Catching Up July 2025 part 1, though I'll probably lose track because of how long it will take to do all the catching up

The beginning of July saw family members getting sick (I was exhausted from taking care of sick people and getting sick myself), Jeremy going off to a fair in California (he also messed up his back somehow so the night before his trip, he had a Priesthood blessing and went to urgent care so they could help him out and Lucky and I did the heavy lifting of his supplies and I drove him early the next morning to Marcus's because they were driving together), and Jr. Jr. going off to Young Men Camp without Lucky because Lucky got sick and had to stay home. It would have been his first time.

There were also other stresses and Nichole and Jr. took swim lessons. 

Let me explain the corn husk picture. I got up early to clean one day and decided to take the bag of corn husks up to the outside garbage. As I was walking up the stairs, the bottom of the bag broke open and all the corn husk/silk/garbage fell out on the stairs. It was one of those shrug it off and deal with it moments. Did I mention there were stresses?

We observed rainbows for Summer Reading. Some of us saw rainbows in sprinklers and Jet and I made rainbows with a prism. 

We started harvesting vegetables from our garden.

We also celebrated Nichole's birthday.

We celebrated other holidays but I'll write about those in different posts.

We also saw blessings and had some faith building experiences. 

Light Your Faith

 

The last week of Light the World is "Light your faith."
Besides celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, I completed a goal that was set earlier in the year.

I finished the Book of Mormon before the end of the year! 

It was a wonderful experience to read the Book of Mormon again this year and I can't thank Jeremy enough for listening to me when I shared my insights into what I was reading.  We've had wonderful discussions about the Book of Mormon and I'm so excited about the discussions we'll have while reading the New Testament in 2019 (and of course as I continue to study the Book of Mormon).

Plant a Seed

Jeremy won a mini herb greenhouse from Vineyard Garden Center in Orem. We thought it would be the perfect opportunity to share a Family Home Evening lesson about faith. And actually plant an herb garden since I never got around to it when Jeremy bought me stuff for planting herbs 2 years ago for Valentine's Day. (hangs head in shame). But this time we did it.
It had seeds for oregano, basil, and parsley. I showed the kids what the dried store-bought herbs look and smell like. We determined that oregano smells like pizza, basil smells sweet, and parsley smells like... hay or grass.

click on the pictures to see them larger- there are a lot

We put in the dirt pellets, added water, and waited for the dirt to grow.

Then it was time for the seeds. Nichole first with the parsley seeds. Next, Jr. with the teeniest tiniest oregano seeds. Last, it was Mommy with the not so small basil seeds.

Squirt them again with water and place them on the windowsill next to our avocado pit which by the way never sprouted. Sigh. Oh well, next time we have avocados we'll try again.

It only took a few days before we started to see progress. The first to push up out of the soil- the oregano. From those teeny tiny seeds. Amazing.

It wasn't long before the others started poking up as well.

The parsley grew fast.

Pretty soon we had a whole container full of plants.

I think I got more out of the lesson on faith than the kids. All we have to do is start with the smallest bit of faith, but we try. We nurture it with scripture study, prayer, church attendance, Family Home Evening (just like nurturing the seed with light, water, soil to grow in), and it will grow. The more we work on it, the stronger we get. Even from something as itty bitty teeny tiny as an oregano seed. Seriously, those things are ti-ny.

It's fun to see the progress of these little herbs.

And to see our own progress with our faith.