The other day I was driving with my boys just running some errands when “A” and I started talking about Heaven. I asked him if he could remember living with Jesus and he said yes. I asked him what else he remembered and he said simply……………… “I picked you.” I asked him what he meant and he said that he picked me up in Heaven to be his mommy. It was sooooo sweet and soooo touching. What precious things children are.

The goose is getting fat….. please to put a penny in the old man’s hat.

I’m sorry but that song just got stuck in my head. Last night I stayed up and wrapped some of the presents I have bought for the kids for Christmas. My goal is to be completely done by next Friday night. I am going Black Friday shopping with my friend, Ranae. I have already seen the ads, know what I want, have a budget, and it’s off we go. I really hope I can get some of those Cabbage Patch Kids Special Edition dolls. “M” is just so into babies. She has one CBK now, she will get one when the baby is born, and I think she’ll get one from Santa and one from us. She will have a nice little CBK family! I still played with Cabbage Patch Kids up until I was 12. “K” wants one, too, but I think this might be one of the last years she gets one. She is growing into such a sweet little girl, almost a Young Woman. She is polite, has great manners, and wants to please others. If she ever got her card pulled or a checkmark in school that would be the end of it!

Today is such a yucky day. It rained all night and now is rainy and bitter cold. I kept “K” home from school today because she had a stomach ache in the middle of the night and is still not feeling great. I know exactly how she feels. Yesterday my stomach hurt so bad that I could hardly walk. I was having quite a few contractions and just the pains of pregnancy. I hope today is better because there is so much I need to do.

Tonight is Young Womens and we are having a “Mini Standard’s Night” for them. The big Standard’s Night will be held by the Stake in January. Ours is going to be low-key and just fun. I am over “Media”. I am sooo excited to present my portion. I am going to have a big bowl of vanilla ice cream and talk about how that is after we take the Sacrament each week, repent, etc. Then, I have all these CUTE little presents wrapped up with wrapping paper that I stamped myself, thank you very much! I worked really hard to make sure they were beautiful with ribbon & matching 3×3 cards. Each girl is going to “ooooo and ahhhhh” over them. Then I will let a YW pick one and ask her if she wants to open it. In the card I am going to have a quote from President Hinckley about the fifth of the world or media. Then when the YW opens up the gift she will find either dirt, rocks, bark, twigs, weeks, dead leaves. I will have her come up and add that to my Sundae. My point will be that Satan does his best to wrap up the evil things of the world in beautiful packages and sometimes the tempation is just too much and we want to see what is inside. For example, some of the commercials on TV for the programs or movies really intice us. Once we are watching them it is too late and our Spirit has already recieved some of the fifth.

I hope that all makes sense. I only have 10 minutes so I am going to have to be brief. For the dessert the girls are going to get to eat a real Sundae that we are going to have ready with crushed Oreos (dirt), and gummy worms. Hopefully they will remember this visual aid everytime they are listening to music, watching TV, or playing on the internet.

The countdown is here and ticking away!! I cannot believe that our entire life is going to change 3 weeks from tomorrow. It changes everytime a new baby comes into our lives. I imagine it will be a little hectic at first but we will fall into a nice routine. It’s so peaceful when a new baby comes to our house because the older kids will try to speak quieter and they will be totally focused on the baby. I’m sure they will be a great help. My concern is with “T” who will be just two weeks shy of being 2 years old. He is a handful right now, but in a good way. He needs lots of attention and has just switched to being a “momma’s boy” from being a “daddy’s boy” for the past 8 months. He just comes up to me and says “Hold you”, which means he wants me to hold him. Of course I can’t help but love it since he wanted nothing to do with me for soooo long. My only concern is when the baby gets here. My heart is already breaking for the feelings of abandonment he is going to have. He will want me to hold him but I know I will be too tired and not physically able to do it. I hope he doesn’t feel to sad. It will be fine when the girls are home from school but I know that during the day will be a challenge. “A” will be just fine. He is going to be 5 in March so he is very self sufficient.

I asked “B” for a blessing last night. I haven’t received it yet but I know I need it. The other night I couldn’t even sleep because I thought of everything that might go wrong with this surgery. I cannot even imagine my children growing up without their mommy. I just hope and pray that I can make it through this and be able to be the same mommy they knew before the c-section. I’ve just had so many great births that I don’t even know what to expect. I seriously have not been this scared before a birth. With my first I didn’t even get nervous until I was about ready to have “K”. I wonder if it is because I know the exact day with this one and the other ones I did not.

On a happier note. I really am excited to have a little baby boy. I love it when they are newborns and want to snuggle with you all the time. “T” really only wants to be held on his terms, which usually means when I am busy with something else. “A” is a big snuggler but wants to snuggle in the middle of the night when he sneaks in my bed. That is a whole different post about how my children ALWAYS end up in bed with us. I was stressing last night because “A” got in bed with us at just 1:00am. I said to “B” that he cannot be doing this when the baby is here. Maybe we should just set up his bed in our room so he feels safe but is not in our bed. I think “A” also slept in our room when “T” was born because he just needed us. I don’t mind if my children want to be close to me. “K” got in our bed until she was almost 5 and now she just comes down when she has a bad dream. She is old enough now that I can just take her back up and tuck her in. It’s funny how we forget how tough they were when they were little. “K” is the easiest child now and we never would have known it going through her life up until she was 5. She was our fit thrower. She is so gentle and kind now. I guess it just shows us that we have to do all we can when they are young and they will turn out okay even if, at the time, it seems like they will not be.

