Alissa's Birthday

Alissa had her 10th birthday on the 18th.  It was a pretty uneventful day because dad was at work and again I’m not leaving much with just having had a baby.  She took ice cream cups to her school class and we ordered Olive Garden for dinner and watched Christopher Robin that she and dad picked up from the Redbox.  


The next day she invited 5 friends to meet at our house and we took them sledding for a few hours then back here for some cake and ice cream.  They had such an awesome time sledding together they could have continued to play for hours I’m sure.  Her amazing daddy drove them up the hill over and over so they didn’t have to use much energy climbing back up after sledding down.



She invited her friends Emma Crane, Ashlynn Morgan, Hadlie Daniel, Lia Hendrix and Taylor Rigby. Taylor is Molly's age so she hung out with Molly and Ella invited her friend Kailee Daniel as well.

Grace and I enjoyed her first time sledding in the headed vehicle.  :)

 

Alissa has continued to do gymnastics this year and changed to a gym in Rigby called "Flips".  She has done well with it.  

She goes to the GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) program this year so she does a few extra projects throughout the year.  She got into this program from having high test scores.

She has become known this year as SLOW!  When I pick her up from school it's pretty known that I'm the last vehicle to leave the school because I am waiting on her to come mosey out the doors.  We have lectured and threatened and she has done extra dishes but still seems to be slow.   She is slow in pretty much every area of her life right now.

She is an excellent skier.  Her dad has told me the only real thing that scares him about her skiing is that she is going to get herself on a lift bigger than she can handle cause she is just that brave and confident in her abilities.  Hopefully she doesn't do that, but I am proud of her for being so good at it.

She is the cleanest child in our house.  When she cleans she is thorough and does a great job.  She prefers her room stay clean which gets frustrating when sharing a room with Molly, but I suppose again we are learning to accept differences.

She is not into electronics.  When all the kids are zoned out watching TV or playing a game, she just wants to do a craft or see if a friend can play Barbies.  She is really not into zoning out to electronics which I love about her.

She is a great girl with such determination and so many talents.  I am so thankful to have her as my daughter and in our family to teach us and love us and help us all return to Heavenly Father as an eternal family one day.

Come Follow Me

Last October at General Conference, the prophet President Russell M. Nelson opened the conference with these words,

"The long-standing objective of the Church is to assist all members to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement, to assist them in making and keeping their covenants with God, and to strengthen and seal their families. In this complex world today, this is not easy. The adversary is increasing his attacks on faith and upon us and our families at an exponential rate. To survive spiritually, we need counterstrategies and proactive plans. Accordingly, we now want to put in place organizational adjustments that will further fortify our members and their families.

For many years, Church leaders have been working on an integrated curriculum to strengthen families and individuals through a home-centered and Church-supported plan to learn doctrine, strengthen faith, and foster greater personal worship. Our efforts over these recent years to hallow the Sabbath—to make it a delight and a personal sign to God of our love for Him—will be augmented by the adjustments we will now introduce.

This morning we will announce a new balance and connection between gospel instruction in the home and in the Church. We are each responsible for our individual spiritual growth. And scriptures make it clear that parents have the primary responsibility to teach the doctrine to their children.² It is the responsibility of the Church to assist each member in the divinely defined goal of increasing his or her gospel knowledge."

As such, we were each given a book called "Come Follow Me" with outlined lessons to study with our families each week.  It's most certainly an inspired plan.  I can't help but notice the words I bolded and underlined about the church's objective to assist and strengthen and our RESPONSIBILITY to teach the doctrine to our children.  This is a shift for us as we have done some teaching at home but relied upon the primary teachers and Sunday school teachers to really teach them the doctrine I suppose.

So one of our first lessons was on being responsible for our own learning and we talked about the story of the 10 virgins and made our own oil lamps out of clay.  It was a fun time for all.  We even filled them with oil and a string to light to see how long they would stay burning.

I love the gospel, I love the church of Jesus Christ and the direction it gives us.  I appreciate so much the joy and peace we feel when we are trying to follow the Prophet and the Savior Jesus Christ.  So thankful for this new inspired program and I pray our family can be obedient to the council and avoid the fiery darts of the adversary.

Baby Grace

Grace was due January 10, 2019.  Through the last 8 weeks of the pregnancy I have been doing twice a week visits to the doctor to do an ultrasound one day and a non stress test on the other to make sure the baby was ok.  The primary reason for this is because I am 35 years old which puts me at a higher risk for complications.  They called me "maternal age of maturity".  Made me feel old!

Through my ultra sounds the tech confirmed week after week that the baby was actually due on January 1st and was in the 70% for size.  She confirmed the baby would likely be close to 9 pounds by the due date so I was getting a little worried about how I was going to get this baby out.  I had only had 7 pound babies.  We scheduled an induction date for January 3rd.

