"Do Not Fear"

During this election year and as we draw nearer to choosing our next President my mind has been caught up to much worry and fear! What lies ahead for not only us but more specifically our children? I love my children with all my heart, which I think is obvious as the majority of our blog consists of pictures of our children. For all of you that know me, you know that I tend to worry about EVERYTHING! So it is probably not hard to believe that my mind is troubled yet again. This time I think it is justifiably worried! The world continues to grow more and more wicked and Godless! I don't know how people make it through life without acknowledging their Creator! Nevertheless the world is filled with those who forget their God and try so incredibly hard to convince themselves that wickedness is happiness! Because of this I worry what lies ahead for my sweet children. What are they going to have to face and encounter? With these thoughts I remembered a talk given by Elder Boyd K. Packer in General Conference in 2004, entitled "Do Not Fear." Today I finally sat down to read this talk. I am so glad I did! It is wonderful and gives so much encouragement. For all of you with the same types of worry or even if you don't worry, read this talk! The link is below, you might have to copy and paste.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=f318118dd536c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=54b88fbe352fe010VgnVCM100000176f620a____&hideNav=1

Slowly but Surely!

After five months of work here is our yard! I didn't realize what a process putting in a yard was! We were really making progress until about mid-July when our neighbors informed us our fence was 18 inches on their property and we needed to move it! My heart sank when we found that out! As if putting a yard in wasn't expensive enough we then had to pay to get our fence moved, which was no cheap expense! It's our fault. We should have done more research as to where our exact property lines were. That doesn't make it any less frustrating though! So we could have planted a while ago but we needed to get our fence moved and the sprinkler line that ran next to the fence needed to be moved as well! It took no time at all to get our sprinkler line moved but it took about a month to get the fence moved. To say the least it hasn't been a pleasant experience. You can see in the pictures holes in our fence. The fence guy moved the our fence posts and then we had a hard time getting a hold of him to finish putting the fence together. We got tired of waiting and wanted to get our seed down so Spencer and our brother-in-law Ben began to put the fence back together. In the pictures you will see holes in the fence because we didn't have a table saw to cut the other slats and place them in the fence and the front corner post needed a special cut so they couldn't put the fence back together there. However, they got the fence put back together enough that we could finally plant in our back yard! Happy Day! Labor Day the fence guy was able to make it out and finish putting our fence back together. The sad thing about that is that it was rainy and extremely muddy when he was putting the fence back together so our nicely graded front yard has foot prints and tracks ALL OVER! So now we get to re-grade our front yard before we can plant. We also need to have the curbing guy come and patch our curbing that we had to cut out so our fence could be moved! We should have waited to put our curbing in after the fence was moved! What were we thinking! I guess, we just like to do things multiple times! Our curbing guy is supposed to come this Saturday so hopefully we will be able to re-grade and plant by Monday! Cross your fingers!

We are getting green "peach fuzz" in our back and side yards! It's exciting to see our grass coming in! It will be even more exciting when we see that in our front yard!

In one of the pictures below, you will see a big pile of rock, cement, asphalt, re bar, and other fun treasures, which we found our yard. We are yet to get rid of it! That area next to our gravel where all the junk from our yard is, we are eventually going to pave and make a sport court!

Brithday/First Day of School!

Last Saturday, the 23rd was Bailey's 3rd birthday! I can't believe she is 3 already! Time flies! She is getting to be such a big girl and so independent. She constantly tells me she can do things on her own! I have been dreading potty training for months so between Bailey having no interest in it and me dreading it we just barely started potty training! She is a quick learner though! I kept praying she would take an interest in it and have some success and she has. We checked out "Potty Power" (a DVD) from the library and she was ready to go after watching that! I think she finally realized she wanted to be a big kid! Yea! She loves wearing her princess panties and I am not sure who is more excited when she goes potty on her potty chair, her or me! My prayers have been answered! Below are some pictures of Bailey's birthday party. I know the cake and cupcakes are a bit boring, but that is the extent of my creativity! I should enroll myself in a cake decorating class! Most of Bailey's cake is frosting! It kind of crumbled so I fixed it with frosting. I knew Bailey wouldn't mind because she couldn't care less about the cake all she wants is frosting!

Bailey and cousin Emma!
Today was the first day of preschool for Bailey! She has been wanting to go to school since last year so this was a very exciting day for us! She loved it!