just a thought ~ F.E.A.R.

FEAR.... at one of the stake conferences a member of the stake presidency pushed this into my brain. He talked about how Satan puts fear into our hearts and minds to stop us from doing what we need to and what God wants us to do. He spelled it out this way:

F ~ false
E ~ expectations
A ~ appearing
R ~ real

puts into perspective doesn't it?! So why put off helping someone else, making a phone call, helping someone you don't know? Get up, get out, and do something good! Service will bring us an abundance of blessings.

Things are being finalized more and more now. Josh's headstone will be here soon and his grave has been leveled out and is ready for sod. It's a strange feeling.

It's somewhat like the feeling when you are a kid and you're hoping your parents will let you do something, but in the back of your mind you know it's not going to happen. That false sense of hope pushes any other logical thoughts out and you hold on until the final verdict.

I guess I've held onto a hope that I'm going to wake up and none of this will have happened. No more "elephants in the room" when people talk to me or looks of, "what do I say to them." Just back to what was "normal." But, I know that's not what's going to happen. This is our new "normal." Making memories, but only with three not four.

It's been a strange trial and blessing to have Steve's cousin to share this with. Their family experienced this almost 3 months before we did when their daughter Kiersten Gemar passed away in her sleep from a seizure. Graig and Shellie have been such a blessing. They helped us so much especially that week up to the funeral, sending us text messages to help bolster us up and knowing that they are continuing on this journey of acceptance, sorrow, and joy... it's just nice to know there is company.

I guess what I've been trying to get out is swirled thoughts that may only make sense to myself. Hold your little ones close, give one more second of patience, one more hug before they get on the bus, allow yourself to view this life as just a piece of the eternal perspective. Enjoy the challenges, learn from the frustrations, find joy in this wonderful journey.

Small thoughts of missing a brother.

It's been awhile, but today with how windy it is outside it made me remember something Michael asked the day after their birthday. Michael was wanting to make a deal. It's the sort that just tore at my heart strings. He came running out of our family room with all his birthday balloons and asked with this beautifully hopeful face if he could let them go up into the sky to go to Heavenly Father.

The weekend before we celebrated Mike and Maddie's Birthdays with the extended family. All the cousins and family drew (tried to) something on a balloon to send up to Josh for his birthday.(Thanks Megan for recording it) It was really neat, thanks everyone.

Anyway, I asked him why he wanted to do that and with such a bright face he explained (as best he could with his limited vocab.) that he thought Josh could come down and play if he sent his balloons up to Heavenly Father in the sky. Oh, how I wish it were that easy!

Mike as really taken this okay and adjusted well. He still misses him terribly some days, but reassures Steve and I that we will see Josh again when it's our turn to go up to Heavenly Father. We've been really blessed to have such a matter-of-fact kind of kid in our home. He brings us so much joy!

Headache

two in one day, I'm going for the record! Today I've been fighting a migraine. Not the most wonderful thing, but you just plug along right? Michael noticed that I wasn't feeling 100% and asked me what was wrong. I told him that my head hurt. Michael promptly went to the closet and got a band aid out. He stuck it to my forehead and looked really worried to see if band aids really worked. To humor him I told him it made me feel a lot better and left it there for an hour or so. What a sweetie!

Thoughts

Most everyone knows that our little Joshua was needed elsewhere with our Father in Heaven. It's been a rocky road of peace and then frustration and then peace and then sometimes anger. We miss him so much! At the present moment I do so much miss holding him and hugging him, I miss his little voice that was just coming out. He worked so hard at speech therapy that in the last year it's been a tremendous joy to have him speak to us without so much pushing. I miss his high pitched scream, his laughter and fighting with Michael, I miss his singsong voice saying, "coming mom." I miss hearing Michael and Josh giggle when they were suppose to be asleep and so many other things. But that's not the purpose of my writing today. Today I wanted to share a poem by Corrie Tem Boom, a holocaust survivor. I heard it on a John Bytheway talk and it's helped bring a little "understanding" on rough days. Here it is:

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I do not choose the colors
He worketh steadily
Oft times He weaveth sorrow
And I in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And explain the reasons why
The dark threads are as needful
In the skillful weaver's hands
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned ~~

Isn't that the truth? We don't have to know or even understand every little thing that God is allowing or doing. We do need to know and understand that He loves us and that this life is only a moment. We so often speak of looking at things with an eternal perspective and sometimes it's a cliche` when we are having a rough time. But I KNOW that this life is but a moment and that the suffering, sorrow, etc. won't be forever. They may be painful, but how can we think or believe for that matter that the Lord doesn't know first hand how we feel. We are never the only one who knows our pain or for that matter our JOY ;) He has not and will not leave us to suffer alone, but we must be willing to allow His love and influence in our lives. Steve and I know that Josh is still part of our family and Michael knows that too. We know that we can be together as family eternally someday. It's not that we just want to get to be with Josh again, It's that we want our family together again. So for now we will take little steps forward and pray that our hearts and minds will stay softened to the will of the Lord.

Old is New again

It's the new year and it's been fantastic so far. We are getting back into the groove of things and Mike and Josh are now sunbeams in primary!!! WOW! But really today I'm writing because I have been really touched by a Christmas present that I was given from my father. He took some of our old family movies and put them on a dvd... he even put the woody the woodpecker cartoon that we love so much on there! It's been so much fun to watch and relish in how simplistic life can be if we get out of the way! I really hope, more than that, I desire for my children and those I love to enjoy and cherish life!

