general relief society broadcast//sept. 2012

Linda K. Burton//General Relief Society President

• Have we invited the Lord to write the law/doctrine in our hearts?
• All that is unfair about life will be made right through the Atonement.
• There is power in the Atonement to enable us to combat the natural man within us and become true disciples of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus Christ doesn't just lower the ladder, he climbs into the pit and helps us out.
• The Atonement is the greatest evidence we have of the Father's love for His children.
• Every woman in this church should know that she is beloved of Heavenly Father.
• Making and keeping covenants shows that we have the doctrine/atonement of Jesus Christ written in our hearts.

Carole M. Stephens//1st Counselor

•  "It is high time to awake out of sleep...put on the armor of light."
• "This is the desire of our hearts!"
• When we make covenants we are coming out of the world into the kingdom of God.
• Have I experienced a mighty change of heart? And if not, why not?
• I don't ever want to let my fellow sisters down spiritually.

Linda S. Reeves//2nd Counselor

• You are the Lord's modern-day pioneers.
• Jesus weeps with each of us in our trials/adversities.
• He has paid the price to know how to succor you. ("I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.")

President Henry B. Eyring//First Presidency 1st Counselor

• "We must cherish one another...that we may all sit down in heaven together."-Lucy Mack Smith
• "What comes next for willing hands to do?"
• Keep the Faith--you will be invited by the Lord often to serve--take the opportunity even when it may seem inconvenient or unwanted.
• The Lord's plan for serving others includes teams. He has created societies of caregivers.Caring for those in need takes a team.
• "And see that all things are done in wisdom and in order." Know when to let others step in and take over the service/be the caregiver. Know your limits.
• Help those sisters who need care find opportunities to care for others. Build confidence in your fellow sisters. 
• The Lord is the greatest nurturer of all. He is always in our circle.

I love our newly called General Relief Society Presidency! As soon as Sister Burton began I could feel the Spirit and knew she had been called of God. I am so grateful for our church leaders and their amazing examples. So excited for General Conference!

15 month old.

My goodness I have one handsome boy! And a very flushed boy too. He would stay outside aaalllllll day if I let him, rain or shine. The moment he wakes up he runs to the garage door and tries to escape. And if it's locked (which it usually is) he stares at me and waves "bye-bye" meaning "I go outside?!" His sleeping habits have been cray-cray lately and the other night (at 1am!) he starts waving to me. I was like, "Seriously, kid? We're not going out to play at 1 in the morning." But I'm glad he loves the outdoors. He loves the neighbors' dogs (and ev-er-y-one has a dog), American flags waving on the porches, kids playing basketball and rocks. We take a walk about twice a day now to feed his hunger for outdoor socializing :)

Favorite food at the moment? Hands down, it's Chex Mix. I swear, one of these days I'm gonna pull back the covers and instead of a Jakey there will be a bag of Chex Mix laying there. He loves it too much. He dumped the whole bag out on our couch yesterday. 

Still long and lean. I love when people see him and guess his age. "What is he about 2? 2 and a half?" Ah, no. Try again. He may be tall but he's still little. People are always wowing over how tall he is. And it doesn't help when he's standing next to his friend next door who's two months older but about half his size. haha. He's a giant baby! I love it. And what I can say he comes from tall people--on both sides. 

He is sensitive. He's got a tender heart and gets sad if other little ones push him even slightly. Poor guy. Nursery may be rough.

He loves books. His favorite at the moment is all about farm animals. He can currently "moo" cuz that's what the "ow" says :) And of course he "ha's!" cuz that's what the neighbor dogs do. Ducks, horses, pigs, cats they all "moo" or "ha!" too.

Jake is obsessed with Scott's ears. He likes to touch them, pull them, stick his fingers in them...you name it. It's quite funny.

My favorite thing about Jake lately though is how loving he is. The last week or so he's showered me with hugs. He always wants to sit in my lap or hug me from behind. It could be the teething thats making him a cuddle bug, but I think he just really loves me a lot :)

To celebrate turning 15 months, we went to Chuck E Cheese! (Scott and I have been dying to go for a couple years now haha).  Thankfully, there was a toddler area that Jake enjoyed. Though he did not enjoy the car rides or merry-go-round. He pretty much was glued to us. And when Chuck himself appeared, Jake stared that rat down. He didn't cry, but boy did he keep an eye on him. I had to feed Jake pizza like a baby because he couldn't concentrate on anything else but Chuck. 

Scott played Guitar Hero and the basketball shot game and I learned that I should never go to Vegas. I could not walk away from this one coin/plinko game. I was hooked. Scott would say, "OK, let's move on to something else," and I'd freak, "Wait! It's hot! Just one more chance. I know I can do it this time!" haha. Oh boy. Yeah, Vegas is not a good idea for me. We left full of sauce-less pizza and with a slinkie and a rubber snake. Boy did we have fun!

And goodness gracious, I do love my little family and little boy. He makes life so fun and gives us great excuses to go to Chuck E Cheese! I feel so blessed to have him and can't believe how old he is getting. Time moves far too quickly. And so is he.

 love.

tender mercies//little moments.

Church with an almost 15 month old is plain hard. Hard because I want to listen, participate and feel like I'm growing spiritually. And it's hard to do that when 90% of church is spent walking the halls, keeping little fingers from opening the fire extinguisher box and picking up scattered goldfish on the carpet. (not to mention half of our sacrament meeting is in Hmong-Vietnamese :) Today, I was flying solo since Scott was home sick. And I was up and down, up and down from my seat a million times running after J. And I was feeling a bit blue and having the whole, "Why did I even come to church?" convo in my head. (All young mothers with little ones ask that question to themselves, right? Right? Please say yes.)

