Today is Mine

I woke up today with this song in my head so I thought I'd jot it down.

Today is mine, some heart to bless....In sympathy and thoughtfulness.
Our blessed Savior's cross to bear, in toil, in faith, in love and prayer.
Today is mine, of precious use, today is mine.

Today is mine to speak the word.  Repeat the story I have heard...
That grows more blessed hour by hour...the message of God's love and power.
Today is mine, of life to tell, today is mine

Today is mine, though quickly gone...for mine no more it passes on.
Oh let me work to do His will...His mission for me to fulfill.
Today is mine, of grace divine, today is mine.

I love the words to this song...it's always been one of my favorites mum taught us.  The words have never touched me like they did today though. 
I've been feeling unsettled as I see the days ( and my life) going by so quickly and feeling like I'm not accomplishing very much.  I think this might be God's gentle reminder that I need to get my act together and do something more with my life.  I surely have been blessed with the best of circumstances in my life...being born into a wonderful family and raised by faithful, loving parents that taught me the gospel...finding a great man to share my life and my forever with, being blessed with four beautiful, amazing, delightful children and just living a pretty wonderful life. When I think about it, I'm filled to the top with gratitude to my Heavenly Father.  I've been given so much...I know the way to thank Him is to take these words and put them into action...take advantage of every new day and live, love and serve to the best of my ability.  I'm grateful for another day to try to do better...Today is Mine! 

This is a random bunch of pictures from this past week...I can't believe it's Saturday again!  I feel like time is going by so fast...I'm pretty sure yesterday was just Monday!  ( I heard that's what happens when you get older... dang it!  I must be older now!) 

 Lunch with Candice at Cafe Rio...it's becoming a habit.  We try to go other places, but then when we think about it, all we want is the Cafe Rio salad with dressing that I'm pretty sure they put crack in...so we end up going back there.

Poor Sammy has been sick again...Camille took him back to the doctor and found out the tube in his ear has fallen out and he has another ear  infection.  NOOOOOOOO!  I feel so bad for him.  He's such a happy, good natured little guy, you'd never know he was sick.  ( except for the fact that he keeps Camille up all night)

KC found out that they were coming out with a new translation of the Book of Mormon in Russian.  He said the one they used on his mission had some mistakes in it that made it sound odd, so he was excited when he heard about this new one.  We went up to the distribution center and they told him they hadn't gotten any of them yet and to check at the main distribution center.  So we went over there last week and saw that they had been back ordered.  So he ordered one to be sent to our house.

He was pretty happy when it came...it's a leather bound triple combination.

This is him checking it out to see if the proper corrections were made in it.  Yes!

He's a great example as he reads everyday from the Book of Mormon.

We have been trying to read together every evening we are all home.  I love talking about what we have read and sharing experiences and learning more from each other.

I just feel really grateful for this time we have with KC.

 Hi Lizzy

Kelley brought me a beautiful bunch of flowers that sure brightened my day.  He's just the best!

Oh I got to do the coolest thing last night.  The sister missionaries have been calling on me here and there to drive them around or go visit some people in the ward with them.

They had asked me to go visit a lady who they had been teaching for a little while with them last night.  This lady is a catholic and her husband is a less active Mormon.

She was very sweet and welcoming to us and you could tell the sisters had a good relationship with her.  We talked for a little while, then she said in her broken English ( her and sister Abarka spoke Spanish  mostly)  " I have something to tell you...I want to be honest with you"  It was just like on the best two years...I was waiting for her to say she wasn't interested in the church, but instead she said  " I feel so bad...with everything that's been going on this past week, I didn't have time to read the scriptures you asked me to!"  Oh wow, you could see the sisters take a sigh of relief!  They were like " Oh it's ok...we can read them together now!"  So we took turns reading about Nephi and how he was a great prophet and prophesied of things that would happen if the people did not repent.    Then they told her about how we have a prophet today that leads and guides us and receives revelation from our Heavenly Father. 

They went on to tell her how Heavenly Father loves us so much, that he gives us a prophet to guide us and warn us so we will  know what we need to do to be able to return to Him.

They did a really good job. 

