Callie Sullivan turns 4!!!!

Oh, to have little children again!! How fun and exciting it always is to watch them be excited for a birthday party!! Her party was at "Main Event" where everyone went bowling!! it was too fun to watch the little ones bowl and Aileen is always up for the challenge and loves bowling herself!! The cutest part was when they started the laser bowling time with loud music and strobbing lights to watch all the little girls in the party stop bowling and start line dancing!! too fun!!

Friday is lunch day!!!

Friday I was able to go to lunch with a friend that has moved to Cleburne, so I don't get to see her as often!! I was also glad to get to meet with her because she is recovering from surgery and her birthday is Tuesday!! So it was important to me to get to see Ashley and see that she is recovering well and to celebrate the day of her birth!! Great friend, great food, and fun conversation makes an awesome lunch date!!!

34 Years Ago on President's Day......

34 years ago on President's Day holiday, Alan and I met in the Harold B. Library, 4th floor, at BYU!!! We almost missed each other we found out later. Neither one of us wanted to study that day as our room mates were going to do something fun, but then something made us say "No" to the fun and go study!! And the rest as they say is history!! So to celebrate, Alan took me to the movie "This Means War" such a great date movie, romance for the girl, and action packed for the guy!! We both loved the movie!! Then we went to Wendy's afterward for dinner, kind of like those broke college days!! I am forever grateful that I listened to the inner voice that told me I really, really needed to go study and get caught up on some homework instead of play......and I am truly grateful that Alan listened to that same voice and that he just happened to come and sit at my table!!! Love you sweetie!!

Saturday at the Temple with Aileen!!

Sunday was our Ward Conference, and the tradition has always been to have a Ward temple session the day before with the Stake President and stake Leaders. It's always a really wonderful experience and we have always tried to hire a babysitter or someone from the Ward has sometimes volunteered because they were not going to be able to go...but somehow we have almost always managed to get there as a couple.

This year since all our babysitters have gotten married and moved away, or are at BYU having a wonderful life of their own.....I wasn't sure what we would do. But I finally asked my Sister Elizabeth if she would babysit Aileen for us on Saturday!! She said that she would, and asked where, we discussed her home, our home, and then I told her that in the past when Alan and I have gone to the temple without a babysitter, we have taken turns and sat in the car with Aileen while the other goes in and then traded places and that Aileen does well just walking around the Temple grounds, going to McDonalds to get some food and watching videos in the car. Elizabeth said that she would try this as ti would save either one of us from having to travel all the way to each other's homes, kind of like meeting in the middle! And I knew Aileen would enjoy that as he does like to go to the temple!!

So, funny thing, it was pouring down rain Saturday, made getting to the temple in the first place very stressful, made us get their late, and there was no way that Aileen was going to be able to walk around and tour the temple grounds. Because of running late, I was not able to set up the DVD player, and told Elizabeth that I was sure she could do it, and gave her my debit card to be able to go to McDonalds and get her some food!!

Elizabeth got a little stress trying to figure out how to set up the DVD player so she wouldn't have to hold it the whole time, so she called Allison in Provo, Utah!! This makes me laugh just thinking about it - its so cute!! But I do apologize dear sister for leaving you in the lurch!!

So Allison explained over the phone how to hook the DVD player to the back of the front seat so that it hung off and you could watch the show.... and this is how the conversation went via text by cell phone pictures and all:

Elizabeth: I'm sure its not right but I guess its o.k.

Elizabeth: It's so jerry rigged!

Allison: Looks great to me!! :D

Elizabeth: You're so cute! I love you!

Allison: Love you!

The best part is that Elizabeth said she had a good time with Aileen and that the time went by really quickly and she was surprised by that because she was kind of dreading the being bored out of her mind aspect of the whole thing.....so it worked out great!!! and I love you my dear Elizabeth for making it possible for us to go to the Temple together!! Such a blessing!!

Happy V-day, to the people I love!!!

This week as been a busy, busy week!! It started by MaryAnn and I wanting to do something special for our Visiting Teaching ladies!! So Monday morning we hit the Dollar Tree store (my favorite store) to see if they had anything good/left. We found some great Valentine shaped boxes that were very cute and were big enough to put a variety of candy in and then we found these great bright Easter type colors of baskets that are the perfect shape for bread and for putting it on the table decoratively!! So we got some fancy/yummy bread (yes we were going to make some, and yes we ran out of time, so yes, we bought it instead) and the box of candy and then wrapped them all together to deliver to our ladies!! We wanted to sing something at the door to them when we delivered the gifts and I found a song online for Valentines day sung to the tune of "Mary Had A Little Lamb"

Tuesday we went to all 5 of our ladies homes and sang the following song as we handed them their gift, and lesson with some notes we wanted to point out......Yes, it was a "drive by" month.....but I don't think we have ever done a "drive by" so I think we can be forgiven......any way back to the song, we sang:

Here we bring a Valentine, Valentine, Valentine.

