Thoughts like weeds

When Adam fell the earth was cursed with thorns and noxious weeds to inflict and torment man. Not only do we have to battle those literal weeds in our gardens and lawns, but the weeds that pop up in our heads. I heard, several years ago, our thoughts compared to weeds. As we are in that same fallen state, negative thoughts naturaly pop up into our heads. Don't we as woman think so many thoughts during the day? Some of them good, but the majority of them bad? We are constantly fighting to pull those negative weeds from our brains. And it's hard.

This year I realized that one of my daughters struggles tremendously with negative thoughts. It's hard to watch her and to hear her when she gets really down on herself. It's hard enough as adults to pull those weeds out, but it has to be so much more diffucult for a child.

How do I help her? How do I help her replace those negative thoughts with positive ones? One exercise that I have used with her in the past is afirmation. When she gets really bad I make her repeat positive sentences like this... I am a good person, My Mom loves me, I am smart. When she begins to do this the tears begin to flow and the truths that are heard touch her heart.

This daughter of mine is only 8 years old. Life is going to get harder, more complicated. How do I help her to stay on the positive side of life when her natural inclination is to be negative?

Early Halloween

Annika

"Peace Out!!"

Isabel
The butterfly fairy princess.



She loves the butterfly on her face.
And even more when the glasses worked with it.
She was going to go to school with no glasses.



Hannah.
The Mad Hatter.

Close up.

The red on the lips was her own doing.

Jaren is a Satyer.

You know, half goat, half human.

I did the best I could.

All the kids.

Beckham is Wolverine and I'll be dressing him up more this afternoon.

Since our school has SEP on Thursday the kids don't have school on Friday so the school is doing all their celebrations today. We started getting ready at 7:20am this morning and were all done by 8:45am. Yes, it's time consuming getting 4-5 children ready for Halloween. I think all the kids' costumes turned out great. They all went to school with happy faces and smiles. It didn't start out that way. Annika was in tears cause she didn't want to be a "rocker". She thought the clothes were to close to church clothes, what ev. I tried to convince her that it's all in the hair and make-up but she'd have nothing to do with it. I left her to her own devices and thanks to Hannah's kindness and help came up with what you see. Some funky hipster. I don't enjoy the costume part of Halloween, but I sure love the make-up part. I have some improving to do on Halloween. I think it was a good run through.

Smudge among the Mountains

I love the contrast between the bright leaves and the dark bark.

I love the texture that the tall grass adds to the foreground.

My mom kept asking me if I got a picture of the blue sky.
Yes, I did and isn't it brilliant?
It snowed just 2 days ago!!!

At the top, wow, just think what it woudl have looked like at it's peak.

Self Portrait.

Grandma and Grace.
Grace love the jerky.

Me and my baby.

See the valley in the background?
Ya, we hiked a ways up there.

My mom asked me earlier this week to go on a hike up Pleasant Grove canyon. I was a little apprehensive at first. I knew it was going to be hard and so my excitement wasn't that enhanced. I went anyway due to the fact that I was going to be spending time with my Mom. I felt lucky to be so close to her. And lucky that both she and I are strong and healthy enough to tackle such a mountain. And tackle it we did. She told me it would take about an hour and half to reach the tree line. We must have been halling butt cause we made it in just over an hour. It was a beast, especially caring a baby on your back. The most awe inspiring moment to me was the realization that Grace weighs almost the amount of weight that I have lost thus far. And to think that I could be caring that extra weight around was mind boggling. I didn't realize how fit we really were until our decent down the mountain. We thought for sure it would just take us 30 minutes. We didn't stop but once, and our pace was quick down the mountain and it still took us 40 minutes. Yeah for me and my mom!!!

The second most awe inspiring thing about the hike were the fall colors. We missed the peak by a week. But it was still breath taking and beautiful. It just reminds me how much I am loved by a Heavenly Father. To give me a strong body allowing me to take in such a hike and absorb the beauty of the colors. I once again realized that I was stronger then I thought. And even though I'm not at an "ideal" weight, I am healthy and fit.

The only downturn of the day was the smuge on the lens of my camera that I didn't catch until I uploaded and viewed the photos on the computer. Drat that smug. At least the photos turned out. Look past the smug.