Bridgette's Baptism

We felt so blessed to be able to share with our special friends and family this wonderful time in Bridgette's life where she chose to be baptized and follow our Savior's example.  We are thankful for the family that came that drove many miles to support Bridgette in this decision.  Bridgette's cousins, Rylee, Katy, and Eden came with their dads, Deb's brothers, Rich, Dave, and Ryan from Utah. Grandma and Grandpa Smith sacrificed and took time off their mission in Provo, Utah, to be with us.  We were pleased to have Great Grandpa Ray and Great Grandma Helen Lowe come, as well as Deb and Stu's aunts and uncles and a few cousins.  Thank you to those who came and shared this special day with us.  We thank you to all who helped prepare and serve dinner in our home and for all the extra love and support we felt from you.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives.

We got Bridgette's picture taken in her baptism dress a while back and here are some of my favorites. Laura Shepard did an amazing job as her photographer!

 This is the day of the baptism, right before the program. 

 Here are the grandparents that were able to come!
Sheri Smith, Helen Lowe, Bridgette, Ray Lowe, Darrell Smith

 This is the whole clan minus a couple friends who were busy helping with food and taking pictures!

 The whole family in attendance.

 The Smith side.

 Our "little" family.

 Dave, Helen, Dave, Ryan, Eden

 Darrell, Helen, Ray, Sheri, Linda, Frank

 Bailey, Rylee, Kim, Katy, Isabela, Bridgette, Annie
A cute bunch of girls!

The Lowe side of the family

The Need to be More Humble

Lately I have felt surrounded by and seen more evident problems or situations that have been caused by pride.  Pride that causes one to be easily offended, or pride that encourages the judging of others in order to attempt to lift oneself up, and not being compassionate and Christlike as we should.  I am guilty of these things, but thankfully, I feel like I am being blessed to be aware of it and encouraged to do something about it.  I've felt the need to express these feelings publicly in an attempt to uplift or help others and share what I have learned and am still myself practicing at being good at.  (I am not an eloquent speaker or writer, so bear with me. And I hope with all my heart that this post does not come across as a "holier than thou" attitude.) 

It hurts to hear people talking about and judging other people when they don't understand or know what they are going through.    We all have problems and trials on this earth and we are each blessed with different talents and abilities that help us cope with those trials.  WE CANNOT AFFORD TO COMPARE OURSELVES WITH OTHERS.  It only brings us down and makes us feel worse.  I love the quote that one of my friends displays in her home that goes something along the lines of this, "Your name is safe here." If we all made a greater effort to not judge others, and not talk about them behind their backs, treat them as Christ would treat them, and do things in a manner in which we feared God and his judgement, not our fellow men and their judgements, we would all be a happier people.  

I'd like to share an experience I had yesterday.  To give some background first, I, as a religious person, like to find some time in my day to pray to my Heavenly Father, read my scriptures, and ponder what I have read and what my Heavenly Father wants me to know and do for that day.  I am so bad at doing this on a regular basis.  I struggle with going to bed on time and getting up early.  I'm not very disciplined.  I am not perfect.  I've been in a slump lately, but I've also noticed that coming out of those slumps are often my favorite times because I feel closer to my God and start to feel His power transforming my daily life.  I had one of those neat experiences yesterday.  I started with a prayer, knowing I would only have 15 minutes before it was time to pick up my daughter from preschool, and asked my Heavenly Father if he could bless me with some inspiration for that day.  Sometimes I am inspired to help others who may need it, share my joy through my religion with others, or simply know how to better deal with my children and husband and their needs.  I decided to come up with a question to ask Him before I began reading from my scriptures.  I thought of the struggles I see around me everyday, of people who are prideful and judgemental, and of the hurt and pain it causes others.  I realized that I am guilty of those things and so I asked myself and my God, "How can I be more humble, less prideful?"

