To Create

I am so inspired by President Uchtdorf's message!

OK, here is our creation story.
Given our history of large babies.... We scheduled an induction just four days before the due date. Friday February 20, 2009 we went in and they broke my water. I did not want pitocin so I started walkin' the halls! Poor Dustin while still recovering from knee surgery had to sit with ice packs when we were done! It worked though and after a couple hours, the labor started to kick in pretty regularly. Five and a half hours later, Noah came into the world. He is so precious. And his name was so easy this time, once we met him. He just looks like Noah. David is my father's name and we were thrilled to pass that on to one of our sons.

We all just love this baby!! If it were possible to be loved, touched, kissed or held too much, we would be guilty of inflicting this on good little Noah. What a gift to give to our other children, and what a gift for Noah. We brought him into a home with so many people already loving him. Heavenly Father's plan is more beautiful and more clear to me the longer I am a mother. I am so motivated to improve and work towards becoming the mother I know I can be, the mother I am meant to be, the mother I already am....deep down. :) We are so happy over here and filled with the "trailing clouds of glory" that Noah brought with him.

Noah David is Here!

The Story To Come Later....

13 pounds!!!

HA HA gotcha!!

No baby yet. We are scheduling it for Friday morning. We will keep you posted.

20 minutes of suction!

Can you see that wire??
I have decided that no matter how much I spend on a vacuum, it only lasts a couple years and does the job about the same. So my two years were up and our vacuum was about to die. I was so happy to find a TON of posts over there on http://www.ididntsaybanana.blogspot.com and got lots of advice. I did a little research and decided I still hold to my theory and spent around $150 and happily left Costco. My kids love to vacuum so I let them do the second room, answered the phone, and heard the vacuum turn off.

Apparently, he had run over the cord, ripping it in shreds, which caused the live wires to touch and shorted a fuse in the house and shut off the vacuum.....never happenned before!!! But that was a new record around here....a vacuum that lasted a whole 20 minutes!

Dustin was able to cut and splice and wrap with tape and other electrical talents and now it works like a charm again. But I guess I can only have supervised helping.

Quilts for Baby

Whenever I am expecting, strange things happen to me. :) HA! For example, I get these urges to learn how to knit. I never have actually learned. I can crochet all sorts of things, but never knitting....and so far this pregnancy, I have gone this far without learning again. But another craving I have is for sewing. I whip out a bunch of new receiving blankets (i go through those things, like 5 a day) and I start thinking about piecing together material for quilts. :) Luckily, my Mom was planning a visit and I knew if I could just piece together a top, she would do the rest and quilt them on her machine!! :) So I gave myself one afternoon and searched through the attic for boy material and these two are what I came up with. :) I think it is very funny that I actually put four pieces of material together and called it a quilt! :) But I like it.



The third quilt (obviously in a whole different quilting category) is made by my dear friend Sarah who is a prof at this. Just go see some of her stuff at http://www.ididntsaybanana.blogspot.com. Her latest which is shown here was auctioned off this week to help benefit her sister-in-law. You may have heard of her, most call her Nie from her blogging. http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ Check out this blog to hear what is going on with them. She was in a serious plane crash and was in critical condition for a long time. Anyway, I am showing off Sarah's quilt here just for fun. I can't really show my weak one afternoon attempts without showing you what is possible in the world of quilting. :)

FHE Kit for any lesson

As families, many have seen the value in getting together once a week for the teaching of gospel principles and to have fun. How wonderful for the church to recommend this. We have seen great results and the wisdom in meeting this way. In fact, we expand the one day to two on a typical week if you count our Sunday afternoon devotionals.

A group of friends got together the other day and we put together kits full of items that can be used in any lesson to help the younger ones stay focused and have fun. While trying to teach the older ones, these items can help the younger ones learn the same ideas at their level, and it helps them stay engaged. It is amazing what they can learn if they will only pay attention!






Bean Bag: My favorite use of this bag is to play hot potato and when the bag stops on you, you say something you learned from the FHE lesson that day. It is a great way to review and for the younger ones to sometimes really hear it.

A happy/sad choice stick puppet: Remember wickedness never was happiness, which often means that righteousness IS happiness and brings peace and joy. So you can use these to hold up whenever anyone in any situation in any story makes a happy or sad choice. I often make up lots of happy or sad choice scenarios including many I have seen happen throughout the week (using generic names of course) in our family and the kids vote on happy or sad choice. It is a great thing to use to help the young ones make happy choices any time because you can remind them.

A testimony glove: The Primary General Presidency one time suggested that we teach the kids about testimonies using the five fingers on their hands. These gloves can help teach that principle. The five points they suggested are:
1. I know God is our Father in Heaven and He loves us.
2. Jesus Christ is His son, our Savior and Redeemer.
3. Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. He translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.
4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s church on the earth today.
5. The living prophet is President Thomas S. Monson

A magnetic fishing rod: I use this whenever we need to ask questions or read verses or choose songs. The children can fish for the question or song or verse and then anyone can answer it. You can also do this to pick chores, restaurants, you name it.

Stop Sign: This is our favorite singing help. The kids love to stop everyone singing and then start them back up again.

Scripture Games: These are great resources of questions to get everyone thinking.

Family faces cube: You can use this to talk about different family members’ responsibilities. Roll the cube and talk about whomever it lands on. You can also do this to choose how each person will participate in FHE that night or to decide any number of things where a family member must be chosen and it doesn’t matter who; it just needs to be fair.

Don’t Eat Pete: This is the easiest game. All you need is candy, like M&M’s.