Although we only spent about 6 hours shopping yesterday, it still really flared me up. For some reason my legs swelled up and I had to come home around 1:00 p.m. and get off of them. I am not sure how it relates to my disease, but anytime I am on my feet too long, my calves, ankles and feet swell which cause them to ache like no other. My daughter thinks that it has to do with my lungs not being able to circulate the blood quick enough through my body. Not sure but just another fun and exciting symptom of this wonderful disease! haha!
Once I stayed off of them for about 12 hours the swelling slowly went down and by late afternoon I was ready to solicit my families help and start setting up our Christmas decorations. The best part of today was spending the night with Ireland, decorating not only our house, but also dolling her with her Santa hat and P.J's. We had fun watching the movie, "Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer," and playing with the North Pole Fisher Price village that we set up together today!
Christmas is going to be such a blast with this little one this year!
Having Fun watching Christmas movies and playing with Ireland
Loving this Christmas stuff
"My Santa Baby"
Such a fun and eventful day getting ready for Christmas with Ireland today!
Today was the girls annual hunting for bargains day…or in other words our Shopping day! We have never referred to it as Black Friday, but rather a day full of fun being with daughters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, sister-in-laws, and anyone and everyone who is up for a fun filled adventurous day!
I have not agreed with the stores start to creep up the Friday Shopping Day into Thanksgiving! I feel this day is a day where we need to give thanks to everyone and everything we have in our lives! A day to ponder our many blessings and share our time and love with the ones who matter most to us! I really dislike that retail is caving in and opening their stores on this holiday just to make a buck! It is just not fair that people should be away from their families on this day.
We started our shopping day early Friday morning at 4:30am. My two girls and my mom went with me this year! We were so excited to spend the entire day together. Last year I was not feeling well and so we were not able to go on this day and had to go a week later.
I was so thankful to have had a good day and could go and be with my girls and my mom today!
Here are some pics from all of our fun!
In order to show our gratitude to our Father and Heaven, Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and our families, we need to lose ourselves in service to others.
May we remember this today on a day where we are thankful for everything we are and everything we have. We follow our Savior as we serve others unselfishly.
On our way to Thanksgiving Dinner
Our Silly Family pic at Thanksgiving Dinner
I Love my Family. We missed Kaylee, Bubba, and Ireland as they went to Bubba's Family this year!
Dinner was at Kevin and Stacie's House this year
The Whole Gang!
Kim, Tyler, Kevin, and Casey are all brothers and we all got together this year with their families.
After dinner we all went to the local high school to watch the boys play a funny game of football!
C'Jay kicking the ball
C'Jay passing
The old guys vs. the young guys! haha
Tyler and Kim trying to catch the ball
Kim trying to catch up with J'Dee…while J'Dee just laughs at his dad
J'Dee kicks for a field goal!
Kim and Tyler going at it!
On the way home from dinner we stopped by a store and found these huge teddy bears for a great deal for Niah and Ireland!
Yesterday, when I taught the lesson in Young Womens, I took this picture of Kim and I when we were married. At the very beginning of the lesson when I was telling the girls that we were going to talk about overcoming trials I showed them this picture.
Kim and I on March 25, 1988
I told them that the reason we are jumping is not only because we were just married, but because of the fact that we MADE it to the temple. I shared with them how much I wanted to be sealed in the temple with my eternal companion ever since I was a little girl. I shared with them that the journey there was hard and very difficult at times as I navigated through my own difficult teenage years but finally being able to make it there was nothing short of amazing!
Andrew and Kaylee, May 22, 2010
This is my daughter, Kaylee, and her husband, Andrew. When they were married 4 years ago they too wanted to do a jumping picture in front of the temple like ours. I have these hanging in our front entry way in our home as a reminder to my family the importance of being sealed together forever in the House of the Lord!
Today I had the opportunity to be able to teach a lesson in the Laurels class today. It was my first time to teach since I had been called about a month ago. Shortly after being called to be an advisor for the 16-18 year old girls in my ward. For some reason I knew that my first lesson would be sharing with these girls about overcoming their hard times and never giving up.
This past month I have been able to get to know the girls both at church and at their activities. Through this I have been able to witness first hand that they all have something in common with one another! THEY ALL HAVE STRUGGLES! Although each youth struggles with a different trial, they all have them.
As I prayed what to teach these young women I notice that the lesson outline for November was on overcoming challenges. I knew I needed to open up to these girls and share the trials I went through as a youth and show them that what I went through as a young women made me stronger and more able to handle the current struggles I am going through now!
