Strength

Strength is one of those words with lots of layers and meanings. You can have strength, and you can be given strength. Strength comes from within, and you can gather strength from others.

I like how Rhonna worded it on her blog – it does take strength to become stronger. Thank you Rhonna for the quote in this entry. My favorite part is:

“We are all meant to shine, as children do. … And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same.” – Marianne Williamson

I know that we are all meant to shine. There have been many people I have met that just shine. It’s true, you do feel brighter yourself around them. Thank you also for the chance to ponder on the word, and for the “permission” to dig up quotes. I found quite a few. 🙂

One of my favorites that I can personally attest to is:

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

This quote is a good one to remember during personal trials:

“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” – Corrie TenBoom

There are a few classic quotes I think of when I think of strength:

“What does not kill me makes me stronger.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This one made me laugh:

“Strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of those pieces.” – Judith Viorst

This quote made me think:

“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” – Booker T. Washington

This one doesn’t really have a lot to do with strength, but was right next to one that did. Anyway, I totally fell in love with this one. Inspirational!:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

And the final one I selected is so poetically beautiful.:

“And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anais Nin

Note to self: Have the strength to blossom!

One of those picture kind of days…

We were able to make three batches of strawberry jam (yum!) and a pie for Family Home Evening treat.

Pie.jpg

Swirl brush by Taran Conyers

Autumn ate her nachos for lunch and then plopped some cheese on her nose. She posed and said “cheese!” That funny little bug-a-roo:

Say Cheese!

Princess Pants font (and doodles) by Jen Wilson

Here are my three oldest children, enjoying the Pooh Heffalump movie. The sharing of the seat didn’t last too long. 🙂

Siblings

Jim Bob took Autumn on an outing over to Mom and Dad Pipes’ house. They played with the baby goats and Autumn had a grand time. I am so glad I sent the camera with them. 😉

Hand

Goat Kiss

Kisses No.2

The word for the week at Rhonna’s blog is strength. I dug up a couple quotes I like, but will save them to post tomorrow.

Jammin'

Tomorrow we make strawberry jam – again. Autumn is my little jam model, with the jam we made last weekend. LOVE this time of year! Happy Jam Day to you all. Happy May day as well. 🙂

Jam

Autumn Jam

Enjoy Jam

Distressed Alpha and Antiquated Swirls stamps by Michelle Coleman. Enjoy stamp by Rhonna Fareer.

sweepy.

Today has been a long, but good day. I was in charge of story hour (with my friend Michelle) at the library today. We had a fun time with the “Spring” theme. We read a plethora of Spring Time books, did some finger plays, sang lots of songs, and glued popcorn all over a paper tree branch – to look like a blossoming spring tree. So fun and slightly educational. 🙂

This afternoon there was a Primary Quarterly Activity. The theme was “Children Around the World”. The children first learned the song “Holding Hands Around the World”, and then there were three rooms they went to to learn about different countries. One room was about Germany, another about Chile and the last was about Taiwan. The children were divided into three groups and then rotated between the rooms. Each room had a person from our ward that had gone on a mission to that country. They talked about the country and then also about the children in the country. Our representative for Taiwan was not able to make it at the last minute, so Sister Ruell picked up the table display and got some information on the country. I looked online and found some stories in the Friend magazine about some children in Taiwan. I told the stories, showed the information and passed out the fortune cookies that Sister Ruell had picked up from the Snow Dragon restaurant. The children really seemed to enjoy it. I was sad that I did not see the other presentations, but I hear that they went well. 🙂 The Activity Day girls (age 12) and their new leader, my sister Erin, made the treat from Germany – yummy chocolately bread. The treat from Chile was cheese empanadas. The children seemed to enjoy all of it, and it went fairly smoothly as well.

In the evening I went to a PBS “Ready to Learn” workshop – so good. There were not many people there, so we were allowed to take two free books. I also received one book as a prize, so my boys were thrilled when I came home with three books. We busted them open and read away. I think their favorite is, “Joseph Had a Little Overcoat”. It is about a man whose coat wears out, so he makes a vest. The vest is wearing out, so he makes a scarf and on down to a button. Cute story and fun pictures. We also got, “The Rain Came Down”, and “If You Give a Moose a Muffin”. All three books are sequential in nature, so I’ll have to point that out to them sometime. 😉

Now I’m fighting to keep my eyelids open. I will post again tomorrow. Oooh, and I am so excited to try out my Bosch machine. Totally grew up with this wonderful kitchen appliance – and received one tonight as an early Mother’s Day present from my Dad and Mom Pipes. So exciting and wonderful!

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