Sweet is the Peace

I am sure that I am the only person that ever gets lazy and trails in reading my scriptures and staying on the proper spiritual path, as all of my friends always make everything look so easy. Over the weekend I was literally "feasting" on the scriptures as I remembered that the Lord answers our questions and prayers so often through the scriptures. I also frequently am reminded of the hymn "Sweet is the Peace the Gospel Brings" which often comes to my mind when I am ill at ease and I know the Lord is reminding me where to look for peace. However, the next phrase is "to seeking minds and true." We have to anxiously engage ourselves in order for the Lord to reveal His will and mind to us, not passively await some epiphany. How silly that I seem to need to learn this lesson over and over, but how grateful I am that the Lord is patient and continually gives me the things I need when I seek them.

Calling All Runners

I am getting into the final stages of training for my marathon and have met about as much resistance as possible. Sick kids, up all night for several weeks, then recovering from sick kids, trying to wean, etc. I have found that my biggest challenge though is learning how to refuel. I have GU's, but boy do I hate them! Because of that I don't use them often enough and found myself depleted at the end of my last run. Does anyone have any good suggestions or tricks that they have found besides GU's? Alex suggests PayDays, but I haven't tried them because I haven't been able to find them at a store here yet. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Reading Challenge

I have been trying to teach Mark to learn to read at his own request. He is bright and capable, but on Lesson 32 of 100 we hit a wall and I was frustrated and he was crying and it was just no fun for either one of us. I was about to abandon the entire process when Alex encouraged me try to say a prayer before and break the lesson in half and not do it all at once. I wasn't all that convinced, but I said I would try this last time. So, for the last few lessons we have done those two things. Sometimes I say the prayer and sometimes Mark does. His prayers are very sweet. Well, to Alex's credit, so far this has been extremely successful and sweet little Mark yesterday said with much enthusiasm, "Mom, saying a prayer really helps!" Yes, Mark, saying a prayer really helps!

Trip

We went to Jersey City over the weekend and even though it turned out to be a fiasco in family relations, we did manage to enjoy going into downtown Manhattan. Here are the boys on the subway. This was Alex's usual stance as he used to travel to and from work when we lived in New York.

Although this picture is dark, it is hilarious. We dipped into a McDonalds to have a bathroom break for the kids and found a live piano player. Only in New York!

Too bad the bull isn't as raging as it should be. We should have taken a picture of the other end. It was the side the kids found most entertaining. We are definitely in a bathroom humor phase for the boys!

Everyone enjoying a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. It is free and the kids enjoy it as much as paying for a ride, plus there is a decent view of the Statue of Liberty from it!

Natural History Museum

On one of the days that Christopher had off of school, we metroed (is that right?) down to the Natural History Museum. Christopher for some reason really wanted to see the Hope Diamond which is pictured below (sorry for the glare). We had talked about it a long time ago, but it seemed to return to him that there was a supposed curse on anyone who owned it until it was finally donated to the museum. I guess he is at the age where that stuff is becoming interesting. I wouldn't have expected my kids to have enjoyed the minerals and gems section at this age, but they were fascinated by the various shapes and designs and colors. Maybe we'll have a future geologist?

Just hanging out under the world!

Zoo Day

Christopher had a "Zoo Day" at school where he got to tell us all about the animal that he and his group had been studying, which happened to be tigers (if you couldn't guess by the pictures). He even got to watch the tigers live via webcam at the National Zoo. The kids made clay sculptures. Christopher's is the one to the far right.

Snow Day

We finally had some snow! Christopher had the day off of school and some of the other kids in the apartment building all met up to play!

New Duds

Here are some of our new clothes that we got for Christmas. Thank you, Uncle Paul!

Anna's First Birthday

Here is the Big Birthday Girl. The boys and I made her a homemade party/princess hat. We had tacos for dinner and Anna really took to the refried beans. As you will see in later pictures, the bow didn't last too long.

Anna's birthday party spread for our friends who came to celebrate and eat cake with us. Notice the pink, pink and more pink. Can you tell I enjoy having a girl?

Our good friends the Aunas came to celebrate with us.

As well as the Caudles and their cute girls.

Anna really enjoyed her birthday cake and was shoving away.

Here she is opening her presents. I LOVE this cute hat from Uncle Paul. It just was too adorable.

Her final look of enjoyment on her special day!