It's her day!!!!!

Yep! Today is Aileen's day. She was born 25 yrs ago, weighing 2.5 lbs and born at not quite 28 weeks. She was very sick and they had to keep her sedated so that she wouldn't fight the respirator. They hadn't done that with my 1st preemie baby and so it was scary. In fact sometimes I wonder if they shouldn't have done that and that is what caused her disability because they didn't do that with my 3rd preemie baby either......but she was very still when I would go stay with her in ICU. I remember Alan giving me a blessing promising that I would be able to raise Aileen and the joy I felt with that promise from my Heavenly Father, and it has been a complete Joy! If she was not part of our family we, but mainly me, would have missed out on so many lessons in life, blessings, and the knowledge of what unconditional love feels like to receive and to give! I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father sent her to me! Happy Birthday Aileen Brown!

A New Mini Journal adaptation

In February I had a RS Mini group where we made Mini Journals that we personalized with a few questions everyday that help us to recognize the spirit, realize blessings and answers to prayers, and bear our testimonies.

One of my dear friends who has moved out of our Ward saw my post and asked if I could send her one for her to use with her Adult Religion Class that she teaches on Tuesday nights in Burleson. When I was a Seminary Teacher here in Fort Worth, she was my Supervisor and is really an amazing person and friend. She helped me many times in teaching Seminary every day with great lesson ideas and handouts. So its very nice that I could help her now.

Here is what she told me about her use of the Mini Journal in her Institute Class:

Mini journals adapted‏

The Institute (adult religion class is the official CES name) lesson's title:
Each of Us Can Help Build the Kingdom of God on Earth.

We discussed -
helping strengthen the Church
staying active in the Church
gathering in local stakes
blessings of service - AND THAT'S WHERE I adapted your mini journal idea.

Instead of individual mini journals, I gave each student the list of 20 options. The intro was:
"Include one (or more) of the following journal entries as happy reminders of the blessings that come when we serve in the kingdom of God. Whatever we choose will be a bonus when we go back later and re-read that date's journal entry."

Going around the class, students took turns reading the list aloud.

They were enthused about the idea and thanked me for the list. One man said, "Good! Now I can write about something besides the weather!"

I'll send you a copy of the handout so you can see what it looked like.

Thanks again for sharing. You're an inspiration to me!
Cathy

This is what this life is all about, especially in the Gospel......sharing ideas and talents, and helping one another. You gotta love it! Oh, and Cathy, I am very humbled by your note and would like to say for all the years that I taught Seminary.....you were and still are an inspiration to me!

Aileen turns 25 on Friday.....

Wow, when did that happen! I just love this daughter of mine! She is such a joy! And has taught me a great deal about my Heavenly Father's love! She is one of the lights of my life! Happy Birthday to Aileen!

more to come.....

Ashley's Birthday and Visiting Teaching combined!

I am so lucky that the women I visit teach for my church are also my dearest friends! So we always like to go to lunch or to the movie, or have a movie night at someones home etc... while we do our visiting teaching as well! It tends to be my social activity for the month throughout the month! Today we had lunch with Ashley and Becky because it is Ashley's birthday! We had so much fun and I had a ball picking out a gift for Ashley! My oldest who is 30, always tells me that when shopping to ask a young sales clerk if what I am buying is old lady-ish! ha-ha! So I decided that would be a wise practice for today as well. So when I was at Macy's I asked the young stylish sales clerk if what I was buying was something that a very stylish "put together" young woman in her late 20's/early 30's would wear....to which I was told "No"! so good thing I asked. Then she showed me some other options and right before she was going to ring me up I told her that I had been looking at these really large bracelets and was thinking about getting one of those with a necklace to match and she said...."Well, there is this really awesome bracelet.....and she showed it to me and I knew immediately that it was Ashley's! It is made out of zippers into a flower on a silvery wiry bracelet and it was sooooo cute I knew my daughters would have loved it and then she showed me the multi-zippered necklace to go with it and she had me SOLD! And then I saw it on a mannequin and it was so cute I was thrilled with my decision! And hooray! Ashley did indeed love it! In fact she had been looking at some shoes with the very same zipper flower on them in a catalog! I was thrilled! So here is a picture of our lunch out..... and the jewelry! It's been a great day!

Luncheon girls!

I am the 2nd Counselor in our Ward's Relief Society Presidency so that means I am over the RS weekday meetings (formerly Enrichment meetings, formerly Homemaking meetings) and my Homemaking Leader and our committee have been trying to come up with different types of activities for all different age groups! So we decided to start a lunch group of shall we say "women who have experienced much of life" which I now find myself part of that age group. We had our first lunch today at the Botanical Gardens Restaurant which was lovely by the way and we had 14 sisters come! I was thrilled and I know that when I report back to my committee they will be ecstatic as well. Everyone visited and we got to get to know each other on a more personal level as you really don't get to socialize at church. Everyone voted to have this be a continuing group that we plan for at least once a month and the hope is to also go to the Temple and lunch together, the art museums and lunch together, etc.

Also as a report back on the Mini Journal class we had last week (I posted about these journals several weeks ago)! A whole different group of sisters came to that - a younger group and once again everyone had fun talking, laughing and visiting as we made these useful little tools for recognizing the Spirit/blessings/answer to prayer in your life! I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of that group..... I could almost kick myself! I'm trying to figure out how to get them all together again to get a picture. But I think I missed my opportunity. But we had an awesome time and every one's journals turned out so different but amazing reflecting each sisters personality. They gave me new ideas for making mine better!

Then at the end of January we had a class called "The Art of Couponing" and we had a huge turnout for that (some people left the room when I started taking pictures lol!). We learned how to get the companies to pay us money to take their products out of the store! Amazing! And it has been extremely cool to hear every one's success stories and excitement in getting organized from this class! We are going to have a couple of follow-up classes on this subject! whoohoo!

The Winter Olympics

I have to say I believe that the winter Olympics are my favorite to watch! This Olympics seem to be really exciting with the US winning a lot of metals and a lot of metals that we haven't won for a long time in many events. And for some they are winning metals their first time at the Olympics. I have particularly loved watching the ice dancing! These games have been very inspiring and in fact Alan and I have watched many of the Winter events and thought.....that is really a great lesson for life in general...like when Apolo Ohno was really in place to win the Gold in the short track race the other night, got bumped and ended up in last.....and instead of giving up he just worked harder and even though there was not very much of the race left, and he had lost all his speed and had to really go after it to get his speed back up.....he passed the skaters in front of him to get the bronze, when most people would have probably figured they were out and given up! I just love these kind of stories that are great examples or enduring to the end. I think it must be the teacher in me. I always seem to see something and turn it into a teaching moment! I bet I drive people crazy around me! ha-ha! But I'm lovin watching the Olympics with my honey!

Robert & Whitney Brown

Saturday, February 13, 2010 our nephew Robert was married in Utah. Luckily our kiddos that live in Utah could go and represent us! We were very sad that we couldn't be there. I believe that even if we could of gone and had tickets to fly out....with the weather we ended up having here in Texas, we would have never made it out of the Airport! My Dad and Barbara were to fly to Atlanta and waited all day at the airport Friday only to be told at midnight that it wasn't going to happen. So it might have all been for the best! We love them and are so happy for them and hope only the very best for their future! I heard it was a beautiful day! Congratulations Rob & Whitney! We love you!