Out Of Love

Several weeks ago I listened to a talk by Pres. Packer. He gave the talk at a BYU devotional in 1963. The talk was on love... the romantic love. He talked about how out of the greatest expression of love life is created. It is really amazing to think about that. What a miracle, the ultimate expression of love actually creates life.

As I've been thinking about that, I've thought about how whenever we express any type of love we "renew" life in someone's spirit. When David tells me I'm beautiful or someone pays me a compliment or expresses gratitude I feel happy. I feel more alive. In turn, I also feel more happy when I express love to others.

On the flip side I think about how damaging it is when someone breaks trust, yells or demeans. I can actually feel my spirit shrinking and I have seen other's shrink in the those situations.

The only way to renew the soul and bring "life" back to it, is to forgive and to let the atonement of Jesus Christ heal. It's interesting that the atonement is talked about as the greatest expression of love; and it truly is. Not only does the atonement break the physical bands of death and quite literally make it possible for us to enjoy the next life with a resurrected body. But the atonement heals our spirit when we make mistakes. Even more amazing than the remission of sins, as if there could be anything more amazing than that, is how the atonement actually heals a broken heart when love is not expressed.

To actually console and heal a heart that has been shattered by death, divorce, abuse (and the list could go on) truly is a miracle. It is out of that miracle that we find "new" life and the ability to have an abundant life. It is such a journey to heal from devastating situations and seems impossible at times to be able to have a "new" life and a whole heart. I thank God for the Savior and for his atonement. For a loving husband, family and close friends who have helped me learn about this journey.

Love truly does create life on so many levels.

It Goes By Way Too Fast

This week has been so busy. It's hard to believe that tomorrow is already Thursday! It certainly helps to have a 3 day weekend to make the week go by fast. I'm just reflecting on how fast life seems to go by.

Rebecca is in 6th grade. She is amazing. She is so busy this year. She's in honor choir, plays the violin, is NEHS secretary, on a tumbling team and yes is still being forced to take piano:). It seems like it was just yesterday that she was starting Kindergarten.

Allyse is turning into a cute young lady. She is loving her teacher this year in school and as always has a cute smile. She is also busy with honor choir, piano and on the tumbling team. She loves to have fun and relax.

Nathan started preschool a few weeks ago and loves it. We carpool with 3 other boys in the neighborhood. It's so fun to have a van full of boys! Their conversations are great: all about the wii, Star Wars, legos, you know the really important guy stuff.

David is liking his job. He works with some great people. He has such a love for learning new things on the computer and making it do cool stuff. Don't you love my interpertation of his job? I know when he tells about it it actually may make sense to some people. (He's wraping code up in jars and all kinds of other stuff).

I'm having fun keeping up with the kids. We had cousins over for memorial weekend. They all got along and had a great time. I've had fun crafting this last month looking for ideas for Super Saturday and making up a few of those.

It's weird to think how fast the time goes by. This summer went by really fast. When we first got to Philly and were walking around the city trying to find somewhere to eat breakfast the 1st day I wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into. We were able to do so many fun things. I really grew to love the East Coast. We met so many great people. I think about the East Coast everyday... for several obvious reasons. But now we're back in school and back to the grind stone. It's good to have a great place to call home though. We have wonderful family and friend around. Hopefully tomorrow in the midst of the rush to get ready for school or in the afternoon trying to get all of the homework done I'll be able to remember to enjoy all the craziness because it goes by too fast.

Pat Tillman Run

Today David and I ran the Pat Tillman run. It's 4.2 miles over at ASU. Grandma was so nice to come and watch our kids while we ran. It was awesome weather and something I never thought I would do.

Since January I've been working out with a group of ladies. Charlotte is the one who trains us (kicks our butts) and she's the one who said I think you should do the Pat Tillman run. I thought she was joking, but like with everything else she wasn't. It's great that she gets me to do things I would never think I would be able to do.

I was really proud of David for doing the run. I know that the last 6 months have been a struggle for him with his health issues. He ran the entire way which is more than I can say for myself. But hey we both made it in under an hour.

Thanks Heidi, Heatherlea, Shavonne and Charlotte it was fun.

Easter

We had such a great Easter. Saturday was rainy. We love the rain here in AZ. We had the ward Easter Egg hunt yesterday anyway. The kids loved it and yes Nathan was soaked before we got home. They enjoyed having hot chocolate afterward... that never happens. Usually we just hope the candy inside the eggs doesn't melt.

Today we really enjoyed church. Sacrament meeting was great and all of the kids have such great teachers in Primary. We had fun at Grandma's today. Rebecca, Allyse and Nathan all had so much fun with their cousins. Since it was raining yesterday we had the Easter Egg hunt at Grandma's today right before a delicious dinner!

We hope all of you had a wonderful Easter as well.

Awesome Message

Try This At Home

David had already gotten his birthday present before his birthday rolled around but I still wanted to do something for him on his special day. I figure you only get one day a year that's all about you. Anyway, it's hard on us girls to think what can we do for a guy that is affordable (that means not electronic) that he'll still like. Flowers and candy are out. So this is what I came up with... it still might teeter on the edge of being an acceptable gift to a guy, but I think it turned out pretty great. I decided to make him an arrangement with strawberries. Let me tell you it was so fun. Even though they're not as forgiving as silk flowers it still turned out. So here's what I did in case you want to try it...

After I dipped the strawberries in Chocolate I sprinkled coconut or put on slivered almonds for variety. I put the strawberries on the ends of skewers for shish-ka-bobs and used kale for the greenery.

Snow Fun

In January we went up to Flagstaff to play in the snow. For months Allyse has been saying that she wants to throw a snowball at her Dad. She finally got her chance even though it was a little hard to make the snow into a ball since it was so powdery. We went up with our friends the Sparks had a lot of fun. Rebecca and Allyse loved sledding. Of course David and I did too. We even raced. Nathan went down with me on one of the first runs before we had some really good trails going and so he got a face full of snow. Needless to say he didn't love sledding. He did love playing in the snow and kept picking up chuncks of snow and saying Mommy look at the clouds. Everyone loved the hot chocolate at the end.