I got to go to a farewell for Leslie Bishop and her husband today. I taught with Leslie (4th grade teacher) up until this year. She was the one who hosted my Utah wedding reception and acted as my second mother. Anyway, she retired and she and her husband are now off to the Atlanta North Georgia mission. Five other teachers from my school were there and it was fun to go to church as a faculty. (I know, only in Utah!!) Anyway, it was so fun to actually listen, uninterrupted to a whole sacrament meeting. I love my kids, but it was nice to really enjoy the spirit, uninterrupted, again. The talks were great and I thought I'd record a couple of the comments that struck me.
Leslie's talk was on service and it was excellent. I wish I would have taken notes because my memory is just not very reliable! One thing I do remember was a comment she made about covenants. She said that all we need to do to break a covenant is to do nothing. Wow, that hit me. It doesn't need to be a big, terrible sin, just doing nothing is all it takes. It was just a reminder to me to make a more proactive approach to my life and the gospel. It's easy to sit back and let it all happen, but the gospel requires DOing. On the talk radio station this morning a woman talked about how just saying prayers for others to help them through the hard times is a huge service. We may not be in a position to do more, but we can let them know we are thinking about them and praying for them. Sometimes, that's all people need -- people on their side, cheering them on.
Clyn (Leslie's husband) got up and pointed out his tie. It was the tie their oldest son had received for his mission and worn. He returned and then passed the tie down to their next son. He, too, wore it on his mission. The third son was called to Brazil and ended up wearing the tie for his farewell. (They could see that the tie wouldn't survive many more missions!). Anyway, the tradition continued and each son thereafter wore the tie for his farewell. After the last son they put the tie in a shadow box on the wall for display. Well, today they removed the tie from the display and Clyn wore it for his farewell. He was misty-eyed as he related the story --as were we all! He said the tie would go back to the wall and be saved for future grandsons. I thought this was a neat tradition.
Well, I returned to grumpy children at home and prepared the rest of the family for our meetings. Our sacrament meeting was great and I have learned to be a pretty good distracted listener. One woman who spoke today talked about her upbringing in a devoutly Catholic home. She went every Sunday, attended the mid-week religion classes and was a member of the choir, etc. She related how although she had been so involved in the Catholic church, she had never gotten to know her Heavenly Father until she was introduced and later baptized into the LDS church. She talked about how the Spirit is the difference. We have the ability to learn through the Spirit. I remember as a missionary that fact being emphasized over and over. We were not the teachers, the Spirit was and we had to do all we could to make sure we invited Him into our lessons. Anyway, it was a good reminder of what we take for granted so often. It reminded me that in Primary I need to do the very same thing-use the Spirit to teach the lessons. It's easy to rely on yourself and forget to do that!
Well, on a less spiritual note, I have to share my Primary stories for the week. Apparently 6 and 7 year olds don't phase me anymore because I never share their funny stories. But these 9/10 year olds are fascinating me! :-) Remember Mason Myatt? Well, today we were looking at a map of Lehi's family's journey to America. He asked about it and then said, "But Columbus hadn't even discovered America yet, had he?" I have to admit I have never even thought about that before and I had to think quick to explain it to him. I am definitely tested on my gospel knowledge with these guys. They asked me if the Incas were the Nephites and Lamanites. Gee whiz, I'm in my VERY LOW 30s and I NEVER think of these types of questions. We had a Primary training meeting tonight and we filled in a survey. On the question of whether or not we feel qualified to teach our Primary class I had to give myself a low score. Give me 4 year olds and my gospel knowledge cup runneth over. But give me this class and I am scrambling to keep one step ahead of their amazing questions!
Well, to close I'll be grateful for fun movies that remind my children of the scriptures. We rented "Evan Almighty" this weekend and Scottie and Mason love it! They pulled out their Noah's Ark play set (that they never play with) and had a ball. Scottie has been walking around the house for two days with my bathrobe on being Noah. He even has a huge walking stick as his staff. He tied a jump rope from his dresser to the top of the bunk bed to slide the animals up (on hangers) to get them in the "ark" before the flood came. I'm glad there is wholesome media out there that my kids can relive. I have to admit that I have a new appreciation for Noah after they put it into a modern-day perspective. I felt for him and his wife!!
Well, it's a good thing tomorrows a holiday. I'm robbing my beauty sleep again! Until I have time to acquire more random thoughts...boa noite!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
What a Handful!
