For all Moms and anyone who influences the lives of our children!

Update

We LOVE our new home. It is beautiful and so quiet! The neighborhood is normal and small and gated. The town house is beautiful and easy to keep clean. It's big enough for all of us and it just feels so nice.

Yesterday the kids did their chores - the laundry was clean - and the house was all tidy. Bob and I looked at each other in amazement. There was nothing to fix - no house projects to work on - no never-ending list of broken things. LOVE IT!!!! We actually have time to do other things. We will save money too by not having to fix so much!

Anyway - we're happy! Everything just fell into place for us. It's nice to be free of the old house and all the heavy weight that came with it.

Yea! What an amazing answer to prayer! So many times we'd try to move and it just never ever fell into place. Finally we stopped trying to force it to happen. We knew when the Lord was ready and everything was right it would just happen and there would be no doubt it was time. And it did. It was one of those things that was so complicated and every single piece of the puzzle lined up all by itself that there was no way to deny that the Lord's hand was in every step. Sometimes our plan and our timing - for whatever reason - is not what is supposed to happen. Down the road maybe we'll be able to look back and see all the reasons why - but for now we are just so incredibly grateful to be where we are. It is such a comfort to Bob when he travels to know we are here and happy. It's truly one of those massive blessings we couldn't have even imagined 6 months ago.

Mourn with those who mourn

My husband's cousin posted this on her blog and I had to share it.

We had the opportunity to do just this last night. Well-meaning words don't often ease the pain in moments of grief or despair. Sometimes it's hard to know what to say or do. But last night I knew. We just sat. The kids understood and I knew a precious life lesson was being embedded. We stayed and were just there. There were moments of quiet and stories and memories were told. After several hours everyone's eyes grew heavy and I knew we should go - but when we readied to leave it was obvious we were still needed and so we stayed until it was finally ok. Even then - it was difficult to leave. We sat outside in the car for a bit - all of us wanting to leave our hearts inside. I hope it's something my children always remember. Our hearts felt so full while we were there. I'm so grateful Crystal posted this video. I really appreciated its beautiful illustration.

Tough Cookie

I like to think of myself as a tough cookie - able to manage and figure out most things on my own.  This past week Bob was in London.  (Lucky!)  And there were a few of the usual things that seem to come up when he's gone.  I'm sure they come up in a normal week too - but managing them on my own seems more difficult.  The furnace stopped working one night - and I'm actually pretty handy with it - having been down that road before.  I've got a whole bag of tricks that usually works before I have to call our repair guy.  So I waited till I got home from school and gave it a shot.  I planned on sanding down the sensor to get the oxidation off - but in the process ended up breaking the ceramic ignitor into 5 pieces.  Then it was really broken - it also was supposed to get down to 31 that night.  So I left a message for the repair guy - piled tons of blankets on the kids.  It was actually pretty cozy - until morning came and we had to leave our nice little caves.  Holy Cow!!!!  It was cold!!!  The repair guy came - it was just a connector (well and the ignitor too.  Ooops!) - and that worked for about a day.  Then the motor went out - and he came back and fixed that too.  He hadn't had a new motor in his truck the first time - so we crossed our fingers the connector was all it was.  Guess not.

Then at one point my car didn't start - but luckily I just tried again and it did.  I knew it was the battery.  Been there done that before.

Then I picked up my Buddy from school - took one look and knew he was very sick.  He was running a temp of 103 - and it wouldn't come down that night.  He asked for a blessing - and my father-in-law came over with a brother from his ward and administered to him.  It was a sweet and tender blessing.  I was so grateful to be able to just call for help and it was there.  I stayed home with my Buddy the next day and took him to the doctor.  They ran a strep test - which came out negative - so they're running the full test over the weekend so we can narrow it down.  

He was feeling a lot better by Saturday (yea!) so we headed out for the Pinewood Derby!  It was a big deal.  My Buddy's last year - and Cowboy T's first.  They'd spent the past two weeks making them with Bob before he left.  They were some cool looking cars.  Amazingly we were running on time - got in my car and it was dead.  Checked the battery cables a couple of times - jiggled them - got the corrosion cleaned off - you know - the usual stuff - and it still didn't start.  So I thought - we'll hop in Bob's truck.  Guess what!?!?!?!  Dead too!  Well I just kept trying and trying - mapping out some backup plans in my head - when my Buddy suggested we say a prayer - and he did.  I tried one more time - cleaning it off - and checking the cables.  My Buddy suggested we jump it off the riding mower - but we all know I would have reversed the cables and fried!  No matter how many times Bob explains it to me . . . I just can't remember.  Wouldn't have been a good day for that to happen.  So anyway - after the prayer - it started right up!  Yea!!!  There's some faith for ya!  We made it to the derby ok.  

