Thoughts on Joy

In the Book of Mormon it says, "Men are, that they might have joy." 2 Nephi 2:25. I've pondered this scripture with fullness of heart that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that he wants us to have joy. But, I look around and see so many people without joy in their lives and it breaks my heart, especially during this holiday season. I've often wondered what the key to joy is. Then, the other morning, I was reading in the Book of Mormon the account of when Ammon ran into his best friend, Alma the Younger, and the other sons of Mosiah in the wilderness. The men had all been serving righteous missions and were so excited to be reunited. Ammon records that he was filled with "exceeding joy" the kind that "none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness." Alma 27:18. I suddenly had one of those ah ha moments . . . to have joy you have to seek it. To me , seeking happiness is living a Christ-centered life, which entails loving others, serving others, and humility.

With this in mind, here are a few things that bring me joy:

Santa's annual visit to our house, which strangely occurs each year while Andrew is gone. hmmm.

Christmas morning

Strong daddy-daughter relationships

Happy husband-wife relationships

Family ski trips

Friends

Friends

Friends

Friends

Piano Teachers

Piano Recitals

Joy.

Natalie's Hawaiian Adventure

Natalie and I just returned from a little mother-daughter trip. It was awesome, but let me first back up and explain how this trip came about.

A few years ago Andrew suggested I get away for a couple days while he watched the kids as a kind of "mother's retreat" (he has always felt a little guilty that his job takes him out of town so much and thought it would be fun for me to be the one that was out of town). That first year I met my best friend from high school in the Tri-cities (she lives in Seattle) and we spent the weekend doing "girl stuff." The following year Andrew offered to watch the kids again, but instead of getting together with a friend, I thought it would be fun to get away with one of my children. Alas, the annual mother-child trip was started. Each year I go on vacation with one of my children and they get to pick the destination. We only have 1 rule: the child whose turn it is to pick can't pick Disneyland or Disney World - for obvious reasons. :-) I went to Maui with Ally in 2005, Spring Training in Phoenix with Nicholas in 2006, and 2007 found me in Honolulu with my sweet Natalie. My grandparents even joined us this year.

Spending time with Natalie was wonderful - the weather in Honolulu was not. The wind blew like crazy and it rained, A LOT. We, nevertheless, made the best of it. Natalie's favorite thing to do was ride the city bus. It cost $2 and we rode that bus all over the island! We also went to the zoo, aquarium, shopping, and ran to the ocean every time the sun peaked out. The good news is no one got sunburned!

Natalie on her favorite thing . . .the bus! She's also giving the Hang Loose sign.

Check out that wind-blown hair!

A sun break

Hula Lessons

Natalie with Grandma and Grandpa

Free Time

Growing up, Saturday morning was our clean house time. My grandma must have started this, because whoever you called on a Saturday (aunts, cousins, grandparents) they were all doing the same thing. I've continued this tradition with my children.

This Saturday we did our usual routine and then we let the kids have free time as a reward. When I walked into the family room, this is what I observed. It's so funny seeing the little ones following the lead of the big ones. By the way, Adam is not actually "playing" the Gameboy (he doesn't know how) he's just pushing buttons to be like Nick. It's interesting observing the difference between girls and boys.

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I Guess There's a Little Martha in All of Us

Is Thanksgiving really right around the corner. And what's that knocking on the door? Oh, that's Christmas. It's all coming so fast, but I LOVE this time of year. A funny thing also happens to me this time of year - I find myself feeling a little "Martha Stewartish" (most of you know I'm crafty challenged - is that the politically correct way to say it?) Anyway, I've had the bug lately. Here's a couple projects I took on:

I made this family night chart. Prior to this we used an apple tree I made out of construction paper. We're moving up in the world. :-)

I saw this idea at my friend's house a couple nights ago. I cleaned out my fireplace and put candles in it. I have to enjoy this one while I can because once the snow starts my kids will insist on a fire in the fireplace (and hot cocoa in their hands!)

