What is the human body and mind capable of...?

Saturday I rediscovered the amazing things the human body is capable of doing and the power of the mind. How often do we keep ourselves from accomplishing great things by telling ourselves "I could never do..."or "I can't..."? We have so much influence on each other with what we say, how we see things, and what we think! We share these feelings, thoughts and actions with each other in search of a listening ear or words of encouragement or to simply share in our joy. We give each other advice, whether it be for the good or the bad. We have the choice of taking it or leaving it. We also strive to learn from each other's mistakes or successes, unconsciously we follow those that we look up to and desire to become more like them. We compare ourselves and put ourselves/eachother down, forgetting the importance of uniqueness, as well as that we are all children of a loving Heavenly Father. We are all different and similar at the same time, for a reason. We have been given unique qualities and circumstances to help us become who we need to be. This makes for a wonderful world to live in and use these gifts to help each other out, to serve, to love, to encourage...my point is that we all can do anything we set out to do. As long as it is in accordance to the Lord's Will, and in the name of righteousness and progression towards fulfilling our role, and purpose on this Earth. There is no stopping us, except ourselves/eachother. Once you have divine intervention, faith and hope...we can do it! Positive thinking and doing our part can influence us all. Where was I going with all this? Oh, yeah! I was leading towards my experience from yesterday's race. My friend Amy Reid and I signed up to run a 15K and accidently ran an 18.75K. So the 9.34 miles we thought we were running ended up being 11.67 miles. You can read all about it on her blog, she tells it better...http://reidfamilyblog.wordpress.com/. We ran it in 1hour 54min 02sec. Never did we imagine we were capable of running that many miles. We had talked about how hard it would be to actually run a half-marathon, which is 13 miles. And here we were running almost 12 miles non-stop. The human body and mind are an amazing thing. We are now very capable of running a half-marathon and we won't tell ourselves "WE CAN'T".

Aunt Wendy got a JOB!!!!!

Aunt Wendy worked over 30 hours this week. YEAH!!! She is working at Home Depot and she is loving it. The early hours are hard on her, but she is doing great. We celebrated "getting hired" with her, and lit a candle for her to blow. She really likes this job. She also has enjoyed the weird weather and amazing beauty all around! We love her!

Spring is here, but why is there snow?

We have experienced the weirdest weather the last week or so. We have had snow, hail and a ton of rain. The kids think it is so cool. Especially when we are sorrounded by the colors of Spring. The trees are springing buds of yellow, pink and white blossoms. It is gorgeous! James had soccer practice yesterday, and he experienced hail, rain, and snow all in 90 min. He said that it was freezing cold, and he was filthy and soaked in mud. He also said that he got his foot stuck in this mud puddle and as he attempted to get his foot out, the shoe came off as well, and his sock was soaked in mud. He thought that was so funny. I laughed with him. He loves the sport so he doesn't mind it! Overall the weather has been absolutely beautiful...we are just anxious for some warmth, and sunnier days.

We love Bellingham! It has some out of the ordinary weather at times and the sun seems to shine less, as well as the none stop rain...so it seems! Here are a few pictures of where we live and of the weird weather from our house...The Pacific Northwest is just gorgeous! The weather makes it all worth it. It is so very green here and the air so clean. I have also included the Tower where Rob works.

Some of the pictures are from the internet others are ones I took.

She says the funniest things...

