When Ye Are in the Service of Your Fellow Beings Ye Are Only in the Service of Your God" (Mosiah 2:17)

This week has been crazy, and I mean crazy. I am in the middle of planning two baby showers, Ben has some work stuff he is stressing about, my in-laws are coming on Saturday, and I have a friend of ours teenage daughter that I will be in charge of/watching from Sat-Tues; so working out logistics on that since I have to sleep over at her house because my in-laws will be here. I am also singing Sunday this really crazy song that I am afraid to preform, but I need to have courage...and Austin has the Noro virus since Saturday. That entails diarrhea, and vomiting from anywhere from one to two weeks! Just kill me now. Thank goodness no one else has come down with it since it is extremely contagious.
So now to get down to the title of my post. I have a great friend from High School that wrote me asking for some help. Her ex has filed for custody of her daughter and she asked me to write a letter to the judge about her character and ability to be a good parent. I agreed and was honored by the request. The only problem is I hadn't sent the letter and it needed to be there by Monday the 24th. I rushed down to the UPS store and asked how much it would be and they said "$28.00". WHAT!? That is crazy I thought to myself. I told them I could not afford to pay that much to send a letter and asked for all the price/time options. I mentioned to man helping me that I needed to get it to a judge by the court date. While we were discussing this a different customer was talking to another associate about something. The customer leaned over and put something in her hand. The associate asked if she was sure about it, and the lady smiled and told her that today was a day of celebration because her daughter was graduating. She then turned around and left. As she was leaving the associate said "Ms., that lady just left you $20.00 to pay for your letter". The first thought in my mind, due to my pride was embarrassment. Surely I did not need any one's charity, but then I just felt grateful. I called out a thanks to her as she was getting in her car. She smiled and waved. The associate thought it was crazy that she had given the money and just kept looking at me strangely as we finished the transaction. But he did not understand. He did not understand that Heavenly Father was granting me His tender mercy in a hectic time in my life. Maybe he had forgotten that there are still good people that show the light of Christ and will serve their fellow man out of no other reason than to just serve.

Now I don't know if my letter will make a difference, but I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who created a way for me to serve another, and in doing so strengthened my testimony of goodness and service. He loves us and wants us to succeed. I hope this brightened up your day.

Blog Book

I figured out how to get my pictures off my blog and use them on Photoshop through Picasa. Did you know that all your photos from blogger are on an online account in Picasa? Did not figure that out till now. I was given a new computer for Christmas and it doesn't have all the pics from my blog on it so that is why the Picasa thing was so important. So with out further wait here are some of the pages that I have completed for my super long blog book. I have over 60 posts and debating about including my digital scrap book pages with it. If I do that I will have to split it up into separate books, so we shall see.

Hiking, Black Eyes, and Mangos

Beautiful Conejo Valley

Her swollen left eye, poor sweetheart!

We went on a hike today to the Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center. We took a wrong turn and had to go a little out of our way to get there, but had fun anyways. We hiked about three miles round trip. You would think that Austin would have had a ball but he wanted to be carried after the first 1/4 of the way. After carrying them all that way they fell asleep towards the end, it was too funny since they were held most of the time.
Emma got a black eye from falling while playing at the park, and the same day she also got a bloody nose! Poor baby.
Austin loves whole pieces of fruit that he can carry around an nibble. He REFUSES to let me cut it. He loves pears, peaches and apples. He got his hand on a mango and thought it was so yummy but did not want help and happily ATE the peel! He can be so stubborn. I hope that we can teach him to be strong headed about positive things then good choices will follow.

13 months

My living room after the kids ransacked my diaper bag snack stash.

Isn't it amazing what a difference 13 months can make? Two kids, two pudding cups, two different outcomes. There is also a picture of Emma with my foot (not that I like to take pictures of my feet!), but Emma just loves them and we all think it is so funny. When she is tired she will cuddle up to them and almost fall asleep. Here is also a picture of her with Beary Bear, her cuddle buddy for sleepy night night time. Austin is turning into quite the little man, and starting to really talk, he loves to list things. Like he will say "Mommy and a baby, and a Daddy, and a choo truck, and a puppy..."then he will trail off into silence. He sounds the list off to no one in particular. He likes to make up names for things, like a choo truck is a fire engine. I love him so much, he is such a wonderful son, and a great big brother.

Here's the deal

I have been really bad about updating the blog. Since I have started to use photoshop and I am starting to really appreciate the artistic liberties I can take with it. I have started two blog books to no avail. Using the program offered to make the blog book after using photo shop is hard. I feel very limited in how things are laid out and it is always telling be that I have too much text in the boxes below my pictures. Maybe I am just not smart enough to figure it out. Anyway, this is the reason I have not updated to blog recently, since I feel no motivation. I think I might have found a solution though. I can cut and paste the text into Photoshop then hunt down the pics on my computer (I can cut and paste them, but not re-size them. Bummer.). It's just a lot of work. Does anyone have any suggestions? Included are some of the pages/pics I have completed for my digital scrapbook, which is what I want to turn my blog into.

I really wish...

So for the longest time I have been trying to coupon to save money on grocery shopping. I am a thrifty person, always trying to find a bargain. I pride myself on my second had finds, clearance rack deals, and just going without when I can. I have tried to coupon and to put it nicely I suck at it! I don't know if it is because it is so much work, I don't want to dish out money for the Sunday newspaper (it's expensive! and they say if you don't get at least four a week it doesn't make it worth it), or what. I think that I might try it one more time..but I don't know I feel pretty discouraged. Any suggestions?
(Just found this fist full of coupons button on Tiffany Fackrell's blog, so I will see if this will help!)

New Camera

I have a new camera, and am loving it! So fun to take pictures with, I have a Nikon D-40 SLR. So fun! Thanks honey for the awesome V-day present!
Emma said her first word- "choo, choo!" I was trying to convince myself to get out of bed when Emma came in carrying one of Austin's trains. I thought I heard her say "choo choo", then I asked Ben if he heard it and he said no. Then again there was a little voice that said "choo, choo..." as she was waving the train in the air.
I guess Austin has an admirer, she loves her brother, and anything he likes or does she is right there too. It makes me so grateful that Austin is overall a great example, he is loving, polite, friendly, tries to be obedient, helpful (most of the time), curious (which can get him into trouble), and smart. I hope that Austin and Emma can depend on each other for good examples and can take the responsibility of being a good family member to heart. I know that having that responsibility helped me to make better choices when I was having difficult times.

Do you have any suggestions to encourage responsibility to family, or encouraging sibling love? I would love to hear them!