Fall is Here

The kids are in school, the weather is more warm or cool than hot, the evenings are cool, and mornings are cooler. Fall is here. I love the fall colors, but I don't love that it means the end of summer. I actually needed to wear long pants a couple times and though it was fun I felt like I was giving up on my summer clothes. However, I really do not enjoy being cold, so the shorts have to be put away sometimes.

One of my favorite things about fall is it becomes bike riding weather. After we take the kiddos to school we come home and they almost always want to ride their bike. Usually they just ride in the neighborhood to go see the turtle or go to the park, but lately they have been wanting more. So, this past week I let them ride to the 'Richards park' which is not too far away. It is easy to get there, but a little rougher getting home because you have to go back up the hill. Then yesterday we went on our first family bike ride. It went good for awhile, but then the two big girls said it was hot and wanted to go home. I let them go home and we finished the bike ride the way the twins wanted. I would love for us to have stayed together the whole time, but it just wasn't worth it, and we all ended it having a good time even though we weren't together all the time. 

Another great part of fall, is the school's Fox Trot. I don't like the fundraising part of it, so we don't do that. However, I do love watching my kids run and cheering them on. Tia ran quite a bit of it and ended up with 5 3/4 laps and Kylee walked most of it and ended up with 4 1/2 laps. They both I think enjoyed it and me and the twins had fun cheering and marking laps (me) and playing (twins). 

Because the weather cools it allows for some project like cleaning the garage to get done.  The garage got a major overhaul. We moved everything around and have about double the space. It is so great. I love walking into the garage and knowing I can reach everything I need to and can find what we want. I am not going to run over a scooter or a bike. It so great. It took all day and wasn't smooth sailing the whole time, but we got it and it worked out well. 

Lately I have been super bad about taking pictures and the fox trot and garage cleaning were time I should have pictures but don't. They both really did happen though. 

Another big thing that happened is we had friends over to play games. We haven't done that in forever, mainly because our kids don't go to bed early anymore so we either have to start late or deal with kids during a game. However, we have really wanted to have Gaupo's co-worker and fiance over for games so we just took the plunge and hoped for the best. I was a little nervous about it because well they don't have kids and we have four. My house was kind of messy and I just don't feel like I sell how awesome it is to be a stay at home mom because I don't dress fancy (mainly because I am not fancy. I love a good t-shirt, jeans and ponytail), my house isn't super trendy, and our food isn't fancy. However, I got my house tidied up, made some delicious food (pizza and cookies and cream blondies), and forgot about everything else. It turned out really fun. The twins were with Gaupo and I most of the time, but the big kids did watch the movie. We had fun and they said they had fun, so hopefully we will do it again, because I really enjoyed it.

At this time, probably because I feel like it might end before I am ready, my heart is so full of gratitude to be home all the time. I also love to have my two buddies with me all the time. I love taking them for bike rides, going to the park, playing in the basement, going shopping or whatever else we decide to do. I love right now when we can just play and have a good time. No one tells me they should be doing this or doing that we just do what we want because we can. I love that I can be here when my big girls get home. I can make them breakfast and take them to school I love the conversations our family has at the dinner table. I love that we enjoy being together. I love that my kids love each other and play together. I love that being a mom is fulfilling to me. It is a gift that has been given to me and I love it because I feel like it is a great work. 

One last note, is this--sometimes my kids actually hear what we say. Duh, right, but seriously our family home evening nights and come follow me lessons are a zoo. The kids are up and down, touching each other, playing with toys, and I don't even know what else. It feel like once every other blue moon they will sit for half of what we have to say. We try and try and I don't know why they don't but its like they can't I don't get it. However, this week when Jake (Jason's co-worker) came over he asked about he organization of the church. You know what we talked about in family night this week just that. So, I started to explain, but you know who finished--Kylee. She listened enough to be able to tell Jake about church organization and I got a glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe despite all the chaos my kids are learning, and feeling the gospel in our home. Also, Jake mentioned while he was here "I don't know if I have ever seen a bunch of kids smile as much as you guys." That helped me and Jason see that really our kids are a pretty happy bunch. I mean yeah we have time when things are not happy around here. We have our fair share of tantrums, its-not-fair fights, misunderstandings, and other stuff but most of the time we have pretty happy kids. I am so blessed.

Mindset Change

 I am the Young Women President in our ward and one of the thing I do is try to mentor the oldest class of girls. Girls ages 15-18. I was really struggling with this calling and feeling like I was connecting with the girls, and really just struggling. There was a day when there was an activity that night and my co-leader said she couldn't come and so I sought out some mom's for help and learned that 6 out of 10 were not even coming to the activity. When I arrived and was about to start one more didn't come and so we had 3 our of 10 young women there. I also miraculously found another leader for that night. It really was a miracle. I said a prayer right before I called this mom and it went something like this,"Heavenly Father, I know she has never answered her phone the first time I have called ever, but I am out of time and pretty out of options. I need her to answer now. Please let her answer." I then called her and she answered and was able to help. Now, that should have showed me that those 3 girls were important to the Lord and, so even just three should be enough for me, but instead I just became more convinced that my young women weren't coming because they didn't like me. Well, the activity was fun good and the girls that came did have a good time, so win. 

However, I was still believing my young women didn't like me. That why had I been called when all I was going to do was make people mad and not want to come. Well, on Saturday I was cleaning my house and had a quiet moment and decided to listen to a podcast that a friend sent me. I rarely have time to listen to podcasts but I didn't listen to it. Honestly, I didn't love it but at the same time it taught me exactly what I needed. One of the things the author said was that Satan tells us lies and they are in second person. They will eventually change to first person when we begin to believe them, so we need to cast them out. Well, I realize that I was believing one of Satan's lies. No one had told me that they didn't like me, no parents had said my daughter refuses to come because you expect to much. Nope, no one. I knew none of that for certain yet I was letting myself believe I did. So, right then I said a little prayer to have help to cast this lie away. I no longer wanted to believe it instead I was going to believe that unless I heard otherwise no one didn't like me. 

Since then my calling and my ability to serve has increase. I am blessed it was that easy. The darkness that surrounded this calling for me dispersed and I could do it. It wasn't a burden. I could learn about those that come. Worry about those that don't. Love for real, and not out of obligation. Now, its only been two weeks, and I am sure their will be more things that come up, but for right now its great. This last activity I stayed late one because I felt I should make sure everyone got picked up even though I didn't have to and also because I wanted to hear what they had to say and they didn't ask me to leave. They didn't say this is personal please leave, so I didn't and I now know them more. Staying didn't feel as obligatory as it has in the past. Instead, I chose to stay because I wanted to be there. It was great. Then today I actually called my class president checked in on her and asked her, her opinion about a challenge to have more meetings and how she thought we should do it. I texted another girl just seeing how she was because I haven't seen her recently. It sounds so simple, but I couldn't do that before because I was thinking way to much about what they would think or if I was intruding or whatever. For me in this moment, I can move forward. 

Its different. I can't explain it very well, because so much of it was in my head, and then had an effect on everything I did. I still wonder about the bounds on caring verse nosy and if I am asking and expecting too much, but if I do its now more genuine that obligation and I am so grateful because I want to love these young women and this calling. The youth really are amazing despite their faults. I want to see what the Lord sees in them and I want to love them. It is so much easier to love when you don't fear. I am so glad the Lord helped me see.