I have to admit I was pretty nervous about teaching. I know that when I feel the spirit I get emotional and my chest tightens, which affects my breathing and can cause a breathing attack… I prayed so hard to not only know what to teach these girls but also to have the health and strength to be able to teach what the Lord wanted me to teach to these girls! I was also anxious at how my daughter Shaniah who is in the class would handle me as her teacher! I knew the Lord wanted me there for a reason and that I must just trust Him and allow him to work through me to share with these young women how I make it through each trial I am faced with.
I began my lesson by sharing my story of when I was a gymnast, swimmer, and diver and all the adversity I went through (I shared that story in a post on this blog back on Sept. 4, 2014). I could feel the spirit so strong as I opened up and shared my story with them. I showed this video to explain how we can handle our struggles.
As a class we discussed some key points of the video and how they can help us overcome our trials.
If we have faith we can handle
difficulties. If we keep an eternal perspective through our challenges we know
all will be well
Replace Fear with FAITH
We will all have heartaches and
challenges… but be patient with yourself , perfection comes not in this life
but in the next.
Don’t demand things that are
unreasonable but only improvement.
Allow the Lord to help you through
your struggles and HE will make the difference.
Gospel allows us to find the
strength we need in theses tough times.
We then talked about different ways to overcome trials using quotes, scriptures, and stories that I handed out to each girl. What was truly amazing to me is how much each young woman started to open up and share what they were going through and how much they felt what they read was just for them.
I told them that everyone
has challenges and NO one is immune from them, The Lord has made it that way so
that we can grow and become what He wants us to be! If we never have challenges or taste of the
bitter how will we ever know the sweet!
There was so much more we talked about and shared during the lesson that I can't remember the half of it. But the one thing I will not ever forget is that by the end of the lesson I knew each girl was touched by the spirt. Each had shed their own tears at sometime during that lesson. I know it was not me because I was only the mouth piece for the Lord and tried to share those things that the girls needed to hear. Only He knows what each one of those girls needed and I was so thankful that I could be an instrument in His hands today. I ended with my testimony of how trials strengthen us and refine us and help us become more than we could ever become on our own. I then talked about the Savior and the atonement and how it allows us to come unto him to be forgiven, strengthened, and find more joy as we endure the hardships in this life.
I rode home in the car with my daughter Shaniah and asked her if what she thought about the lesson today. She started to cry and told me "Mom, this is exactly what we need, We need to know that we are not the only ones going through struggles and to know how to get help when we need it."
Her comment touched my heart so much and I was so thankful to the Lord for giving me the strength I needed to get through the lesson and by allowing the Holy Ghost to help these girls feel the spirt and gain the hope they needed to Never Give Up!
I gave the girls this handout to remind them of todays lesson.
The guys in our family went out of town to go hunting for elk, so we decided, as girls, to go shopping and out to lunch today. We took Ireland with us and went to the mall. She loved seeing Santa at the mall and riding the merry-go-round!
Ireland and Grandma
She chose the buck to ride each time.
Loved to wave!
We had a fun day together and my favorite part was her seeing Santa for the first time. Kaylee and Andrew have been teaching her what Santa says. But she interprets it as HA HA HA and not HO HO HO! So when she saw him for the first time at the mall it was through the fencing.
He even waved to her!!
We did squeeze in some shopping and lunch today! It was such a fun but exhausting day!
Today was a great day! I was so excited to be able to teach FHE today. I had been thinking all week on how to incorporate the importance of gratitude into our family of young adults, teens, and grand baby! So I came up with an idea I found online. I made a gratitude tree out of branches from an old tree in our yard. I then broke them into smaller pieces and placed them in a vase. I then used cinnamon pinecones and placed in the bottom of the vase for a nice smell and fall look. I used burlap ribbon and tied around the neck of the vase. I then used my cricket and made leaves in fall colors. So easy and so much fun!
I then made one for our house and one for my married daughters house. I told my other children they will get their own gratitude tree once they are married and have a place of their own!
Our Gratitude tree… Each day we write something else on a leaf and place it on the tree.
I also had an idea to start for my grandkid(s) this year..
I found a roll of burlap that I bought at Walmart for cheap and used it as a table runner!
I then bought stencils and acrylic paint.
I stenciled Grandma's Little Turkeys down the center. For the border of this table runner I am going to let my grandkids dip their hand in acrylic paint and make a turkey! I will then write their names and year by their turkey. Each year as they grow they will place a new handprint on the runner and see how big they have grown each year! I am going to help Ireland do it next FHE! I will post a picture of that next week….We will see how it goes with a one year old and acrylic paint!!! haha!
My kids found it funny that I only have one grand baby and such a huge runner! But I told them it is their responsibility to make sure I have plenty of little hands to fill it up!!! haha
Lesson on Gratitude (Never thought my family would love it like they did)
My gratitude lesson seemed to be a hit with my family and I thought I would share part of it! My goal was to not only help my family realize how important it is to be humble and grateful for all we have but also I wanted to teach them how to show their gratitude by serving others.
