The Weekend

Just a little update on our weekend:

A few months ago I got a call from the Stake Presidency to come and meet with them. And of course like  you always do, as soon as you get that call you start racking your brain for callings or reasons that you could be getting called in! For 2 days we couldn't figure out why they had called to meet with ME, not both of us, just me. I had decided they wanted me to speak in Stake Conference (this was about a month before it). And I was freaking out. Luckily I was wrong. But what they did ask was almost equally as terrifying! Each year the Stake puts on these two big activities for the Young Men and Young Women in the Stake over 16 years old. Mountain Top Mission for the boys, and Daughters of Faith for the girls. The boys go up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning then the girls go up Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So they only overlap a little bit to have a little testimony meeting and stuff. It's really a super cool thing. The boys are put together in companionships and learn to be missionaries. The girls have families and learn about womanhood. They have firesides, and speakers, and classes and all kinds of stuff. The stake presidency spends the week up there with them, and the stake young men and young women presidencies, plus all of the leaders that they call just to do these activities. It really is super neat. So anyway...I was called to be a speaker at the Daughter of Faith. I was asked to come and speak on Motherhood.

uhhhh What?!? I mean, I know I'm a mom, but I'm not even close to being qualified to actually speak on the subject...

I tried and tried and tried to prepare. I read talk after talk after talk, prayed, and read and read again. And I got nowhere. I wrote 2 talks and still didn't like either of them. I had no idea what I was going to do. 

So the day finally came, Jake came home from work early to watch the girls, and I took off to the mountains. I told Jake even as I left I had no idea what I was going to say. I had ultimately decided that it was going to be a spirit lead discussion. 

The place where they were camping was absolutely gorgeous. There is a nice little girls camp up there where they were staying. I got there and talked with the Stake President and one of the counselors. Told them how nervous I was! And we got started. It ended up being such a wonderful experience. Sure there was a large group of girls who did. not. care. Like at all. I got the eye rolls and everything to make sure I knew they didn't care about Motherhood. But there were a few, who were eating it up. 

And they made it worth it. Some of those girls are just doing all they can to prepare. And I LOVE it. Motherhood is something that I am passionateabout. And so to go up there and talk to these girls, and be able to share with them the excitement that I feel every day I get to be a mom was amazing. I am so grateful for the experience. I did not want to leave. Afterwards was dinner and they asked me to stay for that too. Which I was more than willing to do, because I just did not want to leave. The spirit was so strong and those girls were just so eager to learn (well some of them) that they made me never want to leave. But alas, after dinner they were back into another fireside and it was time for me to go. 

But it wasn't all bad, because I got to go home and be a mom again. In all the craziness of breaking up fights, and timeouts, and everything else. 

I just love being a mom. And I'm so glad that I got to share that excitement with some of those girls up there. 

And if anyone is interested in all of my talk research I ended up with 3 talks that were my absolute favorites. Like really awesome talks, I highly recommend reading them.

Mothers who Know- Sister Julie Beck

Because she is a Mother-Elder Jeffery R. Holland

Daughters of God: Elder M. Russell Ballard

Saturday we had a birthday celebration! Last week was our good friends Chance and Anna's little girl, Kate's birthday. So Saturday they invited us to come celebrate! We were originally going to go to Lava Hot Springs, but plans were changed last minute and we just ended up going to a pool and swimming there. But the girls didn't care one bit, they still had a blast! They are little fishes. We got Emery that little life jacket thingy before we went to California and it has turned out to be such an awesome little thing! She can just swim all over all by herself now. She has gotten so good at it! She was swimming around with us in the deep end and I didn't even have to worry about it. Seriously. That thing is awesome.    

After all of the birthday celebrations, Jake still wanted to go do something. So he decided he wanted to go to Scheels and walk around. Turns out they were having some really good sales so we bought a few things too. And of course a family outing wouldn't be complete without some ice cream. 

Macie has gotten this Ice Cream eating thing down....

And just one sweet picture of my little angel playing outside with her chalk today. My grandma made this bench for Emery for her 1st birthday and it is Macie's favorite spot on the porch. She climbs up on it and just sits on it while she plays with eats chalk.