Autoliv

Tommorrow marks a big day for Nate. He starts his new job. He will be working in Brigham City for Autoliv, a company that makes airbags. He will be doing a lot of designing and sitting at a computer.
This is all such a blessing. It is funny because his other job ended (they ran out of money) about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Obviously, it was kind of stressful. However, now we are grateful. He is going to get paid much better at this new job. I am having a little trouble not thinking of all the things I am going to buy now that we have money. Save girl. Save.
Really, we are so grateful. I give all the credit to Heavenly Father. By his sustaining power we made it through years of school and some rocks in the road as we tried to get to a good paying job. Many tears, prayers, and much patience has gone in to getting to this point. We have gone every step together and we are so much better for it.

Easter and Spring Break

Well, it is harder to sit down and blog now that I spend all day working on the computer. I have gotten behind. Things are going great though. We have had a bit of a hiccup in the job area because Nathan's contract job ended. . . but, he is doing fine and is getting some interviews so we are very hopeful that it will be a short term situation. As for me, I love my job. I couldn't ask for more. It is a great way to make money and I think I will be with this company for an indefinite period of time.
Anyway, on with the show. Easter. . what a blast. Here are some recap pics.



Spring Break was at Fat Cat's. . . not much but enough. We got $25 worth of tokens and the kids just went crazy. At the end we had 562 tickets to spend at the counter. Little kids are so easy to please.




Arrividerci!

As I Listened

Rachel and Emily were playing in their room while I cleaned. . . yes, I usually make them clean their own room, but no tonight. Anyway, that's beside the point. They had the pretend phone.
Emily says "I am calling my boyfriend. His name is bunny because I am a bunny."
Later I hear that some dramatic things have happened in their playtime. Rachel informs Emily "We are in the hospital because I broke my leg and you are having a baby." Oh my.
I thought back to my little girl days. The joy of playing, unembarrassed by your imagination. Anything can happen then. I have eavesdropped on a number of play sessions in which my children pretend that they are orphans because we died. This last Sunday they all suddenly arrived in our room wearing their Halloween costumes from two years ago. Well, Rachel was dressed in the transformer costume, which they all thought was just hilarious. And, really, they are hilarious. I hope they enjoy it and don't grow up too fast.

General Conference

Today was the close of the 180th Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I took notes this time. I never do that, but I did this time. I thought I would share with you some of the highlights for me.
Wilford W. Anderson said " Hope is not a product of circumstance." (May not be an exact quote) This is a thought I have been pondering for some time now. I believe it. I feel it is one of the greatest gifts the gospel of Jesus Christ provides. . . the permission. . . the ability to be happy and hopeful always.

I really enjoyed D. Todd Christofferson's talk in which he told about William Tindel, the man who translated the Bible into English because he felt like the Bible should be available to read for all people. I thought he was a very courageous man and I would like to read a book about him. It made me more appreciative of the Bible sitting on my night stand.

My favorite talk on Sunday was President Dieter F. Ukdorf. I have a special place in my heart for him anyway because he was in the area presidency over Europe when I served my mission in Italy. I went to a zone conference once. He was there, speaking much more broken English, but just as filled with the spirit. But, his talked today about showing love and compassion to all and not looking down on them struck a cord with me. I want to do better with this.

Quentin L. Cook said something to the effect of If we want to have the inspiration of the Holy Ghost we must find a way to slow down, ponder, and pray. Last week I took a few minutes to go off to a quiet place and ponder. It was a very enlightening hour It was something I used to do a lot before marriage and children entered my life. It is something I obviously need to do more.

Many spoke about our responsibility to raise the rising generation. All good talks, but I especially liked what Elder Robert D. Hales said about "understanding the hearts" of our children.

So, those are a few of the highlights for me. I have all kinds of things to work on, but maybe I will just focus on one or two for now. :) Hope you all had a good Easter weekend. Our Savior lives.

