Cute poem

(I was browsing the internet for Young Women activity ideas and found this poem. The lady changed it from the classic "prayer rock" poem. She said she gave this poem to her YW with a dollar store cell phone. This is so cute!)

You Know His Number


His line is never busy,

pick up your phone and see,

You will always be able to reach Him,

just drop to your knees.



You have unlimited minutes,

I know you have been told,

And I will guarantee one thing,

you'll not be asked "will you hold?"



I'm not a "little prayer rock"

so don't tuck me in you drawer,

Don't put me under your pillow

or chuck me on the floor.



But keep me close beside you

and use me all the time,

For in this world around us,

Satan's at his prime.



You can call when you need Him

or just to have a chat,

Just bow your head and call

"Heavenly Father, where are you at?"



And when there's an emergency,

no need to dial 911,

Just close you eyes and say "

help me out or forgive me for what I have done.



It's never to late to call Him,

He never goes to bed.

Remember, "ask and ye shall receive,"

is what He said.



So next time when your feeling down

or maybe feeling blue,

Just pick up your little prayer phone,

He'd love too hear from you.



- Rhonda Shawver

Life's hard questions

     Grayson wasn’t listening to me when I told him not to put a plastic bag over his head. He thought it was too funny, so I had to pull out all the stops and tell him that if he did that it could kill him. I had him plug his nose and try to breathe, and then explained that the bag could do the same thing to his nose and he could die. (The scaring tactic, my least favorite of parenting techniques.)



Grayson just looked at me and asked, “And Jesus wouldn’t heal me?”


Now how are you supposed to answer that one?!?

1

Guess what? Today marks our first month in Rexburg! It feels like we have been here waaaay longer than that (in a good way), but I still can’t believe we are here! Life doesn’t feel quite chaotic anymore. I almost have Jaye’s room put together, although I still haven’t figured out if I want to hide my baking dishes under her bed or in her closet. (Our kitchen has NO storage space). I haven’t figured out how to do laundry cleanly. I just sort clothes out in the hall, and the piles stay there until I’m done. But Wednesdays are Story time at the library and Thursdays are play group at the church. It’s nice to have two weekly scheduled events.


Barry still hasn’t found a job. Who knew there wouldn’t be any part time jobs available in a small town with thousands of college students? But he is WAY MORE brave than me, and donates plasma twice a week for 50 bucks. So, we still continue to be disgusting and eat out about once a week with his “Blood Money”. We already have our favorite places to eat, The “Pizza Pie Café” and “Costa Vida”. We are making the rounds to all the ice cream/ frozen yogurt places in town still. It’s been fun. (Thank goodness for breast feeding, I haven’t gained any weight!)

I just got my hands on the number for a speech therapy preschool for Grayson, so hopefully I will be able to get him enrolled there. Jaye is getting her speech evaluation for in-home therapy this Friday. Laycee is only five months old and starting to crawl to my great chagrin. I’m still letting the kids watch way too much t.v. as I try to get adjusted to our new lives, but it’s starting to all fall into place.

I don’t have too many friends yet, but the ones I have are worth their weight in gold! (Shout out to Melody and Kylie!) I’ve also had the chance to do a lot of service, including cleaning the temple (AMAZING!!!!), and take some meals to sick and/or pregnant women.

People wonder if I miss Carlsbad. No. I really don’t. I miss a handful of wonderful people. And I am sooooooo grateful that we lived there and grew there for five years, but I really love the change. I’ve been working to get my fingers in all the pies, so I’ve already been hired in the month of February to help with Story time (A paid gig! WOO!). I’ve already met a bunch of people on the Community Theatre Board (who seem interested in my help) and I’ve gotten involved in some of the Community Events. The library gave out free copies of this Pulitzer Prize book, “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” to the community, and all month long they are hosting different forums and dances and stuff relating to the book- so awesome!

A member of the bishopric is coming over tomorrow night, we assume to give us callings. I can’t wait! Barry has really worked hard during his breaks at school to get homework down so we can spend time together in the evening. He’s amazing and we’ve had such a fun time!

Anyway, there is my first month in a new life. I feel like I’m writing a Christmas letter. But hopefully, we will continue to enjoy it here. I’m sure it will get worse when Finals come along, but I am so glad that we are here, and we are doing something to improve our family… as a family.

GO TEAM RICKS!