Attention Activity: I passed around a roll of toilet paper and told them all to take what they need. Some took a little and some took a lot. There was a lot of kidding and joking because I did not tell them what my lesson was about. After they all had their handful of toilet paper they then had to write one thing they were grateful for on each square of toilet paper. My hubby only took one square but some kids thought they were especially funny and took a ton!
We then watched this video: http://www.mormonchannel.org/give-back. This video was to really helped us appreciate just how lucky we are for everything we have and the country we live in!
After the video we talked about the things the family in this movie were grateful for. We compared it to what we take for granted every day! I had some quotes I shared with my family.
"What if we woke up tomorrow with what we thanked God for today."
"We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude."
"In the blink of an eye, your life can change due to disease. Your goal, dreams. and priorities are force to take different turns. You are grateful for the little things. and worry less about the big things. You leave behind the history of yesterday and determine how you will use today's energy . This is your life and there is not time for drama!"
"I've learned….that is not what I have in my life but who I have in my life that counts."
After our discussion on gratitude and realizing how grateful we are for everything in our lives. We then discussed different ways to show our gratitude to both our Father in Heaven as well as others in our lives.
I wanted my family to see that by giving back to others we truly show are appreciation for everything we have. We then watched this music video. I had no idea that this would have such an impact on my family and get them to do more than I had ever even hoped!
After watching this video I proposed to my family that we do these types of random acts of kindness for our service in December. Little did I think that they would all get so excited about, and since we have 7 weeks till Christmas, they wanted to do our "Make A Bad Day Good" project starting next week. They all started sharing ideas of what they wanted to do. We then decided since we have 7 teens/adults that each person would take a week and pick the random acts of kindness that we would do for that week.
Everyone was so super excited about this #Bad Day Good Project. I was so touched by this and realized that we were missing this key component in our family lately. Since becoming sick I think the focus became on inside our home and not so much outside our home like we had down in years past. I realized just how much they love serving others and I am really excited and GRATEFUL they all wanted to be a part of this awesome project over the next two months!
Tonight my hubby and I were able to go to the temple and out to dinner! We really enjoyed going out together! The temple is the perfect place to find peace in such a busy and crazy world! We were so excited to finally take a break from the hustle and bustle of this world and go to the Lord's house!
Oquirrh Mountain Temple
Sitting outside by the fountain
I am so grateful for having temples so close to us! I know we take this for granted all too often as people around the world travel many hours and even days to get to their temple! How blessed we are to see three temples from our home! We can see the Oquirrh Mountain, Draper, and Jordan River Temples. I know we could see the Salt Lake temple too if were just a bit closer to town!
Tonight I enjoyed spending the night with my hubby, we talked about our kids, grand baby and the grand-baby on the way. We also felt such peace in the temple once again that each of our children must struggle in their own individual way in order for them to grow and develop into the person the Lord wants them to become! As parents we must step back and let them learn and grow through their own choices! I know the importance to love them unconditionally, always be there for them, and continue to try our best in our own individually lives! I know if we do this the Lord will help our family in His own time and in His own way! We must be patient and loving parents during this process!
I am so thankful for the peace and knowledge the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into my life and I do not know how I would have ever survived all of my trials without it! I know the Savior can make much more out of my life as well as the lives of each of my children than I ever could!
As a family today we had a special fast and prayed for people struggling in our family! We then went to church. In sacrament meeting my daughter Shaniah was on her phone during part of the meeting. I was wondering what she was doing. She leaned over to me to show me what she had been working on.
This completely touched my heart and my eyes filled up with tears as I felt her testimony from her post! I know life has been a struggle for her this past year and a half and watching her have the courage to share her testimony over social media to over 500 of her friends and followers was such an amazing example of where she is at in her life right now!
I know she still has difficult days ahead but I have watched Shaniah allow her struggles to not pull her down but instead build her up! I have seen the Lord put her through her own refiners fire at such a young age and have seen just how strong she is becoming because of these challenges!
As parents, our greatest desire is to create an eternal family unit! We want nothing more than to have everyone of our children with us eternally someday! I know my husband and I together with the Lord have made it possible by being married in the temple for time and all eternity…. now it is up to our children to choose whether they want to join us there. I know the sealing power is real and I am forever grateful for this opportunity which would allow our family to be together forever!
Today I know my daughter has her sight set on the temple and my hope and prayer is that she will continue in that goal and never settle for something she wants most for something she might want in the moment!
I love you Niah! You are an amazing and special Daughter of our Father in Heaven! He loves you so much and is so proud of the woman you are becoming and so are we!
