Tuesday, December 31, 2013
It’s New Year’s Eve. This date has many fond memories for me, but it
is also a somber day of sadness. Eleven
years ago today I found out that the baby I was carrying, Joseph, would not
survive past birth. That was a hard day,
but I made it through that process and have been able to help others through it
and there have been many blessings along the way.
I’m a few days late writing this week’s letter
because I’ve been a little sick. My eye
started bothering me on Sunday and today since it wasn’t better I went to the
doctor and found out I have pink eye. I
got some antibiotic eye drops now and have already seen and felt some
improvement.
Last Monday, Dec. 23rd, Chad had the
day off. He and the boys played
basketball all morning. That afternoon
we had our scripture of the month club year end party at Flip side. Kari and Alden brought Trigger down from
Snowflake so he could join us and Amy brought her kids over. It was so much fun. I’m glad the kids worked so hard at
memorizing their scriptures each month so we could have such a fun celebration. If your kids start memorizing the scriptures
they can come to next year’s party! I’ve
chosen the scripture of the month for Jan. 2014, since our Gilbert temple
open house is next month I chose Psalm 24:3-4 for next month’s scripture. (Speaking of the Gilbert temple open house,
if my family and friends from out of town would like to come to the open house,
you are welcome to spend the night at my house so you don’t have to drive down
and back in one day. We live just five
minutes or so from the temple and we love house guests!!) Monday evening for part of our FHE we went caroling
to the residents at Puring’s care home.
It was a nice day.
Tuesday was Christmas Eve. Chad took Karalee on a double date with
Karalee’s friend Sammy Washburn and her dad.
They went ice skating. Chad said
Karalee did well and learned to skate by herself without holding on to him.
For dinner on Christmas Eve we went to Chad’s
parent’s house and had their traditional Around the World Christmas dinner, and
then we had sumo wrestling and the nativity.
It was fun.
Christmas day was nice. We had a fun day here at
home. All the kids slept in Chad’s and
my room, which is a tradition. We told
the kids they couldn’t get up before 6:30.
However, I was so excited I was having trouble sleeping, so when I heard
Bryant and Spencer whispering to each other at 6:00 I told them that we could
go out to the family room while we waited until 6:30 to wake up Chad and the
other kids. We read the nativity story
in Luke 2 while we waited and it ended up being a special moment. Maybe we will do it again next year. The kids were happy with their presents and
spent the day playing with them. That
evening Crystal, Tyler, Wynn and Rend came over for visiting and dinner. It was fun to see my nephew Rend and his wife
Michelle and their kids again. We’ve
missed them since they moved to North Dakota.
Last Thursday I took the kids on a field trip to
the State Capitol so Spencer could finish his last requirement for of the
citizenship in the nation merit badge. We had a nice tour of the old Capitol building;
we got to see the silver service that was taken off the USS Arizona (they knew
they would be joining the war at some point so it was removed before the
bombing took place), we learned about the gratitude train that France sent to
the US after the war, and we learned several other facts about AZ trying to
become a state. It was nice to have a
personal tour with just me and the kids.
After the tour we went to "visit" Grandpa Flake. By visit I mean we saw his picture from when
he was Speaker of the House hanging in the House of Representatives. I love
his smile in it. We wanted to see the
statue of him in the Senate building but the Senate building was still closed
for Christmas. I also showed the kids
the office I worked in before I had Spencer and they got to meet Jan, my former
co-worker.
Yesterday I still wasn’t feeling that great but
not too bad. In the afternoon I went
shopping all by myself. Chad was working
from home, Tilly was asleep, and none of the older kids wanted to come with me. I made a few returns and then got some stuff
at Walmart and Costco. It was kind of
nice to get so much shopping done without the kids.
Tonight we have a New Year’s Eve party at our
friends the Wilcox’s. It should be
fun. They are a fun family.
 |
| Karalee is loving her Rainbow Loom. She wears all 11 bracelets that she's made. |
·
“Obedience is powerful
spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.”
· “Boys flying kites haul in their
white-winged birds;
You can call back your kites, but you can’t call back your
words.
‘Careful with fire’ is good advice, we know;
‘Careful with words’ is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts unexpressed will often fall back dead. But God Himself
can’t kill them, once they are said!
It
is painful to be the victim. But have you not yet learned how much more painful
it is to be the offender?”
Love,
Mindy
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