Welcome Baby Cash!

Around 2am on Monday morning, my cousin's wife, Catrina, gave birth to their second son, Cash Robert. I got to take Henry Monday morning to see the brand new little guy and it was so sweet. I haven't seen a baby so new in a long time. Congratulations to the Frederick family!

My uncle Jim holding his newest grand baby.

Getting ready to let Henry hold Cash.

Do you see how excited Henry is about holding him? On his own he said, "I want to hold the baby!" He then commenced thinking he was in charge of Cash and even wanted to be the one to take him back to his mommy. I think not, Henry! Gotta be a bit older for that.

Finally getting to hold him. Henry was funny about keeping his head up, a little over vigilant. He kept putting it further and further up until he was too far up and we had to readjust.

Isn't Cash so sweet? He just slept sweetly almost the whole time we were there.

Last picture with the baby.

Henry LOVED the baby. He held his little hand, stroked his head, cuddled him to his cheek and even baby talked to him. It was the sweetest I have seen Henry in a while. When we got home he told me he wants baby Cash in our house, if only his mommy would go for that, Henry! =)
Hopefully some day Henry will be able to have a little baby in the house. He might be a lot of things but I think Henry will be such a good big brother. He may try too hard to be in charge of 'his' baby but I think he'll be great. Someday.

Until then we'll just have to soak up this new little guy and my other cousin's baby coming soon!

1st Day of Preschool

Tuesday, Henry had his first day of preschool. He goes 2 days a week for 2.5 hours and is in a class with 5 others, except during show and tell and recess which includes the kids from the older class.
I was, and still am, a little weirded out about Henry being in preschool. Luckily, my cousin is his teacher and it's in her home so I can be significantly less freaked out. The first week seems to have gone pretty well except he doesn't mix well with the big boys for whatever reason.
Come recess he is always getting into some sort of scrap at the very end. So we've had lots of talks about not hitting, not playing with kids who hit and talking to the teaching if something is wrong. The conclusion of our conversation yesterday was Henry saying,
"I will play with the stripe shirt boy and the girl with the shirt. They don't fight."
Sounds good, Henry. Hopefully that boy wears another striped shirt and the girl, well I'm sure she'll be wearing a shirt, so I guess Henry will have to remember something besides the fact she has a shirt on.
On to the pictures:

Apple Jacks, breakfast of champions, or at least of 3 year old boys

All ready for his first day

Walking to preschool with Papa

At the table, ready to go

Home after his first day and showing me the projects he did

So here's to Henry's first day of preschool. I can't believe it!

The Heart

Sometimes, especially during our big transitions which seem to happen at least once a year, I start to freak out. We're usually broke which seems to be the biggest factor of discontent. I try every year to save up enough to see us through but things always come up that take the reserve money I saved, like undisclosed fees for internship paperwork, tests, notarizing, over-nighting contracts and the list goes on.

It's during that, or rather this time that I start to feel a little resentful. Of what? Anything and everything connected with money. How do people buy new shirts? How does anyone go anywhere when it costs money? I could do such and such too if I had any money. Basically, I allow everything to come down to a question of money. It's not good.

I realize both ends of the spectrum in my situation, ie, I should be grateful I'm not in a 3rd world slum and not care about money all the way to money makes many many things possible and pleasant and is desirable.

Then I start to wonder about money and serving in the church. That's probably a discussion for another time, but lets just say, it factors into the craze.

So, this all brings us to today. I've gotten a bit better about freaking out because things are semi-settling though it looks like we have at least another month and a half of financial frustration ahead.

Today Henry decided to take part in the quiet part of his quiet time for a bit and I actually got to read a talk and scriptures. The talk can be found here. While the beginning of it spoke to a lot of the concerns I've had for the past little bit, the end hit me pretty good in the financially frenzied face:

While in Liberty Jail, the Prophet Joseph Smith received a revelation that describes a condition of some hearts:

“Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?

“Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men.” ¹⁵

Many in the world now live in prosperous and peaceful circumstances. In the Book of Mormon, prosperity often led the people away from the Lord. Mormon warned, “We may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art … , then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God.” ¹⁶

The Lord noted three natural consequences of having one’s heart set on the things of the world: First, we seek to hide our sins instead of repenting of them. Next, we seek to gratify our pride and vain ambitions rather than seeking the things of God. Finally, we begin to exercise unrighteous dominion over others. ¹⁷

Note that pride is a natural consequence of setting our hearts on the things of the world. Pride quickly desensitizes our hearts to spiritual promptings. For example, the Lord said, “I, the Lord, am not pleased with my servant Sidney Rigdon; he exalted himself in his heart, and received not counsel, but grieved the Spirit.” ¹⁸ Compare that to this promise: “Be thou humble; and the Lord thy God shall lead thee by the hand, and give thee answer to thy prayers.” ¹⁹

In the Liberty Jail revelation, the Lord described the effect of a worldly heart: “Behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and … behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself.” ²⁰ Brothers and sisters, in these very “perilous times,” we cannot afford to grieve the Spirit and be left to ourselves.

It's then I realized that while I was and definitely am concerned over having food and shelter for my family, the bulk of my resentful feelings came not from the worry over those things but over extra things like clothes, vacations and other expensive hobbies or toys, 'things of this world' if you will.

So I'm trying to rid my heart of those desires to the point where I am no longer resentful of not having them. I'm trying to remember the help and love we have received from family and friends so we don't want for the necessities and even a few of the extras. I'm trying to remember that a heart purged of unrighteous desires is the goal, not a house full of things or even a life full of fun. So here is the part where I promise to try harder. And I do.

And I swear the next blog post will not be depressing and will contain pictures. =)

Why?

Henry's favorite character in Peter Pan is Smee.

He always asks for a striped shirt so he can "be like Smee"

because, "Smee is the nice pirate"

I know I wanted to have a child who would be an individual...

...but really?

Update (zwei)

I'm sure everyone is dying to know what we've been up to. I have lots of posts I should catch up on but I'm not sure I'll get to it tonight so here is a quick rundown of what has happened very recently and whats coming:

I finished another puzzle with my mom. Woot. Johann even got in on this one. It was way more fun than the last landscape one we did. I know, I'm turning into a 60 year old. But, it's hot outside and we're poor, so, puzzling it is. Not to mention it has been a fantastic way to deal with stress.


Johann, my mom, Karen and I have all had to give talks in the past three weeks. Poor ward. They must be sick of hearing from this house.

We had a HUGE storm on Saturday. We got soaked just walking from the car to the house. Henry was really concerned about his little stone bunny in the front yard and braved the storm to bring him to shelter.
Today Johann and I went to Henderson and met with a real estate agent who showed us some different rentals. We found one we really like, a little townhouse and another that is nice but in a hugenormous apartment complex which I'm not a big fan of.

We're trying to work out a 10 month contract with the townhouse but it may not happen. That's part of the student life. It'll be over soon enough and then we'll probably miss it, right?

While we were out in Henderson, Henry stayed in Apple Valley with my mom and was taken care of much to his liking. Getting to have fast food and play in the play place, getting to run around outside all morning, getting to go with Grammy to the store and get a sweet new batcave toy and having Grammy's undivided attention.


Tomorrow we head to Riverside for a few days where we've planning to go to the La Brea tarpits and do a day the beach and have a bonfire there. That's right-s'more time.

And that's all for now, folks.