Whoa! What happened to the Kitchen?

My day started relatively busy as it always does.  Five kids to get off to school, one kid off to work, and a husband on his way pushing at the grind stone.  Nan walked upstairs when it was time for scripture study and said, “Whoa!  What happened to the kitchen?  It wasn’t this dirty when I went to bed.”  “You tell me,” was all that I replied followed by Jenny only moments later running up the stairs then stopping dead still.  Laughing she said, “What happened here?  Wasn’t this bad when I went to sleep.”  All of which were looking at me accusingly.  “Don’t look at me.  It was clean when I went to bed.”

Not that I am pointing fingers at my redheaded, all grown up, master of destruction son, but since his father went to bed with me I believe he is the only one who can claim the demo, that is unless some other little boy of mine got up in the middle of the night, though I highly doubt that.  J

 

Yesterday for family home evening we decorated pumpkins as we do every Monday before Halloween.  This year they donned on Mister Potato Head faces.  All the way from my youngest to my oldest happily got involved.  Quite possibly this could be our last year with everyone here to do so.  Where did the time go?



 

Nan's looks like a snork with that dart on top.

 

 

Suzy's looks like a country bumpkin "Rollie Pollie Ollie!"

 

Yesterday morning I was able to go to the temple with my Father and Step Mom.  They leave today for the long flight to the Philippines.  It was amazing to be in that beautiful place with my father’s arms wrapped around me.  I will miss them, my kids will miss them, but I couldn’t be prouder or more grateful for their example.

A million things to do today, but I took the time for a spiritual fill up as I said my prayers and wrote in my blog.  My life is pretty typical, and my days filled endlessly with pretty random stuff, but every day I wake up grateful to face my day.  Some days, like today, my heart is so overwhelmed with the feeling of joy that I just want to shout at the top of my lungs, “Be happy World, God loves you.”  Silly, cliché?  Don’t care, that’s how I feel.  Everything speaks of him, and everything calls to his love.  Mt. Timpanogos was so beautiful with the first sprinklings of snow on her yesterday.  The new curtains in the front room freshly hemmed by me so that they just brush the top of our carpet fold down so perfectly to a freshly vacuumed floor.  Six oversized pumpkins spread out safe from a cold night frost on the wood floor in our front room look up at me quizzically.  The dishes are stacked and clean drying in my large stainless steel sink.  On the bed is the purple mess of mesh waiting to become a princess costume for my little redheaded pixie.  And all of it makes me happy.

I love being who I am, imperfections, many that they are, and all.  I know that I am God’s daughter and therefore my value ten trillion times that of gold.  I know that Christ not only died for me but lived for me and continues to live for me still.  I know that I matter even if no one else does, (which very luckily for me I have amazing family that tell me that every day).  Why sometimes is it so hard for us to see that?  You are loved.  No matter what, you are loved.  And no matter what, that is what matters.  Smile, for someone up there knows you better than even you know you.  And He loves you, and His Son loves you!  Smile!

Now time for costume making, dentist little girl taking, picture frame spray painting, downstairs cleaning, laundry washing, back door frame painting, bread making, dinner designing, Stake Young Men and Young Women dance setting up and playing and then followed by husband snuggling as I fall fast asleep completely happy with my busy day.



"Boo!"

 
I’ve put off writing this week, I don’t know why.  Usually I have so much to share that I can’t wait to sit down.  My hands and my heart feel more at home at the computer than anywhere else.  In reality this is the time that I should have been overwhelmed with the need to express.  Luke is home.  Need I say more?  When he walked off that plane in his army fatigues, his hair high and tight, his Uncle Kevin waving to us to hold the banners up, my heart was racing.

                                                                       Uncle Kevin

                                              Sam in the army greens that Luke bought him.

 And now, already, he is off to work and to his full time job.  School started without him and he cannot enter the program partway through, but he is working for a dear friend Clint at CR Doors and Mouldings and he is tasting a bit of the real world.  Though I think that maybe he feels like he is in limbo until he can do something more.  Working toward a Mission next fall after some more Army training that he signed up for is done is perhaps not as easy as he would have assumed.  How do you open up to your child the testimony that is in your heart when you know that he has to gain one of his own?  I am proud of his work in the army and the son he is and I am proud of his decision to serve a Mission.  I only hope he can feel it more than just a duty but an honor and a blessing.

My father and my stepmother left yesterday to fulfill an eighteen month mission in the Phillipines.  I had the opportunity to go with my brother Bryan to take them to the MTC.  It didn’t feel real.  The missionaries came to our house when I was a little girl.  A year younger than my Sam.  My parents had been searching for something more and my father found a Mormon Ad in the Reader’s Digest.  He called the missionaries.  At first us children were not invited in.  My parents wanted to make sure it wasn’t some weird cult before letting us in on the lessons.  I remember that first night almost like a dream.  It was a warm night in the summer as I recall.  The pine trees next to our farm house were covered in fireflies and I remember catching them all night, not really concerned about what was going on inside, but my brothers and my sister were speculating about the two strange boys dressed in suits and carrying briefcases that went in to talk to my parents. 

