we have made some good friends here in our new ward. they have a boy who is two weeks younger than abi and his name is luke. usually these two do pretty well together, but yesterday they were so onry at eachother…
at one point after running around the playground with abi, luke started singing, “luke just won, abi just lost,” over and over again. with the two of them being the oldest, it is quite the dynamic.
dan pestering brookie
the babs got a haircut last week. when we got home this is how it looked :)
this was yesterday after I round brushed it out.
we went shopping on Friday. we went into a store that didn’t have carts so I was holding brookie in one arm and shopping in the other. As I was checking out and juggling everything, suddenly there was sharp screaming behind me. I could not figure out what happened… did brookie hit her? there was nothing to hurt abi… or so I thought.
she has taken some perfume off the table next to us and had, like a big girl, sprayed it… in her EYE!!! thankfully I was the only one in the store. it was quite embarrassing because I was so overwhelmed by all I was trying to do. But the employees were so sweet to us as we sorted out the mess.
lesson learned? hope so.
last week I had the opportunity to teach a class at our RS party about sacrifice. It was based on President Uchtdorf’s talk called “Forget Not” given in the October 2011 general conference. You can find the whole talk here.
Here are some of my thoughts and a handout that I gave to the women.
sacrifice
And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order. – Mosiah 4:27
To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven – Ecclesiastes 3:1
Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward. – D&C 58:26-27
Never at any time in our history have we needed stronger families and homes… the strength required to fortify our homes comes from personal revelation. Personal revelation comes more easily when we prioritize correctly.
Sister Beck taught, “when our priorities are out of order we lose power. If we need power and influence to carry out our mission, then our priorities have to be straight” (Julie B. Beck BYU Women’s Conference 2010).
Essential Things- what things must be taken care of and if I don’t take care of them, the blessings of eternal life won’t be mine or my family’s?
Necessary Things- what is necessary to create an environment or climate where the spirit of the Lord can be?
Nice-to-do Things- these are crafts, hobbies and recreational things. They add variety to our lives but these things won’t save us. When our time is devoted to those nice-to-do things, our priorities are out of order and we lose power.
- and my own – the Throw Outs- those things that shouldn’t even make it to our priority list.
President Pendleton (our stake pres) talked about some of the things that are essential for us in this past stake conference. Those things were, Family Home Evenings, family scripture study, prayer (personal and family), and having family meals together.
It may be hard to “sacrifice” the things that are nice-to-dos, but you will be surprised how many of those things you will get done if you put the essential things first. Take some time to prayfully ponder upon what your priorities are. As Sister Beck taught, “Remember, the Lord knows what you and your family need to be strong. He wants to give you that important information.”
-Ideas taken from Julie B. Beck’s talk at the BYU Women’s Conference 2010
Then I had the sisters write out their priorities on the back of the handout under the columns of the categories above.
I shared with the RS sisters how I had to put my priorities in the right order two years ago. This is the short version of it- I was dancing so much and having so much success. It felt amazing and I was fulfilling my life goals AND showing abi that you can put your mind to anything and do it. But we couldn’t get pregnant because I was dancing so much. We tried to keep both – dance and baby, but my body just couldn’t do both. After much prayer and a lot of months, I came to the conclusion that I needed to stop ballroom… within two months I was pregnant. I know I made the right choice even though it still causes some pain when I watch or hear about the ballroom world.
As I was discussing this with a friend she was telling me how grateful she was that she attended the class. She said, “I appreciate your honesty and openness in sharing your experience. I think as mothers we all get those feelings of what we could have done and where we would be if we weren’t sitting on the floor with kids, toys, and food all over us. I know we have all been in that boat…”
Then Abi piped in, “Oh, I have been on a boat with grandma Thomas – the one with the long hair.”
Yet again, my child does not miss a beat.
so dan and I had to get ourselves back into p90x this past monday. it was SO tough. we had taken a ten day break because we were both sick. so we got up and started our strength training workout.
we were dying. I was dying. Dan was dying. after about 20 minutes he was almost furious that he would have lost so much strength in just those ten days. we keep track of our progress on sheets of paper so we know how many reps and how much weight we did last time to make goals for this time around. Dan checked out his paper and just was shocked the he could only get about half of what he was doing.
then the confession kicked in-
Dan’s weights are adjustable. there is a bar like a mini dumbbell to exchange weights. well, he previously was lifting thirteen pound weights. you wanna know what he was lifting monday morning? – TWENTY THREE flipping pounds!
no wonder!
And, of course, when I pointed it out to him, I laughed and told him he made it to confessions.
we braved attended the sandy expo center home and garden show the other week. we were so lucky to have dan’s sister in town so we could go with her and her two kids. Abi was in heaven being able to play with Rome and Capri. and all the kids were in heaven because uncle dan was there.
don’t you love abi’s face in this photo? just listening to her coach dad telling her she can just let go.
these girls were so tuckered out!
so we had leprechauns visit our home and make us breakfast this past Saturday for st. Patrick's day.
