Personal Progress

So I am the personal progress leader in my ward Young Womens and I am trying to help inspire them to actually do the personal progress goals by doing the goals myself as well.
So the reason I am blogging about this is because, my blog is my journal and after almost every value experience you complete, you're supposed to record things about it in your journal. So feel free to read, or skip any post titled Personal Progress.
Divine Nature Value Experience #1
I read "The Family:A Proclamation to the world", 2 Peter 1, Alma 7:23-24, and D&C 121:45. While reading these scriptures and inspired documents, I was pondering the question, what are some divine qualities of a daughter of God? Here are just a few ideas that came to me during my study.
First off, one of our most divine qualities as daughters of God is that we are created in His image. We were created to look just like God. Can't get much more divine than that. Next, I read that we are each beloved of our Heavenly Parents. Just the very thought of this encourages me to develop my divine qualities. And by being a daughter of God, I have been given characteristics that will help me develop my divine qualities.
When I read the scriptures in this value experience I learned a lot of divine qualities. Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, charity, humility and submissive to name a few. It seems very overwhelming to try and develop all these divine qualities. But then I remember that God has created me in his image and He blessed me with divine qualities. Heavenly father also gave us the scriptures with detailed instructions on how to develop divine qualities. In Alma 23 it tells us to be humble and submissive and easily entreated, keeping the commandments at all times and that is how we will develop these qualities. Also in D&C 121:45 it tells us to let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly and that is another way we can be able to develop divine qualities.
So I am going to try to be more charitable and I am going to do this by trying to be full of long suffering and patience like it says to do in Alma. I know my Father in Heaven loves me an I am grateful for all that He has blessed me with.

Will Monsters 2nd Birthday

Our favorite little Will turned 2 on October 10th.  Oh, what can't you say about Will?  We are all quite smitten by the little cutie.  He loves to read books, play cars and trains, play in the dirt, play ring around the rosies, duck, duck, goose, and hide and seek.  He loves to laugh and play with his sisters.  He is great at giving hugs and kisses.  He has so many cute phrases in his arsenal of phrases.  Here are some of my favorite: "Come on" "That's funny" Mmmm, delicious."  "Scuse me" "it's dark in here" "what ya doin?" "Finished" "You okay?" "Found you!" "in my room...hurry!" He also has the cutest little growl that he says with some of these phrases.  He is so very manly.  We sure love our little Will monster and we couldn't imagine our lives without him.

We had so much fun on Will's birthday.  It was a perfect day.  We had a little get together at a park with some friends.  Two days before the temperature was at 104, so I was worried we would be roasting at the park. Then the day before Will's birthday, it was 50 degrees and raining, so I was worried we might have to move the location.  But on the day, it was a beautiful 78 degrees with a cool after rain feeling, it was perfect!
The kids were playing out back before we left for the park so I tried to snap a picture of all three before we left, but Will was not having it.

 Neither was Lily, apparently!  Haha!

At the park, we decorated monster cupcakes and had heaps of friends come join us. It was great fun.  :)

 Annabelle with her cute monster cupcake.

 Lily with her monster cupcake.  She is trying to show off it's long rainbow tongue and it distracted by something.  Man, she was not very photogenic on this day!

 Isaac, Will's self appointed best friend, decorating his cupcake.

 Bella with her cupcake.

 We were at the park for about 2 hours and I think Will was on this thing for an hour and 45 minutes of the time.  The only time he would get off was when I would go over and physically remove him.  He would play on something else for a minute and then the next time I would be looking around the playground for Will, he would be right back on the horse.  Lucky for him, there were always big kids around willing to push him around and around.

 Little Natalie.

 Party on the boat. :)

 One of the times I managed to get Will to play on something else other than the merry-go-round.

 After Will's fun filled party at the park, we really went all out and went to McDonald's for lunch!  This really is a huge splurge and rare occurrence since moving to Australia.  We never go there, and if we do it is just for 30 cent ice cream cones.  This time each of the kids got their own happy meal!  That literally never happens.  But it was Will's day, so we went to Macca's.

 I was trying to capture Will's excitement waiting in line to order, he was literally jumping up and down, saying, Yay!

