The Missing Crab by Ally

On June 9, 2007, me and my friend Holland played with my hermit crabs. After we were done, we put them back in their cage. Later that night my sister took one of the crabs out, Anna (MY hermit crab) and left her on the carpet unsupervised. She crawled away.

Later, I asked my mom, "Where's Anna?" She said, "I don't know." My mom looked EVERYWHERE. She looked for a whole week!

On June 15, 2007, my dad came home late at night. He didn't know Anna was missing. The next day, he asked me, "Where is Anna?" I told him she had been lost for more than a week.

On June 17, 2007 which was Father's Day, my dad tore up the whole upstairs looking for Anna. I asked my dad, "What are you doing?" He said, "Looking for Anna."

After chruch that day, me, my dad, Nicholas, and Natalie walked home. Sometimes we like to walk home and talk. My dad asked us, "Have you said a family prayer for Anna?" I said, "No, but I said a personal prayer for her." We decided when we got home we would say a family prayer to find her.

My dad gathered everyone together for a prayer. 10 second later, my mom went to put her church shoes back in her closet and THERE WAS ANNA!!! I was so happy to see her alive.

We then said another prayer, thanking Heavenly Father for answering our prayer so quickly. I then went in my bedroom and said a personal thank you prayer. Do you know what my primary lesson was about that day? Gratidue and telling Heavenly Father thank you.

I had a lot of emotional feelings.

I felt like I witnessed a miracle.

New Title

I had one of those "ah ha" moments today and decided to open my blog to all my family members to post instead of just me. This mainly stemmed from Ally asking me today to have her own blog, "like yours mom" she pleaded. Then it dawned on me that she, or the others, could just post on mine when they wanted to share thoughts, feelings, or stories. Accordingly, I changed the name of my blog to "The Acanna Collective." Can any of you guess what Acanna stands for??? :-)


Ally is working on her first post (she's handwriting it out first - how cute is that?) Keep posted for more to come . . . .

ALL "THOUGHT" AND NO ACTION

Andrew is in New Jersey this week. I had BIG plans to accomplish soooo much while he was gone. In my mind, I pictured me posting on my blog each night, finishing the book of the month for my book group, rearranging my bedroom furniture (when Andrew's out of town I love to pick one project to do around the house and then wait to see how long it takes him to notice - it's a little game we play), and maybe, just maybe scrapbooking a page in each of my children's books. Now, let's compare this list with what I actually accomplished. Let's see . . . oh yeah I did NOTHING!

Well, I shouldn't say nothing, I did take care of all the day to day tasks that moms need to do (cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, etc.) I also got to do some service, which I've been praying for lately. Nothing really grand and amazing but small things like babysitting, bringing a meal, substituting a church calling, etc. I also got to enjoy the last week of school with my older children. There has been such excitement in the air all week. It's been fun planning end-of-the-year gifts for their teachers and enjoying a week without homework. With Andrew gone, I even got to get out my dusty softball mitt to play catch with Nicholas. He's convinced he needs to practice EVERY DAY so "the Boston Red Sox will pick him." I love the way an 8-year-old thinks! I also got to go to the park today with some of my friends and their children and celebrate the last day of school. This was probably one of the highlights of my week. I really love my friends, new and old!

So, Andrew returns home in a few hours. I didn't accomplish all I hoped, but I'll keep my list in mind and hopefully accomplish SOMETHING the next time he has a business trip.

Nicholas' Special Day

On May 18th (Mt. St. Helen's Day), Nicholas turned 8. I know that I have some friends who read my blog who don't go to the same church as I do, so I'll first explain that in our church, 8 is the "age of accountability" and is the time when our children are baptized. The first Saturday of each month is when all the children who turned 8 the month before get baptized.

We used the 2 weeks between Nicholas' birthday and his baptism to turn his focus from his party and his presents to the more eternal principle of baptism. We had such "grown up" discussions during this time about Christ and what it means to follow in His footsteps. I should also mention how thankful I am for my husband's relationship with Christ and the time he took to spiritually prepare for the big day. While I make many mistakes as a mom, I feel one thing I did right was giving my children a righteous father.

The baptism went great. Although I've come to the conclusion there's a reason moms are not bishops - there's NO WAY we would be able to keep our kids off the stand every Sunday!!! I sat on the stand with the other members of the Stake Primary Presidency during the baptism, and by the end I had 2 of my 4 children up there with me.

Speaking of bishops, ours had a great message at the baptism. He placed his cell phone in Nicholas' shirt pocket and then called it once while it was on vibrate and once while it was set to ring. He explained this was like the Holy Ghost - sometimes we feel him and sometimes we hear him. I loved this object lesson.

After the baptism we headed straight to IHOP (Nicholas' choice - I would have picked brunch at Luna or even the Davenport!) But, funny face pancakes it was. We all had a great time and then headed home for some time in the pool (the 1-foot, blow-up that is!)

Below are some pics of Nicholas' party and his baptism:

Volcano cake from Nicholas' Mt. St. Helen's B-Day Party

My little man

Future missionary???