Sophia this week has been saying quite the amazing, funniest things. They are not funny to her of course, but absolutely cute and hysterical to us. She has been planning this B-day party for herself for a month now. She walks around inviting everyone she knows. She will go up to me and say "You awe inwited to my bifday paddy, mommy!" Then she names others that are invited. Well, Rob in the car driving into town with her asked her about this party of hers, and she was so cute...she basically told Rob that she wanted the whole family to come (she mentioned especific names), a few friends' names were mentioned as well, and then she said that Santa and Jesus would come too. So, Cute!!! Then, she mentioned what she wanted for refreshments...she wants water, juice, cupcakes, ice cream and soda pop. Soda Pop?! We hardly drink that stuff around here. I guess she knows it is a treat for us to get soda. Today she went up to Rob and said that she wanted to marry him, I told her that daddy is already married to mommy, then she says "I wanna Mawy Aunt Fawny" (my little sister), so we tell her that girls have to marry boys. So, then you see her thinking about this one and says "James". We laughed and told her that she couldn't marry her brother, that it had to be a friend. So, I mentioned "Paden Loveland" from church, and she walked away saying "Yeah, Paden, I will mawy Paden". Absolutely cute and hysterical. Couldn't have made her any cuter and smarter. We just love her... Here are some cute pictures of Paden and Sophia when they were just a few months old, maybe closer to 6mos, as well the most recent ones. These two are 2 weeks apart...

Happy Easter...

The kids and us decided to do things differently this year. As we asked the 2 youngest "What is Easter all about?" their responses let us know that we needed to not have too much of the Easter bunny stuff and candy. The focus should mainly be on the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, not the eggs filled with candy and gifts from the easter bunny. So, we have tried to do that, although we did do some traditional things, which was to paint boiled eggs. The kids had a fun time. We also decorated some plastic eggs, with foam stickers, that we filled with goodies for our neighbors. Then we scattered the eggs in our living room, for the sake of the 2 youngest, so that they could fill their baskets with eggs to eat later. Bring on the egg-sandwiches, the devilled- eggs, the egg-salad...YUM!

James is in charge of our Easter FHE tonight. He is prepared and excited, so are we. He does such a good job at it. I had to teach sharing time today. I think it went well, I am not good at that sort of stuff. But, that is what callings are for, to make you come out of your comfort zones. Teaching a lesson in front of more than 8 children always makes me nervous. I believe I am getting better. Thank goodness for prayers. Our Easter Sunday was filled with the spirit. We had great music and great speakers during Sacrament. The primary children got to sing "Beautiful Savior" which is Sophia's favorite primary song. A dear friend/sister from church played the violin ever so beautifully. She brought tears to my eyes. She is so very graceful at it! Rob read a scripture the other day that I thought of a lot today and I thought I could share it with you all...“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins” (2 Nephi 25:23, 26).

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!” (D&C 76:22).

I am thankful for a loving older Brother that was willing to come to Earth and die for me, thru His sacrifice I can someday be back with Heavenly Father and live with Him again. I know that He lives! He is the resurrected Christ that the ancient prophets prophesied of. He is my Savior, my Redeemer. I believe in Him and know that He is!

Shade Clothing...

So, I am a sucker for tops. I have been addicted to these shirts for 2 years now, and I have more colors to choose from in my wardrobe than paint colors available at Home Depot. They are modest and fun to layer with. I never pay the full price, because they are pricey, but I wait for the big discounts and even the free shipping offers and then I go on a buying binge. Rob supports me too much with my Shade shirt addiction. I do need to attend a shop-a-holic anonymus group for shirts/tops addicts, and perhaps skirt and shoes as well, maybe chocolate too while I'm at it. This is starting to sound like a confession. If you are interested in joining my addiction, make your internet homepage http://www.shadeclothing.com/ like mine is.

St. Patrick's Day...

I am not the kind of mom who goes all out to celebrate every holiday, except Christmas and Easter. For V-day and St. Pat's I like to play with the food and dye it for fun for the kids, usually it is a breakfast meal. We didn't have time to make a green breakfast before school, so I prepared it for dinner. The kids had fun eating green eggs, pancakes and homemade apple syrup. Later we had our friends the Lovelands (Robby, April, Paden and Evan) come over for Family Home Evening and treats. By the end of the night we had some love birds in the making. I think we definitely found Sophia's future Hubby and true love. Paden is quite the little lover. His parents are wonderful people to know and be with. Enjoy these pictures of our night with them...Thanks April and Robby for the wonderful evening and delicious cake.