Richardson Report

Because of the age changes at church, both my children had temple firsts this weekend. Kenna was able to do baptisms for the first time.  She was very excited and January 1st she started asking me on a daily basis to help her find names on Family Search that she could take to the temple. She knew there was a Beehive Baptism trip scheduled for January.  Not wanting to steer her wrong and honestly, not having much time for it, I was a genius and took her down to the Family History library on a Friday morning when I knew my friend Erika was working a shift.  Erika has a sweet and patient way about her and she sat with Kenna for over an hour going over FamilySearch and helping Kenna get oriented. And the righteous desire of Kenna's heart was answered.  She not only found some names to take, she found siblings that hadn't been entered into FamilySearch before!  Because of her research some Mama will have her babies sealed to her in the not too ...

First things first -  The first Saturday in January was gorgeous.  Logan and Josh had some projects they had to work on, so I took the girls hiking up Dollar Mountain (B Street trail).  It was probably the hardest hike Faith had ever done and she rocked it! At the top there are gorgeous views of our valley that can't be beat! I just had to save and share this precious photo below.  In my Relief Society experience I got to know quite a lot of senior sisters.  Faith calls them my "old friends".  One that we spent a lot of time with is Mary.  We were at the dentist office waiting for Logan and Mary happened to show up for an appointment of her own.  Faith was so excited to see one of our "old friends" and give her some love. I don't think Mary minded a bit!

The fondest wishes of their hearts were answered when it actually snowed on Christmas Day... But first let's back up to some other December things.  First....Faith's preschool program Family Home Evening one night was hot cocoa and Christmas light viewing But mostly these kids were excited to get to Idaho and see their favorite biggest sisters! It didn't hurt that the snow showed up right on time! My mama heart was thrilled to have all my people together under one roof.  And it was just us on Christmas Eve, which made it even more magical.  Everyone got Christmas jams...of course! There were two really special Christmas gifts that deserve to be shared. Kenna made Natalie the sweetest poster of 7 things she loves about Natalie (one for each letter in Natalie's name).  Natalie's smile when she opened it and started reading it was something else.  She was grinning from ear to ear. ...

I can't keep up with birthdays anymore.  We had two between Thanksgiving and Christmas... 🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂 To start...someone was ECSTATIC to be turning 5 years old. She planned her "cake" herself.  I told her it had to be a trifle because I wasn't sure how to to it otherwise (cake with strawberries and chocolate mixed in) She didn't seem to mind as long as there were 5 candles! She got ballet clothes and roller skates, and purchased her own remote control cars with the birthday money she received.  So, basically everything her heart desired... The day of her birthday she made a few videos... you'll need your sound up to hear what she says - it's pretty funny.  Here's one:  https://youtu.be/Z3EwbabSDbQ and the video above (if it doesn't play) can be found here:  https://youtu.be/pRYu3G5FlwY ➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵➵ And then on to Kenna's 11th Birthday.  For her we kept it simple - we invite...

Today on my walk I listened to Jody Moore's "Brave New Mom" podcast and she said something really stunning.  She said, "you are the mom your children were meant to have.  You are one of their trials." Which sounds somewhat horrible but at the same time so, so reassuring.  Right?  So maybe your kids will need therapy (maybe you need therapy from your childhood experiences) but Heavenly Father must have thought it would all work out.  It's something to mull over a little bit more, but I had to share that while it was fresh in my brain. Find this podcast episode here:  https://boldnewmom.com/12-am-i-a-good-mom/ In other news, we have a birthday coming up in our family.  Faith has been counting down the days to her birthday since...well, probably since her last birthday.  But definitely she has been getting antsy since about August.  Which is a long time to wait.  And with that much lead-in time I'm wondering how I'm going to make it th...

I thought it would be interesting to make a little record of some homeschool days.  It's just the stuff that makes up a day.  In between are questions, talking, nagging, lots and lots of driving, reading in small chunks, etc. MONDAY I woke up unusually early thanks to the time change and decided to go with it. Read Scriptures @ 5:30 and a family prayer with Logan before he leaves went for a walk @ 6 made breakfast family breakfast/scriptures/prayer about 7:00 Faith asked me to read so I read The Princess in Black and since I was in the mood, we also read two chapters from our current book, Farmer Boy I took a quick shower about 9am and got a load of laundry started. 9:30am - Got the girls working on music/math - have to pull them away from their books to do it. They each did a chore. Faith helped me clean the playroom and get it ready for uncle Nate. Rotate laundry 10:15am - did a quick history lesson on St. Patrick.  There's a recipe for Irish Soda Bread as...

What makes a mama's heart happy? Seeing their kids love the Gospel. Seeing their kids do hard things. Seeing their kids enjoy amazing friendships. These trek photographs made my heart happy for all those reasons.