Nothing too exciting happening around here, thus the lack of blogging! Life isn't too exciting but it is definitely busy so here's our update for the past few weeks!
Because we are stuck inside all day Lantz likes to look out the window and see what is going on in the world. He was watching it begin to snow in this picture.My friend, Amanda, gave us this four wheeler for Lantz and the kids all love to play on it, even if it doesn't look like it in this picture! The great thing is I don't have to push them around. They push each other.
Lantz does this weird thing were he reaches out when he gets excited.
Now he is really loving it!

The kids got a Book of Mormon Bingo game from Granny and Gramps for Christmas and we love to play it on Sundays! We used chocolate chips and the kids enjoyed eating them after.
Crazy Kids! Makelle took her dress off and just wore this shirt and her tights like a ballerina!
Lantz is always fascinated when I have the camera out.
He loves sunglasses!
Going on a CRAZY ride! Don't you love Makelle's outfit?!
CRASH!!
Pretty girl all ready for church.
Just dancing around.
Makelle matching Lantz for church.
Silly Guy!
Too Cute!
For my birthday we got a couple of packages from grandparents. You would have never know who's birthday it was because there was so much stuff for the kids! They loved it they got toys, games, books and candy! Thanks to Grandma Joan and Grandma Valynn! We all LOVED the gifts! Makelle got an umbrella and she took it everywhere for several days. She also got some dress up shoes and she didn't understand why she couldn't wear them for real, oh dear!

Lantz loved the candy!
I guess they ALL LOVED the CANDY!
John hung Makelle up at the top of the Bunk bed. She really did like it I promise!
Isn't she beautiful!!
This is her with her hip thing going on!

There are the random pictures for the day! Life is good. We got a little skiff of snow today again but that is all for us. We had a beautiful day on Saturday so we all went to the zoo and had a great afternoon. We love the days John is home and we love warm weather, so come on spring! My friend, Christie, babysat for my birthday so I got to go out with John for dinner, it was great! I was gone all day on Saturday before my birthday so they spent the day making me a double batch of German chocolate frosting and homemade necklaces. They were really cute chunky beaded necklaces that John bought the stuff for and they made it together. What a great family I have.

Now we are looking forward to Lantz's big birthday next week and a visit from Grandpa David and Grandma Valynn!

It is also official (pretty much official), that we are coming to Utah in July! We are all excited!

The faith of a child

I forgot to post this earlier but I wanted it recorded so here it is now. The kids all got gift cards from Grandma Valynn and Grandpa David for Christmas. The day after Christmas they were excited to go to Target and pick something out with their very own gift cards. When we got inside the store Zak immediately wanted his gift card. I told him I didn't think he should hold it, that I should hold it while he looked at the toys but that it was his choice. He said he wanted to hold it and that he would be very careful. We looked at the toys fighting crowds and trying to find something to buy. He picked out a few small animals to buy with some of the money. We went to the checkout where we were about to pay and I asked for his gift card. He got all scared and worried as he said he set it down on one of the toys at the back of the store. I told him I would use my gift card to pay and then we would go find his. We looked and looked thru all of the toy aisles and didn't have any luck. I told him I was going to have to return the toys since he couldn't find his gift card. We looked one more time and I told him the only idea I had was for him to say a prayer. He walked to the middle of the aisle, knelt down and said a prayer out loud. He got up and looked for it again but didn't have any luck. I sent the kids to the car and I went to the return line and returned the toys. I know I am a mean mom but I was trying to teach a lesson. Zak was sad but he took it well and we went home. He took most of the responsibility for it except for when he told Lindsey and John it was my fault because I shouldn't have let him hold it!! (That little stinker!!) A few days later John and I were at Target and I asked John if he would go to the Customer Service and ask if a gift card had been turned in. After quite a lot of searching the lady found the original gift card with Zak's name and all of his money still on it. We were so excited. We hurried home to tell the kids and talked to Zak about why his gift card was found. He bore his testimony to Makelle about how Heavenly Father heard his prayer and someone found it for him. I must admit I had my doubts when he knelt down and prayed and we didn't find it. Some answers just take time. Now if I could just have the faith of a child!