Last night I was having a TGIF night. It had been a long and busy week and I was ready for the weekend. Well, when I got home, Dave was ready to turn the kids over. It had been a long day and he had some rackets to string. So needless to say, he happily turned the kids over to me and locked himself in the basement. Well, I hurried around to make dinner and catch-up on some overdue dishes, etc. After dinner (spaghetti) it was necessary to send the kids straight to the tub. We LOVE spaghetti, but it can be messy -- at least for the youngest two! So, after getting everyone into their PJs, we headed down to start a movie. (Yeah, my boys love High School Musical 2 too!) Well, I delayed a bit on getting up to cleaning up after the dinner dishes and putting the food away. No big deal, except for the fact that Tanna had been a little too quiet for more than a minute!! After talking myself into leaving the comfy recliner, knowing whatever she was up to couldn't be good, I headed upstairs. Let's just say you know it's a good one (mess) when you don't even stop at the scene of the crime. I just turned right around and ran for the camera. I figured that this one needed to be on the record book. Tanna had climbed the chair onto the table and created her own version of abstract spaghetti art. There was spaghetti sauce and noodles spread all over the table and her. She had topped it off by dumping the remaining water in the glasses all over too! (Thank goodness we had water tonight!!) So, needless to say -- after a few pictures-- we headed back to the bathtub and I'm still working on getting the spaghetti sauce out of her pajamas!! It turned out to be a big clean-up job and I'm learning to head that mother's intuition a little faster next time!
Today, we found our School House Rock DVD broken in half. Hmmm....I thought girls were easier than boys!! So far that whole perfect princess philosophy has gone right out the window!! So, as a heads up -- if you ever come for a visit, please understand that keeping up with Tanna is a full time job and it is very difficult to stay a step ahead of her. If we do manage to get a handle on things, she's sure to undo that as soon as possible! So, enjoy our lived in home and understand that we're making memories here!
Today, we found our School House Rock DVD broken in half. Hmmm....I thought girls were easier than boys!! So far that whole perfect princess philosophy has gone right out the window!! So, as a heads up -- if you ever come for a visit, please understand that keeping up with Tanna is a full time job and it is very difficult to stay a step ahead of her. If we do manage to get a handle on things, she's sure to undo that as soon as possible! So, enjoy our lived in home and understand that we're making memories here!
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Sunday Insights!
Tonight while Mason was saying his prayer, he said, "...And bless that Jesus won't die, because he's so nice!" Well after the prayer was over, Scottie told Mason that he already did die! Mason checked with me to see if Scottie was telling the truth and I told him it was true. But, that He had resurrected and now would never die again. Mason was so relieved and happy. It was fun to see the affect this had on his 3 year old mind. Even though he's heard us talk about it before, tonight it actually meant something to him. Sometimes it's nice to watch those "Wow!" moments and realize that it really is an amazing miracle!
I realize I take a lot of things in the Gospel for granted. I have a little girl in my primary class of 9/10 year olds who recently moved here from New York after her family was baptized into the church. They are such a cute family and I forget how exciting the gospel is. Today we were talking about Lehi and his family's departure into the wilderness. She was not familiar with the story and it was so fun watching her "soak" it all up! Her face actually lit up! She answered some questions and got Lehi and Nephi mixed up a bit, but I was amazed at how many details she remembered. Another boy, Mason Myatt, took notes through the lesson and gathered up all the papers I used in teaching, so that he could go home and teach Family Home Evening tomorrow night. Wow, so much different than I had expected!! So, although I was sad to leave the CTR 5s, who had such an excitement for learning the stories each week, I have been pleasantly surprised to have that same excitement in this older class.
Well, one more thought for this Sunday night. Tanna is watching "Baby Signing Time?" as I type this. It's an incredible program that teaches sign language creatively through music. It turns out it was all started to fill a need. It's founder Rachel de Azevedo Coleman (daughter of Lex de Azevedo)began learning sign language when she discovered her daughter was profoundly deaf at 14 months of age. Her next daughter was born prematurely with spina bifida and cerebral palsy. Rachel ended up taking her incredible music talent, along with her sister Emilie, to develop a TV show and numerous DVDs to teach the world sign language. She hoped not only to help other families in her situation, but to break the language barrier for her own daughters with other children. So often we don't understand why we are given certain trials in our lives. I'm sure many tears were shed by Rachel and her family, but she took a trial and ended up using her talents to make a huge difference for so many others. I'm sure she never would have dreamed the direction her life has taken. It's kind of like the analogy of being clay in the Potter's hands. We don't always see the big picture, but thankfully our Father in Heaven has the end in mind and helps mold and shape us into the person He knows we can become.
