Family Happenings

Quiz: This is a baby picture of one of our children. Any guesses which one?
Libby got a kite at a friend's birthday party, and one evening, she wanted to fly it. In my limited experience, kite flying has not been successful, so with the little dollar store kite, I didn't have much hope. But I've obviously never flown one in windy Idaho.

It went right up and Libby and I had a fun time flying this kite!Here's Josh singing with the high school Madrigals at the 100 year celebration of our town.
Later on the same day, Josh went to Prom with Mary. I've been hoping Josh would go out with Mary for a long time, because I like her so much, and this was the right time. They doubled with Jancen and McKenzie, Josh and Krissy, Sterling and Hannah, and Dallin and Jayme. For their "day date", they rode tandem bikes on the green belt. After gathering for pictures, they went to dinner at a fine Italian Restaurant, and then to the dance. I am continually grateful that Josh has consistently chosen good friends, and these are no exception.

We thoroughly enjoyed General Conference! I felt that the theme of the conference was how to teach and guide the youth. This is not surprising seeing that I'm in the throes of doing that very thing.

The next week, Joseph was asked to speak in Church. He took all these talks from General Conference and coalesced them into a wonderful talk. He said that when he wrote the talk, he felt that it was exactly what he should say.

Jesse went to a clogging competition. We didn't get to go with her because I wanted to be here for Josh's prom date, but she had a good time. I was so glad to see her when she got home!The same night as Prom, we had an Un-Prom party for Joseph and his friends that didn't go to prom. It was fun - we had teenagers in and out of the house all night long. One time I went out on the back porch and found two of them on the roof! (It's easy to access from our back deck). Needless to say, they were asked to come down. I had to smile later, though, when I overheard the girl telling her friend that when they were up there talking, she was testifying the guy about the importance of serving a mission. :)

I've been having so much fun with Young Living Essential Oils. I set up a new website this week that I'm really excited about. It's lorena.vibrantscents.com and lorena.myningxia.com. It's explains a lot why I love these essential oils. The myningxia.com website is about NingXia Red, which is a juice that is very high in nutrition and anti-oxidants. We drink it almost every day as a family, and love it.

Bruce and Peter went horseback riding almost every day last week, and Joseph joined them one day also.

The last two days have been WARM with no wind. Absolutely heavenly. Spring has sprung!

Bruce, Jesse, Mary and I are starting a Health Challenge this week. We get points for not eating refined sugar, exercising for 60 minutes, not drinking pop, eating a healthy breakfast, drinking at least 80 oz. of water, eating a handful of vegetables, and doing all these for six days a week. The challenge lasts for 7 weeks. Each participant puts in $10. Whoever has the most points at the end of the 7 weeks gets the whole pot of $$. It's community wide, and 32 people are in it so far. Jesse said earlier, "All these adults think they're going to win, but they're not because I'm going to win." Ha ha. Since there are four of us in the household, I think we are going to be pretty competitive about it! If you want more details, I can send you the blog address. I don't want to publish it here because it has the name of our town on it, and I try not to publish that in this blog.

One last word - Mary gave a wonderful talk in Church today about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. She was a really good sport too, because I knew about the talk on Tuesday, and forgot to tell her until late Saturday night. Yes, it's true - Saturday night. We got up at 6:45 this morning and worked on it together. Thankfully it was an easy topic with easy material to find. I was proud of her though, because she just got up and gave the talk and didn't say anything about who called her to speak, or when, or how she prepared it that morning. She just dove into the talk. Good job Mary!

Oh, the Lovely Color of Green

Lovely, lovely green. Our pastures are the first thing that we notice in the spring. Several in the family commented on them today. Bruce put the llamas out on them temporarily, because the dry pasture was a mucky, muddy mess. I love seeing the llamas graze on pasture.

The other farm news is that we traded Gussie for Millie. My Mom's gonna be sad about that because she thought Gussie was so cute, and she actually named her. I'll miss Gussie too (as much as I miss animals, which is actually not very much). Gussie was a black/red angus mix. We traded her to someone on craigslist who had a seven-month old jersey heifer. This is a really good trade for us, because we've been wanting another jersey cow for milking. We still have Buttercup, but we need another one to trade off with when they dry up and calve. I named her Millie, and the name stuck.

Bruce also bought two new calves that he named Toodles and Toodleloo. Toodles

Toodleloo

We are bottle-feeding them right now. He bought them for $25 each, and in a few months, we'll be able to sell them for about $200 each. Since we get the milk from Buttercup, it's no cost to us, except for the time it takes to milk her (which we do anyway) and the time it takes to feed the calves (10 min max) . When we spread it out between 8 of us, it's not so bad.
Libby got put on the milking schedule for the first time. She now has a turn with Joseph and me.
She also gets to feed Toodles and Toodleloo.Mary had a choir concert, and she did a great job. See if you can pick her out in this crowd of brightly colored 7th graders!
Bruce and Peter had to round up our horses for Libby's birthday party. This is a great shot of father and son on the horses. Peter is getting really good at riding. He is the one that most asks to ride out of all the kids.Libby turned eight years old in March!We had a fun birthday party for her. The night before she asked me if I would wake her up right when she was born, which was 2:00 am. I said no. Even then, at 6:00 am when we sang Las Mananitas to her, she was wide awake. Happy Birthday Libby!

