Scripture Power

Ummmm.... I guess you're never too young to dive into the scriptures and really take them in. Banana Cake! We have to be careful where we place our books and scriptures.

She Is Six!

Mercedes waited a LONG time for this day to come. She has been asking when her birthday is for the past 11 months (yes, since her last birthday). She complained about how everyone else had birthdays before hers, and she didn't understand why her birthday was taking so long.

She told me she wanted a mermaid cake again, so I planned on making her one. The morning of her birthday, she changed her mind and wanted a fairy cake. So, using what I bought for the mermaid cake, I transformed it into a fairy house. The mound was supposed to be an island surrounded by water with a mermaid sitting on top. Oh well, the fairy house was cute. We had cake with both families on two different Sundays. The Sunday pictured is her actual birthday, she shared it with Father's Day.

Mercedes was super excited about this "American Girl" doll. All of her girl cousins on the Haws side have one and she has been dying to have one as well. I wanted to get her one with blond hair, but she insisted on a ballerina. 

Mercedes, we love you. You have a big heart and express all of your emotions very openly. You are sunshine mixed with a hurricane. You are a golden sweet pastry with tart frosting. You're the rainbow after a thunderstorm, or sometimes the thunderstorm before the rainbow appears. That's you. And, I wouldn't want you any other way. You keep life exciting. 

Right now you love My Little Pony. You love wearing my jewelry and dressing up. You like wearing your hair down, although every once in a while I can talk you into letting me put it in a ponytail. You are a great swimmer and you love to sing and dance. You like playing imaginative games like "house" and "husband and wife". You need lots of girl time. You love me singing you songs at nighttime. You like when I tell you stories. You love your daddy and gush over him all the time. You want to marry him, and I tell you that what you really want is to marry someone like him. You love dresses, but you also like your jeans as long as they have some sort of rhinestone or jewel on them. Rugged with sparkle. You add a little bit of glitter to our lives. We love you! . 

Pictures From 3 Weeks Ago

I can finally put pictures on here again! The outfit that Caleb is wearing looked so cute on him. It was for a 3 month old and so I hadn't pulled it out yet. I finally did so and he was too big for it. So, this is the only time he was able to wear it. He's gotten so big. He's kind of a serious baby, he makes you work to get a smile, but he has a pleasant disposition nowadays.

He is putting weight on his legs now. He sleeps in his pack-n-play. For the longest time he refused to do so, and would only sleep in his swing. He takes long naps and sleeps through the night (wakes at 4 or 5 am for a feeding). I LOVE kissing his cheeks and mouth. He's still not sure if he likes his pacifier and part of me wants to give up on pushing it.

Hannah is so cute. She has a wicked laugh which everyone thinks is funny. She torments Luke, which makes Joshua and Mercedes laugh. She repeats everything you say and is really great at talking. She is full of life and energy and is quite a happy little girl. She can be sassy at times. She loves her daddy.

This picture is not a great shot of my rear, and it reminds me that I still have 20 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose, but rather than deleting it, I am posting it here to show this cute little baby face. He loves looking over my shoulder and giving my cheek an open mouth kiss.

Mercedes had surgery on her ears yesterday. She was so excited to have surgery so that she would be able to hear again. We are hoping that the tubes will improve her hearing and speech. She continues to be a feisty little thing. After she woke up from surgery, she was not happy. She was thrashing about in the hospital bed like she was having a bad dream and didn't know where she was Her eyes finally locked onto mine and she hugged me so tight around the neck for like five minutes. This is unusual for her and so I really enjoyed that (but of course felt bad that she was so scared). Today she tried putting Hannah in time-out while I was upstairs with Caleb. It was funny to see her use the same tone and words that I use with her. I told her that it was my job to put people in time-out but thanked her for trying to be so mothering. She then hugged Hannah and said, "I love you, Hannah, and I am sorry that I put you in time-out, but we can't hit people, okay?"

Hannah is still obsessed with Princess Elsa. She found Mercedes dress and asked us to put it on her.

