Being a 1 year old is awesome.

I don't remember it. But I love re-living it.

Today was a less busy day in which I enjoyed a lot of time just being friends with my daughter. We headed out in the morning to get our hair cuts. She was braver than I expected. We stopped by the slide on our way home and she went down the same slide over and over until I pointed out that there was another slide on the other side of the play area. A whole new world to her. She then enjoyed that slide over and over. Running the long way around the playground after every thrilling ride down that bumpy plastic slope. We listened to "Wheels on the Bus" the entire ride home while she danced with Dora and Boots in her carseat. Lunch time brought noodles & strawberries & yogurt smeared on her small, happy face and down her purple butterfly shirt. A change of clothes and off to sleep land. I snuggle her close and enjoy the precious moments I have to hold her in my arms. One day she will be too big to want to cuddle me so close. But today, it's her source of love and security and happiness. The only world she really knows. I stroke her thin, blonde hair and 

watch her eyelids close.

"Momma! Momma!" She's awake and wants to let me know. I'm excited to see her precious, smiling face and feel her arms around my neck. We laugh. We sing. We play Hide n' Seek with Woody and Buzz. She holds her hands over her cheeks while counting. "1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12!" Her face lights up as we run through the house searching for her little stuffed friends. They are real to her. And maybe even a little scary when they are hiding for her to find them. She waits for me before entering a dark room and squeezes my hand so tightly. 

We find them and repeat. Over and over and over.

We walk to get the mail and find box #3. "Duck!" she yells as I pull out a magazine with a rubber duck on the front cover. "Airplane!" she squeals as a plane flies by above. Everything is an adventure. Everything is exciting.

We drive cars and do puzzles, read books and march around the house. I talk on the phone, she follows me on hers. I sing a song, she sings right along. 

We are so happy to have each other.

If time could stand still, I would ask it to do so.

In the 30 years of my life I have heard the terms "Prepare" and "Food Storage" thousands of times. I have always taken it seriously. When we got married this was something my husband and I began to work on and have given much thought over the past 4 years. Then I had a baby and the need, the desire, to be prepared intensified. As the mother of my small family I have recently felt a great need to take the next steps in our emergency preparedness and food storage supply. I don't doubt that God is preparing us for times in the near or distant future. Only He knows what is ahead and only He can prepare us for the future. There are certain ways I feel very prepared for times of disaster or unemployment or accident or whatever it may be. In other ways, I feel completely unprepared. The list goes on and on of situations that could arise in which I would need to be prepared for... I can't focus on that. I can't worry and fear over what may come, because I simply can't control it. But, I can control the way I prepare. I can control the way I spend or save, the skills I learn and how to handle certain situations. I can't have a year's supply of food ready by tomorrow or next week or next month or next year. It's just too expensive and there is a lot of work to get to that point. But, I can add to it a week at a time, a month at a time...little by little. 

 As I have been researching my options, trying to figure out which direction to go, I have found so many possibilities. So many options, but which can I make work and which our best for my family? I don't doubt I will find the answers as I pray and sort through information and pray and get to work. BUT, I would love to hear from anyone on what knowledge or experience you have of food storage...whether it be what kinds of food you buy, how you store it, what ways you use foods (like wheat, oats, grains, etc) and what things you have found to help you along in your personal food storage and emergency supply. I have a lot of great resources, but I always love hearing people's opinions and advice on what has worked for them.

And if you are looking to work on your own food storage, I have several great resources I would be happy to pass along.

Here's a little video I recently watched and want to share:

Meet Jean

I recently experienced one of the most  

personal spiritual moments of my life.

I have felt the spirit all throughout my life. It has never really been a big bang type of an experience. I haven't seen a vision, I haven't heard a voice. But I have felt the strong, undeniable prickling of the spirit day after day, night after night and come to know for myself who I am, who God is and how much love He has for us all.

But this time it was a little different. 

