Neglect

I've neglected my blog for too long now.  Over the past two years I have been spending the majority of my free time cross stitching Christmas stockings for the five of us.  This past Friday, I finished putting the last stitch on.  I just have to sew the remaining two together so they can be hung next to the kids stockings this year.  Unfortunately, sewing machine sewing isn't my thing, so I'll have to finish that in a couple of weeks when my mom can help me.

Either way, I can now move on to other neglected projects, such as keeping more up to date with my blog and catching up on scrapbooking.  I've done pretty good about keeping the family scrapbook fairly close to date, however, my children's books have fallen quite a bit behind.

So what have we been up to?  Well I guess I'll start with the most recent and move backwards.

Megan just had her end of the year ballet performance.  Unfortunately, this was not just the end of the year performance for Megan.  She has once again decided to stop dancing.  She enjoys the end product but the not what it takes to get there.  She really likes to work on her various craft projects more.  I've enjoyed her in ballet and will miss it.  Maybe Taylor will have the desire to do ballet and we'll try it again.  The video file is too big for this post, but you can see the video by following this link.  This video is of the dress rehearsal dance.  Definitely was not the best performance. She smiled very pretty during the actual performances and did a really good job.  She mentioned to me that she was confused at the dress rehearsal because it didn't look like the other girls were doing it right, so Megan didn't really dance the way she can.  She is a Crystal Fairy in Sleeping Beauty.

Last weekend we took a trip to our favorite Soapstone location.  Due to all the late rain and snow that we've received, we were told that Mirror Lake was still snow packed.  So we took a drive to check it out.  And this is what we found on June 1.

It was frozen!

We were told of an Enchanted Fairy Forest located in this area.  We tried to check it out, but due to the amount of rain we've received there was so much water we couldn't get across the river.  We'll put it on our to do list for later in the season.  Maybe then we'll be able to get across.

We stopped off at the Provo River Falls on our way back from Mirror Lake.  This is something we've seen before, however this time there was so much water.  I don't think I've ever seen so much water on these falls before.

We visited the Payson Temple open house. Somehow the picture that they take and email to you got lost somewhere.  I haven't received that picture yet.  I'm not sure what happened there.  It's been so great to be able to take my family to all the different temples that have been built or renovated here in Utah. And there's still more to come in not too long.

I purchased a hamster.  The kids named it Whiskers.

Due to my hamster purchase, the kids decided they wanted one.  Megan was the only one with the money to actually act on it.  She started with this one.  She name it Blondie.

Blondie got sick.  Megan was able to take her back to the pet store and trade it for a another hamster.   She named this one Winter.

I'll end there for now.  And I hope to keep things more up to date.  We've got some fun family vacations coming up!

We Think We Know

In October 2014 General Conference, President Uchtdorf explained the nature of unchanging truth by recounting humanity's evolving understanding of the nature of the universe.  He indicated that as man developed instruments sensitive enough to discover distant galaxies and they came to our knowledge, "The immensity of the universe didn’t suddenly change, but our ability to see and understand this truth changed dramatically."

Sometimes, science and religion do not get along.  I see that as a great tragedy because I believe that the Almighty Creator uses natural laws and processes to accomplish his works.  When a miracle occurs, we call it that because we do not understand how it happened.  That does not mean that the laws of physics or biology or anything else had to be suspended or violated for the thing to happen--it only means that we do not understand how it happened.

One particular area where science and religion butt heads is the creation.  I personally do not see the problem.  As I read the bible, I find no verse that precludes the possibility of a "big bang" and believe it would be pretty close to blasphemy to say that God could not have used such an event in his creative process.  At the same time, I believe our scientific understanding of the beginnings of the universe are problematic because the theories (like the big bang) do not explain some ubiquitous physical properties (like gravity).

