For the last week my kids and I have been visiting family in South Carolina.  We have had a great time and we love being with our cousins and I love spending time with my sister.  But...I have really missed this guy.

We are headed home tomorrow and he is out of town on business and we won't see him for two more days.  Nothing is quite right when we are going different directions.  My favorite thing is the end of the day when everyone is home and we spend the evenings together.  I feel very blessed to be married to a righteous priesthood holder who leads our family with faith and strength. I don't have to worry about anything.  I trust him with all of my heart.  He is a great father and is adored by my three kids.  I am learning that this is not always the case.  There are so many fathers who do not provide safety and stability.  I am grateful that my home is my safe place and that the spirit is there.  

In the proclamation the world it says, " husbands and wives have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children."  This is truly my favorite thing in the world is caring for my husband and my children.  I cannot imagine anything better.  

This is my son, Cameron.  One of the best days of my entire life was the day he was born.  We had been trying for a while to have a baby and he wan the answer to a whole bunch of fasting, prayers, medical treatments, surgeries and more prayers and priesthood blessings, and...well you get the idea.  Words cannot describe the experience I had in the delivery room.  It was one of if not the most spiritual experience of my life.  

Cameron and I were best little buddies.  My husband would leave for work and then Cameron and I would set out on our daily adventures.  When he was four and a half years old I had twins.  Cameron loves his little sisters and was a super proud big brother.  I don't know of any child that was more excited to have siblings.  He may not always feel that way now but he still loves his sisters.  

As Cameron has gotten older it has become more and more difficult for me to connect with him.  Recently in my religion class I had an assignment to speak to someone in their love language.  I chose my son.  I had him take the love language quiz and I was surprised to find out that his was words of affirmation.  He was also high in physical touch which I would have put at the bottom of his list.  

I decided to focus on the words of affirmation.  I have been looking for things to compliment him on.  Not just "good job buddy" or "I love you" but more specifics like "I love the way you passed the sacrament reverently today."  I have noticed that when I do that he posture changes and his face lights up.

I am excited to continue this practice of speaking his love language.  I am confident that my relationship with him will grow and it will help me as we enter the teenage years.  I am sure I will need all the help I can get. 

Happiness in Family Life

My family is not perfect in any way but we are truly happy.  When I was young and dating I was terrified of marriage.  It doesn't make any sense because my parents had a great marriage and they were very happy.  I had a great home life.  I had seen some friends over the years who were not raised in great homes and had some experience awful marriages themselves.  As I got older I started to think that maybe just being on my own was the safest way to go.  I dated a lot.  I dated some great guys and I dated some not so great guys.  When I met my husband I knew I wanted to marry him but still I was terrified.  Marriage is a bit of a gamble.  I have learned some things over the last 16 years of being married. 

1. Marriage can be scary but not when you both trust the Lord and set eternal goals.
2. If you go to the temple regularly you will be unified and strong
3. life will not go by without challenges.  If you feel like life is easy then brace yourself because a storm is on its way.  
4. Nobody is perfect.  Most of all me.
5. Some of the things that bring the greatest heartache also bring the greatest joy.  Like children.  
6. A family is a team.  We are in this together.  It doesn't mean that we always agree and never have contention but it does mean that we always want what is best for each other,
7. Focus on the things that have an eternal impact.  Does God care what color your walls get painted?  No he does not. Does he care if you are having family home evening?  Yes he does. 
8. There will be bad days.
9. There will more good days than bad days. 
10. Life is not a competition.  Don't keep score. 

I love my family.  We have challenges but those challenges strengthen us and have brought a great amount of faith into our home and family.  My kids fight like any other kids but they also have each others backs.  They are each others biggest cheerleaders and this is what it is all about.  

#teamjennings

#3jennings

pornography

About a year ago one of my favorite little young women from our ward came home from college.  OK so she isn't little and she is a beautiful lady but still she will always be a young woman to me.  Anyway...she was wearing this shirt...I hadn't seen it before so I asked her what it was all about.  She explained to me that it was part of a campaign to bring awareness to the dangers of pornography.  I was so proud of her for wearing this shirt with pride.  I also learned that she has been a huge part of bringing awareness to this issue on her campus and even modeled the shirt for some pictures that were used to promote the shirt.  I think it is crucial that young people take the dangers of pornography seriously.  

In April General Conference, 2005 Elder Oaks addressed the problems of pornography.  He explained that when a person is sick they can take medicine to rid their bodies of the illness but "the brain won't vomit back filth."  He also explains that those who seek out and use pornography lose the power of their priesthood and they lose the companionship of the Holy Ghost.  Elder Oaks tells a story about a man who was addicted to hard drugs and pornography.  He told Elder Oaks that quitting the hard drugs was nothing compared to quitting pornography.  

So why is pornography so dangerous?  Elder Oaks tells us why by quoting Jacob when he condemns men for their whoredoms.  He told the men that they had "broken the hearts of their tender wives and lost the confidence of their children, because of their bad examples before them."  Pornography destroys the family.  

