The Responsible Woman

The Responsible Woman is one of my FAVORITE pieces of artwork.  It is by James Christensen and sells for thousands of dollars. 

He states about this painting, “I painted this in homage to my wife.   I thought of all her roles in life and the many weighty responsibilities she shouldered as a full-time wife and mother of five young children. Women everywhere relate to the need to confidently soar above life's troubles and challenges. In a given day she may shuttle the children, prepare a gourmet feast, keep to hectic time schedules and more, but she always keeps her head up and carries the light of hope to those around her.”

I LOVE how her head is lifted and confident.  I LOVE how she is looking forward to the light and has that clearly set in front of her.  I also love how she has TONS of things hanging on to her yet she is still able to move forward.  And I have to point out that I quite like her RED hair!

I have had this picture in my room for quite a few years now.  I like to look at it as I think of my goals and my daily schedules.

 And do you know how I got this picture, since we don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on artwork?  I cut it out of a magazine!  When I first saw it in the magazine, I ran and bought another magazine to make another one for Alesha’s birthday that was coming up. 

Do you have a favorite piece of artwork?

Weekend Review

Stephen and I went to the temple on Friday night.

The Girls and I had a date on Saturday to go to Miss Smith’s wedding.

The Chapel was gorgeous as was Miss Smith.  She was the 2nd Grade teacher to three of my kids.  As I stood outside talking to another mom I turned around and caught this.

I asked them what they were doing, to which they replied, “Just dreaming of the day we will marry!!!!”  Little girls and older girls are always hopelessly romantic and dreaming, whereas boys haven’t a clue.

 

The New Baby

First prepare your eyes for a VERY pink picture.  The bedroom walls are pink, the doll, the stroller and yes even some of Jerrica’s clothes.  SO it is QUITE a pink picture!

Jerrica got a new baby from Santa Clause.  She LOVES to push her around in the stroller, bundle her in one of Aunt Kathy’s doll blankets, and of course feed her the bottle.  Jerra is always saying, “She drink it!” and then acts all surprised.

Today I snapped a few pictures of her playing with her baby.  She showed me how much her baby drank.

I wanted to take a picture of her and her baby, but of course she switched gears and started doing a puzzle that was nearby.  Which is when I said, “Jerra, I think that Ash just came and took your baby….”

That’s when I got this look, and then heard the infamous, “Ashhhheeeeeee, NO! NO!”

Boy Sleep Over

The other night Rebecca said that she wanted to have a sleep over with a friend.  I said, “What friend?”  To which she said, “Kaleb”.  Yes that would be a BOY friend.  I told her that we don’t have boy sleepovers.  Stephen came into the room and added, “You DON’t have boy sleepovers until you get married!”

The disappointment was obvious on her face.

Then a few hours later she came into my bedroom and said, “Mom I think that I can’t have other boys sleep over after I get married, which means that I will only be able to have ONE boy EVER sleep over.  Why can’t I have other boys sleep over BEFORE I get married?”

Oh to be naive, carefree and young again!! 

However, Stephen thinks we may have a few issues with this particular daughter of ours!!!

New Year’s Shelf

I have a little holiday shelf area that I try and decorate each month.  I always put up an 11x14 of one of the kids in the frame.  It’s easy some months like with Kaylee’s Indian costume for November, and then Jerrica’s Santa hat picture for December, but for January it was a little harder.  Then yesterday as I was finishing up my wooden snowman I thought Jacob’s stocking hat picture would be perfect.  The kids were so excited to see who was going to be on the wall for this month.

I LOVE how it all turned out!

Thanks for some of those clocks mom!!!

Thompson Sign

I’ve had a lot of emails and questions about this and thought that it would just be easier to do a post with details instead of replying to each email. 

I used the large size poster board from Wal-Mart and cut out letters using the full sheet.  That way each letter would be in uniform size.  I took all the pictures outside to have continuity to the picture.  Then in Photoshop I changed them to a sepia tone to keep all the color the same.  I also “dodged” the letter just a little to bring it out.

You really could do a number of words to get just the right number of letters that you need.  You could do the words- love, family, your family name, forever… 

One last thing I would suggest would be to have those doing it wear dark clothes so that the letter stands out.

And there you have it!!!!

New Year’s Eve & New Year FHE

We rung in the new year at the Hill home.  We had tons of fun treats, including a chocolate fondue.  There were sooo many munchies keeping us going through the night. 

For games it was Thompson’s vs. the Hill’s.  We had a family feud game naming the Top Ten Movies of 2009 and the Top Ten News Stories of 2009.  There was block stacking races and partner races.  Then of course leg wrestling started. 

With fireworks and movies, we MADE IT to MIDNIGHT!!!!  Thanks for the fun Alesha!!!

Then tonight we did our New Year’s FHE.  I have LOVED this lesson on time and have used it for a few years now.  In fact when I started the story about the man helping improve the success of this company, Nathan quickly finished the story.  Yeah!, they are remembering what I’m teaching them!!!  Anyway, here is the link to the lesson. http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=408bcb7a29c20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=198bf4b13819d110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD I usually do the 1 minute timer at the beginning, then the rock object lesson, and last but not least the little story at the end about the company prioritizing a list for each day.  We end by making our goal collages.  Here is mine and the kiddos.

Now to DO our goals!!!

Scripture Study

I was in charge of a goal program with the women in our church about 7 years ago.  I came up with a monthly theme and then various goals that could be accomplished for that theme.  I had “master” counselors for each theme that would inspire and cheer the ladies on each week.  They had so many neat insights into each of the themes and helped the others with their goals.  The program went over really well, and was even used in other wards and stakes.

