I am ALIVE!

I know I have not totally finished updating how the trip up here was but I thought I would let everyone know that I am ALIVE, this has been a interesting turn in my life, I always thought it would be nice to live in a small town.......I WAS WRONG! I DISLIKE it alot I am very very much a city girl, I need lots of attention and love and shopping (not always to buy, but I love looking) and well......there is alot of pretty views here not that same thing, I feel like a animal in a cage and you only get out once and awhile......now granted I have slowed down a bit and learned a little more patience that I needed to learn but I want my city back not persay the "big"city I would be okay with a small city but I like the action in life. I like options of shopping....and I like a big ward of church......for some reason I like to not be noticed all the time but when you are it is okay to but here the branch is as big as the primary back in Calgary.....though they are sweet people, and I did love it today just very very very different. And yes DIFFERENT is OKAY......we still don't have to LOVE it!
I would love to be able to have the best of both worlds and I think that is some of it right now, I know we are here for at least a month but even then we are not totally sure, it is all a waiting game hopefully we will get some answers this week that would be super nice!

to the play park and water fun

After we got back from Huston the kids still wanted to run around so we went to the park and then came home and played in the water because it was super hot here!

a trip to Huston.....and not the Texas one, the one in BC!

So we went to Huston to see the worlds largest fly fishing pole.

We here so lets go on a day trip now to Terrace!

On the way to Terrace we stopped in Moricetown, it was amazing to watch them fish this way, a talent that would take a special person....I did jump when I watched how they killed them, again I am a city girl through and through so all new to me....but very very peaceful watching the lake and this people as there is no rush patiance is a HUGE thing....

we are here!

have not totally settled in yet but I will add some more updates later this week we have had alot of adventures up to this point!

Day 3

From McBride to Prince George

 stopped to do a little shopping and meet Grandma and Grandpa Mousir

from there we stopped in Burns Lake to see the flower car

and then we went all the way to Telkwa.

we got in about 1am, we had a quiet ride from Prince George as we let Grandma and Granpa have the kids so we took pictures to make sure we stayed awake it was such a beautiful drive.

The beauty is so amazing breath taking at times, very very different than city life!

how Joshua feel asleep that night......

Day 2

today we went from Banff, AB to

Icefields Parkway stopped there for a break and then on too..

McBride, B.C.

stopped there and camped for the night

the start of the trip...there are 3 kids in there!

                                              set up the tent in the dark, oh so much fun!

and the nice sleeping kids.

the end of day 1 it was a long day but i know it is only the start to another whole different world.

I am scared......HECK YA! but will I live......HECK YA! and will l learn to love this.....HECK YES!

Last night well talking to my mom, she said what you are going through is more than faith, I thought about this long and hard after I hung up the phone.

Faith is an amazing thing to me; I know that where I have been and where I am now would not have happened without that faith. There has been many times in tears to say to my Heavenly Father, are you sure you picked the right person for this? And every time I have got a strong answer back saying YES!

What we are going through right now is no different, Yes we have no home as of July 31st, am I upset and scared? Heck ya! Who wouldn’t be? All our personal belongings that we don’t need to live for the moment are going into storage as of this weekend…..is that going to be tough HECK YA! But will we survive? HECK YA!

I am hoping and praying to get some answers soon, hopefully Monday ish because they did say a week once you get all your forms in….(for those who did not know we applied for Edmonton housing)

So in answer to my mom, yes there are a lot of mornings I wake up right now sad and unsure of where we are going, but I know we are doing what is right for our family right now.

We are going to go to Telkwa, BC for a minimum of a month, as David’s parents are out there and they have some room for us. We are going to stay there well we wait for a answer about housing, because with David not on WCB this is making things a little tougher. I know without a doubt one day he will learn to control the migraines but as of yet he has not figured that out, but I do think it is coming slowly.

I personally am scared just because of where we are going and how small of a place it is, as I am a true city girl through and through. But I know this is going to be a great experience for my kids and myself and David as well.


I know for David and I we really try to work together, and this is going to be another moment that bonds us together a little more as we read together and pray together and learn to relay on each other a little more and our families they are truly here to help us.
Each set of our parents have helped us along our road towards where we are now, and I know they will continue to help us along this road.

I am also so thankful for my friends that have been there to help in moments that were tough, this week I paused for a moment as one of what I consider my best friends went through the moment of watching her dad pass form this life to the next, my prayers were with her and wishing I could be there to help her, in her time of need.
And as another friend went through her van accident I wish so much I was there to help her with the kids as she was in her pain.

Even when things are so tough I still believe there is time to serve to lighten our own loads by helping others…..
Charity “suffereth long, and is bkind, and cenvieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily dprovoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

If you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do.

