The Proof

Remember how I said I always have an {INSANELY} large load of laundry either waiting to be folded or waiting to be done? Well, here is the proof of laundry that is {clean} and is in the process of being folded. This photo is missing {four} loads - - 1. in the washer, 2. in the dryer, 3. two loads on the bed.

Then there was a few more loads still waiting to be washed. This is why I hate laundry. It never stops... and if you take a day off, it gets overwhelming.

Dun... Dun... Duhhhhhnnnnnnnnnn

General Conference = Gratitude

I was just looking up the talk I'm doing my lesson on in church next month on Lds.org. While I was browsing, I found that they had the code to put up banners on your page for the upcoming General Conference. I thought it was way cool. I never knew they had that. So, I thought I would put it up on my page. Pretty "stylin" eh?

No, but in all seriousness. I am SOOOOOOOOOO looking forward to conference! We don't get to watch General Conference here "Live" like when we were in Utah. It doesn't come on a local channel where we get to sit at home in our pajamas and watch it all weekend. We actually have to get dressed for church and head over to one of the nearest buildings it is being broadcast in and watch all 8 hours of it (10 hours if you are a priesthood holder going to the priesthood session). I think it was like that when we lived in California too, but I'm not sure if it's still like that now. However, because of the time zone difference here in Australia, we don't have conference weekend until a week after it actually broadcasts. Jeremy and I cheat though... since there is no way we are dragging our kids, dressed up to church for 8 hours over the weekend, we just download it and watch it at home anyway. The last conference we had in April was PHENOMENAL! I'm not sure if it's because we desperately needed to hear everything that was said in the last conference or if it's because we actually only watched 1-2 talks a night after the kids were in bed and got to really listen and take it all in. We probably listened to April's conference about 4-5 times total! Plus, I am the "Teaching of our Times" teacher in Relief Society and teach on one of the recent conference talks once a month. So, I listen to those particular talks over and over until something strikes me for a certain direction to teach my lesson on. Jeremy probably listened to it more than I did because he listened to talks on his way to and from work. I loved and really appreciated how much he would really apply things in the talk to our life. It truly has made such a difference when we are "actively pondering and applying" those teachings.

It's funny how when you are young how much you dread conference weekend because you don't want to sit there and watch it (or sleep through it) ...but now, I can't wait to hear what everyone has to say. Does that mean I'm a grown up now? ha ha

This move to Australia has really boosted my spiritual level up a notch. And much of that has to do with the wonderful, amazing people that we have met along the way. It has inspired me to want to be better. I want to go back to Utah and give back what others have given to me. I hope that I can maintain the strength that others have passed along to me and that I don't fall back into my previous mentality. Maybe writing it here will help me to remember that!

The last lesson I taught in Relief Society was on Elder Russel M. Nelson's talk, "Thanks Be To God". I read and re-read this talk and felt it was so 'simple'. The message was "Gratitude":

“How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to Him.”

We all know that we need to remember to be "grateful" for our physical, spiritual and gospel gifts. It is one of the basic primary answers we can all respond to with out much thought provocation. I wanted people to get thinking about it. So I shared some studied statistics relating to gratitude.

Gratitude has been said to have one of the strongest links with mental health of any character trait. Numerous studies suggest that grateful people are more likely to have:

1.       Higher levels of happiness
2.       Lower levels of stress and depression

I read that psychologists and therapists are starting to focus their efforts on how "grateful" a person is instead of focusing on the negative circumstances in a persons life. They are giving their clients "gratitude" exercises to increase mental and physical health in a short amount of time. The list below shows all of the benefits you get from a true "attitude of gratitude" in your heart.

Who wants this?

·         To have higher levels of subjective well-being?

·         To be happier - To be less depressed

·         To be more satisfied with their lives

·         To be more satisfied with their social relationships

·         To have higher levels of control of their environments, personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance

·         To have more positive ways of coping with the difficulties they experience in life

·         To be more likely to seek support from other people when needed

·         To be more likely to reinterpret and grow from experience

·         To spend more time planning how to deal with a problem, than to react rashly

·         To have less negative coping strategies

·         To be less likely to try and avoid a problem or less likely to deny there is a problem

·         To be less likely to blame yourself

·         To be less likely to cope through substance use

·         To sleep better (which would be because you think less negative and more positive thoughts just before going to sleep)

·         To be physically healthier

·         To be more giving

As I searched through other conference talks, I found numerous general conference talks that also support the "gratitude exercises" therapists are currently using.

If you want to increase these areas in your own life all you have to do are these two things:

1. "Gratitude Visit" – Write and deliver a letter of gratitude to someone in your life.
2. Make a “Gratitude Journal” - Write down three things you are grateful for every day.

This is SO SIMPLE and you get SO MUCH RETURN! You can relate it to so many things in the gospel... the principles are basic and simple, yet you get so much in return in the short and long run.

We can lift ourselves and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues. 

       –Thomas S Monson (An Attitude of Gratitude: April Gen.Conf. 1992)

Well, instead of reading my next lesson, I guess I've added to my own 'gratitude journal' tonight. :)

Canberra Floriade

Check my photo blog for our adventure to Floriade. I actually thought I was uploading the photos to this blog and after waiting for them to load forever on the other blog, I didn't want to wait to re-upload.  :(  I don't know if all of them are 'worthy' of being on the "Photo Blog", so I will eventually switch them over to this blog, but for now ...please re-direct.

Floriade is similar to our Tulip Festival but with a mixture of the State Fair. It was so much fun and so beautiful!

Spring Cleaning in September

Spring is HERE! Spring is HERE! I love how the blossoms are blooming and the flowers smell amazing! It's warming up and we get to be outside so much more.

This isn't the best picture, but I thought it was cute how you can see the boys playing in the background.

