Beloved Prophet, Beloved Man

A touching article about President Gordon B Hinckley can be found at the church website. Here's the exact link: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/beloved-church-president-gordon-b-hinckley-dies-at-97#continued

Some tidbits that help showcase the amazing things this man did:

-In 1999 the church had 56 operating temples. In 3 years that number DOUBLED, largely in part because of the smaller temples that were being built.

-In April 2001, President Hinckley initiated the Perpetual Education Fund, a program dedicated to helping members receive a higher education who normally would be unable to.

-In 2005, he traveled nearly 25,000 miles on a nine-day, seven nation trip to meet with members of the church.

-He was awarded, among MANY other things, the Distinguished Service award by the NAACP, and The Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W Bush.

Those are just some official facts about the man. Personally, he changed the lives of millions. I know, because I was one of them. He will be greatly missed, and the world is an emptier place without him here. However, I get chills imagining the kind of reunion he must have experienced as he returned home, to his sweet wife and so many others.

happy boy

For a couple months Buddy Boy was having a difficult time finding happiness. He was in and out of fevers, and his teeth were bothering him. About a week ago he woke up one morning in a happy mood and has been happy since. I think his teeth have finally stopped bothering him. He even stood up without using the help of something. Yesterday Munchkin was playing with him, and she mentioned that she just loves him so much and wanted to cuddle with him all night. It has been awesome for the whole family to have our happy boy back. ~Dad

It Starts...

Ah, love. Puppy love. Young Love. Twitterpation. Whatever you want to call it, my daughter has it. It began around Halloween. She told me about a boy in school named Isaac who liked to make a click sound with his tongue. She would click back at him and they'd giggle. I thought that was as far as it would go, but I was wrong. Oh, so wrong! Wednesday Munchkin left preschool sad, saying that Isaac didn't want to be her friend cause he spent a lot of time playing with other kids. I told her not to worry about it, he still liked her, etc. Well, today he made it up to her. She came out of preschool with the biggest smile I've seen, and told me that I was right, he still liked her. Turns out he made her two paper hearts at home and brought them to school to give her. One has a picture he drew of the two of them together!! She's been prancing around the house ever since. As you can see from the two videos below, Munchkin's been hit hard by the love bug. And so, much earlier than I expected, the saga begins...

My Puppy

Today Munchkin decided to be a puppy. (got the idea from the book Dad mentioned previously). With very limited resources, I think she did a pretty good job. So what if she has blue ears? And the reason she's wearing an incredibles outfit is cause she's a super dog.

Buddy Boy was afraid of her at first, but she quickly won him over with puppy barks and licking his face (not for real). Now he's her biggest fan.



I did manage to convince her to speak human long enough to record a fun little song. I want to record her song from her solo in Primary, but until I figure it out, this is the best I can do:

Fun times

Friday night we watched the movie "Akeelah and the Bee" which turned out to be a pretty good movie (no special effects, and nothing was blown up). Munchkin enjoyed it. She pretended like she was spelling words. Right now she can spell a hand full of words, so while she was excited to spell words we labeled things around the house to help her learn. She has enjoyed it a lot. Afterwards we were playing, jumping and goofing around.
We have a book that gives ideas to parents of creative ideas to entertain kids. Mom and Munchkin were reading it together a few days ago. Today she came out of her room dressed like a rich lady, she had remembered the idea from the book.
Buddy Boy has been progressing slowly. He is now 13 months. He loves playing with Munchkin. It is so awesome to see them play with each other. Buddy Boy has learned to communicate a little by moving his head, or by pushing something away. He can now stand for about 45 seconds. It is wonderful to see him progress. We are still eagerly awaiting his first word. ~Dad

Family Goals

As a family, we wanted some ideas to grow closer and have more fun. Who doesn't want more precious moments with the family, and the ones they love, right?

I got this great idea from a friend at church for family goals...using a time capsule. After hearing about it, we decided we would do it for family home evening on New Year's Eve, and make it a tradition. I, of course, am not creative enough to actually make and bury a capsule, so we have our "goal jar" instead. These are fun family goals, none of the yucky stuff, like losing weight or something (I have that goal in my "personal jar" lol).

So anyway, we filled our jar with many goals for the year. Next year for a family home evening, we'll look in our jar and read all the goals, see what we accomplished, and make new goals for the next year, etc. I can't remember all of our goals, but here are a few:

-Dad - Replace the window ledges with better, softer, safer ones. Our current ones are tile that has been broken in spots, and is just begging someone to split their lip or something on them.
-Mom - Take a lifelong learning class this year. I love those things!
-Family - Buy more LED Christmas lights and have a cooler and funner plan for next year.
-Munchkin - Go to the Bear Lake beach. We're SO grateful that Bear Lake is good enough for her!
-Buddy Boy - Jump on the trampoline lol. Okay, we came up with this for him. We think he'll love it.
-Dad - Capture more memories, take more pictures, and organize those pictures.
-Mom - Buy garbage cans with lids. I know, I know...
-Family - Buy a TV. We're looking for one kinda like the one we got my mom for Christmas (LCD)since it's so much more energy efficient than the bigger ones.
-Munchkin - Build a snowman. We accomplished this one, as you can see from previous posts.

I know there's more, but offhand I can't think of them. So...now it's your turn! What are some fun family goals YOU have???:-)