May FHE

The Anderson Family FHE was held on May 18 at Jeff and Margie's house.  We had baked chicken taquitos, cilantro lime rice, grapes, cherries, corn bean salsa, homemade salsa, guacamole, tortilla chips, raw vegetables with hummus, sourdough pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and bread pudding.  Thank you everyone for bringing food to share.  It was delicious.

Nickie gave the lesson on the General Conference talk "What Are You Thinking?" by Elder W. Craig Zwick. It is about our communications with others.  Paul warned, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but [only] that which is good [and] edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 4:29). 

Some of the ideas that were brought up from Nickie and others were:

1.  It is not always about who is right or who is wrong.  It is about understanding someone and listening to their perspective.

2.  It is way more important to be a peacemaker than to be right.

3.  We feel like we need to be forceful with our children to teach them something but the Lord has never been forceful with us.  He teaches us in calm and quiet ways.

It was a great lesson by Nickie.  Click on the link above to read or watch Elder Zwick's talk.

Now, here the pictures from the night.

Listening to the lesson.

Look at cute pregnant Emily!  We got to see the baby move in her stomach.  Baby Jimez is a wiggler!

Oh my cuteness!!!!!

Grandpa is sharing his wisdom and Emma is rocking the cowboy boots!

Grandma with Lucy and Lizzie

Taylor and Joe.  Aaaah!  So cute together!

It is always fun playing games with Grandma!

Lizzie and Issac are best buddies.

Grandpa cleaning up the dishes. 

Lucy loved the Legos.

March 2014 FHE

We had a family home evening at Jeff and Margie's house on March 16.  It was Joe's birthday.  We had a variety of food, thanks to everyone who brought something.  Jeff made a stir fry with rice.  Margie made lasagna.  Steve and Katie made a spinach and strawberry salad.  Kristin brought jello with whipped cream on top.  Nickie brought steamed vegetables.  Emily brought the dessert.  It was some Mexican dessert that I can't remember the name of but it was amazing.  We put candles on it and sang to Joe for his birthday.

Jeff and Margie gave the lesson.  Jeff told about how when the Lord helped free the children of Israel from bondage, Moses led them in the wilderness for 40 years.  The Lord provided for all of their needs.  When the people complained and were not grateful for all Heavenly Father had done, the Lord sent serpents among them, which bit some of the people.  The people knew they had sinned for not being grateful.  Moses prayed for them.  The Lord told Moses to make a brass serpent and set it on a pole for the people to see.  The Lord promised that everyone who had been bitten would live if they looked at the brass serpent.  It was such a simple solution to their problem but many of the people would not do it. Sometimes it is the small things that we do that make the biggest impact on our lives.

I talked about how I was so inspired at the Women's Conference in Salem a few weeks prior to do small and simple things to accomplish big things.  The stake president mentioned in his talk about simply opening the Book of Mormon daily and reading a little or a lot.  It is small and simple thing but by just doing it daily for a few minutes will make a big difference in our lives.  Jeff and I have been struggling with our kids and their behavior lately and we have gotten lazy in our family scripture study because it was so hard to keep the kids reverent for so long while we read.  So we decided to read only two verses a day with them and then read a chapter in the children's Book of Mormon Reader with them.   It is simple but we are so far being consistent and we feel a stronger peace in our home.

Then we played a game where each kid chose a picture of a different scripture story and they told the group about the story.  Then they got to throw a rice bag into a bucket after they finished telling about the story.

It was a wonderful night.  Joe brought his friend, Taylor for us all to meet.  We missed  Rob and Diana's family and Megan and Ryan.  The kids got to eat on our deck in the backyard for the first time because it was such nice weather and so I snapped a picture.  I'll try to take more pictures next time.  The next family home evening will be in Salem on April 20 and Kristin is in charge of the lesson. 

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February 2014 FHE

We had a wonderful time visiting while we ate our dinner of baked potatoes which came from potatoes grown in our garden last summer.  We also had broccoli cheese sauce, cheese, sour cream to go on top and a green salad and home made bread.  I tried making whole wheat sour dough bread  and everyone seemed to like it.  I love baking with sour dough these days.

 After dinner we had our lesson which was about wonderful women in our lives who have remained faithful to the gospel even through very difficult challenges and have left a wonderful legacy for their posterity.  We talked specifically about Dad's Grandma Anderson.  Her parents came over from Sweden and had a very difficult time making ends meet in Benjamin, Utah.  After she married Henry Anderson, they moved to Nebraska to farm.  There was no branch of the church there so they attended the Church of the Brethren but she taught from the Book of Mormon in Sunday School.

She remained faithful and true to her testimony for her whole life.  We also talked about my Grandma Wiest who also had a very difficult life when her husband left her with 3 boys, ages 12, 9 and 6, the oldest being  Grandpa Wiest.  She took in boarders and cooked for BYU students and did laundry for people to earn enough to support her family.  She taught her boys the gospel through word and deed and remained faithful to the end. 

August Family Photos

Sorry it's taken so long to get these up, but better late than never!  It was so fun to get to see everyone this summer.  

The first few are a little fuzzy...

We love our Aunties!

Good lookin family!

Beautiful Girls!

We'll let Joe explain this one.

Cute kids!!!

Continuing with the cute theme.

Thanks for sharing Lizzie!

 And we're excited for January baby! :)

I guess Margaret, Rob, and Diana successfully avoided the Paparazzi, but we love them, too!