Magic Moment

     My children were born in New Mexico where the seasons are Mildly Cold, Warm, Hot, and Sizzlin’. Grayson has a few vague memories of the quickly melting snow, and we had a beautiful white Christmas this past year, but, Jaye has never seen falling snow.



     Recently, we were walking home in the crisp Idaho night, and a light snowfall began. Grayson immediately started running around with his tongue sticking out. But Jaye just looked up and squealed, “Bubbles!” She joined Grayson in scurrying around and swiping at the flakes, shouting, “Pop! Pop! Pop!”


     I hope she finds these bubbles as magical, when it’s -11 degrees and the wind is whipping.

Family Home Evening

         So, I had this grand dream that I'd be posting more blogs, since I have new and exciting things to talk about. But, I'm busy trying to learn the ropes of this new life. I'm really grateful that almost anywhere I need to go in town is on two main roads from my house. It takes less than two minutes to get to church (We may actually be on time, from here on out!), and the stake center is right down the street. It's awesome! Barry bought this poor student discount card, and we have been using that to eat out at all the fun places in town.

     People keep asking me how I handle moving from the house we owned to an apartment. Honestly, not a single complaint here! We have a dishwasher!!! And we have the washer and dryer IN our house! No more walking out to the creepy, black-widow infested, garage! And it's three bedrooms so I'm currently working on cute-ing up my girls' room! And Grayson loves having his own room. Almost every day he says, "I love our new small house!"

     I'm so grateful for all of our blessings!

     But what I really wanted to blog about today, is this past Monday's Family Home Evening. My son is CONSTANTLY (I grit my teeth when I say that), asking me and Barry to play "Beyblades" with him. It's these metal tops (based off a t.v. show which he also loves), that you put on this device, pull a rip cord, and launch them into this little plastic stadium so they can "battle".

      I was in charge of F.H.E. this week, so I found the perfect story from the Book of Mormon about Captain Moroni leading soldiers to war, and how they prayed for protection. So I read the story which talks about a specific battle, then talked about how important it is to pray during our own "battles", and then discussed what those might be.

       And then I announced that we had ten minutes to go find a battle costume and come back for a Beyblade battle tournament. I'm so grateful I have an awesome husband, who was just as surprised as the kids by my announcement, but (ALMOST) just as willing to participate.

    So when everyone came back with costumes donned, we did a battle top draft. And then we did a search for battle music on Youtube, and then had the GREATEST BATTLE TOURNAMENT in the World while the battle music played!!!

    

I can't remember what Barry's name was. I will have to edit this later.

This is actually a real "Jinga" costume from the Beyblade T.V. show

Jaye wanted to wear a ninja costume

Laycee the little homie

Mommy, the Monster Masher

This gives you an idea of what the "stadium" looks like, if you have no idea what I'm talking about

It was fun. And I learned you can relate anything to the Gospel :-D

Adventures in Rexburg

     So, today was an adventure. At the moment, Barry’s scooter is in need of a new battery so he has been taking our van to school. But, I’m not one of those home-bodies; I like to go out. So, today I decided I would drive him to school. So, today was my FIRST time driving in Rexburg! And I seriously felt like I was in a video game! There were students popping out of nowhere, all over the place! They just launched themselves into the street, and I had to dodge them like those giant cannon bullets in Mario!



     It made me realize just how “small-town” I am. I’ve never lived close to a real university, and the only time I’ve been on a university campus was as a teenager for EFY (Especially for Youth Camp) at BYU-Provo. So, this is a crazy, surreal experience seeing ALL these people. After we dropped Barry off, Grayson asked me, concerned- “Mommy, why is everyone walking?”


     We’re just not used to this! And I don’t know how Barry can say this, since he’s from Utah where there are a billion colleges, but he’s never been to a college campus during an active semester, so this is quite an adventure for our whole family. I feel like we live in an ant farm… everyone is just walking. ALL the time. EVERYWHERE.


     But the best part of the day, was about five minutes after we were all in the car, on the way to drop Barry off, we realized I had grabbed the car keys that just happened not to have a house key on it. GREAT. So we called the Manager.


Who didn’t answer.


     We decided Barry would just call me when he got out of school, and then I realized I didn’t have my phone. (On my first day out alone! Grrrrreat.)


