The things we'll do for free food!

Chick fil a had this promotion where if you came inside dressed up like a cow, you got all of your dinner for free. John was pretty embarrassed, but his enthusiasm for free dinner drove him to put his pride aside and participate. The girls thought it was great!

4th of July

I was so tired after girl's camp, that I didn't have the energy to drive to Etowah's fourth of July celebration like I normally do, so we invited some friends over. The kids played in the pool, I didn't post the picture, but before everyone got in, Emma jumped in the pool in her birthday suit! Brylie kept making these hilarious poses! We tried putting Charley in, but you can see how well that went over! Soon after, Emma fell asleep on the floor, and the rest of us shot fireworks outside. Check out Ally's expression. She told me later that she didn't like fireworks. At one point, one of the fireworks misfired and shot right through all of us! Luckily no one was hurt, but Ally ran inside crying because she was so scared. Poor girl. Next year we might enjoy from afar. Nonetheless, it was all in all great fun!

My young women

How can you not love these guys. I adore them! Oooh! Btw-I earned two more honor bee hours teaching my laurels how to sew scripture totes with pockets to hold their personal progress books. Grand total-21.5

Cousins

Ad'Lynn and my parents stayed with us while Heather had her baby. We had so much fun! I wish that they lived closer so that we could visit more. I love my niece and nephew! They are so adorable!
We celebrated Joshua's first birthday. He laid in the floor face down and cried when we brought his cake and sang happy birthday!
I HAD to include this shot!
We went to the fountains downtown and had a picnic. Josh chowed on watermelon.
We also played on the slip n slide and did our best ballerina poses.

Girl's Camp 2010

I just returned from girl's camp and looooved it! I always love girl's camp. I loved it as a youth and I love it even more as an adult. I love the camaraderie and being in nature. I understand that some people think that I am too girly to enjoy the out-doors. Those of you who feel this way might be surprised to know that I love nature and I love camping. In our church, some of our Sunday school lessons teach of the importance of nature and the Earth. I always assumed that the lesson to be learned was to appreciate all that has been created for us. I realized this week, though, that part of what we are to learn is that when in nature, we are in a pure, undefiled piece of the world. When there, we can more easily feel the spirit and get answers to prayers. In the Bible, we read about Christ going into a mountain to pray, Joseph Smith went into a grove of woods to pray. I wonder if we, too, are not supposed to also step out into the outdoors as well more to seek guidance and find peace. I saw the impact of that on the young women. I have always been amazed at how testimony-building girl's camp is for those attending. I can't wait for my girls to experience that one day. I wish that I could always be there to see that. I know that most likely I won't be witness to their camp experiences, but I look forward to that for them. Our theme was Follow His Road with the Wizard of Oz as a cute way to visualize it. Just like Dorothy had to follow the yellow brick road to Oz and to ultimately returning home, we need to follow Christ's path that he established to get to the temple. It was adorable! I'll post pictures later as they are on one of my young women's cameras. I also earned quite a bit of honor bee hours from helping our ycls's prepare for their responsibilities at camp and from some things that I did while at camp with the girls. In reality, I earned well more than this, but I am only counting fifteen of those hours. These were quality mentoring experiences. My grand total now is 19.5!

Honor Bee clarification

Thanks Alice for your comment to my last post. I see that I need to clarify some things about the honor bee service hours. As I mentioned before, obviously I would not count every thing that I do for my children towards the completion of this program. That would be silly. Sister Dalton explained that these hours are to mostly be used for the young women, but they do not all have to be. The goal for the honor bee hours are to mentor young women. I feel that this most definitely applies to our daughters as well. The young womens program began with Brigham Young organizing his daughters in his home. I chose to count some hours for my daughters this week for the following reason: I have spent many hours working with our young women in my home since I was called to be the Young Women's President. We have girls camp next week and I have spent time teaching them how to sew various projects, paint, make posters, and come up with spiritual thoughts in preparation. I have family in town with the birth of my new niece as well. With everything going on, I wanted to make a special point to show my girls that I wouldn't push them aside. I've been taking time to do special things, things that I understand many of you do all the time, including myself. This was different, though. It required much more sacrifice, energy that I don't have, and time that I seem to never have enough of. Don't misunderstand. I love everything that I do related to my calling and here at home. My personal goal with my service hours are to use them to push myself to be better. To try harder in those moments when it seems hardest. My hours are not frivolously chosen. That is what is great about the personal progress and honor bee programs. They are personal. They are to be adapted to the individual. I will even be sending them to the bishop and Bonnie for his approval so that I am in check as well as the youth. Today I spent an hour playing with my niece, nephew, and daughters on the slip and slide and baby sat so that my sister could go and help Clark and Heather. My current total is 4.5 hours. I can't wait to hear what some of you are doing for yours!

