Up Up and Away

Did I mention climbing?


We've now got all our chairs tied together around our kitchen table because Isaiah would pull them all over the house to get into stuff. Though as I put the camera away, he dragged this one remaining chair over to the fish tank to splash in the water, grrrrrr.... This chair used to be at the desk in Helaman's room but we had to take it away because Isaiah was trying to use it to climb into the top bunk. He doesn't believe there is anything Helaman can do he shouldn't be able to do.

I love there giggling here:

Juggling with Daddy

It's officially amazing!

My sister had this on her blog and I sat there laughing the whole time. I need to start saying WOW!

Lately.

Isaiah is finally getting better, poor guy. And we've been having tons of fun lately. Valentines day was family together day, ending with John's Pizza that night. (Omar says its Valentines Day for everone, so...) The night before Omar and I did get to go out. Our friends hosted a murder mystery dinner, and it was tons of fun. I was a angsty nun and Omar was a homeless guy. You can see pictures on my friend Kiahna's blog. (I didn't think to take my camera).

We had some great rain and snow yesterday which is always super fun in the desert. It's back to sunny and windy, now. But still warm enough to play outside. I'm really glad we didn't end up in Seattle. The rain is fun, but I am definitely a sun girl.

You can click on the pictures if you want to read more details of our crazy going-ons the past few days. I'm going to try and get a video of Isaiah talking so I can get that on here too.
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Gospel Basics Family Nights

I've been worrying for months about and organized process for teaching the fundamentals of the gospel to my 4 year and 1.5 year-olds. Well, inspiration hit (in the shower) a couple of weeks ago. We are going through the articles of faith, one per month, memorizing it, and talking about the gospel principles that go with it each week. It's worked great so far. Here' my rough schedule, I'm sure we'll fine-tune it as we go. Let me know if you have any great suggestions for specific topics.

I've also been making more of an effort to teach out of the scriptures. Having specific doctrine in mind has made that much easier for me.

January, First Article of Faith
week 1: God as our Father (prayer)
week 2: Bodies of God and Christ, attributes
week 3: Holy Ghost in your mind and heart
week 4: First Vision

February, Second Article of Faith
week 1: Creation of the world
week 2: Garden of Eden, the fall
week 3: Commandments
week 4: Iron rod

March, Third Article of Faith
week 1: Plan of Salvation
week 2: Atonement
week 3: Following Christ
week 4: Repentance

April, Fourth Article of Faith
week 1: Faith
week 2: Repentance
week 3: Baptism
week 4: Gift of the Holy Ghost

May, Fifth Article of Faith
week 1: priesthood authority
week 2: blessings of the priesthood
week 3: ordinances
week 4: prophets

June, Sixth Article of Faith
week 1: Christ called apostles, set up church
week 2: Organization of the church
week 3: sustaining our leaders
week 4: callings

July, Seventh Article of Faith
week 1: definitions
week 2: talents
week 3: personal revelation
week 4: miracles of Christ

August, Eighth Article of Faith
week 1: Where the Bible came from
week 2: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon
week 3: importance of scriptures
week 4: Favorite scriptures stories

September, Ninth Article of Faith
week 1: modern revelation through prophet
week 2: eternal families
week 3: word of wisdom
week 4: Holy ghost and personal revelation

October, Tenth Article of Faith
week 1: Story of Joseph and his coat & ten tribes
week 2: Zion
week 3: Second Coming
week 4: preparing for Second Coming

November, Eleventh Article of Faith
week 1: Worship
week 2: Being reverent
week 3: Keeping the Sabbath day Holy
week 4: Following Christ

December - Christmas all month!

January, Twelfth Article of Faith
week 1: Obeying laws of the land
week 2: Community helpers (police, fire, etc.)
week 3: Pioneers
week 4: Patriotism

February, Thirteenth Articles of Faith
week 1: Honesty
week 2: Kindness
week 3: Virtue
week 4: Service

March, Thirteenth Article of Faith cont.
week 1: Talents
week 2: Good books and movies
week 3:

Pay tithing online

I mentioned a while a go that we pay our tithing through our online bill pay. Some friends asked me how I did that, and I told them I would send the link and never did. Well, here's the form and my apologies for not remembering who to send it to... Hope it's useful. I've loved being able to pay online and not having to remember my check book on Sunday.

