Singin'

This picture is Jeremy's family at our Burk Family Campout this year.
One of the things I love about both my family and Jeremy's is that we all love music.  Both of our dads play the guitar.  I have fond memories of my daddy singing this song with his guitar.  And last year at our Burk family campout I fell asleep that last night to the sound of Jeremy's family singing along with their dad's guitar.
One of the things I loved right away about Jeremy's family was that they all sing together a lot.  Maybe it's because I grew up singing.  Either way, these guys are tons of fun!  Every now and then we'll all sit around singing hymns, and sometimes Dad will pull out his guitar and we'll sing all kinds of songs that nobody else has ever heard of.  Hyrum's favorite is Toomba (is that how you spell it?).  That's a neat one.  There are a few really neat rounds that they sing, and one of them is kinda complicated.  I made Jeremy teach it to me while driving to Utah on our honeymoon.  They have a few neat Christmas ones and a few old pioneer ones that a few people actually know. ;) So we just sit around firing off requests, and Dad plays and we all sing and sing and sing.  Oh, and one of my favorites is "When I First Came to This Land."  And usually there's some argument about whether the son or daughter comes first.  Either way, I always feel honored that I get to be there for these sing-ins.  And my children have loved it too.  It's so neat.
I know that a lot of people have in-law troubles (otherwise there wouldn't be so many in-law jokes), but I sure am blessed in the in-law department.  I'm lucky.  I have all my wonderful family who I love so much, and then Jeremy's family that feels more like brothers and sisters than in-laws.  They've been such a blessing.  Our children are blessed by being close enough to go see Grandma once a week or so and play with their Uncle Joe who isn't a whole lot older than them (he's only 3 years older than Hyrum).

Family Home Evening

Often Family Home Evening is a "Let's just make it through this somehow!" event.  And lately we've had a hard time getting it done at all sometimes with all that goes on.  But there are times when things just really work out great.  There was the time we sat on the floor together with visual aids for the Plan of Salvation and discussed it.  It was great to have all the movable pieces and the discussion we had with it was really neat.  It's been a real blessing in our family when we do it right.

Well, on Sunday one of our high council speakers pointed out that FHE shouldn't be just whatever we happen to be doing on Monday night.  He's right.  So I vowed to try a little harder.

I've been thinking about this particular FHE (pictures of it are above, along with a cute picture that Michael drew of "baby Mama" - that's me!) for a while, and I finally got it together and did it on Monday.  It's taken from one of my favorite passages of scripture (Ephesians 6).  I want my boys to understand why we read scriptures and pray and try to live good lives, and I want them to learn about the Armor of God and how to use it, especially since they're at school every day.  So I found this cool activity here.  It has a boy and the armor to put on him.  I changed the words on the shoes to match our scriptures and added the skirt thing to the belt because I thought it looked more awesome.  And then I cut the head off the boy and then printed a face shot of each of us and cut them out.  I had them color each item as I read the scriptures about it and talked about it.  We glued our heads and armor on and it came out pretty fun.  It was a neat Family Home Evening.  I'm thankful.  It was a good learning experience for the boys I think.  They were all pretty excited about it.

I am thankful for what Family Home Evening does for our family, and I'm thankful for computers and the internet for giving us the opportunity to easily find stuff like this.

Now I have a question for you.

In Ephesians 6:15 it says, "And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace."  What is your interpretation for that?  I'm curious to see what you all think.  I have one idea, but I'm not sure if it's right.  And there are probably lots of interpretations like in most scriptures.  That's so neat to me.  But I do want to hear what you have to say - anybody who wants to answer.

Alesa

Guys, I'm sorry I've been slacking with this and the other blog.  I've been sick and unmotivated, but it's a new week and I feel like my eyes will stay open now, so I'm going to try again. :)
One of the great things about my calling is that I get to stand on the stand and watch everybody.  There's a girl in our ward named Alesa who is about 16 and is severely retarded.  She's a sweet girl who just happens to live her life in a tilt wheel chair.  Her mom dolls her up in such cute dresses and fixes her hair for church, and you can see in the mom's eyes the intense love she has for her daughter.
But what I love best about Alesa is that she loves music.  When the organ starts playing she gets a big smile on her face, and every now and then she'll even squeal with delight off and on throughout the song.  I love it. 
I see the devotion her mother has for her, and it makes me want to be a better mom.  I see how Alesa enjoys the music, and it helps me feel like I'm doing something important as chorister.  And I love just having her there.  She has a sweet spirit.  I feel happy when I see her.

