Wait...what's that?

I used to have a hobby.  I used to have a few hobbies.  Most of them involved crafting and decorating.  I think when we bought this house and spent 14 days straight painting EVERY single inch of it, my desire for decorating fizzled out!  Seriously, I had to force myself to throw things on the wall.  After a fun little trip with some girlfriends to an awesome craft boutique, I have been newly inspired.  Mike isn't sure how he is feeling about this.  My inspirations usually turn into unfinished projects and lowered bank accounts.  As I was expressing my enthusiasm for my rekindled love affair for creativity , he showed a bit of dismay.  I pretended to be deeply offended and said  "Fine then, maybe I will just go get a boyfriend and spend all my free time with him instead of creating beautiful things for our home."  to this Mike replied, "Oh good...because at least he will pay for your dinner."  I hit him and we both laughed.  (Mike you are too, too funny) Oh, and now... let me introduce you to my new boyfriend.......

His name is Steve.  He is a great listener and his coloring is amazing.  I think I am FALLING for him.  oh..oh...(dab at eyes)  Now I am too, too funny.

I am happy to be in the creative mood again.

Binky at three.

Yes, Jack still has his Binky.  He will be three at the end of this month.  Why do I not care one bit?  I love that I have a little magical plug that will turn my rambunctious 2 (almost three) year old into a quiet little snuggler who will still take a nap.   Oh, Jack..what a sweetheart and a stinker he can be.  One of the sweet moments we just had was waking up together..(which happens every morning as he always seems to find his way to our bed each night).  I looked at him and kissed his forehead and said, "I love you".  He gently reached up and touched my cheek and answered, "I will never say I hate you."

The stinker in him flushed a gift card and the toilet paper holder down the toilet.

The sweet heart in him loves me to sing and sing and sing nursery rhymes to him. (especially ones that have the name Jack in them)

The stinker in him spanked our bishops bottom while he was giving Mike a blessing.

The sweetheart in him says,.."Mommy, hold me for two minutes".

The stinker in him asked a total stranger if she wanted to see his pee-pee talk...(don't ask)

All in all our family dotes on this little boy.  I wish I could always remember him at exactly this time of life.  He is growing up way too fast. :-(

My next party

It's decided, I am going to throw a "Jane Austen" party.  Now, I know we won't be able to dress like them, or do our hair like them, (although that would be awesome), but what if we just did what they did?  I know it is very un-educated of me, but I am going to base all my thoughts and dreams solely off the novels...(ha..I could have said the movies, but I am edjukated)  I don't have all the details worked out, but here is what I am thinking.

Everyone has to come prepared to share a small talent.  Be it a poem, a song on the piano forte, a dramatic limerick, or perhaps even a small witty comment.  At some point in the evening, (most likely between the 5 coarse meal and the time when the men will be excused to have a drink and smoke cigars) we will withdraw to the drawing room family room.  Although there may be a small card game occurring in the corner, the majority of us will fan ourselves and respectfully listen to each performer.  Of coarse at some point someone will say, "Mrs. Bearden...please, won't you grace us with a song."  Then I will shyly say,...(in an English accent).."Oh, no..I couldn't possibly"  After some chiding, and a command from one of the more powerful intimidating woman in the room, (ooo..remind me to invite someone like that)  I will finally agree.  As I began to play and sing, a tall, dark and handsome man will get lost in his thoughts of love for me.  Then he will smile and remember that I am his wife and think he is the luckiest person in London  Riverton.

BTW I am assuming that during all this time the children are in the nursery being seen but not heard.

Ok, then comes the dancing.  Somehow, we will all know these intricate line dances...(not country line dances).  We will weave in and out.  We will all smile at each other and carry on witty little conversations all the while.   Although if we do these dances, I might have us change into dresses.   I just can't imagine us gracefully gliding across the floor in our Capris.  I guess that is a detail to be worked out at a later time.

If the hour grows too late, or if someone feels a chill coming on, or if the weather is poor, guests will sleep the night.  We will all wake up the next morning to a beautiful breakfast...(prepared by my servants)..then we will spend the day strolling by the lake...(I guess we could drive up to Day Break) having picnics, and playing silly games.

Finally we will say our fond good byes and promise to see each other again in a Fortnight.


So...who is in?

PS  I guarantee that if Mike reads this post, he will fall asleep half way through it.

Prayer of the children

Jack has finally started to pray.  Here is one of his first prayers.

Jack:(In a sweet precious voice) Hemly faver, Tank you for da gospel....
Me: (trying to help) Thank you for my family
Jack: (YELLING)  I AM SAYING THE GOSPEL!!!!.....(continuing in a sweet precious voice)...tank you for the gospel. Christ Amen

Next prayer

Hemly Faver, tank you da gospel.  Please help us to hear da ice cweam truck.  Please bless da ice cweam to be safe.  Thanks for Dad.  Christ Amen.

He always finishes with a huge smile and saying, "I did it!"

I have to remind the girls (and Dad and myself) not to laugh during Jack's prayers.  It's hard!

When I can't sleep...

 It's 1:15 am.  I can NOT sleep!  I have too many thoughts running through my head.  So instead of staring at the ceiling, I will spew them onto this blog.


 WARNING:  I do not guarantee any entertainment value to the sentences that lie ahead.  Nor do I vouch for their cohesiveness, spelling, grammar, or content.  Remember, it is 1 in the morning. 

  Right now I am wondering if I should get Casie braces.  Her teeth are already fairly straight.  Do they NEED to be perfect in order for her to have a happy life?  Do I really think it's worth 4 grand to straighten "mostly straight" teeth?  Am I sending her the message that perfection is the only beauty out there?   She is beautiful now! She hasn't been begging me for braces, I just thought it's what you do.  We did a consult with the Orthodontist and I left thinking she needed braces for SURE...but now that I think about it, does it really matter if her molars line up?  Does it matter that her teeth aren't all the same height?

Dear future Casie,
If you are reading this and screaming at the page/screen " YES!  YES it does matter Mom!  My live has been a living nightmare because my left canine tooth was 1/8 of a millimeter longer than my right."  "I never married and had a family because I had a slight overbite!!!"  Then all I can say is..."oopsie"  Or you could always invent a time machine and come back to August 5th 2011 and set me straight...(no pun intended) But then again, if you invented a time machine, you could probably pay for your own braces.

Love your Insomniac Mother..Jill.



yawn...I guess we are all spared the rest of my thoughts.  I am tired now!!

Quotes of the week

The new time wasting toy in the Bearden home is my new phone.  I went from having a good ol' flip open phone to a smart phone...which is much smarter than me.  I have a hard time keeping it to myself.  The girls LOVE it.  Especially Casie.  The first quote of the week came as I dropped Casie off in the Target parking lot.  She begged me to let her bring my phone into the store with her.  I relented, but had to joke with her when I said " Don't get hit by a car cause you are holding my phone." (luckily Casie and I have similar senses of humor so she just laughed. )

later that day.....

 We took Jack to "Mick-in-Donalds" for lunch and Casie started begging for my phone again.  

Me: Casie, when the Pioneers went to McDonalds they didn't have a smart phone to play with....

Yes, I am hilarious..

The next quote comes to us from the oh so quotable Ellie.  After picking up the only boy in our car pool, I asked him if he felt lucky that he got to ride to school with all these beautiful girls.  Ellie piped up from the back seat and said, "Ya, and you get to ride with my Mom too..don't forget her."  I pretended to be offended, and Annie laughed her head off.  Ellie just sat and wondered why we were all laughing.

Jack will end our week of quotes with his hilarious tattle he brought to me this evening.  In all seriousness he approached me and said, "Mom, we need to go get a new Annie."  " We need a new Annie that's not mean."

Brotherly love

Ellie:  Mom, Jack kicked me really hard, then when he was giving me a hug to say sorry, he bit my shoulder.

Oliver!

I don't think I have even mentioned on this blog that Ellie and I were in a play.  Well, we were. And now it's done. :-)  We closed last night.  It was Oliver.

I hadn't planned on auditioning for Oliver, but Ellie really wanted to do it.  As I sat in her audition I kept asking myself "Why are you not doing this?"  On a whim I grabbed an audition form and tried out.  I ended up getting the role as Nancy.  We both had such a great time in the show.  There are some AMAZING people in our community.  I was blown away by the talent I saw.  But what impressed me even more was the kindness I saw and felt from those around me.  It was really a family atmosphere and I loved it.  It was such an honor to be associated with them for the short six weeks it took to put the show on.

Because I need to analyze, I will say that it's probably a good thing the show is over.  Although playing the role as Nancy was a dream come true for me...(I mean seriously, I got some awesome solo's, AND I got killed at the end. Fun stuff for an actress!...) Theatre has a sneaky way of making me a little selfish.  I don't think it's too healthy to have all that focus all the time!  I  am looking forward to leaving my Nancy role behind and falling back into my most important role as wife and mother.

Plus, I am sure my house was starting to wonder if I would ever scrub it's toilets again...or vacuum...or dust.



PS I got a CD of our show with over 2000 pictures on it.  They must be HUGE files because I can't get them to upload.  I will say that after browsing through all these photos, I am seriously considering never singing again.  I am telling myself that the photographer just happened to click on me the ONE (or seven) times during all my numbers that I looked like I was going to spew.  

Adventures in Potty Training

Two nights ago, Jack and I decided it was time to do some potty training.  I started the night by telling him a story about a boy named Jack who was getting potty trained....(ya stories are becoming a nightly ritual..again)  The story must have been very inspiring because at the end Jack exclaimed, "I want to get potty trained TOMORROW!" Sweet!
 In the morning when I asked Jack if he was ready for some potty training, he laughed and said, "Mom..I said tomorrow!"  He wasn't totally convinced that he was ready for training until I came home with some mini peanut butter cups.  It was so funny when he was begging for a treat.  I kept telling him he had to go pee pee before he could have one.  At first he started to throw a fit, then he slunk his shoulders rolled his eyes and said, "Fine...I'll go potty"  Then he slowly shuffled off with his little feet dragging like it was such a big chore.  Funny boy.
Jack has gone potty sporadically for several months so getting him to go wasn't hard.  Once he realized he got candy every time he went, he started sitting on the toilet non-stop.  Today, (right after he went) he wanted to go again.  I told him maybe if he drank some Kool-aide he might need to go again soon.  I gave him the glass, he took one swallow, then he waited for two seconds in silence before saying.."Ok, it's in me now".  Then he ran off to the potty.  I have been laughing my head off all day.  He is so determined to drink Kool-aide, go potty, and have candy.  It's hilarious.  My favorite line came right before he pooped in the potty. (BTW, sorry for all the potty words)  As he was sitting there he was giving me instructions on what to say after he was finished.  In a high pitched voice I was instructed that once he was done I was to say, "Jack! That's wonderful!"  I did say it.  Because it is wonderful!!!

Story Time

Back when I was a good Mom, I used to tell my girls made up stories every night.  The stories usually had Princesses named Annie and Ellie who always wore the latest fashions and had spectacular birthday parties.  Tonight Annie said those magical words that gave me no choice but to resurrect our old tradition:

"Mom, you never tell us stories anymore"

So,in my attempt to be a better Mom, I told them this story.....

Once upon a time, there were two beautiful princesses...(they both rolled their eyes at me.  They thought they were far too old to be caught up in this old story.)  Princess Annie wore a beautiful ball gown with sparkly silver shoes.  Princess Ellie wore a Pink Dress with purple shoes.  (At this point I could tell they were listening just to humor me.  I decided to bring out the big guns)  Each of the princesses had their very own AMAZING room. 

I then proceeded to describe each of their rooms in detail.  Since I know all the things they love, it was easy to suck them into the story.  Princess Annie had several buttons on her wall.  One of them, when pushed, would raise an amazing art desk from a hole in the floor.  It had every art medium known to man.  It also played classical music so Princess Annie could draw for hours and hours while enjoying Mozart.  We got a laugh out of another button on the wall that would immediately transport her two best friends, Luke and James into her room when ever she wanted to play with them. 