We went into the hallway. Again. And I set J down to go roam the halls. But he looked up at me and stretched his arms skyward so I picked him up again. And he wrapped his arms around my neck. Tight. And he rested his cheek against mine. And he really hugged me. I about lost it there in the hallway. I hugged him close and I stood there in the hallway with my eyes shut tight for about three minutes cuddling the most wonderfully, sweet boy in all the world.

It reminded me of when he was only a day old. I lay in my hospital room suffering from a spinal headache and I felt so sad. I wanted to bond with J but could barely lift my head without the pain increasing tenfold. Scott laid him next to me and I remember staring into J's blue eyes thinking, "Do you know I'm your mother?" And he smiled, almost instantaneously. I lost it then too.

Heavenly Father, and our own children I've learned, supply us with the tender mercies we need. J blesses my life and in that first smile and sweet hug at church today he was able to serve me and send me a message from my Father in Heaven: the blessings of motherhood come in little moments.

At home, I read through some articles on LDS.org about mothers with little ones and how you can keep your testimony strong and growing. This is what jumped out to me:

"I was beginning to feel quite ‘inactive.’ Then it finally occurred to me that I had put the responsibility for my spiritual growth on church attendance instead of myself. From that point on, ... I’d still try to make Sunday a holy day....Although I miss—and need—the strength that comes from worshipping with my brothers and sisters at church, I can still enjoy the spirit of the Sabbath if I put forth a concentrated effort.”  --Spiritual Growth for Young Mothers By Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard

"Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction." --Daughters of God, Russell M. Nelson, General Conference April 2008

That's exactly what I've felt like: inactive. But having a little one didn't do that. I did. So, actually I feel worse because now I know I'm just a slacker! hah. No, in all seriousness, I just needed to be reminded that my testimony isn't based on whether or not I hear all three hours of church messages at this point in my life. But Heavenly Father does care that I feel happy and he does want me to grow. So I guess I need a goal right? Here's one: read the Relief Society lesson on Sunday whether I get to be in there or not. There. That's a start. Second goal: Enjoy the little, precious moments while my kid is still little. Ok. I feel better :)

at the park.

Our next door neighbors/buddies invited us to the park for a much needed day out and a switch from our usual play date indoors. And it was a blast. J was all over that slide while his buddy stomped in puddles. Then J thought that was cool too and went to join him :) I love the stage that he is in right now. He's becoming more and more playful. He likes to climb on everything and wrestle on the couch and have, "I'm gonna get you!" chases. He's such a boy! Which I love! Today, we potted some flowers for the front porch and J was digging his hands in that soil and rubbing it on his clothes and even eating it off the concrete, and I just thought to myself, he is such a boy! dirty and messy and crazy and wonderful. I love every minute. Love my boy.

life lately, according to my iphone

swish!

finally got jake a basketball hoop. and he is in love with it. but that's no surprise. 

this kid is goin places. and that place is the NBA. right alongside Kobe.

the best of badin

the wee town of badin is making its way into our hearts by bribing us with 

deliciously over-powdered funnel cakes.

 ...and sweet lemonade

...and ginormous bubbles.

thanks for throwing us a festival, badin! we totally dug the live music, roly poly kids with sweet rat-tail mullets and the hippie hula hoopers. thank you...so much. 

xoxo the garrisons

C+B Wedding Quilt

since quilting is my new found passion...and since my sister brittany decided to get married(!) i vowed to myself i would make her a wedding quilt that she and cardon could snuggle up in. plus, i'm loving handmade things these days. so nostalgic and sweet. brittany chose a {string quilt} pattern. which is totally cool...and totally time consuming. the method is fast but it takes four quilt blocks to complete/create just one mega quilt block/shape. but i love her. so i trek onward. plus, who am i kidding? i secretly love it. ha!

//majority of fabric from Genevieve by Amy Hamberlin//

oak island, nc

we headed to the atlantic over the weekend to soak up some sun and catch a little r&r on oak island. well we got a big dose of sun but not too much r&r. we're discovering that's pretty hard to come by with a little one. jake absolutely adored the water. the atlantic was much warmer than the pacific and he was pleasantly surprised. he giggled and laughed as i held his hands while the waves crashed at our feet. we built sand mounds, dug holes and played with the enormous dog that belonged to the people next to us. we broke our umbrella in the demonic winds, jake took a tumble in the water once (oops) and we ate our nasty lunch that we got at a local restaurant where a horribly rude waitress worked. food-wise it was not the greatest vacation. but even with flies buzzing around our dinner that night i looked out to the water and thought, it's because of all these funny instances that we will even remember this vacation. then jake shook his groove thang on the dock and clapped with the end of every song. everyone around us was quite smitten with our lil' guy. his butt bounce/chicken wing move is pretty amazing. it was a weekend to be remembered and i feel grateful to have my guys in my life. see ya next time beach!

haircut

we said goodbye to jake's sweet curls yesterday. they now lay peacefully in a plastic bag. he was an angel during the whole thing which was awesome because i had been picturing in my head the deadly outcome that could materialize when squirmy baby meets sharp scissors. but like i said. he was an angel. that or the comb he was chewing on had magical calming powers.

you see?...a twirp

always assume the worst. just when you think, "oh there's nothing he can get into in my closet," remember this post. there is always something that little hands can find. like, oh......maybe black PAINT! as soon as he grew quiet i should've known he was being "mischievous jake". he ate it, smeared it on the back--thank heavens--of a picture, on a shoe, on a cardboard box. by some act of divine intervention he didn't get any of it on my clothes. i'm amazed by that. his outfit, however, not was not so lucky. boy was he mad when i put an end to the fun.