Living in the Present- Thoughts from Book Club

I believe I have mentioned before that I am in charge of our new book club for Relief Society.
We have had two meetings so far. We reviewed "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell in April and reviewed "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle this month.
Next week is our next meeting, the one I've been waiting for the most! I picked "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis. My father recommended this book to me as a teenager and it instantly became my favorite book. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it is about a senior devil, Screwtape, writing letters to his nephew. He is giving him support and advice on how to secure his patient to "Our Father Below" (the devil) and to steer him away from "the Enemy" (God).
I haven't read it in years, so I am re-reading it right now. I hope I do a good enough job retaining information and taking down notes, so that I can lead a good discussion. I highly recommend reading it.

I just read this in one of the letters:

"In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time- for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays."

It makes me think of when Scott tells me to "just enjoy it". Meaning to enjoy whatever stage of life we are in now. Whether it's watching a movie together, agonizing over a stage that Pixie's going through, or trying to fit our lives into this tiny house. Screwtape says that the present is most like eternity, and therefore, he advises his nephew to encourage his patient to look towards and worry about the future.
I recently was talking to Grandma Maridee I think when I came out with surprising words of wisdom. I said "prepare for the future, but live in the now". I'm not tooting my own horn, but I think I became quote worthy there!
We spent a few days up at the lake over the Holiday (pictures to follow!) and Scott wrote me a sweet letter one morning. He had gotten up and started the campfire with the dogs, while Pixie and I still slept. His letter was full of joy and happiness for the future with us. He has really changed my outlook on life and has brought so much love and joy into my life.
I wouldn't trade my family for all the riches in the world!

The Virdict is In...

Pixie has curly hair!!!!!!
I can't get good enough pictures because it's so fine, but it's true, it's curly. Who would have thunk it? With my dominant flat hair?

Our Photo Shoot and Daily Antics

Tonight Pixie and I went to Enrichment Meeting. I'm on the board and was in charge of bringing the snack, so I had to be there at 6. Well, we waited until 6:45 to really get started because there were only about 10 people that showed up...quite a few of us in charge of it! This is a really bad month, we have a good sized ward and usually have a pretty good turn out. Anyway, Pixie was so whiny and I thought I would have to go early, but I put her off. We got home close to 9pm and started getting ready for bed, where we had an impromptu photo shoot in the bathroom. Enjoy!

Pixie wasn't liking this shot!

Some singing involved...

I thought this one was a cute one.

Ham!

I just love that smile!

She looks like she's going to bite me.

Hanging out in our pajamies.

Such kissable cheeks.

The end.



Here are some pictures from the past week or so.

I found Pixie dumping the crumbs of her Annie's crackers into Nova's cage.

I swear she gets her sense of humor from me. We were playing with her toys and she just did this on her own.

My nude model. She was trying to run away from me.

This is one of the outfits I won from the happygreenbee.com giveaway at connectedtochrist.com.
We LOVE our organic cotton outfits! Mari from happygreenbee was SO helpful and suggested wonderful outfits from their outlet. Without her information, I would have only been able to get one shirt with my gift card!

I keep going back and forth between fitteds and pockets. Lately I've been loving the fitteds and fleece covers, especially since it's been really warm.

Seriously, am I biased or is she really darn cute?!?

We do this crazy face to each other.

Goofy girl. She took some of my papers and started "skating" on them around the room. At one point she had a piece under each hand. I joined her of course!


This was from a while ago. I was going through some old boxes and found some old dolls. I pulled out my old Strawberry Shortcake Blows Kisses doll. She still is scented! Made in 1982.

The Camera Outcome...and Easter?!? Yep.

So, I never told you what became of our camera. I had left it outside on the hammock by accident and didn't remember it until the next afternoon.....two rains later. Scott brought it in and he opened the battery compartment, water came flowing out of it. He took the batteries out and set it aside, hoping that it would make a miracilous recovery. We didn't turn it on for two days or so, then I put it into a bin of rice (I read about doing this) just in case it actually worked. When I turned it on, it worked a little, but the display didn't work. Then I realized it was just turned off! There was a little bit of water in the view finder, but that went away after the rice thing. We haven't noticed ANY difference! How exciting, huh? I was really glad because I never would have done anything like that before I lost my brain. I take care of things and work so hard at saving money and being careful.
So, here are the long awaited compost pile pictures. And, by the way, it's doing very well! No complaints of stinking by Scott yet and Perrin only got something out of it once.

The family playing nicely together!


I don't think I posted Easter pictures either! I'm a total slacker. Here are some..

Pixie vs. the Easter Bunny

Our baskets and such.

Round two with the backup bunny.

Hesitant, yet again. She always needs encouragement.

Adorable dress, huh? It had a matching full length coat and a hat. We didn't use the hat because it looked silly and WAY too big. I put mary jane Trumpette socks on her. This was the day she took her first steps!