Dan and abi had pots of gold on their plate and we ate green monsters with green kiwi and green milk! Abi was thrilled! it was a fun morning!
let me share with you what this girl is like with some examples-
last saturday dan and I were taking a nap. brookie was down and abi was watching a movie. about 20 mintues into our nap dan heard the front door open and close. it registered to him a bit later what he really heard… abi leaving. In her words she “ran away to play.” talked about freaked out! thankfully dan handled it because I would have done things a bit differently than he did. anyway, she had gone ACROSS and down the street to another house that was having a baby shower for the women and cases of beer for the men in the back. (I had seen them packing them in earlier that day). it was a really tough, learning situation for all of us here in this household. it was the first time we had ever had to really talk about how to give a consequence and how to really teach abi what is correct and not correct behavior. we wanted to give a “natural” consequence and not give something that would instill a hate… like giving her work. we don’t want her to think that work is a punishment (at least for this situation). so we chose that she is only allowed to play in the back yard for the time being, and when the other neighbors are out playing basketball, she isn’t allowed to go out for one time. If Abi run away again, she gets her beloved piggy blanket taken away… that brought some tears when we talked about this with her over FHE last night
We didn’t know how she would really take this whole idea of consequences for her action to run away. Would it even hit home? Well, about ten minutes after we talked to her, she heard the neighbors out playing basketball. When she realized that she couldn’t go out, she started crying. As much as it hurt to watch, Dan and I went around the corner and gave each other high fives! it worked!
abi asked for a “top knot” just like mine today.
and then there is this side of her… a conversation in the car today-
abi: (out of the blue) I wish I had a cape so I could save the world
me: oh? where did you learn about that?
abi: I don’t know… (silence)… Jesus and I are going to save the world
me: and does Jesus have a cape?
Abi: oh yeah, it’s just in his closet
only a girl would say he has one in his closet…
so as most of you know we got some frogs for Valentine’s day and I gave you an update a couple of weeks ago. Well, I sure feel like you need some more updating-
the night Dan brought home the new set of frogs (Abi thought our original three were back from vacation) Dan and I were headed out on a date so we had a baby sitter come. About 20 minutes into dinner we got a call from Caity saying that they had lost a frog and couldn’t find it. Dan just laughed… which I am sure scared Caity half to death.
We got home from the date an hour or so later and started searching for the frog. He was found tangled in a blanket and returned home. Saved! Three frogs from six still.
two days later- abi played with one of the frogs all morning. later in the afternoon abi mentioned that one of the frogs was on its back. I thought nothing of it… until I walked past the terrarium and thought, “frogs don’t swim on their backs.” then did a double take… I fished him out of the water and he landed in the trash can. It was tough- I didn’t want to tell Abi that the reason he had passed on was because he was handled too much. I left that up to Dan to do later that night. Down to two frogs from 6 total.
two days later- we were up at 6am doing p90x yoga. About half way into our salutations, Dan jumped his feet back into plank and jumped onto something squishy on the carpet. TMI I am sure, but you just have to know! Yep, a frog. I was sick to my stomach when I saw Dan get out of position to look at something and say, “and that was a frog.” Just so matter-of-factly. I could hardly get back into meditating. Try it sometime- Seriously, it is a good thing I wasn’t the one who stepped on it. Dan says that it was already shriveled up. It had to be… it was at least 12 hours from when they were played with last, AND one flight of stairs and 15 feet from the stairs away. It would be like you dying in the desert. Yet again we had to talk to Abi about taking care of the frogs, making sure they (now it) gets back into the jar, and not handling them too much. This was the 8th of March. Down another frog. One left.
And to this day, we haven’t seen it. I am almost afraid to go searching in the terrarium for it. Even kind of afraid to open the lid to smell it. I told Dan he and Abi were in charge of finding it in there.
Hmmm… was this a good idea? Were the Thomas’ meant to have frogs? My answer to that is yes and no. We have great stories to tell about it. We think Abi learned a bit about responsibility… we think… we hope. It is so much better than a $500 dog. Would we do it again? Yes; but not for a while.
yesterday
abi was carrying brookie (unknown to me), dropped her and brookie fell into our bed frame- goose egg on the right “head fore”
brookie fell out of the baby doll stroller (didn’t know she was even in there… thanks abi) onto our concrete pad on knees and head – gash on left “head fore”
brookie looks like she is trying to sprout horns
today
abi smasher her fingers in a drawer (all except for her thumb she will tell you)
abi fell out of the car onto our driveway – on her head
abi tumbled down the stairs (9 of them) – and tumbled is the right words
needless to say, I have been dishing out loves and kisses around her with two, sad mama’s girls
the other week we had a family night on our home and how we can make it like the temple. for our activity we blessed our home and then for our treat we built our home… these are the results-
These beauts are from an afternoon of play- and let me tell you that these ARE all posed… by abi herself. I was laughing the whole time at her creativity.
