Our good friend, Steven, came over to help daddy (and the Easter Bunny) hide eggs.

And then we hunted for the eggs. The boys were too excited to hold still for a good picture. After the hunt we came in and ate eggs. And to this day Isaiah complains to be about how Steven ate his “painted eggs.” I’m pretty sure he still loves him anyway.

We spent a lot of time this Easter talking with the boys about the meaning of it all. Isaiah gave a great FHE lesson on the resurrection (with a little help) and we tried to really focus on it all month. I am so grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ and His amazing atonement and resurrection. I know that He lives and that we will all be resurrected some day because of his sacrifice for us. I pray that I can live my life to show him my love and gratitude for all He’s given me.

He was better for a while on Monday, and even woke up with a wet diaper. By that night he hadn’t had another and I was getting worried again. I called the pediatrician and he told me if there had been no more wet diapers, I needed to get him back to the ER. Omar called our friend Eric to come and help give Isaiah a blessing before we left. As Omar blessed Isaiah his voice became stronger and suddenly he declared that Isaiah would be better by the next afternoon.

We left to the ER and Isaiah was given more fluid. He came home and was still sick in the morning, but by the next afternoon, as promised by the Lord, he was better and has been fine ever since. Rotavirus can have a few relapses, but he’s been completely fine.

Tonight for Family Home Evening Helaman was teaching the lesson and wanted to do the Wall of Jericho. We built a wall out of cushions and acted out walking around it and trumpeting and shouting. The boys thought it was great fun. Then we talked about what the point of the story was.

We talked about how the Lord always does what He promises. He told the Israelites he would knock down the wall and they would get the promised land, and He did. And we talked about how God had promised through daddy that Isaiah would be better by the next afternoon, and he was.

I’m so grateful to have a husband who hold the priesthood righteously and can invoke the power and promise of Heaven to bless my children. And I’m grateful for the confirmation of my testimony that the Lord always keeps his promises.

I’ve also been making more of an effort to teach out of the scriptures. Having specific doctrine in mind has made that much easier for me.

January, First Article of Faith
week 1: God as our Father (prayer)
week 2: Bodies of God and Christ, attributes
week 3: Holy Ghost in your mind and heart
week 4: First Vision

February, Second Article of Faith
week 1: Creation of the world
week 2: Garden of Eden, the fall
week 3: Commandments
week 4: Iron rod

March, Third Article of Faith
week 1: Plan of Salvation
week 2: Atonement
week 3: Following Christ
week 4: Repentance

April, Fourth Article of Faith
week 1: Faith
week 2: Repentance
week 3: Baptism
week 4: Gift of the Holy Ghost

May, Fifth Article of Faith
week 1: priesthood authority
week 2: blessings of the priesthood
week 3: ordinances
week 4: prophets

June, Sixth Article of Faith
week 1: Christ called apostles, set up church
week 2: Organization of the church
week 3: sustaining our leaders
week 4: callings

July, Seventh Article of Faith
week 1: definitions
week 2: talents
week 3: personal revelation
week 4: miracles of Christ

August, Eighth Article of Faith
week 1: Where the Bible came from
week 2: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
week 3: importance of scriptures
week 4: Favorite scriptures stories

September, Ninth Article of Faith
week 1: modern revelation through prophet
week 2: eternal families
week 3: word of wisdom
week 4: Holy ghost and personal revelation

October, Tenth Article of Faith
week 1: Story of Joseph and his coat & ten tribes
week 2: Zion
week 3: Second Coming
week 4: preparing for Second Coming

November, Eleventh Article of Faith
week 1: Worship
week 2: Being reverent
week 3: Keeping the Sabbath day Holy
week 4: Following Christ

December – Christmas all month!