Here we bring a Valentine to the one we love!!

We had fun and everyone smiled and enjoyed and here is what the gift pkgs looked like after I got done putting them together!!



Monday, night my friend Ashley, who moved to Cleburne was getting ready to go in for surgery on Tuesday and she asked if Alan could come and give her a blessing so Alan and Bruce Willden went with Aileen and I to give her a Valentine gift from us (Flowers and candy) and a blessing. It was a neat experience to share with a friend!!

Tuesday, Grandpa and Grandma Barbara brought Aileen over her own 6-pack of Diet Coke and you should have seen her eyes....their was candy and cookies with it too, but Aileen only cared about the Diet Coke....funny girl!! She knows its hers too, and opens the fridge and grabs one! Too cute!!

The Doctor that I work for he and his wife gave me a cute cute piggy bank they brought back from their trip to Kentucky!! They told me it was to put all our change in it and then use it to go out with the girls!! Fun!! I've already started adding money!! Whoohoo, girls night out!!



Alan and I decided that sine I have Wednesday afternoon off, instead of spending more money on Tuesday night and having to fight the crowds, that we would celebrate Wednesday. So Alan took me to see "The Vow" I loved it and even though he was sure it was a "Chick flick" and he probably wouldn't enjoy it....he did!! Then we got yummy Chicken Fried Stake dinners at "The Cotton Patch" and it was a great date with lunch and matinee prices!! He also got me the DVD "Breaking Dawn, part 1" and earlier in a post I showed you the playing cards I got him with our families pictures on them!!





For our kids that live far from home, I sent care packages and I loved one of the things I sent very much and have almost decided that I need one too. I'm sure you can guess which one!!





Then tonight (Thursday) it was our Relief Society Meeting for the month of February and I was asked to give a workshop on "How to turn Scripture Reading into Scripture Study". It went very well and everyone participated. And the only resource we used were the Scriptures themselves. The Church has spent a lot of time and money making our scriptures the best study guide we can use in trying to learn what The Lord wants us to know!! Afterwards several people came up and said things like:

"I came here hoping I could learn something tonight, and I did".

"I have been struggling with some of the helps in the scriptures of how to use them, and know I know how".

"I heard this year in Gospel Doctrine Class that you gave everyone notebooks for taking notes last year and I was sad that I had missed that because I was in Primary, but now I have my own scripture study journal and pencils, I'm excited!"

I used a quote tonight from President Hinckley that was perfect for this week being Valentines day and all......about how he thinks scripture study is to have a "love affair" with the words of the Lord.

So my Valentines gift to everyone that came tonight to the class were these cute journals, I found at the "Dollar Tree" with a box of colored pencils and I hope they will use them when starting this new goal of studying the scriptures!!

Nephi comes to Gospel Doctrine Class

Because yesterday's GD lesson was 2Nephi 3-5 where we were told in the lesson manual that it would be nice to have someone prepared to read Nephi's Psalm, I thought why not have Nephi himself!! Thanks to Robert Pruitt for being a good sport and doing such a fine job on presenting these powerful scripture verses! The really neat thing about this to me, other than just the fun of it in class, is that Robert told me that in preparing for Sunday he found some insights into these verses that he had never seen before and that it was a spiritual experience for him as well as our class!!

5th and final one!

I have finished the last of the Rex Family Christmas Stockings!! I feel a little bad the the last two were finished after the holiday, but I didn't get to start on them until the 1st week of December, so actually, it's pretty amazing that I got 3 done before Christmas!! Once Christmas was over I took a little more time to work on them, but still felt like I should be working on them a good percentage of the time until they were done!!

I'm pleased with how they turned out and I hope that Allison's mother-in-law is too!!

HEART ATTACK!!!

Thursday morning we opened our door and were so surprised to see that we had been "Heart Attacked" !! What a nice surprise and one that was truly welcome and made our day!! Thanks to whoever.....those secret heart people are!! Thank you!

First time for everything.....

