Scripture Study

Now that we have a little more control over our schedule, we finally implemented family scripture study. We started in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi. We start by reviewing what we read the night before, then Tim reads 3 verses, I read 3 verses, and Audie and Chloie each read 1 verse. We usually do about 2 rounds before bed and so far we've made it into Chapter 3. Audie and Chloie are really picking up on the wording and are even recognizing words like "Holy Spirit", "Lord", "Nephi", "commandments", and "unto" which are not common words taught in public schools. I'm constantly amazed how well their reading improves with this. Last night Audie's verse was so smoothly read, I almost thought an adult was reading.

Tim and I are also reading as a couple (we read while the kids brush their teeth). We started in Doctrine and Covenants, Section 1. We alternate 3 verses a piece and have made it into Section 5. I like having this quiet time together doing something spiritual. It seems that so much focus is on the worldly things... making dinner, going to work, cleaning the house, etc.... that we aren't as spiritually focused on days other than Sunday. I'm glad it's a change we're making in our lives.

New School

Audie and Chloie started at Back Creek Valley Elementary yesterday. Both were excited. I took them into school so I could get them registered... wow. Not only did I have paperwork to fill out at the school, but they sent me home with a packet for each that took me over an hour to complete. One of the forms I had to fill out 4 - count them FOUR - times!

Anyhow, BCVE uses an apple system to encourage good behavior. Green is good, yellow for the first warning, red for the second warning and 15 minutes of recess lost, and brown is the final warning with all of recess lost and a trip to the principal's office. I'm happy to report that both of my little apples have been green for the last 2 days (they send a calender home for the parents colored with the behavior's color). They seem to be adjusting well. Audie remembers some of the kids from Inwood Primary, and both Audie and Chloie know kids from church that attend the same school.

I even got to meet the principal and Chloie's teacher. Thankfully Chloie's enthusiasm is welcomed here. Tim and I are still considering talking to the family doctor about the possibility of ADD, but I'm not too worried about it at the moment.

Yesterday, Audie and one of his class mates got to read the announcements in the morning. His first comment about it was, "Are you proud of me?" Um, YES! my little guy is growing up so fast!

Dougie is doing well at Sister Stollings house during the day. She says that all of the kids are well behaved while she has them. I'm glad they get their terror out of the way at home! We've decided to wait until Saturday to take Dougie to get his staple removed. I want to give it an extra couple days to heal (PMM surfacing again).

We're slowly making progress unpacking. I've managed to file all of our paperwork away in the shiny new filing cabinet Tim got for me. He's managed to put away all of the movies. I didn't realize how many we actually had. We've made a list of what rooms we want to focus on first and in what order to proceed. I'm hoping to accomplish as much as possible this weekend. I'd like to go to the Gardening Seminar on Saturday, but we have so much to do around the house that we've decided to stay around the house and maybe go grocery shopping later on.

The house claims its first victim...

It was a busy weekend.

... Oh, wait, were you expecting something resembling "it was a dark and stormy night"?

Tim's parents finished packing on Thursday and loaded the truck. Tim went over while I was teaching the cake decorating class (more on that in a later post). I went over after class was done to take his mother a cake before she left and to visit before they left. The house looked so empty.

They left Friday, and we miss them already. After work, Tim and I broke down everything we could, then went to Chili's for dinner with the kids. I wasn't impressed with the waitress this time, but the food was excellent as always. I guess it didn't help that we had an hour wait. True to form, Tim ordered the Classic Nachos; we spent most of dinner trying to figure out how to make them. While we were in Winchester, we stopped by Steve's house to load up the dresser (beautiful!!! I'll have to take pictures for later) and take it to the house. We unloaded everything we brought with us and spent the night in the hopes that we could clear out the kids' rooms before we left to meet the Muellers at my parents' house.

We ended up stopping by Rob's house on the way so he could follow us, and barely made it there before Brandon and Grace did with the family and the truck/trailer. With all of the guys and older boys helping, the vehicles were loaded in a matter of minutes. Unloading went about the same. I had to stop for gas on the way, so the kids and I got there a little later than everyone else. Not even 5 minutes in the door, I heard Dougie crying and went to see what happened. The kids said he hit his head (slipped on the hard wood floor in socks). I was about to tell him he was alright when I saw the blood...

