our little liahona lesson

Sometimes the most simple FHE lessons are the best. We've been listening to Scripture Scouts in the car ever since Jaden got it for Christmas from grandparents. One of his favorite parts is about the liahona. The kids on the CD do an activity where one spins around with their finger pointing like an arrow. Another kid gives a situation and the rest have to decide if the arrow would be pointing the right way or the wrong way.

We decided to do this for FHE. We took turns spinning in the middle and holding up "right" and "wrong" signs. Best activity ever. Jaden came up with the best examples of both righteousness and wickedness, some that we were so surprised to hear come out of his mouth.

I know I say it a lot, but I love seeing the Come Follow Me method work in our home. Choosing a lesson that he could relate to and was excited about, and doing an activity on his level that we adapted to his needs made for a successful night.  And just look at that face. He was loving it so much Steve had to sneak a picture while taking his turn as the spinner :).

Theme and goals for 2015

Personal experience has shown that I do better with my goals when I write them down and evaluate. So  here you go, all three people that still read my blog--I'm asking you to help me be accountable this year :).

A couple years ago I decided to create a theme for myself for the year. My 2014 theme was two fold:

"Come Unto Christ, and be perfected in Him; and deny yourselves of all ungodliness"

Moroni 10:32

***

Diligence

Work

and Self-Discipline

How do you accomplish the goals in that scripture in one year?? The answer is easy. You don't. It's a lifelong process, and one that I still will never fully achieve. I will always have a little bit of ungodliness in me--hopefully less and less each year though. What mattered this year was that I TRIED. I really focused on my relationship with my Savior this past year. I learned so much about the Atonement. I discovered so much in my life that isn't necessary. So much that keeps me distracted, disobedient, or discouraged--all tools from Satan. I really tried to eliminate distractions from my life and while I still have a long way to go, I've made some good strides. 

I have come to love this scripture because I honestly applied it in some form to my daily life last year. I feel closer to Christ now than I did at the beginning of 2014, which was my overall goal. That has required LOTS of lessons in humility, which unfortunately I'm still learning. When will I ever just get it?? But overall I've progressed, so I think the year was a success.

The other half of my theme...yeah I think I could definitely carry those into this year. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be. One of my biggest shortcomings is lacking self-motivation to accomplish tasks I don't like.  I think the key for me is to be anxiously engaged in a good cause. Those qualities (diligence, work and self-discipline) come naturally to me when I'm busy. I struggle with them when I'm idle. So I'm excited to continue working on my personal development there in the context of my new theme this year: 

"O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve Him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day."

D&C 4:2

I LOVE that this is the mutual theme and I'm amazed that it includes everything that I need to work on personally. That's just another witness to me that I am serving where I should be in the church right now. I need the focus of this theme in my life, personally as well as for my calling. I have loved studying and pondering the different parts of this scripture--it is jam PACKED with things to work on. I have some great plans for myself! Here's a highlight:

• Obedience with exactness to all commandments and church guidelines outlined in the handbook
• Index 200 names--about one sit-down session a month (I only did 40 last year, so this is a worthy goal for me)
• Find at least one family name to take to the temple in July
• Fully live our stake's mission plan
• Find one new way to focus on serving others each month
• Invite a friend to two ward or stake activities/conferences/sacrament meetings
• Prepare a friend to be taught by the missionaries
• Read the entire Book of Mormon
• Complete my Personal Progress

That seems intense, but most of those are goals that our stake youth came up with to accomplish in 2015. I am impressed with their desire to be righteous and I want to join on their journey this year. I just continue to feel in this calling that I can't ask anyone to do anything I'm not willing to do myself. So here I go! It's going to be a busy year!

We also have some family goals that we formed around Elder Scott's October 2014 conference talk. We set some specific plans in the following areas: 

• Personal and family prayer
• Personal and family scripture study
• Family Home Evening
• Temple attendance

We also have family plans for travel and activities, but let's be honest, those aren't goals because we know we're going to make them happen. We're kind of crazy that way and like to play too hard :)

I only have two somewhat secular goals, which are still family oriented, but are things I REALLY struggle with and so therefore need to limit my focus. 

• budgeting
• menu planning

Oh man, how I hate hate hate menu planning!! And regularly updating/reconciling the budget! I don't know why I'm so bad at them! They are my least favorite chores by far. But obviously those things are not going to magically disappear from my life, so 2015 is the year I master them! Or at least develop a better system for them. I can't put it off any longer. Any tips or advice there?? I'd greatly appreciate it!

Capturing 2014

Okay, now that we're almost a month into 2015, maybe I should try capturing the second half of our 2014....

I really didn't mean to abandon this poor little blog. I'm sure I've lost all readership, but I love having this space where I can look back on our year of events. This is pretty much the only way I journal, which is unfortunate because our life lessons/heartaches/spiritual growth never get recorded here. Trust me, we have our ups and downs and hard knocks along with everyone else,even though I don't broadcast them. I'm glad I've at least found a spot to highlight our events though. Here's to improving my overall journaling, on the blog and off this year!

