Blessing Day

Savannah was given a beautiful blessing by her Daddy last Sunday.

{I have to give a special shout-out to two very wonderful women here that helped make her blessing a success! Chris Burtoft made that dress especially for Savannah. It was breathtaking. People kept asking "Where did you buy her dress?" ;o) It fit her personality so perfectly. We couldn't have been more happy! And Cleo Miller (Mema) made that beautiful bonnet you see Savannah wearing. It was simply gorgeous! She made a handkerchief and then turned it into that bonnet. When Savannah gets ready to go through the temple, she can snip the stitches and it turns back into a beautiful hankie she can take with her!}

It was such a special day. We feel so blessed to have this wonderful daughter of God here in our family. She is perfect!

We had planned on the weekend before. All of Joe-Z's brothers and their families came to town for the special event. Unfortunately, Joe-Z (and John Morgan) woke up with (what we can only imagine was) the flu on Saturday. Joe-Z was still in bed come Sunday morning. Bless his heart. So, we opted to wait for the next Sunday and asked a few of our good friends to help with the blessing. It was hard. We have so many good friends here. Our list was way too long, so we decided to go with the people we've known the longest. We had a great bunch!

A special thank you to: Brad Wonsch, Bill Miller (Papa), Danny Roberts, Andrew Harris, Seth Brock, and Drew Blimes (not pictured).

A prayer from the heart

On September 1st Levi offered his first prayer (unassisted by me or Joe-Z). It was one of the sweetest moments either of us have experienced since we became parents almost 3 years ago. He's said the goodnight prayer every night since. Tonight, he took it to a whole new level.

His prayer went like this:

"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank the for our door. Thank thee for family. Thank thee for this day. Thank thee for our cribs. Thank thee for food. Thank thee for John Morgan and Levi and Daddy and Savannah and Mommy. And for Dora and for Boots and for Blue and for Sprinkles. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

I haven't smiled so big in a long time. It was just so sweet and sincere...Dora and Boots and Blue and Sprinkles? Gotta love it!

Update: On Thursday night, I asked Levi to offer the blessing on the food for dinner. He said the longest prayer I've ever heard, lol. He thanked Heavenly Father for EVERYTHING! He also thanked him for 1, and for 2, and for 3, and for 4, all the way up to 20. As much as he loves numbers, I have no doubt that he really was thankful for all those numbers! SOOOOOO cute!

Simply Said Sunday

This quote really stood out to me at church today. Someone referenced this quote in Testimony Meeting this afternoon.

Speaking of the Ten Commandments, Stephen Covey said,

"It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law." (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

When I think about this, all I can picture is a wave crashing into the rocks. The wave will never knock the rock over and be able to continue on through the ocean on it's chosen path...the rock will stand firm and the wave will be the one to break. Every time.

Just the same, we cannot break the commandments. We'll only break ourselves against them.

This was just such a neat concept to me.

What we did this weekend

And it was beautiful!

This picture didn't capture the "excited face" I was hoping for, lol. They love to walk around and see the flowers and the fountains, and point to the angel on the top. And of course, Levi and John Morgan love to touch the temple walls!

At the beginning of the year, we decided to set a goal of attending the temple once a month this year (although I think my last trip will be late August or extremely early September). So far, we're achieving our goal!

We're loving how Levi loves the temple and gets so excited to be there! Our prayer is that by going each month, he (and the rest of the kids to follow) will see the sacrifices we make and the joy it brings, and that their love and appreciation and testimony of the importance of the temple and the work we do there will grow and grow.

Simply Said Sunday

Helllloooooo Simply Said Sunday!

I was inspired by so many wonderful things I heard at church today. I thought about how much I wish you all could've been there and heard them too, because surely they would have spoken to your heart as well.

So, I've decided to dedicate a post each Sunday to things that I heard that were simply said, and yet were so far from being simple.

Next week I plan to take a little notebook, to write these wonderful little gems in. Today's "simply said" comes from a Sacrament talk given by one of our good friends.

This quote is actually not just a quote, it's more of a story, taken from an Ensign article from December 1971 by President A. Theodore Tuttle of the First Council of the Seventy entitled The Things That Matter Most.

"Some years ago, I read an editorial in the Deseret News entitled “The Mechanical Rabbit.” I quote:

“Most of our readers must have smiled the other day when they read of the greyhounds in Britain who don’t know a rabbit when they see one. So long had they chased a mechanical rabbit around the racetrack, that when a real rabbit bounded across the track, the dogs didn’t give it a second look.

“Stupid, eh? But sad too, this perverting of the natural instincts.…

“We chase mechanical rabbits, too.

“We chase paychecks, and don’t give a second look to the glint of the rising sun on a snow-topped peak.