... enter Panicked Mommy Mode (PMM).

We cleaned him up and looked at the wound, still bleeding a lot by my standards, and decided to take him to the emergency room. Before we left, I asked Rob to give him a blessing (a full recovery he said), and off we went with Amy driving and me in the back seat with Dougie.

We spent 3 hours at the hospital, during which Amy graciously allowed Dougie to play with Monkey. Actually, he was a real trooper and didn't even cry at all after the initial bonk. We also had a lengthy conversation about running on the hard wood floor with socks on. The nurse came in with a Novocaine gel that she put on a cotton ball and then onto his gash and bandaged to hold it in place, but not until she showed him first on Monkey. One staple later, we're on our way to Dairy Queen for ice cream and lunch (I believe any harrowing medical experience should be immediately followed by ice cream).

How cute is this??? To show you resilient kids are, 20 minutes after we got home he was running in socks on the hard wood floor again... go figure.

It's nice to have this much space. We are grateful to my parents for letting us stay at their house for the past year, and we're also grateful to Tim's parents for letting us stay in their house while they're in New York. Now all we have to do is unpack!

Women's Conference, May 2009

I have to tell you, I've been itching to do a cake in the likeness of one of the temples. I wasn't sure which one, but I loved the idea... itching I tell you, itching! I just couldn't think of an occasion to do one. I push the thought temporarily out of my mind...

Sunday I got the final word on the theme for Women's Conference this year... Joy and Happiness. I can work with that. Last year it was Hispanic themed, and it was a lot of fun! So, Joy and Happiness, what to do? Not putting two and two together...

Sunday evening we had the Richards family over for dinner and a movie; you know, good family/friend time. Rob and I were talking about his son's upcoming birthday, and being gleefully dubbed "the cake lady" at church has made me an apparent wealth of information. I can't wait to teach the class this Thursday!!! But anyway, we got on the subject of cake ideas and what I wanted to do in the future and that I couldn't figure out what to do for Women's Conference. Rob suggested.. get this... the Washington D.C. Temple.

We suddenly have four!

Lynnette, Rob, and I are going to work on planning out the size, assembly, and details of the temple for the cake. I haven't talked to them yet today, but they were going down to the temple on Monday and said they'd take pictures so that we can replicate the details as accurately as possible.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that this is the best idea. Consider this... where do you seal your family for eternity? in the temple. Where do you take the sacred steps toward your salvation? in the temple. Where do you work for the salvation of your past relatives? in the temple. Three major contributions towards... you guessed it, eternal happiness. What a better symbol of joy can be found? Even for those of us not ready to enter, the mere sight is awesome in the most fantastic sense of the word. I can't wait.

While looking for pictures and overhead photographs of the temple, I came across some nifty tidbits of information about the Washington D.C. Temple (you can go here for more info):

The Washington D.C. Temple was the first temple built in the East Coast of the United States.

The Washington D.C. Temple was the first temple to feature six spires since the construction of the Salt Lake Temple, which inspired the design.

Soaring to a height of 288 feet, the Washington D.C. Temple is the tallest temple in the Church.
The Washington D.C. Temple is the only temple outside of Utah to be built with six ordinance rooms. (The temples in Utah with six ordinance rooms are the Ogden Utah Temple, Provo Utah Temple, and Jordan River Utah Temple.)

The Washington D.C. Temple was originally named the Washington Temple.

The Washington D.C. Temple is one of five temples featuring an angel Moroni statue [18 feet tall!!!] holding the gold plates. (The other four temples are the Los Angeles California Temple, Jordan River Utah Temple, Seattle Washington Temple, and México City México Temple.)

The main lobby of the Washington D.C. Temple features a striking 30-foot-long mural depicting the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. An image of the temple was incorporated into the mural.
Following the completion ceremonies for the Washington D.C. Temple, in which a time capsule was placed in the northeast corner of the building, President Spencer W. Kimball conducted the largest press conference in the Church's history.

The highly successful public open house of the Washington D.C. Temple was attended by 758,328 guests including special guest Betty Ford—wife of then-U.S. President Gerald Ford. These tours resulted in over 75,000 missionary referrals.

During the ten dedicatory sessions of the Washington D.C. Temple, all but two of the Church's General Authorities delivered speeches.