January, Twelfth Article of Faith
week 1: Obeying laws of the land
week 2: Community helpers (police, fire, etc.)
week 3: Pioneers
week 4: Patriotism

February, Thirteenth Articles of Faith
week 1: Honesty
week 2: Kindness
week 3: Virtue
week 4: Service

March, Thirteenth Article of Faith cont.
week 1: Talents
week 2: Good books and movies
week 3:

But February is looking up. Omar is starting a new tour at work on Monday that he is really excited about. His boss also offered him an opportunity to come and work in the machine shop in a very specialized and very Omar position, so he is excited about that, too. His last tour was really hard on him because they didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. It wasn’t until the last week that he really got to start doing analysis on his project. He’s happy to be moving on, but sad he didn’t get to finish the work that finally started.

Helaman didn’t got back to preschool in January, and that’s been an adjustment for us, too. My plan was to do structured activities with him on my own a couple of hours a day. We did manage to do that, once. The rest of the time I’ve just been dragging myself around. I hate feeling that way. But Helaman is much happier not going to that preschool, so I’m sure it was the right thing. I don’t want him to start off his long life of school ahead hating it.

As of today, February 1st, I’m doing better, too. Isaiah slept a lot more last night, and I did to. That really helped. I took him to nursery today, too. I actually got to go to Sunday School and listen and participate. I feel so uplifted. The lesson in Sunday school was on the atonement, and I am so happy to be reminded of that tremendous blessing.

I’ve made some really bad decisions in my life. That’s a long story… and not one I like to tell (or even remember). But today, for the first time, I can see how what a blessing the road I’ve traveled was for me. I am so grateful to have a depth of understanding about the atonement and the love of my Savior that only came because of those bad choices, and my repentance, and his infinite mercy and forgiveness. Glory to God in the highest. When we turn our lives over to Him he really can take the bad and through his power make it good.

I’m grateful for that atonement at the end of this hard month especially. I’m not a nice tired mom, and I shudder to think how unkind I can be to my sweet boys (and husband). But as I repent daily (hourly) He continues to forgive me and help me do better. And I really am starting to see the change as He fills me up with His light and helps me be more like Him. I’m so grateful that His atonement is infinite, and as many times as I sin and repent He forgives me. If there was a limit I would be in big trouble.

The sun in shining and it’s warm today. I’m happy. February is going to be great!

I’ve been debating this for a long time, but after reading about some crazy things, I’ve decided we need to go private. So, for any of the posts about our family, you’ll have to register for the sight. You can set it to remember you, so you should only have to do it once (or once in a while if you delete your cookies) and then you’ll be good to go. Sorry about the trouble. Someday we’ll live in a millennial world, and if I still am blogging, I’ll unlock for ya’ll!

To register, scroll down to the bottom of the sidebar on the right. Let me know if you have any trouble. I don’t want to lose any of you! (Unless you are a crazy stalker or something, and then thanks a lot, this is all your fault!)

May the Lord bless us to all vote our conscious and protect our families, and God’s family.

My parenting has come under a microscope since we moved to Ridgecrest. I didn’t realize how much of that burden I shared with so much family around. Now it’s just me and the boys, all mommy all the time. I’ve become a lot more aware and have begun to parent a lot more consciously–and I am very aware of my shortcomings.

As I’ve struggled to become a more Christ-like mother, I’ve learned some things lately I want to record for myself. This is going to be a very public list of what feel like my private pitfalls, but maybe someone else out there struggles with the same things I do…

In any event, here’s my current list:

1. Nurture.
   When I’ve thought about being a stay-home-mom and what that means for the division of responsibility in our family, it was something really vague like this: Omar goes to work and makes the money, and I stay home and take care of stuff here. I cook, I clean, I take care of the boys, I make sure everyone eats, I buy groceries and schedule play dates and do the laundry, read to my babies, play games, clean, clean clean.

   A couple of weeks ago I was reading through the world-wide leadership training that came in the Ensign. In President Packer’s address he talked specifically about each part of the Proclamation on the Family. As I read

   By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.

   I suddenly realized I had my division wrong. Not completely, but just enough.