Trick-or-Treat

Natalie the Cheerleader, Luke "Nick' Skywalker, Ally the Gymnast, and Obe "Adam" Kenobi

We had the best Halloween ever! 3 parties, "office treating" at my work, trunk-or-treating at the church, trick-or-treating through our neighborhood, and hot cocoa before bed. Of course, I paid for it the next day - is there such thing as a "chocolate hang over"???

Sports Sports Sports

I knew what I was getting into so I can't complain.

When I first met my husband and learned he was majoring in sport management, I assumed sports was an interest of his. I then learned my husband came from a family of 9 boys (no girls). Hmmm. And then, after attending my first family get together, my suspicions were confirmed. "How can they all know EVERYTHING about EVERY sport?" I wondered. Those boys were spewing forth stats like an auctioneer on auction day. Since I was already crazy about my husband, I quickly decided it was better to join him than fight him. So, over the last 14 years I've become a bit of a sports junkie too. With this in mind, here's a recap of my weekend:

Friday - Attend Gonzaga basketball game. This was actually a scrimmage that was free to the public. It was a blast. The "kennel" was packed and the players even treated us to a dance before the game. Our kids loved it

Saturday am - Soccer. Both Nicholas and Natalie were on teams this year. I have to admit I love soccer. Our family has a "sports" quilt. We take it to the games and snuggle in it, drinking hot cocoa and rooting for whatever family member we're supporting that day.

Saturday pm - WSU football game. Nothing says fall like cool, crisp air; kettle corn; and our family huddled together at the stadium, rooting for our beloved cougs. They even won!

Sunday - Okay, I know I really shouldn't have anything sports related to discuss on the Sabbath, BUT . . . Andrew and I have an agreement, no sports on Sunday except the Super Bowl and if the Red Sox are in the World Series (his favorite baseball team since he was a little boy). Well . . . it was game 4 of the World Series and the Red Sox were up 3 - 0 in the series. So we all stayed up late and THEY WON!!! We celebrated with sparkling cider and lots of cheering.


Here are some pictures of all the festivities:

Mr. Adam Goes to Preschool

I've reached a milestone - my baby is now attending preschool. Yippee!!! He walked right in the first day and never looked back. I was so excited for him. The funny thing was that my eyes were watering like crazy that day due to my allergies, so it looked like I was crying. I have to admit it was nice getting those sweet, knowing looks and smiles from other parents, but I have to set the record straight and admit I was NOT crying. Anyway, here's a picture of my little guy. He refused to look at the camera (there were way too many other fun things to look at in his preschool room), but at least he smiled (kind of).

The Replacement Post

As expected, Andrew thought I did too much gushing over him in my last post and wanted me to replace it ASAP so it wouldn't be the first thing that popped up when people opened my blog. I guess I could post some things that drive me crazy about him to balance the posts!

Seriously though - I'm having a hard time coming up with a topic today, so I'll share a little gaffe from yesterday. Recently, I was asked to attend a school meeting as PTG president along with a school staff member who was filling in for another staff member who couldn't make it. This lady's name is Christi. Anyway, Christi picked up a packet for the missing staff member, so I e-mail the missing staff member and told him "Christi has a packet for you." EXCEPT I forgot to add the "i" at the end of Christi's name and the e-mail actually said, "Christ has a packet for you." The staff member called the typo to my attention yesterday and got a good laugh (especially since this staff member is Jewish). Oops! Do you think I can count that as missionary work? :-)

Becoming We

It was a warm fall night in 1991 and my college buddy was coming to pick me up to go to a party. She pulled up in the driveway of the house I shared with 4 other friends. When I ran out to get in the car a handsome guy got out of the passenger side and pulled his seat forward and climbed in back. Hmmm - who is this handsome guy I was thinking (I was also telling myself to "knock it off" because I had a boyfriend). I learned his name was Andrew and that night a friendship began.

Fast forward to December 1992 . . . I'm home from college for Christmas break and I run into Andrew while hanging out with my best friend Candy. Candy comments, "Introduce me to that guy, he's cute." That comment was all it took to make me realize, I like this guy (nothing like a little jealousy to get you in touch with your true feelings). I dropped the hint that I didn't have a boyfriend anymore, Andrew asked me to the movies, and we were married 8 months later.

