Waterfalls

A couple of weeks ago we took a hike to see some waterfalls that only happen every few years. The Gunlock reservoir overflows and it creates these beautiful waterfalls. It was breathtaking. The kids had fun wading in the water and hiking around. I felt like we were in some tropical location like Hawaii. It was lots of fun.
I was trying out a new lens I got for Christmas on my camera so I took lots of pictures especially of the girls since they were with me most of the time. As soon as we got back to the car it started to rain...really hard. It was a fun Saturday spent as a family and always our hearts were missing Wyatt. I couldn't help but think of how hard this hike would have been keeping a 2 year old out of the water and safe. Oh, how we miss our Wyatt.

Tyler and Derek hiked to the top.

You'll be in my heart

We had the wonderful opportunity to go see Tarzan at Tuacahn last night. What an amazing show!! I would highly recommend anyone and everyone to see it. It's truly fabulous. I have seen many shows at Tuacahn but I have to say this is on the top of the list of favorites for me. It's simply amazing! You will have to see it to understand what I'm talking about.

There is a song that I call my Wyatt song. When I first heard it a few months ago while listening to the soundtrack I fell in love with the lyrics and decided it was my Wyatt song. Though I had heard this song before it takes on so much more meaning to me since Wyatt's death. I have shed many tears while listening to this song and held back those tears last night. Love these words because they are sooooo true!

You'll be in my heart

This bond between us
can't be broken
I will be here
Don't you cry

'Cause you'll be in my heart
Yes, you'll be in my heart
From this day on
Now and forever more
You'll be in my heart
No matter what they say
You'll be here
in my heart always......

ALWAYS!

I love Hollyhocks...they are so beautiful!

Summer "do"

This post is for Emily's grandma that wanted to see her new haircut. Emily has wanted her hair cut for a long time now. This morning I woke her up and told her to get dressed because I had a surprise for her. She had no idea where I was taking her and was excited when we pulled up to my very talented friends house that does hair. This is the haircut Emily has wanted for so long. I think it will be a fun "do" for the summer and the best part about it is she LOVES it!

I love the back.

Summer fun

Part of our daily schedule each day we do something fun. So far we have gone swimming a couple of times, planted sunflower seeds and made these bracelets. Tyler spent the day golfing with his dad so we decided to do a girly thing for our fun activity today. I found this idea from the Idea Room. Click here if you want the directions. She has lots of other great ideas that we are going to try this summer along with a bunch of other ones I've come up with. This was a really simple and fun project and my girls had a lots of fun making them.

Update..

I finally had a moment tonight to update a few things that the kids have done the past month. Most pictures are from my phone so the quality is really bad. For some reason I kept forgetting my camera...oh, well. We were very busy in May with lots of performances. Here are a few.

Tyler played in band this year. He was part of the percussion section and he really enjoyed it. He hauled his percussion kit to school each day on his bike. It was not a little thing. I wish I would have gotten a picture of him with his backpack tied to the back of his bike and the huge percussion kit strapped on his back. We were so proud of what he has learned and how well he did in his concert. He liked percussion so much that he is going to do it again next year. Emily performed in the play Alice and Wonderland at her school. She was the Dodo bird and did a great job. She had a bigger part than we thought. She even had a couple of solo singing parts. She did a wonderful job.

Emily had an end of year violin concert. She did great. She is one of those blurred yellow shirts. :) Got to love phone cameras. We are so proud of her and how hard she has worked to learn the violin.

Hayley graduated from preschool. This is actually a picture I took last August when she started school and didn't know I had it on my phone. She loved preschool this year and especially enjoyed this fun house that was built into the preschool. She will miss the friends she made and she will especially miss her awesome teacher.

Dance review

Emily had her end of year dance review. It's such a special night where she gets to be escorted out by her dad and then they have a daddy daughter dance to butterfly kisses. After the dance with the dads they get to perform all the dances they have learned through the year. It was a really nice night....one that will be remembered.

Dancing to "Butterfly Kisses". She is growing up way too fast!

Some fun..

When we went up north for mothers day the girls had fun dressing up with their cousins.

We have some of the greatest friends. We feel so blessed that they are in our lives. For memorial day we spent the evening amongst some of them. There was great food and lots of fun had by all.

Hayley LOVED the slide.

Slide train.

Great quote

Wyatt Lewis Larsen

I saw this quote on a fellow angel moms blog and had to post it because I believe it to be sooooo true.

It has been said, "Time Heals all wounds." I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. `Rose Kennedy

Summer of Fun, Work, Service and Learning

It's SUMMER...and I'm so grateful for it. It's been such a busy, crazy last few weeks with band concerts, violin concerts, dance reviews, preschool parties, play performances etc. etc. It's been wonderful to see all that the kids have learned and done and now I'm ready for SUMMER!


I LOVE summer so much. I love everything about it but most of all I LOVE that I get to have my kids home with me and we get to do lots of stuff together. We started our first day of summer out with a PJ party. Which pretty much means we were very lazy and did whatever we wanted. It was a nice break from the routine we have been on through the school year. I wanted my kids to have one day to do whatever they wanted before the summer events I've planned begin.


