A Noisy New Year!

Make some noise - it's 2020! Recently, one of Emma's friends was over and she asked "is it always this noisy here?" Yes, why yes it is. Haha, and New Years Eve was no exception. After cleaning up and straightening up, we went to the Zoo in the mid-day for the Zoo Year event. We got there to count down and see the disco ball be dropped. They had some fun crafts for the kids and some gingerale. There were lots of people, but shortly after that almost everyone left and we had the place to ourselves! It was pretty nice! Besides a little wind, we got to see all of the animals, it was pretty warm and the kids had fun. We ate lunch at Wendys, laughed hard at lunch, ran a few errands and went home. We had a Chinese meal, Americanized of course, which is something we did quite a bit on new years growing up. We had Beijing beef, orange chicken, rice, egg rolls, Chinese salad and spring rolls. Yum! Lucy made some coconut snowball cupcakes with her new recipe book and tools. The kids made up some little dances and songs for the new year. We played some games like Tenzi and some of the other games we got for Christmas. It was a great way to welcome in 2020 with our noisy crew. I see you, new year!

 

A Year into Come, Follow Me

It was a little over a year ago when our family started our home study of the New Testament with the new Come, Follow Me program. Each night as we studied, we pulled out our sketchbooks and drew, wrote down impressions, answered questions, had object lessons and illustrated them. Every Sunday, we would each take turn doing a kick off lesson. The kids got really good! After their lesson they got to put a sticker on our faith garden. We learned so much and were able to come closer to Christ and to each other. Here are a few of their sketches. I loved what they taught me. 

This past week, I was thinking about what great an impact studying the New Testament and the Come, Follow Me curriculum has had. A while back, our Branch president President Solomon stopped our family and told us "I want you to know that the Lord is pleased with your efforts in following this new program." He went on to say some other things and then he said "It is not always easy I'm sure with kids to do it but it is having a lasting impact and will pay off." I'm not saying that to brag because we have a long way to go, but that was a tender mercy. Each week, this program and our readings here are having me seek out repentance more and getting me to ask "what lack I yet?" It is helping me dig deeper, seek into my soul more, try harder, repent more and seek to be more like my Savior. Talking to my mom this week, she said she's been working on developing greater charity. She said all of the sudden, she's had many people be unkind to her. She said she's working on following Christ's example to just love. She looks at how others treated him as we've been studying and can't even imagine. He inspiring her to be better. He's inspiring me to be better. He's inspiring us all to be better. He "marked the path and led the way". (Eliza R. Snow) We do have a long way to go but I am thankful for Him, His life, and His words! He is the one inspiration we need!