For the first time, I had someone in my Gospel Doctrine Class, just come flat out and say "You're wrong". What might be surprising is that this is only the first time - ha, ha!! I know that not everyone is going to agree with me. And I welcome discussion in a big way in my class, because I feel this is what makes a classroom exciting and we all learn from each others comments etc. However in this situation I tried to explain my point, but felt that I got cut off before I could even really explain, or given a open mind to try and see where I was coming from, and the class room on Sunday is not where you want to have a debate, so I just moved on and left out about 8 minutes of the next part of my lesson because I really didn't know where to go from there. The most interesting thing is I felt like, and others said as well, we were both trying to say the same thing but this individual was hung up on semantics!

I have several sources that I use in studying the scriptures when preparing my lessons - first and foremost I use the GD Manual, but I also check into my old seminary lessons and handouts, and I also use the lesson helps on LDS Living - which is where I found this insight. And thought it a new way to look at 2 Nephi 1:10 about people who dwindle in unbelief, lose their belief in 1) The creation by God of the earth and all men. 2)The scriptural record of the great and marvelous works of the Lord. 3) The possibility to do things by faith. 4) The commandments. 5)The infinite goodness of the Lord. 6)The Messiah.

The argument was, that these are the blessings we are promised - Agreed! But we also don't go from being righteous and receiving all those blessings to dwindling in unbelief in the Messiah without first dwindling in unbelief in his gospel, his scriptures, his marvelous works, faith, commandments etc... until finally the Messiah.

Now I was worried if I had made everyone uneasy in my lesson but I got this email the other day that has helped me to see.......even when someone disagrees, the spirit can still be in the room, and maybe it makes class members go home and study for themselves to see what they think....

"...When we had FHE together last night, I told (my husband) about what happened Sunday, & we studied a little bit 2 Ne 1:10, the scripture in question."

".....like you said, it's all a matter of semantics, pure & simple. If people have rejected their Redeemer, then they certainly have stopped believing in His Gospel, which includes a knowledge of the creation of the earth, power to do all things by faith, etc. The very fact that they had been BLESSED with these things and in their "dwindling" now reject their Redeemer & the BLESSINGS they obviously took for granted & finally stopped believing -- that situation is really worse in my view than not having had the gospel blessings in the first place -- to me it shows they are more hardened than if they had never had these blessings & therefore out of ignorance didn't follow the gospel. I fear that this very situation of rejecting the Savior and the blessings is occurring in our country, & it worries me greatly."

"Anyway, I, for one, appreciated your "different angle," which I'd never really considered before til this whole thing came up & then (my husband) & I discussed it last night."

"So see how much contemplation and delving into the meat & real meaning of the scriptures happened as a result of your lesson Sunday? It's a very good thing!"

I really appreciated this friend sharing with me her experience!!

Another thing I used in my lesson for teaching about Agency from a CES symposium a long time ago when I was a seminary teacher and then saw again on LDS Living. The acronym POLKA

Requirements of Agency:

P: Power to choose (2Nephi 2:16)
O: Opposition, that gives us opportunity to choose. (2Nephi 2:11)
L: Laws, God gave us laws so that we would know what He wants us to choose. (2Nephi 2:13)
K: Knowledge - we are taught the difference between good and evil - between obeying and breaking the law. (2Nephi 2:5)
A: Agency - put together everything - power to choose, opportunity to choose, laws that help us to know what to choose, and knowledge of what is good and what is evil - we call it Agency!! (2Nephi 2:27)

Then one of the class members said: "I thought for sure you were going to say 'A' was for Atonement - '...The Messiah cometh in the fulness of time that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever' 2Nephi 2:26"

He felt that saying A = Agency was redundant, but that our joy, our happiness, and being free forever was because of the Atonement.

I loved that and changed my POLKA acronym to A=Atonement.

So even though I worried and wondered if I had fulfilled my calling of having the spirit with us in class and helping everyone feel the love of their Heavenly Father and Savior, I believe they did. And it was a great learning experience for me as well. Which once again just proves, how much we are all loved and watched over and that we can feel "encircled about eternally in the arms of his love" 2Nephi 1:15

Date with my hubby!

It never fails that all the movies that you want to see come out all at once. Then there are months that you couldn't find a movie that you wanted to see or was rated the right rating if your life depended on it.

Today for our date this afternoon we went to see "Big Miracle" it was really well done and we enjoyed it very much. Always love movies based on stuff that really happened!!

Tonight is our night to feed the missionaries so we took them to Cousins BBQ. And I am ready for a relaxing weekend

I hope!!