It was stronger than I remember it ever being before.

In recent times I have faced some personal struggles that have pushed me and stretched me and given me much reason to analyze my life, who I am and the person I want to be. At times I have felt hurt, at times I have felt numb and other times I have felt perfectly fine. I have thought and thought and thought. I have prayed. I have fasted. I have studied and prayed some more. I have wondered which direction to go and if there were changes I needed to make. I honestly was not sure what direction to go. The only thing I was certain about was I wanted to follow God's will.

Sunday morning we had Stake Conference. It was a broadcast from Salt Lake in which we were privileged to hear from our leaders. All the talks were wonderful, but one particular speaker reached inside my soul. There have been so many times in life when I've heard someone speak and knew it was exactly what I needed to hear. But this was different. It was deeper. I didn't feel like it was just exactly what I needed to hear...but it was everything I needed to hear. Everything I needed to feel. I felt like I was the only person in the room and he was speaking directly to me. Every point he touched on was part of the direction I was so hoping to find. I couldn't get enough. As he kept talking I kept listening. I kept thinking and feeling. Every word he said seemed to burn within me deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger. I felt so alive, so warm, so full. I didn't just feel the answer or the direction I needed to go. I felt God. I felt His presence around me. I heard his voice telling me, 'You are okay. You don't need to change. You are wonderful just the way you are.' I don't know that I had ever felt Him speaking so personally to me, to what I was facing and what I was experiencing. As the speaker finished and the song began I couldn't sing a single word. Tears streamed down my face as my body was filled with an overwhelming sense of God's presence and peace. I followed along as the audience kept singing. We came to the words, 

"Fear not, I am with me; oh, be not dismayed, 

for I am thy God and will still give thee aid."

Once again the spirit burned within me. A powerful fire of peace and comfort, of understanding and love. I had always known God loved me, knew me and was always by my side. But at this moment, I knew with a deeper understanding than ever before that God truly knew everything inside my mind. Everything inside my heart. Everything big and everything small. The frustration, the confusion, the hurt. The desire to do right. The desire to be better. The hope and the faith in following His will. He knew it all. 

And I knew that He knew it. 

He knows me. He loves me. He completely understands me.

I felt it. I KNOW IT. I will never forget it.

There are so many people in this world that I love.

Thank you for being a part of me!

With Valentine's coming up I have had sweets on my mind! 

I love candy. I love snacks and treats. I am not good at baking stuff or making it look all cute. But there are a few simple snacks I can make that I 

REALLY, REALLY enjoy eating.

Just wanted to share.

Cream Cheese Cinnamon Dip

 

 It's as simple as that. 

Mix 1 cup of Cream Cheese Frosting with 1/2 tsp of Cinnamon.

Slice Apples.

Dip and Enjoy!

I use Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese and Fuji Apples.

For anyone who has ever had the Apple Pie Caramel Apples from The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, this tastes very similar to that. 

So yes, it's amazing!

I'm sure there are other things you can find to dip in it as well. I have tried Graham Crackers and Brownies...but Apples are my favorite!

Chocolate Pretzel Bites

(Thanks to my sister who introduced me to these. Not sure the real name of them, but figured this name made sense.)

Place Snaps Pretzels (the square kind) on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

Put Hugs or Kisses on pretzels.

Bake in oven for about 6 minutes at 170 degrees.

Hugs melt faster than kisses, so a little less time for them.

Remove from oven.

Quickly drop an M&M on top of the chocolate and gently push down.

Let set. (doesn't take long)

You can store these on the counter or in the fridge, depending on how hot your house is.

The kind I have pictured were for Christmas, but you can use them for just about any holiday or event by using different colored M&M's.

Sweet Potato Fries

(I LOVE Sweet Potatoes. If you don't, you may not like these!)
My favorite part is that my daughter likes them so it gets a vegetable in her.

Note: Larger, Rounder, Darker Sweet Potatoes have a higher amount of beta carotene. Plus, I think they normally taste better!