Secrets Revealed

Today I was in charge of sharing time. As I prepared I came across the talk by Boyd K. Packer called "Spiritual Crocodiles". Interestingly enough, it came out in the Ensign in May of 1976. The same time I was born. (yea, that is totally irrelevant). Anyway, I decided to do my sharing time on how the apostles and prophets protect us from spiritual crocodiles. I had these crocodiles taped up all around the room and on the back was listed a spritual crocodile to watch out for. You know, dihonesty, unclean thoughts, not paying tithes and offerings, not praying. . . you get the picture. Then I had a quote from an apostle or Prophet combatting each crocodile.

Anyway, we were going along just dandy when the spiritual crocodile of bad music came up. I thought I ought to explain to the kids what bad music would sound like. I explained that bad music might have bad words in it. Suddenly, Ben pipes up and says "You mean like the ones on your playlist."

There were some wide eyes and many chuckling adults in the room. I just smiled, a bit embarrassed, and moved on. I guess I will have to talk to Ben about keeping my sins a secret from the primary. The funny thing is, he wasn't tattling on me or trying to imbarrass me. He just made the connection of what I was talking about and compared it to what he knew. We had talked several times about this particular song. In my defense, the song he is talking about is "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall. I really like the song as do my children but she uses the work Hell over and over. My kids kept asking me to put the song on their playlist so I decided that we would ban the song, but somehow it is still on my playlist. I guess it's time to take care of that.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I should be working. I have a meeting that I have to conduct tomorrow. I am nervous. . . though it's no big deal and I have conducted meetings like this many times in a brick and mortar school(brick and mortar is how the online school world refers to schools in a building). Anyway, I noticed how neglected my blog has been for a couple of weeks. Maybe I have had nothing to say. Maybe nothing has been happening. . . but I am sure there have been things. Like. . .

we had both cars inspected and both failed. We have probably spent close to a thousand dollars between the two (even with Nate doing most of the work himself) and are hoping to have new stickers on the plates this week. Please oh please.

This morning I shut my door to work for several hours. When I finally surfaced around noon I saw every rag from the drawer covering the floor. Emily wanted apple juice and tried oh so hard to pour it for herself. Unfortunately, the gallon spilled on the floor instead. Mop for lunch anyone.

Nate and I have watched way too much "Lost" and we still have way too much to go. It's all we watch anymore. Will it ever end?

The sun has come out and we have returned to life outside of our home. It is awesome to sit outside and watch the kids play again.

After an entire winter of inactivity I have returned to my walking regime. . . and my shins are so in pain.

Life is happening all the time. I love it.

February in Review

Let's see if I can pick up some of the missing pieces of February before it is gone for good. This month Ben sang with his class at the Harmon's grocery store. Now if you know Ben, you know that Ben does not put up with annoyances very well. So, there was the entire 1st grade in Harmon's singing away. Ben was standing by this girl. . . she was a head taller than him. Ben was having a great time singing. On the last song Ben kept including actions. . . probably ones they had learned with it, but I don't think they were supposed to be using them there. Anyway, this girl next to Ben kept getting after him about it. Finally, the song ended. All was quiet, except I saw this girl get after Ben again. Suddenly he turns to her and yells "I wasn't doing that!" He got pulled out of the group until they lined up to leave. However, in his defense, this girl was annoying him the entire time. I would have yelled at her too.
Of course, there was this other incident. The chorister in our primary works in the lunch room at Ben's school. She told me that the other day Ben got into a yelling match with another student in the lunch room. Lucky for me, my friend keeps an eye on Ben, so she ran out to take care of it. . . and probably kept Ben out of trouble. Apparently this other kid said Ben was not very good at basketball. Oh, imagine. Ben, who is pretty easily offended took great offense at this. How could someone say something like that. Sounds like Nate and I need to get out and play a little basketball with Ben.
Yesterday we did mommy/daughter, daddy/son dates. Ben and Nate went to play lazer tag and race track. The girls and I got our hair done and went to watch cousins Nikki and Sidney dance at a competition here in Ogden. We had a great time. Rachel was mesmerized by all the beautiful costumes and dancing. Maybe we will finally get her some dance lessons.
February 2010. . . over. I wonder where we will be in February of 2011.