My Parents

I'm sorry.  I haven't been doing this every day.  But I'm not giving up!

Today's topic is: my parents!

My parents are Bob and Elynn Badger.  They were married August 17, 1972 in the Mesa Arizona Temple.  They just celebrated their 37th anniversary!  I somehow don't have their wedding picture (come to find out - I'm missing a bunch of pictures I know I had!), but this is the one on their wedding announcement.  They are so cute!  Here's a VERY brief summary of them.

Mama was born and raised in Snowflake, AZ.  Her parents are Theo and Imogene Peterson (both of whom have passed away).  After graduating from high school she went off to Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher.  There she met Robert (Bob) Badger from Salt Lake City, Utah.  (He was born in Provo to William and Maurine Badger and graduated from Highland High School in Salt Lake City.  His parents have also passed away.).  Daddy was living with his Uncle Don and Aunt Marilyn who worked at EAC.  Daddy and Mama soon fell in love.

Daddy had a mission to go on, though.  He served a mission among the Indian tribes in the Southwest Indian Mission, Navajo speaking.  After his mission he and Mama got married and lived in a few different places.  Between Salt Lake City, Utah; Rock Springs, Wyoming; Snowflake, Arizona; and St. Johns, Arizona; they had nine children.  Even though that's a lot of kids, they loved us all (and they still do!  Can you believe it?  After all those teenage years!) and did their best to keep us all happy, and to mold us into good citizens with a lot to offer. 

They paid for lots of braces, ballet lessons, piano lessons, violin lessons, little league participation, and a whole lot more - all without grumbling.  They attended our games and recitals and we knew they were proud of our accomplishments.  They took us to see lots of neat sights in Arizona and surrounding states.  They put up with lots of kids on lots of long trips (and lots of me throwing up) without yelling much. ;)

My Mama is a neat lady who enjoys sewing (She taught me a lot), family history (a lot!  She's a family history consultant in her ward and LOVES it), good friends, cooking (She's awesome at it, too.  We usually only had non-homemade meals when Mama was away and Daddy was in charge. :), gardening (She definitely has a green thumb and liked to make us weed the garden, causing much grumbling among her children) and a whole lot of other things.  She is a yard saler and thrift store regular who not only kept her children clothed, but has almost single-handedly clothed most of her grandchildren (all 11 of them).  She cares deeply about people and does a great job taking care of a ton of people whenever the situation to do so presents itself.  She bakes bread too.  We'd often come home from school to find warm bread waiting for us.  It was soooo good!  She loves to read, and now reads to her grandkids a lot.

My Daddy is a kind and tender-hearted man who loves a good story and always has one to tell that fits any situation.  It's so cool!  I remember a few specific instances where his stories have really touched my life.  He has had lots of hobbies over the years: unicycling, juggling, ham radio, building computers, building and flying model airplanes, flying neat kites, riding bikes, running, buying and fixing and selling cars, shooting bottles, hiking, photography (including developing his own pictures) and lots of other stuff.  He can fix just about anything that ever gets broken.  He is also a fun uncle who usually had something awesome for my cousins and me to do at reunions, and now he does the same for his grandkids.  He's a doer.  We had a family vacation (at least 1, but sometimes more) every summer.  He's also the bishop in his ward (as is my children's other grandpa.  Cool, huh?) and is awesome at it.

I couldn't ask for better parents.  They are human just like me.  They're not perfect, but I thank God for them!  They helped make me who I am.  They gave me life.  They gave me a million opportunities to grow and learn.  And they love me.

I love them too.

Sunday

I'm thankful for Sunday.  It really makes me feel happy to be able to go to church and refocus and be with people I love so much.

Today I'm thankful for the people in the congregation who sing even the songs I pick that are unfamiliar.  I've been trying to pick some good Thanksgiving ones, and there are lots of ones under the topic of gratitude that nobody ever sings.  But they're great ones.  Today we sang one with lots of Allelujas, and it was so nice.  I still don't feel like I know what I'm doing lots of times when I'm up there leading, but at least I do my calling, huh?  And when I was done leading today a lady came up to me and said, "I'd like to poison your mind."  Just kidding.  I couldn't resist that.  Anybody know that song?  Anybody, anybody?  No, what she really said was, "I just told your husband you get more beautiful all the time."  I appreciated that.  Not only did she say it, but she came from the back of the congregation up to the front where we sit to do so.

