Sunday Night tradition.

We have fallen into a wonderful tradition. Sunday nights after dinner, Craig takes over the kitchen and makes cookies.

This is one of the things that make me think that I am the luckiest girl ever. His cookies are legendary.

We sent a picture to Thea to remind her how good home is. It is always good to remember home with thoughts of yummy food. :)

Josh wouldn't let me get a picture of him, but this is Boaz.

I missed a picture with the first cookie. This is his second, and his eyes are still huge.

We are lucky to have Craig's cookie ability.

The eagle

The picture I posted didn't have the completed head. 

Now I have the borders on. The top is complete. I will focus on the baby quilts to practise the quilting that I want to do on the eagle, actually the background: swirls in the sky and ripples in the water.

Josh is getting excited that I am getting closer. It is big enough to fit his bed.

The goal is to quilt feathers on the un-detailed wing and add dimension to the body with my non marvelous quilting. But I am very happy with the appliqué. 

Scripture

This week's scripture:

As a stake choir we are preparing for Stake Conference. We are singing Come Thou Fount. I love that song. The second verse talks about raising my Ebenezer. This choir director has taught us to say the second to last e short, I always said it as a long e before. The footnote calls this the "Stone of Help". The choir director, Kim, calls it a monument.

The Israelites have a long documented history of setting up stone monuments to mark important events. This particular event marks when the Ark was returned to Israel after it was lost by Eli and his sons.

This marks a time of national repentance, of turning from alien gods and returning to the God of Israel. The Philisteans had thought they had won and captured the Ark as a trophy. Even with his people in the weakness of sin and apostasy, the Lord still was strong and taught everyone a lesson with the symbol of His presence - the Ark of the Covenant.

The resulting plague the Philisteans experiences was severe, emrods or tumors in their secret parts. I have read somewhere that the presence of golden mice sent along with the returning Ark gives evidence that this might have been the same plague that caused the Black Death in medieval Europe. Penstulence spread by the fleas brought by the mice that infested the area. 

So, what does this mean to me?

I can set up my own Eben-ezer to mark my victories. What are my monuments? What victories have I had against my Philisteans?

I can trust God to fight and win His battles. The Ark was returned because God wanted it returned. The Israelites did not go and win it back. It came back carried by milk cows walking away from their babies and homes. Something unheard of. The cows lowed or cried the entire way. Yet they walked straight to an Israeli outpost, somewhere they had never been. Very un milk cow behavior. God was clearly in charge of where is Ark was going.

I must stay true to the God who is real, the God who has power, the God who will fight my battles and win. I must return. I must bind my soul to Him. I must curb my wandering heart and accept His fetter. I must learn to sing with cloven cloven tounges of fire. I must submit my will to His and sing His melodious sonnets. I must acknowledge that I need Him, desperately. 

Here is my Eben-ezer.

LuRolls

My sister-in-law makes amazing rolls. She brings them to every family party. We all look forward to her rolls. Her name is LuRose and Kris has dubbed her rolls LuRolls. They are melt in your mouth delicous.

I have been happy to let her be the author of that deliciousness for a very long time. I have been asked to bring rolls to things, but I have resorted to store bought rolls. 

Today we have been invited to dinner at a member of our ward's home. We were assigned rolls. I decided to be brave and attempt the fabulous LuRolls.

With Church at 11, I decided the best time to make them was this morning. 

I love when the dough popps the lid and grows beyond the bowl. My personal sign that the yeast is happy and working.

Using the pizza cutter, I cut the dough into inchish strips and then tied knots. I was a bit bummed that I had hard bits in my beautiful soft dough. You can see one in the top right roll. But I continued on and didn't pick it out.

I made three dozen rolls. The last pan was the best. Instead of baking them for 10 minutes, I left them in for 13. I was rewarded with beautiful golden rolls. 

We tasted tested them. I'm not sure they are as good as LuRose's rolls, but they are yummy! I am having to guard them from the family so we will have enough to take to dinner in an hour.

