Raising my kids, moment by moment,
is the hardest thing I have ever done.
because I know it matters.
because I want to do it right.
because I know I won't.
because I still must try.
And mostly because there is no way I can do it alone.
I made this blog as a place to gather the inspiration as well as somewhere to put the ridiculous amount of photos I take, trying desperately to see this crazy time in our lives for what it really is--soul stretching wonderfulness, I won't want to forget.
(the little moments of happiness...we'll take em!)
If you couldn't tell he's obsessed with our last name.
He calls Aaron's therapist Joy (who he is also obsessed with) Joy BRETZKE!
When he wanted to know where Tallie and Paigie and MOM were going, I tried to tell him Paigie an Tallie's mom had a name--Andy.
"Andy Bretzke?"
But the best yet, was this morning.
I was trying to find a teachable moment out of yet another case of McKye torturing his little brother (he'd taken Levi's toys one by one from him and brought them upstairs while I was in the shower)
I was babbling on trying to hatch some empathy out of my stubborn middle child, "Does it make Levi happy when you take his toys? What would Jesus do? Would he want you to..."
McKye interrupted with what you could tell form his face was a total breakthrough:
"Jesus Bretzke!?!!?" Sure McKye--- Jesus Bretzke, if that means you'll try and be like him and stop making Levi Bretzke miserable, Jesus Bretzke it is.
Welcome to the family Jesus.
Speaking of obsession, Levi wants his coat on all the time. We're happy to oblige.
If you know me, sleep is not something I get a lot of.
It was a good thing he had a good reason.
His brother Sam got his mission call.
And even though he'd planned to come down and open it with all the family, at midnight, he decided he couldn't take it anymore.
I wish I could put the video up...cuz my sis-in-law's face says it all (if your my FB friends, it funny).
All conference called in, our family experienced a collective jaw-drop as he announced he was going to...
Zimbabwe!
Sam said just knowing he's going there, has already made so many things not matter.
Which is interesting because that same night Ben and I watched the Kony 2012 video, and Ben said the same thing: "Huh, the things I was worrying about seem pretty dumb now."
I've had so many thoughts (and as always I feel incapable of really expressing them).
It was so interesting to have his call be the same week all the Kony stuff exploded.
To be reminded of the atrocities, the injustice, the blood and horror...
But then to sit, and listen to one young man being ordained as an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood, so that he could exercise and call on the power of God to bless individuals, to promise them blessings and offer them hope beyond any earthly hardship.
That was power.
It wasn't as exciting as red banners and viral videos (which, don't get me wrong I applaud for the sheer initiative and ingenuity of it)
It was so quiet--obscure. A handful of his family there to witness.
Yet the gospel he will share will change lives, it will save generations.
I know this sound naive (I'm basically telling the plot of the broadway musical "The Book of Mormon"...young optimistic missionaries go into remote African village, ravaged by warlord)
But as a sat and watched Sam later that night offer his first Priesthood blessing to his own mother, his hands shaking, unsure how to begin or how he would know what to say, flanked by his brother and brother in law---worthy, humble, reassuring.
You'll know, they said, with knowing grins.
Hearing Sam's voice, cease to be his own, void of his own motivations or notions, enveloped in the the will of God, His message and His love flowing out upon the head of His daughter.
The word and counsel of God, ours for the asking. Accessible. Open. Close. There. With us.
Power.
The policies of nations, the clamour of cabinets, the outcries for political and social change may play a role, but the are not the answer, nor are they the real power.
The real power is in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the answer.
Are there steps to that? Is there physical, political and social ills that need reformation?
Of course.
But the gospel of Jesus Christ still is the answer.
I'm so excited for Sam to go and share with people the message of the restored gospel and his testimony of Jesus Christ and His power to save.
I love having my phone with me at all time and being able to take crappy "phone" pictures and make em fun with a only a few touches of the screen.
But I do feel like then when I put them on my blog it feels like "overshare". Oh well. Let's just say it's for my mom. Okay? Okay.
For you my cell-phone-less mommy.
We'll start with one of her and her newest granddaughter Cassidy who I met this Saturday. She's a total doll. And such a good sleeper, at least while we were there. (how do I get me one of those???)
My other little niece Kamber was there. I love this shot of her being so lovely and still, and my boys being smeary blobs of ever-moving energy. (Again, how do I get me one of those?)
Another niece Evanny, got in on the picture taking fun. Girl after my own heart.
Boy cousins bonding.
