The Spence's : Almost Fall!

I keep thinking that at some point I can keep up on everything. That I won't be so busy and be able to update more. Haha! Good one! I do have a bit of free time today because Scott and Charlotte are headed to St. George with Scott's brother, Rick. His parents will be down later. Jack and I would have gone but we were hesitant about driving our car which Rick offered to drive but I really don't want to leave Toby alone. Normally my sister would stay here with Toby but long story short, my sister moved out a few months ago and decided to move in with her boyfriend and is like anti-mormon all of a sudden or something. I don't know. I tried to email her since we hadn't heard from her and she ended up blocking me on instagram. But I can still see it on my computer because she has a public account. She thinks she's sneaky. I feel like I don't know her anymore. It's pretty sad but its her choice. So I guess I'm the only one of my siblings that actually goes to church. At least one of us got it! :) So I don't want to leave Toby alone even if someone is checking on him. I just feel bad. I figure at some point I'll get a vacation. Next year maybe? Only if I'm lucky! I actually wouldn't mind leaving Toby at a kennel but I can't afford all his shots or to pay for him to go to a kennel. I still have car repairs that need to be taken care of. In time I'll get my turn.

So we have been as busy as ever. Scott had an AMAZING pay check because he put it like 96 reg hours and 57ish I think hours overtime and he worked 12 out of the 15 days in the pay period. It was rough for us at home but it was needed. We had soooo many bills due and really needed to get it all paid and we had just enough to do it all. My car needed an oil change and was a month past registration. So Scott happened to have this morning off so he took care of it all for me. We still have to do brakes and rotors so hopefully soon. My brakes are in bad shape! Should be able to get through a little longer. That's where faith comes in. Heavenly Father knows I'm trying to do all I can in my calling and we're paying our tithes and offerings. I know he'll look out for us. I am just super stoked that ones of Jack's U of U hospital bills is paid off. Another one only has a little over a hundred due. I only owe $30 left on my stuff from Jan '13. The dentist is paid off for now. Just a lot of relief and now funds can be focused on other medical bills and debt. So hard but its a lesson learned and some of it out of our control so you do what you can. Just another trial to get through. Just feels good to be a little more free.

My calling is still pretty busy. We had to miss Scott's cousin's wedding. We didn't want to drive the car to Idaho anyway and couldn't afford a rental. I had an open house for Heber Valley Camp. We finally got to see the camp and where we will be so now we have a vision of what it will be and what we need to do to start planning. It's going to be awesome. The cabins are incredible and its just so nice. I am so excited for next year. We're going to be spoiled! I've been the process of trying to acquire a secretary and a sports director. Still waiting on both. In the meantime my awesome counselors help me with stuff and I'm just trying to stay afloat with volleyball just starting. I have 20 girls on my roster (holy moly!) and had 15 show up. You know how hard it is to rotate 15 girls through a church volleyball game? I was kind of stressed the whole time. It's just hard. But I'm surviving so far. We lost by 2 points in the third set. So close! We have a lot of work to do and I need help. Really hoping my sports director is approved soon so I can take a back seat and just show up to cheer. I love coaching the girls but its hard when I have to bring my kids and I'm trying to make sure they're not running through the halls at practice and I'm trying to focus on teaching the girls. So hard to do so I think I need to just give it up for now. Maybe in a few years or when I'm released as president. I've been a little on the stressed side but I've really tried improving myself in other areas which makes the stress definitely not as bad as it has been in the past.

I am constantly amazed at the blessings I have been given. I have wanted to improve the way I did things and the way our family does things. So after a really awesome regional conference at the beginning of the month and after some inspiration I decided to set some better goals and wanted to be more consistent with the things we can't afford to miss out on each day. I wish I could remember who it was who said it but they talked about how you should have 6 opportunities to pray a day. Two family prayers, two couple prayers and two personal prayers. I knew the couple prayer would not work for me and Scott in the morning because of his schedule but we could do it at night before our personal prayers. We talked about it and thought it'd be a good opportunity for us to be able to pray for things that we may not necessarily want to during a normal family prayer with two younger kids. I wanted to do two family prayers a day. We were doing it just in the evening. So I would do it with the kids when they woke up then we'd have it with Scott or Scott with the kids on Wed and Thurs nights if he puts them down for bed before I make it home. Then I saw this really cool little pic on facebook that gave ideas on making prayer more meaningful. I saved it to pinterest and have referenced it a lot as I've gotten into a better habit of doing morning and evening personal prayer. I have realized how badly I need that. I have been much better organized and have been able to have better patience with the kids. I have realized time and time again that when I feel like something is missing or maybe like whatever I'm doing is just not enough, its because I'm missing an opportunity to pray and read my scriptures. Now that I have been consistent I am so much happier. Things run smoothly. I can find a way to get it done even if it might be slightly overwhelming. Everything feels possible because I am doing daily prayer and scripture study.