Yes, we do sit in the front.  When the Lyons moved we took their spot on the long bench because we don't fit as well as we used to in our old bench.  Now we sit by the Bradfords.  I love those guys so much.

I keep looking down at all those sweet faces I love so well as I lead the music every Sunday and thinking that if we ever move I will surely cry.  I would miss all those lovely people so much, especially the old ladies in Relief Society.  We are so blessed to be in this ward.

I'm thankful for conference.  How cool it is that we have all those apostles and that we get to hear their amazing words?  I do have a couple of favorites, but really they have all touched me in some way.  I love them all.  We're so blessed.

Our Relief Society president took her lesson today from a talk about the evils of modern technology or something.  Okay, that's not exactly what it was, but a lot of the ladies were talking about how kids text way too often and don't call their grandparents. :) And at that same moment I was quickly texting Mom back and entering reminders into my phone.  I have been using my phone to remind me of things a lot lately because I can't remember things.  It's bad.  I've been thankful to have my phone to ding at me when it's time to go get the boys or time to remember to get this or that at the store.  But I do try to not text in church.  I just thought it was funny that I was texting when we were talking about the evils of texting. :) But that lesson also helped me strengthen my resolve to have the computer and TV off more often.  I need to read more books to my boys, don't you think?  Me too.  We have some great books sitting in our library.  I do try to read things to them now and then.  Right now Jeremy's in the middle of a book that he's been reading to us.  He likes to turn all the lights in the house off and read by candle light.  We need to do that more.  I also decided more firmly that my children don't need cell phones at least until high school, and then they'd better use them responsibly and not in class.  Maybe we should make them pay for their own minutes.  Hmmmm....

Isn't this a lot of mumbo jumbo?  I agree.  And don't you love how I always agree with myself?  It's awesome!  I guess I just needed to write something today.

I made Jilly a cute headband yesterday.  It's kind of big, but it's really cute.  I'll have to take a picture.  Right now she and Benji are napping on my bed.  I need to take a picture of that.  She'll surely wake if I do, but it might just be worth it.

Dear Jilly Bean,

You make the world a better place just by being in it.

Not so bad

So yesterday evening I was completely worn out by the time Jeremy got home.  I finished feeding Jill and handed her to him and then went shopping all by myself.  We needed milk and some dinner.  I came back refreshed. 

It had been a hard afternoon, but I feel kind of bad for whining.  Jill really likes to be held constantly, but at least she's not screaming all day.  She does scream for long stretches the last few days, though, but not all day.  I know somebody (Jeremy's mom!) who had a baby (Aaron!) who could cry from the minute he woke up all the way until he fell asleep exhausted at night.  Poor Mom.  I think I would cry all day right along with my baby.

When I went shopping I must have been extra tired.  It seemed like I was all emotional and the cashiers seemed extra nice.  But I was very, very thankful.  I had to get some wipes, and on the way there I saw the Christmas dresses for little girls and felt like sitting right down on the floor and bawling because I'M ALLOWED TO LOOK AT THEM!  It's a miracle, I tell you!  I can't tell you how many times I've wished I had a little girl to make a Christmas dress for.  And now she's here!

After I got home Jill was still happy so I got busy. I got the living room floor clean, and later I washed dishes and rotated laundry. It's a miracle every time I get the dishes done! I can't keep up with them or laundry these days. But I realized yesterday that if I can put Jill down for a minute and get anything done at all I can not only endorse myself but feel a whole lot better! It's nice to have something clean, even if it's not the whole house. That and I can endorse myself for surviving 2 days with 4 sick boys and a crying baby.


We've had a mouse in our house again.  We got some traps put around with peanut butter on them (they say that if you use cheese the mice can snatch it off and run away, but the love peanut butter and it sticks).  Last night I discovered one of the traps had a mouse in it.  It's really sad.  Mice are so cute, but they aren't very cute when their heads are smashed in a trap, and they sure cause a lot of trouble for a tiny little creature.  Jeremy took it out for me.  I'm so glad I didn't have to!  We also have some bait around and I'm hoping that we don't have to live through the awfulness of dead mice in the wall again.  That really stinks.  Ha, ha!