HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE ❤

  It has been a great last week of vacation - days off, no school, shortened work schedules, a good time to relax, refocus, and make plans for the new year. 

  We had a pretty lazy week - Dad caught a cold, so we stuck close to home.  I worked some downstairs, trying to move my sewing room out of the back room, hoping I could get to the Christmas boxes and get our Christmas put away.  I was able to get most of it done (thank you, Paul, for lending a hand), and tomorrow I may actually take down our tree and pack up the house decorations - maybe😊. 

We got Milo for a couple of days this week, and on Friday, we took him and Sendai to the dog park.  Wow! Did they have a great time, and did they ever come home needing baths!

 

Yesterday, we got out and stopped at FedEx to make some copies for my Primary class, and then ran out to Scheels just for fun 😀.  Love that store and how kind and helpful the employees are.  AND if you can believe it, we stopped at In-N-Out for an early dinner (two weeks in a row).  Adam taught Dad about the Flying Dutchman (two hamburger patties, cheese, smothered in grilled onions, and no bun), and now he's hooked.                                                                                                   

  Last night, at Kate's suggestion, Dad and I watched the first 2 episodes of Stranger Things.  Don't think I'm going to be a big fan (at least not yet).  I do have to ask, though, is Matthew Modine a "bad guy"?  I really like Matthew Modine 😊 (What the Deaf Man Heard)

 

 School is back in session - Kim, Blythe, Sayre, and I start tomorrow, Kate is back to work tomorrow, and Max and all of the Colorado kids head back on Wednesday. For Blythe, Paul, and Hollie, this will be their last semester of making high school memories!

  THANK YOU, ANGELLA, for sending the only Sunday Selfie I received today!  Hope everyone enjoyed their new Sunday schedule.  

Our Ward now meets at 1:30, and we didn't get home until almost 4:00. We made sandwiches for dinner, and I'm looking forward to my Sunday bowl of ice cream 😍.  

I graduated to Senior Primary and will now be teaching the kids who will turn 9 this year.  One of our boys has Down's Syndrom, and is non-verbal. He has someone who comes in to class to watch and help him.  Tomorrow I am going to visit with his Mom and get some ideas on how we can help him feel included in our class.  I am team-teaching with a super lady in our Ward, and I think it will be a great year!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT BOYS AND THEIR FORTS? 

 Sayre made a fort for himself in his Mom's bed, and Ben made a fort for the cats 😂

  Is it because they are 7??? 

 LOTS OF THINGS GOING ON THIS MONTH - 

 Both Samantha and Angella are scheduled for surgery on the 15th.  Samantha is joining the "out-with-the-gall-bladder" club, and Angella is having knee replacement surgery.  

 

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!  We also have lots of birthdays to celebrate!  Jake's birthday is next Sunday, and he will be turning 10 !#%&@!# I am in total denial about that one!  Emma's birthday is on January 23rd, and Cory turns 29 on January 27th.  I love when we have birthdays and can celebrate each other. ❤

This past week, I was listening to John Bytheway and Hank Smith's podcast, and they had Bonnie Cordon on as a guest.  The following is just a small snippet of something she shared, and I wanted to share it with you - "There is a quote by Frank W. Boreham, who is an English Baptist preacher, and he was speaking of events during the Napoleonic Wars and the early part of the 19th century.  

He said, "Men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for the news of the wars, and all the while in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think of babies?  Everybody was thinking about battles.  In one year between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes. In 1809, Gladstone was born in Liverpool.  Alfred Tennyson was born at the Somersby rectory. Oliver Wendell Holmes made his first appearance in Massachusetts. Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in old Kentucky. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born at Durham. But nobody thought of babies. Everyone was thinking about battles."

Yet, which of the battles in 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809?  He goes on to say, we fancy that God can only manage his world by big battalions when all the while he is doing it by beautiful babies.  He says, "When a wrong wants righting, or work wants doing, or truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world to do it."

That is why long ago a baby was born in Bethlehem. God uses that same pattern. When you think about the Living Christ and who signed it, consider the year 1940.  What was happening in 1940? 1940 was World War II.  There was the Battle of France. France was being placed under German and Italian occupation. The German forces invaded the Netherlands. We were thinking a lot about battles. Then you wonder about the babies born in 1940.  One of those babies born in December 1940 was Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who also signed the Living Christ. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf and Quentin L. Cook were born in 1940.  The Lord placed great men and great women on this earth so many years ago to help His work move forward. 

When I think about the great people that walk the halls of the church every Sunday, I think about the great young people that walk in the halls of every university, walking the halls of every high school, every junior high, and it reminds me of the words of Elder Neal Maxwell, "the same God that placed the star in a precise orbit millenia before it appeared over Bethlehem in clelbration of the birth of the babe, has given a least equal attention to the placement of each of us and the precise human orbit so that we may, if we will illuminate the landscapes of our individual lives, our light may not only lead others, but warm them as well.

Don't ever think you don't have a purpose or a place in the World!  

Love you all so much, and hope that this week you can find joy in each day by reaching out and serviing others ❤