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)

Family togetherness...

I mean the big, ever-growing Miller Family togetherness!

The first weekend in September, we had the opportunity to go to Jacksonville for Mike and Keturah's son Zerin's baby blessing. It was such a wonderful reason for gathering together, and we had such a nice time being with everyone in the same place again!

The boys got to play a little Rock Band {which Joe-Z thoroughly enjoyed} and Levi adored the swing set John and Sarah had in the backyard!

We love you Miller Family, and we're so happy we're all so close again!

Our Vacation to Florida

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We enjoyed all of the Thanksgivings we got to spend with our families!

Thanks to everyone who let us stay in their homes...the next time you come take a family vacation to Minnesota you're more than welcome in ours! :o)

We couldn't have asked for a better vacation...we got to see all of our families and lots of our friends and we had a GREAT time! As silly as it sounds, it was so wonderful to be able to sleep in! It was so relaxing to not have any obligations for two weeks! And of course, we made stops at all of our favorite local restaurants...yum!

We especially loved meeting our new nephew Aidan - so cute! And Chris taught us how to make bread and sew on a button (yes, I'm 23 and just learned how to sew on a button)!

Levi had a ton of fun playing with his cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. And of course, we all really enjoyed the warm weather!

Pics from down south:

Pics with Mema and Papa:

Pics from our game night:

Pics from Jacksonville: