Be Still

You know how every once in a while, you blush, sometimes not even for anything super humiliating, and then, like for the rest of the day you find yourself blushing a million times. So... that was me today, except with crying.  It wasn't my fault though.  It all started with a pretty fabulous sacrament meeting at church: great talks, absolutely wonderful musical number (Be Still My Soul).  And then the rest of church just seemed to continue in the same manner: wonderful talks, beautiful music, etc. Today truly felt like the Sabbath. Not just a day of rest, but a day of rejuvenation, a day of counting my blessings, and apparently a day of tears (but happy tears.)

1. 1. Be still, my soul: The Lord is on thy side;
   With patience bear thy cross of grief or pain.
   Leave to thy God to order and provide;
   In ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
   Be still, my soul: Thy best, thy heav'nly Friend
   Thru thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
   
   
   2. Be still, my soul: Thy God doth undertake
   To guide the future as he has the past.
   Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
   All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
   Be still, my soul: The waves and winds still know
   His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.
   
   
   3. Be still, my soul: The hour is hastening on
   When we shall be forever with the Lord,
   When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
   Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
   Be still, my soul: When change and tears are past,
   All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
   
   
   1. Text: Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697;
      trans. by Jane Borthwick, 1813-1897
   1. 
      
      
      

Birthday Boy

4 decades!!!! Ryan Edward Smith has been on the planet, independently breathing in fresh air, for 40 years. Super glad that this handsome man was born. Several friends and family passed along well wishes to Ryan that I compiled into a birthday book. He teared up a bit at reading all the comments.  It's crazy to think that just 1 year ago, he had just undergone his first major surgery in his battle against colon cancer. What a difference a year makes!  Deeply in love with this man, and I feel so young, what with him in his 40's and me still in my 30's.

Ryan wanted to attend the Provo temple open house for his birthday. The only time available was 7:15 am, which meant we had to get up at 5:30am and leave by 6:15am, at the latest. So we got up got dressed, got in the car... and drove about 2 miles in a horrible snow storm, found the freeway to be unsafe, and then we had Ryan's birthday breakfast at IHOP (international House of Pancakes.) 

Birthday movie. The movie "Rocky" is also 40 years old this year.

Spoiler alert: Rocky movies are fun, but I didn't realize the main character was the result of an affair (boo and hiss) and the plot has Rocky battling cancer (another boo and hiss).

Ryan didn't want cake, but wanted to go to a new store called "It's Sugar" where everyone (but him:~) picked out candy... Ryan doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but I'll always be sweet on Ryan.

*** This post is for the blessed day January 30th, 2016, Ryan Edward Smith's 40th Birthday***

Last night of 39!

Tomorrow Ryan Edward Smith turns 40. Tonight we had a farewell to the 30's party at the Jazz game. Ryan loves basketball. I love him. To the Jazz we went.

Ryan with Thurl Bailey behind him.

" I am Goliath!" - from the Liken the Scriptures "David and Goliath. Thurl played Goliath.

Epic Game Kickoff.

Sitting in the stands with my soul mate.

Streamers at the end. We ate the Timberwolves alive (well, just in the last quarter.)

Calvin and Simon are out camping tonight. Cold and Crazy.

Mom advice as I left: "Be safe and have fun, in that order."

Snow camping is nuts.

Dental Assistant

I failed to get a sitter for Norman during my 6 month check up, so Norman became my dental assistant (but for the record I really love the assistants at this dental practice!) Good times.

How fun does this look. I turned the Dr. Cannon's job into a sporting event.

Even funner was when Norman tried to join the dentist, examining my mouth.

I love this kid!

- My unpaid infomercial for Cannon Family Dental in Bountiful, UT.-

I'm not related to anyone there, we just really like the place.

*** This post is for Thursday, Nove 28th, 2016.***

TV Time!