Got there - weighed the cars (had to be under 5 oz.) and they were both .2 over.  And there it was - the tough cookie cracked.  I have a lot of skills - furnace skills, broken window skills, changing a tire skills, painting a house skills, throwing up some drywall skills, mowing skills, car wreck skills - but I have NO - zero - zilch - pinewood derby skills.  I'm not a boy.  I had no brothers.  I had no idea what to do!  Yank off a wheel?  Chop off the back of the car?  Start sanding?  The boys were panicked - and I had no idea what to do.  They were looking at me with that "Mom! Fix it!" look - and I had nothing!  They'd melted the weights and sealed them inside their car.  It's not like I could just take a washer off or something.  And in that silent moment of desperate pleading in my head - trying to beg for some mercy - where I really thought I'd reached my limit and wanted to cry uncle - in walked my Father-in-law.  Another answered prayer!  I handed him the boys cars and told him they were over by .2 oz.  He said "I'll be right back" and raced out the door.  He quickly returned - and had drilled out just a bit of the weight from where they had poured the lead in - and both of them weighed in ok - and the race began.  The boys did really well and had a lot of fun.  Won some heats - and lost some heats - had a blast - and really enjoyed the whole process of making the cars.  It was all good!  The best part was after the derby when we went to pick up Bob at the airport.  It was so wonderful to see him again and have him back home.  I gladly handed him the keys to drive home - and enjoyed the rest of the evening - knowing whatever might come up - I had backup.  And also how wonderful it is to have a husband who takes such good care of us and seems to make everything so much better!

Cowboy T's Baptism

Cowboy T has chosen to be baptized on January 10, 2009 at 10am at the church.  Come and join us.  We are so excited for him and proud of his choice.

My Hero

Image Source:  http://i.treehugger.com/gas_burner_on_stove.jpg

Due to my rapidly increasing forgetfulness - last night I left a burner on.  We'd had spaghetti and I served up the plates at the stove.  I scooped out nearly all the sauce and left a plastic spoon in the pan.  There was a baking pan on the burner in front of it - so I didn't notice the burner was still on.  At about 8pm while we were reading scriptures Bob commented that something smelled like it was burning.  I thought that was really odd - since Bob has essentially no sense of smell - and I couldn't smell anything.  What was even more odd - earlier in the day I was making lunch and had the random thought that we hadn't gone over our family evacuation plan in a while.  So I shouted out to everyone scattered in the house - what would you do if the fire alarms went off right now?  The answers were varied - so we reviewed what to do if there was a fire.

About 2am - my Buddy came in our room to tell me the burner was on.  He'd gotten up and as he walked down the hall - caught just the right angle of the blue glow.  The last of the sauce was a crisp wafer and the spoon was beginning to melt.  What a blessing and a miracle that we were protected and that Buddy had the presence of mind to alert us.  The Lord was truly watching out for us and keeping us safe.  I am so humbly grateful!

He is always there.

Isn't it amazing?  That all we have to do is reach up for his hand.  It's there . . . waiting - whenever we feel overwhelmed, a little weak on faith or like we're sinking.  As Isaiah always says - His hand is stretched out still.  It's not that we have to wait for Him to reach for us . . . the Savior is already there.  He is just waiting for us to take his hand so he can lift us up.  

I love the scriptures!

A year ago . . .

I still shake my head in disbelief when I think of the series of miracles packed into about a 10 second time period of events this time last year. I had taken the kids to a Fort Worth Cats baseball game that was rained out minutes before it started by an unexpected deluge of rain. 3 inches in 30 minutes. As we left Fort Worth - safely seatbelted inside our lovely 9 month old Toyota Corolla - we hydroplaned - lost control - slid to the left side - hit the center concrete barrier in the highway - spun out - slid across all the lanes of traffic - head on into a light pole - which saved us from hitting a retaining wall head on. The pole started to come down on the top of our car - and then instead slid down sideways - away from the car. Air bags deployed and seatbelts were secure. Although our car was sticking out into traffic on a blind curve - and other cars behind us hydroplaned too - we were spared anymore trouble until the firetruck came to block traffic. Other than some seatbelt burn, bruises and a little bit of shock - we were all ok. It's taken some time to 'get back on the bike' as they say - but we are so grateful that we were so blessed. Many people (angels) stopped to help and my always-helpful wonderful in-laws immediately came to our rescue. Poor Bob was out of the country and prayed us through the whole thing. I am so grateful for the protective arms and watchful eye of the Lord that night. There had to have been angels surrounding us every step of the way home that night. Grateful just doesn't seem to cover it.

A Prophet of God

March 17, 2008

With President Hinckley's passing I reflected on a personal experience years ago with him. If I remember correctly Bob and I had driven Debbie (my sister) to the airport for a flight back to BYU. This was before we were married - and back in the day when you could sit at the gate and wait - even if you weren't flying. So as we approached the gate Bob said rather loudly, "HEY! That guy over there looks just like President Hinckley!" Well - as we all looked we realized it was. So we huddled for a moment wondering if we should approach him or leave him alone. As I recall he was reading his scriptures and there were a couple of bodyguards sitting nearby. Clearly we decided that we couldn't pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity and we decided to say hello. We were still some distance away but immediately as we began to walk towards him he stood up and extended his hand - and he said with a twinkle in his eye "I wondered when you were going to come over!" We had forgotten that we all had BYU shirts on! It was a dead give-a-way! The things I remember about that experience were how so many people were hurrying by - unaware that the living prophet of God was sitting a few feet away from them. I was also struck at how kind he was - how he stood to meet us before we even got close and extended his hand to us and made us feel welcome - even though we were intruding on his peaceful moment of sitting there. I always enjoyed his humor and grandfatherly ways when he spoke and more than that - I know he was truly a prophet of God.