This weekend we went to Nauvoo, Illinois. Nauvoo was the last settlement the Mormon pioneers had before they were driven out by persecution and migrated to the Salt Lake Valley. It is a really interesting town because many of the original houses and buildings have been restored or rebuilt by the LDS and Community of…
Sister Beck gave an amazing talk on Saturday about the purpose of Relief Society. If you missed it or don’t remember what she said I highly recommend reading it. One thing she said really stood out to me, and I thought that it would be an appropriate discussion for this blog. She said… Since its…
“… if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice…if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day…
I realize that while a significant portion of my readers belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints (aka. LDS or Mormon) that there are many of you who read this blog who are from other faiths. I think this is SO wonderful. It is always good to be able to share religious…
Hello again. I hope you all had a great Christmas, mine turned out to be wonderful– if you want to read more about it click here. It was nice to spend so much time with family. Also, I think I did a good job at making Christmas more Christ centered this year. One thing that…
So I just found out that I have been nominated as one of the “Best LDS Female Solo Bloggers of 2010” at Mormon Momma. I’m speechless… which for me is rare. I appreciate the readers who nominated me and consider it a great honor to be listed with many of the women on the list.…
Turns out that Labor Day is a good day to labor. We started out working hard all morning in the garden picking green beans. Later in the afternoon Asher and Rose had a green bean and lemonade stand in our front yard. They made $12! Later that evening we had several families over for a…
So, the topic of birth has been on my brain a lot lately and it isn’t just because I am a doula or because of my post on the importance of birth. A few months ago I started working on a project with some other LDS women to collect stories from LDS women about their…
“Walking with the Women of the New Testament” is officially released! {Big cheer… followed by a sigh of relief… and then another big cheer} Many of the people who pre-ordered the book have already gotten their copies and I have been hearing such good feedback about it. Which makes me so happy. My good friend…
I know I’ve been sort of the giveaway queen lately but we are excited to announce that November 1, 2011 is the official release date (baring unseen circumstances) for our book “The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth” by Felice Austin, Lani Axman, Heather Farrell and Robyn Allgood.(The real…
I have a special favor to ask of my international (aka. outside of the US) readers. For the last few months I’ve been feeling prompted to do a series about Latter-day Saint women from around the world and how the gospel is growing in their countries. I received and email a few months ago from…
This week is the 4th anniversary of the day I started this blog. I started this blog because after Asher was born I felt really strongly that the Lord needed and wanted me to stay home with him. Being a stay-at-home mom wasn’t ever in my life plan but I couldn’t deny the message I…
I changed my mind, I think that I will keep doing one woman a week. I decided that I will just have to write a couple of entires before hand, so that on weeks when I get stressed I won’t have worry about it. Yep, that is what I will do. So keep checking back…
Wow. I did it. Saturday I successfully pulled off three different presentations ( two 90 minute ones and one 45 minute one) at the LDS Holistic Living Conference! I feel really good about how they went. I gave it my all and I had the Spirit with me… and in the end that is really…
Our book “The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth” is coming out in print soon! We initially thought it would come out in November but the layout and editing took longer than expected. Right now it is looking like it will be off the press sometime in March! This…
I took my kids on a nature walk today up the canyon. We were having a really good time collecting rocks, caterpillars and leaves until Asher found the biggest leaf he’d ever seen and asked me to reach into the bush to get it. I had Abe on my back in a hiking backpack and…
So, I’ve decided to only post a new woman every other Wednesday. I underestimated the amount of work that goes into researching and studying out a woman’s life. I initially thought that perhaps on weeks when I didn’t have time to do a good study, I could just post a “smaller, insignificant woman”; someone who…
-1- My husband and I went out on a rare date night and saw the movie “17 Miracles” which is about the Martin and Willie handcart companies, a group of Mormon English immigrants who got caught in the snow during their trip to the Salt Lake Valley and suffered unbelievable hardships. I’ve been taught about…
