2018

Beth:

For Beth’s 11th birthday, she had her friends make fairy gardens.  She loves to craft and create.  She started keeping a journal this year and was very diligent. She enjoys going to Activity Days and feels blessed to have such loving leaders.

She served on the safety patrol her elementary school, which meant a lot of early mornings with hot cocoa.

At the end of 5th grade, she earned her Great American Award.  It has several requirements including memorizing all the states and capitals, the presidents, and The Gettysburg Address.  She graduated from elementary school and was chosen to read her essay at the NOVA (the new DARE program) ceremony.

She started at Albion Middle School in August.  She has done great at adapting to having six teachers and a 40-pound backpack.  She has made new friends and her favorite subjects are social studies, Spanish, college and career awareness, and science.

Beth continues to be a fantastic big sister to Andrew and keeps us all in line when it comes to family home evening and prayers.

Andrew:

Andrew turned 8 and was baptized on March 3rd.  With help from family and friends he had a great program and lovely luncheon after.  

He is a Wolf in the Cub Scouts and really enjoys his den and pack meetings.  He takes it seriously and never wants to be late to the meetings.  He has made new friends because his den consists of boys from three wards.  

He is in 3rd grade and was excited for the school year to start so that he could learn more math. He also loves to learn about the moon and space and is planning on being Albert Einstein in the wax museum later in the year.  His best friend, Jack, is in his class which makes going to school more fun and he also gets to be a lunch worker this year and does very well with that responsibility.

He could spend 8+ hours a day in the summer tubing on the lake with an occasional break to play in the sand.  

He prefers to only eat foods from select food groups.  Those would be, the bread (lightly toasted) with Nutella group, the noodles with butter group, and the carrots (raw or cooked) group.

Nicole:

I continue, unsuccessfully, to try and make my kid’s childhoods slow down.  Although, having them both in school full-time means I have read two books this year which may be a record for me of books read in one year since my kids were born. 

I really enjoyed our trips to Bluff, Utah to learn more about Kevin’s ancestor who helped lead some pioneers there.  We got to dress up like pioneers and pull a handcart in the Bluff Days Parade.  Also, my trip to Virginia with Beth to see Josh graduate, be with the Hunts, and see Washington, D.C. was definitely a highlight of 2018.  We could have spent three months sightseeing and it was very hard to say goodbye.

I officially renewed my teaching license and am now working as a substitute teacher in Canyons School District.  I enjoy the flexibility that comes with that.

My health has improved this year, for which I am very grateful!  I am adapting to a gluten free lifestyle and trying to avoid diabetes.

Kevin:

Kevin was the last High Priest Group leader in our ward when that calling was eliminated. And, after a 30-year hiatus, he was called to dust off his piano skills as the Primary pianist.  After he proved that he had extreme faith, he was released from that calling and asked to teach five of the rowdiest 5-year olds in history. After the first week he came home and drew up some ground rules.  But last week the list had to be amended to include #6. Keep your clothes on.  Needless to say, he thinks the new 25-minute class time will be more suited to their attention span.

Kevin continued to campaign for an end to Daylight Savings Time.  However, this was once again met with disappointment.  His wife just adds this to the list of reasons to move to Arizona.

He is kept very busy by his work.  He has some business coaching clients and continues to teach business classes and advise students at Independence University.

He was able to get back into cycling with some neighborhood friends toward the end of the warm season.  He is planning on doing the Salt Lake Bike Marathon in April.  He is by far the most talkative person in his group training classes at the gym.  That is most likely because he has already been awake for hours by the time it starts at 6:00 am while everyone else is still trying to acclimate to being out of bed.

My MInd

Out of the blue while he's playing on my phone and I'm sitting at my computer...

Andrew: Yeah, mom, I think you're out of your mind.

Me: About what?

Andrew: About everything.

Well, okay then.

General Conference

During the April 2018 General Conference, a talk that really touched me was given by Elder Lynn G. Robbins titled "Until Seventy Times Seven".

These quotes were so powerful to me:

"No one is more on our side than the Savior. He allows us to take and keep retaking His exams. To become like Him will require countless second chances in our day-to-day struggles with the natural man, such as controlling appetites, learning patience and forgiveness, overcoming slothfulness, and avoiding sins of omission, just to name a few. If to err is human nature, how many failures will it take us until our nature is no longer human but divine? Thousands? More likely a million.

Repentance isn’t His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance is His plan, knowing that we will."

I am very hard on myself and I often forget that it is through trying and making mistakes, repenting, and taking second chances that I can grow and become more like my Savior and Heavenly Father.  I need to allow myself the thousands or millions of failures.

Ronald McDonald

Andrew:  They make him look friendly.
Me: What?  (I couldn’t quite hear him)
Andrew:  They make him look friendly...and a little scary.

Christmas Talk 2018

Thank you, dear Primary, for your beautiful musical number.  It is fitting that our meeting today should start with children because the first Christmas was all about a child.   Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, born 2017 years ago, in Bethlehem.  How silently, how silently the wondrous and greatest of all gifts was given.  He came as a newborn baby born in humble circumstances surrounded by creatures that he helped to create, that he might know how it was to live and grow among mankind.

Born in a stable, I picture tiny newborn Jesus with his ten fingers and ten toes, he who would one day save tens of billions of souls and yet knows each of us by name and knows how to succor each of us individually in our infirmities, our disappointments, and our griefs.

Those big bright eyes, looking up at Mary would one day see the poor, the rich, the sinner, the saint, old, young, those from all cultures, races, backgrounds, and beliefs and yet he would behold them as His brother or sister, a child of His Heavenly Father, and love them immensely.

Those kissable, baby feet would one day walk dusty paths as he taught his Father’s word.  But, they would also walk upon the water demonstrating his great faith and dominion over the elements.

Those tiny hands that could reach up to grasp his mother’s finger would one day be used to heal the blind, the deaf, the lame, and raise the dead.  As well as pour the wine and break the bread that would forever symbolize his great sacrifice for us.

Those little knees kicking in the swaddling clothes would one day bow as he suffered the agony of Gethsemane.  The agony that allows me to repent of my sins and shortcomings.  The agony that assures me and all of us that there is no pain, mental, physical, or spiritual that my Savior does not have perfect empathy for.

I picture those baby soft shoulders that would one day carry a cross to Golgotha.  The place where after suffering more unimaginable pain, he would give up his life for us.  Where he completed the awful atonement.

Mary laid him in a manger and he would one day be laid in a tomb.  But he would rise up as a resurrected, eternal being that we might also live eternally with him, our Heavenly Father and other loved ones, free from the limitations imposed by our imperfect physical bodies, these two promises are what keep me going from day to day.

I testify that the baby born in a stable in Bethlehem lives today as our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, to all of us, even those of us that feel overwhelmed, stressed, lonely, alone or unworthy at this time of year, let us focus on the marvelous gift of that tiny baby and remember that he who we have been invited to come and adore, adores us perfectly.

Isaiah’s words on Christ’s birth always bring a thrill to my heart.

⁶ For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Joy to the World admonishes “Let earth receive her King”.  Let each of us receive our king, not only in this season but as we go forward.  Let us receive him in whichever of his roles we need him most whether it’s Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty god, The everlasting Father, or The Prince of Peace.  In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, Amen.