Joshua is a goofball. I can't ever get a "normal" picture of him. But, then again, I guess this is what normal is around here. He is enjoying summer vacation. He cried a LOT when school got out because he was going to miss his friends. I felt bad for him, but he is having a great time being home. I am making my kids do school-work everyday He has to read and write about what he reads. He's a smart little lad and I am always amazed by his inquisitive mind. He asks so many good questions, ones that I don't know the answers to, and I am always telling him that we will have to "google" this or that.

Joshua took some cute pictures of Hannah and Luke when they were dancing with me last Sunday.

We were dancing to the song, "I Can Only Imagine" and they must have played it 20 times since.

Luke is still a little heart throb to the ladies in our ward. Last Sunday, Mercedes told me that she wanted to bear her testimony. I kept trying to get her to back down because we hadn't practiced it and I wasn't going to go up there and tell her what to say. She wouldn't take no for an answer. I finally agreed and went up with her. She did a GREAT job. I was really impressed. She looked confident and spoke clearly (and really loudly) into the microphone. She said things from her heart, not the usual memorized kid testimony. After she was done, I bore my testimony. Luke had followed me up there and thought that he was going to get to bear his. So, after I was done, he walked up to the podium. I took him by the hand and told him that he could bear his after we had a chance to talk about it during FHE. He also wouldn't take no for an answer and sat on the stand and grabbed the bottom of his chair. He wasn't going anywhere with me quietly. So, rather than make a scene of a tantrum, I told him to go ahead. He did a great job too, at first. He said, "I would like to bear my testimony. I love Jesus and I know he loves me. I know heaven is real." Then, he paused, put up a finger, and said, "but... we come down to this earth, and then we DIE!" He jumped down, everyone was laughing, and made him go back and close his testimony properly. He said later that everyone was laughing at him because he is sooo cute. Silly kid, 

Luke Edwin McAvoy

The other night I was looking at an old family photo. Hannah was in my belly and Caleb was still in heaven. Luke was so much younger looking and so was Mercedes and Joshua. I was struck the most by Luke. He looked so little. I remembered all of the cute things he used to do and realized how much older he is. Sometimes this emotion is painful for a parent. The passage of time, the knowledge that my babies will grow and leave the nest, the letting go... I remind myself that it only hurts because I love them so much. It is just so bittersweet. 

I think that I worry about Luke getting my attention the most. Sometimes the older children and the younger children are more demanding with my time. Physical touch is so important to him, and I worry sometimes that he isn't getting enough cuddles now that Caleb is here. I reflected on it perhaps a little too much last night. 

I went up to his room and watched him sleep. He looked so big in his bed (that he shares with Joshua because he is afraid to sleep in his own bed). I cuddled up next to him and laid one of his dangling arms over me. I'm sure that if Jon Mark had walked in he would have thought that I had lost my mind. I kissed him and then tip-toed to my own room. I said a prayer that Heavenly Father would help me remember to give Luke some extra attention the next day. I concluded the prayer and remembered that I had a permanent marker in a basket by the bed. I hurried and scribbled Luke's name on my palm just to make sure that I didn't forget. Feeling much better, I fell asleep. At some point in the night, while I was sleeping, a scripture popped into my mind. 1 Nephi 21: 14-16:

14 But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.

 15 For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel.

 16 Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

I don't know why this scripture came into my dreams, but it did. I saw the Lord's palms with the prints of the nails marking them. I thought of Luke's name that I had written on my own hand. I made a connection between the love I have for my son and the greater love that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for each of us. "God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be". The family is the framework for how we learn to love as He loves, to serve as He serves, to give as He gives. Being a parent is self-sacrificing over and over again. It is purifying as it is trying. I am so glad that I have been trusted with 5 children. I think of the love that I have for them and I know that it is only a fraction of the love that He has for them. My heart feels as though it may burst. I'm grateful that my Savior loved me enough to mark my name on His hands. I know He doesn't forget us. And I am thankful that I was taught that truth again, even though I was sleeping when it happened. :)   

Jesus the Christ

I have been having difficulties loading pictures again. It's frustrating because I have so many pictures that need to be put on this blog. Oh well. I will go ahead and post about something that I have been wanting to post about but have not had the time.

