BYU Women's Conference 4-28-4-30

I love BYU Women's Conference. The first year I went was in 1987 when I was a student there and I have been trying to go ever year since, but have missed many~Darn! There are so many things I love about Women's Conference ~~~I love staying at the dorms (reminds me of when I was a student there I love the classes, hanging out with amazing women who believe in the gospel and are trying to do the best they can, I love running into old friends I haven't seen in years, I love eating yummy food, and most of all I love getting my spiritual battery refilled and being filled with gratitude for all of the blessings I have been blessed with!

Above the women gathered to hear the speaker in the Marriot Center. I love living in UT and I am grateful to Matt for keeping everything running at home while I am gone and always being willing to support me and encourage me to take a break!

Favorite Quotes from Women's Conference:
"The Golden Rule is more about being understood as we really want to be understood." Sister Rasband.

"Social media is best when it causes us to do something real -- to pray, to create to write to serve. It's wasted when it causes us to do useless worrying or guilting ourselves, complaining, reading dumb information when it doesn't benefit us, our families, our neighbors, our talents and so on. ... I have to remember to do good, and not just think about it or read about it." Lisa Clark

"Saying yes to someone else often can mean you'll be saying no to your children," Bonnie Anderson

"The nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others." Erin Meeker

"The swing shift is the most important shift as mothers. Make sure you are not working all three shifts." Sister Beck

When reading the Book of Mormon pose these 3 questions in your scriptures:
1. Who Am I? 2. What are my Responsibilities in the House of Israel? 3. How do I fill my Responsibilities in the House of Israel? Write answers in the blank pages in the B of M. Sister Beck

"Computers are a wonderful tool, but called the web for a reason. Go with a purpose to the internet and the leave when done and leave promptly." Charolette Winder

"When is the last time that you squealed with delight that you received the sacrament?" Sandy Nicols

"The Lord wants us all to return to Him, but not in a straight line."Renata Forste

"Never forget for one instant who you serve, you serve the Lord." Elder Oaks

"No one is any better than you, and you are not a ny better than any one else." Anna Quindlen

Week of 4-11 to 4-17

On Sunday April 11th Coby performed with the German Choir from BYU for a German ward in downtown SLC. Matt and I raced to the sacrament meeting because it was right after our sacrament meeting. I have never been to sacrament meeting where the meeting was in an entire different language. It was a very unique experience and we both LOVED it! The majority of the performance was the choir's which was on Easter. The choir was beautiful and did an amazing performance. Our family went to their performance in December at the Provo Tabernacle and it was very well done, but this was even better. Coby has such a beautiful, rich tenor voice and I am grateful that he loves to sing.

Also, on Sunday night I performed in The Messiah by Handel. It was a very rewarding experience. It is amazing to me that during the summer of 1741, Handel, depressed and in debt, began setting Charles Jennens Biblical libretto to music in just 24 days at a breakneck speed. When you are singing the music you feel such peace, love, and joy for our Savior, Jesus Christ and feel such gratitude for all that he has done for us. I am grateful I had the opportunity to participate in this. The practices were long and took a lot of time, but it was soooo worth it.

Kara became the sickest she ever has been. It started on April 8th and lasted for a whole week. She still has a lingering cough from it now on 4-27. Kara was pretty miserable and sad about missing school, especially since she hadn't missed a full day of school this year. She had an extremely high temperature and it was still at 102 with Tylenol. She was pretty upset because she had planned to try-out for the School Districts National Anthem and also get prepared for the School Talent show, but she couldn't because she had no voice so she didn't even try out for either. The doctor treated it like swine flu! Poor girl!

Colton had a stake court of honor and got all the merit badges he hadn't received in a long, long time and he got a total of 9! We are so grateful for Scout leaders. He is beginning to work on his eagle project right now, which is very exciting! Please ask him about it.

Also, I had book club Thursday night and I was in charge of picking our groups book club and I picked the book, "Same Kind of Different as Me." I had a friend just randomly recommend it on Facebook and I decided why not. I got it earlier and loved it so much that I chose it. I highly recommend it as a wonderful Christian true story of two men's journey of hope and love to find friendship and hope. It is inspiring! On Saturday, April 17th, Matt and Colton went on a 20 mile hike for Boy Scouts. It was the one thing that Colton still needed to accomplish in order to finish his hiking merit badge. They left at 7:30 am and were gone all day long. They did not make it home until 5:30 pm because they went quite a distance to make it there and were with a large group. They were both very dirty, sun burnt and tired when they made it home. During that day Kara had a cast party from her play she did "The 12 Dancing Princesses" and she had a lot of fun. She also had a soccer game. This year her soccer games are much longer and they do not have any extras on her team, which means she plays the whole game.

Easter/Conference Weekend!!!

The two weekends that we have General Conference are perhaps my favorite weekend of all the year! I love being spiritual fed and hearing from the brethren, feeling the spirit, shutting the world off for the two days, and focusing on what the Lord wants me to hear. I am so grateful now that we can record it, watch it again on the Internet, print it off LDS.org the Wednesday after Conference. We are just truly blessed to have all of this available.

