My Chimneysweep

Breakfast - they spontaneously put their arms around each other while eating. 

Pictured with their favorite breakfast cereal:  HoneyNut Cheerios

Our girls LOVE puzzles. 

Silver and Summer washing dishes

Growing up I loved the movies 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Popins.

I especially enjoyed the part of Mary Popins with the Chimneysweeps doing their dance.

Here is my little chimneysweep sweeping the floor :)

I Love to See the Temple

The girls love singing I Love to See the Temple:

1. I love to see the temple.

I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.

2. I love to see the temple.
I’ll go inside someday.
I’ll cov’nant with my Father;
I’ll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:
A fam’ly is forever.

VIDEO:  Such a precious movie.  I love that River is sitting eating breakfast and Silver is trying to remember the song.  Just a very ordinary everyday thing...but truly a treasure.

VIDEO:  River and Silver Signing I Love to See the Temple 

I found a neat website:  http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/temples/ 
It has all the temples with galleries of free photos for wallpaper.  Gorgeous work!

I love to see the temple.

I’m going there someday

 To feel the Holy Spirit,

To listen and to pray.

For the temple is a house of God,

A place of love and beauty.

I’ll prepare myself while I am young;

This is my sacred duty.

 

I love to see the temple.

I’ll go inside someday.

I’ll cov’nant with my Father;

I’ll promise to obey.

For the temple is a holy place

Where we are sealed together.

As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:

A fam’ly is forever.

Love Insurance

River talking to Silver: "Dad's going to the office. He earns money for birthday parties, books, our beautiful home and food."

A couple minutes later: "Mom, Dad earns our money....what would happen if Daddy died?"

River with her Daddy watching a movie

Mom: We would be Very Sad if Daddy died.  We would miss him Very much.  But as far as money - We have life insurance...that's when a lot of people pay some money and if one of the Daddy's die, then the life insurance gives their family money. We have life insurance so that if Daddy dies, our family will have enough money.

River: Oh. After a pause: MOM! What if Daddy didn't have life insurance?

Mom: Then I would need to go to work every day to get $$ to pay for everything.

River: Ooohhh! That would be SO sad!!

We then talked about how Daddy's job was to help people get life insurance. She brought up life insurance a couple of times that day and how greatful she was that Daddy had insurance, and that Mommy didn't need to work.

She was happy when we pulled up infront of Daddy's office the next day.  "Mom!  This is Daddy's office!  Life Insurance Office!

Movie Night!
When Colt's home - it's the funniest thing....
we all go from room to room like a school of fish following after Daddy!
If Daddy goes somewhere, it's not too long before most if not all of us are there too :)
He knows he's VERY loved!

As we were driving home, she was cute that she was trying to explain how thankful she was that if Daddy died we would have life insurance $$, it was difficult for her to come up with the words to explain her feelings:

Mom, When dad dies it will be great....no....i mean not great that he died but great that he had life insurance.....like.....I don't want dad to die, but it's nice that he has life insurance, when he dies, so you can stay home with us.

One more mystery of the universe figured out!!

Silver and Daddy!

I believe life insurance is one of the greatest things you can do for your family. When tragedy strikes, and you loose one member of your family....it's comforting to know that the kids can be taken care of by the Mom in the home instead of having to go out and work so hard to support her family.  This way the kids don't loose both parents - one to death, and the other to working.  Even though the Mom doesn't bring in a tangeable income, it is just as important to have life insurance on her too.  If she were to die, Daddy would be devastated and would want to take off some time to be with the family instead of having to jump back into work immediately.  I'm so thankful that we have life insurance on each of us...as with all insurance products, you hope you never have to use them....

I know it's uncomfortable to ponder, but seriously ask yourself....if my husband didn't come home today....what would I do?

If every Wife knew what every Widow knows, NO home would be without adequate Life Insurance. 
Life insurance is never for the one buying it...it's for the ones they leave behind....a true gift of love.....I like to think about it as Love Insurance.