Then sister Abarka asked her if she believed the things she had read and what they had taught her.  She said yes.  Then she told her that if she believed these things, then would she make a commitment to be baptized.  She said she was not sure if she was ready.  Sister Abarka told her they wouldn't want her to make this commitment unless she was ready.

Then sister Kurtz asked her if she would pray with us before we left.  She said yes and gave her prayer in Spanish.  I could pick out some of the words, but didn't really need to know what she was saying because the spirit was there.  She finished her prayer and when she looked up at us, her cheeks were wet with tears.  

Sister Abarka said " Because you asked with a sincere heart, the spirit is bearing witness to you."  We all had tears then as she hugged us and thanked us for bringing this gospel to her.   They made an appointment to see her again next week and left her with some scriptures to read.

She spoke to sister Abarka in Spanish as we walked to the door, and I saw sister Abarka's face light up.  When we got out to the side walk, she just kind of blurted out and squealed "She said she would accept our challenge to be baptized next month!"  I don't think the sisters feet touched the ground all the way to the car, as they hugged and thanked Heavenly Father for sending them to this special lady.

Wow, it was pretty amazing to get to be there to witness that special moment.  

 

So, that happened...

A few things from this last week. 

 First of all, my adorable grand kids...  they got their package!

Yeah!  Jammies fit!

Camille took Olivia to register for school next year.  I can't believe it...she's going to kindergarten! 

They gave her this t-shirt and she is really excited about it!  "Grandma!  My school has a library and the library is IN the school!" ( She told me that 4 times!)  She was really happy about that!  Thank you  Camille for helping her to love the library!

 Her hair is gorgeous!  I was thinking about how her hair came in at first...  still one of my favorite pictures!

 What in the world?...We will be coming right down there to regulate!

Sam's jammies fit too! ( I think they might be on backwards..buttons in the back)  He is getting to be such a big boy!  Sure am missing those kids!

So a few funny things happened ( funnier now than at the time)  Lizzy has been acting kind of strange lately...this picture...not so unusual...she loves to roll around on the grass and dirt and pooh and what ever else is out there.  I had to brush her down good before she could come back in the house...then I wished I hadn't let her in...she came down stairs and threw up on the stairs...then came over and threw up on my yarn.  ( I had been working on a baby blanket and it was about half done) .  It was like watching slow motion and we couldn't do anything to stop it.   NO NO NO! Lizzy!  but it was too late.  How do you wash puke out of yarn? 

Saturday was such a nice day, we decided to go over to Willow pond and fish for a bit. 

First, I went to a wedding shower for Ryan B's wife.  She is really sweet and friendly.  It was nice to see a lot of friends from the old ward and get to visit a while.  Sure miss the weekly association with them.

Anyway, we went over to the pond and fished for a while.  It was sunny, but when the wind blew it was pretty cold, so we didn't stay too long.

It made me anxious for spring and fishing with my boys again.

(I know Kelley says I've been banned from the boat because of a few comments I made ( alright, the only criteria of being nice, necessary or true was the true part, so I probably shouldn't have made the comment about how they didn't really need the fish counter they were considering buying when we were at Pro Bass shop)  but I hope he will reconsider when it gets warm enough to go....please?  Sorry?

Ok, so another crazy thing happened  on Sunday morning.  ( I hope these dumb things don't come in threes)  I had got up early to get ready for church.  I had to put the numbers up for the hymns, so I figured I had to be early enough to do that.  Well I was all ready by 8:30 and remembered I was going to make a marinade for the flank steak we were going to have for dinner.  I thought I had plenty of time, so I got it all put together except for the tomato sauce.  I found a can in the back of the cupboard and went to open it.  As soon as I snapped the can opener down, it exploded!  It was like something you would see in the movies...it just went everywhere...but mostly on me.  All over my face, hair, and my white sweater... ( just realized it was all over the kitchen ceiling this morning!) 

 I screamed and just stood there dripping tomato sauce for a few seconds, then realized I HAD to be at church in about 10 minutes, so I ran upstairs and tried to clean off my face and hair.  I had to wash the front of my hair cause it was just dripping with sauce.  And I was scared I was going to get botulism through the pores in my face, so I scrubbed my face down too.

