Stake Conference

We have what is called a Stake Conference a couple times a year.  That is where all the congregations or wards in the area come together in a meeting to get counsel from our stake leaders.  Every couple of years we have the opportunity to have a leader from Utah come out.  These men from Utah are general authorities or leaders for our whole church.  One of these men came to our Stake Conference today.  His name is Dallin H Oaks.  He is a member of the Twelve Apostles.  Just like when Jesus lived on the earth we have 12 apostles who, under the direction of our prophet, go throughout the world testifying of Christ and his teachings.

 
Prior to his calling as a member of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Oaks was an attorney and eventually a member of the Supreme Court in Utah.  Being married to an attorney, I can recognize the intelligence this man has when he speaks.  These men who are apostles have the priesthood of God.  That means they have the authority to act on God's behalf where ever they are.  They do not apply for these positions, most do not study theology as a profession.  Every calling in our church is given by inspiration to ordinary people.

It is a great privilege to have one come to our stake and because of his presence there were a lot of people attending the meetings all weekend.  We went early of course so we could sit in the large room where the meeting was held.  We were toward the back but he came in 20 minutes or so early and went through every person in the chapel shaking hands with them.  I took the opportunity to take the kids up and shake his hand.  We had talked about how he works with our prophet helping people all over the world. 

He said many things in our meetings this weekend.  He truly speaks with the power of God, not just as a man.  A couple things he said I wrote down, when I wasn't wrestling the kids, were that when we are baptized we take upon ourselves the name of Christ, meaning we call ourselves Christians.  It also means we take upon ourselves the work of Christ, which was bringing people to God.  I had never thought of it that way.  Another thing he spoke on was about the Priesthood.  He said the Priesthood like like an umbrella.  It is on the earth to bless the lives of all God's children, not just those who are members of our church but everyone.  Worthy men hold this umbrella.  They have the opportunity to serve all of us with this Priesthood.  He spoke many other things and so did our other stake leaders.  It was a great conference and worth the stress of wrestling the kids for several hours.  He truly is a man of God and I'm very grateful for his service to me. 

Easter Sunday

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday a couple weeks ago.  Grandma Blackham decked the kids out in beautiful Easter clothes.  Rachel especially was very excited to wear her new dress.  We had a wonderful breakfast, which included homemade donuts.  The kids gave me a donut maker for Christmas and they loved participating in making them.  Here we are at Easter breakfast before church.

Rick was in charge of Easter pictures.  It was so nice to have him around that morning.

 And of course the promised silly picture.

 

My mom has been buying coordinating outfits for several years but this year was the first time the kids realized that they match.  They were all so excited about it.

We had a wonderful day and were able to go to my parents for Easter dinner.  We were also able to share a special Easter Family Home Evening with our Grandparents and Aunt Kristen.  We are so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ and for the restored gospel that gives us the knowledge that He truly does live and continues to lead us.  Because of His Atonement for us we will be able to be a family forever.

Anson and Aaron learn to ride a Bike

One of the joyous struggles of having two boys 6 months apart is learning new skills.  This winter and spring the boys learned to ride a bike.  Anson is less self confident in learning new skills.  I taught him first on one of the warm days in January.  Due to the few warm days we have at that time of year it's hard to learn a new outside skill.  It took Anson a few times to get enough confidence in himself and be successful at it.  

Aaron has always been hesitant about new experiences, whether that is eating a brownie for the first time or going down a water tube slide.  Riding a bike was no different.  He refused to do it and while I was busy teaching Anson that was okay.  Once Anson mastered it Anson and I decided to take Aaron's wheels off whether he wanted it or not.  I pushed him 2-3 times on the sidewalk and all of a sudden he was riding all the way down the street.  He just needed to be forced to do it and then he was a champ!

 

 
The boys are now enjoying riding down the street and I'm glad not to have to push them anymore.  Now we just need to get my bike tuned up so we can go on real rides!

Rachel enjoyed riding her bike behind the boys during this process.  Go brothers!

Anson's 7th Birthday!

Yes, my oldest baby was born 7 years ago.  We have a beautiful birth mom who gave us a miracle.  I will ever be grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who blessed our family so abundantly with Anson.  Anson is full of life and has really blossomed since starting school.  We always knew he would do really well in school and it has been wonderful to see that happen.  He wanted to celebrate his birthday with a friend party.  I have stopped doing friend parties every year for my sanity.  So this was his friend year and he invited 7 boys including himself and Aaron.  Everyone came!  We only had 1 church friend and the rest were from school so it was a new experience for us.  Anson is big into Ben 10, not my favorite show but he loves it; luckily Party City was clearancing out of everything we needed.  We played a few games.  The first game as kids came was just to shoot down the aliens with these disks.  The second game was a  mummy wrap up; I guess in one episode a character turns into  mummy.  Here are a few pictures.

