Natalia's Baptism

On November 30, 2013 Natalia turned 8 years old. 
 She was also baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  



It was a great day for her!!

I was able to be in the changing room with her after her baptism and asked her how she felt.

Her reply was,"I am so happy that I finally got to get baptized!"

She ran/skipped from the chapel to the baptismal font and from the changing room to the primary room where she was to be confirmed.

She didn't stop smiling the whole entire day.

Since it was also her birthday, she got have cake and ice cream that evening.  Such a fun day! 

 Baptism in the morning, luncheon with family and friends in the afternoon, and then birthday dinner, presents, cake, and ice cream in the evening!  

Best Birthday EVER!!!

Our version of the Good Samaritan

For our last family home evening, Sean taught us about the parable of the Good Samaritan.  We read the parable in Luke 10:30

Jesus answered, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he traveled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, 'Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.' Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbour to him who fell among the robbers?"

 and then Sean led us in a discussion about it.  During the discussion we talked about how to liken the scriptures to our own lives.  And that led to a re-telling the parable as it might happen in our days, with each family member adding to the story.  For your 'spiritual' reading pleasure, here is

The Good Samaritan.

      16 year old Sean was driving down from one place to another on back country roads, and his car started shaking violently and making a loud noise - kerblam blam blam, smoke came pouring out from under the hood, and it shuddered to a stop.  Sean tried to restart the car but it was at least half dead and wouldn't turn on.  Sean pulled out his cell phone only to find out that it didn't have any service, but at least he could still play games on it.  By chance a family in a minivan went down the same road.  The dad and mom with the four kids saw Sean waving his arms at them while sitting by the side of the road with smoke still coming out of his engine.  They told themselves that they were already later for Junior's soccer game and his team really needed him because Junior was the best player on the team.  Surely someone else would be along to help that boy on the side of the road.  So they passed him on the other side of the road.  A while later a pair of missionaries drove by in their car.  They too saw Sean sitting there with his broken down car while waving his arms to catch their attention.  The missionaries told themselves that they were on their way to a very important meeting with an investigator who was so close to being baptized.  Most missionaries never even met an investigator who was so prepared to accept the gospel and so strong spiritually.  They didn't want to mess it up by missing this appointment.  So they drove on the other side of the road to avoid getting to close to Sean and his car.  Not long after that a homeless man wandered up pushing his shopping cart full of stuff.  This man was hairy and smelly (Alauna said, "Daddy!!! heeehee).  He had definitely been smoking, Sean could smell it, and probably drinking, he slurred his words a little bit.  The homeless man came up to Sean and asked him what the problem was.  Sean told him about his car breaking down and how worried his mom must be getting.  The homeless man sympathized with Sean's troubles and told him that was why he was homeless.  Things couldn't break down if he didn't have them.  He had no house or cars to fix and he was happy.  He invited Sean to come and live under the underpass with him.  Sean politely said, "Thank you for the offer, but my family would really miss my awesomeness if I didn't live at home anymore."  The homeless man shrugged his shoulders and said, "if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.  Now, since you want to go home, you're going to need your car to work, so let's take a look at it.  I used to be a mechanic and every now and then I still do a little side work."  The homeless man and Sean walked to the front of the car and looked under the hood at the engine.  The homeless man wiggled a few wires, pushed a few hoses together, and wiped the engine down with some rags from his cart.  Then he told Sean to give it another try at starting it.  Sean got into the car and turned the key.  After a little hesitation the engine turned over and roared to life, albeit a little bit louder than normal.  The homeless man then said, "Down the road a mile or so my buddy has a car shop.  Your car should be able to get you there, but probably not any further before it breaks down again.  So pull in there and tell my buddy that I sent you and he'll take care of you."  Sean thanked him and pulled out into the road.  As he pulled away he saw the homeless man settle down in the shade by the side of the road and take a nap.  About a mile down the road Sean's car started shuddering again and making a really, really loud noise.  KerBLAM BLAM, kerblam blam blam  And it died again.  Sean could see the car shop just up the road so he got out and pushed his car the rest of the way into the yard of the buddy of the homeless man.  When the buddy came out, Sean told him about the homeless man and said, "The homeless man said he was your buddy and that you would be able to help me out."  The car shop owner said, "I know exactly who you are talking about and he has an account with us that has money in it to pay for just this kind of thing.  He has left instructions that we should repair any cars that he sends our way and he'll pay for it.  He really is a nice man."  Astonished, Sean agreed.  While the owner worked on his car Sean called home and let his family know where he was at and that he would be home soon.  Now which of these three, the family in the minivan, the missionaries, or the homeless man, do you think was a good neighbor to Sean when his car broke down?

Helaman's 2000 Stripling Warriors

For Handcart Days this year the theme was "They did not doubt"  In honor of that theme many of the Bountiful Stake Young Men came together to form 'The Army of Helaman.'  Even though Brandon is not yet 12 in order to have enough stripling warriors, the planners agreed to let those boys who were almost 12 join.  So Brandon became a stripling warrior.  

Overheard at school

      The other day I was at the boys school for Sean's class opera, "Space War 1."  It was a riveting tale of robots and frankenstein aliens battling for galactic peace.  Sean played one of the mad scientists that created the frankenstein aliens.  The robots and their creators wanted to share the ring of Saturn, while the aliens and their creators didn't.  Neil Armstrong tried to convince them to be peaceful and was locked up for his trouble.  Then the pretty girl robots, the Lone Rangers, came and showed the aliens the error of their ways.  Finally there was peace throughout the galaxy and everyone joined in playing a stirring ukele number.