I then began reading in the Book of Mormon in Alma 4, which is where I left off last time.  And as I opened and started reading, I felt immediately like I was receiving an answer to my question.  Alma 4 talks about the "pride cycle", where the people have suffered loss and are humbled by it, then were "awakened to a remembrance of their duty", and did what they were supposed to do, and began to have peace throughout the land.  Only after their peace, did they prosper and began to wax proud and set their hearts upon riches and the vain things of the world.  They began to be scournful and persecute others.  They were filled with envy, strife, malice, persecution, and pride.  They despised others, there was inequality, destruction, judgement, and turning the backs on the needy.  Alma saw the need and began to preach the word of God and bore pure testimony to the people to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, to pull down all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among the people.  

In Alma 5, I read what we need to do to gain salvation through Christ.  We need to repent and keep the commandments, be born again, put our trust in the true and living God, have a change of heart and receive His image in our countenance, have a pure heart and clean hands, cleanse our garments through the blood of Christ which means using the atonement to repent of our sins, be humble and strip ourselves from pride and envy, do the works of righteousness and be faithful to the end.  

In verse 6, one of the key phrases that stuck out to me was, "Have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance" and I finished that thought with....what has happened in the past?  That the Savior of our world has redeemed them and broken the bands of death and the chains of hell and their souls were expanded and they did sing redeeming love.  How can we remember our past of trials and blessings and remember our Savior and God who blesses us and then have that change of heart necessary to humble ourselves and put our trust in God and be faithful to the end? 

In Alma 5:26, it asks if you have ever felt to sing the song of redeeming love?  Do you ever feel so much love in your heart that you just want to sing?  If so, can you feel it now?  We need to check ourselves on a regular basis to find out if we have a soft heart and are on the right track.  

Alma 5:27-29 reads...
 27 Have ye walked, keeping yourselves ^ablameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently ^bhumble? That your garments have been ^ccleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to ^dredeem his people from their sins?
 28 Behold, are ye stripped of ^apride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.
29 Behold, I say, is there one among you who is not stripped of^aenvy? I say unto you that such an one is not prepared; and I would that he should prepare ^bquickly, for the hour is close at hand, and he knoweth not when the time shall come; for such an one is not found guiltless.

Could we each say that we have been sufficiently humble?  Because we are all imperfect, we all need to repent and bring forth works of righteousness.  If we go about doing good, with a kind heart, and are always keeping ourselves in check, then life would be so much happier for us all.  If we are always serving others, how could we be filled with pride?  Serving with faith is one way to stay sufficiently humble.  

That's my lesson learned for the day.  That is the humble answer to my question as I prayed yesterday.  One of the sweetest things about this personal revelation is that I feel that it totally coincided with what I was taught at Women's Conference (a meeting of the sisters of our church) just last week.  We were taught to be "wide awake to our duties" by bearing one another's burdens, mourning with those that mourn, comforting those that stand in need of comfort, and standing as witnesses of Jesus Christ.  It is not enough to just be on the journey, we must be awake to our duties.  We were also taught to be vigilant in checking the condition of our hearts to know if we are on the right track.  And there is power in the atonement of Jesus Christ to overcome the natural man and become true disciples of Jesus Christ. 

I know that my God hears me and answers my prayers, especially through my study of the holy scriptures.  I am so blessed to be uplifted by Him.  I know He loves me and is aware of my needs and is constantly watching over me.  I know that if we are continually striving in faith to do what is right, we will keep progressing through all the testing, adversity, and trials we encounter.  I am so grateful for this knowledge and the peace it brings to my life especially in a world that seems to be  more and more shadowed with evil.  My heart is full of gratitude for the joy I feel as I learn from my God.  I only hope I can remember these things I learn and keep my heart in check.  I pray that we all can be successful in this attempt.  Have a great day!

This Girl's Got Talent

Whenever you have the microphone halfway down your throat and you're still able to annunciate the words to a song, you've got some real talent. After having a party with some of the kids' friends and singing Karoake, Bailey discovered that she had a talent for ventriloquist singing! She absolutely loves singing into a microphone and was even catching onto some of the High School Musical songs the girls were singing. For days, whenever I thought about how far the microphone was in Bailey's mouth, I would laugh uncontrollably. I love the joy of parenthood and the blessings my sweet children bring to me!

Family Pictures August 2010

(My friend, Winter, took our family pictures this year. She did a great job at a very reasonable price. If you need a photographer and live in southern california, check out her photography website at www.winterswonderlandphotography.com.)