So when I saw a YouTube video posted on the notoriously religion unfriendly Discovery News channel about the Big Bang theory possibly being wrong, I was intrigued.  It is refreshing to hear that there are still scientists willing to admit that scientific theories are not absolute truths.  One intriguing bit about this video is that the new theory postulates that the universe is of infinite age...something that resonates with certain religious teachings.  But remember, the same critiques can be made of this theory as the last ones--it is simply incomplete because we lack sufficient evidence (so far) to prove or disprove it.

Anyway...here's the video:

Taylor's Prayer

In the October 2013 General Conference, Elder Robert D. Hales said, "Children and youth love to be included [in General Conference]. We make a serious mistake if we assume that the conference is above their intellect and spiritual sensitivity."  We had a neat proof of that concept in our home Sunday night.

Taylor has been saying prayers in our family for a few months now.  Over the last few weeks, she has insisted on doing them without prompting.  She has the dinner prayer down pat--so much so that when she prayed just before bed for the family prayer, she blessed the food marvelously.

Well, in conference this weekend, one speaker suggested that we tell Heavenly Father exactly what is on our minds and what is important to us.  I thought it was great advice and cataloged it mentally for an FHE lesson or something--apparently, it sunk in with Taylor.  It was her turn to pray Sunday night.  Julie and I smiled to each other before the prayer began, both of us expecting another blessing on the food.  Taylor prayed: "Father in heaven, thank thee stay dry, thank thee go potty, thank thee go walk, name, Jesus Christ, amen."

All four of us were blown away.  Zero prompting.  Zero prep before.  She just prayed her little heart out, telling Heavenly Father what was on her mind.  What a remarkable experience...as good as anything else from conference.

Karate Tournament

Daniel participated in a karate tournament this last Saturday.  He has been in karate for about a year now and this is his first tournament that he participated in.  I'm not sure he would have attended this tournament if it weren't for him being on the Demo Team. The Demo Team had a competing event and I think since he had to be there, he thought he might sign up for a few other events.  He participated and got the gold in the board breaking event.

Silver in the Obstacle Course event

And the Demo Team took the trophy!

First day of School

School began last week.  We began a new school.  One that is much closer to home.  The kids were excited to change schools.  They get an extra hour of sleep every morning because we don't have to drive very far.  Hooray....it's the first day of school!

 Taylor had to be part of the action!  She was a little sad that she didn't get to stay.

Good Faith

Early last week, President Uchtdorf was among a few dozen representatives from Christian churches around the country invited to the White House for the fifth annual Easter prayer breakfast with President Obama.  While this is not the first time he has made such a visit, President Uchtdorf saw the repetition as a positive sign noting that, "The Church is well recognized by this administration as a power for good and a group with moral values.  These things are so important for the nation.  I think it's a wonderful thing that a Church representative was invited."

Those were not the only kind words President Uchtdorf had for the current administration. He also said that it was remarkable to see the U.S. chief executive "preach to the preachers and quote scriptures.  You could see he knows the scriptures and he uses them wisely."

For more details about the visit, click here.

I know there are members of the Church who criticize, mock and despise President Obama.  I have even heard such comments voiced proudly in Sunday School classes, usually followed by a uncomfortable laughs, a long hollow silence and quick departure of any Spirit the instructor had managed to invite.

Personally, I like President Uchtdorf's approach to the matter, starting with common ground and working from there with an open dialog.  If you start with criticism and mockery, there can be no exchange which means there can be no growth for any involved party.

Please, for the sake of allowing others to learn in an environment conducive to the Spirit, keep critical, mocking or hateful comments to yourself...especially when you're at Church.

What's been going on?

Its been awhile since I've posted anything.  I thought I'd catch you up on a few things.  I'm actually doing pretty good with my scrapbooking and am totally current, at least with the family book.  The children's books are a different story.  You get to see some of the pages from our family book.

So from the most recent happenings to the past:

We enjoyed  General Conference.  Megan enjoyed giving Taylor tortilla chips and Taylor gladly accepted.  What a great sister moment.