Grading Behavior

Family Scripture Study was getting to be a real strain on the spirit as I tried to fight against all these little "natural mans" who wanted to sleep, mumble, bother their siblings, etc. I realized Satan was winning the battle- he tempted each child in their own way so that the spirit was strained and we learned practicallly nothing and mom felt drained and mad. I needed to find a way to encourage reverence so that we could really learn each day.   "Reverence invites Revelation"

A couple of weeks ago I had a bright idea to "grade" them on their behavior at family scripture study and family prayer. The reward is homemade cookies made by Sadie on Sunday night. Their behavior is DRASTICALLY different now that it is measured and we are learning tons each morning.  "When performance is measured, performance improves!"

Windows of Heaven

We have felt the Windows of Heaven pour out a blessing upon our family this month.
Donny saw an unusual way of earning money that he had never considered before.
He was buying Myriam a set of bagpipes off the internet and realized he could buy and sell more of them through e-bay. He is having way fun doing it and that extra "cushion" of money will help us be able to feed our family with a little more "flex" room while still keeping our goals of paying off the house extra fast, saving/investing, and buying all depreciating things with cash.

(Elder Bednar recently taught in conference that the Lord blesses us for living the law of tithing in ways we may not recognize- such as finding job opportunities where we had not yet considered)

Gratitude for the Harvest

We decided to save money by spending no money in September and October and live off our harvest and food storage. It has been a fun challenge and we have learned new skills (like yogurt and cheese making with powdered milk). We have also learned where we could improve our food storage (like milk, eggs, meat) and we have recognized God's hand in our lives as he has poured out blessings through our garden and fruit trees.

This is our fridge after a month and a half of no shopping.

(The bottom half is full of carrots)

Doesn't look too scanty, though!

CAMPING WITH COUSINS (Tony Grove)

 

We started off the Anderson reunion this year at our house.

Donny's sister and niece (Kimala and Lee) stayed with us for a week prior to the campout.

This is a picture of Sadie and Myriam helping  Kimala sew curtains for her school classroom.

We LOVED mingling with them, as always.

They are so helpful and easy going.

This year the biggest lesson I learned from Kimala was to do the things that are "needful."

There were moments when I was cumbered about with work and she helped me realize that

sometimes it is the right "order" of things to leave the house or yard "out of order" to focus on people.

 Donny loves camping at TONY GROVE.

He books it 6 months in advance and hopes to find family to join him.

This is Donny with his brother, Mike.

 

Donny already has Myriam converted to fishing.

They only caught weeds until the morning we left, though.

They made us a delicious fish lunch, which I even liked... and I don't like fish.

The boys were phenomenal at keeping the fire going constantly.

The girls (and Tanner) kept the campground filled with music.

Sadie brought up her ukelele.

This is Meagan and Bridgett singing a beautiful duet.

This is Tanner playing the little violin Sadie gave him.

Sadie and Bridgett borrowed a boat and canoed around the lake. 

 The kids loved playing "Wackie Six" in the Trailer

Donny got a group to play Bocce Ball with him.

There is nothing like camping with family!

So much time to just focus on each other and pull away from the world for a while.

I loved it when I was a child (we had "Stout Camp" every year) And I love it as a mother.  

15 years of Marriage

This week we celebrated 15 years of being married. 

This is us becoming "true aggies" up at USU.

Marrying Donny was the best decision of my life!

He is such a good man.  I am so happy to live life and eternity with him.

Our 3 oldest kids woke up at 5:30 on our anniversary 

and made us a delicous and healthy breakfast while we were off jogging.

They set up candle-light table on our front porch.

 Later they babisat for us while we went out to eat at Olive Garden

(that was where our first date was)

Walk to the Temple

We decided to celebrate pioneer day this year by walking from our house to the temple (about 4.5 miles).

We wanted to remember the reason why the pioneers left their homes=

to have the blessings of being sealed together as families in the house of God.

As we walked to the temple, we talked and sang and taught

the importance of making the temple their destination in their own lives.

Just like walking a long distance to the temple can be hard if we are physically out of shape,

we need to stay in spiritual shape to make going to the temple easier as well.

We left after breakfast, stopping only twice-

once at Ryan's Place Park for a bathroom and snack break, 

and once at Merlin Olsen park for a "river crossing."

When we got to the temple, we sang "I love to see the temple" 

and had a picnic on the grass in front of the temple where we

talked about the sacrifice and stories of our own pioneer ancestors.

Pushups

Lately I have been making my kids do pushups every time they hurt someone. They have to do as many as their age.  There has been a few days where this had gotten me in trouble because 34 pushups isn't that easy for me these days, especially when I have to do it a few times in one day. It sure makes me think twice before reacting roughly.