So, all in all, it was a good day. It's nice to have Sundays to renew and reflect. I'm off to start another adventure of a week. Hopefully, I'll keep this perspective and remember what's important in all the hubbub of daily life!
I realize I take a lot of things in the Gospel for granted. I have a little girl in my primary class of 9/10 year olds who recently moved here from New York after her family was baptized into the church. They are such a cute family and I forget how exciting the gospel is. Today we were talking about Lehi and his family's departure into the wilderness. She was not familiar with the story and it was so fun watching her "soak" it all up! Her face actually lit up! She answered some questions and got Lehi and Nephi mixed up a bit, but I was amazed at how many details she remembered. Another boy, Mason Myatt, took notes through the lesson and gathered up all the papers I used in teaching, so that he could go home and teach Family Home Evening tomorrow night. Wow, so much different than I had expected!! So, although I was sad to leave the CTR 5s, who had such an excitement for learning the stories each week, I have been pleasantly surprised to have that same excitement in this older class.
Well, one more thought for this Sunday night. Tanna is watching "Baby Signing Time?" as I type this. It's an incredible program that teaches sign language creatively through music. It turns out it was all started to fill a need. It's founder Rachel de Azevedo Coleman (daughter of Lex de Azevedo)began learning sign language when she discovered her daughter was profoundly deaf at 14 months of age. Her next daughter was born prematurely with spina bifida and cerebral palsy. Rachel ended up taking her incredible music talent, along with her sister Emilie, to develop a TV show and numerous DVDs to teach the world sign language. She hoped not only to help other families in her situation, but to break the language barrier for her own daughters with other children. So often we don't understand why we are given certain trials in our lives. I'm sure many tears were shed by Rachel and her family, but she took a trial and ended up using her talents to make a huge difference for so many others. I'm sure she never would have dreamed the direction her life has taken. It's kind of like the analogy of being clay in the Potter's hands. We don't always see the big picture, but thankfully our Father in Heaven has the end in mind and helps mold and shape us into the person He knows we can become.
So, all in all, it was a good day. It's nice to have Sundays to renew and reflect. I'm off to start another adventure of a week. Hopefully, I'll keep this perspective and remember what's important in all the hubbub of daily life!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I'm STILL Figuring This Out!
I must have stepped in the wrong line when it came to receiving extra brain power in the area of computer technology! It has taken me as long to get this newest slide show on as it did the first time I made one! Tanna helped me this time by shutting off the computer just as I was almost ready to SAVE. That was a few days ago! Anyway, after figuring it out AGAIN! tonight, I noticed that some of my pictures still have the red eye. Auggh! Anyway, we are not possessed, it just seemas to be too hard for me to upload the pictures I have gone in and removed the red eye from. I have an amazing ability of choosing the wrong (unedited) picture each time. So, because I have no desire to go in and start over, red eye it is!!! Enjoy!
Late for bed again!!
Jill
Late for bed again!!
Jill
Monday, January 7, 2008
Yes, I Can Do This!
I am determined to not go to bed until I get at least something written tonight! So, looking at the time, it'll have to be short!
We are back into the swing of things again and unfortunately, I have not gotten the Christmas decorations put away yet! I boxed up a lot of the kids clothes over the break and in order to get to the Christmas tubs I have to take a big chunk of time to store all these boxes in the crawl space first. When they name it a "crawl" space, they weren't kidding. It is an ordeal to get things in and out, but it is nice to have the storage. So, for now, we still look like we have the Christmas spirit around here. Tanna loves it and has rearranged the lights and bottom limbs several times. We only decorated the top half this year, but she has learned how to climb on the arm chairs to get up to the forbidden ornaments. Ah well - at this point I'm ready to just take the whole tree to the rodeo grounds (Lehi's designated drop-off sight for old trees) for compost. Unfortunately, they don't smile upon receiving artificial trees. It sure would make clean-up easier!
School is back to normal as of today. We went back Thursday and the kids were great for 2 days. In fact I was feeling like a pretty good teacher. But, today they were back to their "spirited" selves! Hopefully tomorrow they'll have calmed down a bit!!
