Freedom of Religion

This is such a controversial subject and I hope I won't offend or have horrible comments, but here it goes: I think so many people think that LDS people hate gay people and that is just not so. I know and love several people who live a same sex life style.  Then why do I vote in favor of the family which may hurt these people I love? It is because it is a bigger issue than what it seems on the surface. I wish we could just live and let live, but if i didn't vote in favor of family and (for example) California prop 8 was passed then it would change how my church and other churches and any religious organization, adoption agencies, hospitals like St. Jude's, would have to govern themsleves. I don't think that is fair. WE have the right to govern ourselves as we choose just like you do. I don't know if it is just the way the way prop 8 was written or what, but why does granting one groups freedom mean taking away another groups freedom? Is there not a way to accommodate both?

Anyways, I found this article about religious freedom (the right to believe or not to believe and to act or not to act according to one's personal belief system)

and I thought I would share it, click for source.
"Challenges to religious freedom are emerging from many sources. Emerging advocacy for gay rights threatens to abridge religious freedom in a number of ways. Changes in health care threaten the rights of those who hold certain moral convictions about human life. These and other developments are producing conflict and beginning to impose on religious organizations and people of conscience. They are threatening, for instance, to restrict how religious organizations can manage their employment and their property. They are bringing about the coercion of religiously-affiliated universities, schools and social-service entities. They are also resulting in reprimands to individuals who act in line with their principles — from health practitioners and other professionals to parents. In these and in many other circumstances, we see how religious freedom and freedom of conscience are being subtly but steadily eroded. And of equal concern, the legal provisions emerging to safeguard these freedoms are often shallow — protecting these liberties only in the narrowest sense. In many aspects of public life, religious freedom and freedom of conscience are being drawn into conflicts that may suppress them."

The article points out how we must be civil to each other, even those whose views may differ from ours. It talks about how we need debate, but it must be in a civilized matter, No yelling or insulting, but honest issues, honest concerns. It seems so many debates I have seen end up in threats and insults and it does credit to no one and drives me insane.

Anyway, for better or for worse, this is what is one my mind today.
Any mean troll comments will be deleted by the way.

Horseback Riding

Solar Eclipse

Does Anyone Have A Talent??

This is what Raia learned how to do at dinner time. We are so proud;)

3 rd Grade Talent Show!

I was so proud of Cambria! She has a lot of guts to get on stage! These pictures aren't great but she Hula hooped and did the Macarena at the same time. All the kids clapped along in rhythm and chanted her name when she got on stage. I loved how supportive the kids were of each other's performances!

 Some of the performers . . .

 Ally singing . . . she is so brave!

Happy Easter!

 Face to Face BY Kenneth Cope 

If the Earth could give it's witness; 

All creation shout it's praise;

If the continents and oceans 

spoke to man of their devotion; 

Would mortals doubt Him so, 

if all were now made known? 

If the faithless of the ages, 

were to feel his healing power; 

if the eyes and ears he opened 

might be theirs for just a moment; 

Would it soften hearts of stone

if all were truly known? 

Face to face

so few were in that place

when heaven sent Messiah 

to reclaim this fallen race. 

If I could stand atop the mountains

and sound his name in every ear; 

If I had power to tell his story, 

like the angels have before me; 

would more sins be swept away

if the world could sense the debt he paid? 

Face to Face. 

I'll seek Him all my days. 

He means more than life to me. 

Death can't take that away. 

If I can't convince a world, 

Then perhaps I'll reach a soul, 

As i tell of how he's changed me. 

How I wait for Him to take me.

(take me home)

Then I'll worship on my knees

and kiss once wounded feet. 

Though he knows of my praise, 

One day I'll tell Him 

face to face.

Happy Easter!

Golden Eggs!

Last night cousin Kiana a spent the night at our house. We were happy to have her. We made Golden Glitter  Easter Eggs, (click on the link for a tutorial)  which turned out to be a super easy fun craft and then we attempted to do chalkboard paint eggs which were completely the opposite.