Oh and in the mean time, I had stuck my sweater in the sink and scrubbed all the tomato sauce off...I couldn't really believe it actually came out!  Then I threw it in the dryer and turned it on high!

I blow dried my hair and redid my make up.  By this time, it was about 10 to 9.  I checked my sweater and it was.....almost dry, so I just threw it on and ran out the door.

I think Kelley could tell I was a bit flustered when I walked into the church!  He gave me a hug though and we laughed about it.  Then brother Binns helped me get the  hymn numbers up quick and I plopped into my seat just as bishop got up to conduct.

I felt super self conscious standing up there leading the music though...I was pretty sure there was still tomato sauce on my somewhere.  ( I actually found some big splots of it back in my hair when I got home from church  Ha!)

Then to top it off, Vicky had asked me if I would substitute for her in Primary.  I was like "sure!"  Then when I got in there I realized it was the sunbeam class.  Usually, I would prefer the sunbeam class, but this class had 9 kids in it and one of them was Colton. 

 I do love this little boy...you just can't help it!  ("Hi Keddy!  Hi Keddy!)  He is so full of energy though...I really believe he can't stop himself from being naughty. He would not sit on the chair form more than 3 seconds....no exageration.  Opening exercises were  pretty funny when I look back on it now..at the time, not so much. 

There was another little girl that was kind of sick with a runny nose that wanted to sit on my lap the whole time and cried when I tried to put her on a chair, and then there were these twin boys that were quite a handful too...just typical boy.  Anyway, there was a good little girl sitting next to me, then Colton was sitting ( not really) next to her.  All the sudden, this little girl starts screaming..."Colton hit me!"...Even as she said that, he kept punching her.  I tried to grab him to make him stop, but he ran away...so I tried to get up and chase him, but that meant I had to put the runny nose girl down, so then she started crying too.  HA!   It was wild in there!

The presidency and music leader were trying to help too, but could see I needed some help, so they went and got Andrea to help me.

The regular teacher showed up just before we went to class.  Oh man I was glad.

This woman has the patience of Job....totally kind, loving and patient with each of the kids.  And so cute with them!   She had a whole bag of fun things and games and animals for them to play with.  Most all of the kids responded to her and would do what she asked....except Colton and runny nose girl. ( I think she just didn't feel very good) 

The teacher had a great system worked out where the helper ( that's me) would give gold fish crackers to any of the kids that were sitting on their chair.  They started out really good and would sit on their chair while she gave them the lesson and I quietly passed out the gold fish.  Then the twins got a little greedy and jumped up and started yelling " I want 5! I want 5! "  Apparently one for each hand was not enough.  I tried to explain how they had to be sitting in their chairs in order to get any gold fish.  But when the other kids thought the twins were going to get more gold fish than they were, there was a mutiny and they attacked me and the bag of gold fish. 

Even the teacher was  starting to lose it now, but still gave them the cutest lesson about how Heavenly Father loves them.    She is my new hero.

By the time class was over, it was pretty much mass hysteria.  The little girl with the runny nose was laying by the door crying " I wan't daddy!' and the rest of the kids were running around the room hitting each other with the stuffed animals the teacher had brought....Not the look your going for when mom and dad come to pick up the kids...but oh well, that's the way it was.

It was funny though cause after church, I was in the hall talking to Carol and Kim and I feel these little arms wrap around my legs.  I looked down and it was runny nose girl. I bent down and she gave me a big hug and said "I love you!'  I guess that's what gives the teacher the strength and courage to come back and spend two hours wrangling those kids, week after week...just love.

I went home with a doozer of a headache, but a sweet feeling of love in my heart.

We had another fun day on Saturday. 

After chatting about what was going on with the house, ( some new really ridiculous problems....the bank wants Boyd to fix up the out buildings before he can get the loan...like fixing the greenhouse  roof, and removing the lead paint on the garage....really?  They said if someone should eat the paint off the garage it would be toxic.  Ha Ha Ha...is this bank for real?  Anyway, Boyd is trying to reason with them and hopefully get things moving forward.) we decided we needed to really finish up in the rooms we have just been kind of moving things around in.  So we finished up in the north bedroom upstairs...then went into mums bedroom.  That has been our storage room for all the DI stuff and other stuff we didn't want to deal with.

