Mom's gift(s)

Taken from "The Family: A Proclamation to the World:"

'Children are an heritage of the Lord' (Psalms 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.
"The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

God's reward to a mother is children. They love unconditionally.

This represents a portion of my reward.

I love my calling as a mother.

Snow Canyon

But the first question that came to mind was:

Where's the SNOW?!

It was really hot in that place!

(Be patient as we re-visit more of our favorite summer vacation)

Snow Canyon is just northwest of St. George, UT

We LOVED hiking on the

Petrified Sand Dunes!
A HOT, but very cool day.

Roger climbed into a cave and found the perfect 'recess' in the rock wall to rest his long body
I couldn't stay away from my 'ranger-ish' guy--
he's a man who can wear a hat well.
(Plus I enjoyed hanging out in his shade)
There were the coolest rocks to climb!

The landscape was So different from New England

It was hard to leave!

We were SO thankful to spend time together

in that fabulous place.

Back to...

Where's

my head?

OH my;

so much

craziness!

How in the world could summer leave?
Here we go again...

seminary to sundown;

the juggling act resumes.

Now I remind myself why it is

that i LOVE summer oh so much!

way way

way way

way way

way way

way way

just too much dang 'stuff' going on to be doing 'normal' things like sitting down at night to watch TV! I have to squeeze in making breakfasts and lunches... get kids out the door and to their destinations in three phases each morning; (let's not think about keeping the house clean or maintaining the laundry...) there's high school soccer, marching band, youth soccer, jazz and ballet, scouts, achievement nights, mutual activities and church callings!(ask me about that one later) Getting wrangled into being the secretary of the music aiders in town and helping out with the booster club for soccer. With so many kids in so many things, how can I stop feeling so obligated to help? We haven't even HAD open house for school yet... that night when the teachers put out their pleas for volunteers. How can I NOT help when my kids are in their classrooms? I need my blogging friends...look to your examples...love your stories. What d'ya say?

Back to ...

SCHOOL!

Here's the newest 10th grader...

off to confuse his teachers with his stripe and plaid combo

(to his credit,

he didn't put the sweatshirt on

until he stepped outside

and felt how COLD it was this morning!)

The BIG senior! The '1' for only ONE MORE YEAR TO GO!

No more school bus for these guys--the seminary and soccer schedules mean driving your own truck to school! Sweet deal.

and speaking of sweet... here's our new 7th grader!And last, but never least, the 4th and 2nd grader off to the bus, accompanied by Mr. Morning himself. You'll feel the enthusiasm in in the video below...

Hooray for starting another school year!

Good-bye Summer...

I said good-bye to summer this morning...

didn't want to!

made the breakfasts...

packed the lunches...

shipped the kiddos off to

SCHOOL!

It's a bad word today.

Mason and I are bouncing around in this big house wondering what happened to all our buddies? Guess we better get used to it--we'll be 'dating' all year.

I'm feeling blessed

to have two more years

of someone at home

with me.

(school pictures in the next post)

FHE

And WHAT is FHE you ask?

let me tell you.

The F stands for family

the H is for HOME

and the E means evening.

Family Home Evening!

It's what we do on Monday nights.

From www.LDS.org:
Church leaders have instructed members to set aside Monday night as "family home evening." This is a time for families to study the gospel together and to do other activities that strengthen the family spiritually, create family memories, and increase unity and love.

Tonight, we've been invited

(YES! A family of 8 actually got invited to someone ELSE's home for family home evening!)

to another family's home

but let me share with you our FHE from LAST week:

The backyard s'mores party

with the Schenewarks! (minus 2)

We had a song

a prayer

a lesson

and FUN!

There's nothing like a little family time.

It's a bonus if you get to share it with another family

and even better if there are good TREATS!

What did YOU do for your last FHE?

Serving Others

During His ministry on the earth,

Jesus Christ spent His time serving and helping others.

True disciples of Jesus Christ do likewise.

The Savior said,

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,

if ye have love one to another"

(John 13:35).

When ye are in the service

of your fellow beings

ye are only in the service of your God.

Mosiah 2:17

Help! Do you shop?

A question for you:

Do you do the grocery shopping for your family?
Do you enjoy this?
Have you noticed that prices seem to be rising almost weekly?
How are you combatting this problem?
coupons?
shopping the sales?
fasting?
exhausting your pantry or food supply?

I'm trying it all, folks, and I'm in a funk.
A FOOD funk...
I woke up at 5:30 a.m. this morning (it's a SATURDAY, for the weekend's sake!)
and couldn't sleep because

a. there's no food in our house
b. tomorrow's Sunday, so I need to act quickly
c. I'm trying to stretch our overworked dollars to make them go farther

I'm off to the grocery store. They open at 7:00. I'll let you know how things go, but I'm really looking for the magic pill, here. HELP!

ZION Nat'l Park

BEAUTIFUL Zion National Park!
There were some really cool petrified sand dunes
We couldn't drive anywhere without someone exclaiming:
HURRY! Take a picture!
We have HUNDREDS... it was actually hard to choose which ones to post!
The boys thought climbing around this pool was really cool

We tried to hike every 'family friendly' cool spot

And some pictures are so cool, I accidentally posted them twice, and don't know how to get the other one off ([grin])

Oh the majesty...

They call this one the 'checkerboard'
A fun cave to explore!
Who's that cute ranger-ish looking guy I can't get enough of?
My 'other' man
Like I said before... driving and pictures... the thing to do!

So below you can get a glimpse into the 'nervous mom' syndrome...

me, between two first-time mule riders, as we're crossing a river, and

the mule in front of Abbey decides to stop and 'chill'

(pardon the annoying repetition)

Do you still want more family vacation? Or should this be enough?!

BRYCE was nice

Bryce Canyon was our FAVORITE of the parks we visited...

The scenery was AMAZING!
We even hiked into LARGE mounds of dinosaur poo...
Hiking down into the canyons was breathtaking.
HOW could anyone deny God's hand in this?

The girls wanted to touch a 'hoo doo' for good luck
Mom and Mason missed some of the hike--any guesses why?
We could have stayed another day at Bryce
It was our favorite hiking day--VERY cool to hike the switchbacks down into the color

We had to settle for a 'fake' mule ride at Bryce
It was GOOD family time


And some of us became Bryce Canyon Junior Rangers!

Being sworn in was a great honor--memories should last for a LONG time.

(more still to come!)

The GRAND Canyon!

Emily: "I loved going by the big rock and seeing the Grand Canyon!"

It was AWE inspiring--some of us were more relaxed than others--I, personally, have great and DEEP respect for heights and small children around heights.
There were enough rocks for EVERY boy to climb.

Riding the mules down into the canyon to the Supai tunnel was a highlight (although some of the switchbacks were precariously maneuvered and thankfully we all made it back to the top.)

None of us complained about saddle sores until the NEXT day.

There's NOTHING like the majesty of this part of the world. I was thankful to have my family to share it with. More to come...