This summer is going to be the summer of George(ha ha for all of you Seinfeld viewers) not really it's going to be the summer of FUN, WORK, SERVICE and LEARNING. Those are my goals and I've been working hard and planning out how all of that is going to happen. This is what I've come up with. I'm so glad I didn't make any permanent marks on the magnet board so that I can change it up when I need to. This is our new summer board.


Here is the schedule of events....



Everyday the kids have jobs to do. Some they do everyday along with one job that rotates. This summer I really want my kids to learn how to clean an area or room....from start to finish. So I've come up with some "area's" that they will learn to clean. I made these pouches that holds their 5 areas for the week. Each morning they will pick a card and clean that area. When it's done they will put it in the done pouch. At the end of the week all of the cards should be in the done pouch. If not then there will be a consequence which will most likely be more work to do. Hopefully we don't have to cross that step. We will not be having Saturday jobs during the summer which my kids are so excited about. All of our usual Saturday jobs will be covered by the jobs during the week. That will give us a whole day to do other things. Here are the pouches and cards.

Their daily jobs consist of reading, cleaning room, writing in journal, practicing instrument, doing the "to do" job, and getting some physical exercise. Tyler and Emily will rotate between the 10 "to do" jobs each week. Hopefully the both of them will learn all 10 areas and the goal is that our house will be clean each week. I'm loving that!

They can not play at 1pm until all their jobs are done. If they didn't get them done in the morning then they will be doing them in the afternoon. Once they have completed everything each day then they can play and do whatever they want.

On our daily schedule of events I've designated a "speciality day." During that time we will be focusing on 4 different things. Monday is Library day, Tuesday is Goal day(working on the 2010 goals the kids made in January) Wednesday is Service day and Thursday is Cooking day( I really want my kids to learn to cook. I think it is such an important thing to learn and hopefully it will be great for me in the future so they can do more of it :). From 11am-12pm we will be doing these different events. I have made up my own planner pages so that each night I can plan out each event so that it actually happens. Along with these different event days I'm going to plan one fun activity to do sometime during the day. I have made a long list of ideas that I will refer from. Most are just simple little things that we can do together and hopefully enjoy some FUN with each other this summer.

Part of the learning goal for the summer is reading. I sat down with the kids a few weeks ago and this is what we came up with. A certain amount of pages read = a sticker. 5 stickers = a fun activity of their choice. We came up with the amount of pages depending upon their reading level. Hopefully it will motivate them to read. One of their daily jobs is to read at least 30 minutes.

Another of their Daily jobs is to write in their journal for 5 minutes. Emily and I made journals that stick to the magnet board for her and Hayley. In their journal I want them to focus on the positive things that are happening in their life....the good stuff and while they are writing I want them to really work on their spelling and penmanship. Hayley will spend some time doing summer school with me, Tyler and Emily to help her get ready for kindergarten. Here are the Journals we made. Tyler didn't want one.
I know things will come up and I will have to be flexible. I've already discovered that this week but at least I have a game plan and hopefully the kids will have a summer of FUN, WORK, SERVICE and LEARNING. That is my goal!

Garden

I'm in the process of doing a post about our summer schedule but wanted to add a few pictures of the fruits of our garden. I was so excited when I went to check on the garden this morning to see that we had our first crop of peas and beans and 1 red tomato. There is something so fulfilling for me to have a garden and watch it grow and then reap the rewards of yummy vegetables. Hayley was extra excited this morning when she saw the tomato and peas...her very favorite. I love these simply joys in life....the fruits of a garden.

Green Beans

" Juicy" peas(that is what Hayley called them when she had her first one this morning for breakfast. She then proceeded to tell me how much she LOVES them.)

Memorial day..remember

This is the first year we have been home for memorial day since Wyatt died. It's been nice to be able to be here and frequent his grave. The cemetery is so beautiful right now with all the new flowers placed on loved ones graves. It's such a peaceful place. It's also nice to see others there. Most often than not we are the only ones there. It's nice to know we are not the only ones remembering a loved one.

My sweet brother was down for the weekend and went to Wyatt's grave and put some flowers and a note on it. So very thoughtful of him. Can't even express how much that meant. So grateful for all the love and support we receive from friends and family.

Wyatt's grave is VERY decorated. So grateful for the things people have put on it. Today we think of Wyatt but that is nothing new. Every single day he is thought of and missed but today we also remember all those great amazing family members that have graduated and are on the other side. I'm so grateful for the influence each of them have had in my life. Some I haven't even meet but feel their strength and spirit. Remember is such an important word and today I remember those that are so dear to my heart and the amazing life's they lived. I also remember and express deep gratitude to all those that have served this amazing country and have given their lives so we can have the freedoms we enjoy. And as always I remember my sweet little boy that my heart and arms aches for.




