My Mama Said

...that she expected a blog from me tonight. Can she do that??? Isn't that sort of thing supposed to end when a girl gets married and moves away? Can I pull one of those "You're not my boss anymore" things??? Incidentally, that's one of my very biggest pet peeves. I hate when I hear kids (mine, or anybody elses) say to somebody (even if it's true), "You're not my boss" or "You're not my Mom." Oooooooh, it bugs me! So I guess I'll forego the fit and just do what Mom said to do. ~sigh~ Life is so not fair. ;-)

We had horse lessons on Friday because we weren't able to make it on Tuesday. Afterward we drove down the the library to bring home 30 or 40 new books. I love it that my kids love books so much! It was a pretty lazy day after that. The kids decided they were going to open a restaurant that afternoon, so the boys donned the waiter apparel...

And got busy making their own money so they could operate a proper business.

I told 'em I was going to call the cops on them--it's illegal to make your own money like that. "They'll throw you in the pokey for sure!!!" ;-)

Saturday was spent cleaning house and getting some food together for our Sunday pot-luck. We weren't able to have church in our usual location this week (still praying for God to open doors for a REGULAR place of worship!), so we had our regular Sunday morning service here at our house, then a pot-luck, then went straight into our ABM service. It's really nice to have a day like that every now and then! I love the fellowship and togetherness of it all. We enjoyed really good services, too. I made meatballs at James' request, taco salad, deviled eggs, chocolate eclair, and oatmeal scotchies--which, to clear up any confusion, are simply oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips, not any other kind of scotch. ;-) We had that discussion over dinner! We also had spaghetti and lasagna and potato salad and cheesecake and... hhmmm. Oh! James made a green chili enchilada, too, with the chilies we brought back from Hatch. Yum! Anyway, back to the subject...

We had really, really good services yesterday and just really felt the Lord with us. Because we had other rooms available for a change I was able to take the kids and have Sunday School with them, a luxury they haven't enjoyed in many, many months. It was great! We used Psalm 119:18 as our text: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," and talked about the need to search and pray for understanding when we read something in the Bible that we don't "get," so that God can open our eyes and help us to see what He's trying to say to us--He has wondrous things for us to behold! It turned out better than I had expected for practically no preparation (I didn't realize until late Saturday night that I should prepare something... Good thing we'd nabbed some super cheap craft supplies at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago!) and the kids enjoyed it. And had way too much fun, too! Here is Cainan's "Open thou mine eyes" act...

Joe thinks Cainan is just about the funniest kid out there! Ha! I love how he's cracking up over Cainan being a dork! :-) And here are all of the kids with their Open My Eyes visors and their Search the Word magnifying glasses. :-)

After Sunday School we enjoyed a good worship service--with MUSIC! Wa-Hoo! It was great to have a piano for a change. Then Brother Chris preached another really, really good message. It was sort of along the lines of what I had talked about in my VLB service last week, about not toying around with the things of this world even if they aren't necessarily "sinful." He likened it to throwing pebbles at a sleeping giant, feeling safe all the while because you're in control of the situation. But when we venture toward the things of this world we are foolishly throwing rocks at a giant that will eventually be aroused and be bigger and stronger than we think and will easily overcome us. He spoke of the Advice to Members and how some people want to make light of it and even mock it or call it legalistic. But when you have the "need" to break some of the rules there (especially if you have covenanted yourself to the Church and are committed to Theocratic government which, incidentally, felt strongly enough about the Advice to create it... for a reason!) you're starting to throw rocks at the giant. Good, good advice. That's what God gave us and I'm so thankful!

We enjoyed way too much good food after service and lots of good fellowship. I love that part. :-) I would love it if we did this once a month!

After lunch we went right into our ABM service and it, too, was wonderful. God really blessed us in our singing and in our praying to begin with. God is really working to bind our members together with love and concern for each other and it's a beautiful thing. I love to see all of us bearing one another's burdens and rejoicing in one another's victories! Sister Galaviz taught a wonderful lesson on the Beatitues. The merciful one is the one that really stuck out to me. Mercy comes into play when somebody doesn't deserve to be treated with kindness or compassion. I immediately thought of a particular situation where some people have been so mean and hateful and destructive and had to ask myself if I truly have a MERCIFUL spirit toward them, or if I somehow want to see them suffer (even just to some small degree) for their meanness and cruelty. ??? I want to have a loving and merciful spirit toward everybody! I don't deserve God's mercy; who am I to think others should have to "earn" kindness and compassion from me?! Lots to think and pray about.

The crowd had cleared out after ABM service by about 4:30, I think, so we just hung out and enjoyed a nice, relaxing evening. ~Aaahhhh~ What a great day it was!

Today has been school, school, school and laundry, laundry, laundry. We got all of the intended goals accomplished for both, so that's good! It started out pretty rough for Joe today (his anti-school attitude had him spending over an hour to complete HALF of a page), but after his visit to the principal's office he came back with an attitude that was much improved and he did the best school work--and fastest--he's done in months! I'm going to have to send him to the office more often, I guess. ;-) Katie has so much fun doing her school that I've been encouraging her to do lots of extra work, especially since we'll be gone for 3 weeks or more on our Assembly trip. The big trip will begin for us either Friday or Saturday of this week. How did it sneak up on us like that?!

I think I'm going to go read some in my A. J. Tomlinson book before bed. I haven't been as faithful to it as I had hoped (tell me you're surprised! Ha!), but I'm not letting myself pick up any OTHER books until I finish it, even if it takes me 3 months. :-) That ought to do it! G'night!

By the way... when you read my blog title, how many of you thought the first line of my post was going to be, "You can't hurry love"??? Come on, now--be honest! Ha!