"We're not in Kansas anymore."

Up to this point the whole house building process has been kind of a fairy tale like we've been playing make believe designing our dream home, but never really believing it would come to pass.

Not today.

I'm not in fantasy land anymore.

WE HAVE A HOLE!

I dare say this will be one of the more exciting parts of the build.

We went out a couple of times just to watch the excavator and let the kids play on the dirt piles. I'm tempted to leave a pile of dirt somewhere on our lot just for something to play in.

March of the Toys

Early this morning around 5 am I was awakened by Ashlyn crying uncontrollably as she tried to tell me something. My first thoughts as I tried to understand her were "she's thrown up" or "she's peed the bed."

 It was neither. Her toys were on the move. She literally thought her toys were moving in her room, and it had her petrified. I immediately put her in bed between Tyler and me, told her she was safe, and then she fell back to sleep.

We questioned her later about her experience. She repeatedly told me how she laid in bed watching her toys move, and then I told her how brave she was to get out of bed to come and tell me. We have no idea how long she laid there. The poor girl. But just look at her room. I would probably think things were moving to at 5 o'clock in the morning too.

An aha moment

Ever have one of those moments when the light bulb goes on?

Mine wasn't anything spectacular. Yesterday for Sharing Time we were talking about what the word GOSPEL meant and I had the kids look it up in the bible dictionary. They discovered it meant GOOD NEWS. So I asked what the good news was. Someone said the atonement of Jesus Christ and then we broke it down further into

1. We all will be resurrected and live forever and

2. We can live with our Heavenly Father again and have the life he has if we do what we should in this life.

Later that day I was thinking of the scripture in Moses 1:39 where Heavenly Father tells us that his goal is bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. And then came my aha moment: That is exactly what the atonement covers. It makes immortality and eternal life possible. Without it there would be no hope of attaining those two things and God's work and glory would have been frustrated.

I've always known to some degree what the atonement of Jesus Christ was all about, but I just never connected the dots between that particular scripture and what Jesus Christ did for me and essentially all of us. How grateful I am that HE chose to fulfill HIS particular mission.

60 Days or Less

To jump start my daily scripture reading again, I've decided to quit where I am in the Book of Mormon (which is somewhere in Alma) and start over reading the book in 60 days. How many times do people do that? How may time have I done that, start over with "I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents . . .".

Well, today I was reading in 2 Nephi 5. Laman and Lemuel are still trying to kill their little brother Nephi and the Lord finally tells Nephi he should probably move somewhere else. So Nephi says in verse 6,

"Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words."

So this little verse got me thinking a little. First, how many were in the group that left Jerusalem? Lehi, Sariah, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, some sisters (possibly 2 or 3 or more), Zoram, Ishmael, Ishmael's wife, 5 daughters, and 2 sons. That makes a total of about 21. Lehi's family and Ishmael's family intermarry during their travel through the wilderness (8 years). They probably start families, but the oldest grandchildren of Lehi wouldn't be older than about 7 when they traveled across the sea.

Verse 6 says that Nephi left with his family, Zoram left with his family, Sam left with his family, Jacob and Joseph don't seem to be married yet. And I'm not quite sure about the sisters. So who are ALL THOSE WHO WOULD GO WITH ME? Nephi has just mentioned everyone who initially came across the sea and who have taken sides with him. I don't think he was referring to Ishmael's sons because they tended to side with Laman and Lemuel in earlier chapters.

It just seems to me that the ALL THOSE must have been other people who were living here at the time Lehi and his group showed up. I really don't believe Lehi's group was the first to people this land and for whatever reason, Nephi doesn't seem to feel the need to mention them, although it is quite possible they are mentioned in his large plates that contained the more secular history of his people. Oh, the have all the scriptures would be fascinating sometimes.

Anyway, here's my reading schedule I'm following for the next 60 days. They say it doesn't matter how many times you read the Book of Mormon, there is always something new to be learned.

1 1 Nephi 1-4

2 1 Nephi 5-10
3 1 Nephi 11-13
4 1 Nephi 14-16
5 1 Nephi 17-18
6 1 Nephi 19-22
7 2 Nephi 1-3
8 2 Nephi 4-7
9 2 Nephi 8-9
10 2 Nephi 10-15
11 2 Nephi 16-23
12 2 Nephi 24-26
13 2 Nephi 27-30
14 2 Nephi 31-33
15 Jacob 1-4
16 Jacob 5-7
17 Enos, Jarom, Omni & Words of Mormon
18 Mosiah 1-3
19 Mosiah 4-8
20 Mosiah 9-12
21 Mosiah 13-17
22 Mosiah 18-21
23 Mosiah 22-26
24 Mosiah 27-29
25 Alma 1-4
26 Alma 5-7
27 Alma 8-10
28 Alma 11-13
29 Alma 14-17
30 Alma 18-21
31 Alma 22-25
32 Alma 26-29
33 Alma 30-32
34 Alma 33-36
35 Alma 37-40
36 Alma 41-44
37 Alma 45-48
38 Alma 49-51
39 Alma 52-56
40 Alma 57-59
41 Alma 60-63
42 Helaman 1-4
43 Helaman 5-7
44 Helaman 8-12
45 Helaman 13-16
46 3 Nephi 1-4
47 3 Nephi 5-8
48 3 Nephi 9-12
49 3 Nephi 13-17
50 3 Nephi 18-20
51 3 Nephi 21-26
52 3 Nephi 27-30
53 4 Nephi, Mormon 1-2
54 Mormon 3-7
55 Mormon 8-9
56 Ether 1-5
57 Ether 6-10
58 Ether 11-15
59 Moroni 1-7
60 Moroni 8-10

March Madness

First, can I just say this has not been your typical Easter.

