my favorite weekend of the year

Twice a year, our church has what is called general conference. Instead of attending church, we spend the weekend at home watching a live broadcast of our church leaders in Salt Lake City speaking to us and members throughout the world and sharing spiritual messages and counsel. Conference weekend has always been like a holiday to me, right up there with Christmas and Thanksgiving (really!). We always come together as a family, eat lots of food (including traditional favorites like scones for breakfast, Mama's tacos and Marie Callender's pies), and partake in a great spiritual feast as we listen to our Prophet and the apostles. And the music, oh the music! It is one of my favorite parts. I love hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing, and am so grateful for beautiful music that inspires and helps us feel the Spirit. Conference is a chance to receive encouragement and inspiration, and to ponder on the things we can do in our lives to improve and be better.

I have always loved general conference, and now as a young mother look forward to it even more. The first general conference after my husband and I moved to Texas, so far away from all of our family members, as the broadcast started and the pipe organ started to play I got a little teary-eyed with joy at the opportunity to receive counsel from my Heavenly Father. It felt like coming home!

This weekend was wonderful. We had lots of fun with our little family. We made a giant board game (Candy Land) - haha, we are nerdy - and played hide and seek with our kids! They loved it!

We watched general conference on Jonathan's fun projector and basked in the joy and inspiration. We were so glad to have friends come over and watch with us during a couple of the sessions.

The kids colored and played the "I Spy General Conference" game that I made up as we watched. It helped us to pay attention and listen for different topics that were discussed! We also got points for finding things like certain colors of ties, the organ, and my Aunt Ruth singing in the choir. We racked up enough points to earn ice cream cones!

We fried up some tacos (with my secret family recipe that goes back three generations) and ate with our good friends the Blairs. 

The men went to Priesthood meeting while the mamas watched a chick flick at our house (and the children ran around like crazy, turning off the lights and shining flashlights and screaming and playing with every toy in our playroom - such happy chaos!).

We ate an entire apple pie with our good friends (hot out of the oven with ice cream, yummy!) and then stayed up late playing the Wii. Oh, and all 5 of the children were still awake when they left at around 11:00. Talk about grumpy children in the morning, but what a fun memory :) We are so grateful for wonderful friends to celebrate holidays and conference with :)

Find all of the general conference addresses here!

friends are the best

We had a sweet little evening on Saturday. James has a little friend named Spencer. His mommy and I are friends, and so James and Spencer have played together a few times. Usually it is type of playing where one toddler is playing with one toy on one side of the room, and the other is playing with another on the other side, with occasional sad faces and crying about sharing "mine toys!"

We watched Spencer on Saturday night so his parents could go on a fun date. The boys played pretty well, but not really together. We had lots of fun with trains and bikes. And then they just looked so cute that I had to whip out my camera.

"Oh good, pictures!" said Spencer (Jonathan and I decided that the boys talk in two different toddler "dialects" - very cute). We somehow got them to sit together on the stairs. Jonathan made a funny face and noise (as only daddies can do), and it was like magic - all of a sudden these two little buddies bonded! And this happened:

From that moment on they played together and had the best time. James said, "come on, Spencer!" and took him upstairs to his mommy's and daddy's big bed in the loft, where they had a grand old time jumping on the bed, touching the ceiling, and playing with flashlights in the dark.

It was the sweetest thing to watch our little boy to really play with his first friend, and to discover the joy that comes with friendship.

Flashback Boxes

Yesterday Jonathan and I decided to clean out a few boxes from our storage closet. I tackled a box full of random papers, and man, it was so much fun! It was a total flashback to my senior year of college, mostly having to do with piano.


In this box I found some awesome gems such as:

*My senior piano recital program, signed by the three piano faculty members who were on the jury at my recital, with their signatures and the word "Pass!!" (I think my favorite part of that is Dr. Peery-Fox's signature, because I have to admit that I was nervous that she'd be there, and so thrilled that she later complimented me on how well I did.) This totally took me back to the days of practicing hours on end, and sometimes I really miss it! Consequently, I practiced for quite awhile today (definitely not near the four hours I used to, but still - it felt good!).