I am very excited to share the project that I have been working on the last few months. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time and I am so excited it is ready! I’ve put together study guides to go along with my new book, “Walking with the Women of the…
My husband was doing a search on LDS.org tonight and happened across this article that my grandfather wrote for the New Era in 1984. My grandfather was a great man but I hardly new him because he had severe Parkinson’s disease for most of my life. He died when I was nine. It was a…
A few days ago I read this post and was very inspired by this mother’s morning routine for personal prayer and scripture study. I’ve also been reading several journals and autobiographies of early LDS women and have been impressed that many of them all tried to wake up earlier than their families in order to…
-1- My kids are so excited for General Conference that their enthusiasm is like electricity in the air. They LOVE General Conference and it ranks as a “holiday”, right up there with Halloween and Christmas (except even better because it happens TWICE a year). They have been saying cute things all day like, “When we wake…
I’ve been debating about how much of my “real life” I want to post on this blog. I know that I don’t like it when you read a blog and feel like you don’t get to “know” the author, but I also want the focus of this blog to be on understanding women’s roles and…
-1- Some of you may have noticed but my “Five Things for Friday” is a shameless imitation of the “7 Quick Takes Friday” that Conversion Diary hosts each Friday. Several months ago I was struggling with knowing what direction to take this blog. I was discovering that it is difficult to write a blog that…
-1- For my scripture study the last few months I’ve been using the “Preach My Gospel” manual as a study guide. It has been really helpful, especially because lately I’ve been feeling like I need a “quick and easy, hold my hand and tell me what to study” guide to the scriptures– which is what…
-1- Why does it seem like everything always happens at the same time? It seems like life is either super relaxed and boring or super crazy and hectic… but rarely somewhere in between. For example, my husband is finishing his Master’s thesis in the next few months which means that he will be starting a…
-1- I am so excited for General Conference this weekend! Anyone else? My husband translates for Conference and so this time of year our home is filled with the words of the prophets– and I love it. He translates a language called Papiamento which is a mixture of Dutch and Spanish and is spoken on…
-1- I am 33 weeks pregnant this week. I can’t believe that in little less than two months (hopefully) I will be holding this baby in my arms. It makes me so excited! I am having mixed feelings about this pregnancy ending though. One one side I am super ready NOT to be pregnant any…
-1- Last fall we didn’t have time to carve pumpkins and so I ended up just throwing one of them out in our garden. In the spring all of the seeds from that pumpkin took root and I had HUNDREDS of little pumpkin plants all over my garden. I transplanted about 20 of the little…
-1- Sorry about not having a Five Things for Friday post last week. All THREE of our computers were being fickle, I was traveling by myself with two little kids, and I have been SO tired lately. So I am sorry the post didn’t happen, but just know that if I miss a week I…
-1- I know I probably shouldn’t admit this… but I really enjoy staying home from church with a newborn. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to church and miss attending the meetings but it is also really sweet to have a few hours where all my attention can be devoted to my new little…
-1- Turns out having three kids is harder than having two kids. Last week someone asked me how I was handling transitioning to three kids and I emphatically told them that I was doing great and that it was much easier than I expected it to be. Well, that was last week. The week when…
-1- I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was really nice. I really enjoyed having Christmas on the Sabbath this year. We were visiting my dad and his church started at 9 AM. So we did our Christmas stockings and presents from Santa in the morning but then saved the rest of…
-1- The other morning I was upstairs getting ready when I heard peals of giggles coming from downstairs. I’d left Asher and Rose down there while I showered and got dressed and the whole time I’d been getting ready I had this sinking suspicion that they were up to something. And boy was I right.…
-1- It is that time of year again, when people start looking for ideas for their Relief Society Birthday parties! I thought that since I have some new readers since last year that I’d share the links to the two scripts that I have written. The first is a re-enactment of the First Relief Society…