Love how they instinctually know the unspoken rule of keeping at least a cushion between ya.
I was really excited about this here double wide ketchup packet. Texted it to Ben who nonchalauntly told me he's seen em around. Apparently I need to get out more.
Sunday, was lovely. After church I disappeared into my bedroom for a while after church. When I came back downstairs McKye annouced, "mommy! mommy!" THey way he does when we return home from somewhere. Ha, ha fooled him!
I was glad I rested a bit, after three hours of Visiting Teaching interviews, (during which my hubby sent me this)
our presidency stayed for another thee and a half hours re-doing all the routes! We were just in the zone and when we finally decided to look at a clock it was after midnight!!! Oppsies.
Ben just grinned at me, when I got home, like, "Huh, guess this erases a few of my Slightly late home from work s now doesn't it!?!"
We stayed up even longer (which it's hard to regret couple time) HOWEVER, the rest of the night was pretty rough. McKye woke up in total night terrors and ended up sprawled in our bed and I eventually ended up in his bed with Levi.
And to top it all off, Aaron decided he was well rested and got up for the day at 3.
Many people ask me what Aaron does when he gets up at 3am?
Well besides turning on all the lights and all the faucets to full blast, he also did this
with a VERY LARGE bag of pretzels.
As you can see, we're back to just a mattress on the floor as he broke yet another bed.
I'm thinking maybe a very high loft bed with a tent underneath??? (it's so hard to spend the money when we don't know if he'll deem it acceptable enough to actually sleep in) Lately we've been finding him curled up in his ikea pop up tent most mornings.
Never underestimate Aaron's resolve.
The kicker? All the carefully rescued pretzels met their soggy demise after all.
I happened upon Aaron's handy work moments before his therapist was due to arrive...man I've never been so grateful for a garbage disposal!
I comforted myself with my favorite treat right now.
At least Levi put himself down for his nap.
Still after a long tiring day of what seemed like endless messes... (there was a throw-up one Ben said was too gross to share)
McKye decided he'd had a great sleep in mommy's spot last night and was ready to stay up and party with mom and dad. He rather enjoyed an episode of Parenthood (interpreting various emotions from the acting, "He's sad?" "She's happy!" the whole time) til he finally zonked and was carried to bed.
He was up bright an early to supervise my date with Jillian Michaels.
Eating oreos while someone is trying to work out is just rude buddy-- rude!
I have been trying to work out. With varying degrees of succes. I by far prefer outside.
away from the kiddos... (Levi, "helping" mamma with leg-lifts)
and then I have these for breakfast...oppsies
And that is my life according to instagram lately:)
It's fun! (you can find me as chelseabelleb)... let me know if you have an account so I can follow YOUR life! (and/or random picture of frosty trees:)
Since it was mentioned in church, this conference talk "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" by Elder Kevin W. Pearson, has been in my thoughts. A lot.
And when things are in my thoughts, they come out my mouth, to my friends on the phone and then they think and talk about them too. Which can be very helpful.
Elder Pearson's 6 Destructive D's
Doubt, Discouragement, Distraction, lack of Diligence, Disobedience adn Disbelief
were so apparent patterns in our day-to-day lives!!!
When I would catch myself wanting distractions I could think, hmmm, why am I feeling discouraged? Had I been diligent and obedient about tapping into true, Spiritual sources of encouragement? or was I setting up my expectations based on others, or what I thought I ought to be accomplishing?
Elder Pearson explained, "Discouragement comes from missed expectations. Chronic discouragement leads to lower expectations, decreased effort, weakened desire, and greater difficulty feeling and following the Spirit"
My friend and me, struck by the reality of this "pathway" of destructive D's
decided to try and figure the path out in reverse...a path we could choose that would lead us to greater faith, or at least one we could make a u-turn on, if we recognized ourselves heading int he wrong direction.
We decided you start with belief. (not faith yet)
Just a desire to believe, like we learn in the scriptures (Alma 32)
Then we just need to obey. Just do what we know we're suppose to. Even when we're feeling rotten or lazy, or tired. Even when we feel like we can't possibly get anything out of our scriptures, or have time for service, or even stay awake for long enough to mumble a prayer.
Just do it anyway, just to be obedient.
Obedience will grow into diligence. This is where following commandments becomes more habitual in our lives, a part of life. Less of a duty and more of a part of life we look forward to.