Tomorrow I start my first class towards my Reading Endorsement. It's Tuesday nights for 2 years through BYU. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but know it will be good for me. I'm doing it with my good friend, Amy, from school, so for that reason it will be fun. Anyway, I'll let you know how wonderful it is when I'm a bit more enthusiastic about it! The good news is that the district is paying for the bulk of it and it will help me move over on the pay scale. (I was almost at a dead end if I didn't start taking classes again!)
I taught the CTR 10 class for the first time on Sunday and enjoyed it! I really wasn't looking forward to it, because 10 year olds are not my specialty. But, they were really cute and were fun to tease! In fact, it was nice to not have to tap dance my way through a lesson! I'm used to the 4 year olds! They are very hard to keep on task for more than 3 minutes at a time. (You know they just have so many important stories to tell!!) But 9/10 year olds can stay on task for at least 5 minutes at a time. What a bonus!! I realize this was the honeymoon week, but so far so good!!
Tonight I decided that one of the qualifications for the Celestial Kingdom should be based on whether or not you can change the bedding on the top bunk of a bunk bed! What a pain -- but it's always nice when it's clean for a minute. In fact tonight the boys are sleeping in their sleeping bags on top of the clean sheets. Isn't that nice of them?! They should get brownie points for that!!!
Well, it's way past my scheduled bedtime and I find I'm a better mom/teacher/wife/driver/U.S. citizen if I get my beauty rest! In fact Dave has very delicately indicated that it might be good for me to get more sleep! What a guy!! I'm sure he's just considering my health -- not my temperament!!! :-) Anyway... until my next escape from the dishes and laundry....
Jill
We are back into the swing of things again and unfortunately, I have not gotten the Christmas decorations put away yet! I boxed up a lot of the kids clothes over the break and in order to get to the Christmas tubs I have to take a big chunk of time to store all these boxes in the crawl space first. When they name it a "crawl" space, they weren't kidding. It is an ordeal to get things in and out, but it is nice to have the storage. So, for now, we still look like we have the Christmas spirit around here. Tanna loves it and has rearranged the lights and bottom limbs several times. We only decorated the top half this year, but she has learned how to climb on the arm chairs to get up to the forbidden ornaments. Ah well - at this point I'm ready to just take the whole tree to the rodeo grounds (Lehi's designated drop-off sight for old trees) for compost. Unfortunately, they don't smile upon receiving artificial trees. It sure would make clean-up easier!
School is back to normal as of today. We went back Thursday and the kids were great for 2 days. In fact I was feeling like a pretty good teacher. But, today they were back to their "spirited" selves! Hopefully tomorrow they'll have calmed down a bit!!
Tomorrow I start my first class towards my Reading Endorsement. It's Tuesday nights for 2 years through BYU. I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but know it will be good for me. I'm doing it with my good friend, Amy, from school, so for that reason it will be fun. Anyway, I'll let you know how wonderful it is when I'm a bit more enthusiastic about it! The good news is that the district is paying for the bulk of it and it will help me move over on the pay scale. (I was almost at a dead end if I didn't start taking classes again!)
I taught the CTR 10 class for the first time on Sunday and enjoyed it! I really wasn't looking forward to it, because 10 year olds are not my specialty. But, they were really cute and were fun to tease! In fact, it was nice to not have to tap dance my way through a lesson! I'm used to the 4 year olds! They are very hard to keep on task for more than 3 minutes at a time. (You know they just have so many important stories to tell!!) But 9/10 year olds can stay on task for at least 5 minutes at a time. What a bonus!! I realize this was the honeymoon week, but so far so good!!
Tonight I decided that one of the qualifications for the Celestial Kingdom should be based on whether or not you can change the bedding on the top bunk of a bunk bed! What a pain -- but it's always nice when it's clean for a minute. In fact tonight the boys are sleeping in their sleeping bags on top of the clean sheets. Isn't that nice of them?! They should get brownie points for that!!!
Well, it's way past my scheduled bedtime and I find I'm a better mom/teacher/wife/driver/U.S. citizen if I get my beauty rest! In fact Dave has very delicately indicated that it might be good for me to get more sleep! What a guy!! I'm sure he's just considering my health -- not my temperament!!! :-) Anyway... until my next escape from the dishes and laundry....
Jill
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
