February and March 2019

 I mentioned the most exciting event of February and March in Joel's Senior Year blog post - clearing the brush on the grounds of our own Pocatello Temple!  We are so excited to have our very own temple, right here where we can see it out our living room window every day!!  Thousands of youth showed up on the night of March 5 to clear brush on the temple grounds.  It was amazing to see so many youth there!  Most of the work was done in the first 15-30 minutes, before we even arrived.

Alexander was a little younger than the invited age, but I brought him along with us.  He is so excited that the temple will be finished by the time he is old enough to attend!

Here is a photo of the temple grounds in February before the brush-clearing event:

This is a photo that I downloaded from the temple Facebook page.  It was taken from the east, facing west over the city.

I also posted photos of the play Cinderella at PHS, in which Joel was a footman and a cheese salesman and Aysha manned the spotlights, on the Senior Year blog post.  Here is a side note that I didn't post previously:  Joel and one of his drama buddies spent hours one night during practice making paper boats out of misprinted programs.  Then they carefully placed them on top of the trophy cabinets and other high surfaces in the auditorium foyer, as an experiment to see how long it would take people to notice them:

In January 2019, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints all over the world began the new Come Follow Me home-centered gospel study program.  I was so excited for this new program to enhance our family devotionals!  It was a lot of trial and error at first, and it didn't go like I hoped.  But gradually, our family studies became more meaningful.  Here are some of the kids' notes from a night in March:

"Sheep" by Al

Dallin's scripture notes

Emerald's scripture notes

"Why do we have the Sabbath?"

Alexander answered, "To learn about Christ, because if we learn about Christ then it helps us choose the right (CTR)."

Here is Alexander's illustration of a talk from General Conference later, in April:

"The Atonement of Jesus Christ" is like a parachute, by Elder Tad R. Callister

And here is a love note that Emerald made in April, also:

Isaac turned 20 in March and had orange rolls for his birthday cake:

Gran made him a chocolate Gram's cake with sprinkles at her house:

In February, Aysha completed the quilt blocks for her first quilt:

Our next-door neighbor, Lucas, often comes over to play.  One day, he, Dallin, and Alexander built towers and walls with pillows and played all kinds of games: