Scripture study and prayer

Our Bishop offers a different Bishops challenge for every quarter of the year. Once it was 100% home and visiting teaching. This quarter his challenge was to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year. My first thought was to not even try. I don't read regularly so if I just don't accept the challenge I won't have to feel guilty when I don't accomplish the goal. Then it occurred to me how ridiculous this thinking was. If I don't even try, I have already failed. So I decided to accept the challenge and so far I have been doing really well at reading everyday and staying on top of it. My trick is that I can't do any knitting (or other reading) until I have read my scriptures. It is working well for me.

Yesterday I read this scripture:

"For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee" (1 Nephi 21:15, also Isaiah 49:15)

It brought a smile to my face and hit me pretty strong. There is no way I could forget my sucking child. When you are nursing there is such a strong physical reminder that shouts "Your baby needs to eat. Now!" I get mighty uncomfortable after a few hours away from the kids. The scripture says I might forget, but the Lord will not forget us. He knows us and loves us as a mother knows and loves her child. He knows our needs and does not forget.

Silly kids! Eeva gives me this looks in a lot of pictures. I think it is hilarious.

On a similar spiritual note, Heber has been saying lots of prayer recently. It is pretty cute (accept when he is crying and screaming because someone else said the prayer). For a little while he would forget to address Heavenly Father and would just go straight into saying thank yous. I would have to stop him and remind him that we are talking to God when we pray so we start with his name. This is what he usually says:

How you start mom? You say Dear Heavenly Father. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our blessings. Thank you for mommy and daddy, thank you for Eeva and daddy, thank you for me and mommy (He will add in anyone else in the room multiple times). Thank you for our food, thank you for our eggs, thank you for our burritos (or whatever else we are eating). Bless daddy at work. Thank you for Jesus Christ. Amen

 It really is a very sweet prayer. I love the simple faith of children. I love the simple lessons my children teach to me. Mothering gives me constant reminders to be patient, be kind, breath, and love one another.

A few other thing that Heber does to make me smile:

• Takes all the pillows and blankets from the bed, arranging them in a circle. He call this is pot and asks me if I want to come in his pot with him.
• He will make up his own words (actually just a sound of some sort). When I ask him what that is he explains it to me using more unknown words and sounds.
• He calls most things that open and close a gate. He likes to make gates out of my arms, blankets, clothes on the floor, and everything else he can think of. 
• When I say "Heber, where are you?" His response is "Here my am"
• He asks me to play with him but not just for a little bit. "Play with me for a real really long time"
• Anytime he is playing make-believe. One of hims favorites is pretending the rug is a lake. He jumps in and says "I splashed you mom. I got your shirt all wet. Now you have to go get a dry shirt on." We also pretend I catch him with my fishing pole and eat him up.
• He likes to give us lectures about things that we should or shouldn't do. He gave me the best lecture the other day about Grandpa's (who he calls Granshin). "Those are Granshin's bees mom and you DON'T TOUCH THEM. Just leave them alone. You just look at them!"
• He will also lecture Eeva saying in a stern voice "Eeva, I said no! Look at my eyes Eeva. Listen to me!"
• He mixes up the words fun and funny. "Let's go the the park. It's so funny"

 I love this boy of mine. He brings me so much joy even through all of the yelling and tantrums (he apparently learned well from me) and mess making. He can be such a stinker sometimes and other times he is so sweet. I am so glad to be his mother.