Diligence (in prays, scriptures, service) bring us closer to the Spirit which offers us a greater vision, and increased focus. With this eternal perspective in mind, the worlds distraction become less appealing, and loose their hold on us, allowing us to break bad habits, and make better choices.
The Spirit fills us with understanding, and yup...faith.
Not some "out of our hands", mystical faith, but faith we can actively work towards, faith that can be given to us. An endowment for trying to follow the Saviour.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught: “Faith is a gift of God bestowed as a reward for personal righteousness."
Elder Pearson further encourages us with this concept of our ability to choose faith!
Desire, hope, and belief are forms of faith, but faith as a principle of power comes from a consistent pattern of obedient behavior and attitudes. Personal righteousness is a choice. Faith is a gift from God, and one possessed of it can receive enormous spiritual power. We do have a choice. We get what we focus on consistently.
So often I act as though I have very little control over how I'm feeling. I am a victim of my own discouragement and dependent on my own favorite distractions. I don't want to admit that my own lack of diligence is at the root.
I mop around thinking "If I can just get my closets to look like this bloggers" or "my wardrobe to be as cute as this friend" or my children as well behaved as this neighbour", or "my writing to be as clever as so and so..."
How can I be so quick to forget that the only true source of encouragement, of hope, or strength is the Saviour and my own willingness and determination to align myself to His Will for me!
I forget. But the moment I tap back in.
The instant I finally give in and kneel,
or open my scriptures, instead of another widow on my laptop.
He flows back in.
So close.
So ready to help.
And gives me light.
(Which I then "high-light" :)
Today he gave me these...
To let me know my labours aren't in vain, even though the laundry's never-ending,
&my kids can make messes faster than I can deal with them.
That I can be content. That I can learn to love the up s and downs, the days of abounding, and the days of hunger and need. I think I thought "All things" meant great, or hard things. Today it meant a variety of seemingly small things, and things that are repetitive and relentless in their dailyness. It meant, I can stay calm when McKye is a booger, and I can find the humor in yet another colosal mess, that I can keep trucking along with Aaron, despite feeling totally burnt out with it all.
I can.
With Christ strengthening me. I can do anything He requires.
But He gets to choose. Not me.
And finally, this:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Jesus Christ...[who] made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant"
Like a mom.
As I read that (Phil 2:7), all I could think/feel was I'm choosing to be like Christ. How can I bemoan the my life as mundane, when I have the chance to try and learn to serve continually as Christ did? Suddenly, the things I do everyday of "no reputation", like fishing the dirty diapers out of the toilet bowl (again), ceased to be merely gross, inconvenient and unfair, but they became opportunities to humble myself, in a submission that one day may change me enough to lead to my own exaltation.
How grateful I was, that I decided to stop and "recalculate" my journey towards doubt and discouragement, and instead said,
"Lord, help be find a path of faith, and focus instead."
I still had to clean up the diapers. But somehow it wasn't so bad.
It's short. I've listened to it a few time now, loading the dishwasher. And bits of it have lingered with me.
She says this book's purpose is to get the women of the church from where they are, to where thy need to be.
She describes feeling stuck, and having a dream (abotu 6 minutes in) "I am not prone to having dreams," she explained, "that I can even remember, but I had a very vivid dream in this place where I was stuck."
She discribes going on a hike, following someone, but she looses sight of them and ends up lost in an amusement park.
"I couldn't see any way out, I could see over the walls at where I needed to be, but couldn't figure out how to get there."
She decided maybe this dream meant that she needed to lay aside some of the amusements of the world, so she could have the Spirit of the project again.
She then almost immediately felt, "Maybe this isn't just an allegory for me, but this is an allegory, for the women of the world or the sisters in the church that they have allowed the amusements of the world to encroach upon them...they're lost in an amusement park, and they need to lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better. That felt like, again that originall injunction that we need to get the sisters in the church form where there are to where they need to be."
This world is so noisy, so flashy, so full of things we can constantly be reading , checking, viewing.
Things that dont' really feed our souls, or make us grow.
I don't think this was meant in a accusatory way. We all get sucked in to the cares and values of this world. I think it comes as a gentle invitation, to follow the Saviour, away from the noise, away from the clamour and find greater peace and purpose.
There is so much good to take in, and we live in an age when there is endless accessibility to interesting things. But we are also warned again adn again to not let the good, crowd out the best.
