Week in Review...

This last week Abby made a fort out of the blue while I was feeding Griffin in the other room and it was totally unprompted. Suddenly, I hear her say that she's making a temple! So cute!!

I took Ashlyn to KMart to get some running shoes because she's in a running club at school and they have a merry go round outside of it, the kids loved it.

I got some new shelves finally put up, they look pretty cute!

Haley's been practicing her salsa dancing because she's been invited to a friends quincinera coming up...

Jacob made this with his snap circuits...

Jacob had a stake Blue and Gold Carnival at the Stake center today and they had lots of fun things to do...

Last night Rick and I were able to go to a special fireside for parents of youth 12-18 and there were 58 stakes invited. It was broadcast from a stake center in queen creek and Elder Ballard was there as well as Elder Rasband, Elder Robbins and Elder Costa. It was fun to see their personalities come out in this intimate setting. Elder Ballard teased Elder Rasband that since he's the senior elder that he gets to sit back and relax and let Elder Rasband conduct the meeting. Then in return Elder Rasband teased Elder Costa because he's the newest general authority saying that he gets to answer the hardest questions. Elder Rasband reminded me a lot of Dad!! Elder Ballard said something really sweet that made him tear up, he said that as he was raising his 7 kids he was always thinking, ok we just need to raise these kids, get them educated and send them on their way and then we can relax. But he soon came to realize that you are always a father, you're always a father to your grand kids and the responsibility never goes away. He was very candid with us and it was great to see that side of him. He said to hang in there, things get better, they do grow up over time. He said the #1 advice for raising great kids is to read the scriptures, say your prayers, say family prayers, hold FHE, have family council and to hold our love for our Heavenly Father foremost. He said that we're all going to die, that we need to keep the end goal in sight. We need to remember where we want to end up when we die.

Elder Rasband spoke about social media, he said that it's a tool that the Church is using for good. They have youth accounts in Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat to fill youths social media with good positive media.

Elder Robbins spoke about using the scriptures as a parenting manual, he said to use FAMILY search to figure out who we are. He said that revelation comes early in the morning, go to bed early and arise early. He said to praise your children, be a good reflection of your childrens self worth.

Elder Costa has a daughter serving in the Oakland Mission! He advised us to hold personal interviews with our children, urged us to use our phones more intentionally (only use them when we have an intention in mind)

I have been really sick this weekend with a bad cold and I wasn't sure if I should go to this fireside, I was feeling really achy and yucky. I felt that I really needed to go and so I made up my mind that I would go no matter how I was feeling. I got dressed to go and throughout the whole meeting I felt completely fine! It was a miracle!! As soon as I walked out I started feeling sick again, I know that I needed to be at that meeting and that the Lord helped me to be their and to be present! Haley and the youth are being taught by the same leaders tonight and I'm so excited to hear what they are taught when she comes home. I'm so grateful that we have these leaders that reach out to us and give us such great advice! It was so funny because Elder Ballard closed the meeting by saying that many people complain that the general authorities are old and don't know what's going on in the world and he said, that though they are old they DO know what's going on. They have families, friends and are among the people everyday. They're very knowledgeable about the issues that our youth are dealing with everyday. I'm so thankful for the gospel!

Week in Review...

Abby got a shirt from a lady in our ward who makes and sells dresses for a living, she was ecstatic! She wears it everyday and when I have to wash it, she gets really upset!

We got a bunch of dress up clothes from our neighbor and Abby was in dress-up heaven!

We had Activity days this week and made this cute Blessing Jars, hopefully every week the girls will place a piece of paper in their jar with something great that happened to them that week. Then at the end of the year, they can look back at all of their blessings.

Abby and I went to storytime on Thursday because I didn't have any daycare kids and at first she was very clingy to me but eventually she scooted closer and closer to the front. She would keep coming back to me, but I was encouraged that she would leave my side for a little bit. She even did a bit of dancing:)

Last Sunday night when Rick got home from work he was playing hide and seek with Abby. She thought it was the funniest thing, so I decided to hide too. Don't mind my messy bathroom....

Abby loves the song, Jesus wants me for a sunbeam and was singing it very dramatically after church. She didn't like the fact that Jacob kept, "messing her up!" and she didn't like me recording her. Whoops!

Week in Review..

These pics were on Ricks phone, from Castles n Coasters a few weeks back...