 P.S. If you aren't following Amy's Craft Bucket, I would love it if you would. We are up to 628 followers and we hope to continue to grow. Along with crafts, recipes, DIY  projects there are also lots of give-aways!

 The chalkboard paint was too thick for little ones to work with. The eggs took along time to dry and turned out super bumpy. Not ideal for writing with chalk, although we were able to a bit.

Happy Easter, and may all your eggs be free of bump!

You've Had A Birthday, Shout Hooray!

It was a busy week! Kiera turned 7 and Cambria turned 9! Where does the time go???  I did a post about their parties on my craft blog (which I am happy to say now has 628 followers thanks to Shannon and her advertising!) and copied the html onto this blog but I added a few more pictures. I hope you enjoy!

Malachi with yet another black eye: a word of caution, don't wrestle with your dad on the drive way. He may use evasive maneuvers that make you lose your balance and kiss the cement with your eye that was almost healed from your last black eye. 

Malachi was really wishing that it was also his birthday. It is hard to have two of your sisters get a lot of presents when you do not.

 A lot of my pictures turned out blurry I am sad to say because I used my new 50 mm lense and I should't have. It is great for portraits but not great for a birthday party.
This was Cambria's crew:

 They really got into pin the bow on Hello, Kitty.

 Kiera's party:

 Flowers from Grammy with balloons attatched:

Start of Craft Blog Blurb: I have a confession to make. I ran out of time. Plain and simple. I had a grand plan of amazing birthday decor that would transform our house from ordinary to extraordinary, but alas it was not meant to be. Between the two youngest getting sick and a mid week photo shoot (which I was happy to do) I had to go into necessity mode: meaning kids don't care too much about decor but they do want to eat and they do want to play fun games. Plus I had a handful of my old skirts that I needed to resize to give to my girls as birthday gifts. So while  I had dreams of decor that looked like this and this, it simply didn't happen. Not to worry though! The kids didn't know what was missing and a good time was had by all! 

Here is a small recap! 

 I used the hanging rosette balls that I made for Raia's birthday. You can find the tutorial here. 

Mine are slightly different.

"C" for Cambria's birthday

I tried my hand at some tissue paper pom poms. Find the tutorial here. (Mine don't look like Martha's because frankly, I'm not Martha. It feels good to get that off my chest:)

 "K" for Kiera's birthday.

I put scrapbook letters on skewers and stuck them in a bowl of rice

Here is a close up. You could hot glue them so you can't see the tape, but I didn't know how to do the dot on the "i" I guess I could have done a capital. Of course, you could also cut around the tape better. Ninja vanish!

We played pin the bow on the LalaLoopsy for party number two. I free handed this image onto a poster board after I used my large round laundry basket to trace a circle.

We played pin the bow on the Hello, Kitty for party number two!  I also free handed this.

My hubby provide entertainment while this kids waited in line:)

We had coloring pages . . .(free handed this too)

My dear friend, Ashley, made this little outfit for my Kiera so she could feel like a Lalaloopsy.

back:

We played this AWESOME game. Put a baseball in one leg of a nylon (we used little girl tights) and knock down a row of water bottles. You can do it as a minute to win it game and try and knock them down in one minute, but we did it as a relay. Knock a bottle down, then race back and hand your headwear to the next kid in line. They loved this and wanted to do it again and again.

Then we had another relay. We used two big kitchen serving spoons in which we place an egg. The runners goal was not to drop the egg.

They had to jump over an ice chest . . .

go around the toy car . . .

and drop the egg in the basket before running back to tag their teammates hand. This was also a lot of fun and a big hit with the kids.

We ended the day with ice cream cake a birthday song and lots of presents!

We did the same thing two days in a row with two different sets of birthday girls and two different groups of kids and both groups had so much fun, though the 9 year olds were WAY more competitive. I hope this can give you a few ideas on which to make your own!

Now, I just have one more party to survive throw! The family party that will be in a few weeks. I have saved all the decorations and maybe just maybe I'll get to add a few. We'll see!

Follow my birthday party ideas on Pinterest! There are a million fun ideas out there!

XOXO,
 Amy