They said it would

SNOW and it DID!!! I was beginning to believe this place didn't get snow but sure enough it finally snowed at our house. As you can imagine my kids were so excited. So despite the "just getting over sickness" we all ventured outside. I have to take a minute to make fun of the people here just because I love them so much!! They canceled school for two days over four inches of snow!! The first day they canceled when we only had like half an inch. I found it hilarious!!! I don't have to worry about driving in the snow here because everything just shuts down!! We were excited to get it and we didn't have a sled so I came up with an even better ideas, a laundry basket and rope! It worked great for Lantz. People here will think this is how everyone in Utah plays in the snow!!

Lantz didn't love it at first at all, probably because he couldn't see, breath, or move!I ventured out with all three by myself and we had a great time!
Lantz deciding he does like the snow and I love the red cheeks.
And now he really loves it because he can see and breath! Zak was a great brother and pulled him around.

Makelle diggin in the snow and giving me a half smile!
Later that night the kids helped John shovel the driveway.
What a cute girl, just trying to see from under her hat!
We train these kids right. This is what having kids is all about, doing the work!
Lantz was just enjoying the warmth of the house!

Here is to 2010

One of my friends shared this article and I loved it. I especially need to post it after my last negative post. I know there aren't any pictures but you will want to be better after you read the article!

What are your concerns in life at your age? Some of you have had questions on your minds about schooling, employment, marriage, and other general directions in life—about how to best fulfill the expectations of yourself as well as the expectations the Lord has for you.

If I were your age and thinking about life and its meaning, there is one characteristic that I would strive to develop. That characteristic is to have a positive attitude. I am a great believer that what you and I think about will ultimately come to pass. I believe if we think about committing a sin long enough, we will find ourselves entangled in that sin. I believe if we think about what it takes to be successful long enough and if we are willing to discipline ourselves to the principle of success, we will experience success. Yes, I am a great believer that “as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

I have learned that I really do have control to a great degree over my circumstances. If I don’t like them, I’ve found there are certain things I can do to change them. If I want to move to higher ground, if I want to have more positive experiences, I must think about life in positive terms, not dwell on the negative.

Set Worthy Goals
I believe you can train yourself to become a positive thinker, but you must cultivate a desire to develop the skill of setting personal worthy and realistic goals. I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When you learn to master the principle of setting a goal, you will then be able to make a great difference in the results you attain in this life.

I would suggest that if you want to have success in the goal-setting process, you learn to write your goals down. I would even put them in a prominent place—on your mirror or on the refrigerator door.

Develop Self-discipline
You control to a large degree your own destiny. You control your own life. Some of you might cop out by saying, “Well, Brother Ballard, you just don’t understand my environment. You just don’t understand my circumstances. You just don’t understand what kind of a father I have, or what kind of a mother I have, or what kind of a this or that.”

“No,” I would say to you, “put all of that in the back of your minds and bring forward to the front of your mind the worthy goals that you want to obtain. Then practice personal self-discipline.”

Benjamin N. Woodson had some good things to say about self-discipline:

“For my part, I have concluded that the quality which sets one man apart from another—the factor which lifts one man to every achievement to which he reasonably aspires while the other is caught in the slough of mediocrity for all the years of his life—is not talent, nor formal education, nor luck, nor intellectual brilliance, but is rather the successful man’s greater capacity for self-discipline.”

Mr. Woodson offers a great suggestion:

“All you need to do is this: Beginning this very day, stop doing some one thing you know you should not do.” After you have written this one thing down, stop doing it!

Some of you will have the necessary self-discipline and courage to do this. Others of you will just sit here and say, “Oh boy.” You won’t pay any attention to it, and so a month from now you will still be dragging behind you the same habit that is holding you back from being your best self.