All of the scrap books and picture albums were in there.  We divided them up and each took a few home to get the pictures out of the we wanted.

We had set aside mum's floss for another time, so we decided to tackle that.  It was pretty funny when we went through each color, then realized after we had picked the bigger pieces, that we were dividing up little pieces of string!  Ha!  We didn't care!  Just fun to be able to spend this time together.

We went out in the back room and cleaned out those cupboards too.  Found these cool iron on patterns we had used....probably about 50 years ago!  It was neat to find ones that we remembered stitching.  This was the first sewing thing I can remember mum teaching me how to do....and probably started my love of stitchery.   She would let us pick what ever pattern we wanted  (she had a lot of them!) then she would iron it onto the flour sack dish cloths (the best towels!) for us.  Then she would get us a hoop, needle and some floss. 

I remember her sitting with me, patiently teaching me the different stitches ...back stitch, lazy daisy, french knots, and cross stitch.  We made a simple cross stitch picture in Merry Miss class (I was about 11)  that said "I will bring the light of the gospel into my home"   and mum made it into a pillow for my bed.  That probably started my obsession.

 Teina made these wonderful reprints for us from some special pictures that were hanging in the house...I  know it wasn't easy...they were not in good shape...but the copies turned out great!  Thanks so much for doing that for us!

 This is daddy when he was 1.

 This was a painting Kay Holman did of daddy on his horse.  She is a wonderful artist that  was a good friend to my parents and still lives just down the street from them. 

 These are a few of my favorite pictures I got out of the albums mum had put together...

 So cute! Love those matching outfits!

She had this great picture of Kelley's mom and dad

This was a good one of daddy's 80th birthday party

This is how I like to remember Christmas

 Katie was like a second mother for KC... which formed a bond that has just grown sweeter and stronger over the years.

Candice on her Baptism day....so sweet!

Ha!  I was tickled to come across this one...Yes!  I was the Providence dairy princess!  I still remember how I loved that hot pink dress mum made for me!

Kate with Candice and Denise.  They are just a month apart in age and had lots of fun growing up together.

Just a few thoughts from the past few days...

I've been going through some of the things I brought home from mum's last week.  We cleaned out her filing cabinet and each of us took a stack of folders home. Mom was really organized!  I hope to be this organized some day, but that would really take some doing!

Anyway, I had a folder that was neatly labeled "Letters".  It was full of old letters from friends and family.  I spent a lovely afternoon strolling through the past thirty or so years of mum and daddy's life....through the eyes of their friends and loved ones.

It was wonderful and humbling to read the many thank you notes and letters from friends, family, and people I had never heard of....thanking them for acts of kindness or service they had given to them.

They truly touched and influenced so many lives.

Been missing mum a lot lately. It feels like yesterday when she was here with us....it was January 10 when she came down here to live with us, so this time of year brings all those memories back to the surface. ( every time I turn on the tv and The price is right, or Jeopardy is on, I get a pang of lonliness for her)  That was a very special time for me. 

I've decided I really like the way the Japanese people take care of and honor their elderly family members.  I like how they keep their family together with the parents living with their married children. 

 I love the idea of them not having to be alone when their spouse dies, still feeling like they were needed and loved.  They could teach their grandchildren so much and influence their lives for good....not to mention all the joy having children around would bring to them.  I wish our culture was more like that. 

Don't worry Camille..I'm just sayin...

This was a picture Candice found from about a year and a half ago.  Camille and Candice had gone up there with me and we spent a good day with mom.  We sang some of the oldies mum had taught us.  The girls have learned a few of them and it sure is fun to hear them singing them.  Now I can see why mum always wanted us to sing for her. 

So glad they had her sweet influence in their lives.  Now when they sing, it's like they have a part of their grandma in their hearts that they can carry with them even though she is gone.