1. I, er, I mean the Easter Bunny, didn't put a single piece of chocolate in any Easter baskets.
2. He also usually leaves summer clothes for the kids. This year instead he left a new scooter for ALL of them to share. Good thing he didn't leave clothes because . . .
   
3. We woke up to snow on the ground. I certainly don't ever remember an Easter morning with snow on the ground. Quite depressing. We've had more snow in the last week than all of winter combined.
   
4. And then I was asked to bring dessert for Easter dinner. I've been craving carrot cake, so I made one and then decided to also make a carob cake (equivalent of chocolate but without the caffeine) since going to the health store in search of citric acid and coming across the stuff. For the record Tyler grew up on carob because they didn't eat chocolate in their home. He was very excited to have a carob cake. Anyway, not your typical Easter.

Our Crazy Month of March

Our first week of March consisted of basketball games just about every night with Kiersten and Erik both playing tournament games. That Saturday we had two Jr. Jazz championship games. Erik lost, but Kiersten's Jr. Jazz team, who were the underdogs going into the championship game, beat the only undefeated team of the entire season. What made this game cool was her coach's sister and only sibling was killed in a horrific car accident half way through the season. For the remainder of the season, those girls were out to win for him . . . AND THEY DID! It was a very awesome moment.

Nate lost a front tooth, but left the other dangling.

 Two birthdays and

 

 a Candyland birthday party.

 Every year Tyler has everyone fill out a NCAA championship bracket. Then he tracks who does the best with their guesses and they win a package of Oreos. Nate did amazingly well, guessing many upsets and was at one point number 3421 out of millions who submitted their brackets to ESPN. Take this kid to Vegas!

 Erik's stolen bike was recovered a block away from out house, pretty hammered but repairable. However, after getting the bill for fixing up the bike we almost could have bought a new one. I immediately bought bike locks for all the kids. Hopefully they will use them.

 Throw in an orchestra concert,

finished house plans (FINALLY!),

and a Bear Lake Primary presidency retreat where I made this cute Happy Birthday banner.

Doctor appointments. Ash had several. One in particular was with her oncologist who gave her a clean bill of health. After being 5 years cancer free we no longer need to visit with them, although they said they would love to still see us every year. I think not. I'm happy to cut that appointment out entirely. My OB now wants to start seeing me every 3 weeks. Eleven weeks to go. I'm not counting :)

And to conclude this month, Nate's other dangling tooth came out biting into a piece of bread.

Thick of thin things

Do you ever wonder how you can possibly accomplish everything . . . and then one more thing gets added.

Lately I feel as though my life is spiraling out of control.

Well, not really. But life is just busy. Busier than I'd like.

I'm kind of looking forward to this week of spring break where at least I won't have to think about school projects and homework. And then one more quarter of school which means one more quarter closer to having this baby. When I first suspected this pregnancy and a potential due date I thought to myself, "When school is over I will be close to delivering this baby." Anyway, I'm feeling really thick lately and have been wishing for my thinner self. I'm sure it's because of the warm weather. I'm missing my runs outside, and even though I do work out on my elliptical it's just not the same.

Back to the title of my post "thick of thin things."
I have tried harder with this pregnancy to keep myself more fit. However, I have not been keeping myself spiritually fit. I was afraid this would happen when we started thinking of building a house and then found out another child would be coming to our family. I even told myself at the beginning of all this I would not let the craziness interfere.

But I have.

I have become mired in the thick of thin things.
I have become mired in trivial matters.

And at the end of the day when I'm so tired from all the inconsequential matters that all I want to do is veg in front of the television, I tend to forget my prayers.

Not good.

Not good at all especially since I also haven't read my scriptures on a regular basis in a long time. I've picked them up here and there, but how easy it is to get out of a regular habit.

My Primary calling no longer holds any appeal for me either. I wish I could be excited about it, but I'm just not.

I've mentally slapped my hand and am recommitting to a stronger exercise regimen for my spirit:
Daily doses of prayer and scripture study. Hopefully this is the cure for my feeling so out of control lately.

I also can't wait for conference this next weekend. It's been almost 18 months since I actually tuned in to the TV to watch (last April we were in Korea and in October it was California).

A lemon kick

 I've been on a lemon kick this week. For my birthday the kids made me lemon poppy seed muffins. Actually, I reminded them Sunday that I was going out to breakfast with my friend who shares the same birthday. Kiersten burst into tears IMMEDIATELY and told me how they were going to surprise me with breakfast. We compromised and they made me the muffins and orange julius the day before. It was late start Monday for school so it worked out better anyway to give them more time in the kitchen without being late.

Wednesday night was our Relief Society birthday dinner which the kids thought was just an extension of my birthday which it kind of was since I didn't have to make dinner. Anyway I took a sip of what I thought was water, but it turned out to be sweeter with a lemony taste to it. I loved it enough to come home and find the recipe online.

Tonight I tried a new recipe for lemon bread. I've never made lemon bread and it turned out pretty yummy. However, since this was the only recipe I've tried and don't have anything to compare it to, I'll keep looking to see if there is a better recipe.

I also have a recipe for lemon cookies made with a lemon cake mix and cool whip. Interesting enough to try sometime.

And while I'm on the subject of birthdays, Tyler told the kids as I was folding their laundry, "You should really thank your mom for washing you stinky clothes on her birthday." Ash responded with, "Thanks mom for washing our clothes on your stinkin' birthday." That made my day.

Sweet Lemon Water
1 qt. hot water
2 cups sugar
1 T. citric acid
1 T. lemon concentrate

Mix this together and put in the fridge. When the mixture is cold, add 1 1/2 gallons of cold water and lemon slices.