I Believe-11

Now that the flurry of the holidays is well behind us, I am hoping that I can get back on track with keeping up my blog.  I enjoy writing about my beliefs and convictions, our traditions, daily happenings and thankful thoughts.  I hope that there are still people out there who are reading my words and feeling uplifted, inspired, loved.  I hope that I am able to help you to find the joy and happiness that is all around you in your own lives.  Sometimes it is very hard to look past all of the negative things that are out there in this world.  But there are many, many bright spots.  Many S.M.I.L.E.S.  We just have to be willing to look for them.

We had one of those moments last Monday during our Family Home Evening.  I am sure I have mentioned this before, but Family Home Evening is a night that we set aside for our family to be together, to talk about gospel related topics, and to learn and grow together.  We take turns preparing a lesson, choosing people to pray and songs to sing, and of course- someone has to be in charge of a treat.  Everyone wants to be in charge of the treat.

This past week, it was my turn to be in charge of the lesson.  For quite some time now, I have had the thought rolling around in my head that our family needed a theme.  Not a theme song (although that would be awesome- I might have to work on that as well.)  No- a simple theme that would carry us through the year and help us stay focused on our goal of becoming more Christ-like.  As I was praying and searching for a theme that would fit our family for the year, I kept coming back to the theme for the youth in our church this year -Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him.

Perfect.

I set about planning some things that I felt would help our family stay focused on this theme.

First- music.  Music is very important to me and to my family, so I knew that the perfect song would be in order.

Found it and it is beautiful.

(And here's a fun fact...Josh's cello teacher, Nicole Pinnell Jackson is playing the cello solo in this song.  Also, Abbie's teacher, Meredith Campbell, is one of the violinists.  That makes the song even more special to us.)

Now that we have a beautiful song and a scripture-

Moroni 10:32

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

we just need to have a daily reminder of what we need to do this year to keep this theme in our minds and in our hearts.

Well, thanks to my crafting disease (sometimes it is a good thing) and Pinterest (again, sometimes it is a good thing)- we have our daily reminders.

We had a lot of fun putting the blocks together.  The kids each made one to put in their rooms.  

I found the picture on Pinterest here.

After perusing the shelves at The Wood Connection, I came up with some ways to incorporate this picture and the theme in our home decor.  This helps in 2 very important ways.  

A.)  It feeds my crafting disease (and Abbie's since she inherited that from me.  Sorry, Ab.)

B.)  It appeases my OCD tendency to need things to match.

In Relief Society last week, our teacher talked about simplifying things down to things you can do every day, week, month, and year.  I really liked this concept and found something along those lines at Deseret Book that gave me the idea for our Ogden Family Theme board.  I adjusted a couple of things to fit our family a little better.

We are excited to see where this theme will take us this year.  I know that as our family strives to follow this theme and Come Unto Christ this year, our testimonies in the Savior will be strengthened.  Our roots in the gospel of Jesus Christ will deepen.  

His life, "which is central to all human history, neither began in Bethlehem, nor concluded on Calvary.

He was the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh, the Redeemer of the World."

(excerpt from The Living Christ, which we are still trying to memorize- 2 1/2 years later- we will get there.)