Sally's New Shoes

I love how in Angela's class they get sent home a book in their reading level. Can I just say I love Turnberry Elementary School? Today's book was a perfect fit for a journal entry for Angela. Angela dreams - I mean DREAMS of these boots she has in her head (Yes, she is a major shoe-girl - just check out Christmas post). Anyways, loved reading her book with her and then having Angela write a journal entry and draw a picture of her dream shoes. Sparkle boots. With heals. And lots of glitter.

Eli

We love our neighbors, the Crawfods. Love when they can come over and play. Had so much fun with Eli today. He usually walks in and the first thing he asks for is our cash machine :)

Being His Hands

 Discussion with the girls...

2 nephi 2:3

It's neat that I read that scripture in my personal scripture study this morning. I felt like I should share this with the girls and discuss that we can serve God each day and that we can seek for guidance from the Holy Ghost.

We discussed how we can serve God.

Angela – by doing what Heavenly Farther tells us

Carolyn – by serving other people. By serving other people it means you serve God.

We talked about while we read the Book of Mormon we can think about what Heavenly Father wants us to do TODAY to serve Him. It's so amazing how Heavenly Father connects the dots. After we talked about how we can think about how to serve, we read 2 Nephi 32:5 – how amazing it was in Heavenly Father's hand for us to read a scripture that further taught us about serving Him. The Holy Ghost can tell us how to serve. Here is what the girls felt they should do as we read the scriptures and thought about 2 Nephi 2:3.

Carolyn – right after we read the Book of Mormon and she said, “Mom. I know what I need to do. Mom, I am sorry I was mean to you two days ago.” (I love her courage in saying sorry- she shared it was hard for her to do it – but she did it. And I felt so happy inside and so did she. Such an example to me on doing what we are guided to do – even if it's hard!)

Angela – smile at some people today. (love this goal – her smile is so contagious and will bring joy to others).

Angela's Words of Wisdom

My children remind me every day of why our Savior taught that we should be like children.

Yesterday Emily, Angela and I were discussing avoiding using inappropriate words. This is what Angela shared with us:

"When I say those words I feel like Heavenly Father can't talk to me any more."

Beautifully put.

Carolyn and My QWEST to Follow the Prophet!

I love Carolyn. I love her testimony. We have been discussing a lot about how the prophet wants us to have a year of food storage so Carolyn has been by my side helping our family get one year supply.

 I used the calculator on Provident Living to figure out how much food our family needs for a year supply. It has been an amazing experience. For instance, last week we hit a few stores with sales to put in our food storage. Yesterday we had all the food out in the different categories and Carolyn and I together used math to figure out how much we have (lots of adding) and how much more we needed. We did a lot of math in our head, used the calculator, and used Excel to help us find the difference as well. It was such a beautiful experience today! We talked about what the prophet teaches us, we did math together, and we just got to talk and spend time together. I love the gospel. I love the joy and peace it brings. I love how a commandment like getting food storage can bring even more blessings that just having the food storage- today it brought a beautiful moment with Carolyn where we could learn and talk together.

 Here is what we have so far! We are getting close to one year!! In March Carolyn and I are determined to have a full supply!

FOOD - IN POUNDS:

FOOD    NEED          WE HAVE                DIFFERENCE
Grains                1580             1308                         272
Sugar                  237                163                          74
Legumes              237                237                          0
Dairy                    118                 5                             113
Leaving Agents       24                  22                            2
Fats                    119                33                            86

Guppies!

Really? Can my guppies get any more adorable than this?! I think not!!! Love watching these guppies swim twice a week at swim lessons!

 This has been Emily's first session of swim lessons. She is a shark out there. No fear of water. She jumps right into it and does everything with no fear. Amazing.

Before her first lesson she was so worried that I wasn't going to be there to constantly wipe off her eyes after she would get in and out of the pool. So, we would practice how to wipe her eyes with her hands. It was so cute and even more cute to see her do what she practiced in the pool. Hehe.

 Angela is awesome. She's always been a talented and fearless swimmer!

Today

Today was great. Angela tells me about 3 times a week: "Today is the best day of my life."

Here is what today entailed that made me smile. Love these girls.

Angela. Loved the movie "Frozen." Since we have seen "Frozen," this girl has found great fun in dressing up in skirts and dresses and running and around and singing "Frozen" songs. She dramatically runs around while throwing her arms and head around and dancing just as a princess would while exclaiming the words to the songs :)Today was particularly awesome. It was super windy outside so her skirt got extra swoosh as she sang and danced around in the wind.

 

 Carolyn brought me back to my favorite show "Full House" today. A show I watched when I was young. One episode that I loved one of the characters (Stephanie) made a bed in the tub. Well, my friends...this is what Carolyn did today...

 The shower/tub in Andrew and my master bedroom has been out-of-order for the past 6 months. Carolyn figured she better make good use of that wasted space.

 She informed me that she wanted a place she could hide and be by herself when feeling sad. Some place no one could find her. This was the solution. (As a side note- Carolyn's favorite author is Roald Dahl - she just finished "Witches" is onto "BFG" and has "Matilda" on hold at the Library for the next read).

 And this girl LOVES helping me in all my HouseKeeping duties. In fact, she can get pretty upset when I don't allow her to help me with everything I do (dishes, finances, cleaning, laundry, ironing, cooking - she is THERE by my side to be my helper. I am rarely without her right by my side. Lucky me to have EMILY that loves doing everything with me :) Here Emily is today helping me cut up the veggies for our Quinoa chili for dinner tonight.