Conglomeration of Posts

I suppose instead of trying to catch up on posts I've missed, I might as well keep moving forward.  The thing holding me back is that all my pictures from Camp Zarahemla are on my phone, and my phone isn't connecting to the computer right, and we don't have time for me to ask Brian for help in the evenings.  So here's a sum-up, and maybe I'll add pictures of things later.

Camp Zarahemla - So much fun!  We played the Farming Game and other board games.  We ate lots of food.  I think one of my favorite parts about Camp Zarahemla is that I only have to prepare one meal for the weekend, because we all take turns.  Becca and I didn't go outside much, but I did take a moonlit walk down to the lake with Brian the first night we were there, and a short bundled walk with Becca one afternoon.  Ethan and Alyssa played outside in the snow a lot!  Ethan is a die hard when it comes to playing outside.  If anyone was heading out to play, he was with them, and I hear he was fearless on the sledding hill.  All the cousins got along so well this year.  There was only one fight that I head of, and it really wasn't a very big deal.  The cousin talent show was fabulous.  Alyssa coordinated and performed a scene from "The Secret of Kells" with a few of her cousins, Ethan showed his "Lord of the Rings" book that he drew, and Marcus did a hula hoop show with Eliza and Norah when they jumped in and out of hula hoops on the ground.

my crazy valentine, with the older kids, and Becca's feet

Valentine's Day - We had a fancy dinner at home with the kids - chicken divan, salad, jell-o salad, and frappe punch.  Oh, and my phone sitting on the table: for the last few months Brian's been working on a stereo system that's hooked up to all our devices, so we can play music from anywhere in our house.  We listened to MoZella songs while waiting for Brian to come home and while we ate.  I like her songs, but I can only listen to them for a short while before her voice starts grating on my nerves.

Anniversary - See, this was supposed to be its own post, titled "Two Ones Put Together," because of the song, "Love is Endless" that we've been listening to, again, in short amounts at a time.  Brian's and my 11'th anniversary was that Thursday, and we didn't really do anything.  Brian had a PECCA dinner to go to for work, and he cleared it with me way in advance that he would be going out without me on our anniversary.  I enjoyed just doing an easy dinner at home with the kids, then putting the kids to bed, which is when Brian came home, and we had some quiet time together.  Oh, and he brought me some dessert from the restaurant, which was really yummy.

The real thing we did for our anniversary and Valentine's Day, combined, is get a picture for our home.  Back when we were in college we would look through all of James Christensen's paintings and just dream of having one for our home.  We've always wanted the 10 Lepers, but it's way to crazy expensive, but we also like Hold to the Rod,  College of Magical Knowledge, and a few others.  My favorites that Brian's not as into are Lawrence Pretended Not to Notice That a Bear Had Become Attached to His Coattail, and Your Plaice or Mine.  So we were looking a while back and really liked Desirable Above All Other Fruit, and then we found it for a really good price (from what we know, James Christensens hardly ever go on sale) at a local store that was going out of business.  So, long story, short:  we bought and framed it for our present to each other.  And it is beautiful.

So there's the catch up.  I need to finish writing, because it's 8:02, and we're supposed to be having breakfast, and now I can't remember what I sat down to blog about in the first place.  Oh well.

Scripture Reading Motivators

Yes, I know I have a lot to catch up on.  Camp Zarahemla, Valentine's Day, our anniversary, etc.  But before I do that (in a day or two, hopefully, maybe tomorrow, eh, who knows?) I'd like to tell everyone what is keeping us going on our scripture reading this year.  I figure if it's helping us, maybe it will help someone else.

One of the big reasons for documenting this, is that last night Brian and I went on our anniversary date, and we didn't realize that we'd be out as late as we were.  When we got home, the kids were already in bed, and we realized, "We didn't have family scripture study today!"  And that's actually a big deal now, because our stake presidency has challenged us to feast on the scriptures every single day, and we've taken that challenge very seriously.  Plus, I know that we have to read every day, because once you miss a day, it becomes so much easier to miss more.  Up until yesterday we had read every day for the entire month of January, and all of February so far, and we're really proud of ourselves.  (Yea, us!)

So I was thinking about it today, and trying to figure out a way that missing scripture study doesn't happen again, and then become more regular until we're not reading at all, and the thing that came to mind was those signs they have in factories saying how many days it's been since an accident or injury.  So I copied those.  I got out a small picture frame and a white board marker, and we're going to count the days that we've had consecutive scripture study as a family.  The plan is to make it cute with a scrapbook paper background and some vinyl saying, "days that we've read the scriptures," but the cute-ifying of things doesn't always happen, and that's okay.  Right now we just have a big "1" in the frame.  (Yea, us!)

The other things that we're doing, and I may have mentioned this before, are specific jobs for each of the kids to do to keep track of our scripture reading progress.  Alyssa marks an "I read the Book of Mormon" chart from Sugar Doodle, Ethan marks off the date on a calendar (and he was quite upset when he couldn't cross off the 18th), and Marcus puts a coin in a jar that we'll use the money from to go out for ice cream or something when we finish the Book of Mormon.  Sometimes it's a penny, sometimes it's a quarter, or anything in between.  We'll see what we have when we get to the end.  And for my personal study I'm using a chart I put together on ldsscripturetools.com, where I put in the date that I want to finish the Book of Mormon and it calculated how many chapters I need to read each day and made a chart of which chapters I need to read on each day.

I guess the most important part of this post is my testimony that I've noticed such a difference in the spirit of our house, and definitely in my attitude since we've been reading the scriptures regularly.  I love the Book of Mormon, and we've all learned so much in the last month and a half, and I'm really really excited to see what growth happens in all of us as we continue to read and study as a family.