Special Young Women's Fireside with Sis. Cordon

We heard a few weeks ago that Sis. Bonnie H. Cordon, Young Women General President for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would be doing a fireside for the YW, their mothers and leaders, for our stake.  Whoa.  Cat and I were excited about attending and ended up sitting in the very front of the audience with some friends from our ward.  I kept thinking, "Living in Utah has its benefits..."

Cat and I both enjoyed the fireside very much.  A few things that stood out to me:

• Though there is a veil of forgetfulness that prevents us having a perfect memory of what life was like, and how much we understood, before we came to Earth, Heavenly Father has provided opportunities to help us remember, and the words of our Prophet and other leaders are at the top of the list!  (See this talk or this one.)
• Wherever you go, at school or YW or soccer practice or just at home, remember that you're there to bless, not impress.
• We wached a video of Ester Ledecka, an Olympic snowboarder who also competed dead last in the downhill skiing competition, on borrowed skis, when the presumptive medalists were already celebrating, and won gold.  Her shock at winning (see it at about 1:45) is probably comparable to the shock we'll feel when we realize the incredible blessings that await us if we'll just do our best to serve God in this life.
• Follow these guidelines when on social media: (1) Decide ahead of time how much time you'll spend and be strict with yourself.  (2) Stick to your purpose.  (3) Always be sure that you can feel the Spirit.
• When you're struggling, find something you can do to serve someone else.

At the close of her remarks, Sis. Cordon played this video, and though I'd bet everyone in that room had seen the video and/or heard the song at least once before, it took on new significance after being so spiritually fed during the fireside.  The power of music!

And then, in what I'm embarrassed to admit I thought was a bit of a presumptive act, our Stake President stood to add his own thoughts.  I wondered what he could possibly add to make the meeting any more worthwhile, but his short talk was very appropriate, especially for the YW the evening was focused on.  He shared these verses from Galatians 5, helping everyone understand that if they identified with any of the feelings listed, they were feeling the Spirit.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

It just kept building.  Between Sis. Cordon's talk, listening to "Glorious," and then the Stake President's talk, I felt very much spiritually filled.  To me, it was a reminder of a principle Elder Richard G. Scott taught in the October 2009 General Conference titled "To Acquire Spiritual Guidance:" when you're you're having a spiritual, revelatory experience, ask God if there's more you should know, then listen.  Even though you might think you've learned what you need to learn, it's possible that there's more to come if you'll ask and wait.

It was a wonderful evening and I'm so glad I was able to enjoy it with Cat!

P.S. Sis. Cordon also shared this video, which we all thoroughly enjoyed, and I'm sure has some great gospel applications, but I don't remember exactly how it tied in.  Comment with your thoughts.  :-)

Saturday's Fun

We decided to go on a little bike ride Saturday morning, to enjoy the nice fall weather and to help Luke get more comfortable riding a bike.  We accomplished the first objective, riding to Cat's school nearby and biking laps on the track oval, but as we waited for Ben and Luke to arrive at the school we saw that this would not be the day that Luke honed his bike-riding skills.  But the invention of the pool-noodle cushion on Ben's crossbar was pretty cool.

Itty-Bitty Eliza is on the bleachers in the background.

After that we headed down to Provo for the Provo Farmer's Market, where we found lots of handicrafts, entrepreneurial products, food and beverage vendors, and after a while, a few farmers' stalls.  Jack was excited to get a few fresh, ripe tomatoes, including a bright yellow one, and we took some more tomatoes and some peaches home.  We also enjoyed trying some new foods and drinks for lunch.

Cat and I tried Swiss sandwiches and both were really good.  Mine was the fanciest grilled cheese
I've ever seen, with the cheese piled onto toasted brioche as it's scraped off of this big cheese wheel which
had been toasted on a special cheese-toaster.  The other piece of toasted brioche was spread with bacon jelly.
The sandwich was, you know, quite tasty.

The Farmer's Market was right by the gorgeous Provo City Center Temple.
As much as I would love for all of us to look calmly happy in a family picture for once,
I suppose it wouldn't be true to the moment most of the time.

For the Smile of It

After talking about cancer in the car the other night...

Luke: Have I ever had stitches or cancer?

Me: No.

Luke: Oh pfyoof! (Luke's sigh of relief)

Have I mentioned that Cat makes a yummy treat just about every Sunday?
Over the summer she tried her hand at cream puffs, even though I discouraged her,
and they were absolutely delicious and came together much faster than I thought they would.

After seeing Toy Story 4 over the summer, Eliza made herself a Forky.

I don't remember the context of this picture.
It's possible Jack wasn't given a choice about helping Luke with his homework.
But it makes me smile anyway.

Another one of Cat's Sunday treats: rich brownies with blackberry
ice cream, made using blackberries from our back yard.