Motherhood:-An-Eternal-Partnership
(click above and you can watch the Mormon Message about mom's)

(this is the talk that goes with the viedo above, I tear up watching the video and the talk has a ton of meanning to me)

“Because She Is a Mother”

Ensign » 1997 » May

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

There are some lines attributed to Victor Hugo which read:


“She broke the bread into two fragments and gave them to her children, who ate with eagerness. ‘She hath kept none for herself,’ grumbled the sergeant.

“ ‘Because she is not hungry,’ said a soldier.

“ ‘No,’ said the sergeant, ‘because she is a mother.’ ”

In a year when we are celebrating the faith and valor of those who made that exacting trek across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming, I wish to pay tribute to the modern counterparts of those pioneer mothers who watched after, prayed for, and far too often buried their babies on that long trail. To the women within the sound of my voice who dearly want to be mothers and are not, I say through your tears and ours on that subject, God will yet, in days that lie somewhere ahead, bring “hope to [the] desolate heart.” 1 As prophets have repeatedly taught from this pulpit, ultimately “no blessing shall be withheld” from the faithful, even if those blessings do not come immediately. 2 In the meantime we rejoice that the call to nurture is not limited to our own flesh and blood.

In speaking of mothers I do not neglect the crucial, urgent role of fathers, particularly as fatherlessness in contemporary homes is considered by some to be “the central social problem of our time.” 3 Indeed, fatherlessness can be a problem even in a home where the father is present—eating and sleeping, so to speak, “by remote.” But that is a priesthood message for another day. Today I wish to praise those motherly hands that have rocked the infant’s cradle and, through the righteousness taught to their children there, are at the very center of the Lord’s purposes for us in mortality.

In so speaking I echo Paul, who wrote in praise of Timothy’s “unfeigned faith … , which dwelt first,” he said, “in thy grandmother Lois, and [in] thy mother Eunice.” 4 “From [the days when thou wert] a child,” Paul said, “thou hast known the holy scriptures.” 5 We give thanks for all the mothers and grandmothers from whom such truths have been learned at such early ages.

In speaking of mothers generally, I especially wish to praise and encourage young mothers. The work of a mother is hard, too often unheralded work. The young years are often those when either husband or wife—or both—may still be in school or in those earliest and leanest stages of developing the husband’s breadwinning capacities. Finances fluctuate daily between low and nonexistent. The apartment is usually decorated in one of two smart designs—Deseret Industries provincial or early Mother Hubbard. The car, if there is one, runs on smooth tires and an empty tank. But with night feedings and night teethings, often the greatest challenge of all for a young mother is simply fatigue. Through these years, mothers go longer on less sleep and give more to others with less personal renewal for themselves than any other group I know at any other time in life. It is not surprising when the shadows under their eyes sometimes vaguely resemble the state of Rhode Island.

Of course the irony is that this is often the sister we want to call—or need to call—to service in the ward and stake auxiliaries. That’s understandable. Who wouldn’t want the exemplary influence of these young Loises- and Eunices-in-the-making? Everyone, be wise. Remember that families are the highest priority of all, especially in those formative years. Even so, young mothers will still find magnificent ways to serve faithfully in the Church, even as others serve and strengthen them and their families in like manner.

Do the best you can through these years, but whatever else you do, cherish that role that is so uniquely yours and for which heaven itself sends angels to watch over you and your little ones. Husbands—especially husbands—as well as Church leaders and friends in every direction, be helpful and sensitive and wise. Remember, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” 6

Mothers, we acknowledge and esteem your faith in every footstep. Please know that it is worth it then, now, and forever. And if, for whatever reason, you are making this courageous effort alone, without your husband at your side, then our prayers will be all the greater for you, and our determination to lend a helping hand even more resolute.

One young mother wrote to me recently that her anxiety tended to come on three fronts. One was that whenever she heard talks on LDS motherhood, she worried because she felt she didn’t measure up or somehow wasn’t going to be equal to the task. Secondly, she felt like the world expected her to teach her children reading, writing, interior design, Latin, calculus, and the Internet—all before the baby said something terribly ordinary, like “goo goo.” Thirdly, she often felt people were sometimes patronizing, almost always without meaning to be, because the advice she got or even the compliments she received seemed to reflect nothing of the mental investment, the spiritual and emotional exertion, the long-night, long-day, stretched-to-the-limit demands that sometimes are required in trying to be and wanting to be the mother God hopes she will be.

But one thing, she said, keeps her going: “Through the thick and the thin of this, and through the occasional tears of it all, I know deep down inside I am doing God’s work. I know that in my motherhood I am in an eternal partnership with Him. I am deeply moved that God finds His ultimate purpose and meaning in being a parent, even if some of His children make Him weep.

