Five Things for Friday, 16th Edition

In case you missed it I had a guest post this week over at Chocolate on My Cranium for the celebration on “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” I so appreciate Cocoa for giving me the opportunity to put into words some of the thoughts that have been jumbling around in my head! Here is a little snippet from the beginning to get you to go over and read the whole thing. It is called “Stand as a Witness.”

Several weeks ago my husband and I took our two little children (3 and 2) on a road trip to “middle of nowhere” Nevada. It was a long trip and, since my 6 month pregnant body desperately needed a break, we broke up the trip by stopping for the night in Wendover, Nevada. Wendover is a little city just barely over the Utah border whose economy consists almost solely of gambling and prostitution. We were there on a weekend night and every time we walked through the casino to get to our hotel room we had to pass through groups of drunk young men who were obviously hanging around for lewd and immoral reasons. As I walked past them with my two small children clinging to my hands and my belly bulging out in front I felt their eyes bore into me. Their stares, their laughs, and their openly crude remarks about my condition made me feel filthy and exposed. When we got back to our hotel room all I wanted to do was curl up and cry; I’d never felt so degraded.
Later I realized that the reason I’d felt so humiliated by this experience was that my husband and I, with our little crew of children… Read the rest

This song has become my anthem. I love it. I never used to listen to the Christian Rock station on the radio but lately it seems that there aren’t any good songs on the other ones. I head this song for the first time a few days ago and the message keeps replaying over and over again in my head.

No matter what you do, do everything you do to the glory of the One who made you!

I don’t know which is more disgusting. The fact that every single tube of chapstick I have in my house is totally unusable because they have little teeth marks in them. Or the fact that I was so desperate for something to put on my painfully cracked lips last Sunday that I resorted to putting diaper cream on them! It was the clear kind mind you– not the white creamy stuff– but it sure made my husband think twice about kissing me!

My three-year-old and I had a full out war of the wills a few days ago. It was epic. I was exhausted after a long day and he was… you know I actually can’t even remember what his problem was, but what ever it was it was really important at the moment. He threw the tantrum to beat all tantrums and I didn’t have the emotional or mental strength to cope with it. After a good hour of arguing, yelling, and threatening (which always work right?) I ended up bawling and crying on my bed and he ended up bawling and crying under the kitchen table saying that his heart was broken. Luckily my husband still had his wits about him and was eventually able to calm thing down. When we were both recovered enough to hug and say sorry Asher put his little hand on my heart and looked up with me with his huge blue eyes and said,

Sometimes he astounds me with his wisdom and it reminds me that there is an ancient and mature spirit dwelling inside that tiny little body. If I could just remember that… and see him as God sees him… it would make things so much easier!

Last Sunday I got my copy of “Daughters in My Kingdom” the new history that the Relief Society just put out. I am the first counselor in the RS in my ward and so I got to go pick them up from the Bishop’s office and deliver them to the women serving in Young Women’s and Primary. It was torture for me to have to look at them during Sunday School and Relief Society and not be able to open one up and start reading. I was so excited. What a treasure this book is. I still have a bit more to read through but I am itching to chat about it already! If you haven’t gotten your copy yet (they should have been distributed to all the English speaking wards) you can download the PDF here or read it online. I sure hope that the women in the church actually open this book and read it. It would be such a shame if it just sits on their shelves!

Have a beautiful and wonderful weekend!

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