I remember later sitting at their knees and watching filmstrips on the wall of our family room.   I remember the feeling of familiarity and asking my mother if this wasn’t what we already believed and my mom telling me that it wasn’t.  My little heart recognized the truth instantly.  Perhaps I was not too many years past from stepping through the veil.  I spent the next 31 years with truth around me.  I don’t have to wonder who I am, I know.  If there is a question that I need answered I have the scriptures to turn to and my knees to fall on.

And now, that father of mine that blessed all of our lives with the gospel is on a mission himself.  Most married missionaries, retired and with added time to serve, have already been on a mission once when in their youth.  Not so for my father.  Two young men brought that gospel to us, to him, and now finally he will feel the excitement, the fear, and the desire that they once felt teaching us.

 

Crazy hair day at the elementary school today for red ribbon week.  I put Stephanie’s red hair up in a gazillion little buns and when the neighbor girl who is just a year older than her showed up to walk to the bus with my kids her hair was done exactly the same.  Of course both were more than willing to pose for a picture.  Don’t you love childhood?

Sam Guillory came home from the hospital today after two months.  My sweet young women decorated her yard along with some of Sam’s friends from school and her sister and brother in law.  I had to take a picture, as camera happy as I am, because my young women didn’t get to see it all done.  They were in school when she came home, but Darlene, and Whitney, and I got to run over when we got the text that she was on her way and scatter their sweet notes all over the yard.  I cried reading them.  I wish all of you could experience my Young Women.  There is a light that shines from every one of them.  And guess what…I get to experience that glow all of the time.  That is a little taste of Heaven if anything is.

Well the neighbor girl just rang the doorbell with a plate full of pumpkin cookies in her hands, two of which without chocolate just for me. She has informed me that I have been “BOOed.” If she only knew just how much I have “boobed” this whole week for the gifts of this beautiful life that I have been given. She is just one more topping on that already super sweet sunday that I am eating. Time to get ready for young women’s, add another bit of caramel to that ice cream for me!

See How Much I Love You

See how much I love you.  That thought seems to keep going through my head.  General Conference.  Bryce Canyon.  Both experiences these past few days that have opened my eyes to God’s love.  Surrounded by nature’s beauty I have never been more awed.  We live here in one of God’s most beautiful places and I have never been to Bryce Canyon.  Jason has tried to get our family to go for years and finally this weekend we went.  It was so beautiful it almost seemed unreal.  At one point we saw a rock on the very top of a very tall formation and the way the sun hit it lit it almost to glowing.  Through the camera’s lens it seemed to have an unearthly glow.  The kids started calling it the “Holy Rock.”  We got to talking about all the people that came from all over the world to see Bryce Canyon.  At one point my little girl teasingly talked about all the religions that had come to the “Holy Rock.”  She mentioned Baptist and Catholics and Mormons and Christians.  At first I giggled and then I explained that Mormons are Christians, that anyone who believed and worshipped Christ was a Christian.

Isn’t it amazing how little moments bring big teaching moments?  Isn’t it amazing that nature seems to bring the spirit and with it those moments?  I feel peace so strongly when I am in nature almost saying to me, “See how much I love you.”

Luke comes home this Friday.  I know it has only been four months but that has felt as though it has been a lifetime.  When did I get so old?  My heart still feels young but I have a grown man now for a son.  But I can honestly say that I love the age that I am at and I so look forward to the years as they golden more.  I’m excited for the prospect of grandbabies and someday I pray that Jason and I will be healthy enough as we age to go on a mission.  When Luke comes home on Friday he will be at where I was nineteen years ago when I married my most amazing husband.  The choices that I made then determined the life that I have now and the eternity that I will live later.  Luke is so young, but then again I guess so was I.  Thank Heaven Heavenly Father had such a wonderful plan for me and thank Heaven that I was close enough to the spirit in my very young and naive youth to follow it.  I only pray that Luke can do so also.

                My mother went with us to Bryce.  It was so much fun to watch the kids with her. 

The first day we hiked down a steep canyon and at the bottom we could look straight up encircled by those tall red rock formations.  It was cool and slightly damp and shadowed from the sun.  Hundreds of people went ahead of us and hundreds behind, so many speaking languages that we didn’t recognize. 

Nan helped Stephanie down the narrow path turning her toward the inside around each curve, careful that she didn’t fall and launch herself down the steep ravine.  I held onto Sam, crazy Sam who so often in his hurry to get somewhere manages to trip and fall.