Family Pictures at Laguna Beach

It has always been a dream of mine to have our family pictures taken at the beach.

I wanted to wait until we were done having kids and the youngest was at least two-years-old. We finally made it, after 13 years of marriage. Today was our anniversary, December 22nd, and I couldn't be happier as I look back at what has happened in our lives.

I have a wonderful husband who loves me and who is "Super Dad" to our children.

We have been so blessed!

These are our beautiful kids who bring so much joy to me as a mother.

It was hard to get Bailey looking forward while the waves kept coming up

and crashing against her feet, but as you can see, we managed.

This shot made our Christmas cards this year and the spot above the piano in our livingroom, even though since having this photo taken, I have received a completely different hairdo and was wishing I could photoshop it in. I've gone reddish brown and a lot shorter, just past my shoulders. I love to straighten it. Right about the same time I got the new hairdo, we bought a new van, and several people told me they didn't recognize me around town, or thought I was in the "witness protection program". Pretty funny.

This shot was taken with my own camera....

you can tell it isn't the greatest quality, but the kids are sure cute!

Hopefully, one of these days we'll be able to afford a really nice camera.

This little girl brings me so much JOY!

Happy Halloween!

CANDY OVERLOAD !!

The kids already have too much candy!

Between the church's trunk-or-treat, the ward friends trick-or-treating,

Braden's football team treats, and primary teachers giving out candy,

we are sufficiently supplied with candy to last years! The kids are on cloud nine....and have already done their trading, and sorting, and organizing.

Braden was a vampire this year. He loves to be anything scary or gross looking. The fangs were supposed to be stuck with this "compound" to his teeth, but it didn't last, just long enough for a picture, but that was okay because he really liked the blood dripping down his chin.

Brianna was a cute witch. She wore gloves (not seen in this picture) that had long purple fingernails attached, which was the highlight of her costume. That and the cute boot covers that fit over her shoes which was a great deal at Walmart!

Braden's pumpkin that mom ended up helping him carve.

All the pumpkins together. Braden's, Brianna's, Bridgette's, Mom's, and Brittany's.

Cute little Bridgie! All the girls were witches this year.

Brittany borrowed a costume from a sweet friend and was the Candy-Corn witch this year.

She had fun painting her nails to match.....and actually getting to wear eyeliner and mascara, which she didn't have on in this picture.

Cousin Carter was so cute in his dinosaur costume. Bailey and Bridgette loved checking him out. He drooled just like a scary dinosaur!

I don't think I saw anyone cuter than Annie in her cat costume.

When she meowed, it was so adorable!

Okay, actually, this little witch is pretty cute, too! I can't get enough of her! She had a blast saying, "Trick-or-Treat!" and would immediately say "Thank you!" to everyone that gave her candy. Such a polite little witch.

My four witches.......with hats on their heads and with hats on their pumpkins.

Brianna with cousins, Kate and Matt, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter.

Loved their costumes.

At the ward Trunk-or-Treat. We decorated our trunk with spider webs and spiders. Brittany brought her friend, Hayley along.

Our finished Jack-0-lanterns! This year we carved pumpkins without Stu, there just wasn't time to schedule it with him being here, so I ended up doing a lot of the carving, except for Brittany, who did hers all by herself.

Our Last Hoorah!

Since our Disneyland passes expired in October, we decided to go one last time. It was probably the most fun we've ever had, too! We left after the kids got out of school and picked up Stu at work on the way. We are going to miss going, since we aren't going to buy passes again for at least a couple years. It was a sad, yet fun day!

Here is Bridgette and Bailey on the Carousel, while the older three kids went on California Screamin', the biggest roller coaster at California Adventure.

We decided to get in a swinging gondola (vs. the non-swinging) on the ferris wheel and it was a blast. Everyone loved it, except Bridgette. She wasn't so sure. She was pretty scared, just because she didn't know what to expect, but loved it after it was over.

Brittany and Brianna pretending to be scared.

This was the last picture of the night....in front of the pumpkin Mickey.

Disneyland was decorated so cute with all the Halloween decor.

This is a video of the swinging gondola on the ferris wheel.

We feel lucky to live close to so many fun and exciting things to do here in Southern California. But we will miss going to Disneyland!