*TONS of class notes from classes like piano lit, music history and such. However, my favorite part of these notes were my study notes (well, cram session notes, really) that Janina and I wrote down in the middle of the night before our big music history exams. They consisted of some AMAZING acronyms (well, sort of acronyms...) and such that helped us remember key facts about Bach and Handel. Some of my personal favorites:

Guys And Or Men OWe Our Very Cute selves Dark Chocolate Or Light Chocolate!

...which, of course, reminds you of these important Bach facts...

Germany, Amstadt, Organist, Muhlhausen, Organ works, Weimar, Organist, Violinist, Concertmaster, Director, Cothen, Orchestra, Leipzig, and Cantatas.

No wonder we did so well on the tests, eh?? I will spare the details of the Handel one about love handles.


*A roll of cloth tape I used to use to tape my fingers when they started to hurt or bleed during practicing. Ahh, good times...


*Notes written by Janina and myself during our public speaking class. Writing notes to each other kept us awake (and sane). Here are some examples (two are in the form of poetry):

One day in the class "Public Speaking"
Some speeches we were critiquing.
He gave us a break,
The chance we did take,
We escaped and us he was seeking.

HAIKU TO PUBLIC SPEAKING by: J-Bebe
We sit there...and stare.
He talks, and talks, and he talks.
I want to leave now.

to the next idea....to the next idea....to the next idea....to the next idea....yes, let's move onto the NEXT idea please.

This class was riveting, as you can imagine.


*A plastic bag filled with about a million fortune cookie fortunes. Mostly from Panda Express.


I love flashback boxes. They just fill my soul with joy. And oh how I [sometimes] miss the days of being a full-time music nerd.

A sweet homecoming

Cheryl, I hope you don't mind me posting these pictures, they are just so precious and I am just so happy for you that I had to share the love :)


My best buddy Cheryl, who had her sweet baby Amelia a couple of months ago, just welcomed home her husband Dave, who had been away with the Navy for six months. These are the sweetest pictures ever. Isn't this the cutest little family ever?

the sweet little girl! maybe we'll have to get her and James together ;) hehe

Parallel Lives

My best buddy Janina and I always seem to have parallel lives - seriously, it is even kind of creepy sometimes just HOW similar our lives are. We always seems to be going through similar things at the same time - which is one reason why it is so great that we are friends! One such similar thing is that in the past few weeks or months, both of our husbands got new jobs and moved back to Utah after being out of state (after losing jobs, living with our in-laws and then with or very close to our parents...I could probably go on and on with the similarities...)! Anyway, Matt and Janina and their cute little boy just moved back to Utah last week, and on Saturday we went down to Provo to see them! We went to our traditional hang-out of Panda Express and then had fun catching up and playing games at their apartment. We are so grateful for good friends!

becoming buddies

Janina and I with our boys!

I love this picture...not sure what that face is that I am making, though!

a sweet sleepy boy with his Daddy

gotta love that face!

Reminiscing

I was just chatting with a cute friend who was one of my Beehives when I was a Young Women leader in Provo (and now she's a junior in high school!), and I got thinking about all the awesome girls I got to know and hang out with in the Freedom First Ward. We still miss that ward and are so grateful for all the wonderful friends we met there. Despite the somewhat scary atmosphere of our beloved Stubbs Avenue (as described at length here), we have such wonderful memories of our first apartment and our first ward together as a married couple. Isn't it just fun to reminisce every once in awhile?

Me with a few of my cute young women - I blend right in, don't ya think? :)


Fun photo shoot at the Provo Temple-


Jonathan came to mutual once and taught all the girls how to change a flat tire; it was great fun. Here are my buddies Sam and Suiha working on their tire.


And I can't think about the Freedom First Ward without thinking of our amazing bishop, Bishop Ngatikaura. I will never forget him and his kindness, or his ukulele-playing at church while the whole ward sang "Aloha 'Oe" to us before we moved. What sweet people. I am so grateful for wonderful people in our lives from whom we learn so much.

Here are Bishop Ngatikaura and Jonathan having a little jam session at a going-away party that was held for us and some other couples moving away from the ward. What a fun night that was!

So happy for Cheryl and Dave!

