Special Moments

Tonight before bed Lucy asked to read more scriptures instead of the regular books. I thought 'great!' and so we went through the New Testament Scripture Stories.  We read about when Jesus rides a donkey into Jerusalem, then read about the first Sacrament. I helped explain about how we need to think of Jesus and his body and his life while we eat the bread and drink the water on Sunday. Then we got to the Garden of Gethsemane. (The scripture stories are pretty simple, but I still feel like I need to explain them in Lucy terms) so we talked about how Jesus felt, and what he went through in the Garden. At one point I almost started crying, and I looked at Lucy and the look on her face and in her eyes was priceless. She got it. She was feeling the spirit. You could see it. I'm grateful for moments like these. They don't come often, but when they come they are amazing. The gospel is simple enough for a two year old to understand. That is the beauty of our Heavenly Father's plan. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and awe that I have been entrusted with the gift and responsibility of raising these two precious spirits to be righteous disciples of Christ. I pray that I can do a good job, and teach them to be like their savior.

Visit to Vegas

 The Wednesday before Christmas we made a last minute decision to drive down to vegas and spend a day with my older brothers and sister. My oldest brother was going to be moving to California and none of these siblings had met my children yet either. I know you are probably thinking wow you really don't see your siblings very often do you? Well, you would be right.  We don't get to travel much since we are still in school. And since all of my siblings are still in school we don't really get to see each other very often. Someday when we are all graduated and rich (hehe) that will hopefully be different :)

 Adren (Faith's son), T, and Dev and Lucy. Adren brought some legos with him and was showing us the cool things he could do with them. That kid is pretty cute, and fun. It was nice to see him again. 

 The kids pulled out all their toys and played together for a while. Cole really liked to watch Adren play.

 Faith, T, Rodney, Devin. All sitting around talking. This is what my family does when we get together...Talk and eat :) I'm not complaining. We just do a lot of it when we're together! 

 Rodney and Ximena

 Lucy, Adren, Rodney playing some game on Faith's Ipad

 My big brother T

 Faith and Adren

 Rodney in the kitchen. This was his domain. I knew he liked to cook but I didn't realized just how much he liked to cook. I tried to help, and he allowed me to stir some of the noodles for a minute :) Haha! It was pretty funny. He is one amazing cook though. I loved his style of cooking, and we had a scrumptious lunch and dinner while we were there. 

I wish we had been able to stay longer and had made trips down there sooner. But you can't change the past and we'll just have to be better about visiting in the future. 

Dad's Grave

In February of 2011 my Dad was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. They gave him three months to live. Since Cole was due to be born in April we knew I had to go as soon as possible. The first week of March I flew out to Arkansas with Lucy to see my Dad. It was a very bittersweet reunion. I hadn't seen him since the year before Lucy was born and we hadn't always had the closest relationship. He was a hard man to love but I still loved him. Hearing of his diagnosis was shocking and saddening but in part it was almost relieving. He had had some major health issues for many years and was struggling in many aspects of his life. I was sad (for lack of a better word, i'm using sad, though it doesn't begin to reflect my feelings) that he was going to pass away, but I was happy that he would get to leave this life and be free of the pain and sadness he was experiencing. And hopefully find the truth he sought after his whole life. 

   It was hard to see him in his condition. But it was nice to be with him for a few days and for him to get to meet Lucy. When Cole was born we called Dad up and told him Cole Michael Moss had been named after him. He was pretty happy to hear that. In early May Dad passed away.  Because of a lack of funds, we had to make the choice of going to see Dad while he was still alive or going out to his funeral. I chose the former. 

   Since I missed the funeral, we made sure to stop by the cemetery where he was buried while visiting Arkansas for thanksgiving. It was good closure for me to spend some time at his gravesite. Up until then it never quite seemed final or real. I was glad to get to visit and see where he is buried. 

We have several pictures of Lucy sitting at the grave of her namesake, 

and we wanted some with Cole also. 

Dad doesn't have a headstone yet, but it was marked with some pretty flowers and a white rock. 

 I miss him and love him, and hope that he is happy where he is now. I know our Heavenly Father is merciful and understands our hearts and desires better than our fellowman ever could.

Thanksgiving

We were so blessed this holiday season to get to see my ENTIRE family. It all started out with Thanksgiving in Arkansas. It was filled with a lot of firsts. Mom got to meet Cole for the first time. My younger brothers got to meet the kids for the first time ever. They kept saying it was weird to see me as a mom :). It was Devin's first time in Arkansas. First time we all prepared the thanksgiving meal! It was SO fun. 

We had a lot of down time to just visit and talk with mom and the boys. I LOVED IT! I was sad the kids were not feeling so great -- they really don't do well away from home for extended periods of time. But they were troopers and had fun for the most part. 

 We discovered some books in mom's storage.

 The kids had fun reading them :)

Esperanza, Mike, Devin. 

We were all standing around trying to figure out how to get rock band working... 

 We got it working...here are the boys rocking out :)

 Mike making a silly face...I just had to get a picture of it!

 Dev trying out the drums!

 My 'little' brother Jacob....first time seeing him in 3 1/2 years. So nice to visit!

 We were blessed with nice weather! And got to play in mom's big yard quite a bit.

 Yes they were still in their pj's in the middle of the day :) Sometimes getting outside just can't wait!

 Mike trying to copy Cole's scrunch face -- he did a pretty good job!

 Here are some sibling pics of the four who were out there together!

 LOVE this pic!

 We did a small gift exchange with Mom while we were out there. 

Lucy surpressing her excitement over the horse mom got her!

 Cole didn't know what to think of the cars...But he LOVES them now :)

We got to spend a whole week in Arkansas, and it was wonderful! I love being a part of a big family but it is so hard when you don't get to see each other often. 

LOVE YOU ALL!

Duck Pond

There is a duck pond south of campus that we try to visit regularly when it is warm. Our last visit was the first week of November. It was cold, and I think the ducks had been a little deprived of visits because they were a lot more friendly then we had seen them all summer/fall. Here is a video and some pictures of our friendly ducks.

These ducks were jumping to get the bread out of her hands. They were successful so many times that Lucy just gave up and told me to feed the ducks. If I put Cole too close to the ground they would bite his fingers too!! It was insane. We had been there every week over the summer and they had never come this close or tried so hard to get the bread. 

Because they did that to her, I let her do this :)

(It's only fair)

Cole and Lucy sitting on the ground just watching the throngs of ducks swarm around them.

Cole is still deciding what he thinks of them.

Lucy all bundled in her coat and scarf. Dispite the sunshine, it was REALLY cold that day.

Cole kept tabs on purple baby while Lucy chased more ducks around. 

We were such good friends by the end that the ducks followed us all the way to the street

....I think they just wanted our bread...what do you think? 

Lucy got a kick out of the ducks following us. We ran around the boardwalk twice just to see if they would keep coming. They did :)