“It is this realization,” she says, “that I try to recall on those inevitably difficult days when all of this can be a bit overwhelming. Maybe it is precisely our inability and anxiousness that urge us to reach out to Him and enhance His ability to reach back to us. Maybe He secretly hopes we will be anxious,” she said, “and will plead for His help. Then, I believe, He can teach these children directly, through us, but with no resistance offered. I like that idea,” she concludes. “It gives me hope. If I can be right before my Father in Heaven, perhaps His guidance to our children can be unimpeded. Maybe then it can be His work and His glory in a very literal sense.” 7

In light of that kind of expression, it is clear that some of those Rhode Island–sized shadows come not just from diapers and carpooling but from at least a few sleepless nights spent searching the soul, seeking earnestly for the capacity to raise these children to be what God wants them to be. Moved by that kind of devotion and determination, may I say to mothers collectively, in the name of the Lord, you are magnificent. You are doing terrifically well. The very fact that you have been given such a responsibility is everlasting evidence of the trust your Father in Heaven has in you. He knows that your giving birth to a child does not immediately propel you into the circle of the omniscient. If you and your husband will strive to love God and live the gospel yourselves; if you will plead for that guidance and comfort of the Holy Spirit promised to the faithful; if you will go to the temple to both make and claim the promises of the most sacred covenants a woman or man can make in this world; if you will show others, including your children, the same caring, compassionate, forgiving heart you want heaven to show you; if you try your best to be the best parent you can be, you will have done all that a human being can do and all that God expects you to do.

Sometimes the decision of a child or a grandchild will break your heart. Sometimes expectations won’t immediately be met. Every mother and father worries about that. Even that beloved and wonderfully successful parent President Joseph F. Smith pled, “Oh! God, let me not lose my own.” 8 That is every parent’s cry, and in it is something of every parent’s fear. But no one has failed who keeps trying and keeps praying. You have every right to receive encouragement and to know in the end your children will call your name blessed, just like those generations of foremothers before you who hoped your same hopes and felt your same fears.

Yours is the grand tradition of Eve, the mother of all the human family, the one who understood that she and Adam had to fall in order that “men [and women] might be” 9 and that there would be joy. Yours is the grand tradition of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel, without whom there could not have been those magnificent patriarchal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which bless us all. Yours is the grand tradition of Lois and Eunice and the mothers of the 2,000 stripling warriors. Yours is the grand tradition of Mary, chosen and foreordained from before this world was, to conceive, carry, and bear the Son of God Himself. We thank all of you, including our own mothers, and tell you there is nothing more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and glory of God, in bringing to pass the mortality and earthly life of His daughters and sons, so that immortality and eternal life can come in those celestial realms on high.

When you have come to the Lord in meekness and lowliness of heart and, as one mother said, “pounded on the doors of heaven to ask for, to plead for, to demand guidance and wisdom and help for this wondrous task,” that door is thrown open to provide you the influence and the help of all eternity. Claim the promises of the Savior of the world. Ask for the healing balm of the Atonement for whatever may be troubling you or your children. Know that in faith things will be made right in spite of you, or more correctly, because of you.

You can’t possibly do this alone, but you do have help. The Master of Heaven and Earth is there to bless you—He who resolutely goes after the lost sheep, sweeps thoroughly to find the lost coin, waits everlastingly for the return of the prodigal son. Yours is the work of salvation, and therefore you will be magnified, compensated, made more than you are and better than you have ever been as you try to make honest effort, however feeble you may sometimes feel that to be.

Remember, remember all the days of your motherhood: “Ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” 10

Rely on Him. Rely on Him heavily. Rely on Him forever. And “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope.” 11 You are doing God’s work. You are doing it wonderfully well. He is blessing you and He will bless you, even—no, especially—when your days and your nights may be the most challenging. Like the woman who anonymously, meekly, perhaps even with hesitation and some embarrassment, fought her way through the crowd just to touch the hem of the Master’s garment, so Christ will say to the women who worry and wonder and sometimes weep over their responsibility as mothers, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.” 12 And it will make your children whole as well.

In the sacred and holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

birthday party for the boys

we had a small birthday party for the boys, one friend each came, it was the most amazing day for me....and for them to watch them play and laugh with others was AMAZING!

the giggles and laughs we so much FUN!

a trip to the zoo

so today we went to the zoo! how about you? :) it was alot of fun

Happy Canada Day

So we decided that since we dont have a tone of time left we would go to the fireworks with my Dad and my brother, his wife Christine and there kids!
here is a slide show of some of the pictures!

a bit of sunshine needed in our life I guess!

I guess tradition must continue, each time we have got ready to move our kids have done something to make more work for us, and something that we NEED to fix as we are only renting!