I just am so excited that I had to post and congratulate my best buddy Cheryl on the new addition to the Athay family! Amelia Claire Athay was born on Tuesday, May 5 at 10:43 am. She was 7 lb 7 oz and 20 inches long. I haven't seen pictures yet, but I talked to Cheryl and both she and baby are doing great. Her husband Dave is in the Navy and is away for six months, and I so wish I lived closer to Virginia so I could hang out with Cheryl and Amelia! Anyway, we're so happy for you, Cheryl! Love you!

And, for your viewing pleasure, a couple of classic Jen and Cher pictures from high school.

a buddy for James

This weekend we got to watch our friend Henry for his parents while they were at a wedding. We were excited for James to actually have another child to play with! As you can imagine, James tends to hang out with adults for the majority of his time. So we thought this would be a great opportunity to test the waters and see how James will maybe do in nursery in a little over a month (I am hoping he doesn't take after his Mommy - I spent my whole nursery career standing there, big tears rolling down my cheeks, too shy to play with the other kids even though my Dad was there EVERY week, playing on the floor with all the other kids...).

James did great! He took a while to warm up and just sat on my lap and watched Henry play with his toys, but he gradually got to where he was actually playing with Henry and copying things that he was doing (Henry would squeal, then James would squeal...it was quite amusing). We all had so much fun! Here are some pictures of the two boys.

Updates

My family will be very happy to know that I finally posted a couple of pictures of our boy! It has been tricky without high speed internet, because I have a lot of cute pictures I have been wanting to put up!

We are doing well and have a few updates. As you probably know, Jonathan had to quit his job (see previous post) and has been job searching in the Boise area, and we are staying with his family in Adrian, Oregon. It has been a bit frustrating and we have been applying to jobs and sending in resumes like crazy. Well, he did find a job! We were way excited, obviously, however it doesn't pay nearly enough. We knew that it probably wouldn't pay quite as much as we wanted when we applied (it is one of those "depends on experience" things), but we had our hopes that he had enough relevant experience for us to at least be able to scrape by with it. It is a job in an optometry office (ironic) and it is mainly a sales job (selling glasses), but since there are only three people who work there (including the optometrist) he will be doing all sorts of things, including probably making the glasses, which is way cool! We also thought that since that is the case, he would probably get paid an ok amount, since opticians, we have heard, make pretty good money. Well, like I said, he got the job, but he was only offered the BARE MINIMUM amount that was listed. Jonathan was able to talk him up a little, but only 50 cents higher. When Jonathan called me and told me that he got the job, I said "Yay!!" and then when I asked how much they would pay him, he said "you don't wanna know." My husband knows me all too well. :) But, any job is better than no job, so of course we took it.

He had his first day today and really enjoyed it. It is a bummer that the pay is so low - it is definitely enough to pay all our bills right now, but definitely not enough to pay rent. And we are so dying to get into our own place and figure things out. So, he is working there as of today, and we are continuing our search/hoping he'll bring in TONS of revenue for the company and get like a five or six dollar raise. Hey, it could happen, right? :) Anyway, we are really grateful that he at least has A JOB right now.

I have lots of fun pictures of a fun little spontaneous "photo shoot" we had the other day down the road in a pretty little area with some pretty leaves. I actually got a couple of the pictures to load, and will definitely load more later. Isn't he just the sweetest boy? Like my Dad always says, "he's a dandy!"



James is growing like a weed. His favorite thing lately is to look out the window to try and see the dogs and the cats. He gets SO EXCITED when he sees them! He is a great waver and will wave on cue whenever we say "bye bye." Today he was "talking" to my Mom on the phone (aka listening to my Mom talk to him!) and he waved "to" her, it was adorable.

He is my little buddy, and I actually think that in some ways he is a little miniature me! He has this new smile where he smiles so big and squints his eyes shut - which is exactly the way I used to smile when I was little (except my face was a bit more chubby!) I wish I had a picture of me to put next to this one so you could see the comparison!


My parents tell me that when I was little, at mealtime after awhile I would just kind of sit there, not eating much, until they tried to get me out of the high chair - then I would start shoving food in my mouth like crazy! James often does the exact same thing! Just when I think he's all done, I try to take the food away and he just wants more!

