Thanksgiving 2010

Weitzel family Thanksgiving! (minus - Ashleigh, Chelsea, Seth and a couple of other cousins Rachel and Meagan) I am so grateful for family gatherings like this. We had a great time and everyone had fun playing in the snow and playing games inside while we waited for the food to be ready. Last Sunday we had our own family dinner with all the kids and celebrated miss Autumn's 7th birthday. What an event that was! I have to say this has been the easiest Thanksgiving dinner preparations ever for me. Everyone helped bring food and so I just made the turkey and a couple of side things. It was so wonderful to gather and have David record what we were all thankful for this year. I am loving the holidays this year!

Lessons learned during a sleepless night

I really do have about a hundred and one things I want to blog about - but that would give away all my holiday secrets:) I have been really working very hard at a very special Christmas surprise this year. I will share all of it with all of you when the time is right. For now I don't want to spoil it for any of the children that might just happen to be reading in on my blog. That said I just wanted to take a few minutes tonight and write about some things that have been on my mind lately.

There was something that I was listening to late one night a couple of weeks ago. I was having a hard time sleeping and was worried about some things going on with some of the children. I always seem to worry about them because I want them to be happy and "choose the right" so they can feel all that Heavenly Father wants them to feel! Each child has their own kind of trials and struggles - some personal - some work related - some relationship related. As I was listening to this guy speak about how God helps us with our trials I stopped flipping through the channels and listened for a few minutes. Most of what he said made a lot of sense. I got what he was teaching about and then shut the program off and started searching the scriptures for examples of what he was teaching. I had an "ah ha" moment. I love it when that happens. So funny though because I was the one learning for myself when I originally thought I would be using this to teach to my children. I will eventually but for now I needed the lesson for some of my own struggles I am having at this time. What is it - well Heavenly Father uses what is close by us to help us through our own situations. When David had to fight Goliath he used stones that were on the ground. Heavenly Father did not give him something to use that he was not familiar with. He fought a great battle with some simple stones. Moses is another example. There are several in the Book of Mormon - Nephi, The Brother of Jared, Mosiah to name a few. I am sure if you think about other stories in the scriptures you can see that the prayers were answered using ordinary objects that were familiar to the person receiving the answer. Maybe you all realized this before but I had never seen the simplicity in what we can use to overcome the challenges that we face. As I read further into some of these stories I realized that in all cases faith proceeded their actions. I am sure if I was facing Goliath and looked and saw a few small stones lying on the ground my first thought would not have been to pick them up and use them - those would kill the giant - no I dare say I would not have thought that. I would have been looking around for something larger, or even someone else to fight off the man. As I read again the story of the Brother of Jared I realized that whatever uncertainty he had about himself he never doubted the Lord's abilities. When these scripture heroes of mine succeeded it was by "small and simple things" The scripture in Alma 37:6 states "that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass - (and I love this line of the scripture) and small means in many instances confound the wise." Now I will be honest I have never thought of this scripture as an answer to how to solve any trials I might be going through. I seem to always look for some big answer from the Lord. And yet when I look back on how my prayers have been answered - really it was by "a small means" - a word or song from a child - a note in the mail - a friendly phone call from a friend - a verse from the scriptures that I had never seen before (don't you do that sometimes, wonder where that little gem had been hiding all this time?) - a thought in my mind as to the right words to say at the right time. As I have been reading my scriptures this past week I have been looking for these "small things", these things that are right there - close at hand. I think that is what I noticed also is that the things were close at hand. I know that even if I doubt myself I can rely completely on the the Lord's abilities and recognize those things as He places them before me. As I have been studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year again to teach in seminary I am reminded that He is "in our midst". No matter how alone or dark we feel He is there waiting to help us all we have to do is "knock". Think about it - how close are our hands to us - we just have to "knock". I know that we don't literally knock on a door but the thought of folding my arms and down on bended knee seeking for the door of my heart to be opened to His will I can see how my hands play a role in that process. Another phrase that jumps out at me a lot this time is the one to "pray always" He reminds us to do that a lot.

So I guess in short as I look for an answers to my problems I will notice how the Lord uses what is familiar to me, what is close to me , and that His abilities go beyond anything I could do on my own. A nice little lesson learned for one sleepless night:)

Facing my fear

Today I did something that I have never done since moving here over five years ago. Drum roll please....... I ventured into Washington all by myself! I know that does not sound that exciting but believe me it is a big deal for me. I have a little anxiety when it comes to leaving the state. Even from my old home I never ventured north without an escort of some kind. I know that sounds silly but really I have always gone with someone and the thought of navigating those streets on my own was a little scary. But just so you don't worry - not that anyone is - I did it and did not get lost and found every store I was looking for and even managed not to get turned around heading home. I guess I really paid more attention to things than I thought. I did try to get a couple of girls to go with me and made some phone calls even but when it came right down to it I had to just put my "big girl panties" on and just do it. I am very glad I did. I now have overcome the last of my big fears and will probably make more little jaunts that way. Oh no, this is not good for David's wallet;)

Mondays

Fall is in the air! These last couple of months I have been canning like crazy. I've canned jams, peaches, pears, applesauce, apple butter, pickles and yesterday got to pick some grapes for grape juice. The only thing I did not get done that I really wanted to was salsa. But I know that next year will be a better year for the garden. At least I hope so! It has been especially fun because Toshia and I have been sharing the work load and working together. We have been spending Mondays together trying to get this all done. And in between we've been doing a little crafting! These Mondays have been the highlight of my week since school started. I have enjoyed the little babies being under foot - I guess because I am not stressed about being the "mom" of them. Being the grandma is much more relaxing! Then I am loving the chaos of things that start around 2:30 in the afternoon as everyone arrives home from school. They each come in a few minuets apart and then things don't settle down until everyone is snuggled tightly in bed. Mondays are an exhausting day but I would not trade them for any other day of the week right now. We've decided to keep this little tradition going during the school year. There are plenty of crafting things to keep us busy. I am so lucky to have her so close. I am going to enjoy these moments because you never know when things in her life might change and she might not live so close. But you can know that if I have anything to say about it all my children are going to stay close and we all are going to grow old together!