LDS Billpay Authorization Form

Healthy Almost

The drug lords have been living well thanks to our family lately. What you see here is the fun assortment of drugs on our current schedule.

Isaiah has had a cough forever. We finally got x-rays and found that his left sinus was completely plugged from infection. So... he now takes the strongest possible oral antibiotic twice a day (for three weeks!). Three times a day we do a saline clean out of his nose, and twice a day he gets to snort steroids. He also has to take probio twice a day (but not at the same time as the antibiotics) so that he doesn't lose all of his good bacteria. Plus since Helaman takes vitamins he has to take a vitamin every day, too. Oh, and we've been giving him Motric for the sinus pain to help him sleep at night.

I have a prescription that I have take every 12 hours and antibiotics for a root canal every eight hours to keep track of, too. So far, I haven't had a day where I actually remembered everything.

Aslo, for those of you who knew about this... My heart monitoring results came back. I'm healthy, I just have mild rhythm problems, but nothing that will cause an damage. Just weird feelings and a little dizziness here there.

Anyway, we're getting there!

Little copy cat

Isaiah wants to do EVERYthing Helaman does these days. He follow him around all day copying his every move. Tonight when we were reading scriptures Helaman was sitting on a box on the fireplace, so Isaiah of course had to do it too. They like to use our little hymn books as their scriptures, it cracks me up. Then Helaman put his on his head, and Isaiah had to copy that, too.

They crack me up!

All things new again

This has been a rough month at our house. Isaiah has been congested and isn't sleeping well, so neither are the rest of us. Then everyone buy Omar got the flu, and I'm on a new medication that makes me feel sick most of the time anyway... I've kind of been a zombie mom (thus the lack of posting, etc.), just trying to get through each day as best I can. Unfortunately, that usually means I'm cranky mom, too.

But February is looking up. Omar is starting a new tour at work on Monday that he is really excited about. His boss also offered him an opportunity to come and work in the machine shop in a very specialized and very Omar position, so he is excited about that, too. His last tour was really hard on him because they didn't have enough work to keep him busy. It wasn't until the last week that he really got to start doing analysis on his project. He's happy to be moving on, but sad he didn't get to finish the work that finally started.

Helaman didn't got back to preschool in January, and that's been an adjustment for us, too. My plan was to do structured activities with him on my own a couple of hours a day. We did manage to do that, once. The rest of the time I've just been dragging myself around. I hate feeling that way. But Helaman is much happier not going to that preschool, so I'm sure it was the right thing. I don't want him to start off his long life of school ahead hating it.

As of today, February 1st, I'm doing better, too. Isaiah slept a lot more last night, and I did to. That really helped. I took him to nursery today, too. I actually got to go to Sunday School and listen and participate. I feel so uplifted. The lesson in Sunday school was on the atonement, and I am so happy to be reminded of that tremendous blessing.

I've made some really bad decisions in my life. That's a long story... and not one I like to tell (or even remember). But today, for the first time, I can see how what a blessing the road I've traveled was for me. I am so grateful to have a depth of understanding about the atonement and the love of my Savior that only came because of those bad choices, and my repentance, and his infinite mercy and forgiveness. Glory to God in the highest. When we turn our lives over to Him he really can take the bad and through his power make it good.

I'm grateful for that atonement at the end of this hard month especially. I'm not a nice tired mom, and I shudder to think how unkind I can be to my sweet boys (and husband). But as I repent daily (hourly) He continues to forgive me and help me do better. And I really am starting to see the change as He fills me up with His light and helps me be more like Him. I'm so grateful that His atonement is infinite, and as many times as I sin and repent He forgives me. If there was a limit I would be in big trouble.

The sun in shining and it's warm today. I'm happy. February is going to be great!