Last month we celebrated our 14-year anniversary. I'm so thankful for that fall evening in 1991. Andrew is a wonderful husband and father. He's humble, funny, easy-going, dedicated to his family, hard-working, loves to serve, never afraid to share the gospel, dedicated to daily scripture study, and non-judgmental. A matter of fact, he's so humble he's going to be embarrassed that I exposed all his goodness on my blog. But, that's the price you pay for being so wonderful!

I'm so thankful our paths crossed and Andrew and I became "we."

Back To School

I can't believe summer is over and it's time to resume a "scheduled" life again. Back to packing lunches, supervising homework, waiting at the bus stop, hiding the take-home papers in the bottom of the garbage can so my kids won't see that I'm throwing them away (if found, that discarded math sheet becomes the prize project that only a mean mom would throw away), and so on. But to be honest, I love it, love it, love it. I'm so thankful for my 3 little students (4 if you include my preschooler who starts preschool later this month).


Natalie and her friend Anna

Nicholas forbade me from taking his picture in his classroom, but I snuck this one.

Ally and her friend Kimmi

A Prehistoric Saturday

I have to first admit I haven't been a fun mom lately. As most of you know, I'm the PTG president of my children's school this year. Well, I knew it was going to get crazy during the month of August, but I WAY underestimated the time commitment. For the last 2 weeks I've been attached to the computer and phone trying to get the parents ready for the upcoming school year. I've also been working on my "pet projects" which are setting up a PTG room at the school and organizing childcare for our PTG meetings. I am really hoping to pull these off. Now couple all this with the fact that the end of August is usually my most busiest time of year at work (we like to work extra hard to make up for the relaxing summer) and you can see where I'm going with this.

Anyway, my husband gently reminded me on Saturday that we were going to spend the day as a family - no phones, no computers. Ah, this man knows exactly what I need!

We decided to visit the local museum which was exhibiting a replica of a T-Rex discovered in South Dakota (it helped that Ally, Nicholas and Natalie earned free tickets from the local library for reading 15 books this summer!) Now tell me if any of you can relate to this conversation:

ME: Oh shout, I forgot my camera.

ALLY: It's okay mom, you can use your cell phone.

ME: But I don't know how

ALLY: Here, mom, I'll take care of it.

She then proceeded to take a couple pictures and then e-mail them to me so I could use them on my blog. So, who's more ancient, the dinosaur or me????

Look What Came Walking Down My Street!!! by Ally

Jack and Jill came up the South Hill

Looking for some water.

Jack looked around and said,

"This looks like a nice cul-de-sac"

And Jill came following after.

I've Been Tagged

I was just catching up on everyone's blogs and noticed Lucy tagged me with 5 GREAT questions. I had to put some thought into these answers. Here it goes:

1. If you could change one part of your body what would it be?
Well, if I have to pick only one, it would be . . . the chest - ugh! Where did they go???

2. How much do you think you need to make to be "really comfortable" (think annual salary)? This is an interesting question because the "really comfortable" amount has changed for me over the years. When Andrew and I were first married, we talked a lot about the "6-figure amount" and that this amount would be sufficient to comfortably raise a family. As we've grown older (wiser?) we've realized it's not just about supporting our family but it's also about having the means to help others and being able to put a decent amount away each month for college, missions, retirement, etc. So, now, I think the comfortable amount is closer to double the "6-figure amount."

3. What is your greatest God-given talent? This is a hard one for me to answer because I use to wonder, "Do I have any talents?" It honestly wasn't until I was called to Primary I realized how much I love children (well, I knew I loved my own but I didn't realize how much I loved everyone else's!) If this can be considered a talent, I guess that's my answer.