Slice Sweet Potatoes, with or without peel, into sticks or wedges.
(the peel contains a lot of of the fiber and vitamins)

Make sure they are similar in size.
Place them in a bowl.
Drizzle some Canola Oil or Light Vegetable Oil over slices.
Mix around in bowl.
Drizzle some of the Oil on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven while preheating to 450F.
Once pre-heated, take the pan out & spread the slices evenly across the pan.
Bake for about 20 minutes, depending on how thick you sliced them.
MAKE SURE TO STIR/ROTATE the fries once or twice while they bake.
Sprinkle with coarse salt and enjoy!
We normally dip them in honey... but I just ran across these dips that I think would be fun to try. Let me know if you try them and which ones you recommend!

Moving away from home, from my family, has taught me a lot of things. 

But one specific lesson has really impacted my life. 

I have heard others talk about God's power and His Peace in their lives. It always makes me happy to know that they are feeling the power of His Peace. I remember reading John 14:27 as a teenager... 

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

What stood out to me were these words: 

"MY" and "NOT AS THE WORLD GIVETH."

This told me that peace comes from God and no where else. This told me that He has something to offer that nothing and nobody in this world ever can. I believed it. I knew it. But each year of my life I am understanding it more fully.

Moving away from my family has really put this principle into practice. When hard times hit and people I love are hurting, I just want to run home. Well, fly home. I want to rush there and be by their side and make everything okay. But I can't. And because I can't, I turn to someone who can. (More fully than I did before.) I realize more than ever that God is the one that can offer peace. Not me. Not anything I have to offer. But Him. It is HIS peace that can calm their storms or give them the strength to get through it. It is HIS peace that can bless their lives and really make everything okay. The best I can do is pray that they will feel it and hope they feel it fast. So even though it hurts and I want so badly to help, I receive another little flame of testimony that God is over all. That He is the Father of us all. That He loves us all. And He is the one with Peace.

I have felt this peace over and over in my own life. One of my friends recently posted on her blog about this same type of peace. For her, it was a peace that came with pregnancy after experiencing a miscarriage with a pregnancy before. For me, it comes in not being able to get pregnant at times when I want to so badly. I have felt it when facing big decisions or challenges, physical pain or loss or fear. I have felt it most everyday of my life and know it is the greatest strength we will ever find.

 God's peace is nothing like anything in this world. Mortally, we can't find that kind of peace. God's is a peace that pushes through all pain and fear and confusion and understanding. It enriches our souls in a way this world can't. It is a peace that, regardless of what is going on around us or within us, gives us strength to just keep going.

It protects us. It strengthens us. It makes everything okay and even makes us happy in times we wouldn't think possible.

I'm grateful for a God who offers peace to ALL. 

I'm grateful He is there to help the ones I love.

Today I weeded my yard. Not the flower beds or walkways... the grass.
This is not normal for me. I grew up in Utah and winter was a time of snow blowing and shoveling, not weeding and mowing. And never have I needed to weed my grass until last fall when the grapevines appeared.

But if you could see my yard, you would know it needed to be weeded. It was bad enough that a man even stopped by (while I was out working) and gave me his card offering is yard services. He pointed to the weeds I was pulling and said, "I have a big mower. All these weeds....it KILL them!" I shook his hand and thanked him for his offer and went on my way. My daughter helped by walking around the weeds pulling up a strand at a time and saying, "Tree! Tree!" I just chuckled and said, "Yes. It looks like a tree."

After hours of pulling, sunburn and mosquito bites, I finally came to my last big weed. It was a few feet wide and a foot or two long. It was weaving in and out of the grass and I knew it would be the toughest pull yet. I searched for the biggest root, wrapped my fingers tight around it and started to pull. It wouldn't budge. For the next few minutes I tried different ways to tug and pull. It was no good. I got on both knees, gathered the bush into my chest, wrapped both hands around the base and pulled. Nothing. I started digging through the grass pulling out small chunks. After several small chunks were out of the way, I gathered the large base in my hands. If only my hands were double in size and my muscles were triple in strength.