   Frequently, when I lost my patience with my little ones, it was because I was so focused on cleaning and cooking and the long to-do list I had in my head, and they were making it take longer or not get done at all. Really, my focus needed to be on nurturing them, and everything else I had piled on was supposed to be part of taking care of that, not the end in itself. When I shifted my focus to nurturing them, it made a huge difference in my attitude, our happiness, and the Spirit in our home.

   That’s probably obvious, or should have been, but it wasn’t to me.

2. Leadership
   Omar and I were asked to speak in Sacrament Meeting last month on the topic of Christ-like leadership. At the time of the assignment, I thought it was kind of a funny topic, but as I prepared my talk, I discovered that the Lord was aware of my struggles as a mother, and had sent me exactly the topic I needed to grow and find comfort.

   Before this talk I hadn’t thought about what I was doing in terms of leadership. I have had a lot of experience in leadership roles in my young life, and I felt like I was pretty good at taking charge and getting things done. However, I had missed two important points. Although intellectually I know that we are supposed to follow Christ in everything we do, I had never thought about it in terms of leadership. And somehow in all my busy day-to-day I had forgotten to think of my role as a mother as being that of a leader. As I studied for my talk, both of the these points became key in my personal growth.

   I read may good articles on the subject as I was preparing, but one by President Kimball called Jesus: the Perfect Leader seemed to speak directly to my soul. President Kimball focused on 5 points that I applied to motherhood as my talk. They were:

   1. Christ led from a place of fixed principles.
   2. He was unfailingly understanding and loving
   3. He was selfless
   4. He delegated meaningful responsibility
   5. He always used his time wisely

   Fixed Principles
   Because he was on solid ground, he was able to lead from a position of strength. This inspired our family to set a family home evening to talk about what the principles were we would run our family on, and establish some basic family rules. No when someone is violating one of the four rules, it’s much easier to talk about the problem and how to fix it.

   This idea also helped me to parent with a purpose. Once I had thought about this, it was easier for me to try and think about my reactions, and how I planned our time, and what we did in terms of our real goal: of being a forever family and following Christ. It gave me a framework in which to think about the millions of decisions and moments that had seemed so overwhelming every day. I wasn’t just reacting, I was leading. (Or that was the idea. Still working on that…)

   And because Christ operated from fixed principles his was a leadership of “come follow me.” Do what I do, not do what I say. Don’t yell at each other, don’t leave messes, be kind, help, eat your vegetables, no cookies before dinner…. I need to do all those things better, too.

   Understanding & Loving
   Christ perfectly loved everyone he came in contact with. He could listen without being condescending, and he could reprove his disciples and maintain a good relationship because they knew He loved them.

   He was also perfectly patient. I LOVED this quote from President Kimball:

   Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner. This permitted him to condemn the sin without condemning the individual.

   My kids are never being bad because they are evil and want to follow Satan (very few people ever do things for this reason–including me). When I focus on the needs behind the behavior, I get a lot further than just trying to correct the behavior. If only I could remember this all the time… When I do I finally understand how disciple and punishment are not the same thing.

   Selfless
   Some days it feels like this is my biggest struggle. President Kimball said selfish leaders, “make harsh demands of life and others in order to meet their demands.” I want things done a certain way, and I am too often harsh demanding that they be that way.

   He also said manipulative leaders are selfish. And that, “One of the problems with manipulative leadership is that it does not spring from a love of others but from a need to use them. Such leaders focus on their own needs and desires and not on the needs of others.” I can definitely feel that truth in that as I try to manipulate obedience.

   And the final nail in my coffin of selfishness, selfish leaders make decision, “Seeking to stop the present pain, creating even greater difficulty and pain later.” How many times do I just give in to a fit, or hand out a cookie, or…

   Keeping a long-term perspective is difficult, and certainly does require present pain a lot of the time. Being unselfish in my parenting is a constant, and necessary struggle.

   Sharing Responsibility
   The whole idea behind leadership is that you are trying to help people grow and get somewhere better. Christ gave his followers important and specific assignments for their growth. It’s a lot easier to do everything myself. It’s much easier to just clean the toy room the way I want it to be, or run family night myself, or make everyone’s beds. But to lead the Christ, I have to delegate and teach.

