Glimpse of Eternity

  Emily will be heading to the MTC in January for her mission to Norway. I am going to miss having her cheerful spirit around. I love hearing her spontaneous happy whistle and the reports of her work and school day that she so freely shares with enthusiasm. 

This past weekend was surreal and serene as we gathered with our four oldest children to be a part of Emily's temple endowment experience. I felt God in the details of our life as the temple matron happened to be her good friend and old roommate's grandmother Sister Stucki. She was so kind and attentive and helped Emily to feel loved, at peace and present. 

As I stood and gazed around at the faces of my family before entering the Celestial room I just felt so much heavenly peace. These are the moments we sing about in primary and its hard to believe that in just a few short years our entire family can be gathered there together!

Another blessing was that I was able to quickly find some relatives that needed temple work done that all belonged to the same family. The rest of us did the work for the 7 children of Emilie Jonsson. That brought another level of sacredness to the experience for me as I contemplated their little family gathering on the other side of the veil for this day. She had 2 sets of twins, 7 children in 8 years!

Hard to believe that our sweet baby Livia will be talking by the time her Aunti Em comes home!

Shame Free Parenting

A few weeks ago, Jared spoke at a Stake Conference meeting addressing the topic of overcoming a form of addiction and supporting loved one trapped in the snare. 
To help teach the principle that shame comes from Satan... accountability is the Lord's way, he shared a story that  I love about a family that he knows. 

In their home no one gets in "trouble"... they just get to be "accountable."  So when the teenage son and his friend broke a light in their home while playing a game, the friend was amazed that they didn't get worried about being "in trouble."  Instead they calmly told their dad what had happened, he asked them what they were going to do about it and they worked to earn the money to pay for the broken light.  No shaming, anger, or "you're in big trouble" intimidation.

So today I tried to use the same approach when I discovered a mess of strawberries, goldfish, and markers smeared all over my kitchen by Emily and Alyssa (while I was nursing of course).  It was so hard for me to  stay calm and patient amidst the weeping and wailing that ensued during the prolonged accountability process, but the kitchen is mostly clean again.

We also had a little lesson about how you can't believe everything that you see in print.... like the words "Washable" on the pink marker.  After I had Emily try to scrub off the table she said sincerely, "But Mom, see how it says washable on the marker -   so why won't it come off?"  So now we have a permanent inscription of the words "I LOVE YOU" written in pink (supposedly washable) marker on our worn out kitchen table. 

Visiting "Painty and the Brain"

My sister Melinda (aka Painty) and I had our new babies less than 2 weeks apart. We enjoyed visiting them last weekend for the blessing of their sweet baby Hannah.

Close Cousins - Hannah and Joshua

First Picture of our BIG Family

Emily and Joshua

Emily loves posing for pictures!

Dessie "shooting" Uncle Aaron with her stick

Andrew in his 'beaver's nest'

While the rest of the kids are having some good clean fun playing on the grass with sticks, our curious little Alyssa thought the swampy sandbox looked more inviting.



Lately Jacob loves to give me goofy grimaces when I take his pictures. Here are just a few.

A smile at last!

Jared and "The Brain" (aka Uncle Jacob) had a great time dreaming about their future cabin.

Easter Fun

On Saturday we started with our usual Easter tradition of coloring eggs.




We then all packed up in the car (not an easy feat) to head to an Easter egg hunt that a friend texted us about. When we reached the care facility hosting the hunt it was pretty barren and we thought maybe we were the victim of a practical joke, but it ends up that the egg hunt was on Friday not Saturday. So we had our own egg hunt in the backyard. One of Jacob's eggs rolled into the outdoor heat vent, but fortunately the next morning he found it had blown out and he enjoyed some warmed peanut butter m&ms:)


That evening Rebecca and I headed out to see Saturday's Warrior at the local theater...

Good Things:
Nice Thrift Store Finds
1:00 church with a newborn
Warm weather for several days
No one got burned with the mattress in the trampoline hole
Enjoying inspiring Easter videos about the Savior on the Mormon Channel
Watching Emily get excited about pulling out her summer "hand-me-down" clothes
Family Scripture Study in the Dark
Daffodils peeking up their heads in the front
One row of peas planted

Spring Break Fun

To start out Spring Break, Jared's dad came up to visit for a few days and used his expertise to help fix a few leaks and get our sprinklers up and running for the year.
After spending most of the break inside we made a fun excursion to have a picnic lunch at the new giant playground in town despite the overcast sky. It started to rain a little as soon as we got to the park, but the kids were having so much fun we decided to stay anyway.
Emily packed the picnic lunch for all of us.





I thought the "musical section" of the playground was pretty cool.


As we drove away with drenched pants and dripping hair, the sun finally started to peek through the clouds.

Helping Hands

Baby Joshua is definitely not lacking for helping hands to hold him every second he's awake... or asleep. Fortunately we've been able to help Alyssa steer some of her "love" towards her own baby dolls and she keeps busy changing, feeding and burping them more than ever now.

My parents came up to help after he was born which was such a blessing because Jared was quite sick on all the days he had taken off. Unfortunately they took our sicknesses back home with them :(