Moving on!

Little Miss Grace-Face graduated from Pre-School today,
which means one thing...

...one step closer to Public School!

again with the markers!

Grace told me that she wants to be a cheetah.
So she drew whiskers.
With marker.
On her face.
Again.

Then she hissed/growled at me, which can't be spelled... you just had to hear it.

At least she chose Phoenix Suns colors, maybe we can pass her off as a fan.

Loves music, loves to dance

Here's Grace's latest passion; making up her own ballets. I have no idea what this one is called, but at one point she was singing "Girls just wanna have fun."

My latest crochet accomplishment

Newsboy cap for little boys, sizes newborn to toddler!

More of Grace and markers

"Grace, what did you do to your arm?!"

"Mom, it was an accident! An ACCIDENT!!"

"So you're telling me that you dropped a marker and somehow it drew a woman with curly hair and eyelashes, dressed in a pink dress and high heels? On your arm? By ACCIDENT?"

"Yes."


I should've taken a picture.

Pretty Ballerinas

Ember & Grace performed in their ballet recital on Saturday, May 15. They both did a great job and I'm very proud of my girls!

(Grace is the 3rd from the right, you'll recognize the drama queen in her)



Ember is on the far right, back row.

dinnertime conversation

Ember: "I wish we were all made of legos, so if we died Ben could rebuild us!"

Ben: "Yea, I can build ANYTHING out of legos!"

This is the life

Ember: 'Ahh, this is the life. Watching the Suns game with my family and eating sugar."

She had a bowl full of caramel popcorn on her lap, part of our Family Home Evening treat.

You're right Ember, this is the life :)

More Gracisms

I went out to lunch with some friends today and Grace leans across the table and says:

"My mom says I ruined Mother's Day!"

Nice.

Earlier that same day she crawled under the comforter on my bed. I told her to come out and I hear a muffled:

"Mom, I just farted and it stinks in here."


She's on a roll today.

Mother's Day and Women's Conference: part 6

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's out there!

The kids got me this plaque for Mother's Day. I was admiring it about a week ago in Deseret Book, and Ember told Austin to get it for me :) It makes me smile :)

I normally don't like Mother's Day, but today wasn't so bad. The kids DID start fighting within 30 minutes of me waking up, but they tried to do better.


Back to Women's Conference: I attended a class entitled "Exchanging Guilt for Inspiration" and I learned one important thing about guilt.

Pain is the body's alarm system that something is wrong, and DON'T do that again. Guilt is the spirit's alarm system that something is wrong, and don't do that again. It is unhealthy to hang onto or endure either one for too long.

With my disease, I do have a tendency to hang onto a lot of guilt. I've messed up quite a bit because I wasn't in my right mind, and then when sanity was restored I regretted the things I'd said or done. I still carry a heavy burden of guilt for those things. I hope I can remind myself often that hanging onto the guilt is detrimental to my spirit. This class was important for me.

There's also two more quotes I want to share from another class, and then I think this may be the last Women's Conference post.

"Replace the question 'why' with 'what am I to do with this?' and you'll find you get a lot more answers."

"God does not give us what we can handle, He helps us handle what we are given."


Women's Conference is incredible every year, and this year was no exception. I am so grateful I was able to go and I'm already looking forward to next year.

Ember's orchestra concert

I kept this clip short because I know that not everyone likes to hear a 4th grade orchestra concert, but Ember did really great. For you musicians out there, check out her awesome left arm! It's so straight, she's using the tops of her fingers and not the pad, and check out her right arm! That bow hold rivals mine :)

I guess you could say I'm very proud of my daughter.

Funny quotes: Women's Conference part 5

Women's Conference is full of lots of humor. There is inspiration and motivation, and the spirit is felt in abundance. But one of my favorite things is the sense of humor of these incredible women. Here's a few of my favorite quotes :)


"It is my job to dress my children, NOT to decorate them." - Sherry Neiger

"Men shop for pleasure, women shop out of guilt!" - Renata Forste (she watched commercials for one afternoon and realized that pleasure is marketed to men, and improving some kind of flaw is marketed to women).

"Instead of F.H.E., our family has F.F.F.... Forced Family Fun." - Suzanne Hawker

(Regarding the holidays...) "Men do all their holiday preparations in just one day, most of it online. Women start early and only stop when it's too late to do anymore." - Louise Shaw

"There isn't a class at this conference entitled "How to fill your time," or "What to do when you get bored." - Louise Shaw (talking about how women make lists of things to do that can only be accomplished by at least four women. We have NO trouble filling our time).


Those are just some of my favorites :)

She's not even a blonde

Grace learned how to speak valley-girl today. I have no idea where she learned it, but I suspect the most recent Barbie movie, featuring surfer girls.

"You are soooo la-ame. I'm the moooost popular gi-irl. For suuu-uuuure!"

Gals and Dolls

Not that you can tell, but BOTH my girls (the eldest one a tad bit earlier in the day) were pretty excited about the matching jammies that they got, including matching outfits for their American Girl dolls. Their nightgowns I made last year, but the dolls outfits were made just this morning with the fabric remnants. They turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself, even if the 9 year old refuses to smile and at least pretend to be happy about it. (She was excited earlier, I swear... I wouldn't make that up. She has more mood swings than I do, and I'm mentally ill!)

