{Animals and Humans}

Watching the movie LIFE and Planet Earth has just floored me. I LOVE watching animals, how they work, their PURPOSE in this life, the complexity and details of each thing down from a parasite all the way to a human.

Every single bug and Animal in this life has one purpose....multipy and replenish the earth. Their only goal in this life is to CREATE new life. It's amazing. They aren't exactly like us in the way that we stay together as family. OFten times they find the RIGHT person to create babies with and then the mom is left to care for the young until they are old enough and then they move on. The dad is often never around.

The male bug, animal, mammal is the one who is always trying to impress the female. The males ALWAYS fight for the female. They male and female spend a few seconds mating to create their babies and then they have fulfilled their purpose. Locust come out of the ground, and only survive for a few days. And all they try to accomplish in those few days is mating. Their only goal for living is creating babies... BUT

fish will stay together and help each other take care of the eggs. There is a frog, a MALE, that takes care of NOT ONLY his offspring, but many other offspring so that the other frogs can go out and find food or do whatever they want to do. You will find sometimes that the male is the one who is responsible, but majority of the time that isn't the case.

I am so intrigued by ONE particular mollusk(cephalopod)....the octopus. She will mate, and then she will go find a place in between rocks, in crevasses in the ocean, to plant her eggs. She plants all her eggs and she then spends SIX whole months staying with her eggs caressing them and making sure they are getting the right amount of care and water flow. She DOESN'T leave the crevasse or the eggs for SIX months. Which means she doesn't eat for 6 months. And right when her babies are about to hatch, she dies. She gives her life to create babies. It's amazing. The ultimate sacrifice.

So, in all this i can see how it's not just in OUR nature to create life, BUT it's in every living things nature to create life. It's every living creatures PURPOSE...to multiply and replenish the earth. Our purpose goes a little deeper than animals and bugs. Animals and bugs are so focused on creating life. That's their purpose. Not only is it in our nature to CREATE life, but to have and keep our family forever. Ours as humans obviously goes a bit deeper. Even plants create. Coral at the bottom of the ocean will release EGGS into the ocean ....thousands upon thousands. Those eggs float along and they will eventually create more coral. It's so intriguing to me.

This earth is amazing. Every single living thing, which is millions upon millions, is so amazing, complex, detailed. It's almost numberless. Watching these videos is a testimony to me that there is a God and he planned this earth perfectly. Man and woman are meant to be together. It is ordained of God. This earth gives plenty evidence of that. Numberless evidence. Man and Woman are meant to create life.

{Sore Throat update}

If you don't know by now...Tanner has had 7 sore throats within the past 3 months. It started in October. Along with his sore throat he will always get a fever, which is usually 102 average. One time this only lasted 24 hours and went away. One time he was vomitting along with the other symptoms and it dragged out for days. Another time his fever reached a HIGH number of about 105, which made me NERVOUS. I had to put ice packs on him b/c he was like a furnace. It dropped quickly after that. I have been into the doctor 3 times for it and to the ER once. The other 3 times it happened i just wait it out b/c it goes away on its own.

He has received antibiotics from these doctors on three different visits. Each time they do a throat culture and it comes back NEGATIVE, but they still give me antibiotics. It keeps coming back even with antibiotics. I am not going to give him the antibiotics anymore b/c it obviously isn't working. The last time i went into the doctor i told him the throat swabs have been negative and the antibiotics don't work. He told me he wanted to do another throat swab and give him a high dose of antibiotics. I called this morning to see what the results were for the throat culture. NEGATIVE. Of course. So, i am taking him back to the doctor on Friday(he isn't sick anymore) and i am not leaving until they refer me to an ENT. I am tired of them giving me antibiotics before they even KNOW what is wrong and i am tired of them wanting to continue this on when we all know strep isn't the problem, but they keep treating it like its strep.

