Birthday Weekend!!

It was a fast and furious birthday weekend loaded with family and fun. Carter turned 7 and I turned 32!!! Our Birthday was actually on Sunday, but we celebrated on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we loaded up the bikes and headed into Boise to ride on the Green Belt, something I have been wanting to do sense we have been here. It was a beautiful day and a promising activity until two of the kids rode their bikes off the trail through thorns and ended up with flat tires right off the bat! We spent the next hour at a park nearby and enjoyed the awesome fall day. We came home to enjoy a birthday feast, Carter's choice. . . chicken pillows with rice and corn and Dirt cake for dessert. I headed out for Women's Conference which was fabulous although I was missing my Mom. We ended the day with a fire pit and smores - a family favorite.

Carter had a "Bronco" birthday, and was a darling Birthday Boy. Happy 7th!

Sunday, Doug invited some friends over and prepared a fabulous dinner of breakfast foods. We had Crepes with Strawberries and Cream, waffles, eggs, side pork, homemade syrup, fruit and juice. Everything tasted so great.  My sweet kids showered me with gifts they purchased from the neighborhood yard sales. . . definite treasures and such thoughtful gifts. I love sharing a  birthday with my boy - it has been another great year!

Out my front window

Someday I am really going to miss the the  small, simple things of little people in my home.  I love watching my kids play, using their imaginations when they are all alone on a quiet afternoon. This is what I saw today when the house got quiet and I was looking for Nate.

Nothing in the world is better than being a Mom. I am so blessed to be living my dream.

How Dear to God Are Little Children

To earthly parents God sends children

To guide and teach, protect and love.

Oh, let us keep the sacred trust,

That he has placed with each of us

And help to guide them back to  God above.

-Children's Song Book pg. 180

Downtown

Gracie & Carter were my lucky subjects this week on our little photo outing downtown. We scouted out some fun new places to shoot. . . here are a few of my fav's.

Thanks Laura and Audrey for the invite. I love these opportunities to learn and improve and just to be with friends.

Mr. Personality

Who couldn't love this face?

Celebrating 12 Years Today

1996 - 2008

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."

-Dinah Craik

Positive Parenting

Teaching Children to Feel and Recognize the Spirit

"Testimony isn't something you have today, and you are going to have always. A testimony is fragile. It is as hard to hold as a moonbeam. It is something you have to recapture every day of your life." -President Harold B. Lee

my notes:

Teach Children to live by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Create a peaceful home. An environment to feel reverence . . . identify that feeling.

Electronics need to be monitored and controlled. Rarely can we feel the influence of the Holy Ghost if we are always being entertained.

You can not "force" children to have a testimony or to be spiritual. Your responsibility as a parent is to provide the environment (water, soil, sun) where their seed of faith can grow.

"You can no more force the Spirit to respond than you can force a bean to sprout, or an egg to hatch before its time. You can create a climate to foster growth, nourish, and protect; but you cannot force or compel: you must await the growth." Elder Boyd D. Packer

-have children home with us

-create order

-media off

We give too much of our "teaching time" away.

Learn to recognize the Holy Ghost in own life. We can't teach what we don't know. 

The Holy Ghost speaks to you as a feeling. 

Teach children to acknowledge their feelings. Validate how they feel, don't dismiss feelings.

Reverence: Deep respect, appreciation, and love for that which is holy. A feeling of peace and joy.

create many moments of reverence.

Keep the Sabbath Day Holy:

The Sabbath should be different than all other days of the week. Engage in the Lord's work (different than your work) create in our homes something different so they feel something different on the sabbath.

ideas: Sunday box (box filled with various sunday activities)

Work on Faith in God

Review Scouting

PPI (Personal Progress Interviews)

Write letters \ journals

look at family pictures of videos together

General Conference:

Conference weekend is a time for the family to be together. Talk about conference coming up. Post pictures of the Prophet and Apostles in your home several weeks before conference.

Prepare Conference Notebooks for each child. Assign a speaker to each child to report on.

When the Conference Ensign comes out, purchase one for each child and use these as the basis for Home Evenings for the next six months.

***Homework***

Look at your sabbath day and pray about it, so the Lord will reveal to you how to make it a Holy day.

Make conference fun! Make your family excited to be there. (cinnamon rolls for breakfast!!!)

Photo Outing

Last night I was invited to check out some new photo spots around town with a couple of talented girls. It was a fun evening swapping ideas and snapping a few shots. The time flew by. . . not as many hours of daylight to work with.

Here are a couple of my favorites...

Positive Parenting with Carleen Tanner

Every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks, it is my privilege to attend an amazing parenting class taught by Carleen Tanner. I am going to try and share a little of what I come away with each week. This weeks topic of discussion:

Establishing a House of Order

my notes. . . 

Learn to use the gift of the Holy Ghost in the "everyday's" of our lives. *Learn to listen.

Keep a ponder pad - record sudden strokes of ideas (Holy Ghost testifying to you the things you need to do) act in Faith.

Elder Wirthlin:

"Examine your life, determine where you are. Create nobel righteous goals from the fire of your imagination. Create excitement in your heart and keep your eye on the goal"

Get a vision - see what it looks like to be what you want to be. find a role model, look around and find someone to learn from, but don't compare!

Your goal needs to be based on doctrine in order to change your life. Doctrine changes lives.

D&C 88:119

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of FAITH, a house of LEARNING, a house of GLORY, a house of ORDER, a house of GOD.

Take our homes out of chaos and bring them into order and peace.

Order = spirit of contentment, happiness and joy, encompassed by a feeling of security

Establish Routines (daily, weekly, monthly)

D&C 88:124 ..."cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated."

In order to create order you'll have to get up. How? retire to bed early.

Put our homes in order so the Spirit can be there. Be Bold in our commitment to follow the Savior.

***Homework***

1. Choose a nobel righteous goal from the fire of your imagination.

2. Bring our homes out of the world. Bring them back to the Lord. Create an environment where children know they are safe. Make it a tangible difference.

3. Create a "Brasher Family Proclomation"   Who are you?  Who do you represent?  What does it mean to be a Brasher?

***remember: don't focus on reaching your goal all at once. improve by percentages. focus on what you are doing right and take a step at a time.

EXUSE THIS HOUSE

Some houses try to hide the fact

that children shelter there.

Ours boasts of it quite openly

the signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows,

little smudges on the door.

I should apologize I guess,

for toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children

and we laughed and played and read.

And if the doorbell doesn't shine

their eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I'm forced to choose

the one job or the other.

I want to be a housewife,

but first I'll be a Mother.

Little Miss Ada

unique (yoo-neek) adj

1. the only one of its kind

2. unparalleled; without an equal or equivalent

3. different in a way that makes someone special and worthy of notice

4. original