“We chase our way through the appointments of a crowded desk calendar, and fail to take time to chat with the next-door neighbor or to drop in on a sick friend.

“We chase social pleasures on a glittering noisy treadmill—and ignore the privilege of a quiet hour telling bedtime stories to an innocent-eyed child.

“We chase prestige and wealth, and don’t recognize the real opportunities for joy that cross our paths...”

...

“Race on, you poor, blind over-civilized hounds. You’ll never catch your rabbit until you learn to recognize a genuine one."

This points up our challenge: See “that the things that matter most … are not at the mercy of things that matter least.”

Here's to hoping we can recognize our mechanical rabbits and shift our focus to seek the real, important rabbits instead. Have a great week!

Reflections of Christ

Have you seen this yet?

I had the opportunity to go to {some of} Time Out for Women this weekend, and Mark Marby was one of the presenters. He. was. awesome! Very inspirational. His story was amazing, and this video speaks volumes. Hope you enjoy.

"I want to be a missionary now"...

One of our goals for this year is to have the missionaries over for dinner once a month. So far, we're one for one, lol.

After they left tonight, it was just silent for a few moments, then Levi said "Oh no! Rishiowaries! Come back!" And John Morgan hurriedly crawled over to the front door and started pounding on it, as if for them to come back.

It's sweet to see that these boys love the missionaries so much. And I'm so glad for the immediate blessing we received as we set forth to meet our goal to have the missionaries in our home more often. Our boys already look up to them, and hopefully that will grow as they do, and by the examples of the wonderful young men, our boys will have the desire and the steadfastness to let nothing dissuade them from serving the Lord when it's their time. These young men, although they change frequently, represent faithfulness, and righteousness, endurance, and obedience.

I'm so grateful for missionaries. For the work they do and the influence they have had on my life. My family is my family, and will be forever because of two young men like them, and they will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Thanks to all of you, men or women, that have served missions or supported those that have gone on missions. The world is surely a better place!

This was little Johnny M after they'd left ;o)

A moment to remember

We made the switch to 11 o'clock church today, with Sacrament last. This pretty much sums it up:

We asked him to fold his arms to say the closing prayer, and he never woke up.

;o)

Can less be more?

The Miller family had a "Family Temple Weekend" this past weekend. We rented a huge house in Winter Garden and Bill and Cleo and each of the boys and their spouses and children stayed the weekend together. It was a blast.

It was the first time that Joe-Z and I had been back to the temple since John Morgan was born. 7 months is a long time. You don't really realize it when you're caught up in the day-to-day thing we call "life", or at least I didn't, until I was taken out of that day-to-day and had a chance to breathe while I was in the temple.

It's so peaceful there. So quiet. I love that. It's so quiet that you can't help but hear the whispers of the Spirit. I decided that I want to try to make my home more quiet. When I was thinking about how I can do that, I thought of this talk, given by Julie B. Beck in the October 2007 General Conference, entitled "Mothers Who Know." This is the part that I really love:

"Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world's goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord's kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power."

Now, I realize that not all of us are mothers yet, and for the guys, never will be. But the great thing about this concept is that it can work for anyone. If you're a dad, you can still do these things, and have a better home for it. If you're single, you can do these things for yourself right now, and make your own personal kingdom better and more righteous, and in the process will be laying an even better foundation for your future family.

I have hope that this will help strengthen not only my family, but me personally as well. I, for one, am excited about having less at home!



(After reading this, it's totally not what I thought I was going to be blogging about when I started...at all actually. But, since it's what came out, I'll go with it. I'll let you in on my other blogworthy experience later.)

;o)

"Hands of Heaven on Earth"

We've been going through some random bins in our garage lately, and tonight I found this poem. Although I can't remember when or where it came from, I really liked it and thought I'd share:

I knelt to pray when day was done

And prayed, "Oh Lord, bless everyone;

Lift from each saddened heart the pain

And let the sick be well again."

And then I woke another day

And carelessly went on my way;

The whole day long, I did not try

To wipe a tear from any eye.

I did not try to share the load

Of any brother on the road;

I did not even go to see

The sick man next door to me.

Yet once again when day was done

I prayed, "Oh Lord, bless everyone."

But as I prayed, into my ear

There came a voice that whispered clear:

"Pause now, my son, before you pray;

Whom have you tried to bless today?

God's sweetest blessings always go

By Hands that serve Him here below."

And then I hid my face and cried

"Forgive me, God, I have not tried.

Let me but live another day.

And I will live the way I pray."

A good read:

I've discovered a fun new blog and found this link while perusing her posts. Click here for a quick, but really great post!

Updates!

