Our mothers knew it.

My Mother's Day has been wonderful.
Ben made me breakfast in bed: french toast made with Cinnamon Chip Streusel bread from Great Harvest.
I watched Lucas come running around the corner yelling, "Mama! Mama! Mama!"
------
Oh, wait. Ben said, "Lucas come back, you forgot something!"
Lucas started getting upset.
Take two!
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I watched Lucas come running around the corner with a giant balloon yelling "Mama! Mama! Mama!"
Ben also gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses.
And a sweet mother's day gift: a small pocket version of the Primary Children's Songbook.

Without fail, someone always references the story of the 2,000 stripling warriors in their sacrament meeting talk on Mother's Day. I've read it and heard it a bazillion times. Specifically these verses (Alma 56: 47-48):

  47 Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. 

 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.

These women taught their sons to have complete faith in the Lord.
But the realization I had today was that, in order to teach this principle, these women had to be faithful themselves.
Our mothers knew it.

Do I know it? Do I have complete faith in the Lord?
This personal reflection reminded me of a talk given by Sister Julie B. Beck in the October 2007 General Conference, "Mothers Who Know":

When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on their children.

I think I'm going to work on improving in each area that she talks about.

Thank you to all of the wonderful mothers in my life for your examples. I love you!

Happy Mother's Day.

ELMO

Lucas has a new obsession.

ELMO.

We have his friends P and J to thank for this.  ;)

I was curious to see if Lucas would like Elmo as much as his friends, so we watched this clip together.

 He thought it was fun and clapped and said, "Yaaaay!"

So we watched a few more. Then we found this clip.

He started dancing and showing me his moves.

Seriously, the kid is OBSESSED.

He is always asking to watch "Eh-mo" and for me to play his favorite clip "agee?". (I'm not kidding, 15 times before I finally had to say no.) I now have a bookmark shortcut on my browser that will take me straight to the Sesame Street Elmo page.

And in case you're wondering, Mommy really likes this one too. (Although Daddy thinks that Snuffy is just down-right creepy...)

Helper

Lucas likes to "help" me in the kitchen.
He knows that the oven is "ha" so he's not supposed to touch it. He does anyway. We try to keep it locked most of the time.
He's got his own cupboard with a couple of pots and some measuring cups and spoons to play with.
But he always wants to do what Mommy is doing.

Kitchen Cupboards Make Good Hiding Spots

Lucas has his own cupboard in the kitchen. The only one we have not put a lock on. We keep some plastic pots, measuring cups, and spoons in there for him to play with.

He recently discovered how much fun it is to empty the cupboard out and climb in himself!

password is "cupboard"

Lately...

We moved.

Then we went to Utah for Christmas.

Now we are trying to get the house organized and decorated.

It is a slow process. These things take time and money.

But we keep busy with other things, too.

Like serving at church. Ben teaches the Gospel Essentials class and I am in the Primary presidency. I have been thrown into a very unfamiliar world: Scouting. Let's just say there is a lot of information and a lot of cheese...

Ben and I are doing a healthy challenge called "Feel Great in Eight." For eight weeks we compete against others to earn points by eating good foods, exercising, and personal prayer and scripture study.

In spite of my new strict diet (I'm having major chocolate withdrawals...), I LOVE getting together with a few friends for a cooking group twice a month. And our sons love playing together.

Oh, and I've been watching this:

I have a major crush on Robin Hood now.

And since that show ended I've jumped on the bandwagon and started watching this:

Full of delicious drama and characters that you love and others that you loathe. I can see why it received the Golden Globe for best TV miniseries. And some Emmys for writing (Julian Fellowes), director (Brian Percival), and supporting actress (Maggie Smith).

It looks like I have a new addiction to British television.

Toys

Lucas had a friend over to play.

I told him to show her all of his toys.

So he did.

He showed her ALL of them.

"It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas"

The weather has finally cooled down here in San Antonio! We wear jackets when we go outside!

Toys in every store!
I just bought the new Michael Buble album: Christmas. The one at Target has three bonus tracks.

And yes, I am listening to it...before Thanksgiving.
I'm one of those people.
It is magical and makes me smile. His voice warms my soul, it really does.  :)

But the prettiest sight to see
Is the holly that will be
On your own front door!

Our own. This is OUR house. And we love it.

The front door from the inside. That's a powder room on the left.

 

 Our living room has a fireplace...which won't be used, except as a place to hang stockings. 

 And a reading nook...which will get a lot of use!

 

 So much space!!

 Stairs.

 The door on the left is the garage.

 Dining area. French doors on the left lead out to the deck in the backyard. The door on the right is the laundry room. And Lucas pulled all the credit cards out of my wallet.

 Kitchen. That door in the middle is the pantry under the stairs. We are taking the hood vent down and moving the cabinets up to put a microwave there.

 Lucas is mastering the stairs. He finally figured out how to climb down backward on his belly. Except yesterday he tumbled down about 4 steps and gave Mommy a heart attack: we will be putting gates up.

 Upstairs hallway. First door: Lucas' room. Second door: Bathroom. Third door: Guest room. Fourth door: Office. Around the corner: Master bedroom.

 Bedroom.

 Bathroom.

 Master bedroom. The sellers were just going to give their elliptical away and asked if we wanted it. We said, "Why not?" It will probably be moved to the guest room, though.

 Master bathroom.

 The view out the french doors to the deck.

 Our backyard. Texas heat and droughts are not friendly to backyards...

We closed on the house on October 20, but for reasons they couldn't control, the sellers needed a couple extra weeks to move out. So our first time in the house after closing was on November 5. Lucas loved running around in the empty space and hearing his voice echo off the walls.

Password is "house".

This week we have been prepping the house to paint. Ben's a master house painter (from a business he ran in college), so we bought him a sprayer and he is excited to paint our house like a pro!

Our closing costs came in MUCH lower than we originally estimated (prayers of gratitude for yet another blessing in this whole process), so we are going to splurge and get new carpets. The existing carpet needs to go...

So as we get to know the staff at Lowe's and Home Depot over the next couple of weeks, we will keep you updated on the transformations. Then we get to move in and have the BIG reveal!