The evening on the 1st, Alissa started to feel crummy.  The next morning she was feeling horrible and had a fever so I called the doctor and they had no available appointments.  I took her in anyway and asked them to swab her for strep, which was negative.  They suggested we swab again for influenza and sure enough, it came back positive.  I had no idea what we were going to do considering I was supposed to be induced the next day.  They prescribed everybody Tamaflu and suggested we all start it today.  I called Dr. Leavitt, my OB and he suggested we wait until Monday to have baby.  Everybody felt better until Sunday when Ella started to feel sick.  She was the only one I hadn't started on the medication so I started her on it and got super worried I was not doing the right thing by having the baby on Monday.  I called up to the Womens Center and they told me they thought it would be ok since I would stay in the hospital until Wednesday.

My parents kept the kids and because they had all been sick they stayed home from school.  We headed to the hospital about 7 and got started.  They poked me 5 times to get my IV in and used about an hour and a half of time trying to check me in and get started with everything.  Finally we got some pitosin started and the epidural was in by 11:45ih.  Doctor came and broke my water about 1:00.

We watched the monitor for contractions and as soon as the epidural was in we got pretty sleepy and things slowed down so we dosed out and in of sleep.  Boone came to visit for a few minutes so I sat the bed upright to visit with him and I suppose some gravity of sitting helped encourage things along because I started to feel some pressure while visiting.  He left about 4:30 and I asked the nurse if she would check me and sure enough I had gone from 3 to 8 in dilation in about 45 minutes so she called the doctor.

5:15 our incredibly, sweet, absolutely perfect baby girl was born.  I couldn't get over how tiny she was that I completely forgot to check her gender until the nurse lifted her leg and showed me it was a girl!!  Dustin got to help deliver again which is always special.  I love him and am thankful he could do it.

She only cried for a quick second but was comforted by being against my skin.  I cannot even describe the intense and immediate love I feel for these babies when I get to hold them in my arms.  They are such a beautiful blessing from Heavenly Father and I am so thankful to be their mommy.

They let me hold her for a good long while before even weighing her and then, completely against what the ultra sound tech said she was 7lb 0oz and 19 3/4".  So perfect!

We were pretty sure she was going to be named Grace and funny that Dustin would have a dream the night before she was born that he was holding a baby girl named Grace.  He's pretty inspired like that.

I could not wait to call the girls and tell them IT'S A GIRL!  So probably 10 minutes after she was actually born we called to share.  Lincoln had to be reminded he got to have a toy if he didn't get a brother but then he was ok again.

Seriously.. so absolutely perfect!

The girls, my mom and dad, Grandma Carol and Grandma Bateman all came to visit as well as Aunt Johnna and Aunt Kylie and Mike and Farrah.  I made the girls wear the masks just in case they were still sick.  

Oh what a blessing this baby girl is already!!  We love her so much!! 

Book of Mormon Challenge Accepted

Last October when the Prophet President Nelson challenged all the women from the church to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year my girls and I were there in the room to feel the Spirit of that challenged and talked about it and accepted it.  

For the next two months as a family we sat and read from the Book of Mormon.  There were many times we weren't sure we would make it and many times that kids would fall asleep or be distracted, but we continued on and finished.  I felt so very proud of our family for doing this and felt the affirmation of all the promises with an increase in the spirit and more reverence and determination to do what's right.

Dustin was inspired the evening before we finished with an idea to take us into the "mountains" and finish he last chapter together and say prayer.  Considering all the snow on the ground it made for a possibly less reverent experience than he was hoping for, but one we will likely all remember the rest of our lives.

We drove up Bone and trampled through some snow to a clearing under some trees.  We had some tears from wet, cold feet but when we made it Dustin and I took turns finishing the book and we hugged and said a quick prayer.

My goodness, I love these guys with all my heart!!

Dustin helped me over the fence with my 9 month pregnant belly.  Lincoln smiling big for all adventures!

“I feel certain that if, in our homes, parents will read from the Book of Mormon prayerfully and regularly, both by themselves and with their children, the spirit of that great book will come to permeate our homes and all who dwell therein. The spirit of reverence will increase; mutual respect and consideration for each other will grow. The spirit of contention will depart. Parents will counsel their children in greater love and wisdom. Children will be more responsive and submissive to the counsel of their parents. Righteousness will increase. Faith, hope, and charity—the pure love of Christ—will abound in our homes and lives, bringing in their wake peace, joy, and happiness” (Ensign, May 1980, p. 67).  Marion G Romney

TaVaci Christmas Concert

What a fun concert!  Molly did such a terrific job along with all the other kids in her group at her Christmas TaVaci concert.  Her grandmas came and watched her sing and we loved it and LOVE HER!

Sand Dunes

One of my kids favorite activities is to drive to Sandy Downs and let the kids play on the mountains of sand.  They love to run and jump and could stay there for hours if we could let them.

It was border line too cold but these girls endured and had so much fun!

They were having fun with different photos too and so was I.

I LOVE MY FAMILY and super love making memories and spending time together.  They truly are the best.