Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Mom's Helper


The other day I was in the other room on the computer and I hear Joseph calling me. "Mom, your breakfast is ready!" I looked behind me to see Matthew walking up with a bagel in his hand. When I went in the kitchen, there was Joseph making breakfast for all of us "home-ers". He had even toasted the bagels and added cream cheese! BTW, can you guess why this picture is here in sepia instead of color? If you guess right I will tell you!
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Friday, January 18, 2008

Peter's Great News

Yesterday Peter was officially named the Director of the Emergency Department! We are really excited here. Also, the goal they gave him this year was to hire at least three doctors. As of yesterday that goal has been met! There's nothing like meeting the goals your boss sets for the year in 17 days! In the three months he has been working, he has hired three full time doctors and 2 1/2 PA's. Those are really impressive numbers. Its like he told his boss, "After spending two years recruiting people to change their lifestyles and religions, recruiting people to come work here will be a breeze!" The boss liked that so much he told him to repeat it at the meeting with all the other big wigs!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

I'm a big boy now

SOME OF YOU HAVE MISTAKINGLY THOUGHT I AM POTTY TRAINING MATTHEW. THIS IS WRONG!! I NEVER POTTY TRAIN BEFORE THE KIDS ARE THREE!!!!!

Now I know that Maddie and Addie are probably potty training and/or changing their own diapers, but we have our own news. Mr. Matthew has decided he wants to wear Joseph's underwear. He sits and tries to put them on and brings them to me until I help him. (Sometimes he tries to put his legs in and other times tries it on his head like a hat). He likes to wear them over his onsies so he can see them- or as I said earlier, over his head. Also, he thinks that those blocks are mini balls he can throw at me for catch, whether or not I'm looking. Oh yeah and watch out- as of yesterday he bites. Hard. Aren't one year olds great?
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Friday, January 4, 2008

The Little Blessings

Sometimes it is the little blessings that show us God's love. They are so small and seemingly insignificant that they are easy to miss unless you are looking for them. My trip home to Connecticut from North Carolina was so full of these "little" blessings that they were impossible to miss. Let me share some of them with you:

1. The rain that was forecast in every city all the way up never happened. It was clear the entire time.
2. I made the 12 hour trip in 10 hours (that includes a lunch break)
3. Going down to NC, I happened to meet at McDonalds a family driving the same way I was with 5 kids and the mom happened to mention an alternate route you could find easily on Mapquest (by pushing the miss tolls button) that by-passes NYC. That route completely skipped Baltimore, Newark, and NYC and was almost traffic free. Plus I saved a fortune on toll money.
4. The entire trip not one of my children fought (and Matthew never cried). This was despite the fact that we had no movie and few snacks.
5. We only had to break one time for lunch and gas. No potty breaks the rest of the time (This may not seem like much, but I was worried how one adult could safely allow all 5 kids to pee at a rest stop or gas station; it was a huge relief that the only bathroom I needed was at a relatively empty McDonalds)
6. Since my cell phone had died before the trip started, I bought a prepaid Tracfone for the trip home. It worked the whole way even though the system was down and I couldn't add minutes (when I got home there were only 3 minutes left)
7. I never even got close to tired (which I normally start to feel after 2 hours of driving). In fact, when I got home I had enough energy to unload the car before I went to bed.
8. I found my extra XM radio home antenna in NC, since my car the antenna has been not working I thought it might work, it did perfectly until I crossed into CT and then it got spotty.
9. Despite the fact that the bike rack I bought to bring home Elise and Ryan's bikes was missing pieces, I was able to get their bikes into the Suburban and still fit everything I wanted to bring home. (and get a refund on the bike rack!)
10. One exit from home I was passed a 2 minute old accident involving several cars. It was soon enough that traffic was not backed up yet and the police car came right behind me (Peter treated the people and none were seriously hurt). I was very grateful to have missed that accident.

These things may seem small, but put all together, it made a trip I was very nervous about enjoyable. I have never had such an easy long trip. Not only did everything go smoothly, it seemed to go really fast. About 3 hours from home I realized that this trip was a blessing from God and it was only by His help that things went so well. That realization was the greatest blessing of the whole trip.

As Elder Eyering said last conference speaking of finding the Lord's hand in our lives:

"I would ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.

More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened."

http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-775-24,00.html

Christmas Morning

Well, here is our Christmas Morning. We had a lot of fun. This year we opened presents a little differently. Instead of all at once crazy, we each opened one at the same time. Then looked at everyones and then opened the next batch all together. It seemed to be a little more calm that way. We did enjoy having Mom and Dad there!

Search the Scriptures


Dad had a doctrinal question while they were out visiting, so Matthew was kind enough to look up the answer for him. In case anyone was wondering, it was "Ba-ba-ba moo maaaa"
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