Elder Oaks gives some advice on how to to beat the addiction of pornography.  He tells us to first, acknowledge the evil.  Second, seek help from the Lord and His servants.  Third, do all that you can to avoid pornography.  Finally do not patronize pornography.  

Pornography is a powerful tool that Satan uses to destroy the family.  Just like my cute little young woman's shirt says, "porn kills love."  There is no place in our lives for it. 

The Family: A proclamation to the world

The Family: A proclamation to the World

This semester I am taking a class on The family: A proclamation to the world.  I love learning about sacredness of the family unit.  I feel like in the world today the family is under attack.  It seems to be getting worse every day.  I am grateful for the knowledge that I have of eternity.  I am grateful for the clarity that comes from having a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I often hear people talk about withing that their children came with a manual.  I have often felt the same way.  The more I read the proclamation the more I realize that in many ways it is my manual.  It is revelation from God that gives us a great deal of guidance for our homes and our families.  

transitions in marriage - in-laws

I adore these people.  This is my family.  They are my in-laws but I don't really think of them that way.  They have never been anything but my family.  I have always known that I was blessed to marry into this family.  I love them.  My husband was 29 when we got married.  His family thought he would never get married.  I think they were just so grateful that someone would marry him.  They have accepted me 100 percent from the day they met me.  I have never felt like an outsider.  There are three other sisters in law and two brothers in law in this family.  We all feel the same way.  Sometimes when our spouses get crazy we migrate to our own corner of the room and stay out of the way.  I love my nieces and nephews they are some of my favorite people.  I am proud of them.  I adore them.  This is an amazing and powerful group of people.  This is a group of people who love and serve God and I am proud to be a part of them. They are my people.   I often think about how much I hope that my children will be as blessed as I was.  I am determined to be the same type of mother in law as the on I was blessed with.  I think the reason I have fit so well into the family is because she loves her son and she is proud of him.  She has let him develop his own life and she supports him in the decisions he makes.  I think this is easier said than done but she is very good at it.  I hope I can be a good mother in law like her.

Transitions in marriage - children

My husband and I will be married for 16 years tomorrow.  Sometimes it seems like we have been married forever.  It is hard to remember life without him.  Other times it feels like we got married yesterday.  We were a little bit older than the average Mormon couple.  My husband had finished law school and had a good job.  I was a hairdresser making a pretty good living.  We had both dated a lot and we knew what we wanted.  We had both been around long enough to understand that our marriage wasn't going to be perfect.  We knew that we would face challenges but we had no idea what they would be. Our challenges have never come directly from our marriage.  Our challenges have come from having and raising children.  

After about three years of trying to have a baby and lots of fertility drugs we were blessed with this little man. 

We were both excited to be parents.  I couldn't wait to stay home and be a mom.  This transition was harder for me than I thought it would be.  I went from a very social job where I was surrounded by fun and engaging people to spending 10 - 12 hours a day with a baby.  I missed conversation.  When my husband got home I would talk a mile a minute and he just wanted to collapse.  My husband was very patient.  During this time we learned that I needed to get out.  My husband would take me to movies or dinner.  Our baby was so good.  He never cried so we took him along.  My husband had to adjust as well because he was used to my undivided attention and now he had to share that attention with a baby.  We worked through this transition by serving each other and as soon as our baby was old enough to leave with babysitters we started regular date nights again.  When our baby was a year old we decided to try for another one.  This proved to be more challenging than the first time.  After several years we decided to try in-vitro fertilization.  This is what in-vitro looks like...

This is only one of the shipments of drugs I had to take both orally and through self administered shots.  This was a rough time.  I was emotionally unstable.  I cried all the time.  I felt like I was going through this on my own.  Everyday there was another Doctor or drug or test I had to have done.  It was exhausting. I think the reason my husband and I were able to handle this time so well is because of our faith in God.  My husband felt so bad for me.  He truly didn't know how to help me.  This experience with the medication and infertility took a tole on me and we decided that if this attempt at in-vitro didn't work we would be finished trying.  Together we made the decision to quit trying.  This was so comforting to me.  I also remember one appointment when my husband actually cried.  This made me feel like he was going through the trial with me.  Thankfully we were blessed with these little beauties...

 Lauryn and Clara were an answer to our prayers.  Mostly they were an answer to Cameron's prayers.  He prayed for siblings for about three years.  He came to all of my appointments and he is the one who picked their names.  The birth of twins threw us into another transition.  This one was more difficult. They were preemies and stayed in the NICU.  I had complications and was on bed rest after we brought them home.  My husband was in a huge trial and was gone all the time.   Our moms stayed with us for 6 weeks.  We were bickering a lot and having a hard time re-defining our roles.  Finally we realized that we needed to connect and we couldn't really do this with our moms there so we asked everyone to leave.  Within about a week we had it figured out.  We were back into a good routine and back in sync.  One rule that we made was that we couldn't take offense to anything said or done after 9pm.   We were so exhausted that we had to let things roll off our backs.  This became a funny joke between us.  We got into a good rhythm and divided up responsibilities.  Some of my fondest memories are sitting at night watching our shows, burping our babies.