52 Weeks of Family Home Evening

I was busy copying primary stuff at Copy Tec the other day when I noticed a book called 52 weeks of Family Home Evenings. I took a quick look at it and got really excited. This was the perfect book for our family. It had 52 lessons planned out with a scripture, story, song, activity and treat for each week of the year. The lessons are simple and the activities are fun. I came home and told Jon that we are recommitting to do FHE each week. His schedules are hectic so it seems like we would do FHE for a few weeks and then not for a month or so. We have done 2 weeks so far and Calvin and Lily really love it. They get excited and they remember what these lessons teach.

Lesson #1 Compassion

We read a story about President Heber J. Grant giving his coat to a young boy. Read a few scriptures about compassion. And then we went around and collected coats and blankets from around the house that we could give to the homeless shelter. Calvin got so into it that he started putting all of his blankets in the bag. He said, "I bet some of those kids don't have toys either" and he started throwing toys in the sack. He even gave away one of his favorite blankets. He is such a sweet boy. I took the bag to the shelter the next day and I was really touched by how grateful these people were.


Week #2

Last night we learned about the Priesthood. Jon held an umbrella up and had us all gather under it and told us how the Dad holds the priesthood so that he can protect the family just like the umbrella protects the whole family when the dad holds it over everyone. We read a story about Abraham and talked about different priesthood blessings. Calvin said that one day he will hold the umbrella because he will have the priesthood.

Refinance

We decided to refinance our house, we closed on it last week and we got the rate of 4.625% for a 30 year fixed mortgage!!! Wow, that is a really amazing rate, we are so excited about it. And it changed our payment by $200. And the interest we pay at the end of the 30 years is $50,000 less. I recommend all who have over 5.5% to refinance, it is well worth the closing costs. And anyone looking to buy a home, now is the perfect time. You just can't beat these rates! Call me for details.

Jon is 28

Jon turned 28 on January 8th. We started dating 8 years ago, wow, that is crazy. Calvin and Lily helped me prepare a special dinner of sweet pork burritos, brownies and ice cream for Jon's 1 hour birthday party. Calvin was so excited about the little party we had to do it on Jon's birthday, right when he got home from work. The thing is, he got home at 5:00 and had to be to scouts at 6:00. So we packed a lot of fun into one hour.

On Friday Jon and I went to Tucanos and we somehow both got free birthday dinners even though I told them it wasn't my birthday, they said, "oh well, take it for free anyways." That was awesome and really yummy. Then we went to see Four Christmases with movie tickets that we got for a Christmas present. The movie was funny in some parts, especially the opening scene. But overall it was just okay. We got done with the movie at 8:30 and decided it was too early to go home. So we went to Trafalga. We hadn't been back there since our first date on April 6, 2001. They were doing a special pass where you got unlimited 4D movies (which were really fun), mini golf, go carts, 20 tokens, and dippin' dots for $15. We had a blast. We watched all of the 4D movies, the seats move, wind blows on you and you wear 3D glasses, it is really fun. And we did all of the other things too. We were there until 12:30. It was such a fun date night and all together we only spent $43, which is amazing considering the things that we did.

Jon, we love you! You are the best dad and husband. Thanks for all you do for our family and for always making us laugh. We hope to share an infinity amount of birthdays with you!

Jon is holding one candle and all of the rest are on the counter because we were in such a hurry when we put the candles in the hot brownies they started to melt wax everywhere, it was pretty funny.

"But Nephi took care of that"

Calvin loves Book of Mormon stories. We have been reading him the book of Mormon stories with the pictures every night for about 6 months. We have been through all of the stories several times and he absolutely loves them and knows them by heart. One of his favorites is the story of Nephi and his brothers returning to Jerusalem to get the brass plates. Calvin was over at the neighbor's house today playing with his friend Ethan, Ethan's mom called and said "Calvin is so funny he is over here telling us book of Mormon stories and now all of the kids are playing Nephi and Lehi in the wilderness." It cracks me up how much he loves Nephi, he sings "I will go, I will do the things the Lord commands" all the time. So tonight I asked him which story he would like to read and of course he chose Nephi and the brass plates. I read him the story and when I was done he said, "Laban had a lot of heavy armor and a cape and he was a bad man, but Nephi took care of that!"
I was laughing out loud as I said, "that is right Calvin, now time for bed."