Jenny and Suzy in fashion to their free natured personalities rushed on ahead and my mother as the protective angel that she has always been followed us all to make sure that we were all safe.

 Which left Jason, several ledges above us, so that he could photograph every perfect memory. 

I worried that Jenny and Suzy would wander too far ahead and we would lose them as sometimes I do in life.  I rejoiced as I watched Nan protect her little sister as she seems to always do and I held on for dear life to my little Sam’s hands as he was so certain that he was big enough to do it on his own.

 

  And behind me was my mom encouraging me the whole way and above us all Jason making sure that every moment was happening and being remembered.

“See how much I love you.”

When the spirit talks whether it’s in those quiet moments that we take away from our crazy lives or the sweet whisperings through General Conference talks how can we not know that these are the times that God is trying to say “I love you!”  Just watching President’s Monson’s face light up as he speaks to us is a reflection of God’s love or watching President Uchtdorf’s beautiful accent roll of his tongue as he testifies of the truths that our Prophet speaks and prophets of old, calls my heart to know that God loves me.

President Uchtdorf said something that I hurried to write down that seemed to bring meaning to all that I have been feeling.  “Resolve to find happiness regardless of our circumstances,” he said in his Saturday morning talk and then he spoke of all the good all around us to find joy in.  We are meant to be happy because like a good parent God wants us to be happy as we want our own children to be.  Even in sorrow we can find joy if we look and I promise if we are observant it isn’t hard at all to find something, even a little something, to find joy in.

“See how much I love you.”  I don’t hear those words as a question anymore as I had so many years ago in the past but as a command.  I think now I am beginning to understand just what those words whispered in my head means.  God, my Heavenly Father, and Christ his son, my brother, are asking me to see just how much they love me.  And I am going to strive every day to do just that, see how much they love me.

 

“See how much I love you.”  Not a question but a statement in the beauty of every moment of our amazingly ordinary lives.

Halloween Town

Our town seems to be lighting up with the thrill of Halloween and I am loving it.  A few years back some business owners started the tradition of “Halloween Town” and every year it just seems to grow and grow.  The kids love it, and well this parent does too.  Each store decorated and in Halloween style!

Luke comes home in a week.  Finally we have his flight plans and now the real countdown begins.  Four months should have flown by, but they just seemed to drag and drag, especially the last month and a half.  After Jenny and I’s visit to see Luke in Missouri it has just taken forever to get him home.  He already has great plans for his future and it seems to me as a mom that there is nothing better than watching your child take charge of his own life.

In November we are going to California with some friends of ours.  That’s right while it is cold and cloudy in good old Utah we will be basking on the lazy beach eating our Thanksgiving Dinner.  There would have been a time not so many years ago when this would have almost seemed  like sac-relig to me, but when Clint came up to Jason and said that he wanted to go somewhere with a beach for Thanksgiving I think that I jumped on the band wagon so quickly that no one else had time to say anything. 

Who cares that someone else will be making the turkey this year?  Not me.  No messy clean up and I will be watching my kids playing with their siblings and some of their best friends in the California sun.  Could it be better?  Not that I can think of.

The family got together last night at my father and step-mom’s house.  They are preparing to leave for a mission to the Philippines in a little over two weeks.  My Aunt Kathy and Uncle Scott came over to visit them from California one last time before they leave.  It was so nice seeing all of the cousins together and being able to share our little ones with Kathy and Scott, though I am certain that the noise of all of us had to have felt crazy to them never having had children of their own.  They took it all in stride though and made our children feel very loved and completely welcome.  I can only imagine if those siblings of mine that live out of state had been there with their families just how crazy the scene would have been.  Man I miss them!

Jason called yesterday at lunch as he always does and asked “what’s up?”  My reply as usual was, “nothing.”  Then I went on to tell him that nothing beyond normal usually is.  Laundry, washing floors, cleaning toilets, washing dishes, etc. etc. etc.  But the crazy thing is that as typical and boring as my life may seem I love it more than I can even begin to try to express.  I have the most typically boring and the most perfectly amazing life ever.  I wouldn’t change it for anything and as I watch my kids get older and know that someday little grandkids will be added into the mix I can’t wait!  Then I will have the most typical boringly wonderful grandmotherly life possible.

Jason and my little Suzy, (who is twelve today and not really so “little” anymore), both have their birthdays today.  Twelve years with a sweet little girl that is so determined and sometimes so bullheaded but beautiful and smart and talented and silly has been absolutely amazing.  Next Sunday she gets to come to Young Women’s with me!  This Sunday is General Conference so she will have to wait a week.  There is a tradition in our Young Women’s started by my second counselor that just got released and now carried on by my new counselor and her advisors that they pull the new Beehive girl out of primary a week early in front of everyone and bring her into the Beehive’s class.  It was so neat to see the response on my daughter as she got home from church this week and told me all about it.  How amazing is it that God put me into Young Women’s right now when I can have three of my four girls with me.  I will forever be grateful for that gift.  Jenny and I at times don’t always see eye to eye and although I think that she worried about me being in with her, it has softened our relationship and made it easier for us to communicate.  The chemistry there still isn't perfect and I am sure I still drive her absolutely bonkers, but we like each other a lot more and laugh together all of the time.  Thank you Heavenly Father.