1. For the last year I’ve been dancing with a Modern Dance group and this year I get to perform with them! We have our first performance tomorrow and I am really excited– and nervous– about it. Each dancer got to choreograph her own movement and I am really proud of mine. It has been…
-1- My husband’s family are the only people I know who truly celebrate Ground Hog Day (which for all of you international readers is a bizarre holiday we “celebrate” in the US on February 2nd) . They have Ground Hog Day traditions, which as much as I dearly love them, I thought was completely bizarre…
-1- I apologize about not having a Five Things for Friday last week, I know some of you were planning on it. Last week was just unbelievably crazy and when it came right down to it my choice was between neglecting my husband and staying up way too late to write my post or spending…
-1- This week has gone by in a blur. I can’t even believe that it is already Friday again. I have been so busy this week with selling our house that I haven’t had time for much of anything else. We got two offers on it this week! It has been pretty exciting, but since…
1. For all you Utahans out there I just wanted to bring your attention to two “Yoga for Congo Women” events that will be held this month. These events are to help raise money and bring awareness to the situation of women in Congo. Salt Lake City, UT: February 26, 2011 (Event Details) Logan, UT:…
-1- Summer is underway for us and so far it has been quite exciting. First there was Rose locking herself in our bedroom for 2 hours. For some reason the house we are renting had a mega super key lock on the bedroom door and Rose couldn’t get it open. Finally my mother-in-law came over…
-1- Phew! It has been a whirlwind past two weeks. My husband has had some trainings for work and since they were all here in Utah the kids and I went along with him. Last week the training was down in Vernal, Utah (South Eastern Utah) and this week the training was in Logan, Utah…
1. I thought I’d alert you to the fact that Elspeth Young’s 2011 calender “Women in the New Testament “is now discounted online for only $4.00! Granted we are already two months into the new year but if you haven’t got a calender for the year this would be a good idea! Even if you…
1. My husband noticed yesterday that my blog button wasn’t working. I fixed it yesterday and now it works. If you happened to put the button on your blog you might want to click on it to make sure it links you back here. If it is the wrong one it will take you to…
-1- We got Jon an unusual Father’s Day gift. A goat named “Little Red.” About two weeks ago we had FOUR of our chickens get carried away by some foxes (sob). That only left us with three chickens, and since our coop is fairly large we knew that those ladies would freeze this winter without…
Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day here in the United States and so I thought I’d use this Five Things for Friday to express things I am grateful for… which this year isn’t hard to do at all. I am grateful for 5 wonderful women who sent me this beautiful necklace last week! The women I have…
-1- I know I gave you a peek at my kids Halloween costumes in my last post, but they looked so cute that I want to share them again. Asher was a mummy. He has been telling me since last Halloween that he wanted to be a mummy this year. All year I fretted over…
-1- Asher’s birthday was last week and he got some strange presents… which was mostly my fault. Way back in October Asher was obsessed with Halloween decorations. Every time we saw a house that was decorated for Halloween he would start to hyperventilate with excitement. He asked me 1,000 times a day when we were…
@font-face { font-family: “Times New Roman”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.SecA few weeks ago one of my friends started a book club to study the Classics for a group of homeschooling mothers in our area. Even though…
–1– Wow, I can’t believe that Abraham is already a week old! It has been a really beautiful week. I LOVE the newborn stage, their needs are so simple and they are so fresh from God. Even though our house has sometimes been chaos, this baby has brought with him a little bit of heaven…
-1- Okay, so I know it is not even close to Friday anymore (and I have 6 things today) but I really wanted to write this all weekend and I never got the chance. I am feeling sad that this blog has been neglected the last few weeks. I have so many things that I…
{1} Wow, what a week it has been! It has been so full and I have to admit I am terribly homesick for my kiddos, my husband, and my normal life. Which is good, right? In fact, when my kids dropped me off at the airport they were hanging all over me, smothering me in…
-1- Two weeks ago I was in so much pain that I could hardly walk. I had shooting pains down the insides of my legs and excruciating hip and pubic bone pain. I’ve had back pain before when pregnant but this was awful. I honestly felt like I was splitting in half. I talked with…