It's extremely frustrating. I just feel bad for Tanner. The poor kid has been dealing with this too much and he is SUCH a TROOPER about it. He hardly whines when he is sick. He quietly goes to the bathroom to puke and comes back out like nothing happened. But you can tell he feels terrible. I am just sad for him. And angry that these docs keep giving medicine and ignoring what's actually happening. This last doctor i took him to , i said to him "what if the culture is negative again?" He said, "then when he gets sick again come back in and tell them it has happened again and we will try to take further action." Oh thanks. They will probably do what all the other docs have been doing...give him antibiotics and blow it off. I don't want to WAIT til he gets sick AGAIN for the 8th time. I want it resolved...which is why i am going in on Friday and not leaving til they set me up with the ENT. Here, i can't see an ENT without my primary doctors REFERRAL. So, i am at their mercy. :)

Am i overreacting?! I really don't think i am. If anything, i think most parents would have done what i am about to do AFTER the 3rd or 4th time. :) I will post what happens after i see the ENT.

From what i have heard from other people, and what i feel like is going to happen, is that his tonsils will be getting removed shortly in the near future. Then hopefully he will feel like a new boy.

{Four things}

1. Gavin's TWO front teeth are loose. He has already lost all bottom four front teeth.

2. Jaydon is potty-trained! No more diapers around here! woot woot! BUT now i have to figure out how to get rid of the pull-ups at night.

3. Jaydon likes to stand at the end of his bed and JUMP to his pillow each night. Last night he jumped too far forward and rammed his head right into the corner of his headboard. OUCH! He had a HUGE egg on his head. Then today he fell out of his stroller onto his head, just millimeters from his huge egg. Poor kid.

4. I am watching my friends three kids next week from Tuesday to Friday night.

{The Key to Happiness?}..another post

I am doing some thinking. I LOVE stimulating conversations. I love anything that makes me think and anything that can help me to improve my own self.

We received an article today about how optimism may improve health, success. It should've been titled Optimism DOES improve health and success. :) Reading it brought me back to when i attended Time Out for Women with my BEST FRIEND and her mom. BEST time ever. :) There was a lot of talk on how to become WHO you want to be. I think we all WANT to be happy AND i think we all would LOVE to be an optimist at all times. The hard part can be figuring out HOW to do it.

Everyone discovers their own ways to achieve it. Here are my ways of trying to achieve optismism and happiness....

1. Having a grateful heart. It's easy for us to focus on the things we don't have. I often have to step back out of my life...EACH day....to remind myself of what i have. When i remind myself how lucky i truly am it makes me feel so grateful. And when i feel GRATEFUL it's hard to not be an optimist. I always feel grateful, but it still doesn't completely elliminate DOWN moments i may have. BUT it sure does make them better.

2.Exercise. Wow. Exercise relieves stress for me. I get antsy if i go days without exercise. If i am grumpy i tell myself "i need to go exercise" b/c i always feel better after i do. It's hard to do this EVERY day. For example, i was too tired to wake up early this morning to do it. BUT my goal is to workout 5 times a week and i still can attain that goal.

3. Reading my scriptures daily and praying. This makes me feel closer to my Savior each day. It brings light into my life when i do these things daily. I have the spirit with me, and it helps me focus on my goals for the day. Doing this brings me closer to the Savior AND the more light i receive, the more it helps me improve my own self. I have a good example of this that i will type in a minute. I am not CONSISTENT with this. There will be days here and there that i forget my own personal studies and days here and there that we forget to do it as a family. The main thing is that we do it. If we forget one night, then we are doing it the next. It brings us closer together as a family. It brings the spirit in our home. It's a good way to keep contention out of the home. Doing this and improving my relationship with my Savior and Heavenly Father is why i can achieve all these other things in my life. They give me love and hope and strength to become who they know i can become and who i know i can become.

4.Finding the good in most situations. You have to. If you can't find the good in most situations then you will be miserable. If you have a grateful heart then this can be easy to do. BUT This can also be hard to do. Some situations it can be really hard to find the GOOD. IF you can't find the good, then you can ask yourself "what did i learn from this?". When you do that, you found the good. Learning and progressing is always good.

5. Daily goals. Shane and I like to set a goal for ourselves and each other just for ONE day. We talk that night about if we think we did well on our goal for the day. Then we set a goal we want to achieve for the next day and talk about it again that night. Small goals are more attainable than LARGE goals. Baby Steps. We ARE NOT consistent with this either. It's been a very ON and OFF thing. But it is something that we TRY to do once in awhile. :) It really helps not only with OUR relationship, but with our relationship with our kids b/c one of the goals always has to do with our kids.