This was something we found in the cupboard downstairs...my wedding cake decorations!  Wow!  That brought back a ton of memories! 

I can still picture the cake. ..all done in yellow and peach.  Very pretty on our wedding day for the reception in our yard!  Then we tried to take it down to Salt Lake for our reception there...oh boy, that didn't work. It had lots of fragile loopy sugar work done on it and that did not survive the drive.

We  ( and when I say we, I don't know who did it...probably my mom...I was off in la la land) pieced it back together pretty good and it looked fine for the reception. 

 I finally got Sam's jammies done....this is what happens when I procrastinate sending them and leave them lying around...Hmmmmm they fit giant panda pretty good...hope they will be big enough for Sam!  and also I don't appreciate the needle through crochet kitty's head.

Candice came over Sunday and we finished the puzzle.  That was a fun one! 

I went to a stake choir practice later that night.  We are singing for Stake conference next week.  We are singing two really beautiful songs.  Our Savior's love and If we will seek the Lord.  They are the kind of songs that give you goose bumps when you get to sing them and hear them sung well.  Muriel is directing and I sure do love her.

How cute is my sweet Olivia...all ready for church!

 We took Candice's cedar chest over to her house and I got this classic shot of her...

She is pretty even when she just rolls out of bed.

Last night, my sweet friends took me out for a birthday dinner.  What a fun night! We talked and laughed till they were ready to shut the place down.  Sure do love these dear ladies.

I had the best day with my sisters yesterday.

We had planned on getting together cause Brenda and Leslie had work off for Martin Luther Kings' birthday. 

It hasn't snowed all winter, but wouldn't you know our luck...we were supposed to get a pretty good storm that day.  I called Brenda to see how the weather was up there and she said it wasn't bad at all.  Teina had a different story in Layton...that area always seems to get the worst of any storm.  We decided to give it a try ( We've definitely made it up there in worse conditions).

The roads were not too bad till I got to Bountiful...then they were covered with snow and ice.  I slowed way down and just crept along.  People were flying past me like I was standing still, but I didn't care.  There were so many wrecks along that road...and I was listening to the radio talking about how dangerous the roads were, so I just plugged along at about 40 mph.

Then I got to an area where it looked like the road was clear...just some blowing snow, so I sped up to about 50 mph. I was going along pretty good for a minute, then all the sudden, the car just goes sideways.  I was in the middle lane, and I slid across the fast lane and onto the shoulder of the road.  They had been saying on the radio to not hit your brakes when you start to slide, cause that makes it worse, so I just tried to steer out of it.  I had absolutely no control. 

Once I hit the far side of the shoulder, the wheels caught and I steered back onto the freeway.  I am so thankful there were no cars around me.  I would have crashed for sure. 

I was pretty freaked out, so I pulled over, calmed myself down and thanked Heavenly Father for not letting me die.

When I picked Teina up, I found out that she and Brad had both been in car accidents this past month. Brad totaled his car, and Teina's front end had been bashed in pretty bad.  Sure grateful neither of them were hurt!

My sisters gave me a great birthday party. 

They are so good to me, I'm sure lucky to have three wonderful sisters!

We went over to Firehouse pizza for lunch.  It was really yummy!  After lunch, we came back and cleaned out a few more places in the house.  The filing cabinet downstairs had lots of special things in it that grandma had saved...lots of sweet notes, valentines, birthday, and mother's day cards from all the grand kids. It was pretty sweet to look through them. 

 So grateful for the loving relationship all the kids had with mum and daddy.

Angie had made a special gift for each of us girls and for each of our kids.  It was a CD with some of our favorite songs that we sing together on it.  She had found some old tapes we had made years ago, and had them transferred to CD.  How cool is that?

I listened to it when I got home last night and it sure brought me a lot of pleasure to hear these sweet songs and think about these happy times. 

Mum sounded great playing the uke for us and the harmony in some of these songs is so pretty.

Thanks a million Angie... How did you know that's just what we all needed right now?  You are so sweet and thoughtful.  That's a gift I'll really enjoy and treasure!

I love how she put mum's beautiful begonias on the cover,  Perfect!

Yup...thats me.  I'm on a CD!