We have been going to the park a lot this week, I was able to take my daycare kids too. I was thinking a lot about our park this week...I am so grateful that we have a park just down the street from us...it is a gathering place for all of the neighborhood kids after school and for the moms too. I love that they have a large place to play and be creative and use their imaginations and get all of their energy out. I have great memories of playing at my elementary school's park Sunset growing up. I can remember when my Papa and Nana would come and we would walk down the street and show off all of our playground tricks to our grandparents. Such good memories can be made at the park, and I'm so grateful that we have one so close to us.

I was able to go to the Gilbert Temple tonight for our ward Temple Night, the Mesa temple is closed this month so it was a change of location. This was my first time being able to do an endowment session at the Gilbert Temple and it really was so beautiful. I love to go to the temple!

Rick had an MRI done on his knee last week and it showed that he injured his MCL and his ACL, he doesn't know the extent yet, he has an apt for the 20th this month to see a specialist.

Week in Review...

Yesterday we decided to go to the zoo on our Pogo Pass, since Rick's knee is feeling a little better and he can could go with us. We took lots of rest breaks for Rick, but we managed to have lots of fun and see a lot of the animals. We went to the petting zoo part of the zoo and Abby absolutely loved it! She wanted to pet each one of the goats, Ashlyn loved the goats that had beards.

Abby loved that the goats had a playground, she kept saying that they just wanted to rest and not go down the slide....

The elephant was so cute, it was swaying back and forth and playing with a garbage can...

 

 

On Friday Rick and I took Abby to the park, she loves having her daddy home for just her on Fridays:)

Abby did great in primary today! She was crying the whole way down the hall to the primary room, but one of the teachers held her and she immediately stopped crying and they told me that she even sat in her own chair for sharing time! yay!!!

Week in Review..

We had a fun week with the kids, went to a new park and played games, played with friends, etc.

I found this pic of Rick and his sister Kristy acting out the nativity when they were kids...so cute!

 We drove to a cool park in Chandler called Tumbleweed park, it was really cool. Most of the playground is under this barn like structure...

 Then we went to ikea and had lunch and Abby actually ate some mashed potatoes and chicken tender!

 On Friday, I got an email from our pogo pass that Castles N Coasters would no longer be accepting the pogo pass after Dec. 31st, so we hopped in the car to take advantage of this theme park before it was taken away. Abby was terrified of everything, but we finally convinced her to go on the carousel and I got her to go on the little roller coaster 2 times, although she was saying the whole time that she wanted to get off...

 The one ride that she did like was the log ride! Here she is with Rick on the top of the log ride!

We found out that Ashlyn gets motion sickness, she wasn't feeling good the whole time that we were at the park. We only lasted about 2 1/2 hrs, because she was getting really sick.

Rick played miniature golf with Ashlyn and Jacob before we left, overall it was a fun day at the park. We were glad that we were able to take advantage of going before it was taken away....it's the biggest advantage to getting the pogo pass, so hopefully they add another attraction soon!

On New Years Eve Ashlyn was invited over to Emilie's house to play games, while she was gone we did sparklers and had a fire....then Haley's friend Alyssa got dropped off and they hung out for awhile before I took them to the New Years Eve dance....

We went to bed around 10:30 and still woke up tired, that was a late night for us!!

Today was Abby's first day in sunbeams! I was really nervous and anxious about how she would do, I sent up many prayers before sacrament was over. As soon as sacrament was over she burst into tears, terrified that we were going to leave her in primary, and my heart dropped. This was not going well already! I held her as we walked to the primary room and one of her little friends was walking down the hall with us and I kept telling Abby how excited Lexi was and that she was so happy to be going to primary. When we got into the room she was still crying, but I had her sit in her little chair next to Lexi and kept telling her how fun it was going to be, just having her sit in the chair without gripping onto me was a small victory. I quietly told her teachers that she may need to be held and then while she was distracted I got up and walked away, she of course immediately saw me leaving and started to scream. All of the teachers in the room started telling me to keep walking and she'll be fine. As soon as I got out of her sight, I started worrying about what to do, I didn't want her to disrupt primary by screaming, but I also wanted her to know that she could do this on her own without me. A few minutes later she calmed down and apparently the rest of the time she was fine, she did need to be held but she didn't cry anymore! That's a huge victory in my book! It still breaks my heart that she has such anxiety about being away from me, but hopefully she will start to recognize that she can be ok with other people as well as me. Luckily Rick was able to come to church today and help me walk away, if he hadn't I probably would've sat outside the primary room the whole hour and kept peeking on her! Praying that the transition will go smoothly and that soon she will leave me without any problems!