6.Spending time with my family. It's all about LOVE. I love when we can spend time together. It makes me happy and makes me grateful. On the other hand it can make me stressed, depending on what we are doing....BUT something i have been trying to achieve for the past couple years is NOT getting stressed in stressful situations. For example, it's easy to get tired and stressed when we all go on a small getaway. What makes it stressful for ME is packing, rushing to figure out the whole situation, stressing that i might forget something IMPORTANT. It wouldn't be stressful for ME if i forgot it if i were alone b/c i would figure out a way to do without it....BUT it becomes stressful b/c i have a husband and kids to think about and i don't want to let them down. And not only that, but it can be stressful trying to chase and keep track of the kids. Well, mainly Jaydon. BUT here's the thing... i try to find attributes that i really like about my friends. I am grateful for good friends and examples around me. I find those attributes that i like in others and i start to work on becoming that way. It's like a mental game, really. I try to find the joy in packing, try to find the joy in tackling Jaydon 500 times a day. I try to find the joy b/c i know i will look back and wish i would've. I don't want many regrets with my own family.

7. Giving others the benefit of the doubt. I used to have a hard time with this. BUT i have improved. I think most people aren't out to hurt you, whereas before i used to feel like they were. Some people just do and act different than yourself and just b/c they do doesn't mean they are doing something wrong. They act the way they know. Giving people the benefit of the doubt will really help illiminate stress in one's life. A lesson on Sunday talked about a past Prophet and how one day he noticed something from his wagon was missing. I don't remember what it was. Maybe it was the rope for the wagon or the cover for it? Anyway, his response was "well, i wish i would've seen him because i would have given him a blanket b/c he was probably cold and i would've given him some food because he was probably hungry." He didn't think "Oh no! WHO would do this! stupid people! i am so mad!" He thought deeper than that and thought that maybe this person who stole it was in a great need because they probably wouldn't steal otherwise. And so then he felt bad for that person. I want to be like that.

8. Service. Nothing is better than serving others. You learn to love others, you become closer to God, you learn who you are. It's the best key to happiness for EVERYONE. A person can never go wrong in serving others, happily. :)

At Time Our for Women i learned a lot of stuff. One was about NOT focusing on our weaknesses. Instead , focus on your strengths. I remember a time when i saw all my friends around me sewing the cutest stuff. And they seemed to be able to make the cutest stuff in a couple hours. I can't sew. I wanted to make cute stuff like them and i tried, but still couldn't achieve it. Then i realized, "i am wanting to sew only b/c my friends are doing it, NOT b/c i REALLY want to do it." I don't like sewing. Period. I had to come to that realization, first. Then i thought about WHAT i CAN do and tried to focus more on that and forget about trying to accomplish all these other things that everyone seems to be able to do that I CAN'T do. That was weight off my shoulders when i realized that.

Some good quotes that i wrote down from Time Out for Women:

"A woman gripped by fear is weak because this attribute and its resulting behavior is limiting."

"Weaknesses in ourselves can best be discovered through constant prayer and reflection."

"The way we often think can interfere with our peace, our progress, and our relationship with God."

"The door to BECOMING is to learn and know things."

"Never compare your worst to their best."

"Leave room in your heart for holy envy. There will be things that other will do better than you."

"Celebrate other's success."

"Your thoughts will determine what you become in this life."

I love this quote and i think it helped me..."The more you accept the fact that parenting isn't easy, the easier it gets."

One more thing that i heard at Time Out for Women that i really liked....