New Hobby

So I've kind of slowed down on my blog posting because I have a new hobby.

Check it out at www.getboxxd.blogspot.com.

Toilet Attack

So I just saw this on YouTube and saw that this was in Australia. It looks like a Huntsman spider (you can see 2 or 3 of them if you pause it) which you find commonly in Australia. Not poisonous, but BIG, no HUGE and VERY FAST! I'm getting more and more freaked out about it getting warmer now. 

Check under toilet seat.. 

Double Check!

Got it Kiley?

Tate's New Addiction

We can no longer leave our IPad's in Tate's sight. He wakes up in the morning asking for an IPad. He goes to sleep asking for an IPad. And what is he doing on the IPad that is so interesting?

He wants to sit and watch YouTube videos of other little kids playing with their Thomas the Train, Chuggington and Lightening McQueen's all day long. lol

Our Little Tourist Attractions

Since it has FINALLY started getting a bit warmer, we have been going to the Cockington Green Gardens quite a bit with our annual pass. It is so nice to do things outside again. I was starting to get really burned out on coming up with indoor activities. It is sooooooo nice to finally have spring here. I feel like we've been living in winter since we started winter in Utah last year (so for almost an entire year). I've just about had all I can take of cold winter weather!

Cockington Green Gardens is a very large tourist attraction. The last couple of weeks there have been a lot of tourist buses and school children there for field trips. Most of the tourists I've seen have been Asian. If you search my blog for "My Heart is Full of Honey", you will remember the blog post about Steffan and how much the Chinese gals in our last ward just LOVED him! Well, it turns out that every Asian person loves my kids. Especially Teagan and Steffan because of their white skin, red hair and blue and green eyes. Lately every time we've gone there's some Asian that stops my kids and picks them up with no warning and starts snapping pictures with them. It makes me laugh every time. Teagan gets really freaked out by it and usually runs and hides behind my leg. Steffan always looks confused at what is going on and Tate (our little ball of sunshine) always smiles and yells, "Cheese!" (he will NEVER do that for me, but somehow gets excited to stand in strange people's pictures). I was telling Jeremy that the next time I go, I'm going to take pictures of them taking pictures of us.

This last time we went, we didn't even make it out of our car before we had 4-5 of them swarming us as we grabbed the kids out of the car. They didn't hesitate to grab the kids right out of our arms and start snapping memoirs of their trip. They don't usually speak much English. One of them came up to me and said 'something' and held up three fingers, which I assume he was saying, "So, you have three boys, huh?" I just nodded and said, "Yep, three boys." He stared at me as if he had no clue what I said either and kept taking pictures. Every once in awhile they want to take a picture of someone in their group standing next to me and the three boys. It always makes my day. I keep trying to tell Teagan that he is famous and people think he is so cute they want pictures, but he doesn't buy it. I tried to warn him this last time that people were going to take his picture, but it didn't make him any more compliant when it actually happened.

The top right picture looks like Tate is saying, "HaHa.. Steffan got suckered in! Can you believe it?!"

 Doesn't this just make your day?

Missed my point...

Today I found Teagan trying to drag the baby crib mattress into his bedroom and put it on his bed so that he could jump on it. I explained it wasn't a good idea to jump (since he has a bunk bed). Tate started jumping anyway and hit his head, which I followed up with, "See, that is why you're not supposed to jump on there." Teagan said, "Can we jump on the side that is sticking out from under the bunk top (he used different words, but that is the point he was making)? I told him no and when he asked why, I said, "because it's not stable and you might fall off and hit your head on all your toys or on the toy box corner... so, if you want to do that and learn the hard way, then go ahead." Teagan smiled and said, "TATE! Do you want to learn the hard way? Let's do it!"

Ah yes... brilliant idea!

Years of Child Therapy in 3...2...1...

  

This photo has brought so much discussion for me (Thanks Dad!) ha ha. So, I thought I would post it and tell you why.

I saw this on Pinterest a few weeks ago and it reminded me of my childhood visits with my good ol' dad. :) My dad would always show me movies like Chuckie, Night of the Living Dead, Poltergeist, Kujo (Stephen King) and House 1 & 2. He would read me scary stories in old books in the dark with blankets over our heads while we held flashlights (or torches as they call them here in AUS). All of this at the ripe age of five years old. 

I used to get so scared and wouldn't want to go to bed so my dad would have to put a VHS in of My Little Ponies or Rainbow Bright so that I could fall asleep. I couldn't kneel next to my bed at nights to say prayers because of that *bleeping* clown under the bed in Poltergeist. In fact, I JUST started to be able to kneel next to my bed about five years ago. I used to ask my dad if I could sleep in his room after all of the night time movies and he would tell me that I only could if I could get up in the middle of the night and run across the house in the dark, all by myself. ...And I did it! I remember having the blanket over my head with one eye looking out and scouting out my "make a break for it" plan. I could see from my bedroom door all the way across the house to my dads bedroom. Then I would run as fast as my little legs would carry me and would usually be running and tripping on stuff (to add to the scariness in the dark) and ran and slipped into my dads bed with him.

When I was probably about 18 months or two years old, I remember my dad putting on this scary mask from Taylor Maid's costumes. I was still wearing a diaper and remember running down the hall away from him. I was too short to be able to open both of the closed doors at the end of the hall so i turned around and backed into the corner. I actually remember being confused just knowing that the monster coming towards me was my dad, but then again, why did he look as scary as the depths of hell? He came at me with his arms out to tickle me and I just started crying. He took his mask off and picked me up and gave me a hug while he laughed. 

...It was only the beginning of my need for child therapy.

*disclaimer*
i think this is funny now and have had no actual need for child therapy from these incidents. i don't however recommend trying them at home. no child was harmed in the making of my childhood.