Princess Ellie had a huge soft bed with tons of pillows.  She also had eight sets of bunk beds in her room so that ALL her friends could sleep over EVERY NIGHT!  Her wall buttons transformed her room into a Dance club complete with flashing lights.

Of course both rooms had drinking fountains that distributed soda, or at the push of a button, chocolate milk.

It was hilarious to see both of my daughters eyes fill with wonder as I added new features to their rooms.  I need to tell them stories more often.

Oh, in my desire to be a better Mom, I tried to create a beautiful teaching moment and life lesson into our fairy tale.  It didn't really go as well as it could have.
One day, the beautiful Queen  beckoned her fair daughters to her chambers.
"Fair daughters, I am sorry to tell you that the time has come to leave our beautiful rooms.  The King has asked the royal family to go live amongst the poor people of the kingdom."..(smiles dropping...eyes loosing lustre...disappointment setting in...) Then the Queen laughed and said, just kidding.  We are actually going to have a party!  The end.

Why I love Casie

Today as I sat at my computer, I noticed Casie had been chatting with one of her friends on Face book.  Now, FYI Casie is going to Lagoon on her birthday..(in one week) and has been extra EXTRA EXTTTRAAA excited.  Not a day goes by that she doesn't  mention the fact that she is looking forward to it.  In this chat to her friend, we see that not only is she very excited, but she has every last detail planned out.  Here is the list that Casie sent to her friend over Face Book chat. (This is all her planning.  She and I have done very little talking about it.  I'm more of a last minute planner.:-)


LAGOON Lagoon!
What you will need for Lagoon:
1. Money to pay your way in
2. Extra money if you want to go on Sky coaster or the Catapult. They are each $20 extra.
3. Please pack your own lunch and we will provide dinner at Lagoon.
4. Bring your own water bottle and snacks if you want them in Lagoon.
5. Please wear sunscreen unless you want to get burnt :)
6. If you want to bring a sweat shirt that you can wear on the wet rides then take off after you can because it is going to be about 75 degrees.
7. Wear a tie-dye shirt!
8. Wear closed toed shoes because they won’t let you on some of the rides with out them. And we will be walking around all day, so it would be smart to wear tennis-shoes.
9. Beware you might get a disease that is caused by over exposure to awesomeness.

Ellie's post about her baptism

 Ellie has her own private blog that she writes in occasionally.  Today she showed me this post about her baptism.  I am glad she took so many wonderful memories away from her special day.

 

 

bathtisom

After I got baptized I fell ( I was hert ) and my mom said is your dress o.k?

Memorial Day

Every Memorial Day, we go to the city cemetery  with Mike's family.  We always  put flowers on the graves of the family members in the Condie family plot.  This year we had our own sweet Max's grave to visit.   I love being in the cemetery.  It is so beautiful and so peaceful.  Today as we were placing our flowers and talking with family, I looked down to witness Jack silently placing a small flowerless dandelion on Max's grave.   Throughout the visit, Jack kept finding little treasures on the ground and kept bring them to the headstone.  Of all the beautiful flowers on Max's grave, I love the small gifts from Jack the most.   It was so sweet.  I also heard him say, "Bye Baby Max" as he put his last flower on.  He told me on the way home that baby Max told him, "Thank you for putting those flowers on my teddy bear!"  (there is a teddy bear on the headstone) I can't wait for these two special brothers to be reunited again someday.

Laughing our heads off

Our new favorite past time

FHE May 9

Last night wasn't a highly spiritual FHE, but we had a lot of fun.  We started the night with Jack welcoming us.  Then we spent about 5 minutes doing what Jack told us to do.
"Say Book"
"Book"
"Say blididiooo"
"Blididiooooo"
He loves it when we ALL copy him.  It makes him laugh really hard.
We then moved onto a song led by Casie.  She led us in a rousing rendition of George Micheals' "I'm never gonna dance again..." ( But we just sang the saxophone solo part). I then insisted we sing Praise to the Man.