I am quite pleased with the results.

Hair cut

My hair got to a place where I couldn't stand it agian.

She blew it out. I won't be doing that as I don't have a blow dryer or round brushes. But it looked nice.

How I feel about taking selfies. The camera on my new phone is really good though. It takes much better pictures.

Dinner

Craig and I met Brittnay and her boyfriend for dinner. We went to a nice restaurant, I had to take pictures of Craig's dish.

He had salmon and mashed potatoes. It looked like the Colluseum.  Absolutly delicious! I had the gnocchi. Also delicous, but no architectural food elements.

The waiter was great. I forgot my glasses. He heard me tell Brittnay she would have to read the menu to me and lent me his readers. He also talked us into the dessert sampler.

The spun sugar was beautiful. The best was the creme brûlée. So good! The cream puff was also good and the chocolate strawberries. We took the brownies and the strawberry bars home to the boys, along with some spun sugar and the melted sugar tower.

Outside the White House in Anaheim, Ca. It's fun to go fancy every once in a while.

Quilting

I am an on again off again quilter. I get the bug and it's all I think about sometimes. Then I put my fabric away and ignore it for months on end.

I have been gearing up to quilting again. Yesterday I unpicked a row on Josh's eagle quilt. I haven't wanted to do it, and so it sat quietly waiting for me to be ready.

Today I counted squares and figured how many blocks I will need for the border. I cut out over seventy 6 inch blocks - not really that long, but it sounds impressive. I feel the quilting mojo coming over me.  

Good thing, I have 6 great neices and nephews getting ready to make their apperance. Actually one is already here, five more are on their way. Growing families are wonderful.

Scripture

Two of my favorite scriptures bookend Joshua. Last week's scripture, Be strong and of good courage. Very timely - at every time of my life. And this week's scripture.

This is the reason my oldest son has his name.

If I hadn't made the choice yet, I am invited to choose. Or, because I have already made the choice, I am invited to remember my choice.

Who do I serve?

Who do I take with me in that service?

What does that service look like?

All last week I had the feeling I needed to call my brother. He is in the Young Men presidency in his Ward. I know he was wanting to find family names. I know he had been looking. I have found a lot of names. Well, I printed off 27 names for our youth. I felt I should share.

I called and left a message, and we played phone tag for a bit. Today he called and told me about his journey to find names. The specialist in his ward looked at our tree and couldn't find names. Our tree is intimidating. Grandmothers have spend their lives collecting info on their lines and getting the work done. My dad's line has many grandmothers that have worked on it.

My maternal grandmother is the only member. I told Joe that I have been focusing on that line.

The advice he got from the specialist was a little complicated. The next day I called with my garbled message about family names.

I had been feeling that I needed to call Joe for a few days, and it took me that long to call him. So tomorrow I will share names, a function in the Family Search Program, and he can experience the joy of helping family.

I have also made friends who are interested in working on their family lines. I might have to go twice a week. Once to help others, and once to work on my line.

One way I am trying to serve the Lord today.

Miracle in progress

I have been 'working' at the Orange County Family Search Library. I go on Tuesdays from 9 am to 1 pm. I enjoy going and having time to work on my family history. It has also been fun working with the patrons who come in looking for family.

As I have been trying to get familiar with the resources the library has I found a book. It is huge. It's spine is about 4 inches thick.

This book contains my people. My grandmother was the only member in her family. As I have felt the need to look into my family history, I have been drawn to her line. I don't believe there are very many people who are looking on this line. Of course there are a few, I run into work done on several lines generations back. But there are more people not found on that part of the line than others.

This book is old. I'll have to look at the print date to see how old. This book begins in Germany and Switzerland, Jakob Swope lived just over the German border. He was married and had three children when he made the voyage to America. 

