At that same moment he realized it was just the lights of a car passing by.

This funny story of God's humor reminded me of a time when I was laying in bed. I think depression had sent me there and I was pleading with God to give me a desire to get up and take care of my family. I was laying there holding Baby Boo and really had no desire to climb out of bed. After a couple of half hearted prayers, I decided I needed a little more sincerity. As I was once again pleading for help, Boo threw up all over me. It was everywhere! I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom and quickly realized that my prayer was answered! I laughed and laughed until I could not laugh any more. I love His sense of humor!

The Sacrament: Brandon had a revelation as he taught us how the sacrament works. His favorite part must have been the understanding that taking the sacrament is like getting baptized all over again because he said that when he dies he hopes it is on a Sunday right after he partakes of the sacrament...

Well I must have forgot to give him a time limit on his FHE because 1 1/2 hours later (or so it seemed), we finished and he brought me his FIG book and proudly showed me how he passed off 5 different requirements in that FHE! Go figure!

I loved his humor!

There are so many things I loved about President Hinckley, but I am going to take just a moment to tell about one of my favorite things about him.

He. was. so. funny!

He could say the simplest thing and have the whole conference center/world rolling with laughter. It was good. clean. humor. I loved it.

I believe that humor is good for people. Yesterday I was the recipient of God's Humor. I will expound:

We were in Gospel Doctrine class (which I usually don't go to due to my calling) and the teacher said something that caught my attention and I had to write it down. I wanted to put the quote on my blog because I loved it. She said, "follow the prophet to where he is going. Who doesn't want to be there?" Hmmmmmm. I want to laugh now at how literal that statement became in less than a day.

Yes we do want to be there! But not right now.

I am a better person for knowing President Hinckley. He is truly a man of God.

Oh and I do believe the national news has its own humor that is not so funny. Get this headline:

"Mormon church president mourned in Utah..."

Didn't they mean he will be mourned worldwide? By millions of people?

Got Google Reader?

Ok I am going to introduce to those of you who have never heard about Google Reader, to Google Reader. This is such a helpful tool that saves you time and energy in blogland so that you can spend it more wisely (in blogland).

SO... Google reader.

Why do you want Google Reader? It is similar to your email. It will alert you to any new posts from any blogs you have subscribed to. You don't have to go from post to post looking to see who has posted in the last 10 minutes. Instead you only have one page to go to every 10 minutes. For instance Amber just posted last night and she spent a lot of precious time alerting everyone to this fact when she could have spent that time telling us all that she loves us and misses us and can't wait to come and see us all, but alas...

How do you use Google Reader? This question must be answered as I have spent countless hours for a few of you setting up your Reader accounts and find out you have not used them...

1. Log to in to Google and then do a search for Google Reader. (There may already be an option on your account page but I never saw it when I looked. When you find it, it will ask you if you want a tutorial. You may want to say yes as I am not good at giving directions.

2. When you are ready to set it up you will want to have all of your most favorite blog addresses available as you will need to input these one at a time. I have an excellent list that I just emailed to Paul. Once you get them loaded into Google Reader, you can organize them into folders and rename them. You will want to check the box "mark all as read" so that you can start fresh.

3. Once you have Google Reader set up (Uh ummm, [is that how you clear your throat in writing?] Shellbell, Wow and Sharebear), you just have to be logged into your Google account and open up Google Reader and there it is. I suggest you bookmark your Google Reader page and make sure before you do that, you have my page highlighted so that you will always be welcomed to Google Reader with my lovely page.

4. For anything I didn't cover you can ask Shauna or I as we are both experts at using this great tool!

And last but not least. Do not make the same mistake that I often do. Google Reader has made it so easy to read blogs that I think I will read them all first and then go back and comment later. This is a mistake for the obvious reason that I just don't do it!

Enjoy and let me know what you think! If you already use it I would love to have your praises to help convince the strays that they really do want to use it. No I am not getting paid by Google to do this post, though I should be!

checking in....