A few of you will stop doing that one thing today. Why? Because you are going to write it down and then you are going to discipline yourself in such a way that you are going to take a problem out of your life.

Make Your Goals Happen
Now the second part of Mr. Woodson’s suggestion is this, “Start doing each day some one thing you know you should do!” Write down one thing that you are going to start doing that you have been meaning to do for a long time but that you just haven’t gotten around to. I don’t know what it might be, but place into your life, beginning tonight, one thing that you are going to do that is going to make you a better person. I believe if you make this a regular practice, you will start to fulfill the Savior’s teaching when He asked us, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Perfection is a process and not an event, and you will come to appreciate that perfection is an internal matter, not external. It is a process by which you and I learn to eliminate the things in life that are not good, replace them with the things in life that are eternal in nature, with the objective and thought that perfection is obtainable, but it must be earned.

If your goals are righteous, of God-given perspective, eternal in their nature, then go for them. Pray for the inner strength to have the discipline to do those things that will guarantee through your activity and your life that you will reach your goals. Then, I think, perhaps as important as anything, we have to have faith. We have to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And oh, how desperately we have to have faith in ourselves.

We all are the sons and daughters of God. Therefore, none of us, no not one, should ever have a low self-image. We belong to Him. We must struggle always to keep in our minds that our ultimate goal is to inherit eternal life.

Do Things That Make a Difference
Sometimes young people will say to me, “Brother Ballard, I have had this problem in my life, and I haven’t cleared it up.” Depending upon the nature of the problem, I counsel with that young person and teach this principle: You must clear the problem up and then not spend one more second worrying about it. Past problems are like a stream when you are standing on a bridge—the stream is rolling underneath you, and your problems have gone downstream. Regardless of how hard you try, you can’t change the past. What I want you to learn to do is look upstream. Watch for the things that are coming down the river of life that you can change and control. Now if there are those of you who have committed transgressions that are of the nature that require a visit with your bishop, please get to your bishop. When? Immediately! Get it cleared up! Get and keep your feet planted on the straight and narrow way.

Set clear and specific goals. When you set a goal and commit yourself to the necessary self-discipline to reach that goal, you will eliminate most of the problems in your life. Spend your energies doing those things that will make a difference. Then you can become what you think about. If you just have the simple faith that God is in His heaven and He is your Heavenly Father and He does know that you are here and He does love you—and that Jesus is the Christ, that He is your Savior, that He is your Redeemer, and that you love Him with all your heart and are going to do all you can to keep His commandments—then peace comes.

Where do you want to get? You are trying to get to the celestial kingdom. We are struggling to become worthy to some day go into the presence of God and Jesus Christ and dwell with Them. There is only one way that you can forfeit the blessings of eternity. You can forfeit them by unrepented sins.

Do the Right Things for the Right Reasons
Live a righteous, pure life. Do the right things for the right reasons, and in God’s due time, all of the blessings of eternity will be yours. The key to this is personal self-discipline that leads to righteousness. The key is to do and to learn to master living the gospel for the right reason, to build the inner self.

You have a mighty spirit and so do I. The greatest education and the greatest thrust in our lives ought to be to build upon the things of the Spirit. You do that by practicing some of the principles I have suggested.

We cannot ignore keeping the commandments of God. We cannot excuse ourselves or rationalize or justify even the smallest things in our lives that we need to master. We must work to overcome them. We can become the masters of our own destinies by practicing self-discipline and by setting worthy goals that will lead to higher ground so that we can become what our Heavenly Father wants us to become.

Goals-If I write them down and publish them I will accomplish them for sure right?
Become a better mom by playing more, listening more, teaching more, and giving individual attention.
Exercise five days a week and drink water (everyday of the week!)
Have couple scripture study regularly.
Be positive
Judge less
Build others up and remember and serve others.
Learn the scriptures better-feast and love them.
Develop a better relationship with Christ by learning of him, obeying him, using the atonement, and becoming like him.