4. Winter Olympics or Summer Olympics? Gymnastics! Enough said.

5. If you could have any career, and you were GUARANTEED success (no tests to get in, no auditions, no worrying about daycare, or money or time) what would you do? Hands down, Kindergarten teacher. I love my current career, the law still challenges and excites me, but, in light of #3 above, I'd love to spend the day with 5 year olds.

Thanks Lucy for the tag.

The Crown Jewel of Idaho

We just returned from a week at Priest Lake, which the locals call the "Crown Jewel of Idaho." I honestly think any large amount of water surrounded by mountains is such an amazing gift of beauty from our Heavenly Father that I could never pick just one as the "Crown Jewel," but Priest Lake is a treasure to our family because of the memories we've made there over the last 6 years.

This year we got a little adventurous and decided to teach Ally and Nicholas to water ski. A big task for 2 inexperienced parents. Unfortunately, they take after their mother and didn't get up. Here's a picture of Nicholas getting ready to say "hit it!"

Aren't those skis suppose to be perpendicular to the water???

My grandparents also came up. My grandpa LOVES to read with the kids. I'm so thankful for his patience. Here's a pic. of Natalie and Grandpa reading on the hammock. Note Natalie's outfit: I let the kids pack their own suitcases this year. When I opened hers, I found 2 swimsuits, a swimsuit cover up (which she's wearing) and A LOT of Barbies. What more does a girl need???

We also went on a 6-mile hike to Upper Priest Lake. This portion of the lake is only accessible by boat or on foot. It's so pristine. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the lake, but here's a picture of us on the trail. If I did a close up of our fingers you'd see the purple stains from huckleberry picking. Yum - homemade huckleberry ice cream - another family tradition at the lake.

Here's some more pictures from our week at the lake:

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Natalie Kayaking

All smiles

Adam - tube extraordinaire. I kept telling my kids they were "totally tubular" - it's so great to use those 80's sayings!

non-skiing siblings - maybe next year??

And, last but not least, here's a picture of the cabin where we stayed. We use to stay at another cabin nearby, but met the owners of this cabin last summer. They offered to rent their cabin to us this year, something they've NEVER done before. The owners are a cute retired couple who feel their days of maintaining a lake house may be numbered - enters our family who is dying to buy a lake house. To make a long story short, we're hoping when they decide to sell, they'll sell to us. It's a perfect fit for our family, there's lots of room for friends, and it's across the street from the lake rather than right on the water, which means it's less than a million dollars! :-) We're waiting patiently . . . .

Main cabin - sorry it's hard to make out through the trees.


Back yard of main cabin

Guest cabin next door

OUT WITH THE "OAK" - IN WITH THE NEW

Last week I got the "home project" bug. Those who know me well know I don't get bitten by this bug often. A matter of fact, I've found that I'm even more content with my house since my husband started throwing away my Pottery Barn catalogs before I can look at them.

Anyway, last week I was antsy to replace the oak dresser in the boys' room because the drawers were falling apart. I envisioned a nice, navy blue replacement. I even thought to myself, "This is it, my last piece of 90s oak furniture will officially be out of the house!"

But, a navy blue dresser was not to be found. To improvise, I found a white one and bought blue paint. I came home and started on my project. I quickly realized my navy blue dresser was actually the color of those exit signs off the freeway that let you know there's food or gas at the next exit. My dresser looked like a giant, bright blue warning sign!

I went back to the store and got a darker color. I applied it and LOVED it. I even applied polyurethane to protect the dresser against chips (again, those who know me will be impressed I even know about polyurethane!)

Here's the final product:

After feeling so proud of myself and my move into the 2000s, I walked into our formal dining room and there staring me in the face was my large OAK dining room table.

Oops, I forgot about that! To my credit though, it's in the one room in our house that's almost NEVER used. Seriously, when we have friends or family over, no one ever goes in the formal dining room. We mainly use it when the missionaries come over for dinner. So, it's not too far of a stretch that I'd forget about the furniture in that room. I began hatching a plan to replace the table and chairs - but felt too guilty since they've rarely been used. So alas, I still have a little 90s oak. Maybe if I hold out long enough it will come back in style. My black stretch pants did!