TotesMagotes

Sometimes I look back on the week and feel that I've accomplished little. On reflection of other weeks it seems like I've conquered the world!

***July Messenger: Sister Pulsipher's Favorite Quotes
          "No person was ever honored for what he received  Honor has been the reward for what he gave." - Calvin Coolidge, Elder Derek Davis

          "One test of a person's strength is his knowledge of his weakness" -Fortune Cookie, Elder Bryan Durr

          "You can not convert people beyond your own conversion." -Mackenzie Ritebono

          "The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none." -Movie:Charyle, Elder Seth Wagner

23 February 2014

Everything about our family is in recuperating mode today. We had an awesome week this week!

Monday (17 February) was the 30th Annual Great Aloha Run. It was also the "3rd Annual Smiths Doing the 'Great Aloha Run' Run".

We took awesome selifes and enjoyed walking/jogging/running together.  We are considering bringing the babies with us next year.

The next day we hit the ground running with final preparations for Itasca's 1st Birthday Party Extravaganza!  Here are the pictures I managed to remember to take:

The one where we're mostly looking at the camera.  Old Navy commercial

The one where Tactac is not looking

The one with Tactac's smash cake

The one where Teancum is the world's best shave ice artist

 We all had great fun and enjoyed the company of all that came.  It's amazing that Tactac has reached (and passed) the one year old milestone.  We love our happy, smiling not-so-baby boy.

Last Thoughts on Experience and Family Home Evenings

This is the final installment of President Pulispher's Message on Experience - The Master Teacher.  This message came at a time when I needed to remember that I was already a missionary, called, set apart, trained and working, I just needed experience in order to become a really effective missionary.

***July 2004: Messenger: President Pulispher's Message: Experience - The Master Teacher - ptfinale
          What have you learned from this great experience called a mission?  What would you trade it for?  How do you place a value on it?  Each time we see you, you have grown.  It is such a great blessing to see first hand the growth of a missionary.  Elder Simkins on Pohnpei bore his testimony; "My prayers initially were all about me.  At some point they changed to praying about others".  That is growth.  How do you really come to believe Cornelius, the Spiritual Engine, the Control Model, the Desire Model?  Theory has to be proven through experience.  Experience - The Master Teacher.
          The greatest testimony of this gospel is that it works in every aspect of our lives.  Your mission will become the foundation for the rest of your life leading into eternity.   Build it well.  there is an orchestration to our lives.  Our Father in Heaven has a plan for us.  We need to trust in Him and then go out and experience the plan.  Learn every day from this great experience called a mission.  Experience - The Master Teacher.

President Pulsipher touches on some of my favorite topics here at the end including: building our foundation for eternity and orchestration.  I believe that we are building our mansions up in heaven based on the way we build our lives and our personality and on our choices here and now.  That gives our lives meaning.  I also believe that our lives are orchestrated.  We are placed in the situations we face everyday to see how we will handle those situations.  Which build our lives.

16 February 2014

Our Monday family home evening lesson was based on the primary sharing time lesson on the creation.  I printed coloring pages from lds.org here,

I found this one later and I think it is much better.

We talked about the different days of creation based on our coloring page.  Then we had the babies collect toys that represented the different days of creation.  Pwopwo has day six where God created man and woman.  Lloyd has the animals: teddy bear, elephant and dinosaur :).  Tactac was supposed to hold the plants which are tree blocks.

They really cheesed it up in this picture.

At the beginning of the month we decided to start giving the babies a non-allowance (we just didn't want to call it allowance).  We realized that they saw us spending money shopping but didn't understand why they couldn't buy whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.  At our family home evening that week, we gave each baby $5 which is kept in their wallets and I hold onto the wallets.  We explained that they could use the money on things they wanted now or save it for larger things later.  (We are still trying to decide if $5 per month is too much.)  They both spent some money on quarter machine do-das early on.  Then Lloyd wanted to buy books from their school book fair.  We told him he would have to work for extra money.  Nakeu and Lloyd sat down and wrote out a plan for earning extra money.



We had a short time frame so the values of the jobs are high.  Lloyd did jobs each morning, for three mornings to have enough money for the books he wanted in addition to the money he had left from the beginning of the month.

He loves those books!  And we love watching him grow.

Experience the Master Teacher and Birthdays

I should've known that counting down days of #100happydays was setting myself up for failure.  So, I decided to be more "room without walls" with it...

***July 2004: Messenger: President Pulispher's Message: Experience - The Master Teacher - pt3
          Hebrews 9:16 states, "For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator."  Many people have given up their lives for their testimony.  We probably will not have to do that.  But somehow in someway, we will have to stand up for what we believe in.  Your mission is a witness to your father in Heaven that you have a testimony.  You have given up two years of your life.  That is a real credit to you.  That test, "What are you willing to do for your testimony?", will continue through out your life.  To our couples, you have passed the test one more time.  Experience - The Master Teacher.

9 February 2014

In the last few weeks we had two awesome birthdays for Alessandra and Itasca.  It's hard to believe that our little girl is already 3-years-old and that baby Tactac is real toddler.

We decided to have a small party for Pwopwo, so we needed to clean up the back yard a bit.  I enlisted the babies to help clean the back patio.

 Pwopwo (all of us really) really like the Disney movie "Frozen."  We're going printable on the birthday banners this year.  Pwopwo was excited to wake up to a birthday banner on her birthday.

We rented and bouncer and cotton candy machine for Pwopwo's birthday party.  The babies had fun while the mommies got to talk to each other.  Luckily the bouncer people didn't come to pick up the bouncer until 6pm.  We got to have some family bounce time after Daddy got back from seeing Lindsey Takeuchi at the temple and after everyone left.

One week and one day after Pwopwo's birthday is Tactac's birthday.  Tactac likes cars so we printed and put together this Disney "Cars" themed banner.  I don't know if Tactac has actually seen the banner.  It's a bit out of his normal field of view.

While Tactac's birthday party isn't until the end of the month (I couldn't handle back-to-back weekend parties) we had a small family celebration on his actual birthday (because he really knows ;)).

 Foodland makes an awesome chocolate sponge cake, and an extra candle for good luck.



Jerica bought Lloyd a glow worm for his 1st birthday because she remembered that I had a glow worm that I loved for forever.  We have continued this tradition and I managed to get these three still enough (although still a little blurry) to see all three with their respective glow worm lovies

Our babies fill our lives with joy and Nakeu and I continue to grow together each day.  It's amazing to think that 10 years ago Nakeu was gearing up for a mission and I was working on considering a mission.  And today, our missions are something we look on with fondness and thanksgiving and hope to be able to pass on to our babies.