Honor Bee: 3.5 hours

I took Ally and Emma to the movies when I was so tired all I wanted to do was rest. Then I let them pick out their own awful-looking but cute because it was their idea- outfits. For any of you who know me well, that was hard.

Honor Bee Update

1.5 hours taking lunch to Heather (Not that I wouldn't have done that anyway, but it was fun planning!:)

Our ward leaders have encouraged we adults to do our personal progress again. I did mine as a youth, and would like to do it again with my daughters, however, there is now a new program that the church has come out with called the Honor Bee program.

The Honor Bee charm was historically given to young women who were willing to do more than was required. To continue your progress, you may earn an Honor Bee to accompany your Young Womanhood Recognition medallion. You may earn an Honor Bee charm after completing both of the following requirements*:

1. Read the Book of Mormon again

2. Serve others for a total of 40 hours.

Since I use my blog as my journal, I am going to keep track of my service hours in my blog. As parents and church leaders we could easily earn 40 hours of service in just a few days. I thought that this would be a neat opportunity, though, to push myself to do things here at home or with my calling that may be lacking. If any of you want to do it with me, let me know! It would be fun to plan together!

Charley Rose

What a sweet baby! On Thursday, Heather gave birth to our fifth grandchild, Charlotte Rose Ensminger. I have to say that Heather was a trooper. If she was hurting, she didn't complain much. Charley weighed 8 pounds and 1 ounce. She was rather long. Maybe she'll be tall like her daddy! What a great Father's Day present for Clark! Our family sees a lot of Heather in her features, but Heather's family sees a lot of Clark. Maybe she's a perfect combo. She has very dark hair and very dark eyes. They're so dark that I would be surprised if they turned blue. So far, she seems to be a little bit darker complected. We'll see if that changes. At first, she appeared to have curly hair. Here are some pictures. She is absolutely perfect!

Nauvoo

We just had the most wonderful trip with our friends to Nauvoo. It was wonderful! Nauvoo is the city that the early members of our church built as a refuge from persecution. In it's time it rivaled Chicago in size. Eventually the members had to leave from mob threats, however, it has been restored in it's original state for people to visit. Even the temple has been rebuilt. It was gorgeous!
This is the girls eating gingerbread cookies at the bakery. The recipe is original.


This is the rocking horse that John Taylor made for his son. When the family was leaving Nauvoo, his son was crying. They asked him what was wrong. He told his parents that he missed his rocking horse. John Taylor returned home, even though his life was being sought, to retrieve the rocking horse.

This is a picture of the trail that the saints took to leave their beautiful city. Far in the distance you can see the temple. This was one of the most special parts of the town.


Here the girls are practicing writing on slates like the pioneers did in the old school house.
Little Emma hugging her namesake.
Check out Emma's expression in this picture!

This is the room where the prophet and his brother were murdered. You can still see the tiny hole in the door where a bullet went through and killed Hyrum.
At the carthage jail visitor's center, all of the girls were looking at pass a long cards. I told them that they could take one, but that they should give them to someone who doesn't go to our church. Ally was so consumed with who she should give her card to. She ran up to this lady wearing the black shirt, gave her the card, and then ran off because she was so embarrassed. It was adorable.
More stories are to come. I wanted to go ahead and post the pictures.

Memorial Day Weekend in Winchester

Check out these adorable pics from our visit to Winchester. My grandmother went all out in planning everything. It was adorable!