One of the speakers told a story about LIGHT AND TIDYING UP A ROOM as being symbolic to our own selves and progression.
So , in referring to our own progresssion.....Heavenly Father gives us a small light and asks us to go in a room to tidy it up. We go in, there isn't much light. But we can see that the rug is folded up against the wall and the couch isn't placed in a good spot and the lamp is on the floor. So you fold out the rug and place it on the floor, place the couch in a decent spot and pick the lamp up and put it next to the couch. You go out the front door and there is Jesus. He gives you a brighter lamp than the one before and asks you to go in and clean it up. You might ask yourself "why? i just did." But you go in and find that you can see more with the brighter lamp and realized you missed a few things that you didn't see before. For example, the rug was placed the wrong way, so you turn it over the right way. You notice that the cushions were placed the wrong way on the couch b/c the zippers are showing towards the front, so you turn those around. Then you go out the front door and Jesus is standing there again, and this time he has a brighter light than the one you just used and asks you to go in and clean up the room, "i just did. i didn't miss anything." But you go in this time and with the brighter light you are able to see you did miss some stuff. You missed all the dust and cobwebs that were over in the corner. You missed that the rug needs vacuumed. And so you clean it.

This story is such a great example to me of how as we receive more light in our lives we are able to grow and progress and become WHO we want to become. We receive more light in our lives by growing closer to our Savior. We are able to become better inside, gradually, as a person as we receive this extra light he will give us by knowing him personally.

Anyway, like i said...i really like stimulating conversations. I love pondering and thinking about spiritual topics because i can actually make sense of it and I can see results when i do those things that are necessary to return to HIM. I love growing and progressing and learning. It's awesome. :) Everyone has their own way to happiness. This is my way.

“The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired. One of the great ironies of life is this: He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.” President Gordon B. Hinckley

{FHE}...another post

For Family Home Evening last night we all made cookies together. Each of us put on our NEW aprons that Grandma Jenks made for us, i used my new kitchenaid mixer and we each took turns putting the ingredients in the bowl to make our cookies. It was fun. We really enjoyed putting together this picture too. We pulled out the tripod and got a bit crazy. In case you are wondering what i am holding...cilantro. My second love.

It's funny because recently we had a relief society activity where we each made our own aprons. I ended up not being able to make one. I am in the Presidency and more people ended up coming than we planned so i decided to not make one so that i could help in any way that was needed so that our teacher didn't feel overwhelmed doing it herself. I was a little bummed b/c i really wanted to make one! :) I have been wanting a homemade apron for awhile. And i remember thinking how FUN it would be to make one for my boys. THEN Grandma Jenks sends us these for Christmas! How excited i was! :) I finally have an apron!

Anyway, back to the story. We made cookies, then when they cooled after cooking, we put ice cream in between two cookies to make LARGE ice cream sandwiches. OH BOY those things were GOOD. :) It was a fun family home evening!

{Our Holiday Break}

Our Christmas Break was lots of fun for all of us. Shane had about a week and a half off of work. Gavin took off 2 weeks from school. We had fun doing lots of fun things together. I really felt the Spirit of Christmas this year, stronger than most years. This year i really noticed it, not just as that feeling that comes each year, BUT as a feeling of the Spirit confirming to me over and over what the season is really about. It was a really good Christmas for me, in that way. I think we might do something a bit different next year to take focus off so many presents. We have an idea , but we will see.
Christmas Eve we acted our our own Nativity. Shane read the story and the boys and I played the parts of Mary(me), baby Jesus(Jaydon), sheperds(all 3 boys), angel(me). It was fun. Then he read a few more Christmas Stories, we sang a couple songs and then Shane had us listen silently to Silent Night by David Archuletta. It was BEAUTIFUL and i felt the Spirit so strong. We drank hot chocolate, i made a big Christmas Dinner. Of course Christmas music was playing the entire day of Christmas Eve with my candle burning all day. The boys took turns carrying the Presents downstairs and placing them under the tree. They had fun doing that and then just staring at it. :) I don't have pics of Christmas Morning b/c i use my video camera on certain occasions like that. It was so fun having just us together as a family. :)


