I am Grateful for Families

This year's Primary theme is "My Eternal Family" and I don't think that is a coincidence at all. I have been thinking a lot about my family as of late, and my responsibilities as a mother in caring and nurturing and helping my children to make it back to their Heavenly Father. I have really felt a sense of importance and urgency over the whole thing. Well anyway, this week I have had a couple of those "high five" "Yes! We're getting through to the kids" moments. Aly had her baptism preview on Saturday and she was so excited about it! They gave each of the kids a copy of the Book of Mormon so that they could read it and highlight anytime they read anything about baptism or the Holy Ghost. Well, Sunday morning I was woken up by Aly telling me that she'd read the first chapter in 1 Nephi and she'd found two places where it talked about the Holy Ghost. Hooray! I have often felt that the best parenting strategy I could have would be to get each of my children to develop their own relationship with their Heavenly Father through prayer and scripture study. If I could accomplish that then I would have so much less to worry about. Aly seems to be growing by leaps and bounds as of late - I can't believe that she is getting baptized this year! Now before you start thinking that everything is just perfect and hunky dory over here all the time, the rest of our Sabbath consisted of me finding out that Lise had stolen a keychain from the grocery store because "I wanted it but I didn't have enough money to buy it and so I just took it", Aly slamming Lise's foot in the bathroom door, and Kate throwing multiple tantrums because church is during her nap time. But even so, I am still grateful for families. I'm grateful that when we make mistakes Heavenly Father gave us this ultra support unit to help us learn from the experience and to love us even when we're not perfect. The family truly is ordained of God.

Catchin' Up

Sorry it's taken so long to get back up on the blogging thing. We have had some nasty colds/pink eye/barfing going on over here and life has been nuts. So I've got a lot to catch up to do - bear with me!

CHRISTMAS- Christmas was a lot of fun. The Christmas Eve turkey dinner ended up two hours later than scheduled, but still yummy and worth the wait. Our neighbors had given us "reindeer food" (birdseed with a bunch of glitter in it) to throw out on the lawn so that Santa could find his way to our house. Chris HATES glitter - a major downfall in a family full of girls. This year we spent Christmas at home rather than traveling to Utah. It was nice to relax at home, but we missed seeing family and all the snow.

NEW YEAR'S EVE - It's a tradition in our current ward to have a pinewood derby every New Year's Eve open to any and all who want to participate. There were cars of all shapes and sizes coming from primary kids to Grandma's. Well, Chris was pretty serious about this thing. He researched it online to come up with his aerodynamic model of speed and agility. And all his hardwork payed off - HE WON! He got a trophy and everything. Way to go Chris! Here's a picture of Kate playing on the track after the races were over. Now Chris is going to build a stand for the car and display it along with the trophy in the girl's room. As Natalie put it, "He really needs a boy."

Going along with our New Year's theme, we did a FHE on goal setting followed by a trip to the rock-climbing wall. The girls loved it! Aly made it to the top of the wall four times and Lise made it to the yellow 1/2 way mark. Not to be outdone, Chris and I made it to the top as well. Kate just like to hold on for a sec and then push off and "swing" to the bottom.

THE SUGAR BOWL - The day after New Year's my parents, brother, Matt, and sister, Jessica, came into town so that we could all drive down to New Orlean's to see the BIGGEST GAME OF THE YEAR - THE UTES PLAYING IN THE SUGAR BOWL! It was so awesome to be there - the atmosphere was amazing. Everybody was just so hyped - and then to win to boot! I saw about 2/3 of the game in between entertaining Kate, but it was still great even with that. We were all screaming our guts out and lost our voices (which was probably the beginning of the colds/puking, etc.), but it was so worth it!. Thanks Mom and Dad for making this possible and thanks Jess for watching Aly and Lise in the hotel - I am truly blessed with a wonderful family.

My family stayed in town for another week after the games which was a lot of fun. We did the usual: hung out, played games, watched movies, ate a lot of food. We also went to the Global Wildlife preserve while we were down by New Orleans. (See pictures below)


This place was really cool. I've never been this close to Elk . . .








. . . or camels . . .








. . . or had a giraffe eat out of my hand.

Look at that tongue! Kate had no fear when feeding corn to the animals and actually had her fist inside one of the bull's mouths before we realized what was happening.

OUR LATEST CRAZINESS - Of course no blog would be complete without the latest quirks at the O'Gwin home. For some reason Kate has taken to trying to put on Aly's underwear for the past few weeks every time I fold the laundry. She also likes it when she and I say "gross" together while examining her toe jam. Kate has found her singing voice and loves to sing along with the barbies around the house ("tected", "one song"). Also, whenever Kate hands us something she says, "Thanks".

Hunting season recently ended here and while it was on you would see everybody - from Grandma's to teenage girls - wearing camoflauge everywhere we went. So one day we were back in the sporting goods section of Walmart when Aly says, "Oh! So this is where everyone buys their clothes!" (You know you're in Louisiana when . . . )