Halloween Week

Well, nothing much exciting has happened in the last week.

We are getting ready for Halloween, which means the house is a mess, fabric strands are attached to everything, laundry is backed up, patterns are flying, and dresses are half made, ready to be finished at about 3 AM tonight!

I must admit, the dresses, so far, are to die for! Cinderella is stunning and Belle is beautiful! Although, the zippers have yet to be added, let's hope all goes well for the finishing touches :-) (Darth Vedar's cape is also in the works)

I have envied a few facebook posts with cute pictures of pumpkin patches and Fall outfits. We got our pumpkins yesterday...at Safeway. The nice thing about it was the kids were as excited as anything (I should have brought my camera), and we didn't have to wear jackets (even though the air conditioning was on a bit strong) :-)

This week in my marriage class, we talked about being married, and having a good relationship with your spouse and family.

There were a few lists of things you should do to keep both relationships strong. I took from both lists and made my own; things we should be doing to maintain our family relationships:

1) Go on a weekly date
2) Give at least one compliment a day to each person
3) Spend at least an hour of undivided time each week with each child
4) Have at least a 30-45 minute family meeting each week (FHE)
5) Read the scriptures daily
6) Pray in the morning and night as a family
7) Have family meals together as a family, daily

The scriptures and prayer are things I added myself, because they are things I want to be doing in my family. I think this makes a pretty good list. If I can start doing this...I think we will be pretty well off.

I can't wait!

Ahhhh!

We did it! We finished our house. I can't actually remember what I wrote last (I forgot to read before I started writing), so this may be a repeat. We actually finished last week. Last Thursday, we stayed up all night (I slept about a half and hour) and the owners came in about 2:00 on Friday. After we moved everything out of the house (all the brooms and cardboard boxes and toys), I got to come home and....CLEAN MY HOUSE (it only took two more days!). Ugg, glad that's over with now!

Dad (Bryson) got to come last week too! I feel so bad, though. He was here for about a week and I didn't have time once, to take out my camera and get a picture of him with the kids (waaaa!) Besides the fact that he stayed up till 1:00 am (Idaho time), worked like a dog all day long, starved between the rare meals that made it to the kitchen, we spent all his money and he has to sleep in the airport to get home...I think he had a good trip :-) We loved having him hear and the kids were so happy to see him!

Since Brad gave away all of my furniture (namely our TV, TV stand, and art work), my house is kind of bare. But I take it as a blessing. Now when we move, we won't have anything TO move. :-)

So my lesson this week was interesting. We talked about cohabiting (living together before marriage), marriage and divorce. The most interesting thing to me was the fact that people who choose to cohabit have a 75% chance of divorce! Can you believe that? So, given that the divorce rate is about 50%, cohabitors are making up a good chunk of that percent. Lesson learned: Get married, then move in together!

I like to see pictures on this, but I don't have one that relates, so I'll post our little lizard. Until next time...

Catch Up

Well, It's only 10:00 in the morning and I already feel like my day has been used up and I didn't get anything done! I have piles of school work to do, a house to clean, kids to keep busy, Halloween decorations to get out, and numberless other things on my list of "stuff to get done at some point in my life", but....Brad is calling and needs help.

What is the backbone of the family to do? (That would be me, for any of you out there that might be unsure of the person who fills that position).

Drop everything and go sweep the job site.

Yesterday we were able to watch conference. Melissa gave Tyler a super cute Conference BINGO chart that helped him actually sit and listen during a few talks! This is a first, so a bit exciting...not to mention, this made it more possible for me to actually sit and listen as well! It's amazing what a difference taking one child out of the equation makes (going from 3 to 2), there is so much LESS bickering!

I really loved President Monson's talk and theme! He basically was helping us realize the power of positive thinking! I loved the comment he said about how much we have to be grateful about. There ARE plenty of happy marriages, and there ARE parents who love their children, we DO have friends. There ARE things to be happy about! I wish I had the exact quote...Oh, here it is!

"He declared that this is a wonderful time to be on Earth." "While there is much that is wrong in the world today, there are many things that are right and good. There are marriages that make it. Parents who love their children and sacrifice for them, friends who care about us and help us, teachers who teach. Our lives are blessed in countless ways."

I think I might get some vinyls cut of this one...it's a keeper!

I know this is late for last week, but I'll submit it anyway, and hope I can squeeze a few points out for it :-) As I watched conference, I thought about our book. Even though the material is very generally stated, and it gives information from all sides (happy families/struggling families/anywhere inbetween), it still feels negative to me. Maybe I am just latching onto the sad things, like the divorce rate, or the disengaged family, but I feel like there are more hard things to deal with in a family, in general, than easy or happy things. I was so thankful for this quote by President Monson. I know my family is happy, but it's nice to hear him state that MANY families are this way. Makes me feel like things might not be so bad.

Everyone just needs to take a break and SMILE :-)