Scripture Power, Every Day I Need

Shane and I wanted to find a way to be more consistent with our family goals for scripture reading and prayers. It was my husband's grand idea to make a poster board, similar to seminary, where we can physically see how we are doing individually and as a family. We simply add stickers to our individual and family rows at the end of each day when the task is completed.

Shane thought we needed to spice up the board, give it a little more excitement with color and design.

Thus the need for my very first Cricut Cartridge!!!

Needless to say there was no twisting my arm to get 'Life is a Beach' one of my top 10 favorites.

For those of you who do not know what a Cricut machine is let me take a minute to explain. A Cricut is an electronic scrapbooking machine which cuts out shapes, letters, and anything else your heart desires, in varying sizes too. When I came home with treasures in hand I offered to let Shane try it out first...

...Big mistake! It took me 40 minutes before I finally got a turn! He was so into perfecting each piece, finding the perfect design and color I didn't stand a chance.

Now a short disclaimer: Shane does not do crafts, he simply was suffering from a temporary need for a garage, complete with tools and man projects. The Cricut could be compared to a Jig Saw (not to be confused with a puzzle) and perhaps that's what kept his interest.

All in all we really enjoyed making the project together and it seems to be working perfectly. We will see how this quarter goes, I assume we will be making another one in August!

It's a great day from Morning till Night

Emma has been sick and this morning I prayed with everything I had to stay patient. Much to my dismay I lost my temper at 8:37am...yes I looked at the clock to see how long I'd made it.

However, despite how the morning started my day got increasingly better:

1. Emma took every nap I put her down for.

2. I heard Emma giggle for the first time in DAYS.

3. There were fewer tissues used on Emma's poor runny nose today than yesterday.

4. Taking Emma for a walk actually worked to calm her down today.

5. There wasn't even a hint of whining when I put her down for bed.

Here are a few pictures of Emma in her normal state of Happiness. I can not tell you how much I appreciate Emma when she is happy and smiling (which is most of the time). I know the Lord keeps me grateful by giving me hard weeks with a sicky child.

Mother I love you, I love you, I do

To avoid embarrassing both my mothers too much I'd like to say just a quick word concerning how wonderful they are and how much they mean to me. I have been taught marvelous principles from my mom and appreciate immensely the principles my husband was taught as a boy.

Other than that I want these pictures to do the talking for me. I had a marvelous Mother's day. I love my job!

“...Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.”

-Marvin J Ashton

(“The Tongue can be a Sharp Sword” General Conference, April 1992)

Ode to Joy

Shane and I went to California to visit family and take a break from the heat here in Vegas. We had so much fun with our family. There was shopping, and parks, naps and teething, games and laughter, and time away from the everyday.

A picture says a thousand words right? Well I”m not sure there are words enough to describe our game night at Grandma Sandi’s. I’ll post these few pictures and let the images do the talking.

I'd like to make mention of the game we played: I believe the name of the game is -Qwelf.

Disclaimer: This game required the most ridiculous of actions, and events. All family members in photos are not as crazy as they may seem.

All in all we had an awesome trip. I'll have to add photos of our little family walk around the lake too.

Cameron Park

Here we are in the neighborhood park next to my Mother-in-laws house. What a beautiful place to go for a walk. They have TONS of geese-not sure how I feel about them-tennis courts, a playground, a swimming hole, docks for fishing. and a mile long path around the pond. While on our walk Shane and I ran across a female duck squawking like crazy next to a small dam in the pond. Shane threw on my sandals and headed down to check it out. Eleven baby ducklings swam right over the dam and seemed trapped. Shane had to help the ducks out by showing them how to climb up the side bank.

It was nice to get outside and see some green again. Las Vegas has a beauty all it's own that takes some getting used to.

I much prefer green and trees! It made our fantastic trip that much better.