Next I gave a small uninspired shpill about how even when it's raining outside (which it was) we can still do things to be active and exercise our bodies.  Here is what we did:

We each came up with a silly action that involved moving in some way.  Then we put them all together and timed each person as they performed the list of tasks.  The person who did it the fastest got a prize. 
Our first course was:
Run up and down the stairs (Mom's idea)
Then do 10 jumping Jacks (Ellie's idea)
Then move all the kitchen chairs into the family room, then back again. (Annie's idea)
Then do five somersaults (Casie's idea)
Then do a dance while the rest of the family sings the saxophone solo to "I'm never gonna dance again" (Dad's idea) This was even funnier because you get really dizzy after doing 5 somersaults in a row.

It was hilarious to watch.  Annie especially got into giggling fits as she watched her fellow family members frantically moving the kitchen chairs.

Our next list was:
Roll on the ground six times then wave (Ellie's idea)
Run around the inside of house two times (Casie's idea)

Run to the basement, bring up a Cup-o-Noodles, and then run and put it back. (Annie's idea)
Make a basket in Jack's basketball hoop (Mom's idea)
Carry Jack as you make another lap around the inside of the house.  When you are done you throw Jack on the couch and the timer stops. (Dad's idea)

The cutest thing is that Jack remembered most of the courses and insisted he have a turn too.  We laughed really hard when after about 2 minutes of being downstairs in the basement, Jack finally emerged with a whole bag of macaroni.  It was a fun family night. :-) 

What if Ants kept a record of their people?

 We are having a problem with ants.  I don't blame them for coming to my house.  My children and their messy messy ways provide a perfect hunting ground for these little fellas.  I usually will see a swarm (do ants swarm?) of them on a crust of bread and pull out my vacuum and suck them up.  After doing such a vacuuming one day, a thought crossed my mind. What if ants could write in journals?  I started to giggle to myself when these words came to mind.....I now read to you from the Book of Ant.  Chapter 1 verse 1.


 Chapter 1

1.And it came to pass that we did gather in the land bountiful.  Yea, a land abundant in milk and honey and pieces of angel hair pasta.  And we did praise and rejoice, for our bounty was great.  And we did labor with our legs and did work all the day to gather our harvest in.

2. And it came to pass that there arose a great and terrible storm.  And there was tempest and wild winds.  Yea many were carried off.  And wither they went, know man knoweth.


I don't know why that made me laugh...but it did.  I also don't know if there will be further chapters and verses  in the Book of Ant (BOA), but I will say that the spider that lived in my washing machine certainly must have had a tale to tell as well.  We shall see....

PS  After I vacuumed up his comrades I saw a lone ant wandering aimlessly across my tile.  I swear I heard him say his tiny ant voice, " Wither I go, it mattereth not......"

Deep thoughts from Annie

Annie is infamous for coming up with random questions. Well, they only seem random because most of Annie's thoughts occur in hours of silent contemplation.  Only a  few tidbits that she couldn't make sense of, or that particularly vex her, make their way to vocalization.  (Unlike Ellie who's every thought is rattling out of her mouth the milli-second her brain concocts them.)  Annie is a deep thinker.  This is what she asked me a couple of days ago.

"Mom, does Airborne mean that your were born in an airplane?" 

She was very sincere and wasn't trying to be cute.  I loved it.  Annie's deep and detailed thinking has however, turned out to be a bad thing on some occasions.   In my family we have a favorite childhood story about my brother Ben who is also well known for his deep thoughts.  Once when my Dad was out of town, my Mom had put her young children to bed and decided to take a bath.  While sitting there soaking, she heard the faint sounds of crying.  As the crying drew closer and closer she couldn't help but panic wondering if the child was sick, or even worse, that the child was scared because someone was in the house....(all us wives have these thoughts when our husbands are out of town).  Finally the crying was outside the bathroom door and she recognized it as Ben.
  "Ben,...what's the matter?"
"sniff...sniff....I was just thinking about Space."

We always laugh at that story.  A couple of nights ago we had a very similar experience with Annie.