     So, for five hours I had to keep the kids entertained. This meant a highly nerve-grating trip to find a jacket at the Deseret Industries Thrift store, where the kids thought it was hilarious to climb out under the dressing room door and hide while I was changing, and Laycee’s incessant screaming (she never screams), because she pooped. And, of course, I left all the diaper stuff out in the car. Then, after using my extra-great parenting skills of bribing my kids to behave with ice cream, we spent an hour-and-a-half at McDonald’s, where I didn’t have a phone to text or talk to anybody, and the only other person in the play place didn’t speak English.


So Fun.


     Then after dodging bullets again to pick up Barry, we drove to our manager’s house (who finally answered the phone), to pick up the spare key. It was dark. It was cold. And the key didn’t work.


     The kids and I piled back into the car while Barry did the guy thing of trying the same not-working key, but hoping for a different result. But then, my smarter-than-the-average bear thought to pull out his Maverick Gas Card and jimmy the lock. And we finally made it inside.


     I feel so safe knowing that the contents of our entire lives open to a thin piece of plastic. And now that knowledge is posted online for everyone and anyone to read. :P


    Anyway, I think I’ll stay home tomorrow.

The scoop...

   So, Barry and I had officially decided to stay in Carlsbad, NM for good. We made all these plans, Barry was going to work at the mines, and teach Martial arts on the side, and I was going to start working at developing a local children’s theatre. With these plans, we got under contract to buy a bigger house for our growing family. We tried to sell our house on two separate occasions. Everything kept falling through, to the point we realized that this probably wasn’t the right path for us.



   And then my dad lost his job. As my parents searched for job opportunities, they kept joking that we should just up and move with them. At first we joked about the idea of moving with my family, but this lead to some serious conversations about where our lives were headed. After a lot of discussion and prayer, we decided that Barry really didn’t want to stay at the mines, because of its horrible environment. Secretly, we applied to New Mexico State University and got in. Then we decided, if we are going to be completely insane and uproot our family to go back to school, we might as well go somewhere we want to be! So we applied to a bunch of schools up north.


    When we got the acceptance e-mail from BYU-Idaho, it just felt so right. We finally announced our plans to my family… who were way excited and supportive. (When I expected them to freak out and worry.) And then for a third time, we put our house up for sale in November.


    Our realtor told us that November and December were dead months for sales, and warned us we probably wouldn’t sell our house until after the year was over. But within two weeks, our house was under contract, to everyone’s GREAT surprise! BAM! We sold our house!


   Through the advice of a friend (THANKS CAMBREE!), we got on the BYU-I bulletin board to look for apartments. We were set to get a two bedroom apartment because three bedrooms were WAY out of our price range. But we found a couple trying to sell their contract to a CHEAP three room apartment. We emailed the manager and she told us that someone had already taken that contract but there would be another apartment available and she put our name down for it. BAM, by chance, we landed an even bigger apartment than we were planning!


    We decided to sell our second car, thinking we would just leave it in a parking lot (where everyone sells their cars), and if someone was interested, we would have my parents handle the transaction for us. Barry mentioned it at work and right off the bat, someone offered to buy it right away in cash! BAM! We sold our car!


     I had to have some serious emergency dental work done, and Barry and I were so distraught because all the money we had saved up for the expensive move was going to have to go toward the dentistry, but through a HUGE AMAZING BLESSING, I ended up not having to pay a cent for the work. BAM! We still had money!


   EVERY SINGLE LITTLE DETAIL FELL INTO PLACE. We know without a shadow of a doubt, that this is exactly where we are supposed to be going and what we are supposed to be doing. Outside of our family and most of our friends, people have been so skeptical and judgmental of our choice to go back to school.


We’ve heard it all.


“Why can’t he just do online school?”


“You are going to hate being poor, it’s going to be so hard on your marriage.”


“You are crazy.”


“I can’t believe you are doing this with three children!”


     But I just smile at them and let them think what they think. Don't get me wrong, I know this is going to be hard. But never in my life, have I felt so loved by my Father in Heaven, and I’ve never felt his guiding hand so strongly. And I am also extremely proud of my husband. Almost every man he worked with at the Potash mine told him that they hated their job, but when he asked why they stay, they always sigh and say “the money’s too good.”


     I’m so proud that my husband will never be one of those middle-aged men who sighs and looks back at what could have been. What a brave studmuffin I married!

Here’s to new adventures!