Today was my first tv food demo of 2016.  Splendid Summer Rolls: it's going to be a tasty year! If you want in on the action, watch "Studio 5" tomorrow at 11:00am (It's available to stream on the internet as well.) I come on air near the end of the program, say 11:40 ish.

This is healthy enough to satisfy the demands of your rigorous New Year’s Diet, but tasty enough that you will still crave it even after your diet ship has sailed.   

Getting some prep work done.

My fabulous friend and sous chef for the day.

It's always easier to have help on my demos... Not pictured is my other fab friend who watched Norman so I could work my television magic. Three cheers for helping hands!

Looks tasty.

Brooke and I, getting it done.

Art

As a gift from heaven, my husband has passed on his artistic abilities to our children. Owen, Calvin and Annie love to draw. Preston used to love drawing, but is short on down time these days. Simon loves to draw pictures of a dog wearing high heels. It's as ridiculous as it sounds, and I'm pretty sure he got that form my side of the family.  Who knows what little Norman will be up to as he grows older, but right now, everything he does is art, so there's that.

I volunteered in the school this morning, and caught this lovely display in Owen's classroom. He painted the gem on the bottom right corner. Pretty cool.

Calvin and the car

Cool Car that Calvin made.

He won an award in class for having the sweetest looking ride.

Calvin's wire came undone in his braces.  He gave his "thanks for coming in" cookie to Owen.

What a lucky brother.

Snow Day! Most of Church Cancelled!

Doesn't that sound interesting?! Mormon church actually last three hours long (3 hours!) So being dismissed after taking the sacrament, which is a meeting that last one hour and ten minutes (1 hr 10 min = kind of an odd, random time) felt like a lovely little break. I do love church, and I do love my 3 hour meeting, but my plan as soon as I heard I would be surprisingly free for the next 1 hour and fifty minutes was to find an answer to churchy question that I had.  In a meeting known as "General Conference" we heard from two leaders, in a row, that spoke about inquiring of the Lord what we individually need to work on, a "What lack I yet/what should I be improving about myself?" kind of a conversation.  The talks showed very specific examples: interrupting, bad language, etc. But when I gave that prayer a whirl...I could think of loads of things I should be doing to improve myself with, but nothing that felt like a divinely inspired answer. Fast forward to the one hour of meeting I went to. A speaker talked about following gospel principles and I knew what I would do with my time off. I came home, read some churchy stuff: scriptures/talks/manuals and made a list of about 20 basic gospel principles. I printed the list, cut them into strips, and folded them up, put them in a jar, said a prayer and drew out a gospel principle. Apparently, God knows that I like to play games and thought this would be a more entertaining way for me to receive my improvement list.  I'm not telling you what I'm going to work on, because it's none of your beeswax (and I really don't want any free advice about how to improve my item/ don't want anyone bugging me about slow/no progress...), but I'm including the list.  You will now know that God wants me to work on one of the items below. If you're looking for a good FHE (Family Home Evening Activity) then print this baby up and play the game!

My Non comprehensive List of Gospel Principles

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

Repentance

Baptism

Seeking Guidance from the Holy Ghost

Sacrament

Sabbath Day

Fasting

Endurance

Sacrifice

Service

Work

Charity

Honesty

Tithing

Missionary work

Developing talents

Obedience

Chastity

Scripture reading

Temple Work

Prayer

Gratitude

Early morning riser got in another hour in between us.  What a piece of fudge.

Annie often removes Norman's pants because she loves his little legs.

Norman and avocados are BFF's.

Fabulous Sunday dinner: loads of veg and meat cooked on the skillet in butter, dipped in a sweet soy sauce.  So yummy and fun.

