Mothers

This is a talk given in my friend Misty's ward on Mother's Day. It is FABULOUS! A must read today...

Mother's Day Talk

it was written and delivered
by Kathryn Van Wagoner, May of 2009

Hmmmm....all of a sudden all of the pictures on my blog are back! Yeah! Maybe this is my cosmic reward for enduring Pack meeting tonight with 5 kids, 3 who should have been in bed by then. And then coming home to put the kids to bed by myself while Marshyl is still at Scouts. Now I am ready to kick back with a giant piece of chocolate. So sad, no chocolate. I will have to kick back and DREAM of a giant piece of chocolate. But hey, at least the pictures are back!

Vernal

Last week we went to Vernal for a few days. We had a great time. Here are some pictures in random order. IE is giving me grief again today.

Luke helping Grandpa do the chores. He loves taking care of the animals.

Kaiden & Nic doing a puzzle.

Grandpa & baby Garrett.

Garrett loved the dog.

Nic & Luke on the swings.

Garrett loved the chickens...actually, he loved anything that would move. He loved the horses, too.

Kensi riding the horse. She thought she was big stuff! She didn't want to get off.

Garrett went up and down the steps all day. If he was inside, he wanted to be outside. If he was outside, he wanted to be inside. And he loved to chase the cats.

Grandpa swinging Garrett. Grandpa and Garrett are best buddies!

Afton & Kensi LOVED the cat. This one's name is Cutie. She was the only cat that would let them catch her. She was pretty good natured about it all. Afton wanted to stay in Vernal for good. They have cats & horses. What more does any girl need?

Grandpa cut Kaiden a willow branch and he made an awesome bow out of it. Kaiden loved having so much space to do things in. He also brought his sling and had all of the space he needed/wanted to throw rocks.

Afton had a permenant smile on her face the whole time she was on the horse. She LOVED riding.

Afton and Cutie.

Luke got ahold of the camera. Here I am with Kaiden watching the kids ride the horse.

Grandma and Garrett.

Neil A. Maxwell quote...

Neal A. Maxwell:

“You have been called by God, placed by God, in this time and circumstance. And He knows you better than you know yourself, knows what you have the capacity to do. However, God will not be content with you as you now are, fine as you may be, because He knows what you have the power to become!

There will be challenges aplenty. Your days will be like the days of Noah (see Matt. 24:37–42). But this will also be a time in which the Church will grow and its members will be scattered upon all the face of the earth (see 1 Ne. 14:14).

More and more stakes of the Church will be established as well as more and more temples.

Yes, you will live in a time in which peace will have been taken from the earth (D&C 1:35). But you can have the Lord's peace in your hearts and homes—which peace surpasseth understanding (John 14:27; Philip. 4:7).

Yes, you will live in a time in which, because of iniquity, the love of many will wax cold (Matt. 24:12). But, you may still have love in your hearts and in your homes.

Yes, you will live in a time in which many because of iniquity will despair about the human circumstance (Moro. 10:22). But you can be among the people of God who will be "armed with righteousness and with the power of God in … great glory" (1 Ne. 14:14). The Lord will be in the midst of His people. He will lead them and guide you along.”

("These Are Your Days," New Era, Jan 1985, 4)
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I got this quote this morning in my email from a friend of mine. It spoke right to my heart. And this was written 24 years go! How much more true it is now. What a strong reminder that we were put in this time in history for a reason and that we must do all that we can to "have the Lord's peace in (our) hearts and homes" and "have love in (our) hearts and in your homes." regardless of what is going on in the world around us.

Woodbadge

Marshyl is the Assist. Scoutmaster in our ward. He loves that job and it is nice that Kaiden is a deacon and in his group. He has been in this position for over a year and our Bishop has been trying to get him to the adult scout training called Woodbadge the whole time. He finally was able to make it this year. The Scoutmaster who just happens to be one on Marshyl's best friends also went to the same Woodbadge course. They camped at Camp Maple Dell in Payson Canyon. The 1st weekend was raining and COLD. Thank goodness for all of the military issue rain and cold weather gear that we have been packing around the country all of these years!

He had a great time at Woodbadge and made life long friends with the guys in his patrol. He also learned invaluable management and leadership skills and gained a renewed love for the Boy Scouting program.

Here is Marshyl before the very first day. He was very prepared for anything. He had to be able to carry all of his gear and he could...barely! I was laughing so hard I almost couldn't take the picture.

His patrol...the Bobwhites

Here he is with the Scoutmaster, his good friend Joe. Joe is the one on the left and with the blue lei. I'm not sure who the other guy is.

One of the projects that they did up there was to make a rocket out of a 2 liter bottle. The contest was for the longest hang time in the air. Marshyl's group put a parachute in theirs. They won the contest hands down, but got their rocket stuck in a tree. The rockets were launched with a water launcher and they went really far!

Museum of Natural History

Another free admission day. This one was at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah. This time we went with our friends, the Sego's. We had a fun time. I was taking pictures the whole time and hardly any were turning out. Finally at the very end, I realized that they camera was on the wrong setting. Here are a few that turned out. They are doing a frog exhibit right now and that was really cool. My favorite part was the dart frogs. They are these tiny little frogs that are bright neon colors. It was really cool. We also remembered this time that most places like this let you earn a Boy Scout patch for coming and learning some things. So all 3 boys earned that.

Garrett learning to walk!

Garrett has been trying to walk. Every now and then he gets ambitious. Instead of balancing on furniture and then taking off walking, like most kids; Garrett likes to just stand up in the middle of the floor and take off. This seems to work okay for him. He kept doing that, but stopped as soon as we tried to take pictures. We did get a few, but we had to encourage him to walk for them. Every time he would walk we would clap and cheer and make a big deal about it. After a while, he would just sit down and start clapping for himself...even before he would walk. It was hilarious!

Red Butte Gardens

Red Butte Gardens up at the University of Utah had a free admission day a couple of weeks ago. We LOVE free admission day anywhere! So we went up with our friends, the Atwoods. We had a blast. The Gardens are quite a ways up on the mountain, so hardly anything was green yet, but they had hundreds of tulips and daffodils which made it beautiful. The kids had such a good time, we want to go back in the summer when everything will be growing!

There was major popcorn popping on this tree!

They had these giant lizards in the kids play area for the kids to climb on. they were very realistic looking.

The flowers smelled good!

Garrett's 1st Birthday!!!

Garrett's birthday came on one of the days that Marshyl was at Woodbadge. So it was pretty low key. I hate to say that over a baby's 1ST BIRTHDAY, but he still had a good time. Of course he doesn't even know what a birthday is, so he didn't care. We waited for dad to get back from Woodbadge and had cake on Sunday night instead of on Friday. Grandma Morris was here to celebrate with us, and Amy. We had strawberry cheesecake and it was YUMMY!

"Uh, Mom...why is my cake on fire???"

BYU Dino museum

To end the our school year we have been doing a lot of field trips. This one was to the Dinosaur Museum at BYU. It's called something else, I just don't know what it's exact name it. We had a good time. Here are a couple of pictures.

The boys dance production

This year as part of our homeschool, we did classes on Friday at our local charter school. The boys took a boy's dance class. They loved it. They were able to be a part of this play. They were knights and got to fight a dragon. It was a blast!

On stage for the curtain call.

Nic, Kaiden & Luke

The whole group of Knights. Kaiden is the tall one, Luke is on the far left front, Nic is on the back row 3rd from the right.