-1- Anyone want any zucchini? I am drowning in it. I didn’t even plant any zucchini plants this year but because my family knows I LOVE it I’ve been getting tons of it… and I am sure that I will just get more and more as the summer goes by. But right now I have…
-1- Pickles and Peaches! That is what I am up to my elbows in this week. My uncle’s garden has been producing cucumbers like crazy and so I’ve been busy making pickles. I made some for the first time last year and now I am totally spoiled. Homemade ones are so much better!My cousin and…
-1- In case you missed it I had a guest post this week over at Chocolate on My Cranium for the celebration on “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” I so appreciate Cocoa for giving me the opportunity to put into words some of the thoughts that have been jumbling around in my head!…
-1- I just wanted to say thank you to all the wonderful women who have written posts for my series on Latter-day Saint Women around the World. It has been so much fun for me to read and share them… not to mention it has been such a help to have a series of pre-prepared…
-1- Awhile ago Cocoa of Chocolate on My Cranium asked her readers which fictional character they most identified with. I loved the question but didn’t have time to respond at the time. So I am going to do it now. I am most certainly Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. Granted I am not…
-1- Last year I promised that I would remind you about Purim, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the story of Esther, so that you could hold your own Purim festivities. The date for Purim changes every year because it is based on the Jewish calender and this year the date for Purim is March 7th…
-1- We put our house up on the market last week. Wow, crazy, scary. If buying a house made me feel like a grown up, selling a house makes me feel like a grown grown up… almost. My husband starts his new job in a few months and we are hoping to move to Salt…
– 1- I can tell Spring is coming soon because the woodpecker has started pecking on our chimney pipe again. Several times a day I hear a drumming rattling noise coming from the roof… and that sound is the best indicatorthat winter is almost over and Spring is just around the corner. And That there…
-1- A few nights ago my husband and I snuggled up on the couch and spent a good hour watching the new Bible videos that the LDS Church has released. There are about 6 or 7 beautiful videos depicting Christ’s last week on earth and they are really good. If you need something to get…
-1- Can I show you what I found at the DI yesterday? Aren’t they beautiful? If you know what these are you can officially label yourself as a nerd:) They are Montessori cylinders, part of the pre-school curriculum for the Montessori educational method. I nearly had a heart attack (literally) when I saw them on…
-1- For the last few months Jon and I have been teasing each other about whose “baby” was going to be “born” first– his thesis or my book. It looks like mine made its emergence (in print) first! Felice got the very first copy of our book ‘The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine…
-1- After writing my “Dwelling in a Tent” post a few weeks ago I remembered that I promised I would tell you the story about how Jon lived in a tent for a few month while we were engaged. It is a good one. Jon and I got engaged in August while we were both going to…
-1- On Tuesday one of my friends invited me to go to a “Disney Days” that one of the radio stations was hosting. We thought that there were going to be Disney characters and such, but there wasn’t. We were disappointed but the kids still had fun. Mostly because they had a huge Disney princess…
-1- I have been feeling really home sick lately. I know we moved more than a month ago but I really miss my house, my neighbors, my ward, my grocery store, my apriocot tree (which would be overflowing right now), my shower, my yard, my chickens. Pretty much everything. It is hard to get use…
-1- My motivation to blog has been really low lately and so this Five Things might be scraping the bottom of the barrel today. But hey, it happens to us all. I did write this post for The Gift of Giving Life blog this week though. Here is snippet, and a cute picture of my…
-1- I can’t believe that the summer is almost over! How did that happen? I remember when I was little it seemed like summer dragged on forever, and now as an adult it just seems to fly by in a haze. Maybe I need to do a bit more tree house building, reading, and exploring…
-1- During Family Home Evening on Monday night we drew some pictures for our lesson and Jon suggested that we could mail them to his brother who is serving a mission. Asher was excited about that but Rose announced that she wanted to mail her picture to Heavenly Father. When they were done with their…