...with nothing good to say.









Enjoy and watch for me to have more to say later.

Hibernating

I am officially going into hibernation for a couple of weeks. I will have to force myself to stay out of blog world until then! I am starting my internship and am hoping to be done in a couple of weeks but it may be longer. I MAY try to check in and lurk every once in awhile but don't be offended if I don't comment.

I will also have to forgo my sisterly, daughterly, sister-in-lawly calls to some of you, but if you need me, you can call and I will answer if I can. I look forward to the day I can visit with you all again.



P.S. here is an up close picture of Rob's ripped pants. He didn't even know they were like that until his mom told him! SOOOOO funny and what a good sport. I would have been crying!

I am the meanest mom in the world...or am I?

I sure don't like it when my 12-year-old comes to me all nice-like and asking if she can go to movie night at school. Immediately I started putting up my defenses (like I HAVE any good enough) from not wanting to taxi her around to all these silly things, to not knowing what the movie was (for some reason she didn't want to offer the answer to that) and we started this little cat fight and I sent her off with the promise that I would think about it and then I forgot to have my list of why-nots ready when she came back. Little did I know she had approached her dad too, but he must be the nicer one because she did tell him what the movie was they would be watching.

Hairspray. Ever heard of it? It is ONLY PG and they are watching it at school. That should be a good enough reason why it is ok, right? Well, as we have not yet seen it, we decided we didn't want her to see it yet either. Her immediate and quick wit tried the old line of, "So I have to wait for you guys to watch EVERYTHING before me? Don't you trust me?" and oh yeah this was the best, "We probably won't even be watching it. We will just be talking to each other the whole night." "That's fine dear we can set up a night here for you to do that with your friends." Don't you think that was a fair and smart alternative? Me too.

With all the gentle meaness we could come up with, we told her she couldn't go and that was final. We strongly urged her to take the babysitting job she was offered instead. With a great many tears she walked out the door and told me there would be FIVE people calling her to arrange a ride for her to this movie night. Being that that this was the only argument she HEARD come out of my mouth from the original argument, she and her well-meaning friends had remedied that.

Sure enough there were 5 different girls that called asking for her, wanting to know when she would be back and did I know if she still needed a ride to the movie. With much discust in their voices they would hang up and I know they were feeling so sorry for my 12-year-old (hereinafter called Jordan because it is easier to type) because she had the ONLY mom in the whole school who kept her daughter from going to this innocent movie.

So yeah. I started feeling like a real meanie. What would it hurt? After all, the old young woman leader was taking her daughter. I was seriously contemplating going to trade her places where she was babysitting and watch the kids so that she could go be with her friends at the innocent movie.

BUT! before I made that terrible mistake, DH reminded me of this great resource we have that tells us in DETAIL why we don't want Jordan to see that movie anywhere other than our Clearplay DVD player and then maybe not even then. As he checked out this movie on kids in mind, I was SHOCKED to say the least that they would play that movie for my daughter and her friends and all the other hormone ridden kids that go to that school. Where is their judgement?!?!?! I will be calling the school. Please feel free to give me any advice as to what to say to these clueless movie-choice-makers. Here is a little of what kids in mind had to say to me:

Ok never mind it is too long. Go here to validate my concerns.

So, what's the verdict? Am I way overreacting? Was it worth having my daughter hate me (yes I know she must surely be feeling that way, as I'm sure I would have felt that way about my mom if she was ever that mean. She was crying for crying out loud! Literally.)? Or am I really just clueless myself? I am beginning to wonder, when did things do a great big flip flop? When did saying "no" to immorality and filthy language become the minority?


Please enlighten...

Fast Sunday is NOT so fast!