The authors have done a great job including the history and the stories. I have been slowing working through the beginning. I have entered new people and have a list of names to take to the temple. I have also found fractured families. One child with parents not hooked to another child with the same parents, not hooked to another. I have been merging duplicates and consolidating records to unite families.

The name also presents difficulties. There are a variety of spellings. I search to see if the person is on the tree, then add the name and start to fill in the family only to see a duplicate with a different spelling. I am excited to clean up the multiple entries.

I was telling Craig about the book and realized how amazing it is to find a book that contains my family in this library. I have been praying to find Sarah More (Moore). I have documentation on her at the end of her life. She converted to the German Reform Church on her death bed. I have the death notice in the church records.  I have a picture of her head stone. She is buried with her husband and her daughter. But I have no record or information on her birth or her parents. She has been a brick wall. No way to continue the line beyond her. She has a very common name that complicates the issue. I have found several Sarah, but I have no idea is one of them is my Sarah.

I am hopeful that with the thouroughness that this book is displaying, she might be in it. I am hopeful to find her parents and be able to extend the line.

In the meantime, I am extending the branches of this family and am looking forward to taking family names to the temple and sharing names with my siblings. 

Scripture

Marching along in the Old Testament. I've come to one of my favorite parts. Just as Moses is getting ready to pass the responcibility of the House of Israel over to Joshua, he gets to see the Promised Land from a mountain top. He has been a nurse maid to the murmuring hosts of Israel for over 40 years. They have revolted and complained and whined. I am exhausted just thinking about it. Poor man put up with them and loved them and taught them faith. Then he had to let them go and show they had learned the lessons.

I am grateful for the additional knowledge we have on this great man. The part in the Plan that he still played shouts his worthiness and dedication.

And then we have Joshua. 

He has been a faithful follower of Moses for more than 40 years. And now, he has to become the leader to this huge, somewhat dysfunctional family of over a million people.

Moses tells him three time in Duet 31 to "be strong and of good courage."

And then, the first words that he gets from Heaven repeat the comfort he got from Moses. Four times in Joshua chapter he is told be "strong and of good courage."

And in conformation that he is chosen, Joshua becomes the one who mediates the Lord's miracle for the House of Israel. The priests take the Ark and put their feet in the "brim of the water" the river stood in a heap and the children passed over on dry ground again.

The council given to Joshua has rung down through the ages. We must be strong and of good courage and the Lord has promised us miracles to sustain us.

El Niño

We have living in a severe El Niño event. Winter on some days has turned sunny California into a rainy Oregon type of winter.

I took a picture one rainy day. I was checking to make sure the gutters were draining well. We had gotten some weather alerts about flash flooding. Craig called to make sure we were okay. Some roads by where he worked had turned into temporary rivers.

I didn't get the full gutters, but the road shines with wet blacktop.

New glasses

We have all gotten used to seeing Boaz in his crooked glasses. He sat on them the first week of getting them about two years ago. I have taken them back and the girls have tried to straighten them out, but they have remained semi-crooked to full on crooked for the duration.

This is an old picture, when we were at Disneyland with cousins, but it shows his crooked glasses.

So during Christmas break Boaz and I visited the eye doctor. His eyes have stayed close to the same prescription. That is good. He picked out some new glasses.

His new specs. They have felt a bit weird to him because they are straight. I think they look great. 

Here is a full face shot.

Silly boy was determined not to smile. But I was patient and snapped this one.

A bit blurry, but a very handsome boy.

Scripture

I have been distracted by the holidays. So, jumping back into the program.

I grew up hearing about Saturday's warriors. I loved the music and sang the songs.

Now as a parent, I look at my young warriors. They fight political correctness, culture, the me generation, instant gratification and who knows what else. They have the media, popularity, the sliding morals to withstand.

I worry about everything that they have to fight against.

I love that Heavenly Father has said, "be not afraid of them."

Just another reminder to have faith and confidence in God. He is in charge and will not be moved from His plan. He has already won. I just need to stay on His team.