I was looking through some of his pictures and found this one...it may be my new favorite. I love his expression on his face and his hand almost in his pocket. Oh, how we miss this little guy!

Sleeping on his dad's lap. One of his favorite places to be.

The flowers my brother put on Wyatt's grave...oh, so sweet and beautiful!

His grave so decorated.

Talk by Jeffrey R. Holland

I love this talk and have read it over and over again. There is so much great advice and comfort pouring out of it. Here is just a little portion of it. I have felt such comfort and strength from reading it.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

"Everyone, including (and perhaps especially) the righteous, will be called upon to face trying times. When that happens we can sometimes fear God has abandoned us, and we might be left, at least for a time, to wonder when our troubles will ever end. As individuals, as families, as communities, and as nations, probably everyone has had or will have an occasion to feel as Joseph Smith felt when he asked why such sorrow had to come and how long its darkness and damage would remain. We identify with him when he cries from the depth and discouragement of his confinement: “O God, where art thou? . . . How long shall thy hand be stayed . . . ? Yea, O Lord, how long shall [thy people] suffer . . . before . . . thy bowels be moved with compassion toward them?” (D&C 121:1–3).

That is a painful, personal cry—a cry from the heart, a spiritual loneliness we may all have occasion to feel at some time in our lives.

Perhaps you have had such moments already in your young lives. If so, I hope you have not had too many. But whenever these moments of our extremity come, we must not succumb to the fear that God has abandoned us or that He does not hear our prayers. He does hear us. He does see us. He does love us. When we are in dire circumstances and want to cry “Where art Thou?” it is imperative that we remember He is right there with us—where He has always been! We must continue to believe, continue to have faith, continue to pray and plead with heaven, even if we feel for a time our prayers are not heard and that God has somehow gone away. He is there. Our prayers are heard. And when we weep He and the angels of heaven weep with us.

When lonely, cold, hard times come, we have to endure, we have to continue, we have to persist. That was the Savior’s message in the parable of the importuning widow (see Luke 18:1–8; see also Luke 11:5–10). Keep knocking on that door. Keep pleading. In the meantime, know that God hears your cries and knows your distress. He is your Father, and you are His child.

When what has to be has been and when what lessons to be learned have been learned, it will be for us as it was for the Prophet Joseph. Just at the time he felt most alone and distant from heaven’s ear was the very time he received the wonderful ministration of the Spirit and wonderful, glorious answers that came from his Father in Heaven. Into this dismal dungeon and this depressing time, the voice of God came, saying:

“My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

“And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes” (D&C 121:7–8).

Even though seemingly unjust circumstances may be heaped upon us and even though unkind and unmerited things may be done to us—perhaps by those we consider enemies but also, in some cases, by those whom we thought were friends—nevertheless, through it all, God is with us.

We are not alone in our little prisons here. When suffering, we may in fact be nearer to God than we’ve ever been in our entire lives. That knowledge can turn every such situation into a would-be temple.

Regarding our earthly journey, the Lord has promised: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (D&C 84:88). That is an everlasting declaration of God’s love and care for us, including—and perhaps especially—in times of trouble.


...every experience can become a redemptive experience if we remain bonded to our Father in Heaven through that difficulty. These difficult lessons teach us that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity, and if we will be humble and faithful, if we will be believing and not curse God for our problems, He can turn the unfair and inhumane and debilitating prisons of our lives into temples—or at least into a circumstance that can bring comfort and revelation, divine companionship and peace.

I testify that the Father and the Son do live. And I testify that They are close, perhaps even closest via the Holy Spirit, when we are experiencing difficult times. I testify that heaven’s kindness will never depart from you, regardless of what happens. I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept.

I have read and re-read this talk. It has comforted me and brought me understanding on so many occasions. It truly has been such a help for me the past year. I believe and have felt the Holy Ghost testify to me that everything he says in this talk is TRUE. I believe it. Though I will never be grateful Wyatt died I can say I have learned things I couldn't have learned any other way. I have come to know my Savior Jesus Christ in a way I couldn't have known him before. And I am grateful for that. If you haven't read this entire talk I would highly recommend it. There is great knowledge, understanding and comfort in it. So grateful to have living prophets and apostles that teach us and bring comforting words into our lives.

A few days before her death Emma Smith had a dream in which Joseph took her into a beautiful mansion. In one of the rooms she saw a babe in a cradle. She immediately recognized it as one of the children she had lost in infancy and snatched him to her bosom.

I found comfort in hearing this. The image in my mind of maybe having a mansion someday and in that mansion there being a nursery with my Wyatt in it gives me hope. I can't even express how much I miss having Wyatt's room like the picture above. I dream of the crib, changing table and cradle and feel such a loss in not having those things in my life anymore. I hope that Emma's dream is in fact reality and that someday I will have my own mansion and in it will be a nursery. And in that nursery I will get to raise Wyatt and watch as he sleeps at night in his crib. Oh how I miss that!!! I do dream and I hope of such a day.

Miss him...