It's amazing how inexpensive some life insurance products can be...Do you know that in many instances you can protect your family for around $20 a month?  $20 is worth it for that protection, and peace of mind!

Good Books - Reviews of our Favorites

We LOVE a good book!

Strangely there are no pictures of me reading to our girls -

I wonder why?  I'm always the one behind the camera :)

We usually read quite a bit throughout the day. 

Always before nap and bed times. 

VIDEO:  Silver Reading to Summer

I regularly find our girls exploring a book either alone or together. 

Reading is such an important skill -

If you can read, you can learn anything.

Ideas, how-to, history, knowledge...anything you are interested in -

the world is in-front of your eyes! 

Especially sharing that adventure with someone cuddled next to you is extrememly rewarding - Mom, Dad, sister or a doll! 

Silver reading to Summer

While there are many good books - the Book of Mormon is the greatest!

Our girls love scripture stories.

We try to read them a couple of verses of scriptures a day in the mornings before Colt leaves for work.

Before nap or before bed we read at least one story out of the Friend magazine. 

It is chuck-full of great stories that bring the gospel to a child's level.

Wonderful gospel resource!!

Here are a few of our FAVORITE books!
**K Library - An Undone Fairy Tale - by Ian Lendler  Illustrated by Whitney Martin
One of our all time favorites!!  This is child's writing at it's best!  A story about a princess locked in a tower and the brave night that rescues her....except that your child reads so fast that the illustrator isn't able to paint the pictures fast enough...We laughed all the way through it at each page turn...the horses and armor weren't ready the only costumes available were tutus.  So the knights rush into battle wearing tutus and riding fish!  The dragon wasn't ready and was still in the shower because you read so fast!  We have grape popsicle walls, banana swords and crayon-trees in this great adventure!  A MUST read!
**The Hippo-Not-Amus by Tony and Jan Payne  Illustrated by Buy Parker-Rees
Portly is a hippo that's not sure he wants to be one.  He keeps trying to be different animals and ends up as a "hippo-gir-ele-bat-onoceros!"  Great story about being yourself and wonderful illustrations.
**Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson Illustrated by Kevin O'Malley
We read this book in my Marriage classes at BYU - lots to learn about marriage from this one! A great twist on the Cinderella story - CinderEdna lives next door to Cinderella.  While Cinderella is sitting among the cinders after her work is done thinking about her troubles, CinderEdna is busy with her mean step-sisters too, but whistles while she works, learns all sorts of things, and does extra jobs for neighbors to earn $$.  CinderEdna takes the bus to the ball and wore comfortable loafers with her dress she bought with the $$ her earned herself.  At midnight Cinderella runs to her pumpkin carriage and CinderEdna runs to the bus.  While both girls lost a shoe in their rush, the Prince doesn't even know Cinderella's name while Rupert knows that his is named Edna and goes on a search for her.  Entertaining with a great lesson behind it!
**Fanny's Dream"  by Caralyn Buehner Illustrated by Mark Buehner
Another kids book that speaks volumes about dating and marriage - recommended and read in BYU marriage classes.  Fanny is a sturdy girl from Wyoming who dreams of marrying a prince - or at least the Mayor's son!  The Mayor gives a grand ball and.....her fairy godmother never shows up!  She ends up marrying Heber, worked along-side him on their farm.  Life is never fancy, but it is funny!  They have a family, and one night amid ordinary life...her fairy godmother shows up ready to take her to a mayor's ball that night, and she'll fix everything so she can have her dream.  "Do you want to go or not?"  Not - Answers Fanny. 
**F Library A Day with No Crayons by Elizabeth Rusch
This girls LOVES coloring.  One day she runs out of paper and colors on the wall.  Her mom takes away her crayons for a day.  Her life turns grey and all the color goes out of the pictures because her crayons are gone.  Gradually color returns to the pages as she discovers color all around her.  We enjoyed looking at the art she made with things from nature :)
**Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Conner Illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
Fancy Nancy books are about a little girl who loves to be fancy.  River loves fancy things, and loves to go on adventures with Fancy Nancy.  Nancy uses "fancy" words and then explains what they mean, teaching kids vocabulary.  Example:  Aroma:  Fancy word for smell.
**F Library The Boy Who Loved Bananas by George Elliott  Illustrated by Andrej Krystoforski
Animals are a favorite of ours, so this book was an instant hit about a boy who loves to go to the zoo.  His favorite animals are the monkeys.  He only eats bananas after that and....turns into a monkey!
**F Library How Full is Your Bucket?  by Tom Rath
This story is so well done.  An intruiging story that teaches about feelings.  The characters have buckets above their heads.  When they are serving others and happy, their buckets are full.  If they are mean or look negatively at things, their buckets are empty.  They fill up or empty out depending on their choices and how others treat them.  River took the lesson from this and applied it everyday.  My bucket feels empty Mom.  Or, Can you see how full my bucket is?  All the way to the top!!  Mom, I just helped Silver, Do you see those drip drops going in my bucket Aand hers!
**Art & Max by David Wiesner
Imagination at its best.  This one has very few words.  This is about a lizard who loves art and accidentally turns another lizard into a drawing - his adventures in bringing him back to real life.  Ay one point his lizard friend is just a bunch of squiggles at the bottom of the page.  Too Fun - An imagination adventure. 
**Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You?  by Dr. Deuss
Mr Brown can copy a lot of things with his voice.  Can you?   We enjoy matching our voice with the pictures and then trying to mimick other things we see and hear.
**F Library - Tell Me Why Series - this is put out by Readers Digest and an absolute joy to read. Well illustrated - to me illustrations make or break a child's book. It can be a good story, but if the pictures don't add to it.....for me a good kids book needs to have fabulous pictures!
Back to the books - this series is full of questions that kids ask about animals, science, nature and their bodies - it asks a question and then answers it on a child's level full of fun pictures. This is a must read for River with all her questions and desire for answers!!
**The Monster at the end of this Book by Jon Stone illustrated by Mike Smollin
Grover from Sesame Street is scared of monsters, and the title said that there was a monster at the end of this book!!  He doesn't want to get to the end, so if you don't turn any pages you can't get to the end right?  He tries tying the pages together, nailing them, building walls, as River giggles and laughes and turns the pages.  Fun!
**I Love You as Big as the World" by David Van Buren Illustrated by Tim Warnes
A beautiful book about love

