growing up memories

“You can eat an elephant” is one of the seven “life lessons” my dad taught us when we, as a family, camped out in Oregon for a summer in order to build a log cabin. Yep, you heard that right, my parents lugged us all up to this spot in…

I think there is so much beauty in memorization. And having to perform what you memorized in front of someone else. Growing up we memorized quotes, poems or scriptures every week right along with our jobs and “point” system (check that out HERE if you want some deliberate parenting entertainment:).…

Little did I know when I purchased this forest-green sweatshirt in the bookstore nestled smack dab in the hustle and bustle of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston one Fall day during my freshman year at B.U. that I would have three girls who would wear that thing until it would be…

Back when Lucy and I were in the hospital for her back surgery (HERE), the world spinning around her after her surgery, wanting to cling on to something solid and safe and good to get her mind off of the pain, she asked me to tell her a “Mirror Land”…

I have been working hard on a little photo project lately. As I was sorting through pictures the other day I came across this one and it stopped me in my tracks: Even now as I look at it, I would give just about anything in the whole wide world…

Some things that parents do really stick. Sometimes that knowledge is what keeps me going in a world of eye-rolling and mother-ignoring. I know I did it to my parents too. The big eye roll when my mom played her classical music. The sigh that we had to do our…

I want so much for our home to be Christ-centered.  I’m so grateful for how the gospel gives so many ideas to make that happen (family scriptures, family prayer, Family Home Evening, church services, etc.).  Aside from the practices we do as a family to remind us to put Christ…

Growing up sometimes we would wake up on Sundays to classical music blasting through our intercom system. We rolled our eyes at our mother…the culprit of that grand idea. My mother also always claimed that only classical music could be played in her car (during carpools). More eye rolls. But…

I went to Boston University for my freshman year of college and I wouldn’t change it for the world.  I know I wrote somewhere on this blog all the drama of my heart wanting and yearning to go to BYU but my mind (with my Dad orchestrating it a little…

My first boyfriend was British. His name was Stuart and he was seven-years-old. So was I. You see, when I was four, my mom (28) and dad (31) were called in to meet with one of the general authorities of our church.  They asked them if they would be willing…