Fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to the darkside.

We've been reading the New Testament and just finished the Sermon on the Mount and Satan tempting Christ. This led to quite the conversation. We began talking about fear, and what happens when we make wrong choices and don't repent; the power of the priesthood, the limited power that Satan has, and metaphors. Noah immediately related it to Star Wars - Fear leads to hate, hate leads to suffering, suffering leads to the darkside. It's been neat to delve into the scriptures with the kids. I'm pretty happy to put the scripture readers aside-the illustrations alone drove me crazy. Yet, lately Hannah and Noah have seemed to just grow up right before my eyes-putting an emotional vise around my heart. Maybe that's just the pregnancy talking. I told Jared last night if I could just freeze time I would selfishly do it. Good thing it's not really an option.

We had a really late night last night. My uncle David came over and fixed our heater fan, I found a really nice mountain bike for Hannah on Craigslist for $25.00 to replace the bike we sold for $15.00 at a garage sale, we made pizza and brownies for FHE and went through our emergency and hiking packs, and talked about preparedness. We ended up reviewing what to do when lost, facing an emergency, or if someone attempts kidnapping etc... I HATE these conversations. But better they're equipped than not. This just tightened the vice more. Before we knew it it was 9:30! We all slept in this morning and I tried to convince Jared to stay home and we could take another trip to the Mountain seeing that fresh snow was laid yesterday, and it wouldn't be crowded. No dice. I seriously considered going up myself, but visions of me sliding on the road or not being as capable of dealing with an emergency situation has discouraged me. We're going to the Desert Museum instead.

2008 has been a really great year. I don't have a whole lot of resolutions for 2009 just hopes.

I hope things go just as well with this baby as they did with Hannah and Noah. I hope we all will be safe and in good health. I hope society becomes stronger and not weaker with the economic downturn. I also hope we replace the carpet and the dishwasher in our house. Cabinets and trim would be nice too-but that may be pushing it...

I guess my resolution for 2009 is to be a better mom, wife, friend, daughter, sister, and neighbor. Time to work on that better mom part, get Noah out of the bah and feed the kids breakfast before lunch.