I may try to do some back-up individual posts with more details, but in case that never happens, here's a jam packed summary of our 2014. Why have lots of posts when you can have a forever long one? :/

January

Who knows? No significant pictures. Lots of ward conferences and camp planning though :)

February

Celebrated our five year anniversary by cruising the Western Caribbean with Jordan and Elyse  

March

Found a semi warm Saturday--our excuse to head to the beach

April

Jaden and I made a visit to Utah and celebrated this cute lady's 90th birthday

Steve took the Forbidden City by storm

Happy to see Dad after three long weeks 

North Carolina trip

(photo on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel)

May

Met Sister McConkie, a member of the general Young Women presidency, at a leadership training meeting in PA

Camping and bike riding at Harpers Ferry, WV

June

(I can't remember where all of this stuff falls exactly...summer is just a huge blur!)

Mongolia trip...just happened to include time on Mongolian national television

Young Women's Camp

Baseball games

A couple of miraculous Target trips

Father's Day

A guy's trip to the airplane museum to see this brand new addition

Visit from Grandma and Emily

(A sort of half-cute picture)

July

Celebrated our 29/27th birthdays!

4th of July--came in with a hurricane, went out with a tilt-a-whirl and fireworks

Made it out to Utah (again) for Stu's wedding + hiking.

Youth Conference

Bagan, Myanmar. One of Steve's highlights of the year.

Lots of Beach Thursdays with friends. 

That boy and those sailboats...perfect combination.

August

Youth temple trip

Visitors! John and Jenn came for the weekend from PA. 

We got some good beach time in for Tyler, Weston and Elayna. 

BILTMORE!! Probably the most unexpected highlight of my year. 

Myrtle Beach, SC with these awesome people!

Oh and we worked in the yard a few times ;)

September

River cruise to Mount Vernon

Jaden's first Primary program! He did awesome! Memorized both his parts, sang most of the songs, and knew the sign language for I Stand All Amazed. One proud mama right here. That boy earned his ice cream party :)

By this time of the year, we had "said goodnight" to Daddy a LOT this way:

"Where's Jaden? Where's Daddy?" REACH....!

October

(Steve was away on business most of this month)

Family wedding in DC! Parentals came to visit for the weekend.

Aunt Britt and Lydia came out for a girls trip while Steve was out of town

Fall festival 

(in a quick time-out...sometimes it's so hard being three)

Halloween! 

We love both our "Ruff the White Doggies"--both the real deal and the impersonator. 

Ruff has been Jaden's best friend and partner in crime since Jaden was about 6 months old. We just had to honor him with a costume :)

November

Drove almost two hours to see this awesome movie for date night :)

Thanksgiving with the Pace family!

December

Jaden and I made it out (AGAIN) to Utah for a little Christmas season visit, birthday party and Hadley's baby blessing

Steve totally won the limbo contest at the work Christmas luau

Celebrated our 6th anniversary at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore followed by a temple trip

Celebrated Jaden's 4th birthday! It was a big birthday/Christmas extravaganza for days which left Jaden thinking for awhile that he would be getting presents every day :)

Had a 60 degree post-Christmas Saturday afternoon so we decided to hit up the beach. That ended up being the day that my sweet Papa passed away. 

So it seemed fitting that we spent New Years Eve, literally our last few hours of 2014, on a plane, headed back to Utah for his funeral (the fourth Utah trip for Jaden and me this year). Bittersweet and emotional time for sure. I've learned that deaths of grandparents are hard but sacred. We're blessed that we got to be there with family for the funeral. But that's 2015 news, so maybe in the next six months I'll get around to documenting that ;).

Interesting Howell travel trivia:

On one of our segments out to Utah we figured out how many airplanes (like actual segments) we've each been on in 2014. 

Jaden: 8

Audrey: 12

Steve:.................

69

69!!!!!!!!!!

AIRPLANES! 

In ONE year!!!

That is disgusting.

14 countries. 5 states. Lots of frequent flyer miles that helped us see our families this year. It was a sacrifice for sure and SUCH a crazy summer. He was home for probably only 2-3 weeks in between each trip. But we're grateful for the perks of hotel points and miles. Those help us keep up with our insane lifestyle that we apparently have (I'm learning from this crazy blog post). No wonder we're tired! 

2014

The year of travel. 

You've been good to us. Thanks for everything. 

Auld Lang Syne.

Beach Thursday

We got SO much beach time in this year!! And by we, I mean Jaden and me. Steve made it a couple of times, but Jaden and I really took advantage of our ward's Relief Society weekly beach outing. It was so fun for both of us to hang out with friends and explore the outdoors, beach style.  I'm sold on Beach Thursday and can't wait for next year!!

Shark!!

Mitzi and her bumbo-boogieboard contraption for 4 month old Jacob. When you're baby number 4, your mom is going to find a way to take you wherever she wants to go :)

This was actually on a Friday, but we were so happy to have our friends Sam, Kimberly, Isaac and Lily come visit us for the weekend all the way from Boston! They were in our ward for a year and we've missed them!

Claire helped Jaden get used to being in the water without clinging to Mom. She is fearless!

Looking through a telescope at the pirate ship out at sea

Caught a flounder!

Beach yoga pose?

This summer has made living through the humid winter out here worth it.  We can survive the next six months if it means another summer like this one :).