Years ago, Jon Mark recommended that I read the book, Jesus the Christ. The book nearly has 1,000 pages and it is a hefty read. I was a little intimidated by the language and shied away from it on more than one occasion. But, then one day, a cousin of mine posted on Facebook that it had taken her a year to read it, but she declared that she was so glad that she had done so. For some reason, a year deadline stood out to me and I thought to myself that that seemed doable. I would give myself a year to finish it. I started about a month ago and I am already past the first 200 pages. I will finish it much faster than a year. And this is why: I love the book. I cannot put it down. I read it while I exercise and the time flies. I have made a goal to always put the Lord before Facebook time or other leisurely computer time. The result is that I hardly ever get on Facebook anymore. When I go to sit down at the computer, I ask myself if I had read my scriptures yet. If I haven't, I go and I read. Before I know it, my free time is spent and I no longer have time for Facebook.

My kids have noticed my study time. There is value in that. Today, Joshua went and got his scriptures and sat down quietly next to me and began to read. He didn't announce it, he just did it. When Mercedes and Luke came and invited him to go and play, he responded, "Mom and I are reading our scriptures right now." He later expressed to me that he loves reading his scriptures with me and wanted me to read more with him. I also found that he had been reading them on the toilet. He is a good boy, and it was a happy moment for me as a mom. I have always been pretty good about reading my scriptures, but I used to read them on my Kindle. My Kindle recently broke. I think the kids never recognized when I was reading my scriptures before. I think they thought I was just playing on the computer or something. I think that there is value in them seeing me read. It shows them that I love the scriptures and place an importance on studying them. Actions do speak louder than words.

I am far from completing Jesus the Christ, but I have already come to know my Savior so much better. This morning, my kids were playing the song, "I Can Only Imagine", on the CD player on repeat. It probably played about ten or so times. The song is not an LDS song, but it is a song about praising Jesus Christ. There is great rejoicing about our Savior in the lyrics and the music backs up the message triumphantly. I have always loved the song, and I love that my kids love it too. As it played over and over again, I reflected silently about all that I had read about. My chest burned with a sacred emotion as I recalled just how much I love Jesus Christ. I can't really put the emotion into words, and I guess that's why sometimes I cry when I bear my testimony. My heart feels tender and full, and the feeling overflows and the happiness comes out as tears.

I love my Savior. He came to earth growing in wisdom and spirit, coming to know and understand His mission as He grew. He was tempted, but overcame temptation. These two distinctions are important to me. It shows us that He made a choice. There was an action. Everything depended on Him, and He made the choice to save us. He was free of sin, and yet he deliberately sacrificed Himself for us. I've always been told this, and I guess I have always known it, but as I read about it, I felt it on a more powerful level. He saved us not because He was forced to, but because love compelled Him to. He had agency, and He used it so perfectly all the time. That causes me to rejoice.

There is so much that I feel that I wish I could convey, but my best attempts would be lacking. So, I will just conclude with my testimony on the subject. I know my Savior lives and that He loves us. We lived with Him in heaven and we knew Him. He is our brother. He knows us, and He wants us to succeed. He came to earth to show us how to live, and He died so that we could return to His presence and that of our Father and Mother.

 

Caleb's Blessing Outfit

The Boys

Luke and Joshua wanted me to take some pictures of the brothers. In the picture below, Luke is very excited because he thinks Caleb is kissing him.

Joshua thought it was funny that you can see straight up Caleb's nose, but it was hard holding him and taking pictures.

While I had my camera out, Joshua wanted me to take a picture of his drawing. He drew a castle (his castle) and drew a temple next to it because he wants to live by the temple. He told me when he is older, he wants to live by the temple so that when a tornado comes he can pack up his kids and wife and head to the temple because the Lord wouldn't destroy His temple.