Easter seems like a holiday more deserving of a bigger celebration and I'm not talking about more chocolate bunnies and eggs, even though those are delicious too.  It's taken me a while to do much at all for Easter besides dye eggs and do a little egg hunt around the house. But as my life feels a little more manageable, here are a few things we've started doing that I hope will help my children think about the meaning of Easter a little bit more. 1.  For the week or two before Easter, we sing an Easter hymn at the beginning of our family scripture time.  Then for our scripture reading, we read about the last few days of Christ's life, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.  Maybe after Easter we'll read in 3rd Nephi about his appearance to the Nephites. 2.  Two weeks ago (3 weeks before Easter), we had a family home evening lesson about Christ and then for our activity we created a Calvary's Hill, Empty Tomb Garden.  I got the idea from here....

We have had an extremely warm winter this year.  February here in Utah was the warmest on record.  I was seriously worried that my peach trees would start blossoming in February but fortunately it got colder again and the blossoms held off.  They're blossoming now and it is still earlier than I ever remember.  I just hope it doesn't freeze again and kill the fruit! It is all beautiful and here they are on March 23rd: This is my early peach tree (we usually get peaches in early August) and it is not as far along as my later peach tree which you see below. I think this peach tree must be in an extra warm spot in my yard.  We usually don't get these peaches until late August. Here is my latest peach:  mid-September for this fruit. The daffodils are in full swing. My vinca vine is blossoming. The forsythia has been blooming for several weeks and is almost finished.  I think it started in late February.   I fe...

Recently the BYU Computer Science department has come out with some fun features that can be used in conjunction with FamilySearch.org.  All it takes is logging in to your Family Search account. One of the latest is called "Grandma's Pie" .  It took me a few weeks of trying before I got it to work for me--they must be still working out some bugs.  Grandma's Pie shows all the countries that my ancestors were born in: You can see I have lots of Dutch from my grandma whose parents immigrated from Holland about 100 years ago.  My Hansen side comes from Denmark and England. The pie isn't totally accurate because it shows me with two living grandparents and I only have one.  The inner circle is my parents who are still alive so it doesn't show where they were born (in the United States).  On the actual website, if you hover over the different squares/rectangles, it will show the names of the people. Anyway, it's pretty fun to look at and it inspires...

Today I watched a couple of parenting videos.  Ideally they should be inspiring.  Today I just felt depressed.  I put so much effort into being a good parent but the video reminded me of all my shortcomings.  Then I started working on this blog post and as I looked at my recent photo book, I felt better.  Making a family history through scrapbooking has been something I have always worked on, mostly as a record for my children.  I can't say I love doing it.  But last night I realized that having family scrapbooks also helps me because it helps me to feel like a better mom.   When I look at them, I realize that we really have done a lot of fun things and worthwhile activities. It's easy to forget about all those things you've done unless you document them.  When I look at my photo book, I think maybe I'm a better mom than I sometimes give myself credit for being. I stayed mostly cur...

I recently finished reading two books by the same author that I highly recommend.  One is called City of Tranquil Light and the other is called The Distant Land of My Father  by Bo Caldwell, a contemporary author.  The first one I received for my birthday last year and reread last week and the second one I finished this morning because I wanted to and I could! They share similar settings:  China and California.  China represents an exotic world that is a hard place to live with a lot of poverty, famine, and political turmoil.  The people there have suffered a lot.  California represents the promised land with its endless sunshine, warm weather, and prosperity. City of Tranquil Light is about a man and woman who become missionaries to China and end up getting married after they get there.  It is a love story in many ways--they fall in love with each other and with China.  But, in the end, they have to lea...