Mom-isms: Women's Conference part 4

For the past few years Mom and I have stayed in the dorms on campus at BYU. We're always roommates, and it's like a grown-up slumber party.

As with other years, Mom had a couple awesome and funny things to share with me that I will call "Mom-isms".

1. First night we talked about her seminary class and she told me to read 3 Nephi ch. 17-19 and make a note of everything I learned about prayer. The Savior set the example, showed us how to pray (bowing and kneeling, 17:15, 19:6, 8, 16, 19, 27) and to pray to the Father in His name (17:3, 18:19, 20, 23, 24, 19:6, 7, 8). There are lists of things we should pray for (17:3, 14, 18:20, 21, 19:20), how often, (18:18, 19:24, 26, 30, 20:1), and why we should pray (18:15, 18, 19:9, 28).

That's a lot of information on prayer! It prompted some really cool discussions, and then of course we prayed together every night before we crashed in our really uncomfortable dorm room beds. (** More on the uncomfortable rooms later).

2. Mom and I exercised using resistance bands and while we were working out she said, "I eat right, I exercise, I do everything I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm STILL getting old!" Nice.

Ok, I guess I only have two Mom-isms for now, but they're good ones!


** Uncomfortable rooms: Beds hard as a rock, blankets as soft as brill-lo pads, air conditioning turned on the first night it snowed (yea, I slept only 2 hours because of my shivering and hypothermia), and pillows that kept sliding out from under my head. Weird. I'm so glad to be back home in my own bed, snuggling with a warm husband and not freezing my patootie off.

Inspiring: Women's Conference part 3

I attended a class on Thursday entitled "Have Miracles Ceased; recognizing the Lord's hand in our lives." It was a fantastic class with speakers bearing testimony of incredible miracles.

Lynne Zabroskie shared the story of her husband who, 20 years ago, was skiing and was hit broadside by another boat. Her prayers for his recovery were continually answered, despite the doctors opinions that he would die. She told the Lord that she was willing to bear any physical burdens, as long as her husband's mind would be intact. Her prayers were answered.

She testified that miracles have not ceased. They may not be as obvious or as public as the miracle of healing her husband experienced, but they are just as real and personal to us. Her husband Craig got up and bore his testimony next. He couldn't use the right side of his body and walked with a heavy limp. His speech was impaired, but his mind was intact.

He made one very significant statement that may very well be my favorite quote from the entire conference.

"Trials are mandatory. Misery is a choice."

No one is exempt from the trials of mortality, we all have them. How we endure them is up to us, which is why we are counseled to endure it well. In my own life I have been called to endure mental illness. Often times my ability to endure it well has been hampered by the disease itself, which is where the miracles come in.

* Mental Illness has not destroyed my marriage, but made it stronger
* My children are compassionate and forgiving
* My children are independent and self-sufficient
* My faith in my Savior has been continually intensified as I recognize and draw upon the healing that only He can offer, to my body and to my mind.

These are just a few. Miracles have not ceased, I see them every day. I can testify that this is undeniably true. I was inspired by this talk and this particular class was probably my favorite.

Now some photos.

Snow.

My lovely tulips.

Tulips covered in snow!

That's ok, they come from Holland so they can handle it. It was 80 degrees in Provo the week before the conference, the snow took everyone by surprise. It was a welcome change from the 90 degree weather I left behind in Mesa.

Contradictions: Women's Conference part 2

Snow... and ducklings? Is it winter or spring, Utah, make up your mind!!!

It's All About Me: Women's Conference part 1

I'm back from Women's Conference, and I had a blast! I learned and experienced too much to put into one single post, so I'll be doing a post every day this week with a little conference gem that I picked up.


I only had my camera phone with me, but I took lots of pictures and I'll sprinkle those in between the things I learned from the classes I attended.

(There were over 15,000 women in attendance)

I thought I'd start with our closing session from Friday afternoon. The speaker was Sister Kristen Oaks and Elder Dalin H. Oaks. The topic was service. We need to evaluate the service we give; is it all about me?

Here's some of his insights that I found helpful for me: (I'll summarize but use quotation marks for a direct quote that I found significant)

We live in a Godless and increasingly amoral society. The result is fear. The opposite of fear? Faith. Our faith in the Savior sustains us.

(Yes, it snowed all 3 days. More on this later.)

"You are daughters of a Heavenly Father who shares your concerns, listens to your prayers, and honors your service." He also said that this applies to whatever service we give, whether the world honors it or not.

He warned us against pride, self-importance, commending ourselves, or creating our own moral compass. Living for myself is a tool of Satan, it means I'm not living for God.



This was funny...

"the popular song "I did it my way" (Frank Sinatra) will only be sung in the Telestial Kingdom"

"Motherhood is the CURE for self-centeredness"

"Women can become depressed or diverted by excessive preoccupation with self. A bad hair day matters to no one but myself and means nothing in the eternal scheme of things." Then he said he really can't empathize with a bad hair day :)


If it's always all about me, my spiritual growth will be stunted. He quoted the mother of someone I can't remember, I'm sure it was significant, but she said "It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't care who gets the credit."

So evaluate your service; is it all about you, are you doing it for the wrong reasons, or is it all about God? Is it all about the person we are serving, and by extension, the Savior we are serving?



There lots more pictures and stories I want to share, but like I said... too much for one post. Come back often this week and I'll share as much as I can! Snow, baby ducks, tulips, silly stories, spiritual insights... you don't want to miss it :)