For the past 4 or 5 days I have been super moody and snappy with everyone in my family. I have noticed that it really has effected the mood in our home. How can the Spirit dwell here when there is so much contention? Last night I was pretty bad and had just about had it with my 6 year old “M”. She seems to be at a challenging age and is JUST like me. I finally got them to settle down in their beds and after about an hour I just felt really guilty. I decided to go in the girl’s room and just snuggle with both of them, even if they were asleep. Well, I went in there and “M” was wide awake sitting up in bed. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was just thinking about how she never wanted to go to the ocean again. I asked her why and she said because of sharks. For some reason she was having scary thoughts and couldn’t get to sleep. I layed down beside her and told her this story that I just made up from the top of my head. Here is how it went……..

Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl who had a mom who would give her anything that she wanted except one thing…… CHOCOLATE. The little girl came up to her mom one day and said “Mom, can I have a chocolate chip cookie?” The mom answered “I’m sorry honey but I don’t want to give you chocolate but I will take you to Target in the morning and you can get that $250 horse that you want that you can sit on and it looks like it is real.” The little girl said, “Okay, I guess that sounds fine.” So the next day she got her pony and was sitting in her room playing with it but something was missing. So she went up to her mom and said “Thanks so much for my new pony but I would really like a chocolate chip cookie”. The mom just looked at her and said “How about if we go to the store and get you a Barbie Playhouse that you can really play inside of with a matching bed and a pink lamp?” The little girl said “that sounds nice”. So that night she sat in her new playhouse but was still not as happy as she could be. The next morning she went up to her mom and said, “Mom, thanks so much for my new Barbie Playhouse, it’s really nice but I really, really want a chocolate chip cookie.” Her mom said “Here is $50, let’s go get you some new Polly Pockets and Littlest Pet Shops”. The little girl took the money and said “Okay”. Later that night she sat in her playhouse playing with all her new toys and she thought that something was missing. She went up to her mom and said “Mom, can I just have a chocolate chip cookie??” The mom answered, “Well, if you are willing to take back all the toys that we bought to the store I guess I can make you a batch of cookies & milk, while we sit and snuggle and talk on the couch.” The little girl thought for a second and said “Yes, that is what I want”. So they took back all those great toys that cost sooooo much money and they sat on the couch snuggling and eating chocolate chip cookies. The little girl looked up at her mom and said “I guess money could buy us anything in the world but that could never replace what a chocolate cookie & time with you give me…………… LOVE”.

My daughter LOVED that story and I had to repeat it tonight to my 8 year old, who said she would have rather have kept all the toys instead of the cookie. I was promted to tell that story to her and I realized why later. Our life gets so wrapped up in the material things of the world that it seems like it would be easier just to buy our children’s happiness when all they really want is our love and attention. I guess it was a guilt-promoted story. “M” just really needs more hugs than anything else. It melts away her anger and sassiness.

I was just reading the blog of a friend of mine (hi Jill) when I realized that I need to share my conversion story on my blog. I have been so blessed by having the gospel in my life that I would be ungrateful if I didn’t share it with everyone who takes the time to read this.

My story starts when I was just 22. I had about the worst year of my life when I was 21 that I was ready for some change in it. My dad died of alcholism, I joined the Air Force and got medically discharged, and some other personal problems that I will not go into. I decided to just take a break from all of it and move to Utah to live with my sister, Christy, and her family. I got a job working at a 7-11 and was just sort of hanging out in a limbo in life. Not really any direction to go. I worked with a girl who was just about to get married and she was the happiest, sweetest thing you could ever meet. The funny thing now is that I can’t even remember her name and I’m not even sure if she knows that I was baptized. One day I was working with her and she was just smiling away so I asked her why she was so happy. She told me it was because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I continued to ask her more and more questions. When I got home that day I was really confused so I asked my sister, who was an inactive member of the church at the time, to have the missionaries come over so I could talk to them. The first discussion went really well but I was still very confused. After the second discussion the missionaries asked me to read a passage from the Book of Mormon which was Moroni 10:3-5. Then they asked me to pray about it and ask if what I was reading was true. Later that night I was home alone so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to read from that book. I read what they asked and then quietly kneeled and prayed if it was true. It was amazing because a warm sensation came throughout my body and I knew that was I had just read was true. I couldn’t believe it. One thing that I want to add is that the only way to know if the Book of Mormon is true is to read about it and then ask for yourself. Noone forced me to do anything I was not willing to do and I came to my own conclusion.

The next discussion was my 3rd and the missionaries asked if I was ready to be baptized. I told them no and didn’t say anything else. I finally committed to being baptized after my next discussion and have never looked back since. My life was not easy before I was baptized but I knew I was taking the right step in my life. Before I joined I never really knew what the purpose of life was. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has answered all of my questions. I hope you all enjoyed my conversion story. I do know, without a doubt in my heart, that this church is true. I have received so many blessing by being a member. I have found my true love, who I am sealed to forever in the temple, and I have felt the spirit so many times. The Lord has led us all over the country as we have prayerfully made decisions about where we need to go for school and such. I have made the best friends but the most wonderful part about it is that wherever we live I know that I am going to have an instant family at church! The lessons are the same, the callings are the same, and everyone serves for one general purpose…. to build up the Kingdom of God on Earth.