Tears of J-O-Y!

JOY. This word just kept permeating my thoughts today. We had the most beautiful sacrament meeting. During Oh Holy Night (oh how I love this song) I felt the spirit so strong. I yearn to sing this song in His presence someday. I can't even wrap my brain around what that would be like. I highlighted the parts that made my eyes water.

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King.
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.

I love the Spirit. I love this gospel. It truly gives me hope. Despite everything, anything we may be going through right now that may cause us to hang our head in sorrow, let us do whatever it takes to return to Him and our Father and live with hope. Let us share this joy and hope with the whole world. Are Darrin and I old enough to go on a mission yet?

I tend to get so caught up in trying to make everything perfect this time of year and, like most people I'm sure, lose sight of the Savior. I love my Savior. I praise His name. And you, as my brothers and sisters, I love as well. I have hope of living in peace someday and I get choked up thinking about it. What a glorious time that will be.

Merry Christmas!

So validating.

My friend Crystal sent me this forward and it made me feel like I wasn't crazy. There's a reason I stayed up until 2:00 watching Intervention last night. I just needed an hour or two to zone. Although I wouldn't trade this mothering thing for a single thing in this world, it surely is all-consuming and bags-under-the-eyes-producing. It's hard to put into words all that it entails, but this lady, Carolyn, I would like to hug for doing just that.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

"When I go like this, GgGgGgGgGrrggr" (gurgling noise with her throat)..."it feels like I'm eating eggs." Said Malia to Darrin when he got home today. What the? I'll never eat an egg again without trying to notice if it makes my mouth feel like "GgGgGgGrrrrgr".

And Tessa is totally cuting it up with all of her new-found wordage. This morning I stubbed my toe and yelled out "owwww!!" (that's all, I promise!! There was no #%(#%*#$ going on I swear, I mean I don't swear, I mean, yeah.)... from the other room I hear "you okay mama?" at first I thought it was Malia...not so, it was my sweet little Tess making sure her Mama was okay. aaawwww...

And her "tank ew, Mama" whenever I give her something just about makes my heart melt like a big ol' scentsy burner doing its thing.

Loving these girls.

Coolest human ever.

Sorry, but UTUBE is too awesome not to share sometimes.

Coolest manatee ever.

Once when I was young and crazy my friends and I lived in Hawaii for a summer. At one point we were visiting Kauai. We had just backpacked along the Na Pali Coast and were sleeping in a cave along the ocean. All night we heard what sounded like manatees making some sort of mating calls-- or so Thurop explained them to be. He further went on to to relay that they were calling for me. (How he understood their calls I'll never know, must come with being an adventurer). He went so far as to photoshop what looked to be some sort of engagement picture of me and a manatee when we got home. I wish I could find it. Anyways, so for me and those six of us in that cave, this is especially funny. And for everyone else, it's pretty cool. You'll have to pause my music to be able to fully take in the Michael Jackson goodness of it all.

P.S. Natasha, what does that say in the beginning? My Russian stinks.

Training them well.

This is why you have kids right?

Hopefully they'll always think doing the dishes is fun.

The original ladybugs...

Malia's first little friend, Adalyn came to visit this week from out of state. You can see they were the original ladybugs in the year of 2006. Weren't they cute? Too bad my camera was really less effective at capturing their cuteness.

Oh, and now you can see how much we've talked to our 4-year-old about politics. Today, I overheard Malia's friend, Saige, asking her if she knew who our new president was going to be. "no, who?" was Malia's response..."Barack Obama" said Saige, followed by an immediate giggle by Malia and ..."that's funny his name has bum in it." I laughed for a good 10 minutes. Maybe you had to be there.