We had an H family yard sale on Saturday to raise money for our family reunion next year. We made $700.00. $130.00 on baked goods, the rest on the yard sale. It was great and so exciting to hear how well we did. It only lasted from 8-noon. Not bad.
Then we went out to my dad's house to pick up an old player piano that Kate gave us. It needs repaired but we are so excited to have it. Thank you Kate and Dad!!!
Then John and the boys watched BYU stink it up. Then John and I went to hear Kara speak in the adult session of their stake conference. A part that stood out to me was she talked about being a child of God and if you give a mirror to the primary kids, they can't wait for their turn to look in it, but adults will avoid it completely.
Made me realize that we, I, should know who I am and be proud of that and want to look in the mirror. I want to do this for family home evening but am afraid of when the mirror gets to me. It will kill me to have to actually look at myself, especially in front of my family, and say "I am a Child of God". But we are going to do it anyway because it is bad to feel this way and I want that to change.
Doesn't it seem a little disrespectful to Heavenly Father to not want to see yourself. To cringe every time you pass the mirror and see yourself. Not good.

Little John is taking piano lessons from Iain McKay. Iain is the only child from a prominent family in New Zealand. He joined the church around 20. He is retired from working for the church and is a great guy. I think he is going to be great for little John. Iain took piano lessons from a guy from Germany and his wife from Holland, Paul and Diny Schramm. Paul played since he was 3 and after he was married, Hitler requested that he come be his personal pianist. This was in the late 1930's and Paul knew that wasn't good and traded everything he had for gold. His wife and son left the country by train and he met up with them later. Hitler's men came on the train to check everyone's bags and just before they got to them, the son got sick and threw up in the bag on all the gold. So they passed them by. They went to a couple different countries until ending up in New Zealand. Paul learned piano from Theodore Leschetizky, who learned from Karl Czerny, who learned from Beethoven. Pretty great line of piano background. We are really excited and hope John loves it. Emily is set on violin lessons but we told her she has to wait one more year and I am asking her daily if she is ready for piano lessons yet. I really want her to take piano lessons. Yesterday was the first time she acted like maybe she'll do it.

Well, John and I are gazelle instense. Thanks to Mark and Suzy for reading the Total Money Makeover and wanting the rest of the family to benefit from it as well. They are lending out their books to everyone who will read it and also have shared their budgeting files with us. That's all it took. We are finishing up the book tonight and we have been on fire with getting out of debt. We are looking forward to when all the student loans are paid off so we can get intense on paying off the house. It's really exciting. We've been on board for a few weeks now and continue to see areas we need to do better. Thank you for sharing with us Mark and Suzy. Makes all the difference when someone wants to share something great that works. It's inspiring.
Jolie and Sean took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course and quickly got out of debt, saved up their emergency fund, and are less than 5 years away from having their house paid off. And they've only lived there for 8 years. They have done great with it. Good job.

That's it!! On to a new week. I am in charge of part of a service project for the stake relief society on Saturday. I'm excited to be done with that.

I haven't been posting anywhere because I can't post any more pictures. I've hit my capacity. Nice.
John got a calling today. Woohoo. He will team teach the 13-14 year old Sunday school. His partner is the husband of one of the girls I serve with in Mia Maids. Should be fun.
John and I celebrated 13 years of marriage yesterday. Thursday night we went to dinner at Buca de Beppo. It was yummy. We had their eggplant. Oh man. It was so great. If you want to go there this month, they gave us 4 coupons that the server has to open so we don't know what they are for. But you could win a vespa and a trip to Italy. Let us know if you want to take your chances! That night we stayed at the Anniversary Inn and in the "Mysteries of Egypt" room. Friday we spent 3 hours at the Draper Temple doing a session and sealings. It was wonderful and our favorite part of the getaway. We shopped at the Loft, my favorite, and spent $350 worth of winnings credit at Thanksgiving Points Pro shop. John got a couple new clubs, new golf shoes, and a shirt. That night we stayed at the Residence Inn in Salt Lake and ate at Hires. It was a very nice and relaxing getaway. On the other end was my mom with our 5 kids. I don't think that was as nice and relaxing.
THANK YOU MOM!!!! WE SURE APPRECIATE YOU SACRIFICING YOUR SANITY AND LIFE SO WE COULD GO AWAY!!!
We were happy to come back Saturday morning. We got home and bottled about 30 jars of tomatoes from our neighbor. John then watched the BYU game with his brothers and at 5:00, the entire H family, minus the parents who are on a trip back east, came to our house for a potluck. Spencer and Kristi were in town because Kristi's grandpa passed away. It was wonderful. Our house fit all 50+ of us nicely. The guys in the family room with the tv all night. The girls in the front room and the kids upstairs, downstairs, and outside. It worked out great and we loved having everyone here.
Memorial Day weekend, we put up the tent and spent 4 nights camping out in our backyard. The last night was freezing cold so we came back in but we left the tent up hoping we will camp one more time before winter. Kind of silly but it's been fun. I have loved laying there with all of my kids right there with me.
Speaking of, today was our primary program. It was excellent. All of our kids had their parts memorized and they sang all the songs. We could even hear Emily and Jack. The spirit was in the meeting and it was beautiful. Ryan, Laura, Kailee, and my mom came to watch the kids. It was nice having them there. We just wished John's parents weren't out of town.
My favorite part...."The Family is of God". That song is my all time favorite primary song. I taught it to the jr. primary in our old ward and cried every time they sang. All the kids sing loud on that song. There is a good spirit about it. That is the song I could hear Jack singing on.
Our bishop spoke near the end and said he was talking to a lady in our ward whose children are grown and moved away and her husband has passed away. He asked her what was the best time of life and she said it had to be when all her kids were little and home and around her. She said it was hard but the best time of life. I was so happy to hear that and I seem to be reminded in different ways over and over to not take this time for granted. To love every minute of it. Already anytime someone asks me how old Emily is, I stop for a minute because I can not believe she is 10. What happened to the last 10 years? If she follows in my foot steps, in 10 more years she will be married and having her first baby.
I sure love my kids. I love to be with them. I love to be their mom and hope I can be a good one for them.
Guess that's all my thoughts for now. Ciao!!