I was asleep when I heard Annie sniffling by my bedside. 
"Annie,.... what's the matter?"
"sniff...sniff....I've just been thinking about abandon mines"

Apparently her class had been learning about abandon mines in school.  They even made posters entitled, "Stay out.  Stay alive!"  They were shown a video about some kids who decided to play in an abandon mine that resulted in their untimely demise.  Poor Annie.  I assured her that is was her choice whether or not she would EVER enter an abandon mine. 

On the happy side, Annie's poster was one of two chosen in the whole school to go onto the State competition.  If her poster is chosen there, it will be featured in the "Stay out, Stay Alive" calendar.   

Casie Montana

A couple of days ago a friend of mine asked if Casie would help out the Make a wish Foundation.  They needed someone to dress up as Hannah Montana and sing to a little girl who was just granted the chance to meet the REAL Hannah Montana.  This sweet little girl is only 5 years old and is on the waiting list for her SECOND heart transplant. 
Getting Casie looking like Hannah Montana was no easy task.  After a trip to Ross to buy something "sparkly", I started looking for a blond wig.  Seriously, if it's not Halloween, it's hard to find a wig in this town!  Luckily Sally's Beauty Supply had a mega blow-out deal on some hair pieces.  I ended up buy two hair pieces and combined them to make one Hannah Montana do.   Seriously, we spent around two hours making Casie up.  Once we were ready we met the Make a wish ladies outside the little girls apartment.  They told Casie to sing a Hannah Montana song, and then they would reveal to the little girl (her parents already knew) that her wish was granted.  The family had all gathered to see the event.  The sweet little girls was so impossibly shy, but did give a little smile at the end of Casie's song.  It was really special for me to be there for this event.  I am so grateful Casie had a chance to see outside of herself and be a part of such a special event.  I could tell that seeing the little girl, and knowing she might not make it, had a big effect on Casie.  She said a special prayer for her at our family prayer that night.  It was seriously only about 10 seconds of singing, but I think a seed of service and compassion and love has been planted.  I am very proud of her, and hope she will continue to use her talents for good.

From Tithing to Hoops to Paying for your stuff....FHE April 4

Tonight's Family Night was a bit all over the place, but still enjoyable.  After conference on Sunday all the kids said that they really liked the talk on Tithing given by Elder Pratt.  We all agreed that we could do better on paying a full and honest tithe.  Mike began family night by reading the scripture from Malachi about "Will a man rob God."  Mike tried to emphasis to the girls about paying your tithing RIGHT when you get money.(The Spirit might have been there, but I was too busy asking Ellie to sit still, and to be quiet, and to sit up, and to stop playing with Jack....ya, she lost her family night treat tonight. )  Anyway, after Mike's short lesson, we headed up to Annie and Ellies room where which lies the hugest white board that has no business in any one's room, but gets used quite a bit.  Mike wrote down sums of money and the girls took turns telling him how much tithing you would pay if you were fortunate enough to have all that money.  Then we passed out some change and told them to separate what you would keep and what went to Heavenly Father.
When we were satisfied that they were knowledgeable about how to calculate tithing, we closed our family night with a prayer and started our family council...(aka another attempt to get the kids to clean up after themselves) 
The plan of the week was this:
A laundry basket.  Anything left in out goes in the basket and you have to pay a quarter to get it out OR wait until Sat morning and you can take it for free...BUT....at precisely 10 am (or whenever I remember) the basket will be emptied into the DI bag, or the trash....(pant..pant...pant..)  If the individual has no funds where which to pay for the item in the laundry basket, they will be allowed to perform a small or large task in order to earn the needed quarter to remove the desired item from the basket....(drink of water)  Furthermore, if the adolescents in the household happen to notice that an adult member of the family has left his/her item in one of the common areas of the home, (bed rooms don't count)  That child is entitled to place that item in the basket and must mark the item with her name so that the parent can pay the child who placed their belongings in the basket.  (sweat dripping down forehead) In conclusion, because rooms do not count, we have also added that if a child wants to play with friends or watch TV they can only do so if their said room is in proper order. (Near the state of unconsciousness)... Also.....if you take an item out of the laundry basket WITHOUT the proper payment, you will hear by be sentenced to life in prison WITHOUT any possibility of parole!!!