Wish me luck!

Goodbye 2009

I can't believe 2009 is over. It was an amazing year for us and I get emotional just thinking about it. This time last year we were just getting excepted to Dental School. What an accomplishment for John! He wanted it to happen and he made it happen! Who would have ever thought we would be here in Indiana, crazy! We were excited to add little Lantz Pantz in February and he continues to make us smile everyday. Sometimes I just feel sad that he won't have the relationship with everyone in Utah like the others, but I am sure he will survive anyways. We had a great few months as we tried to get all of our lasts in before the big move and we made lots of memories. It was scary to leave everyone and everything I had ever known but it has been so worth it. It was exciting to travel across the country and even more exciting to be homeowners once again. I am grateful to wonderful family who took us in so that we could make our goal a reality. I got to know what it was like to live without John for a whole month. It was a new experience and I definitely appreciate him and military families more. I don't look forward to doing it again but it went by fast and it was great since I had Lindsey here! I developed an even better friendship and admiration for her. Most people I would be sick of but we keep begging for her to come back. We moved to a beautiful place that we love and we are thriving. We have experienced a lot of firsts here especially our first holidays away from family. I am grateful for the great friends who have been placed in our lives to fill the gaps. We have made so many great friends. It has been a very different but great year. We have all grown so much in every aspect of our lives. I admire my husband more everyday and I feel intimidated at the task of being these kids mother. They are so special. I have grown to appreciate and love my family (that includes John's family) more and more each day. They are such great examples and they are so supporting and loving. Last but not least we finished our first semester of dental school and John even got straight A's! The sound of 2010 makes 2013 sound a lot closer! That kinda makes me sad, oh well! Thanks to everyone who made 2009 such a great year!

A great week, a horrible week

What a week it has been, mostly it has consisted of breathing treatments, Tylenol, nose blowing, whining, crying, night terrors, laying around, lots of movies, sleepless nights, and being miserable. All three kids have been sick all week and it was all just in time for Lindsey's visit. We all felt bad they weren't up to par but we made the most of the good moments. This can't last all winter can it?

Here's the kids in their new church clothes from Granny! It is quite the chore to get them to all cooperate for a picture so this will have to do.

We all love Linds to play and of course Makelle loves anyone to do nails with her. Lindsey was feeling hungry for some cute little girl.
Zak just enjoying a cookie and feeling big.
Lots and lots of tickles!
Makelle was plugging her nose and telling a story about something but mostly I just wanted to capture her in her boots. She loves them and wears them all the time with anything.
The kids with Lindsey in their new fleece shirts she got them.
Zak using all his might to have a sword fight. He is one dangerous guy.
Coloring with Linds with the cool art kit from Granny!
Makelle sharing her blanket while we take a rest. There was more cuddling this week with the kids than their whole lives together. They were so lethargic a lot of the time it was crazy.
One of Lindsey's famous forts. I think this is what the kids will miss the most because I just don't make them the same. Notice Lantz' hot red cheeks!
Makelle found a new way to rest and relax, in a homemade hammock.
When she was up to she loved ice skating on the kitchen floor and doing tricks.
Sliding on the cushions.
Lantz telling all sorts of stories.
He was sick at the first of Lindsey's visit so it took an extra long time to warm up to her but they were good friends by the end.
Zak can always make Lantz laugh with the most simple things.
Lindsey trying to take both the kids home in her suitcase. Makelle was willing, Zak was a little harder to persuade.
Lantz liked the idea some.
Zak wanted rain boots too so he tried on Makelle's to see if they would fit. She didn't like that much, and he was just disgusted by her reaction.
We decorated new years hats although we didn't wear them on new years or even celebrate. Oh well her are the goofs in them anyways.
Makelle giving Lantz some tickles.
So amid the sickness we still found times to smile and enjoy each other. Thanks Lindsey for coming we love you and your visits. You helped us survive our miserable week and made our Christmas complete. So I guess we will call it a great week!