Prayers Please? May 21, 2013

My friends, my readers, perfect strangers, can I ask you to add to your prayers? Please?

I feel a bit selfish asking you to add something in when you are likely all busy praying for those in Oklahoma right now (I am too). What I need seems so small compared to the devastation in OK, but it’s very real in my life right now.

I am expecting. I am just over 11 weeks along. My last baby was born at just 10 weeks and 5 days. (To read more about that, you can look at this post.) Anyway, I celebrated this pregnancy when I was past the point when I lost my baby boy. But, Sunday brought all the same kinds of complications that I experienced last time. It felt like it was back to haunt and ruin my peace and joy with this new baby growing inside of me. I told HUBBY that it feels like a bad dream. But it’s one of those bad dreams that you have already dreamed before, and you know how it ends, but can’t wake up, no matter how hard you try.

Today April 21, 2013

Why would I sit TODAY and continue sharing my journey with loosing my son? The answer? It is very simple. My calendar marks a special date for sometime during this very week. A BIRTH. My son’s DUE date.

My heart is mourning FRESH right now. I should have been going to the hospital, with freshly washed baby clothes in a new dresser tucked neatly beside the reassembled crib.

It’s time to hold my baby.

I wanted him so bad. I still do. I want him now. My ARMS ache to hold him. I want to see how his big sister, my little FIVE, would react to her baby BROTHER. There is so much we are missing right now. ONE pointed out that she wished she could have felt him kick from withing my womb. I do to!

It still hurts so much. It is still so real. And surreal too.

Oh, my sweet BABY BOY. How much I love you!

Grief, Love, Pain…

FOUR left my bed, left my room. He left the SACRED that surrounded my tiny new baby boy. My baby. His spirit was not in his body. But somehow…? It was close. Whisperingly close. Holding ME. Comforting me. In my grief. Loving me through the VEIL that kept us apart.

I laid there in my bed. Beside his tiny still form. I held him. I touched each FINGER. Each TOE. I kissed him. Gentle. Tender and gentle as a butterfly wing creating the tiniest of a breeze. I studied his PERFECT little body. I wondered what that sweet little NOSE would have looked like. Were those my CHEEKS? Were those meant to be my same dainty FINGERS or Daddy’s strong ones? What would he have looked like in NINE months? Born in a hospital? With a Doctor keeping him safe? I wept. I MOURNED. What about in a few years when he WOULD have been as old as princess FIVE? Or when HE should have started school? I am sure he would have been the sweetest kindergartener ever! I wanted to hold THAT boy! The five-year-old that he did not get the chance to become. Not yet. WAITING. I believe. I know. I will see him SOMEDAY. Faith! But that is so far from NOW. I want my SON. Then AND now!

I pray.

What Now? Conference Let Down. April 9, 2013

First of all – if you interpreted my title to mean that I thought General Conference was in any way a let down, let me reassure you that I felt nothing of the kind. I get this incredible buzz of excitement that wells inside of me in the days leading up to Conference. Then I soak it all in! Even when I can’t soak in the talks because I have to refill a snack dish or help someone find their lost glue stick lid, I soak in the Spirit. I soak in my kids’ enthusiasm for the Prophets and try to stay in tune with the Spirit and as tuned into the words as I can be, so that the Spirit has an easier time teaching me what I am supposed to learn. Long ago – way back during those early morning seminary days – I learned a treasured piece of wisdom. I learned that if I was struggling with something – anything – I could take those questions to my Heavenly Father in prayer in preparation for Conference and I WOULD find answers as I listened with my heart tuned to the Spirit.

That idea was really refined in my mind, heart, and life while I was attending Southern Virginia University (man, has it really been SO long ago? Geesh!). My two main Institute teachers (random shout out to Bishop Austin and Bro. Stuart – y’all are incredible and we all know it!) would spend the first class after conference, and sometimes even two classes, sharing everyone’s insights from Conference. It was absolutely incredible to hear so many things shared that I had not heard at all – and this was pre-kid distraction days – this was sit in the chapel and reverently take insanely detailed notes days – yet I still did not hear MUCH of what other students and my teachers heard. The first time I witnessed this phenomenon I thought I must have just been oblivious during Conference. Then I realized what was really going on. The speakers could each only say one set of words. they could only share one talk, one message. BUT, since they were teaching by the Spirit and we were learning by the Spirit, the Spirit could teach us each our very own personal message through any given combination of speakers, messages, words, or plain and simple feelings. Incredible!