 After all that excitement, Will was completely tired out.  He took a good nap, ready for round two of birthday fun.  :)

That evening after the nap, it was present and cake time.

 
Will had a huge stack for presents, thanks to the grandparents and the delivery boy, Bradyn.

 Unfortunately, Will had zero interest in opening any of them.  So the girls enjoyed doing it for him, while he played with whatever was opened next.

Once the train set was open it was all down hill from there.  Couldn't get him to do anything but play with his trains, and if you dared to touch one of his trains, oh boy, you suffered the wrath of Will.  He was a bit possessive at first, but he has since mellowed out and anyone can drive his trains now.  Phew!

 Watch out, Lily, you're going to get told off by Will!  He was seriously so crazy, it was hilarious!

 One of the cool planes Grandma Rappleye sent.  Too bad you can't hear his sound effects!  To die for!

 Grandma Kris sent this really cute monster towel that she made.  It's adorable and Will loves it!  But on his birthday he wouldn't come near it.  But the girls had fun modeling it.

Lily Monster.

 Ava Monster.

 Myserty monster???

 Then finally it was time for cake and ice cream.

 Little Will monster with his monster cake.

 Happy birthday dear Will, we love you more than you will ever know!

 We finished the day off with a "sleepover" The kids all wanted to sleep on the pull out couch during school holidays, so I thought what better day than on Will's birthday?  Here they are all settled in.

 Will didn't actually sleep there, but the girls did.  What a great birthday for a great kid!

October School Holidays

I don't know how anyone does a traditional school schedule with little kids.  Me and my kids are always ready for a break from school whenever the school holidays roll around.  By that last week of school, we are all burned out and I am so grateful for the break and time to be with my kids.  These school holidays were pretty laid back.  We didn't plan much or do much, which was fabulous.  I think kids need times like that in their lives when they aren't required to do much of anything but play and have a good time.

On the last day of school before the holidays it was NAIDOC day.  Which I really have no idea what that acronym stands for but it was something about promoting unity??  I think.  Anyways, it was a family picnic day at the school and they had a teachers vs. students Footy game.  Footy is a really big sport here.  I don't really understand it.  I think it is a mix between rugby and football?  I don't know.  I tried to get into the spirit and watch the grand final game since our home team (more or less, located 7 hours away from us) was in the game.  We lost and I still didn't get it.  Anyways, on to the family picnic.

Here is Teela, Lily, and Ava in front of the banner Lily's class made for the day.

 Here's Lily cheering for her favorite teachers in the Footy game.

 Um, there's the Footy game, but can you even tell there are people on that field?

After that school holidays began!  Here's some of the random stuff I took pictures of.

Will was walking around the house in Lily's flippers one day.  It was adorable!  :)  He didn't get far.

 Here's Will yelling, "quack quack quack" at the ducks at the park.  He really wanted to climb over that small wall and join them.

 The girls kept begging to make a rainbow cake, so we did.  It turned out hideous.  But the girls thought it was pretty amazing.  They told me to post it on Pinterest.  Needless to say, I didn't.  Look at Lily's face, what a goof!

 Will decided to frost his grilled cheese sandwich with the remaining blue frosting.  He didn't end up eating it.  It's a shame, they were delicious sandwiches.

 Here is the girls professional picture for Pinterest. Haha.

 The weather over the holidays was super sporadic.  It would be extremely hot one day, meaning over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, then really cold the next, meaning 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  Bizarre, right?  Naturally, the girls wanted to swim on the hot days, but our pool wasn't quite done being de-winterized.  So I would let them get in, but not put their faces in until we knew the pool was chemically safe.  Lily came into my room dressed like this on a not so warm day.  She would seriously swim in any temperature.  She loves it!

 Here are the girls putting their feet in while I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed the pool.  It had a lot of leaves in it.

 Here is the day they had been waiting for, when I okayed the pool for swimming in.  It was still quite dirty as you can see, but the chemical counts were good.  So they were ready, and it was hot!

 We ate sooooo many popsicles over the school holiday.  48 to be exact!

 Another hot swim day.

 So excited she was finally permitted to put her head under.

That is about all we did over school holidays, like I said, not much of anything.  But it was a lot of fun.  We also celebrated Will's birthday over the holidays, but that gets it's own post next.  :)