"Luke, why is the Vaseline container in your room practically empty?  Oh, nevermind.  I figured it out."
(To be honest, I would have thought we wouldn't be dealing with these kinds of shenanigans
once our youngest was 6.  I guess it's good that he keeps us on our toes...)

I got this picture while I was at a girls' weekend in New York.
When Mom's away, Luke will wear this.

Raspberries - now as fun as olives!


Fun at Walmart with Dad.
Also, did Eliza just make Koalas even cuter?

Luke bought this at Walmart (see previous picture) and thought it was the best prank spider ever.

Ben often carries these guys upstairs to their room at bedtime, separately.
Why not pile on together, though?
(The sword was also from Walmart - Jack is hoping to work it into his still-undetermined Halloween costume.)

The good news is, Luke is very comfortable writing his name.

Luke wanted to play the card game Sleeping Queens and Eliza agreed.
He was so happy about it afterward that he drew this picture, which I was
so pleased with because he usually doesn't care for Eliza (or Lizi, as she's
now called at school) as much as I'd like.

The same afternoon, he wanted to do sidewalk chalk outside and his other sister joined him.
He's a lucky kid.

This morning during our Come, Follow Me lesson, I helped Luke read Galatians 4:2 "But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father."  When we came to the word "tutors," he immediately started giggling, then laughing, with Jack joining in first, quickly followed by the girls and Ben and me.  After a good laugh, and a few choice sound effects, we were able to continue with our lesson and stay focused through... most of... the rest of it.

We had another family in the car with us this afternoon and the boys were talking about what school they'd attend for junior high. Jack asked if he'd definitely be going to Cat's school.

Me: Yes. How do you feel about that?

Jack: GREAT!

Me: What makes you say that?

Jack: Because I'll see my sister!

I think the car just ate Jack.

School Carnival

I was out of town last weekend when the school carnival was going on, so Ben brought the younger kids to the big event (while Cat had a movie night with her friend).  The kids had so much fun!  They loved the Power Wheels, games, foam-sword-and-shield Capture the Flag, silent and live auctions, meeting Cap and Thor, and eating pizza for dinner.

Expert Parenting Tip

Ever wonder about the best way to help kids calm down and get into sleeping-mode at bedtime?

Tickle fight.

Works every time.

P.S. Luke said, "Mom, you should put that on the blog and title Biggest Tickle Fight Ever."

Did you grow this yourself?

We've had some very oddly-shaped cucumbers in our garden this year.  I even hesitated to pick the first one in the hopes that it would elongate as it stretched out, but it didn't.  Luke didn't hesitate to eat them, though.

Come, Follow Me

When we found out last year that church would be shortened to two hours, I was really excited.  But the added responsibility of teaching in the home by following a designated curriculum was a bit daunting.  I appreciated that the Church provided the materials, but I wasn't really sure about the best way to incorporate this mandate into our family routines.

We'd been in the habit of reading the Book of Mormon and saying family prayers in the evenings at bedtime, so for the first several months of the year we switched our evening family scripture study to something out of the week's Come, Follow Me lesson.  Then on Sundays we tried to have a more formal sit-down lesson and write in the CFM journals (decorated composition notebooks) we made at the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately, our evening scripture study wasn't always meaningful, and our Sunday lessons weren't consistent.  So at the end of the summer we decided to try something different.

A week before school started I began teaching sit-down mini-lessons in the mornings after breakfast.  The hardest part about this is getting everyone to come to the table and participate, but we mostly make it work.  Sitting down, and making sure everyone can look at scriptures have been very helpful and I feel like these morning mini-lessons are much more effective than our nightly routine had been.  We also still try to have a longer lesson on Sundays, with Ben teaching, and include some dedicated free-journal-writing time (with the assistance of treats).

I like that we have more energy in the mornings than we do in the evenings, and we're also more likely to all attend, versus the evenings when we often aren't all under the same roof when we need to start getting everyone to bed.  But we've decided to still do family prayers in the evening with whoever is present, and we often take a minute to answer a question that one of us proposes.  The question might be What kind thing did you do for someone today? or How did you apply the topic we discussed in our morning lesson? or, as Luke proposed last night, Did you play China or war?  (which none of us understood, but answered to the best of our abilities).

I feel like we've been blessed for making an effort to get the most out of Come, Follow Me as a family.  I have felt inspired as I've taught and it's been a great way to start the day during the week.  Our longer Sunday lessons provide a solid punctuation to the mini-lessons and whatever we learned in church that day.  I'm thankful for this program and the opportunity to have more Gospel-learning in our home.

The Family That Shoots Together

We made use of the day off on Labor Day and went down to Payson to do some shooting.  It was great!  We talked a lot about safety and the kids did a very good job following the rules.  They tried using a few different guns, shooting at clay targets and spinning targets and random things that other shooters had left behind.  We all had a good time for a couple of hours and resolved to do it again soon, once the heat of summer wears off.