Money Matters

"I urge you, brethren , to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.
This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That's all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable."

The past few months have been quite precarious in terms of our finances as Jordan's company has faced some rough times. We have been so grateful through this that we have had just a bit of a reserve, so that we really could have peace even when things have been difficult. This past weekend we encountered so many stories on the radio and news and in talking with others all about various types of money fraud and scams and people making poor choices in their finances.  This month's Ensign had an article - Protecting Family Finances by Avoiding Fraud - all about avoiding these kinds of things. What a blessing to have such great counsel from our leaders and what an even greater blessing to follow this counsel and have peace of mind in return. 

Hip, Hip, Hooray!!

Our little Landon is finally, finally starting to sleep through the nights!! He's slept all night till at least 5:00, and usually later for about 5 days in the past week -- oh hooray!

The Bronze Bow

I read this when my ward book group was reading it last year, and again read it just a few weeks ago with Jordan. (As a side, there are not many things that I love more than listening to Jordan read to me!) This book is just beautiful. It's a children's fiction book that takes place during Christ's ministry and tells the story of a young man fighting against the Romans and searching for the Messiah to redeem the Jews from their oppression. When I read it, I gained such a new perspective of what life was really like then and what it was to know the Savior when he was on the earth. Because it details the lives of these few people, even though fictitious, you can really imagine what their thoughts and feelings were and their wonder at this man who really was the Messiah. It was neat to see the depiction of how ordinary people may have reacted to Jesus Christ and his teachings and miracles as he worked among them, and wonderful to see examples of his healing sickness and anger and despair, just as he truly does. 

Working Together

This past weekend, Jordan and I got to work together making a website from scratch in just a couple of days. A friend of Drew's works for Chris Buttars, a Utah senator. She was in charge of getting his website up and going, but had some problems -  So, she called Jordan on Thursday afternoon and asked if he could re-do the site and have it done by Saturday! We got right to work and I designed the whole site while Jordan coded it up. It was a hectic time, but a pretty fun project to do and a great chance to work together with my sweetheart! Here's the complete site. :)

The Wonder of Grandparents

Saturday night, we drove up to Salt Lake to see an old friend of Jordan's. On the way up we drove by a horse trailer w/ a bunch of horses that Landon just loved watching and was just so sad to leave when we had to get off the freeway. But, not nearly so sad as when we got back on the freeway to come home - way past bedtime - and there were no horsies to see!  For about half an hour we tried anything we could think of but all we heard were cries and pleads for "neigh! neigh! neigh!" Finally, when Landon was getting really desparate (not to mention me!) Jordan called his parents and asked them to talk to Landon about the horsies for a minute and then... silence - wonderful silence! :) All the way back from about Lehi Landon listened, perfectly content w/ only just a few "uh-huhs" and "broom broom's" to say, but not another cry. Oh how grateful we were for this wonderful Grandpa and Grammi getting our boy calmed down in just a split second and giving us a drive home in peace!

Kids Love Limits

In all of my behavior management training  in school and in teaching, I was often taught how important it is to set rules and limits for kids.  But, just this past week, Landon expressed so clearly his love for limits -- 

Landon still wakes up every night at least once. For months, he's been just coming in to my side of the bed, I drag myself up and walk him back to bed, and he's asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Why does he do this??

Our latest attempt to thrwart his night wakings was to put up a gate on his door. (We tried this once just after he turned one and climbed out of his crib. He, of course, climbed over the gate as well... but we figured we'd give it another shot.) We were worried that seeing the gate would make him go crazy, so the first night, I showed him as I put the gate up and explained that he wouldn't be able to come get mommy in the night but that when he saw the gate, it meant "back to bed."  When I put him to bed and went over the rules of the car bed  - 'what do you do if you wake up in the night?' - he remembered the gate and said "stuck!" 

The next afternoon, when I tried to put him down for a nap, he wouldn't go into his room until I put the gate up. "Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!" he begged. I never would have imagined that I'd hear Landon asking for such a thing! :)

Tastes of Summer and a Happy Life

This afternoon Landon and I were sitting out on our front step eating popsicles and watching all the different colors of cars drive by and I was just thinking of what a wonderful place in life I am in. What could be better on a hot summer afternoon than sitting with your little boy and eating popsicles? We had just about the longest Spring that I can ever remember and I absolutely loved it. This weekend it seems that Summer has finally arrived. We had our Friday night date at the Orem Summerfest where we got to check out all of the fun fair foods and trinkets and all.  Landon loved running around and pushing his stroller through the maze of the park. I loved that it wasn't 100 degrees like the Provo festival always is. :) 

Saturday we had a picnic up in Salt Lake with Drew and April and we took a trip to the pound (the Humane Society actually) to let Landon see all of the animal

s. He loved the dogs, but was a bit overwhelmed when they all started barking at once wanting to go out for a walk with the workers.  -- Our little guy has a tender heart. One of the kittens was sleeping with his leg poking out of a slot in the cage. For some reason, Landon thought it's leg was hurt and despite our several attempts to explain otherwise, each time he has thought of that kitten in the past few days, he is so concerned for the poor "meow -- owie!" 

We also got to check out the Provo Farmer's Market. A bit funny because there is no produce in season here yet, so it wasn't much of a Farmer's Market, but it did have lots of fun booths to see.  And I'm excited to go back in a few weeks for some yum delish fruit! :)

Sunday we had a BBQ at my Dad's in celebration of Father's Day as well as my step-brother's children's baby blessings. 

And today, we got out Landon's sprinkler toy and played in the yard after a hot morning walk.  So, it's a happy summer time again! :)