   He also patiently helped when those he gave assignments to struggled. Like when the apostles couldn’t cast out the devil in a suffering person. He didn’t go do it for them, though he certainly could of. Instead he told them how to correct what they had done wrong and do it again.

   Wise with my Time
   As I honestly reflected, I realized a lot of my stress came from using my time unwisely. President Kimball said leisure to renew and reflect was good. Wasting time wasn’t. As I try to follow the Savior and actively parent and fill my days with not time wasting activities, I get a lot more fit into a day, am more patient because I have a greater portion of the Spirit, and I’m less frustrated. Again, I wish I could say that I now never waste any time and have become perfect. Alas, that is not the case.

3. Loving v. Problems
   As I was watching the Sunday morning session of General Conference, something President Monson said hit me with great force,

   Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

   I realized that in my impatient disciplining, that was often what I was doing. I was focusing on the problem instead of the little one I needed to be loving. This phrase runs through my head a million times a day now, when things are spilled, or someone is disobeying, or bed time needs to happen. It’s given me a way to constantly remind myself what really matters, my boys and loving them. The problems needs to be dealt with, but not in a way that undermines loving them.

   I’m so grateful for an inspired prophet.

4. The Atonement
   As I become more and more aware of my weaknesses I also become more grateful for my Savior. I am daily reliant on His grace and mercy. If I keep doing my best, despite all of my huge errors, through his amazing atonement He will make up what I lack. And because of His grate love and sacrifice I can fall down daily, turn to Him in repentance, and try again.

And that’s what I’ve been learning lately.

When I couldn’t sleep this morning I finally got around to wondering what Jesus would do. I’ve been reading an awesome book, “The Cost of Winning: Coming in First Across the Wrong Finish Line” by Dean Hughes. The chapter I read this morning seemed to specifically address my attitude and how we should handle the situation going forward (as a side note, I never ceased to be amazed by the amazing teaching of the Lord, and specifically in the beatitudes.)

I’m not angry, I feel filled with the Spirit, and I’ve learned something I wouldn’t have, grown in ways I wouldn’t have, if everything had been easy. And I’m really grateful for trials today.

We were back in Gridley for a few days last week to attend the funeral of a good friend of mine. It was nice to see our families for a minute.

I was supposed to make the trip alone with the boys. But when it came time to leave I had a little crying break down. My husband took pity on me and threw some things together and came with us. As we were driving home he told me he had felt like we were going to break down and taht is why he decided to come.

We drove at night both ways so the boys would sleep and it wouldn’t be so awful for them. On the way home Saturday night we noticed how lonely the Tehachapi highway was in the dark desert late at night. I was really glad my husband was there with me.

Well… on the way home from Church the next day, in the parking lot as we started the car actually, our belt blew off with our air conditioning compressor. We haven’t had the van to drive since then as we’ve been trying to finish the house before our assessment today. That’s one blessing.

The second… A few days before we left to Gridley I was making Spaghetti for dinner and I as I stirred I splashed the boiling water and burned my stomach badly. It hurt to the point that I couldn’t stop trembling–reaffirming the fact I do not want to burn to death, but anway.(I know, I know… I’m a spazz, but that’s not the point of the story this time, bear with me!)

I’m so grateful for these two experiences. We’ve had  wonderful opportunity to teach Helaman about how Heavenly Father loves us and really hears our prayers.  Before we left to come home from Gridley we said a prayer that we would be safe. And we made it all the way here and dropped the belt 4 blocks from our house at church the next day. When I burned my stomach Helaman prayed for me at family prayer and in his personal prayers that night. After he went to bed  we were talking about how cool it would be if I was healed and his prayers were answered so he would learn about how Heavenly Father really hears him. Well, I woke up in the morning pain free, it never hurt again. We have talked about it a lot since then, and how we made it home safely after we prayed. I’m so grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to teach our son such powerful lessons about God’s love lately–and I praise His name for my burnt stomach and broken car.