 

    

The boys did make it out alive, with a STERN talking too, and made to help clean as they did get the hardwood in the living room too, but all said and done the inside of the house is clean, now I just need to find the right paint to use on the outside to hide this a bit!

feeling overwhelmed...

I thought this blog was amazing.....as I read some of it, tears formed, others feel the same way I do, I am not alone, I may not be perfect, but I do have alot going on in my life, I just need to figure out some ways to make it through.
I know I have been blessed in my life to have these challenges, I do love them just somedays it does feel a little overwhelming as I wake and and try to figure out what is next. I really want to try and put some of this into place after we move as it is only a month and a bit before we should be in
Edmonton and hard to put in order when your home is slowly falling apart....but I wanted to say thank you to Jane for this post it made my night 

Feeling Overwhelmed?


The Question:
my question has to do with with feeling overwhelmed. i always wanted a big family, but i have 3 children now & often feel "how could i have more? i'm so overwhelmed." i try to stay simple, but it seems that no matter what "stuff" enters in. the worst part is that when i get overwhelmed i feel that i'm not the mother i should or want to be. i get impatient & do not cherish the beautiful time in my life that this is. i want more children, but i sometimes fear that i become less of a mom to each child with the more i have.

so i guess my question for you is how do i not get overwhelmed? there are so many things to take care of, to think of, to plan ahead for, etc. how do i stay peaceful amongst it all?

thank-you! thank-you! -courtney

The Answer:

One of the things that makes motherhood so overwhelming is that it never stops. It keeps coming at us day and night. We wake up to the same routines, sometimes having had only a few hours of sleep. Often, we heap on that-- financial worries, an argument with a husband, feelings of isolation or troubles with extended family. We may find ourselves feeling not just overwhelmed but disillusioned with the choice we’ve made and, worse, disappointed with ourselves because we aren’t better at it.

These feelings, when you give in to them, are actually the greatest threat to your success. I repeat, it’s those feelings that are the greatest threat—much more than your actual circumstances. They halt you in your tracks. You want and need to be propelled forward! Here are my suggestions.

Do something about it. Don’t you love the scene in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers where Millie turns the pig pen of a cabin into a real home and revolutionizes the table manners and brings civility to the chaos? In much the same way, you can step back from your overwhelming situation and ask, “What is it that’s getting me down?” Is it the clutter, the disobedience, the lack of support, my appearance, the dirty kitchen floor? List everything that’s bothering you and then change things. You are creating a little world here. You can improve relationships, plan a weekly night out, organize a play group, clear out clutter, rearrange the bedrooms, put flowers on the table.

Somewhere along the line, I made the discovery that what I didn’t do actually overwhelmed me more than what I did. Walking by that weed-filled flower bed twice a day was so much more overwhelming than just going out there and weeding it. It took 20 minutes. It felt good. I felt better. It usually led to sweeping the sidewalk and washing the front door. If your overwhelmed feeling revolves around lonliness, find a walking partner--just 20 minutes in the evening does wonders, start a book club or have an honest discussion with your husband that lays out concretely what you need and what might help. "I need to go out with you every week." "I'd like some time to myself for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoons." I've learned that most husbands aren't good at guessing but they're willing to support us when we're clear about our needs.

Here are a couple of practical habits I adopted at some point, that changed everything for me:

*Do something toward dinner in the morning. Just decide what you’re having and thaw the chicken or start the salad. There is nothing worse than 4:00, tired kids, husband coming home and no plans for dinner. You’ll feel better all day if dinner is in the works.

*Whenever possible, Don’t wake up to yesterday. When the kids are finally in bed, do a quick pick up of the house, make sure the kitchen table is empty, and start the dishwasher. I know….you’re too tired for that. But just do it anyway. You’ll get your second wind and it will feel good to do something that will not be undone while you’re doing it. You’ll be able to start the day fresh. Maybe your husband will help you and you can watch a movie afterwards (while you fall asleep.)

*If at all possible, get up a half an hour before the kids do. Have a good prayer, make your bed, get dressed, start breakfast. Just plan that you'll rest in the afternoon but there's no substitute for productive mornings.

I know what you’re thinking. That I’m one of those Chihuahua type women with boundless energy. Not so. I’m actually quite anemic and even sort of lazy. But I’ve learned that a little energy well-placed changes everything.

One final and perhaps the most important thought is this: Never lose the vision of what you’re really doing. It’s big. There are no shortcuts to the family you want. It’s going to take all you’ve got. But the whole process is a good one and the whole outcome is amazing. Keep before you, the vision of what you want your home to be today and what you want the final outcome to be. Then keep reaching for it. As the days go by, you'll have more and more satisfying moments. Home really can be a heaven on earth. Pray aways and be believing.

Love, Jane

And, by the way, three children was my hardest phase by far.