**** This post is for Sunday, January 24th, 2016****

Red Rocks

 Ryan took us to our very first college gymnastics meet today: The Oregon Ducks vs the Utah Red Rocks.  The clear highlight was when a U of U gymnast did her routine to a Michael Jackson song, and then did the moons all on the beam in the middle of her routine! It was epic... In a pretty close match, U of U won... but i'm not a huge fan of gymnastics as far as sports is concerned bc I hate that the judging seems pretty subjective.  Track on the other hand, the person with the shortest time wins. The person with the longest leap wins.  The person that can jump the highest wins. Gymnastics is way fun to watch, but imagine that both the loser and the winner has to always wonder about the final outcome...

Annie Joy simply loves gymnastics! Her choice of snack was Nachos.

Norman had some pretzel that Owen was kind enough to share with him.

Simon was on the end and I didn't see what he got, but his hair sure looks like a birds nest!

Norman got his shirt all wet and spent the second half of the meet in his jean jacket with his mustache binky. Adorable.

Calvin's old phone stopped working, and he's a saver, so we went in as a team and he got a new phone. Happy boy.

This morning began verrrrrry early with these lovely women.  We serve together in our congregation's women's group and we thought a morning temple visit would be fabulous. It was!

Free Advice

In all of the male quotes that fill the pages of books and the internet (I love you guys!) sometimes I like to read the words of strong, amazing women.  Below is one of my favorite thoughts by Marianne Williamson:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." 

-Marianne Williamson

Two vocal women, letting their lights shine.

Marianne and Oprah... would love a Q and A.

Only 2 Cavities

Out of 60 teeth, only two had cavities, which sounds like a pretty slim amount: 96.66% cavity free.
The bummer is when that small 3.33% of cavity not-free happens to lie within your mouth. That small number means a couple of shots for when the cavities get filled. Bummer.

Annie: all 20 teeth are cavity free!

Owen: 18 great teeth, 2 sad cavity teeth.

Simon: 20 clean cavity free teeth.

***This post is for Wednesday, January 20th, 2016***

True Love's Kiss

My cousin Connor married my new cousin in law Kelsey today.

Lovely ceremony, darling couple.

My mom and I.

Norman was a gem whilst Annie, Mom and me got our nails done.

Annie opted for gold on 8 nails, and black and white zebra stripes on the other two.

At the reception:

Happy family.

Annie, Calvin and Owen... what fun.

My lovely mother and my dashing dad.

***This post is for Tuesday, January 19th, 2016***

Pool Party!

So fun to have my parents with us on MLK Day. We had an adult wedding dinner to go to tonight, so our FHE (family home evening) became a FHB (family home breakfast) where we watched part of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech, and listened to our two favorite MLK song's: Shed a Little Light by James Taylor, and In the Name of Love by U2. I will be eternally grateful for the civil Rights movements in our history, and look forward with hope to a cuter that gets better and better at judging people by the content of their character, and not the color of their skin (or by their clothes, gender, religion, profession, etc...)

Papa, my fabulous father, in the lazy river with my boys!

Annie took on the high dive!

Wedding dinner for my wonderful cousin! The venue was lovely, the food was divine, 

and I love spending time with my parents and family!

***This post is for Monday, January 18th, 2016***

The Talk

Not to brat (which is what my second son used to call a "brag") but my fabulous husband gave a really great talk in church today.  We discussed some ideas about the topic, but the final version was completely new to me.  Ryan spoke about faith in a world that emphasizes negativity, he talked about focusing on what is right, rather than what is wrong. Good stuff. In fact, several have requested a copy of his talk, which he is happy to share... which brings me to the next issue... I gave a talk last week in church and no one has asked me for a copy of it.  So I've told him that he shouldn't give his talk out to anyone, unless they also want mine too...equally yoked and whatnot:~)

Nana and Norman during the closing hymn.

Lunch with my Grandfather at his new residence, a retirement home. Good food, great facility.

Good looking group!

There is something so intensely satisfying about a bundt that comes perfectly out of it's bundt pan home.  Sticky Toffee pudding to die for.  My parents in town always translates into delicious company cuisine.

*** This post is for January 17th, 2016***