“Our opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved."
-President Thomas S. Monson

our oldest just finished kindergarten! What?! Where did time go? We are so grateful for his kind teacher who inspired him and helped instill in him a love of learning, strengthened his self-esteem, reached out to our family (and all the others too i'm sure!) She really made a difference in our son's life. 

“Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine.” 
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.” – Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

"A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece."-Ludwig Erhard

Just yesterday 5 of the wards in our stake, including ours, was divided and 3 new ones were created. It was quite the experience and so sad to see SO many of the families in our ward be put in new wards just created.  Somehow, though hard, it feels like individuals and families all ended up in the best place for them...including us. I'm grateful we get to stay in our current ward that has been around for generations. We love the elderly in our ward and also the young married students that will comprise 60 percent of our ward! Our new Bishop is ready and willing to unite the ward and the new members that have been included in the boundary change.

On Mother's Day weekend Lanning bought me a flat of petunias to plant in our yard, it's a tradition. The very next day a huge storm dumped on Rexburg while we were visiting family in Teton. When we got home we found huge chunks of hail and debris in our yard, and the petunias that we had just planted looked hammered :( I was a bit sad, but Lanning said "Maybe they will come back with a vengeance now and be better than ever"  Sometimes adversity does that to us, makes us grow and become better, even if it's not immediately apparent.

(Lanning and Henry-age 18 months)

        "T-I-M-E           Spells Love"

I heard this somewhere recently about how to children Time spent with them = Love. Hopefully i will remember this as the days get busy with "stuff."  A few years ago a friend of mine told me a whole day would go by and she really didn't know what her kids had been doing all day because they played so well together and entertained themselves, so she and her husband started setting aside one night each week for each child that they got to stay up later than the other kids and spend time just with their parents.  I thought that was a great idea. Lanning is really good about spending one-on-one time with the kids but i definitely need to do better!