Let's build a train

We gave Calvin and Lily a craft box for Christmas and Calvin said "Mom, let's build a train." So here it is. We used some food boxes out of our paper recycling and the rest came from the craft box.

A new year

Happy New Year (kind of). Notice there is no exclamation point. Last night we got some very sad news. Andy and Megan were celebrating Megan's birthday and New year's eve (same day) at Megan's parents house. Megan's brother and his wife have twin girls who are 4 months old. They put the twins to bed and a 1/2 hour later went to check on them to find that one of them was not breathing. Of course they called 911 and did all that they could to save the little baby girl but she did not make it. Andy had just been to a funeral earlier that day ( one of his friends had committed suicide) and I think this was just a little too much. Andy and Megan are going through some hard times right now and my heart aches for them. Please keep them and Megan's family in your prayers.

So yes, it is a new year, but I am just not in a celebrating mood. This incident made me realize how fragile life is. One moment someone is next to you and the next moment they can be gone. How grateful I am for the gospel, that I know we can see our loved ones after they have passed away. For 2009 my goal is to cherish every moment that I get to spend with those that I love.

Snow, snow and more snow!

If you live in Utah you already know, but it snowed for two weeks straight. We have so much snow in our yard it is kind of cool. Here is Calvin coming in from playing in it, he said it was too deep, snow was getting in his boots.

Our very merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. We went to a lot of family parties. We got to sit on Santa's lap at the Nielson family party. Here is a picture of us with Santa and my family with Santa.


We spent Christmas Eve at Jon's Dad's house. It is a fun tradition to go there and have some dinner, sing some songs, read the Christmas story and open presents. We look forward to it every year.

Gary and WendyJon with our new game, Ticket to ride.

We gave Emily a CTR ring because she is going on a mission in a few months to Switzerland.

Alicia and Colby

Domi and Tyler

Christmas morning was great. Jon got off of work at 7 am beacause he is working graves, so he was a little tired but he got to sleep while the kids and I made a disaster playing with the new toys from Santa. Calvin asked Santa for a castle and low and behold Santa brought him the castle he wanted. You have to watch the video. Lily didn't ask for much. She got a dollhouse and a doll that wets her diaper. She was holding the baby doll, feeding her a bottle of water when Lily says" uh oh" and points to the baby's diaper. The cloth diaper was all wet, we changed it and she thought that was great fun. Jon got a blazer that we purchased a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember if I blogged about that. But I think that is car #30 for our 6 1/2 years of marriage. I got miracle blades(knives I have been wanting for the kitchen). I also picked out a shiatsu massager which feels very nice.

This is Lily coming down to the living room Christmas morning.The kids got a kitchen and they absolutley love playing with it. Notice Lily's cute little tutu that Calvin gave her. Sorry, some of the pictures are blurry because the batteries on my camera were dying.Lily with her new dollhouse



Santa set up Calvin's castle in the family room and covered it with a blanket. Calvin was so excited when he pulled the blanket off.
Mommy showing Lily how to feed the baby.

Daddy gave Lily her very own toolbox because she always wants to play with Calvin's.

We visited with Jon's mom and my parents on Christmas and we had a lot of fun with both families and got a lot of fun gifts. We forgot to take pictures there. We made it home through the terrible snow storm, it took an hour or more, just in time for Jon to go to work and the rest of us to fall right to sleep.

It was a very fun filled holiday. Calvin could not get enough of the baby Jesus story and he already has the true meaning of Christmas in his little heart. Lily loved opening the presents and she didn't even get grouchy with all of the late nights. Merry Christmas everyone. We hope you had a wonderful holiday and we wish you the best in 2009.