Where today we see that adults and children...etc... have an insatiable appetite for "stuff", I want so much to teach my children different. As I watched the movies it was wonderful to see how happy we all were. I loved seeing Becky dancing with her doll @ Grandma Pence's house, being happy with her grocery bag pompoms, Jennie dancing the hula and her b-day party bow hat, Aaron playing t-ball and making faces every chance he got, and my parents...young and probably struggling with things that I am now. It was sad that Steph wasn't on there, but these videos are from when I was an infant... so of course I was all cute and following everything Becky did.
What a wonderful gift! It's going to be wonderful showing my kids that Grandpa once had a full head of hair and that their Great Grandparents once had mobility! I'm so excited to have this piece of family history!

Christmas

Well, like so many others this year I am late with wishing everyone a merry Christmas! I hope that our families know how much we love and appreciate them especially with all the support and love that they send our way.

Our Christmas was really nice. We had a quiet day on Christmas Eve and spent the most part of that day making and taking treats to our neighbors. That night we ventured out of Shelley and went to GrandmaGrandpaBean's house, as Mike calls it... Josh just calls it "Bean home"... and went to go look at lights. It was really fun. I don't know whether Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed it, but the rest of us did. It's so nice to see what creative things people have done for the enjoyment of others. There was one house in our little town that put their lights to music. They even did live dj-ing every night. The night we stopped and watched a little boy came on the radio and told everyone to not make-out in front of his house! It gave us a laugh! :)

We had an adventure on the way home that night from the storm that was blowing through, but it was worth it to get the time with our family. The boys, mostly Mike, really understood the whole Santa thing this year. for the last 3 or 4 days up to Christmas he would wake up and ask if Santa came. It was really fun to see how excited they were about all of it this year. Josh was mostly excited about the snow and he loved going sledding on Christmas Eve.

Christmas day was fine and brought some much fun, but SPD did start to get the best of the boys towards the late afternoon and we had to jet out of grandma and grandpa's house. The boys love the quilts they got and especially the dinos that Santa brought. I will be glad when the batteries wear out.

Some of the best things that happened in the week up to Christmas were:
1. Josh and Mike went around wherever we were and wished everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS at the top of their lungs.
2. They also kept singing happy birthday to Jesus. I had explained that it was His birthday and that Santa was bringing us a present to remind us it was Jesus' birthday. I should have that it through and came up with a better relationship between the two, but maybe next time.
3. Jingle bells in our house was changed to "jiggy bells" courtesy of Josh
4. And last, but not least one of the best things that happened was the peace and light that we felt in our home.

We hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas!

Mom Days

to be honest today was one of those days! I didn't want to have the name "Mom". I know that everyone has one of these days and maybe more than one a week, but oh! today was my day.

We had a lot to do, including a Christmas party @ preschool and therapy. So when they got up this morning and were dragging their feet I cringed. We got to the Christmas party that is 3 blocks away just fine, except that we were 10 minutes late... we just couldn't get moving. After that we came home and they had some chill out time before we had to go to Blackfoot for therapy.

Everything went fine until 1/2hr before we needed to leave. Every time I walked out of the room they started fighting! So we were 10 minutes late for that one too! Therapy went really well until the last 10 minutes... what is it with the 10s? Michael and Josh both had a melt down and it was in a hallway that echoes horribly. They started to settle a little before we left, but then it started up again once I told them we had to take the elevator instead of our norm... the stairs. They were just too slippery.

Anyway, it took me almost 10 minutes, there it is again, to get them from the basement(where therapy is), to the elevator (hissy fit at the door to the stairs), then we went up and down twice before I could get them to get out of the elevator which entailed me carrying them both out football style and two nurses holding open the doors.

to end on a positive note, I really do feel like my children are a blessing and I really enjoy being a mom! Life is really a wonderful adventure and I am so thankful that I have my family to experience it with; I could just go without the "mom days"

IT'S HAPPENED!

I'm not sure if I am excited, sad, or just plain relieved. This morning in church I was was released from the primary presidency. I definitely will miss being in primary, being around the kids, and serving with the women that are in primary, but it also has lifted some stress off my shoulders.
I guess the weird thing is that I thought I would be more sad about being released and in a strange way I feel a little guilty that I'm not more upset about it. It's nice to feel peace with these things and really if it wasn't suppose to be things would have worked out better.

I learned a lot of things while serving in primary for the last 5 years in different wards. I've learned:
1. no matter how young or old or what kind of circumstances they come from, you can see the light of Christ in their eyes.
2. as adults we learn more from the primary kids than they probably learn from us.
3. The small and simple answers that come up each week in primary can solve any problem if we adults are willing to let them.
4. If you need a boost, primary songs are always easy to sing, even off tune, and invite a wonderful Spirit into the home, car, etc.

There are a lot more, but those are the ones that I seemed to notice the most.
I just have to say that primary is wonderful... Relief Society will be interesting. Since Steve and I have been married, I have only been in there a total of 3 months total time! I'm sure it will be great, but no singing off key in there :(