Grandkids!

I LOVE being a grandma!

10-10-10

I was on my way up to bed when the thought occurred to me that I had better write a little something on this historic never to happen again for another hundred years day! 10-10-10 just has a certain ring to it that calls out to me for some reason. Conference was last weekend and was so wonderful! What a blessing it has been to travel to Utah for the last 10 years to hear it in person. (We have traveled there many times before but with breaks in between.) There is something about hearing the music live in the conference center that just brings chills to my spirit. I LOVE it! So in honor of 10-10-10 I thought I would list my top 10 favorite conference treasures.

1. President Monson announcing 5 new temples!

2. Sis. Wixom taught us to take our children by the hand and lead them - lead them to scripture reading, prayer, and family home evening!

3. Elder Costa taught that a prophet tells us what we need to know not what we want to hear. Prophetic priorities are God's priorities!

4. The Tabernacle Choir singing "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus"!

5. Pres. Uchtdorf wisdom as he counseled to proceed at the optimum speed for our circumstances! Do all things in wisdom and order!

6. Elder Hales teaching us that if we use our agency in righteousness we will become closer to God!

7. Elder Scott taught that faith is not obtained during times of great adversity, that's when it is utilized, needed strength is drawn from it at that time!

8. Boyd K Packer as he made a remarkable statement that "moral standards can't be changed by battle or by ballot", he went on to say that you can not vote to change moral values and standards set by God - changing marriage or moral constants by a vote of the people is as feeble as thinking you can change other laws of God such as gravity!

9. Pres. Monson reminded us that an attitude of gratitude helps us recognize our blessings. Pride brings selfishness, humbleness brings an attitude of gratitude!

10. Music and the Spoken Word - it was so beautiful Sunday morning and the message sung through the music just touched my heart!

It was hard to pick just 10 things because so many things touched my heart - I love that we have a living prophet on the earth today with 12 apostles by his side and his two councilors! How thankful I am to live in this time and at this place so I can hear their words! I have made a resolve to "ameliorate" (improve) over this next six months!

A little of this a little of that

So I think it is really weird to not have any pictures to upload when I blog - I really need a new camera for Christmas Santa! That said here goes another random update.

The children have been doing really wonderful in school. They seem to be settling into the routine of things very well. I think I have been getting the hang of my routine or at least trying to have a routine. I really have been so very busy with projects that yesterday when Toshia said lets make applesauce I thought to myself I just want to do nothing today. She came over (we have been having a great time getting together on Mondays canning and crafting) so we continued our "mother/daughter Mondays". She worked on her little guys Christmas present and I did a "trick or treat" banner. So for not wanting to do anything I still managed to get some creative thing done. We will get the applesauce and apple butter done when I get back from Utah next week.

Thursday Noah has to have a little surgery on his lip. He is a little nervous about it but looking forward to missing school on Friday.The little girls have started up again with piano. We took half of July and all of August off and it has been somewhat slow getting back into it since school started. Hayden in her most dramatic tone ever said, "I don't ever want to play the piano I only want to play the violin and if I can't do that then I just don't want to do anything!." I am not accomplished enough on the violin to teach her anything - I still need lots of teaching myself - so in my most dramatic tone I replied, "I would be the worst mom in the world if I let you quit - and quite frankly I don't think I could stand to hear you scratch the notes out on the violin!" She huffed off and said, "Oh well, it was worth a try." She then had another similar conversation in front of Toshia and I tried to get Toshia to let her know how unhappy she would be if she quit because when she grew up she would always wish she had stuck with it. Toshia did not quite catch on to what I was going for and said some totally random thing that did not help my cause at all. Even Chad is back at the piano and Noah is still working very hard at the guitar.

Reagan was blessed last Sunday and it was so sweet to have all the family here (except Chelsea who had a previously planned trip) for dinner afterwards. Paige was home for the first time in several months - it was nice. Lots has been going on with that little one. That is for another blog post in the future. I made Reagan's dress and bonnet and even though Ashleigh thought the bonnet was a little over the top -(it totally was not!) I think it turned out so beautiful. Toshia picked the pattern and I went from there. Lots of tucks - I love, love, love tucks on baby clothes!

I have been substituting in Seminary and teaching my sweet Sunbeam class. It has kept me in the scriptures a lot. It has been fun preparing for the two totally different kinds of teaching you have to do with the two different ages. I also have read three books in the last couple of weeks and loved all of them - "Rhett Butler's People". "The Mysterious Benedict Society", and finally I read " Goose Girl". I have also started making Christmas presents. I think we are going for more homemade again this year. It is so fun to search out projects and work on them with each person in mind. I also started a sampler quilt that I will work on with some other lady friends each month.

There has not been a slow day yet since school started. I look forward to the lazy days of summer but really have been enjoying the busy days of fall!