Another thing they talked about was family scripture study. We have worked hard to try and be better with it. We read out loud to the kids every night from the Book of Mormon. It's great to have that time as a family and the kids will see the importance of it. After I make the kids breakfast and have my own, they usually watch something on the computer while they're eating and I can read a chapter or two myself from the Book of Mormon. That's what I'm trying to do for my honor bee. I'm done with my medallion stuff but need to get my interview still. Should have that by the 28th. Once I'm done with that I want to start in the Old Testament and use the Institute Manual. I love learning new stuff from the scriptures! I have really felt that I need to teach the girls to love studying the scriptures. We gave them their scripture journals Wed. for this year's camp challenge. I was able to teach them how to study and I really hope they get excited for it because you can make it personal if you know how to study. So I really hope they understood it and I hope the girls are successful!

At the conference they also talked about FHE. We have been on and off. We actually try to save time, before we start reading with the kids, to play a game together. Charlotte is loving board games now. She likes Sorry! and Candyland. I hope to get her some more in the near future that she can play. We've also done go fish and Uno. But I felt like we needed to be a little more structured in teaching gospel principles so we've been working on that. Charlotte helped me plan the lesson and helped me make this super easy simple cake that requires no eggs (even though I have access to lots of them!). I couldn't make a frosting but had some heavy cream I made into a sweet cream and some fresh strawberries. It was such a good dessert! It was awesome! So I'm hoping we can keep that up as we go on if I can get her involved.

We were also promised by our stake president who challenged us to pray for missionary experiences before Christmas. Also to attend the temple more regularly that we already have been. If we do both of these we will not only strengthen our family relationships but we will have blessings given to us that we don't have now and ones we would never even expect. How can we afford not to do this? It has been a huge leap of faith for me. But by praying and reading more regularly I feel prepared for anything. I know what truth is and I can share that with anyone. I think I may already have an opportunity. Our stake president said it didn't have to be a non member but even a less active. There is a mom of one of our girls who isn't super active and I think I can get her involved a bit with volleyball. She has some experience and it might just get her foot back in the door. So we'll see. I don't know if that will be my missionary opportunity. I don't have a lot of friends up here and I'm at home most of the time but I figure Heavenly Father provides a way for anything so I just need to have that faith that I can do it and he will help make it happen. So I go with it.

I have already felt huge changes in our life and it's only been a week and a half! Scott and I are trying to watch all the talks from last conference before the next conference. We've slacked in the past with our couple study time so we're catching up with that and I will implement a new schedule once Oct conference is available to watch. It's been good watching a talk or two every night and getting a little refresher. I can't stress how badly everyone needs it. And it might seem like a lot to do but I really can't afford not to do any of it. It all has to hold a precedence over everything else because nothing else can happen successfully without it. I just wish I would have learned this younger! These are the things I keep telling my young women. Don't wait until you're 30 like me to have these learning moments and realizing what the truly important things are. Figure it out now so you can so many more years of enjoying the fruits of the gospel. If only! But I am so thankful I have learned and I'm helping my family to learn.

Although my weight loss is kind of on hold until I feel like I'm in a solid groove, I plan to work harder on that again soon. Its funny how although I've put a few pounds back on I've never felt happier with myself. I think I need to be solid with the spiritual stuff before I try again because I need to be happy and content with where I am at before I can find success in losing weight and becoming healthier. I'll get there and it will be a permanent change. I'm hoping I can get on with that soon though because my cycle is all out of whack. Not sure why but it's been 90 something days. Just hoping there aren't major issues. Last time I did this I had a cyst. Hoping its not that. And in case you're wondering I'm not pregnant. Don't worry, I checked. I can't be pregnant at camp so I made sure because I feel like camp is going to be super special this year and I really hope Heavenly Father's plan is to have me be part of it! :)

So besides all that we haven't done much. I did take the kids for a drive up Middle Canyon to see the changing leaves and hike around a bit. I brought my camera and Charlotte kept wanting me to take all these pictures so I did. She was cracking me up with her poses and faces. Her and Jack are awesome. Hopefully some good practice so we can get some family pics in a few months. We really need some new family pics. I know a couple awesome photographers. Once I lose a little weight though ;)
So here are all these pics I took. It's so pretty with the fall leaves and I chose a 1960s filter because something about those old pics!

So I didn't use a filter on these two first ones because I just love the beauty of where I live. I can look to the mountains anywhere in the valley and see them sprinkled in these fall colors. So gorgeous! Love the four seasons here!