"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

I was reading a blog the other day and it had this posted at the top, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." Mother Teresa

I started to ponder that quote for the rest of the day.  As I was wrestling with this thought in my head, I realized this is exactly what I needed to read.  I have been struggling lately feeling

1) Inadequate in the things that I was expected to do.  This expectation was brought on by myself

and

2) Feeling like the things that I was doing everyday was boring.  I was sick of doing dishes again and I was sick of doing laundry (keep in mind I only have two kids).

Why was I feeling so yuck when everything that I ever wanted was right in front of me?  I was feeling like I just wasn't enough.  I want to do something spectacular I wanted to feel needed and not by just fixing a peanut butter and jam sandwich and then to have it not even be eaten.

The reason why I NEEDED to read this from Mother Teresa is because I was sick of doing the "little" things.  I wanted to feel important by the worlds terms and not by the terms from the people that matter the most.

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." 


That is it!  I don't have to do great things.  I can just do small things with great love!  I can just sit down with my kids and play tea party or play pretend.  This quote reminds me of a story in the New Testament where Jesus was asked to heal a rich man.  The man sent his servant to bring Jesus to him to heal him.  The servant was told to tell his master how to be healed which was a simple thing.  The master was prideful and didn't do what he was told.  The servant told the master if Christ had told him to do something hard then wouldn't he do it.  Then why not do it if it was simple.  The man humbled himself and then did what he was told and was healed.

Would I be like the prideful master and not do the simple things that the Master has asked?

White Sands National Monument

A couple of weekends ago we went to White Sands National Monument.  It was so much fun!  We had sand everywhere when we were done.  It took me two hours to vacuum out the car.  We went with the Biesingers and we brought our dogs.  Everything was perfect except that the wind decided to pick up right when we got there.  It was almost like someone had turned on the "wind" switch.  We bought sleds and then set out to have some fun.

Aaron's National Geographic moment

The road goes on for miles then we stopped at the end and hiked up the tallest hill we could find.  It brought back memories of Lake Powell's sand hill.  The only difference was that this sand wasn't hot on your feet.  It was the softest sand I had ever felt.  I wish you could all feel it!  Man I could have slept on it it was that soft.  Anyway, Aaron wanted to be buried like he had when he was young so we were all about that.  Aspyn went down the hill by herself.  I was so proud of her.  Her face was classic but she didn't even cry.  I for sure thought that when she got to the bottom or even while she was going down that she was going to fall or get to the bottom and cry.  She didn't she LOVED it!  I was so surprised.  Sophy had fun going down with Aaron, Hannah, Makayla, Ellie and myself.  Aaron and I even took the dogs down running next to us, at separate times of course.  I also went down with Tasha on the same sled.  Seriously so much fun!  If you have the chance to go, do it!

Hannah always playing with at least one of our girls.

Makayla pulling Aspyn

First ride down

Tasha pushing so I could take the picture

This is Appy's sand castle.

To repeat Despicable Me "Oh, Ya!"

Soapy didn't want to bury Daddy.  She just wanted to play in the sand.

Ellie trying to bury Sophy.

Aaron was such a trooper.  He had to go back to the car a couple of times because Sophy had a leaking diaper and then a poopy one.  He is so wonderful.  What would I do without him?!  Anyway, I hope you can catch the spirit of fun that we had.

Freak Frost

About a month ago there was a snow storm and a frost.  Because Texas isn't used to all of the snow and cold, people were freakin' out, seriously.  It was so much fun driving in my car with the inch to two inch snow on the road.  The way the news was talking about the storm they were saying to get all of the food you need for the next two weeks and don't go out of your house.  They had businesses shut down for one day.  The crazy thing was that because of the frost and snow about 1/3 of the people here in El Paso had pipes freeze, us included.  We didn't have all of our pipes working from Wednesday till Saturday afternoon.  The crazy thing about this is that back at home we have a huge 40 gallon water tank that the movers didn't bring, even when we told them to.  The other thing is that we still hadn't filled up our juice bottles that we had when we moved here.  We emptied them when we moved and never filled them back up.  Lesson learned always be prepared. 

The other adventure is that our electricity went out three different times.  Try cooking without having water and electricity.  The good news is that we went out for dinner, one of the nights!  Funny though because even the restaurants had their electricity go out right when we got our food.  When we came home we couldn't get in through the garage so we had to go in through the back door.  We went inside and I knew exactly where the flashlights were and I knew where the candles were.  I could even find them in the dark with no lights.  We even had extra batteries, just in case we ran out. 

The cool thing about this experience is that I did listen to a prompting to get some bottled water from Costco a couple of weeks before.  Did I know that the water and electricity was going to go out? No, but I do know that God watches out for us and we just have to make sure we are listening to those promptings.

Seriously just try going one day without water.  You will be surprised how much water you use.  Even washing your hands.  Getting water for your animals or even washing off your dishes.  You don't think of all of the things you use it for unless you don't have it.  The other crazy thing about this experience was that we had a small flood.  A pipe burst on my birthday.  Happy Birthday to me.  I was watching my friends little girl and when we were dropping her off I felt like I should go back home to change.  Well, little did I know when I walked in through the garage I saw water coming out of the laundry room door into the garage.  I opened the door and yep, there it was water all over.  I quickly reached around to the washing machine to shut off those valves but when the water kept coming I knew I had to call Aaron to come back to help me. We walked around the house and there was a huge puddle of water outside surrounding the house and running along the sidewalk.  There was a hole where the brick and siding meet and there was the water gushing out. He went back to the front yard and shut off the main water to the house.  Needless to say El Paso is now making stricter laws for insulating plumbing fixtures that are on outside walls.  The next day the plumber came out and fixed the pipe.  So Saturday afternoon I was able to do laundry and dishes for the first time in a week.  Yea for water! Yea for fixed pipes! Yea for electricity. 