Josh was in the first musical that Middleton High School has ever done. He was the evil dentist in Little Shop of Horrors. If you don't recognize him from this picture, join the crowd. Even close friends here didn't know who he was at the beginning of the play! Josh said they kept telling him, "You've got to be more mean!" He had to be cruel to one of the female characters. Afterward, he told me that he didn't like how that felt, and didn't want to ever do that again (not the acting - but the being cruel to a female part).

One evening in March we went over to our friends' work, which is a warehouse where they package nutritional supplements, and played hiding go seek. This is Joseph and Jesse hanging out with one of their best friends, Erica.This is Libby and Elysia.It was fun because Craig came to stay with us for two nights. He came to the warehouse with us, and got the nickname of "Mountain Man".

Jesse posted this on her Facebook profile.She spends every spare second with this piano.

For Spring Break, we went to Island Park to a condo. Bruce had to stay home and work, which was a bummer, but the rest of us went for five days. We had a most relaxing time, not being hurried by anything. On our way home, we went by Hebegon Lake, which was totally frozen over. The kids got these pictures:
On March 27th, Libby got baptized!She chose Joseph to perform the ordinance. She was SO excited for her baptism. She counted the weeks and days down, and absolutely loved the whole occasion. I was asked to give the prayer at the baptism, and as I sat on the stand and looked down at Joseph and Libby sitting on the front row dressed in white, it was one of the moments of pure joy in life that make all the others worth it. Grandma and Grandpa from Idaho came,as well as Grandma and Grandpa from Colorado, as well as Bruce's brothers - Gary and Stephen, and families. Thank you to everyone who attended!

Peter came in 4th on the Pinewood Derby. He had the green car below. (That is John Deere green, by the way).Mary had a Beehive activity where they carved ice cream. She has wonderful Beehive leaders.
Coming soon: Pictures of Josh's prom date!

We made it!

We made it through the long, cold winter! I don't like winter. I don't like anything about it, except that it makes you appreciate the other seasons more. I love to see January and February go! I must say though, that we've had very mild weather in Jan and Feb, and quite a bit of sun, so I haven't had the "winter blues" as much as I've had in the past. I also think that essential oils have helped a lot too.

So much has been happening. I'm so glad I have a few minutes on this Sunday to write.

Joshua sang with the MAD Boys last week at a youth missionary fireside for the Stake. They sang an arrangement of "Be Still My Soul". It was stunning, it was so beautiful. At midnight on the night before, they practiced it a few last times at our house. So I got to sit in the piano room and listen to these six boys (Josh, Jancen, Connor C, Braiden, Sterling and Connor O) sing this beautiful hymn. Listening to music live is different than hearing it on a recording, or even through a microphone. There is a different feel, a different energy. Having learned more about energy and frequency since starting with essential oils, I understand more about why it's so different. I told Josh after his friends had left, "I'm the luckiest Mom in the world!"

Tomorrow he is singing with Jancen, Connor and Sterling for a Solo and Ensemble Festival at the High School. They are singing Prayer of the Children by Kurt Bestor. They are going to rehearse tonight, so I get a personal concert again tonight!

Joseph and Jesse got their patriarchal blessings recently. What a treat that was for them and for Bruce and I. There was no doubt that each blessing was exactly tailored for each one individually. I was so grateful for the Lord's revelation to our Patriarch.

Today in Church, Libby bore her testimony. She does this every testimony meeting, and it's just wonderful. Today I followed her, and then a little later, Jesse went up and bore her testimony about prayer. She said that no matter how hard her day has been, she can kneel down and pray when she gets home, and she is able to communicate with Heavenly Father and feel His love for her. Soon after that, Joseph got up and bore his testimony. He said that he has a picture in his room of the Savior with the sheep around Him, and one His shoulder. Joseph said that he often feels like he is the lamb on the Savior's shoulders, and that he is being carried and supported by the Savior. He also thanked Jesse for her example. Soon after that, Mary got up and bore her testimony too, also thanking Jesse for her great example. Jesse next to me was shaking, she was crying so hard. I was about to loose it - you know when you're crying so hard that you're going to embarrass yourself by making a loud noise - well, that was me.

Nothing makes me happier than to hear my children bear their testimony. They could win state in soccer, they could win the finest piano competition, they could get a 36 on the ACT and have 4.0's, but it would not make me happier than to hear their genuine testimonies shared. Thank you for doing that today!

Joseph turned 16 in January! He has yet to go on a date... Maybe he could use some good ribbing from his cousins to get him to go on one!

Josh went on a date with Hailey to the Tip-Off Dance at the High School.

They gathered at our neighbors house for pictures.
Afterwards, we got a shot of the Moms, and Joseph!
After that, they blindfolded the girls and told them they were taking them out to eat. The destination was two wall tents that were set up in the front yard of some friends.


It was decorated beautifully, with a fountain, plants, and a gorgeous table setting.

Josh and Hailey had a good time, and the dinner made for a memorable night!