Jason… now he and I have been together more than we have been apart and I cannot imagine life without him.  When I think of eternity together I don’t know how to adequately thank my Father for the perfection that is my life.  Jason calls me a million times a day because he misses me.  He comes home and worries about me and my comforts long before his own.  He works harder than any man ever should because he wants what is best for me and our kids, and he looks at me every moment of every second like I am some super model and he can’t believe that I am his.  He makes my pretty normal life and sometimes trying one a thing out of a fairy tale.  Can you really have that kind of a happily ever after that fairy tales are made of?  I do, waking up every morning next to him.

Well time to get back to my wonderfully typical life.  I’ve got two birthday parties to get ready for this evening and a house to get spotless so my boy can come home to something beautiful.  Today should be wonderful!!  I hope yours is too!

Crooked Laugh

Rushed back from three kids at the dentist.  Nice two and a half hours out of my day.  I’m beginning to think that we live at the dentist’s office, but they informed me today that they enjoyed my company so that’s all right.  Jason says that we will be paying for the new wing of the dentist office.  And no…for my Nephi friends they are not adding on to the dentist office, at least I don’t think so, that was just Jason’s little joke.  Jenny came out with her whole mouth numb laughing which only made me laugh more.  One side of her mouth couldn’t move as she smiled.  So funny.  She was nice enough to let me take a picture and when I told her that it was going on my blog she just laughed.  “That’s okay with me.  It’s funny, Mom.”

Last week was a week full of testimony touching moments for me.  I never cease to marvel at the goodness of people around me. 

Let me start with my Laurel girls.  Now I know I talk about my Young Women’s girls a lot, but much of my time right now is that and much of my spiritual growth comes from them.  Wednesday evening we went up to see Sam Guillory.  Five Laurels, Sam’s little sister Kaitlin, my Laurel advisor Whitney Wall, and myself.  The drive to the hospital is probably about an hour and a half and there was not one moment in that hour and a half that the girls weren’t talking and giggling and thoroughly excited about seeing Sam.  When we got to the hospital the girls helped me find a parking spot and they knew the way right to Sam’s room because they had all been visiting her already.  I just stood back with Whitney and Sam’s dad Bob and watched as the girls talked and laughed and were so happy to see all that Sam could do.  And Sam, well, let’s just say that she is amazing.  How can one girl who has gone through so much be so heroic, because that’s what she is, heroic?.

And so when the time came for us to go home I wished that I didn’t have to pull the girls away, that we had the time to stay a little longer.  Sam was so thrilled to have the company and the girls as a group were so happy to be together.  We walked down the long hallway in the hospital with the girls talking and remembering the conversations with Sam that had just gone on moments before.  The trip home equally wonderful.  I look at them sometimes, those girls, and I wonder if they know just how amazing they are.  Can they possibly understand how beautiful they are?  Each of them so completely different but so beautiful like out of a fairy tale.

 

Friday Nan and I played a dance at BYU.  Helaman Halls to be exact.  Now I love BYU.  It has become kind of a second home for our family and we have had some pretty amazing experiences there and met some pretty amazing people there also.  So normally there would have been nowhere that I would have rather had been then there, but this particular day was a benefit dance for Sam Guillory’s family.  I went to BYU so that Jason could set up large sound and lights and our green screen photo booth back at home at the high school.  The SBO’s at the school took money and had invited the rival team that Juab was playing in football that day to the dance.  Jason kept texting me to keep me in the loop about the turn out.  Amazing.  Nephi really supports our community.  And even more Spanish Fork stayed after the game to support Sam too.  Even bringing a check in the sum of $1200.00.  Our rivals in sports but our brothers and sisters in compassion. 

Can you see how my testimony would grow?  So much good all of the time.  I know that I am on the bandwagon to find good in every day.  Quite possibly it might be getting old to hear, but this is my journey, one that I have been on for a long time and plan to never end in this life.  This blog, it’s a system of checks and balances for me to remind me where my heart needs to be and help to open me to all the peace that the Lord is constantly trying to give me but Satan would take away if he could.  Hope.  Perhaps that is the greatest gift that this blog brings me.  I look for good so that I can put it here and when you look for good, well…that is exactly what you find.

The world is a beautiful place.  Whether it’s in the smiles of my beautiful Laurel girls or on the crooked laugh of my teenage daughter still numb from the dentist, it doesn’t matter.  God’s love is everywhere and once you open your eyes to see it you cannot help but find it.