Another thing I did when I was little (and I actually have a memory of this) - when I was taking a bath I couldn't STAND for there to be dirt in the bathtub. I would FREAK out and yell "DIRT! DIRT!"and my parents would scoop out the dirt. (Makes me sound like a clean freak or something, but that is totally not the case, anyone who knows me well can attest to that!) Well, the other day I was giving James a bath and he was sitting there playing, when he all of a sudden stopped what he was doing and looked into the water. He found a little speck of dirt and pointed at it! I just had to chuckle to myself.

The other day I went and visited our cute friend Karli, who is in Jonathan's parents' ward. She was so sweet and uploaded some digital scrapbooking software on my computer for me and showed me how to get started. It is SO much fun, I am totally hooked and have already made like 15 or 20 pages. Thanks so much, Karli! Our little boys are close in age and played so cute while we did the computer stuff.

In other news, my best friend Janina had her baby this past week!!! I'm not going to give any of the stats or info, because I know she'll want to tell everyone on her own blog and stuff, but I just can't contain my excitement for her ANY longer and just HAD to say something about it! :) I talked to her on the phone today and it was so much fun. Love you, Janina!

So, all in all we are doing well. :) This has been quite the interesting couple of months for our little family and I have to say that I definitely have learned a bit about faith and relying on the Lord. It is hard sometimes but I know that things will work out somehow. I've been reading the conference talks and they help SO much! I just love Elder Perry's talk and it has actually helped me a lot. I just love this part -

Those of us who have been around a while—and Elder Wirthlin and I have been around for a long time—have recognized certain patterns in life’s test. There are cycles of good and bad times, ups and downs, periods of joy and sadness, and times of plenty as well as scarcity. When our lives turn in an unanticipated and undesirable direction, sometimes we experience stress and anxiety. One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: “The best is yet to be” (“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 50 vols. [1909–10], 42:1103). We can’t predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come.

School Days

Remember back in the day when you would check out a textbook for the year (for free, mind you) and write your name in the front? Those were good times. Jonathan was helping Rebecca with her physics homework while we were home, and look what we found!

Notice anything about this picture? Yep, that's our buddy Charles. Apparently he had this book in '98-'99. Small world, huh? Well, yes actually - it is a pretty small world when you live in the country.

A Night at the Opera

Last night we went to BYU and saw the opera Don Giovanni in which Benjamin played one of the leads, Leporello. He did a wonderful job and it was all really well-done. He is so talented and it was so fun to see him in this role - his character provided a lot of the comic relief in the opera and (we think) he got more applause than anyone! Way to go, Benjamin!


Jonathan's entire family (well, almost - we missed you, Tessems! And of course Jared too, who is on his mission) was there along with some cousins, and my sister Liz came along with us, too. What a fun evening!

Jonathan and I

Dad, Sierra, Andrew, Emma Jeane

Anna, Spencer and Joseph - you can see where James gets some of his funny looks...

Liz and I

Andrew and Sierra

Most of the group

Liz rode home to Salt Lake with us and was very happy to see our sleepy boy, who stayed with Grandma and Grandpa

Oh and p.s. in other news - I got whistled at at the gas station. I just had to share because it was really funny and that has never happened to me before! And Jonathan was even sitting in the passenger's seat of the car when it happened - I guess whoever it was didn't notice him. It was funny because I had my hair pulled back, but it was bugging me so I took it out and kind of shook my hair to straighten it out, and then I heard the whistle. It reminded me of this one time when my best friend Janina and I were driving somewhere in her car, and there was a car full of guys next to us kind of checking us (well, probably her) out, so she flashed her huge, gorgeous ring at them. That put a stop to that!

A good friend

Last night, my boys and I went to DI to look for items to use for our Halloween costumes (they are going to be great, be excited). While we were there, we ran into a good friend of mine! Marisa lived in our ward in south Provo, and she was the Young Womens President and I was her Second Counselor. She is from Uruguay and is the sweetest lady, I just loved working with her! It was such a pleasant surprise to run into her, and it was fun that she got to see James - I was just barely pregnant when we moved from that ward, so of course she had never seen him before. Aren't old friends great?