The next game was a 4 armed relay since one of the characters has 4 arms.  It actually turned out really cute.  I cut 2 extra holes in big t-shirts and two boys fit inside.  They had to race and stack cups.  Anson's team worked out well since he is so small the bigger boy could usually stand over and work.

Our new aunt has exposed us to pinatas and again it was clearanced at the store so we had a pinata of Ben 10.

To decrease my anxiety of the event we ordered a Ben 10 cake and Anson loved it.  Overall we had a great party.  My kids' parties always seem to bomb but we had a talking to prior to the event about Anson being a host and Aaron being a host helper to smooth everything over.  It worked well and the kids all participated and got a long great!  Whew!  Another party DONE!

Talk in church

So every couple years we, members of my church, have the opportunity to give a talk on church.  I can't say this is my favorite thing to do but over the years in this ward it has almost become comical for me.  The first two times I spoke I was pregnant.  One time, I was VERY pregnant and had a lot of kicks and Braxton hicks during the preparation and talk itself.  Both of these times I spoke with the same speaker, Nick Ioannou from my ward.  Nick is a great guy and we laughed about it the second time.  The third talk in this ward Nick teased the Bishopric member to see if we were talking again together so from his suggestion we did.  I was just asked to speak last Sunday and again Nick was my partner. We both have a good laugh about it every time.

All kidding aside my talk was on "The Power of Scriptures" by Elder Richard G Scott.  He is an apostle of the Lord much like Andrew, Peter, John, and many others in the New Testament.  He spoke of how much strength, peace, clarity, and revelation we can received through studying the scriptures.  I went through my scriptures and found many notes of times I was praying about something and received answers while studying.  The scriptures, all of them, Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and modern day prophets teach us and provide so many answers to everyday problems we face. 

I am so grateful to these writers of our scriptures so take the time to write down revelations so years later I can learn from them.  One of the biggest blessings in my life is to have the Holy Ghost with me all the time.  I especially find this helpful when I have a problem I just don't know the answer to or a challenge I just need outside strength to get through.  The scriptures provide that anchor to the Holy Ghost and to Heavenly Father.  I'm so grateful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and for our Heavenly Father.  They have blessed my life every  minute of everyday.  I'm so grateful to have scriptures, both prophets now I can listen to and prophets of old I can read from. 

Here is a link to the talk if you are interested in reading it.
"The Power of Scripture" by Elder Scott

Christmas 2011

We wanted to keep Christmas a little light this year due to our trip to Disney.  The check book doesn't agree with this goal but we had a wonderful day.  We got back from Disney on the night of the 23rd so the Christmas Eve we spent getting ready for Christmas and cleaning up from our trip.  That evening we had a wonderful dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Blackham's home with Kristen, Justin, Amy and their little baby Caleb.  We had a wonderful meal and had the kids reenact the nativity with Caleb. 

Christmas was on Sunday so we did a quick opening of Santa gifts and breakfast before our 9 am church.  We finished opening gifts when we returned.

Anson received some much wanted Ben 10 guys and of course legos.  We also gave him an ant farm, which he has loved but now that the ants have died I'm not sure I want to clean it out and replace them. 

What do you give a 3rd boy in the family, more train stuff!  Andrew is our train and airplane boy so he now rides in style with his Thomas train.

Aaron went right to work on his legos, Star Wars ships and could not be disturbed even for a picture!

 

Rachel received a CD player so she can twirl all she wants to princess songs.  We actually replaced the one her because it broke within a week.  She loves singing with it, listening to books with it and of course TWIRLING!

The kids also received some play dough from Aunt Aundrea and Uncle Dave.  Rachel could barely wait to bust it open and get into it!

After Andrew's nap we went over to open presents with the Blackhams.  We then went over to Somers to open more presents and have a wonderful meal with them.  (Notice the green grass outside in this picture.  It was not a white Christmas for once; Rick was very happy.)

Christmas is a wonderful time of year and I'm grateful to live close to family so we can spend it with them.  

Rachel's birthday

So while I'm running about a month late I thought I'd throw in Rachel's birthday.  We celebrated Rachel's birthday at Disney so it was mentioned in the earlier blog.  She is our one and only princess so we dolled her up as such.

She loved the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and going to Cinderella's palace for lunch.  All of the Disney employees did a great job of making her day extra special. 

Later that night we opened presents with Grandma and Grandpa DeMille, Emily, Uncle Rob, Uncle Dave, Aunt Aundrea, and Andrew.  We've never celebrated a birthday with this side of the family so it was great to have them part of the fun.  Aundrea and Rob even picked out a great Rapunzel cake that Rachel LOVED! 

Rachel is our little princess in every way.  She has begun dance class this year.  She loves to sing and dance.  She loves playing in her very girly bedroom all by herself.  She'll close the door and read books to herself or dress up and play princesses all day.  She can hold her own with her brothers but I love looking into her room and seeing her play battle with Aaron while he uses Star Wars guys she is using princesses.  We love our little princess and are so very glad she is in our family.  Happy birthday Rachel!