After all - that is what reading is all about - LOVE!

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God - Elder Holland

Inbetween General Conference Sessions, they run a program for the 2 hour break.  Colt and I were trying to watch the program, but our internet wouldn't stream it...so we were watching the "Mormon Messages".  These are clips of either personal testimony or General Authority Talks with video and pictures put to their message.    The program was playing one clip after another.  We had just barely gotten all 3 kids asleep for nap, and I was cleaning up the table from lunch.  I walked up behind Colt and put my chin on his head telling him how weary I was.  I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when this clip started playing.  Click on the following link to play this beautiful talk by Elder Holland:
Video:  Motherhood:  An Eternal Partnership with God
A very tender mercy of the Lord for me at the EXACT moment that I NEEDED it!  I have watched this clip over and over, and each time it makes me cry knowing that "I know deep down inside that I am doing God's work."

 The camera comes out, and smiles are hard to catch.

 Got A Cute One!

 Sweet Silver showing that her jams have Froggies on the toesies!

 Summer really enjoys this position - on her tummy on a big pillow.  She can still get her legs underneath her with her head up.  Too Cute!

 This is River saying "I love you THIS much!"  She usually puts her hands all the way inback of her with her hands touching, showing that she is spreading her arms as far back as they can go!

 River tucked Summer into bed after "babysitting" her on the bed for me.

 I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH!

We are so blessed to have the gospel while raising our girls.  To have prayer and scriptures to guide in the raising of these special spirits.  To know that they are Heavenly Father's daughters and have divine nature.  To have a living prophet and apostles to buoy us up with their apostolic testimonies and witness, is truly a treasure of infinite value!!