My Early Christmas Present

So I must be painfully honest.  We tried puppyhood, I lasted 4 days.  Trying to homeschool, help Jared make it through the Christmas rush, and just being a mom overwhelmed me as I tried to attend to the constant needs of house training a pup, giving her attention, training her not to nip...  It was a beautiful experience, but our little puppy is now in a good home with a 12 year old boy :)

Caring for a puppy is like caring for a newborn babe.  I made the final decision when I ignored Lucy to put the puppy down for her nap...

So here's to being imperfect and fickle, but knowing our little puppy has a great home has eased my mind in getting my early Christmas present of a little less responsibility :)

Who destroyed Jerusalem?

Family scripture study was very insight the other night.  We were having Eliza tell us the story of when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem.  She did amazing, smart little girl.  She got all the details, so we decided to take it a bit further and ask her, who would have destroyed Jerusalem?

She was very thoughtful for a while and then she said, "I think it was Laman and Lemuel!"

Of course the evil duo Laman and Lemuel would be the only ones capable of destroying an entire city.  Those murmuring city wrecking brothers!  We all had a great laugh.

Lights at temple square (it was 50 degrees!!)

I still ask myself if we are crazy....we got a puppy!

Yes, I thought for sure Lucy would not like the dog, so I told Jared, if Lucy likes the puppy we can get one....SHE LOVES HER!  Welcome little Daisy..Sugar...Chomper...Feathers...Spike...pickles...(name pending)

A trip to aquarium especially for our Zoologist Eliza_Jane 

Who wouldn't want a hug a whale!

Lucy Darling

Lucy has been keeping us on our toes lately...Miriam and I sat down one day and made a Lucy Book, it really made us chuckle.

Lucy loves to dance, she hops on one leg and says...A-Datsing!!!

Whenever she wants something, she grabs it, runs away as fast as she can and says, "I NEED IT!"

Yeah, she doesn't like dogs...at all.

Every night she cries to go up on the top bunk...sigh

She loves her binkies...we just have to find them all the time :)

The first snowfall--photo by Jacob

This was from the first snowfall of the winter, and with the way the weather is going, it just may be the last this year.  Upper 50's for a week or so now.  Great for going to the park!

Nocturnal

Eliza has been quite adamant lately about being nocturnal.  She claims never to sleep at night, only during the day.  We have all been chuckling as our little nocturnal creature is almost always the 1st one asleep.  Here's to childhood dreams :)

HOME

Lucy is growing and her vocabulary is exploding.  Eliza is even trying to teach her to say DIPLODOCUS (one of her favorite dinosaurs).  Lucy makes a pretty good attempt and knows that it is a dinosaur.

I have been puzzled however, by her definition of the word "HOME."  At first it seemed obvious that she knew it was our house, as whenever we return from being out and about she says, "Made it home!" as we pull into the driveway.  The other night however, as I was putting her to bed early because she is giving up her nap, she cried and cried for HOME.  I was puzzled, but I knew she meant "Let me be with everyone else!"  Whenever the family is separated and we are reunited she sighs and says, HOME.

It is a great reminder to us that home is where we are!

Family Photo Time

A Little Bit of Love :)

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

just peachy

Of Late Nights and Early Mornings...

I have been pondering lately this scripture...

John 7:17-----If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

I have always considered myself a "commandment keeper" so naturally I have felt that I should be able to know HIS doctrine when I heard it.

Then a few weeks ago, this story came to my mind, and it made me laugh with utter delight, as I could now see clearly the things that were so hidden from me at the time :)

To work my way through college I became happily employed as an early morning custodian (an EMC) as I used to like to fancy calling it.  This required grueling early morning hours, great discipline of waking at the right time.  I prided myself on arising early, studying my scriptures (before work), and working hard for my money.

Now here is the humorous part, I DID NOT GO TO BED EARLY!  Not even close, but I insisted on believing that I was receiving the whole blessing of waking early, so even though my eyes burned with tiredness as I read my scriptures, and I fell asleep in class (I once woke up to a loud noise during a lecture class and realized everyone was staring at me because the noise was my head hitting the wall behind me), I insisted on believing that I was enjoying the full blessing of arising early...being invigorated.  

It is easy to see the false thinking now, but at the time I truly believed I was invigorated, because I believed in the law.

My take home from studying this experience is:  How can you know the full blessing, if you are not living the full law?

The full law is, retire to bed early and arise early that your mind and body might be invigorated.  I was forgetting half the LAW...  Oopsy :)

So I have been pondering how this experience could apply further to my life.  It requires me to look at all my life and determine if I am keeping many other half-commandments :)

My little loves...