Well, life has been fun! We've had lots of action in the last month. The story, post-birth to present, in a nut-shell:

John Morgan eats all the time...literally! He cries whenever he's taken away from the food source. If he sleeps an hour at a time, we consider ourselves lucky. I take him to the pediatrician 4 times in 3 weeks. He tells me I'm just a new mom and that all babies cry...thanks Doc. Thursday morning last week I change a poopy diaper, only to discover that there's blood in the diaper! My heart sinks and the pessimist in me starts thinking the worst. I call my ped's office first thing and we have an appointment for that afternoon. By noon he's made 3 more bloody diapers. I call the triage nurse at Children's Hospital, who tells me to bring him to the ER right away.

~At this point, can I just say how grateful I am that we live in the place we do, where we have access to a specialty children's hospital, and it's only an hour away~

We take him to the ER where he's seen by two different doctors, who decide to admit him overnight and they start the ball rolling on all the tests. We're given a list as long as your arm of the things that could be wrong and all of the surgeries that could be needed to fix them. Just what I'm wanting to hear...not.

~Here, another thing I'm so grateful for: Priesthood Blessings! Through a friend of a friend (thanks JoDell) we were able to have a wonderful man by the name of Matt come and help Joe-Z give John Morgan a blessing. It brought a wonderful Spirit to the room and a much needed peace to my heart and mind.~

When all is said and done, we've been seen by the ER docs, the General Pediatrician Team and had been handed over to the Gastrointestinal Team. The GI specialist hands him a diagnosis of guess what folks...a cow's milk protein allergy. Yep, that's right. The same thing that Levi had that wreaked havoc on us a year and a half ago, the same thing that I asked not once, but twice if my pediatrician thought could be the problem and was reassured that "sometimes babies just cry".

So, basically, his body was rejecting the protein and released acid to fight it off. This was burning his intestinal tract which was causing all the discomfort which made him want to eat all the time to comfort his little tummy, which only made it worse. This, in turn, caused all the crying for baby, which caused the crying for mommy and daddy, lol. The treatment...Nutramigen, a special formula where the proteins are broken down into a different shape so that he'll be able to accept them.

How much better could it have turned out? We were so incredibly blessed. He's a happy baby now. He eats 5 ounces of formula and then wants to hang out for about an hour, crying free! Then he'll sleep for about an hour and repeat the process (all though at night, sometimes he'll skip the staying awake part and let us get 2 hours of sleep at a time!!). He's still only sleeping in the swing or car seat, but we're happy for there to be sleeping at all!

One other great thing that came out of all this: we found out that there is "about a 100 percent chance that your future children will have this allergy, so start them on the formula from the beginning, and you'll save yourselves all this trouble." Thanks Dr. Aurora...we love you.

Now, onto bigger and better things. John Morgan was blessed this past Sunday, and it was BEAUTIFUL. I am so grateful for the priesthood and that my wonderful husband lives worthy to use it. What a special gift, a blessing right from his Father in Heaven to him, through the hands of his father here on earth. With Levi, the underlying theme was definitely love...that he would be able to love those around him and be an example through that love. For John Morgan, almost every blessing focused on how faithful he would be and how he would treasure the gospel. We figure with a foundation like that, everything else should fall right into place!

A special note of thanks to those who participated in the blessing: the Bishopric, our Home Teachers and our good friend John!

One other really great thing that has happened lately is just watching Levi love his brother. He has been so wonderful about having another member of the family here. The first thing he does in the morning and last thing he does at night is kiss his brother. Any time John Morgan cries, Levi is by his side and usually loudly alerting me ("Dadadaaaaaaaaaaa") that my attention is needed, lol. He loves to "share" his toys with him, and always wants to lay with him under his play mat or on his blanket. It is such a privilege to be the mother of such wonderful boys.

Now just more pictures of cute John Morgan (who still looks just like Levi)...who turned 1 month old yesterday.

Gratitude Brings Heightened Awareness

I read this LDS Gems thought for the day and thought it was so wonderful that I'd share it with everyone!

"Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our hearts with their messages of God's love. This grateful awareness heightens our sensitivity to divine direction. When we communicate gratitude, we can be filled with the Spirit and connected to those around us and the Lord. Gratitude inspires happiness and carries divine influence."

(Bonnie D. Parkin, "Gratitude: A Path to Happiness," Ensign, May 2007, 35)

Easter Fun

We had a great Easter! We spent the evening at Grandma's house with the family and Levi had a blast finding the eggs they hid for him! We didn't think he'd catch on, but he was running around looking everywhere and would scream with glee every time he found a new one! So cute!


Then we had our own Easter last night for FHE. It was a fun time. Levi doesn't really get the whole Easter Basket thing, but he likes playing with the gifts he got :o)




After Levi was asleep Joe-Z and I had our own FHE where we did the Resurrection Eggs activity. We each hid eggs for the other to find and then did the lesson that went along...it was really fun! And we sang all the Easter hymns since it only comes once a year :o)










Hope you all had a good one too!