S.L.A.C.K.E.R.

I am long overdue to do another interesting post but life has been crazy busy and I've been sick on top of it. Stay tuned and I'll be back soon. Promise.

Mormon Momma

I just love things that make me think. I suppose that is why I have always like school. I discovered the website www.mormonmomma.com a while ago. There are sooooo many articles that make me think or discover a different viewpoint. This most recent one that I discovered is amazing. (I could lose days reading through the archives!)

www.mormonmomma.com/index.php/2008/becoming-introductory-thoughts-on-being-poor-in-spirit/

You don't have to be Mormon to enjoy this article. If you have ever read the 'Sermon on the Mount', you will be inspired to do better and search deeper for meaning as you read.

Let me know what you think! And, by the way, read the comments that follow. It's a really thoughtful discussion.

Life in Pictures

We have been super busy with all the construction but happily yesterday was rainy so we got to have a little break for everyone involved. I'm hoping it goes away again soon but it was certainly nice to have a day where we didn't have to go anywhere at any specific time!

This is Sarah just before bed last night. If you know my child well, you know that she hates clothes and shoes. HATES them. We told her to go get her jammies on and this is how she came back: headband and socks on her hands and feet with no diaper. Paige and Porter were doing 'Mountain Climbers' in the middle of the living room floor and she joined them in all her glory. (I have video of it but it's not exactly appropriate to share here so if you see me, ask and I will share :) ) I got the giggles so bad I couldn't breathe.

My friend Heidi had a sweet baby girl this week. She wanted a hat like one she had seen in a picture online so I told her I would make her one. Didn't it turn out so cute??

Porter just loves babies. He was so happy to get a turn to snuggle her. He was sitting in the rocking recliner and told me I had to rock him so she wouldn't wake up.

Stats

Did you know that Blogger provides you with all sorts of info about your blog?? I am retarded and have only been concerned about posting so I had not ever paid attention to any of those crazy tabs that say 'comments' or 'stats' and the like... until recently. It is crazy interesting.

For example: These are the stats from 'Page views by country'
United States 617
Canada 14
Germany 14
France 11
Taiwan 11
Slovenia 9
Denmark 5
United Kingdom 4
United Arab Emirates 3
Malaysia 3

Seriously?? The US, Canada, and Germany I expected. But United Arab Emirates?? What the heck?!? (I can only assume it is from before I removed my little blog from being shown on blogger's website.) Basically, I know people from the top 3, the Denmark I could foresee give some people that I know and maybe even the UK. The other ones I have no idea about!

What's the craziest thing you've learned lately?

Construction Update

Blogger is dumb so these pictures are in reverse order but you'll get the point anyway! Yesterday was day 2 of framing and they got all the exterior basement walls done. The plan is to put the floor joists on Monday or Tuesday and I think we are right on track!

All but one small wall up. Adam, Skinny, Jerob, Wade and Mark all pitched in and got a lot done in a little time last night. It was awesome.
This is the north side of the house, which stretches 47 feet. They decided to frame it all in one piece. It took 6 of us to heft it into place and even that was iffy! The best part was after we got it up and were all standing there while it was nailed in place, Mark had jumped through the window to hold it from the outside. We were standing there talking and he suddenly disappeared because the bank had given way!

First wall up.

Putting first wall together.

Smoothing last bit of concrete for the basement floor. It was fascinating to watch them work.

At the beginning of pouring the basement floor.

Putting rebar down for floor.

The morning after the basement walls were poured.

The concrete truck and pumper truck pouring the basement walls.

Paige and I inside the excavated hole.

Paige during family groundbreaking.

Porter's turn.

Sarah's turn.

Me and the kids pre-groundbreaking.

Peace

Life is a super funny thing sometimes. 2011 has, so far, been the year of the craziness and this week is no exception. I have been SOOO busy. There is something going on every single day until next Tuesday.

The house building is going fantastically. If you saw the last post, you saw the pumper truck pouring our basement walls. That was seriously exciting. I don't think Adam was as impressed. He was okay with taking a couple of pictures and leaving but I told him I needed to stick around for at least a few minutes because this was never going to happen again in my life. It is so exciting to watch everything taking shape.

And, by the way, now that I see the basement walls I think the house is huge. It's strange how that works. I read about it in the books I read during my preparation time. They all said that once the footings were poured you would look at it and think "Gee, that's kind of small. Maybe we need to expand..." but once walls started going up, especially during framing, you think it's huge. Then once it gets sheetrocked, it just feels normal-ish. I'll keep you posted on how that changes for me, but for now, it's huge.

Anyway, the whole point of this (now that I've rambled a bit) is that in spite of the craziness in my life right now, I feel competely at peace. Weird, right? You'd think I would feel super stressed out about the house building, raising children, being a wife, serving at church, etc. going on in my life but I don't. Not at all. I actually had a chat with our bishop last night and he asked how I was doing. When I told him I was great, he was shocked - like his eyebrows went up and his eyes got big shocked. It's true though. I have had this amazing sense of peace since my surgery in January. And I have been working really hard at listening to what the Lord is trying to tell me. I can feel His hand guiding my life right now to the extent that it's almost tangible. It is a great place to be. It's like it says in Doctrine and Covenants 88:63 "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and you shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The harder we work to be close to the Lord, the closer He will be. And since He promises peace, I shouldn't be surprised that I have discovered such an abundance of it in my life.

A beautiful site

This is what happened in my world today. WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!