Afterwards, we walked back to Sean's classroom to collect the bookbags, etc and head home for the day.  While I was waiting for Sean, another mom (a friend) came up to me and told me that she had overheard a conversation while walking back to the classroom.  It went like this,

Boy #1 "Did you see Sean's little sisters?"
Boy #2  "Sean doesn't have any sisters."
Boy #1  "Yes, he does.  One who is pretty cute and one who is pure EVIL."

Now, I can make a pretty educated guess as to who Boy #1 was and who he was saying was pure EVIL.  But I thought I would ask Sean about it.  So I asked Sean if he had ever said his sister was pure evil.  His answer,

"I never said Natalia was pure evil, I just said she was a little bit evil."

What am I supposed to do with those two?

(and boy #1 was probably Sean's best friend, Garrett)

first lost tooth

The very day after I took the girls' pictures Natalia's face had an altercation with a classmate's head.  This altercation (completely accidental) caused a big cut in her lip, lots of blood, and a loose tooth.  While you and I might not be that okay with this kind of an altercation, Natalia was quite happy about it.  She had a loose tooth!!!  Many of her friends have lost teeth and none of her's were even loose.  And it was definitely a concern to her.  Unfortunately, it hurt way more than she thought it would.  In the end, her Dad had to help her pull the tooth, and it wasn't quite as ready as it would have been in another couple of months, but Natalia has a gap in her mouth and is very very proud of that fact.

Good thing I already got some good pictures of her.  You can only back date pictures if nothing has changed.  Once something changes it dates the picture.

New Family Pix

This morning it was all overcast and gray, and the girls were home from school so I took some new pictures of them.  I wasn't very happy with the Christmas photos, there was way to much photoshopping needed to make them look half way good.  I like these one alot more.  It seems that Natalia has reached an awkward picture stage.  It is so hard to get a good picture with her eyes open and a nice smile.  Alauna, on the other hand, is finally easier to get picture of.  

 Now I just have to decide which pictures I should print off.  I'm leaning towards the ones on the left.

And lest you think I am favoring the girls over the boys.  Here are their pictures.  These were taken back in November and were for our Christmas card.  Because I really was on top of Christmas for a while and then Natalia's diabetes threw me for a loop and the Christmas card never happened.  The boys were much easier to get a good picture of.  So their pictures were already edited and ready to go, none of this still trying to get a good one.  On a side note, Sean seems to have outgrown the phase that Natalia is getting into where their eyes always look half closed in pictures. 

And then here's Robert and I.  We are still here and alive!  Yay us! 

          

Time to start blogging again

It's been almost two years since I last blogged.  A lot has happened in those 2 years.  Way more than I can even think of right now.  The highlights are:

Robert switched jobs.  He no longer works at one of the 'Big 4' accounting firms, instead he works as a staff accountant for a major drill company.  He really likes this job and enjoys the opportunities that it has given him.  He had a whirlwind trip to Brazil and Peru last year and has been to the backwoods of Canada a few times for his new job.  I'm hoping that he will soon have enough travel points that I'll get to go with him someplace fun!

I've been dealing with my multiple sclerosis.  I haven't had any more relapses since the one in 2009, for which I am ever so grateful.  There has been a little bit more damage to my spinal cord but no new lesions.  I guess I'll take what I can get from this disease and be happy with it.  I have been doing really well.  I took a year off of exercising, to try and get my energy levels back up.  It worked and after only a few months I was making things for the house again.  Making things is something I enjoy, but I've had a problem actually finishing my projects.  Once I stopped stressing my body out with exercise, it was able to finish healing from the relapse and now I am almost back to normal.  Yay for my body!

Brandon is growing like a weed.  He is just like any other 11 year old boy.  He likes school, likes his friends, likes to play soccer and basketball, and he gets moody sometimes.  Not too moody; just enough to get us super excited about the teenage years (not really).  A benefit to Brandon getting older is that he is really getting to be fun to be with.  He is able to talk with you, tease you, etc.  Of course, he sometimes doesn't know when to stop the teasing just yet.  Also this last year he has had 3? teeth pulled.  The poor kid has horrible teeth. 

Sean is also growing like a weed.  He has his group of friends and they all have a blast together.  They have an indoor soccer team together and it is the most fun to watch.  They all have a great time just playing together.  Sean likes pretty much the same stuff as Brandon which really helps them get along.  Sean just got glasses for reading, computers, etc.  (basically everything except for sports because everything involves a screen or a page).  The eye doctor said that he should only need to wear them for a few years.  The glasses will train his eyes to focus properly and then he won't need them anymore.

Natalia....see Natalia is our attention seeking child this year.  In August she started Kindergarten, which was the ultimate wish of her heart.  So she has been loving that.  But her big thing is that she was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in December, just 3 days after her 6th birthday.  To say it has been a huge adjustment is a bit of an understatement.  Natalia has learned to get her blood glucose tested every time she eats plus a few extras and to get insulin shots every time she eats.  She is doing amazingly well with it and only cries at some of the shots.  She has spent some time at Primary Children's Medical Center and had 911 called for her.  It has been quite the roller coaster.

Alauna is following in her big sister's footsteps as far as speech therapy goes.  She started preschool through the school district to get her help with her speech.  So far she has gotten more talkative and I saw marked improvement at the beginning of the year, but that seems to have slowed down a little bit now.  She is a bundle of energy and in general a very happy person.  Except for when she is dealing with loss of her attention status.  She enjoyed being the baby of the family, and while I have always made a huge effort for her to not be the 'baby' and get away with everything, she still got some extra attention.  Now that her sister is getting extra attention, Alauna is learning how to deal with this change and sometimes she doesn't deal very well.

Okay now that every thing is caught up, I can start blogging from here on out with out any further guilt etc from missed events in my children's lives. :)