Candyland

Sorry there have been no pictures lately. I left my camera in Utah and since I'm returning to Utah on the 15th I figured I could wait and save on the shipping costs. We recently bought the game Candyland and I've been trying to teach Esther how to play it. Let's just say she has not quite grasped the game concept and maybe that's a good thing. She gets the color thing--moving along the colors but she does not understand that winning, or getting to the Candy Castle is a good thing and winning is the end of the game. In her girly mind, getting to the Candy Castle is not the ultimate goal, instead it's all about getting to Princess Frostine, because she's a princess of course. So today when she won I tried to say "Yea!! you won!!" and she immediately started crying and blubbering about the princess so... we kept playing and she made it to the princess and then we were finally able to end the game. Maybe I should hide it and try again in a few months.

Christmas musings

One of my family's Christmas traditions is to try to think of a present to give to Jesus during the month of December--not a literal gift of course, but something the He would want us to do, or become. We would write these down and then on Christmas morning open them and try to remember if we had given our gift well. It was great because it brought the focus back to Christ first thing in the morning. Today my mom sent out an email about our "gifts to Jesus." She is so amazing--she had a hip replacement a week ago and she took the time to painfully sit and send out this email to us about trying to notice the hand of God in our everyday lives (as President Eyring talked about last conference). It was just what I needed to hear today as I've been feeling like a single parent this week (wow do I respect single parents). John has been studying till 7:30 or 8:00 every night plus he leaves at 6:00 in the morning. So I was feeling especially lonely and worn out tonight when one of my good friends from the ward just called to check up on me and see how I was doing. It meant so much to me and I think God knew I needed a friend tonight. He also helped keep me safe on the wet rainy roads today and He watched over my girls and kept them safe--with only one minor tongue bite today. Oh, and my favorite was having my Esther look me in the eye and tell me she was "berry sorry" about not listening to Mommy while bathing and could she please have a story? It was the first apology that she has done all by herself with no prompting. There is nothing sweeter than my little girls and I thank God for them every day. So for the rest of the month as my gift to Jesus I will try to notice and record all the ways God touches my life every day.