A Bit of Extra Conference Fun April 6, 2013

OK – so I decided to throw out a couple for ideas that we are trying this conference. I have bought several treats that have multiple colors – like skittles, rainbow goldfish crackers, M&Ms, colored marshmallows, and so forth. I also bought some of the bright veggies that are good to eat raw and some bright cheeses. They will be in a dish FOR EACH KID (I decided this year to try avoid the back and forth yo-yo things to get foods from the table that we had the last two times). Then we will be a new variety of BINGO board that I am going to have them color each square with one color. They can have more than one square that is the same color, but they have to have a variety of colors that are found in the foods I have. Then as those things get mentioned, they get to pick a food that color and eat ONE. Each time they hear whatever is on the board they may have another of those same colored foods.

Number two – and this one I think I will have to post a picture of AFTER we do it – we are using empty egg cartons opened up big, with a slit cut in the bottom of each egg carton. Then we are using some apostle puppets to stick on StickySticks and then slip each apostle in one of the holes. The lid of the egg carton will have one more slit with a podium at one end and “seats” for TP tube puppets of the first presidency. I’ll post links to the puppets we are using AFTER Conference sometime, but for now, I’ve got breakfast to make still (we decided on sleeping in this morning – a new and novel thing around here!) and scissors still to round up before Conference starts in half an hour!

Yippeeeeee!!!! I love CONFERENCE

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but they really meant that a GOOD picture is worth 1,000 words. This lousy picture might take that many words to explain, but I’ll try to keep it more brief than that!
Hopefully you can tell this is an UPSIDE DOWN egg carton. I cut a skinny slit, that was wide enough for my sticks to slide down into, in the bottom of each egg cup. Then I cut two slits on one half of the lid, for the “speaker” and the podium. The other half of the lid is where I cut three more slits for the First Presidency. With mine, I had all the Quorum of the Twelve face one direction, with the podium, “speaker” and First Presidency facing another direction. I think you could rearrange things to have them all face the same way, but I didn’t think that through until my son was already playing with it (naturally). Anyway, this ended up SUPER simple, fast, mess free, and a whole bunch of fun. I have all kinds of ideas brewing as to how we are going to “play” with it tomorrow that will really be mommy teaching and THREE learning stuff he doesn’t even realize he’s learning as we go along! (I love secret teaching moments like that! “Meniacle laugh”!) I hope that makes any sense, if not, make up your own I guess. It’s can’t end up any more simple or silly than mine.

 

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Equality – How Does the Idea of Equality Connect to Marriage? March 27, 2013

I am currently in a STATS class. There are days I love and days I wish I were willing to just drop out. There are concepts I get easily and some that I struggle with. One thing that is perfectly clear is the idea that shows the difference between an “equality” and an “inequality.” The following equation shows an equality.

2+2=4

What that is really saying is that the total of what is on one side of that “equality” means exactly the same thing that is on the other side.

I LOVE Sugardoodle!!! March 19, 2013

I am sure it comes as no surprise to anyone, but I LOVE Sugardoodle! They have so many WONDERFUL ideas for all kinds of things that I have needed help with. I just visited again to see what they had that was new for General Conference this Spring. Holy cow!!! I am absolutely in love with the fantastic new Conference packets they have made up (in multiple languages, by the way)! If you need something for the older kids or teens in your house, these new packets are incredible and beautiful – I can’t WAIT to get home and print them off for my oldest two kiddos!

Another fun blurb to throw out, I enjoy the fun ideas on Serving Pink Lemonade. They often have the cutest fun ideas! I love that some of them are even simple enough that I actually have and take the time to pull them off. They just posted some super fun and way simple ideas to go along with General Conference. I am SO excited to have a paper airplane race between sessions on Saturday! I think we will let Hubby do the bread making fun with the kiddos between sessions on Sunday. Plus, I am SO going to use some of the other ideas to keep us all having a blast together while HUBBY is at the Priesthood session on Saturday night!

Go, check these out if you want some extra ideas to add to your collection. PLEASE share with me any other great places I need to look but maybe haven’t visited yet. Happy Conference preparations!