I also love on conference weekend that my family gathers together, that we have traditions and that we always make very yummy food together. Below are some pictures from Easter Sunday of the baskets our children got on their chairs during Easter dinner and the two Matt got me from the Chocolate Cottage. Now that was heaven! Also pictures of Easter dinner. We had the missionaries over for dinner and then after wards we went over to my brother's home to visit with both my brother's family and my Aunt and Uncle who were in town from Reno visiting. What a wonderful Easter and I am truly grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ who gave of His life freely so that we may have Eternal Life and live with our families forever and be able to repent and be washed clean.







Matt without his basket showing!
Coby was taking the picture! Darn

Colton's 1st Novel--Standing by at Lulu's

Colton's 1st book is written and published. He wrote it when he was 15 for his creative writing novel class and he also wrote it in a month. We are really proud of him because when he was a young lad writing was one of his worst subjects in school and he really struggled with it. One day with determination he decided that he was sick of this and he wanted to make this one of his best subjects so he just started writing and writing. And boy is he extremely creative. Now writing is one of his best subjects in school and he writes with ease. This is his first book and he has several others he is working on that are very well done. So Congrats to Colton on a job very well done. Way to go bud!!! We love you Colton!

Random Pictures from Easter Weekend/Spring Break

I got my hair cut with a little bangs and done a little darker. It was done kind of by accident, but it is starting to grow on me. Matt likes it better so I guess that makes it almost a done deal!

Some of the ladies I work with on the Eastmont PTSA board. What a great bunch of women. Our principal, Jan Sterzer is in the suit in the front and standing next to her on the left is our PTSA president, Joanne Andrus who is one heck of an amazing woman. She is also Kara's voice/piano teacher. I love the opportunity and privilege to be to work with these women.
Here is Kara and one of her friends. She stayed with us for half of the week while her parents went to a funeral for one of her grandparents in another state. She is a fun girl to have around and the girls had fun.
One of my former Beehives that I had the privilege and honor of teaching when I lived in Olympia/Lacey, WA and she also baby-sat my boys when I lived there too. She was in town for General Conference and we were able to get together. It was so fun to see her and her five little girls and husband. What a cute family and what a beautiful woman she has become inside and out. It is hard to believe that Kara is now the same age that she was when she use to baby sit my boys. If she lived closer Kara could baby sit her girls! Thanks for coming and visiting; it meant a lot to me when you were so busy in Utah!!!

3-30-10 Spring Recital

Spring Piano/voice recital came and Kara sang two numbers for it and played two songs on the piano. Matt, Colton and I were all there to hear her perform. She did a wonderful job! We were very proud of her and she also found out that she made it into Concert Choir which she was very happy about!

She also got her 3rd quarter report card which was a 4.0 and she will be in the only two honors classes offered, Honors U.S. History, and Honors English. The competition is so tough to get in these classes that it is unbelievable. All I can say is~~~Utah. She also got the Reading class waived for next year because of her score, so she gets to take a foreign language class next year instead. So guess what she has chosen to take, Mandarin Chinese, why of course. Could it be that I forgot that she was adopted after all of these years? You know that seems to be the only explanation right now that seems to work!

3-31-10 Kara got her braces on

The big day arrived for Kara for her to get her braces on. Here is a picture of her pre-braces, but you will have to wait a while for her to smile post braces because she wasn't as happy to smile and show off the expensive metal, but I must say she really looks quite adorable in them!

April's Theme for the Month/April's Fool's Day!

Family Theme for the Month of April:

April's Theme: The Armor of God-Spirituality
Scripture: Ephesians 6:10
Song: Behold a Royal Army

"There is no Knight in black armor with such power as you may have if you live righteously." Boyd K Packer

"We need to accept the full truth---even all of it-"put on the whole armour of God," and get to work building up the Kingdom." Glenn L. Pace

Other great scriptures:
Romans 13:12
II Timothy 2:3-4
D & C 27: 15-18

April Fool's Day was part of Spring break and boy did we wake up to a big surprise!!!! It was snowing A LOT. So we changed our plans for fun and instead decided to enjoy the SNOW by going snow sledding. I kept telling my children that they would never forget this spring break because it will be the one where they went sledding. Colton didn't want to go, but wanted to keep working on writing his second novel! I took Kara and her friends sledding and it was such a beautiful day. You just can't beat living in UT! You gotta LOVE it. Afterwards, they came over to our home very tired, (I am missing one cute girl who left early). I made them yummy chocolate chip cookies and hot cocoa and then they watched a movie and played games.

Later on that day I did my April Fool's Day "Crazy Cafe" Meal. I put on my apron, pulled out menus and was a short ordered cook. They all ordered from the menu and decided what they wanted. And they were really surprised when they got something very different from what they ordered. I got the idea from a web page. I just LOVE the internet and all the great ideas that can be found! The girls, Matt, Colton and Spencer loved it. Spencer had to hurry to a class, but he brought some of the food to one of his friends at class. The kids had fun pulling pranks on us and I must say that they did a really good job. They seemed to have really gotten us this year rather well.