In my church we have an opportunity each month called Fast Sunday. I have decided that Fast Sunday is not so fast. It is the week I get to put on the fake smile so as not to appear to be fasting. As I might have been fasting today, these are some thoughts that I might have had:

*I think I am going to diagnosed myself with hypoglycemia. It just so happens that some Fast Sundays don't work out very well for me. During testimony meeting all the sudden I feel very weak. When my heart is pounding and I want to go up and bear my testimony, I'm scared that it is too far up to the pulpit when I feel that way! Maybe I need to skip the fasting some months so I can bear my testimony more often. Oh and PMS, fasting and hypoglycemia DON'T make for a very spiritual experience!

*This is the one Sunday a month when people wonder if I have laryngitis because I am afraid to talk to them and assault them with my less-than-fresh breath.

*Am I breaking my fast if I chew gum and/or suck on breath mints? After all I am not really swallowing...

*I know that my teeth are a lot cleaner on Fast Sunday because I like to brush longer. The taste of the toothpaste when I am soooo hungry is way too irresistible. Just swish that water a few minutes longer...Oh yeah! Do I have to spit it out?

*Fast Sunday taught me to love broccoli because once as a child I was sitting in Sacrament thinking about how hungry I was. I told myself that I was indeed hungry enough that I would eat broccoli. Broccoli was my least favorite vegetable but quickly became edible to me that week. It is now one of my favorite! Blessing in disguise.

*I get sooooo hungry in church that when the bread and water are passed, I have to suppress the urge to pick the largest bread and fullest water. But I do savor every bit! I have to also suppress the urge to lick my fingers and lick out the sacrament cup .

*Today I took care of a kid in primary who had a sippy cup. It just had water in it but I wanted so bad to borrow it from him, just for one swig!

*If you are sitting around the table for dinner after breaking your fast, do not invite Brooklyn to say the blessing on the food. You may end up adding another 10 minutes to your fast! Oh and if you are making chicken and dumplings for that long awaited dinner, make sure to check the date on the milk before you add it, so as to not be surprised by the strange taste that your said dinner took on. It must have been my cloudy thinking. (It was still good enough to eat. If we weren't all so hungry, it probably would have went to the dog.)

*I am grateful for the article on Pip's blog about the good effects that fasting/starving have on your heart because by the time I have to fight all these challenges, I wonder if I have really fasted today or just starved. Now I know that both are good for me.

All joking aside, when you fast, does your thinking get cloudy and do you have a hard time thinking clearly enough to want to read your scriptures and pray. I thought it was the exact opposite but I just want to curl up in my bed and sleep. Is this normal, or the effects of low blood sugar? How do you make Fast Sunday more of a spiritual experience for you?

Silly Number Seven

What a great day to be 7! Alexis this post is for you!!!
7 things I love about you.

1. You have the 2 cutest dimples I have EVER seen!
2. Your singing is so fun to hear. You had the cutest 3 year old voice I have ever heard!
3. You are REALLY good at reading. I love to hear you read to Brooklyn. She loves it too!
4. You are really good at sharing your things with other people.
5. You are the best "Secret Person" in this family. I always loved it when you picked my name because I ALWAYS had a surprise on my pillow 3 times a day!
6. You are so BRAVE. You are never scared to go down stairs to the "dungeon" when I need a can of something for dinner. Even your dad is too scared for that sometimes. He is always glad when you will go down with him to keep him safe!
7. And last but surely not least, you are the sweetest , most thoughtful, kind, caring, perfectionist that I ever knew!

Happy Birthday!!

Alexis was eager to get into this world. My water broke as we pulled into the hospital parking lot and I waddled into the labor and delivery. She was kind enough to wait until I climbed into the hospital bed to be checked, but not for the doctor, before she caused great alarm by making her grand entrance into the birth canal. It was impossible to wait for the doctor at that point but gratefully the doctor is a fast runner. She got there just in time to catch her as she slid out.

Alexis had the cutest little voice and I was smart enough to catch it on a wave file but can't figure out how to get it on my blog. You would love it!

Alexis says to have a great new year everyone!

Vwalla!

See what you can do with a little help from the most caring, thoughtful and helpful Princess in the world?