I gave it my best shot and out came a clump of roots. I did this 3 more times and eventually all 4 clumps of roots were out. I had done it. I stood overlooking my yard and the giant pile of weeds. No passerby would even notice. No visiting friends or even my husband would probably think my yard looked good. Because it doesn't. The grass is dead just like it should be in the middle of winter. But it looked good to me. More importantly, it felt good. 

So is life. We all have weeds. Challenges, heartache, weakness, sin. All these things that create a garden of weeds that need to be pulled. Some are easy to see, some are too small to notice. And when we pull them out, nobody but us may notice the difference. Nobody else knows how hard we had to pull. And nobody, but us, reaps the rewards of the pulling that we had to do.

We see the difference. We become stronger. We feel more beautiful. 

It doesn't matter if anyone notices, because we feel good.

This week we visited Hermann Park. 

3 Times. 

Each time was a very wonderful and different experience. (If you live in the area, definitely give it a visit!) The first time we went was just after the sun went down. It turned dark quickly and was quiet and empty. There were runners here and there, but mostly just wind, some bats and a big open sky. We wandered around the reflection pool and monuments and fed a couple ducks. I was excited to come back and further explore the area.

The next time we went it was late afternoon on Saturday. There were hundreds of people. Families having bar-b-ques, couples enjoying picnics, guys playing football, boys playing soccer, girls working a jump rope and a man at the snack stand selling goodies and snow cones. There was even a small group of teenagers playing drums and instruments giving us all a beat to bounce to. We enjoyed wandering through the crowd, along the water, feeding the ducks and watching airplanes fly above. It was warm, alive, full of excitement and entertainment. 

Today we went again. It was fresh and early and not many people were around. The clouds gave a perfect covering as we wandered through the trees and grass. We played on the swings while watching squirrels play tag and capture the acorn. We sat by the lake and gathered the birds by throwing out cereal and crackers. Ducks quacked around us and pigeons soon joined the excitement. Within minutes we were surrounded by our feathered friends. We fed them. They entertained us. We all got along. Every few minutes the air would fill with chaotic squeals and chirps and the birds would take off flying circles around us. After two complete rounds they would return. Pecking the ground for edible treasures. It was beautiful and quiet, like a bubble of peace.

I couldn't stop thinking about this thing we call TIME. I had been in the same place and had 3 different experiences. Because of TIME each experience was different. TIME brought the separation of crowds and emptiness, dark and light, chaos and peace. The same exact place became a whole different world because TIME had passed and things had changed.

It reminded me of being a teenager and visiting the Sacred Grove. There I stood in the midst of giant trees and sunlight beaming through the leaves. It held a beautiful and sacred feeling. My experience was that of thoughts and remembering and honoring what had taken place. Yet, this same exact place, maybe even the same exact spot I was standing, was where the sacred beginnings of the restoration had taken place. Joseph Smith had been right there. He had seen a vision and his life had changed forever. Our world had changed forever. What if I had been standing there that spring morning in 1820? 

It was only TIME that separated me from that moment.

I have felt this separation of TIME on many occasions, especially when life changing experiences take place. I remember touring the hospital where my baby would be born. A hospital. A place I don't like to be. Bare walls filled with nurses, doctors, sicknesses and pain. In TIME, those same walls became barriers between the outside world and the sacred spot where my daughter began her new life. My own sacred grove I now cherished and loved. TIME had turned that hospital into my sacred ground where life had changed forever.

TIME. 

It's such an interesting thing. It moves slow, it moves fast...but it never ever stops. It separates me from the past and the future. 

It holds everything I have right here and right now. 

I often wonder what TIME will bring. But only TIME will tell.

Hermann Park Reflection Pool