I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am married to Moroni a wonderful man. I have 4 beautiful children, Crysania 12 Bowen 10 Elijah 7 and Sarah 3. I am very interested in Emergency preparedness and food storage. I love to Read, Paint, Scrapbook, and Sing, but most of the time I just end up cleaning the house and changing diapers. I love my family I love the gospel and I am so happy with the life I have been given.
We have had a lot of fun experiences the last few weeks. The kids and I made graham cracker houses last week, lots easier than trying to make ginger bread and the kids like them just as much.
We went to the Starks family Christmas party on Saturday. 11 out of 12 kids were there with their families the best turn out we have had for several years. It was so much fun to see all the cousins that live out of state and we hadn't seen for a while. We ate Pizza and treats, watched a church movie about the birth of Jesus and had an Ugly sweater contest. Moroni borrowed one of my dads old sweaters and won for the ugliest sweater.
This is the only picture I have of Moroni with his ugly sweater on, sorry it is kinda blurry.
Jared won with the most unusual. Broc and Summer Playing Pool Sherrie and Brian Starks and Kids Brennan, Maddox, Kya, and Crysania watching the Polar Express. On Sunday we had the Benson family party. Robyn, Lacy, and Kendra came to visit from Connecticut. We had dinner and desert and then exchanged presents. The kids had fun playing with their presents after opening them. All the older girls got a foam purse set, here they are putting them together. Aspen was helping. Robyn and Betty, taking pictures Moroni, Sarah and Aspen
I made the best dinner tonight and everything in it was from my food storage (except the cheese) It was beef burritos enchilada style with home made tortillas, so yummy and the whole family actually at it. Here is the recipe
Flour tortillas 1c whole wheat flour 1c white flour (you can use 2c of white flour if your family doesn't like wheat) 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 tsp vegetable oil 3/4 c water Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients Add wet to dry 1 TBsp at a time mixing with a fork (I use my kitchen aid) knead for 4-5 min. let rest 10-20 min roll out into tortillas
Filling 2 cans roast beef 1 can green chilies 1 tsp taco seasoning (or any other seasoning you want) Warm together on the stove until beef falls apart
1 can black beans 1 can green chili enchilada sauce Mozzerella cheese
Fill tortilla with beef mixture, beans, and cheese. Top with chili sauce and more cheese if desired. You can bake this like you would enchiladas or just make individually on a plate and then warm in the microwave if needed. Serve
Crysania loves her hair curled, she is always asking me to curl it for her. So for her birthday she decided she wanted to get a perm, so all of her grandparents gave her money as well as mom and dad. We went yesterday and had it done. It took 3 1/2 hours but she was a trooper and didn't complain at all. And here are the results, it looks super cute.
Bowen had his first day of cub scouts yesterday, doesn't he look spiffy in his uniform.
I am so proud of Bowen for choosing to get baptized. We had a good day and everything went smooth. I was afraid that someone in the family would be sick since we had sick family members all week, but everyone was well. We were going to have a get together after the baptism but decided not to because of the sickness. Since many of our friends and family were not able to come I thought I would share with you the talk I gave on baptism.>
There a few questions that I want to ask about baptism.
Why are we baptized? commandment
How are we baptized? By immersion
When are we baptized? When we are 8 or older
By what authority are we baptized? The priesthood
Why
2 Nephi 9:23 And he commandeth all men that they must repent and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.
When Jesus was alive on the earth he went to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan River. John knew that Jesus was without sin, and so he was surprised when Jesus asked to be baptized. John knew that Jesus had never sinned, so he didn’t think Jesus would need to be baptized. But Jesus told John that being baptized was a commandment from Heavenly Father, and he wanted to obey all of Heavenly Father’s commandments.
When we are baptized we make covenants (promises) with Heavenly Father. We promise to obey his commandments, forgive others, and follow Jesus Christ. In return, he accepts us into the Church and promises to guide and help us.
How
By immersion. It is to represent the burial and resurrection of Christ. As he was buried in the tomb, so we are buried in the water. As he came forth from the tomb to a newness of life as a resurrected person, so we come forth from baptism in water to a newness of a religious life on earth, serving the Lord and keeping his commandments.
Our immersion is to help us remember the burial and resurrection of Christ.
When
Little children are sinless, they do not need to be baptized, but when we turn 8 we reach the age of accountability. That means we are old enough to be responsible for our own actions and therefore old enough to be baptized.
By what authority
When Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon with Oliver Cowdery, John the Baptist came to them and taught them the correct way to baptize. He gave them the priesthood so that they had the authority to baptize others. The priesthood has been given to other people so that we can have the privilege of being baptized by someone with the proper authority.
The person who baptizes each of you will have the same priesthood that John the Baptist had
I know that Bowen made the right choice to be baptized into this the true church or Jesus Christ, I am so proud of him. I love this gospel and I love my savior, I am grateful that he suffered for us so that we could return and live with him someday. Amen
Crysania chose to have a big birthday party and invite all her friends this year instead of going out with the family. She had 7 friends come and I think they all had a really good time.
Opening presents
Crysania chose the strawberry shortcake pan for her cake this year. I think this is the third year I have made this cake for her. They played several games. This is when they were playing the telephone game, they kept picking really easy things like "merry christmas" and when they would get to the end it would always be right, so it wasn't very funny for them, or when they would whisper it in the other persons ear everyone in the room could hear it so everyone knew what it was supposed to be. I thought it was hillarious. This is Emily, Hannah, Becky, and Shellby Here they are hitting the pinata, it was a Hannah Montana guitar. Alec is hitting with Bowen, Shellby and Victoria in the background We did makeup, hair, and nail booths. Here is Jessica putting on Crysanias makeup, notice the Hannah Montana shirt, we had a theme going on here.
This year Elijah decided to have dinner out at Carls Jr. for his birthday. Then we went to walmart and got icecream for his treat instead of a cake. This is the boys up in the play ground Crysania and Sarah
Long time no post. What a wonderful long weekend where I got to relax (for the most part) and spend time with my family. For thanksgiving day we went to Grandma and Grandpa Starks house out in Levan. We only had 3 families there so it was a nice cozy dinner with only a few kids around and they were on the nintendo or watching TV the whole time so it was pretty quiet. We got to sit around and talk for hours, The guys even took their guns out and went shooting for a few hours, so we had some girl time.
Friday Moroni and I finally got around to putting the floor boards back on and some of the molding, 3 months after we put our new floor down. Then we went and watched twilight with his mom, sister, and brother in law. I could do a whole post just on my thoughts about the movie, but I won't, suffice it to say they could have done a better job but I liked it overall. Now I want to read the book again. We also went to Los Amigos (our favorite) for dinner.
Saturday moroni spent the day with his friend, so I took the kids to my sisters and spent the day shopping and hanging out with her. I went to the craft fair in SF they had tons of great gift ideas and some really fun stuff, I spent more than I was planning on but I did get the one thing I was really wanting so I was happy.
Sunday was church and just hanging around the house relaxing until about 8:00 when Elijah and Sarah both started puking a bunch. We stayed up till 11:00 with them while they threw up periodically, luckily we only had one that didn't make it into the container. (sorry if that was too gross for anyone) When we finally did go to bed they kept waking up off and on until 4am when the both finally got it out of their system and slept. So today has been a lazy day for me since I am not feeling well myself and I was up half the night.
Brennan, Maddox, Kya, and Crysania watching the Polar Express.