Whew...why can't they just pick up their stuff without all this hoopla!  Oh well...here's to another try.  Wish us luck...

Ok, after the court hearing...I mean family discussion on how to do better, we headed back downstairs for a game.  (I did mention our FHE was all over the place didn't I?) OK, to be honest, it turned out to be more of a trick than a game, but we still had fun. Here's how it went down.

Mike set up papers with money amounts written on them all surrounding Jack's basketball hoop.  Everyone got 10 shots from where ever they wanted to stand.  A close to the hoop paper said .10. One that was further away was .25.  There was a .75 behind the hoop.  And a 1.00 REALLY far away.  It was actually fun to see our girls personalities and thought processes come out as we played this game.  Casie took every shot from the dollar mark.  She made 2 out of 10 on the first try and 0 out of 10 on the next.  Ellie tried a couple of tries from every single paper and ended up with .80 on the first try and 1.25 on the next.  Annie took every single shot from the .25 and made the most money out of everyone with 3.75.  Jack earned .20 when Ellie lifted him up for a shot.  Anyway, onto the trick of our game........

Because we had talked about tithing first and our laundry basket of belongings second, Annie and Casie immediately started talking about using their earnings from our game to buy back some of their items they had lost that day.  Only Ellie went straight to the table and counted out her tithing!  I was watching this all go down and as soon as I saw what Ellie had done I shouted, "Winner!"  I awarded her with an extra quarter and praised her for remembering to pay the Lord first.  Annie and Casie were smiling sheepishly and realized they had forgotten.  (you may be thinking that Ellie deserved to earn her FHE treat back by doing such a good job on paying her tithing....but no. I am trying to do better at sticking to punishments with her.  Sorry Ellie.  But as usual in true Ellie fashion, she accepted her punishment with no malice or crying.  We will see if she is better during our lesson next week)

Just to prove that our FHE was truly all over the place, I will add that we ended the night with scripture study and me teaching the kids how to do the bunny hop. 


Mike showing us how it's done....



Making Tithing Envelopes



Home Dedication

Finally I am getting around to doing this post!  We had such a wonderful FHE when we dedicated our home.  We began by Mike welcoming us to FHE.  Then we sang The Spirit of God as our opening hymn.  Casie then gave us a talk on why we want our home to be like the Temple.  She said she always feels peace and safe when she is at the temple and wanted to always feel that way when she was at home.  Then Annie showed us her temple she made out of paper cups and paper.  She also asked to bare her testimony.  It was really sweet.  Then we had a musical number by Annie, Mom, and Dad.  I totally messed up the harmony so we won't speak too much about it at this time.   Then Ellie gave her talk on how we can keep our house like the temple.  She said we should always pick up after ourselves and be nice to each other.  Then Mike got up and dedicated our house.  I felt the spirit so strongly as he prayed.  I felt the familiar feeling of Max's spirit along with others enter the second Mike started to pray.  It was so beautiful and so touching to have such a wonderful feeling in our home.  In the prayer Mike blessed our home to be a place of peace and happiness.  He also dedicated it as a safe haven from the world.  He blessed us as a family to do the things that would help us feel the Spirit, and to also have it be a place where Max's spirit could be felt as well.  I am grateful that Mike is a worthy priesthood holder and was able to bless our home with such power.


Here are a few of our pictures from the dedication, as well as the few prior FHE's we had in preparation for the dedication. 

Scrubbing walls in Annie and Ellie's room

Jack looking at the Temple fountains

Annie writing in her Journal on the Temple Grounds

Annie and Ellie....huddling together for warmth.

Ellie holding up her talk.  We waited until after the service to take pictures.:-)

Annie and her temple

Casie

I unveiled this surprise after the dedication.  It's on the wall in the Family room.

Grandma Madsen and Dave Degraw came to the dedication.  AND.......

Took us out for ice cream afterwards!