-1- I need some help from experienced (or not so experienced) quilters. I really want to make Rose a twin sized quilt for her bed, but the challenge is that I want to make it out of my scrap material. I have looked at different quilt patterns but I am feeling overwhelmed by all the…
-1- It snowed! At least in my neck of the woods, it did. A few weekends ago we cleaned out our garage ( which consisted mostly of shoving un-packed boxes into the loft space) so that we could park our cars in there. This is the first time in my entire life that I have…
Wow, this is my 50th Five Things For Friday. Actually, more than that because I don’t number all of them. That is a whopping lot of words. Are you tired of me yet? -1- We started a new tradition this year. Well, actually I don’t know if we can call it a “tradition” yet since…
-1- I feel like Thanksgiving got hijacked this year. I have never been a big fan of “Black Friday” and have actually never been out early enough to see what it is really like. Though, this year I was sorely tempted to go out and get a cheap printer. But Jon has taken a blood…
-1- Ames, Iowa. That is where we will probably be moving in a few months. Is anyone from Iowa? I don’t know a soul in Iowa and the thought of moving there excites me and terrifies me all at once. Jon and I feel good about the idea of moving, but it is hard to…
-1- I just about cut the end of my finger off the other day. I was opening a can of beans for lunch and the can opener didn’t make a clean cut all the way around the can. I grabbed a fork and was trying to pry the lid back when my finger slipped and…
–1– My little Rose is developing quite the attitude. She has always been an opinionated little girl, but lately she has become a sassy pants. She doesn’t talk back but she has developed a signature scowl (which if you have seen it you know what I am talking about) and is VERY vocal about everything.…
-1- Right before we moved into our house my Mother-in-law said that someone asked her how long she thought it would take us to get chickens. The answer… Not very long. A house just doesn’t quite seem like a home without them. And we are so excited for fresh eggs again. There really is nothing…
-1- I had a really sweet Mother’s Day. I have never seen two kids as excited about Mother’s Day as Asher and Rose were. You would have thought it was Christmas the way they went on the night before saying, “Oh, Mom tomorrow is Mother’s Day! Aren’t you so excited. So so so so so…
-1- The first week we moved to Iowa we had dinner with the Relief Society President and her family. Her youngest daughter took a liking to Rose and ended up giving Rose the stash of plastic dress up shoes she had out grown. Rose was thrilled. She has been begging for a pair of those…
-1- Just had to throw this one in because it was so cute. So someone told me I had to start mentioning the downsides of living in Iowa because I was making her want to pack up and move. So, to balance the score, I will try. Besides being so far from family (which is…
-1- 38 weeks. That is how far along I am with this pregnancy. I wish I could say that it has flown by, but honestly I am starting to feel like I have been pregnant forever. This has been a really challenging pregnancy, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I thought that after having three children I’d…
-1-So remember that post I wrote a few weeks ago about how My Worth as a Woman is Not Dependent upon How my Children Behave in Church. Well, two Sundays ago I needed a HUGE dose of my own medicine because after a really hard day at church I ended up bawling… okay sobbing… on…
Wow, it has really been a long time since I’ve done my 5 things for Friday! Sorry Friday just always sneaks up on me so fast! -1- I thought I had linked to this but I realized a few weeks ago that I completely forgot to. Way back in February I wrote a guest post…
-1- I’ve discovered two really wonderful things. The first one is The General Conference Book Club hosted over at Diapers and Divinity. The idea is that each week the “book club” reads a talk from General Conference and then discusses it together online. What a great idea! I am going to try to join up…
-1- I just wanted to announce that the winner of the CD “Joseph: A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet” is Becca from My Soul Delighteth. Congrats Becca! This is a great CD and I hope you enjoy it. -2- Thank you everyone for all your kind comments and love you gave me in my miscarriage…
-1- So, I have a good excuse why this blog has been sort of quiet lately. Baby #4 is on his/her way in September! Is this anyone else’s favorite Pixar short? We are all really excited, especially Rose because this baby is due around her birthday. She keeps telling me that she is getting a…
-1- I caught a bat. Well, three bats to be exact. The week after the 4th of July we went up to Idaho to my family’s cabin. We invited Jon’s cousin and her family along as well. They have four little children under the age of six and we have three little children under the…
This might be the most heather-centric Five Things for Friday ever written. This week has been CRAZY wild and I feel like I’ve been in the public (aka, anyone else besides my husband and kids) eye non-stop this week. Jon told me I am in danger of getting a big head and so I thought…
-1- I am convinced winter is never going to end. It has been a long and oh, so very, very cold winter. And I don’t know if I can take much more of it. I thought I was tough, but this winter has been so cold. We’ve had almost two months where…
-1- Life has been good. A bit sleep deprived and cranky, but really good. I feel like our transition to four children hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. But then again I think that is because I have lowered my expectations. I remember when Rose was born my motto was, “Success…
-1- This was our first year having Christmas away from family, and while I did really miss them, it was fun to be able to start some of our own traditions. Ever since college I have had this idea to do a “Shepherd’s Dinner” for Christmas Eve where we would all dress up like…
-1- I have really loved, and very much appreciated, reading other women’s posts about their daily schedules. It has motivated me to be a bit more organized in my own life and reassured me that the chaos of my day is perfectly normal. I have come to realize that having a good, or at least…
As I mentioned last week I’ve been having to keep our house in a state of unusual tidiness in order to have it ready to show at the drop of hat. My kids have actually been doing a great job of keeping things clean and helping me tidy up. I’ve been really impressed with how…
For my Five Things today I wanted to share with you my top five favorite Christmas decorations. I would love it if you joined in today and posted your own post about your favorite Christmas decorations! My house is certainly not impressively or beautifully decorated for Christmas. It is really an eclectic mix of home-made,…
I’ve seen several other bloggers do a review of their “greatest hits” of 2011 and I thought it would be fun to do that for my Five Things for Friday today. I am adding a little snippet of each to jog your memory or to entice to you to go back and read it if…
{1} Technically it isn’t Friday anymore but I’m having trouble sleeping. I figured I might as well use my time well instead of laying in bed staring at the wall. I’ve never had pregnancy insomnia but the last few nights I’ve found it hard to stay asleep. Part of it might be that I am…
-1- We have been having and on again, off again battle with our lawn mower this summer. It is super fickle and will only turn on if it feels like it, which isn’t very often. Even when it does get going it doesn’t cut very well because the blade is uneven. This means that even…
-1- I just had to show off what I (almost) finished this week! I started this quilt for Rose about three years ago, and finally finished it. The edge just needs to be bound, and I am taking it over this afternoon…
-1- I was talking to my sister on the phone the other day, telling her about another one of our animal adventures, and finally she just laughed and said, “Heather your life is starting to sound like something out of a children’s book.” That made me smile because it does seem like we are having…
–1– I promise that I am not dead or missing in action. This summer has been wild and busy. I’ve had ideas and posts buzzing around in my head all month but hardly a moment to sit down and write. Mostly it is because I’ve been in the final stages of getting my book Walking…
Last year for my New Year Five Things I posted my top five most read blog posts of 2011. It was fun to go back and look over them and so I thought I’d do it again this year. So, here are my top 5 most popular posts of 2012 (in no specific order). -1-…
It has been a few weeks since I have had consistent Internet access and so I feel like I have been really MIA (missing in action) for awhile. I thought that for this post I’d just post pictures that might give you an idea of what I have been up to. -1- GRADUATION! Trying…
My good friend Lani brought it to my attention a few weeks ago that it has been a LONG time since I did a Five Things for Friday post. I don’t know that I have a very good excuse, except that my life has been full to the brim and lately all I want to…
-1- We are in Iowa now! It has been a crazy month of transitions and traveling and so it feels really wonderful to be settled into our house. Transitions are always hard, but it is amazing how right and good this house, this community, this ward, this situation feels. It feels like we have come…
To echo the words that Marjorie Pay Hinckley once said to her husband, “You have always given me wings to fly and I have loved you for it.” Nothing better sums up how I feel. I love you sir.
I can’t believe another year has flown by. I know it is cliche, but time really does go by too fast. I heard an elderly couple in the grocery store talking about how time seems to move even faster now that they are older and it just scared me. If time is going to start…
All weekend I was excited to do a post on General Conference but then I started to get overwhelmed trying to figure out how to narrow it down to talk about one thing. There was so much good stuff. When I saw this list of questions over at Diapers and Divinity I thought it would…
Brought to you by my Rosie We are really excited about this new baby coming! Yet no one is really more excited about this baby than Rose. She and this baby have a special connection. Several months ago, before I even knew I was pregnant, at dinner she got a big smile on her face,…
It is that time of year again! The time when I go through all the posts I have written in the last year and share which ones have been the most popular. I certainly didn’t write as many posts this year as in the past, but that is because for most of the year my…
2015, you have been good to me this year. I’ll be sad to see you go, but excited to see what 2016 will bring! My favorite {blog} tradition is sharing a review of my most popular posts of the year. So just in case you missed any of them (or want to re-read your favorites)…
I promised to show the gifts that my family made for each other this year, so here they are! For my brother and sister-in-law we made them a chess set out of nuts and bolts. I originally wanted to make this for Jon, but then realized that he would have 10 times more fun designing…
For real. I have been working on it for the last few months, but didn’t know if I could tell anyone about it. But, since I just signed the contract that says they are going to publish something I write… or take a pound of my flesh… I figure I can let the secret out of…
We are in Utah this week! My brother-in-law got married yesterday in the Salt Lake Temple and we came for the wedding. It was such a beautiful day and there was an incredible spirit in the room when they were married. I really love wedding days. There just isn’t anything better (okay, except maybe new…
I promised that I would share some pictures from the LDS Booksellers Convention I attended two weeks ago. Felice Austin and I went to promote our new book “The Gift of Giving Life:Re-discovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth” and to try to woo some bookstores into carrying it. We were pretty successful. We…
Abraham Bay Born two weeks “early”! on Thursday, 11-10-11 @ 7:57 PM 6 lbs 15 oz (smaller than my others by almost 2 lbs!) 20 3/4 inches And practically perfect in every way. We are a little tired (mom, dad and baby) anda little thrilled beyond what we can handle (Asher and Rose)but we are…
Isn’t it pretty? I am so happy with how it turned out! Can you guess which woman is on the front cover? (Keep reading and I’ll tell you). I finished writing last week (Hallelujah!) and it feels so good to have all the thoughts out of my head and on to paper. I printed off…
For my Easter gift to all of you I want to share this video. It is Mary’s perspective of the crucifixion and resurrection of her son. If you don’t have a calm five minutes to watch it right now, come back when you do. It is really beautiful and if you are like me it…
Awhile ago our church had a talent show and, in a moment of craziness, I signed my family up to be in it. I had no idea what we were going to do because we really aren’t all that talented. I tried to convince my husband that he should play his nose flute… but he…
Wahooo! So pre-orders for my book, “Walking with the Women of the New Testament” are now available through Amazon! And it is on sale!!! You should go order it RIGHT NOW… really you should. Because if you do then you will have it in your loving arms, all ready to snuggle with by the fire,…
So after my post about my Very Simple Quiet Book one of my friends from college, Mommy D, emailed me with the perfect solution to my crafting handicap. She suggested that I host a “Quiet Book Swap”. The idea behind this is to break up the massive work that the average quiet book requires. Instead…
Last year at this time I issued my “Women in the Scriptures Challenge.” I’ve decided I am going to re- issue the challenge again this year. In fact I think it will be ongoing challenge always on this blog. So if you haven’t completed it yet– don’t give up– you have another year, or another…
I’ve had a few people ask me for good book recommendations lately and so I’ve put a widget on the sidebar of my blog that has some of my favorite books on women in the scriptures and LDS church history. I will keep adding to it from time to time and if I ever mention…
I just wanted to let you all know that the registration for the LDS Holistic Living Conference is now open! As I mentioned before I am speaking at the conference this year and I would love it if you could come out and support me and the conference. I would love to see you there!…
Did you hear that BYU is closing the Women’s Research Institute (WRI)? This makes me want to cry. The WRI was my haven at BYU and I owe much of the peace I feel now about being an active LDS woman and a mother to the women and experiences I had there. I wrote more…
Speed dating. That is what I have been up to lately. This week I am participating in the LDS Booksellers Convention in Salt Lake City, promoting our book “The Gift of Giving Life:Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth.” Yesterday they had a “speed dating” event where authors, artists and musicians had three minutes…
For the last two years I’ve issued my “Women in the Scriptures Challenge” at the beginning of the year and I am going to do it again this year… and probably for the rest of the time I write this blog. I think it is a really important way for followers of Christ to study…
My baby is here! She was born a few days ago and is now ready to come to your house! The pre-sales have all been shipped and should be in your hands around May 8th. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet you can buy one here NOW. If you order it soon it should…
I am so excited to announce that we have a cover for our book! Yippee! Isn’t it pretty? I am so excited about this because it means that we are getting so close to having this book done and out into the hands of women! Our publisher has pushed back the release date a few…
Even though it is almost a week late, I’m pleased to introduce: Noelle Evalynne Farrell Born on December 19, 2015 at 11:17 AM 7lbs 15 oz and 20 3/4 inches long About her name: Noelle for being a Christmas time baby Evalynne for being born on her Grandpa Evan’s birthday and Farrell… because…
Since I’m in mode of asking for stories I thought I’d make one more request of all my wonderful readers. I’ve mentioned before that I am working on a book with some other LDS women called, “The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth.” There are lots of books on…
Just as a caveat to this post. My understanding of homosexuality has come a long way since I wrote this post. I have appreciated these conversations about it and feel that this statement from the LDS church, explains my belief best: The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction…
One of the hardest parts about moving to Iowa in a couple of weeks is that I will be leaving Utah without meeting so many of my blog friends here. So, I am happy to say that there will be THREE opportunities in the next two weeks to meet me before I move. I would…
Awhile ago our church library was cleaning out its shelves and during the process I inherited all the old flannel board story figures. There were over 30 stories from the Bible, The Book of Mormon, Church History, and a few random ones. No one else in our ward was interested in them but I considered…
So I am in a bit of a blogging slump… I feel totally unmotivated to write or to think of good things to write about. So, I’ve decided to write about myself 🙂 I am going to make an “About Me” page for my blog so that new readers will have a better idea about…
Awhile back a good friend gave me a beautiful book called “Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature” by Dorothee Soelle and Joe H. Kirchberger. It is a beautiful collection of insights on about a dozen women from the Bible complete with paintings of how these women have been portrayed in art throughout…
I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by Christmas this year. Maybe it is because we are kind of poor this year and in an effort to save money I am trying to make most of our presents– which takes MUCH more time than buying them at the store! Also, this is our first Christmas in…
I am excited to announce that in two weeks I am going to be participating in a Women in the Scriptures panel hosted by the Mormon Women Project (you can read my interview with them here). I am really excited about this and hope that some of you will be able to come. It should…