Personal progress?

I am earning my Young Womanhood Recognition Award again.

Our YW President challenged us to work on it and inspire the girls.

Luckily, the requirements are shortened a bit for leaders and mothers (did you know you could earn it again with your daughter?). I'm sure it's because as wives and mothers we already do a lot of what is required for the young women.

So, I was working on this last night.
One of the value experiences in Divine Nature talks about discussing with your mother or leader some attributes that would be useful as a mother.
Also, reading "The Family Proclamation" and read 2 conference talks that were geared to women. After doing all these things,
then you pick an attribute to work on for two weeks.

After thinking awhile, I decided to work on nuturing. Being so busy, especially right when my girls get home from school (teaching piano lessons), I felt I could make an extra effort on strengthening their spirits through love.

Seriously....


Today, is President's Day. The girls are home from school.
I think that Heavenly Father decided to really put me to the test.
There have been tears since 9am from one or all of the kids.

In an effort to get piano done earlier, I tried to schedule my students in the morning. But, due to some crazy schedules, I ended up teaching
all day long
here and there.
The laundry is piled up to the ceiling, as well as the ironing. Breakfast dishes are still in the sink and my bed is not made (because I haven't cleaned up the dog hair yet-see my last post).

In the midst of the housework and children fighting chaos,
I tried to teach Sydney on the piano and remembering that I'm working on nurturing, had to really work at encouraging her even though she wanted to give up and was flinging her body around as she was having a fit (I'm sure in an attempt to have me let her leave the piano).

Then, my sweet daughter, Amanda,
was trying to get me to help her with charging her iPod.
When I couldn't quickly solve the problem, I was tempted to have her wait until the all-knowing Daddy got home to save the day.
But, remembering my goal, I left all my chores behind and 'googled' many a website trying to fix her iPod.
Mission accomplished.
But, when she went to find her new cd's that she got for Christmas so I could download them to her iPod, our next moment came roaring full steam ahead.

Friend problems.
A certain friend who broke the cd cases and misplaced the cd's. I went downstairs to 'nurture' my daughter through this problem and she was so upset her nose started bleeding.....really, really bleeding.....

And, then phone calls with the insurance people, repair shop and car rental place trying to get my car fixed.

I needed to take a five minute break.....which is what brought me here.

I really wanted to document my first day of increased nurturing...and even as I do so, Brandon is begging me to come see what he did on the game he's playing on the Wii....

Ok, I went and looked.
He turned a stormtrooper from the Star Wars game red instead of white.
Cool!

I am so grateful for these amazing spirits that have come to
Michael and me.
I realize I can do so much more for them. I really thought that my nurturing experiment would have consisted of reading books together, maybe doing some crafts or teaching the girls piano, or having some nice one-on-one chats with each child. Maybe it will be more of me patiently helping them through the hard stuff.

Stay tuned!