NAUVOO!!

We took a family trip to Nauvoo, Illinois! It's been my dream for the last 9 years to take Spencer to the Nauvoo Temple and walk up the spiral staircase from the bottom to the top!  I spent 4 months living across the street from the Temple and spent many days doing baptisms for the dead during my time there.  It was a special time in my life, my testimony grew tremendously, and I had some really neat experiences that I wanted to share with Spencer and the boys.  

We convinced two of our friends, the Hulls and Thurstons, to come with us.  We had a wonderful time experiencing Nauvoo and the Carthage Jail.  I was amazed how much the boys remembered and how excited they were to learn about the pioneers and how lived, their struggles and triumphs, and other neat church history facts.  One of my favorite memories was at dinner one night---Benson and I were walking through the buffet getting some food when Benson saw a meat fork.  He pointed to it super excitedly and said, "look Mom, that's the pioneers fork".  He saw a fork like that in Carthage jail! They really are little sponges.  Another fun thing we did was fly Spencer's kite he got for Christmas.  The boys and Spencer were in heaven! There are a lot of pictures so enjoy the show!

Okay...this picture is hilarious because about 5 minutes after it was taken all the kids LOST IT.  This is in the brick yard, and the kind missionary was explaining how they made bricks.  It was fascinating.  Unfortunatly, all the kids were done listening.  The three babies (10-17 months old) were running wild, Benson and Chase (5 yrs) were hanging off the bench, the girls were in the corner, and Reece was chasing the babies.  Oh, Jet and George (3-4) were being carried outside by their fathers because they were loud and crazy.  I was looking at the missionary trying with all my might not to laugh out loud.  It was the funniest site I've seen.  You have to expect to get a 5 year old experience out of these things--and we did!

This was just outside Joseph Smith's home.  It is now owned by the RLDS (Community of Christ).  This is where Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum are buried.  This was Spencer's favorite place in Nauvoo--he had a neat spiritual experience here.  It's a beautiful area right next to the Mississippi River.

 One of my favorite parts was walking down Parley Street to the Mississippi River.  They call this "The Trail of Hope".  As you walk down the street there are plaques with journal entries from pioneers.  Some of them talk about their feelings about leaving Nauvoo, some are from their trek to the West, and others are from the Nauvoo period.  It's a very humbling and spiritual walk.  As you look at the plaques and read about the spirit of the pioneers you can look up and see the Nauvoo Temple on the Hill.  I can't imagine putting forth all that work and then being forced to leave such a beautiful and happy place.  The pioneers are courageous and brave people.

This is were the pioneers walked onto the Ice on the Mississippi River.

 Another favorite part of Nauvoo was the Women's garden.  It is full of beautiful statues of women doing great things.  It's a very spiritual place.  As I walked through there I couldn't imagine doing anything of greater worth than being a virtuous women.  The gardens reminded me how important it is so be a Mother and to teach my children all I know about the gospel and the blessings that come from it.  Being there gives you so much strength and empowerment knowing that a Mother, or any women, can have so much influence and do so much good for other people.

 I am thankful to be a Mother--and I hope I live up to my potential. 

This is Benson being a Statue.

Here are some reenactments!

Nate, Jen, and Dash Hull 

 Mac and Nellie Thurston

 Spencer and the boys at the printing shop.  The kids loved this place because it was more of a hands on experience.  They taught them how they published the Book of Mormon and the newspapers.

 Eating lunch by the Mississippi! I was freaking out while here because there was a lot of bird poop! I'm happy to report none of us got sick and we are survived!

 Carthage Jail. I felt like our children got a lot out of this place.  They watched a movie about Joseph Smith and then we walked through Carthage Jail.  Reece asked some great questions--I was impressed with his observations.  Both of them had great testimony building experiences! yea!

 We were the first to arrive so the boys raced Spencer up and down the benches.  Everyone was happy to be out of the car.  Did I ever mention that boys like to run? :)

 The Hulls

 The Thurstons

 We stayed in some condos which were super fun.  There was a perfect place for us to fly our kites.  We also met at night for games after the kids were in bed---perfect!! I may have enjoyed the competition just a little bit?! :)

So the Car ride was also fun.  It was around 5 1/2 hours.  Reece and Benson watched "Wreck it Ralph" a million times over and provided us great entertainment with their contagious laughs!! They would randomly burst out laughing--it was a beautiful sound!  Tanner did pretty good as well.  He could care less about the TV so I spent most of my time trying to entertain him with cereal, books, and whatever else I could find.  I was happy because we found yummy treats for the whole family at Dairy Queen!!

 I LOVE THAT PLACE!

Benson's FIVE!!

 Seriously, this kid is so dang adorable! 

Here's my top FIVE things I LOVE about BENSON:

1. He loves to Play--he is very creative and loves to have fun.
2. His laugh is super contagious.  It's so pure and loud!
3. He is very sensitive and loves to give me hugs and kisses.  
4. He is very responsible with his diabetes.  He never eats anything unless he asks first, and he takes great care of his buddy the pump.
5. He loves to talk about Jesus.  He has a sweet spirit and wants to learn about him and be like Jesus. 

We were lucky and had Grandma Miller visiting us a couple days before Benson's birthday.  I think we spent the whole week celebrating his big day.  We went to flapdoodles for ice cream, Grandma and the boys had a movie night and watched "Wreck it Ralph" while mom and dad went on a date, and then we had a Costco pizza date (Benson's favorite!).  And yes, Benson just learned how to cross his eyes--he's showing off his new skills on the piano bench right before we left for soccer practice.  Oh, and the "5" birthday cake was decorated by Reece and Benson.  The home teachers came over and while they were here Benson showed them the cake and decided to give it a spin!  While spinning half the cake fell off so this cake has personality!

Benson birthday party!

So the pictures are all scrambled, but you get the point.  We had a fun ninjago birthday party with a million-zillion children! We had a combined party with his buddy, Carson.  Their birthdays are 5 days apart so we thought it would be fun to combine them.  They have TONS of boys their age in their primary class so the party was huge.  I think we had around 16 kids.

Our theme was "Ninjago training camp".  We started out with Sensei Wu (ME) leading the children in stretches and ninja move training.  Then we exercised our minds with Ninjago Bingo.  Then we had prepared our bodies with an obstacle course through our house (which included hop-scotch, jumping on the mini-tramp, jumping jacks, & putting on ninja outfits and running ladders). We then had cake and Ice cream and opened presents.  We ended the party watching a ninjago cartoon clip.  It was a lot of fun and the kids were darling.