We went up to Okuma, the day after Christmas, to do some camping. We were going to camp in our tent, BUT decided to stay in their little cabins because there was a change of rain. The cabin has a bunkbed and a double bed and a little pull out bed that was under the bunkbeds, for jaydon. It had a small fridge and microwave and that was it. IT was SO fun. We loved it. We had a firepit in front. We made up some tin foil dinners and some banana boats. Our cabin is right by the ocean. And there was a large playground right there as well. The boys played on that for awhile. We had lots of fun. At the end of the night we went in our room and played a few games, the favorite being "Si, Sho, Wagu, Jon, Kin, Pong"(rock paper scissors the japanese way). It's so fun. Okuma is our FAVORITE spot for camping. It's gorgeous. We love it.
Oh, you can see in the picture above a Gecko. They are always coming into homes. They like to eat the spiders and bugs that get in your home. We found three of them in our cabin behind the curtains. They are cute little things. I welcome them if they are going to eat spiders. :) These were the largest ones we have seen so far since being here.
We woke up and ate some oats and then headed to the Churaumi Aquarium. That aquarium is so awesome. We like it a lot. We really get into animals, and ocean life. We love watching Planet Earth, and LIFE....all that stuff. We love it so much that we ordered videos so we can watch them often. This world is an amazing place. It's incredible.

Here we are getting ready for bed.

Here is Shane and the boys right after we arrived to our little cabin.

Still learning Japanese , slowly. I love trying to learn it, but i need to learn it faster than the pace i am going.

We love the parks here. Especially the roller slides. You have to go down these on a box or a tray or sled. You go down fastest on a sled. We need to go buy one. We all love the slide except for Tanner. WELL, actually, he likes it only by going down on his bum. He doesn't like sitting on anything because it makes him go faster and feel like he doesn't have control and he DOESN'T like that one bit. So he carefully nudges himself along the slide on his bum.

You can see here in the picture below that he doesn't like it. We had him try it with all FIVE of us going down and tanner sitting in the middle. We thought for sure he would enjoy it then. We started going down and he started PANICKING! He screamed and screamed. hahahaha...sad, but so funny when i think about it. People were probably wondering where the dying kid was. He doesn't scream like that hardly ever, so it was funny to me to hear him scream so loud. We weren't even going that fast AND he was in the middle. He just doesn't like feeling like he has no control.

Here you can see the boys made some christmas ornaments during the break. They made snowmen and little gingerbread men with their thumbprint, the year, and the first letter of their name...

Gavin and Tanner reading The Friend together.

We went to check out the lighthouse at Cape Zanpa. The sunset was soooo gorgeous. My pics still don't do it justice.

This is random. I made my own little concoction for lunch today and it was yummy. I want MORE now. Baby arugula, black beans, grape tomatoes, red onion,cilantro, corn tortilla torn into little pieces, italian dressing with lime and cumin in it. It was tasty!

Christmas vacation was so much fun. I had the boys deliver homemade hot chocolate powder mix and peppermint homemade marshmallows to our friends. It took us TWO nights to get that done. Partly because it took us 1 1/2 hours to find where one family lived. You don't understand what it is to be confused on roads until you come here. woah. No thought or organization went into putting this place together.

My favorite part was going to the Orphanage. We took our kids and visited the Orphanage. We donated gifts, as a branch, and a gentleman in our ward came in as Santa and gave the kids each a gift. The Japanese kids were so well mannered and DARLING. I wanted to take a few home with us to save them and give them a loving home. So bad, i wanted to. We sang songs with them and played games with them. It was a good experience for our kids and for all the moms. We want to do it again next year.

Now that it's the start of the New Year we've got other things to focus on. Tanner wants to do KARATE. Gavin wants to play basketball. I am putting all THREE in swim lessons in April. They will stay in it until i feel comfortable letting them swim without my help. I wake up every morning between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. to do workouts each morning with a few friends. Crazy i know. I never thought i would wake up that early to do workouts, but i quickly realized i have to in order to get in a workout for the day.

We have lots of exciting GOALS to reach for as a family this year! We have a goal that if we read the whole BOM , say family prayers each day and have FHE each Monday, then around October we are going to take the kids to DisneyLand Tokyo. I can't wait to take them there!! You have no idea. I think i will be more excited than they will. We have been on the fence about taking Jaydon with us because he won't get to ride most of the rides. BUT by then he will be 3 1/2 years old. I can't leave him behind for that. No way. I will gladly give up riding certain things so that he can experience the rest of it. :)

Here's to a WONDERFUL New Year and reaching our goals we all set for ourselves! :)