Tonight I got it out for the new year and started looking at it, to try and incorporate it for my goal program this new year.  I’m switching around months and decided to tackle scripture study for January.  SOOO I pulled out my scripture study folder to get a few other ideas of how I want to study this new year -when I came across this talk given by a sweet friend a year ago.

Here are excerpts from her talk:

Many of us set goals as we set out on a hike.  Some are going to climb to the top of the mountain.  Others are going to hike just a few miles on the trail.  Still others have a set time of how long they are going to hike.  Most of us stick to these goals and are unlikely to veer from them.  But what happens when we do stop and smell the wildflowers, or venture a little off the trail to take in the waterfall and listen to the rushing sounds it makes.  How about those who change their plan and go explore the cave that is near by. 

I think it is safe to say that those who seek out “a little” more, then “gain a little more” from their hike.  They are finding joy in their journey!  (She shared a really neat story here about a father and son on a hike.)

We set goals to read our scriptures.  Some say they are going to read a chapter a night.  Others set a time limit on how long they will read.  Yet others venture a little further and veer off their course and delve deeper.  A difficult passage might be a cave to one that they simply skip over, yet to another it is explored and studied.  And after the exploration, hidden treasures of knowledge are found. 

Some of us take the SAME trail EVERY time we study our scriptures.  However we should tread new ground and explore new things.  How about the Bible Dictionary, a specific topic, photographs, cross references…

It is the journey that brings us the most joy.  The journey brings us more knowledge.  Make the time neccessary to explore the mountain as you climb and then when you get to the top you can exclaim, I did it and I loved doing it!!!

Her entire power point  presentation was amazing.  I feel like so many times I get stuck in the rut of here is my goal, a “set amount” and then don’t veer or delve as I should.  As soon as that chapter is read or the time is expired I’m DONE.  SOOO this new year I have a new scripture study set up that I’m excited about.  I WILL be finding joy in the journey!

Hill’s on the Hills

After Washington we went to Utah and stayed with my sister for a few days.  There was snow, SOO we headed to the hills with the Hill’s!

 

One day while we were there Dave had gotten an ATV and Stephen pulled the kids behind it in the church parking lot.  I love the gorgeous Rocky Mountains in the background!

 

Christmas Vacation

Just thought I would recap our trip.  We got home late last night. 

Stephen is one of 8.  All of his siblings and their families went to the Thompson’s in Washington for Christmas, except for his brother.  Can I say that is A LOT of people, but it makes for A LOT of fun!!!

Grandma had a little craft project and then a gingerbread house to put together.  Let’s just say the house didn’t stay standing for very long.

Lael had a cute snowman cookie idea and then Janna had a yummy sugar cookie recipe, SOOO we had to make some of those.

Grandpa Don worked on his invention.

The men LOVE fishing at this pond, which is in the middle of an onion farm.  They came home one day announcing that it was frozen over.  Of course all the moms were a little leary, but we bundled up and checked it out.  It was clear water and you could see just how deep the freeze really was.

 

The Arizonians only had eyes showing …

 

We also went and saw this

and this

We went down to the Columbia River to feed the birds.  There were geese and ducks, but the favorite to feed were the seagulls up in the air.  The kids loved throwing the bread in the sky to see them catch it in flight.  The adults DID NOT like having the seagulls circling us over head with the chance of poop dropping.

Rebecca was able to swing in the tire swing that she has always loved.

Grandpa Thompson also treated the grandkids to games at Chucky Cheese.  In the end they all pooled their tickets together to get a giant kickball and clay.  The giant kickball was then used at the gym FOR kickball.  Rebecca will always remember it because she was beamed in the back with it by Nathan.  She went a flyin’.  Anyway, here is a picture from Chucky Cheese when Grandpa kept giving Jerrica coins to play this game.

 

All the women had a night out to a delicious Greek restaurant and then on another night all the adults went out to Tony Romas, except for Lael and Racquel who stayed home to babysit.  Thanks you guys!!!

We did a little photo shoot of the babies.

 

Settler’s of Catan and the Pirates of the Caribean dice game were played late into the night by the adults and older ones.  There was also A LOT of ping pong going on.  I think that Janie’s husband, Andrew is the undefeated champion though.  Here is Stephen and Jon playing doubles with someone.

We had a fun Christmas Eve party with yummy snacks.  Grandma Brenda got out her box of costumes for us to act out the nativity.  There was an elephant costume, so there WAS an elephant at the nativity.

  The Chimes were played

Every night we would head down to the church and play basketball.  It’s fun to have such a big family because there are enough people to actually play a game.  Janie is going to be a PE teacher and so one day we went down during the day to the church and played PE games.  That was a lot of fun for my kids.  It was also fun to just sit and chat with everyone.

There was only one problem with sooo many people – the sewer backed up!!!

 

Children’s Museum

You take a children’s museum plus Uncle Jon and you get an incredible time! 

There was the little restaurant.  Kaylee and Lexi were working it for awhile until they were overflowing with customers.

Rebecca was the friendly grocer

Here are a few more random pictures from the museum.

Grandma was withdrawing money from the bank teller and shortly after two bank robbers, AKA Jacob and Nathan robbed her AND the bank!  The robbers then continued robbing Leah and Ashley’s Pizzaria, BUT the cops Stephen and Jon were able to capture them.

Why does Jon have his hand over his mouth?!?  Because he is the tour guide on the bus, making fun of all of us that aren’t on the bus.