What’s Up

I’m coming into a new phase of life: having all of the kids in school. It’s made me think about what else I can do, now that I usually get a full nights sleep and don’t have the baby diapers or toddler messes that seem to suck the minutes out of every day in that parenting phase.  I’ve spent a lot of my online energy on GenerationClean. Generation Clean is a way that I feel I can use my experience to help other children and families. Parents don’t get a manual, so I’m sort of putting one of my own together. I list and post resources for families, and generally add the positive and good things that I have found for my kids. It’s not even close to comprehensive yet, but I keep adding to it.

I just re-read a Sheri Dew book called No One Can Take Your Place that I was given years ago. I loved reading it, and it is the most powerful, motivational book I have read on the importance of finding your life’s mission and then living with purpose and faith. I also read the Opening of 2010 BYU Womens Conference by Julie Beck last night.  It has a similar theme and both have helped me feel like my personal mission is to raise my family right, and help other families do the same. That sounds so trite when I write it like that, but it is a real push I feel to prepare my children for the crud that is, and will be, bombarding them throughout their lives.

I have a sort of family motto that I use in our home it is:

“Seek the good, then do good, to be good.”

This sort of sums up the way I believe we become good people. Good is not something you can just “be.” First, we need to surround ourselves with good things, and then act in a way that reflects the good we have found. The combination of these things is what makes us into a “good person.” It is a formula that I think about every time I tell my children,”be good!” I recognized that idea again when I read Julie Beck’s statement:

Let us talk now about how we choose to walk with the Lord. First of all, we have to know what our responsibilities are and how to fulfill them (SEEK GOOD). We know that, as women of God, this is a time when we need an increase of faith and personal righteousness. Never at any time in the world have we needed more faith from the women of God… The kind of faith that creates miracles and calls down the powers of angels and heavenly help. That kind of increase of faith and personal righteousness will strengthen us. Never at any time in the history of the world have we needed stronger families and stronger homes. It is out of those homes and families that the next generation comes. As each of us walks out of our own home every day, how strong is that home that we are leaving? Is it a bastion of strength and power for us?

There has never been a time when we have needed more seeking out and helping those in need. There are so many around us who are struggling because of the mischief caused by the adversary and the difficulties of mortal life. We know from reading in the scriptures that even the best of the best of the Lord’s favored people will not escape mortal life. We will have experiences that test us and try us, and it is the network of help that we provide for each other (DO GOOD) that strengthens us. These are individual responsibilities, and they are also group responsibilities … We understand the power of a group working in faith, strengthening homes, and seeking out to help one another…

I want to be a part of a network that provides help for others. I hope I can do that with Generation Clean.

Rob is once again looking for a new job. It seems that the Lord has a plan for our family that requires lots of moving and meeting new friends. But maybe this time we’ll be able to stay where we’re at;  It doesn’t look likely now because the jobs with most promise are in Washington state, Virginia and the Los Angeles area. I suppose the move back to LA would be the least dramatic since we’ve lived there before and if we were able to go back to the same city there would be less to adjust to.

I registered Sabrina for kindergarten. I had to register at the school our address is assigned, even though we weren’t able to get in there when we first moved in and have been going to another school. I still need to turn in a request for an intra-district transfer. (It may all be moot if there’s a move, but since I love paperwork so much I decided to get it done anyway.)

Sabrina lost her third tooth after school last week. We usually hang around for 20 minutes and some of the kids stay and play on the playground together while the moms chat. She was running around having a great time and realized that her tooth was gone. She drew a picture for the tooth fairy of how it all happened and the tooth fairy left her 4 state quarters as usual.

Emma sent in her availability for the New Testament movie shoot. She will be an extra and we’ll travel for the filming in Utah sometime between July and October. She’s now training the fourth graders that will be on traffic patrol next year. She’s done a great job on the squad and has never complained about having to get up and be there early on Tuesdays. (The rest of us have done a little complaining though.)

Hannah’s class has done an exhaustive study of ocean animals this year. They just presented a memorized poem called “Commotion in the Ocean” that teaches all about the different creatures and was so cute. Her part was the dolphin: “The wonderful thing about dolphins, is hearing them trying to speak, it’s not how do you do? as I say to you, It’s more of a click, whistle, squeak!”

Hunter has a million inventions swirling around in his brain. Right now he’s working on a kaleidescope ceiling, a bedroom door that opens like a garage door, and a global tunnel that will take you from one side of the world to the other in 11 minutes. He’s got his sights set high, so who knows what he’ll come up with once he has some more math, science, and engineering classes under his belt.