I do want to pass on some information that people might think helpful for emergency purposes. 

#1 Have some cash on hand that is small in bills (ie ones, fives and tens).  The reason being if you do need to go to the store you have cash and they probably won't be able to get you change.

#2 Get a large bottle or a few bottles of hand sanitizer.  The reason why I suggest this is because that way you don't have to use drinking water to wash your hands when you can sanitize them.

#3 Use paper products instead of your regular ones.  That way you can save more water.  Also don't forget utensils and cups. 

#4 If is yellow let it mellow.  If it's brown flush it down.  Self explanatory.  We had to use our neighbors five gallon bucket because he had water. 

#5 French baths are better than no bath!

#6 Eat like you are camping.  Cereal is good no electricity and no water needed. 

I am sure there are more things that I learned but those are the items that I can think of right now.

Something else that was fun to see is that we actually had use for our fireplace and the dogs have never culled up that close before.  So cute!  Even the girls got cuddly  cozy. 

Food Post

I was watching Oprah a while back and it was on a woman and a few others who were taken hostage for four years.  She was in the government and this was suppose to be some sort of government protest.  Anyway she commented on how she had to eat the same thing everyday.  There was only a certain amount of food that had to go around to a larger amount of hostages.  This was her only joy for the day.  She talked about how the kidnappers would call them by numbers and she insisted that they call her by name.  She was not an animal but was a person and she insisted that they treat her that way.  She did not have control over her environment but the things that she chose to have control over she did not let them treat her like an animal.  She was a daughter of God!  Anyway, she was found and the people who kidnapped her were brought to justice.  She told herself that if she ever got out she would eat a different fruit every week.  That taught me a vital lesson.

Look around Niesh,  why am I holding myself back and being satisfied with only a certain amount of fruits a vegetables.  Why not try different fruit every week.  Instead of being stuck in my ways look for a higher way of living.  You don't know what you are missing if you don't get out of your comfort zone.  With that being said, here is my first papaya and my first kumquat.  I thought that it was a vegetable but it looks and tastes like small oranges.  They are bite size and juicy.  Kind of fun to get out of my comfort zone.

The other pictures are of a chicken brushetta meal that my sister made me when I had Sophy.  Megan is an amazing cook and baker.  I have craved that meal she made me since I had Sophy then I learned that I had the recipe with me the entire time.  The dessert is my chocolate molten cake filled with a bittercream frosting and chocolate ice cream on top and some chocolate sauce smothered over it all.  It doesn't look very pretty but man was it GOOD!!!  Thanks Megan for the chicken brushetta recipe!

We also love pizza so we made a pizza night for one of our dinners.  The girls loved doing this and had so much fun.  Aspyn is a picky eater so she got a pizza made with "white" sauce instead of "red" sauce.

Having Girls is so Much Fun

Our girls sure are girls.  They are very girly like to play tea party or as we like to call it hot chocolate party.  They also like to paint and draw.  Aspyn was missing dance.  She wanted to get into her old dance monkey costume and dance to her dvd on from her dance recital.  Sophy also liked watching her dance and joined in on the fun of dancing.  I also love taking pictures of the girls when they sit and watch a movie together.  They don't always sit together so willingly but when they do I have to take a picture.  It is too cute not to.

For Christmas Aaron's Mom gave us some snow in a jar.  Here is a picture of Aaron and Aspyn playing with it on the kitchen floor.  You just add water to the powder and voila.  There you have it.  Snow in the Kitchen.

New Years Day and Week

These pictures are of us and our friends the Biesingers.  Their girls and our girls love playing with each other.  I guess you could say our girls are obsessed with playing with Ellie and Hannah and MaKayla.  We love them too!  It is so nice when you have such good friends that you can do things with and talk with about anything and everything.  We LOVE the Biesingers!

These are pictures of the girls playing on their jeep out in our front yard.  You will notice that there is no grass.  This is typical in El Paso.  We are just grateful that we have grass in the backyard!  The girls loved playing with the jeep.

The other pictures are of us and the Biesingers hanging out on New Years Eve.  We played games and played guitar hero until the big ball dropped.  We did watch that on TV.  I was so sad when I thought about where I was last year.  We have a tradition of going to the cabin with my side of the family.  So I was a little sad thinking of them and all of the fun and memories they were having without us because I wanted to be in on the fun.  The good part about being in Texas is that we are with friends we wouldn't have met any other way. 

The other interesting thing about living in Texas is that this is the normal amount of snow.  At least we got something that reminded me of Utah.  Who would have thought that I would have missed the snow.  I did!  It is only about an inch or maybe two but it still counts as snow.

Christmas in Utah

We had Christmas early in Texas so we could actually spend Christmas day in Utah with family.

The girls did great on the flight.  It is so much easier taking the girls with Aaron's help instead of doing it by myself. Sophy was not too happy because I was taking another picture and it was late at night.  Poor girl.

On Christmas Eve we made sugar cookies at my parents house.  Thanks Megan for planning it and for baking all the dough and making the frosting.  We had lots of fun and lots of left overs.  That night we exchanged presents.  I love spending time with our families. 

On Christmas day we woke up at Shanelle's and Barbee's and ate breakfast then we went over to Buchanan's had opened up Christmas presents, talked to Uncle Elder Adam, played and ate.  It was so much fun!

Then we went to Marty and Rachel's and played over there.  Pieper came with us and they all loved playing together. 

  We did go out to Leatherbee's the day that we left.  That was one of the restaurants that we missed.  It was fun to see family and friends. 

Love you all and Merry Christmas.