I love how the women who wrote of a constitution for the women in church, (with their oh-so- womanly way: seeking for ways to improve, serve and gather) were told by Joseph Smith that the Lord had "something better" (see chapter 2, in Daughters of my Kindgom)
When he did organize them, shortly there after, he left them with a promise, "If you live up to these principles how great and glorious!—if you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates. … If you will be pure, nothing can hinder."
Joseph Smith
If you remember back (to this post) my word for myself this year is "purify".
Things that are impure have fillers and additives, things that aren't essential, that sometimes aren't even real.
What amusements are tainting my life? what is robbing me, even of just the time I could spend in more soul satisfying pursuits? Learning of the Lord, or serving and loving His children.
That is what pure sources offer, true satisfaction.
Sister Eliza R Snow said the Holy Ghost “satisfies and fills up every longing of the human heart, and fills up every vacuum. I am filled with that Spirit,” she continued, “my soul is satisfied, and I can say in good earnest, that the trifling things of the day do not seem to stand in my way at all. But just let me lose my hold of that spirit and power of the Gospel, and partake of the spirit of the world, in the slightest degree, and trouble comes; there is something wrong. I am tried, and what will comfort me? You cannot impart comfort to me that will satisfy the immortal mind, but that which comes from the Fountain above. And is it not our privilege to so live that we can have this constantly flowing into our souls?”
There is so much in my life that doesn't satisfy....really. Things that, even though "not bad" have me "partake in the spirit of the world" just a bit too much. That, to use Joseph Smith's wording "hinder" me.
This scripture story reminds me of one of my favorite songs.
And leave me feeling lost in an amusement park, wandering, instead of purposefully following my Master in the paths He would have me take.
I think He's always walking with us, but like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, maybe we don't always recognizing Him there.
If we can get away from the distractions....
In RS today we learned about the Six Destructive Ds—doubt, discouragement, distraction, lack of diligence, disobedience, and disbelief from this talk.
I found it very interesting that distraction came after discouragment. I know in my life when I seek distraction most, is when I haven't sought as diligently for the encourgement of the Lord and His Spirit.
I'm grateful for Daughters in My Kingdom, not just as a new resource (yet another manual) but as a gift from our Heavenly Father, that has the power, specifically to help women, like me, who are trying to get from where I am to where I need to be--which is beside my Savior, close enough to feel His power, His mercy and His help. And His love.
We bought McKye his very own little Book of Mormon.
He LOVES it.
Takes it to bed with him like a teddy bear. "Is mine!!!" he declares if anyone tried to touch it.
The first night I gave it too him , I asked if we could read from it, while I put him to bed.
"No, is mine! I read it!"
He opened it up very carefully. And used his little finger to point to the page and said very slowly as if he was sounding it out:
"Noooooo, fiiiiiiiiight!"
Very good McKye; at this point in your spiritual progression that's exactly what it says.
Now if we could just get him to "live the doctrine".
He's also is obsessed with his name right now, although Ben didn't capitalize the "K" and acted bewildered when I told him it was wrong, and I have a birth certificate to back me up.
He's since added, "Jesus says: Say, sorry" and "Go to church" As well as "No pull hair"...more as a rebuke to Levi then a reminder to himself.
This was his "I did it" celebration after cooperating for what turned into quite the little poto shoot.
Here's the beginning of a post I started writing about her a while back:
Meg was my roommate. Wait Meg was Ben's "girl next door" first. Ben thought we'd be good roommate. He was right, so very right. This needs some old photos from the young adult days, but alas it's late. I love Meg. I love that she throws elaborate parties...
Ha ha. Yes she does. I really wanted to find a photo of me and her at the "Tacky party" she threw. But I can't find it. Hmmm, bet Meg has a copy.
Okay. So I told Meg a while back I thought she should throw a big party for the Academy Awards, where we got all dressed up and watched it all together. (Suggesting party idea is a good way to ensure you get an invite!)
Meg, my friend, it was so much more than I could have ever imagined (okay maybe I could have imagined it, but I probably never would have actually got it all together!)
Smashing night darling...smashing!
Speaking of my darlings:
My darling sister-in-law-soon to be,
did my hair for me. I was going for twenties, obviously.
Then it was off to...
Red carpet and all!
One fancy din din.
Great company!
A handsome date.
A fabulous host
&
only a bit of paparazzi
A cute dishwasher:)
Then a bit of relaxing while we watched them give out the awards.
Ooooo, and dessert. Sooo much dessert!
Wasn't crazy about all the winners. Guess I need to go finish watching "the Artist" seeing as it won (seriously the won nomination I didn't watch!)
