Only if you're interested...

The other day a young man in our ward told me he'd found love. I was thrilled for him. He's been looking for quite awhile now. He's been doing everything he could to put himself out there, has been doing everything he could to make sure he's a good person, and just hadn't found "her" yet. This is the case with a lot of people. My ward has quite a large number of young single adults who are awesome, and just haven't met their match yet. It doesn't mean that he's/she's not out there either. I asked this young man where he had met his girl, and he told me it was the same way his brother had met his wife...online. I was a little surprised, and yet not surprised. I asked him what site he had used, and he told me three different ones he had used. He told me he liked them, and would suggest them to anyone else who wanted to give it a try. He encouraged me to pass the word along. Not knowing where everyone is in their personal life and what anyone has or has not already tried, I decided to list the links here. If you're interested, great, and good luck. If not, just stay tuned for the next post. I don't have any personal experience with meeting people this way, so I can't say anything either way. Here are the links if you're interested:
http://www.ldsmingle.com/
http://www.ldssingles.com/
http://www.ldsplanet.com/

Cool Idea

I found this doll house idea and had to share it with you. This might even be fun for those of you with boys. You can be creative and find a way for it to work for them. If you try it, let me know how it turns out.In our March issue (making its way to mailboxes and newsstands right now), Cookie's market editor, Meryl Levin, describes how she made a dollhouse for her niece out of foam core board. She put graphic wrapping paper on the walls, cut clocks and pictures of out of catalogs and "framed" them with Sharpie, and her niece filled the rooms with her own toys. Not only is it almost as fun to personalize as to play with, it also stores flat, and can even travel with her to Grandma's house! If you want to try this yourself, here's how Meryl did it (use the diagram below as a reference):1. Start with a piece of 20"x30" foam core board (a standard size at art-supply stores), and using a box cutter and a T-square or yardstick, cut 10 inches off of the longer end to make a 20"x20" square.2. Cut the board horizontally right across the middle to create two 10"x20" rectangles.3. Measure 10 inches across the bottom of one rectangle, and cut a notch 1/4-inch wide and 2 inches tall. At the top of the second rectangle, make a notch the same size.4. At the bottom of both rectangles, measure 4 1/2 inches from both ends, and cut doorways 2 inches wide and 5 inches tall.5. Slide the notches into each other to form the x-shaped house.

A Child's Prayer

Emma has a very detailed bedtime routine. Part of it is reading and singing. She loves loves loves to read and sing. I don't know how she learns songs so fast, and her books are all practically memorized. The last thing we do before she climbs into bed is say a prayer together. Sometimes Eric or I say the prayer, but usually Emma says it's her turn. She loves saying the prayer. She always thanks Heavenly Father for books and songs, and usually thanks Him for Grandma and Papa too. She loves her grandparents!! Sometimes, depending on what we've done lately, she'll thank Him for certain other people. Usually she says thank you for Mommy and Daddy - and I promise it's unprompted! For some crazy reason she likes us. A couple weeks ago she said a couple of the funniest prayers yet. The first night she said "thank you for Mommy, Daddy, Emma, Disneyland. Thank you for red car, mommy's purse, daddy's big shoes, and Emma's diapers." The following night she said, "thank you for red, orange, yellow,..." and proceeded to name all the colors she could think of. Anytime that Eric and I are in a hurry to get her into bed she seems to say a really long prayer. I think it's just a reminder to us that some things are worth taking some extra time for. There is nothing I love more than to listen to Emma say a prayer. And the wierder the better, because it means she's thinking outside the box of what we've taught her and is really thankful for those things. She makes me laugh all the time. I couldn't ask for a better little girl. She's my little angel.

San Diego Zoo

On our last day we drove down to San Diego again, this time to go to the zoo. It's a really neat zoo. It was nice letting Emma see some animals she's never seen before. Our zoo here isn't the biggest. She loved the Polar Bears (which she had seen at Sea World), the Panda Bears, the blue Macaws, the hippos, the koalas, and the monkeys. She liked riding the sky tram and the bus. She fed a goat in the petting zoo, and we had a characature drawn of her. After several hours, we left for home. Our trip was so much fun, and well worth the time and effort. Emma is the perfect age for this, and she had a ball. When we finally got home, she was crying because she didn't want to get out of the car...that meant our trip was done. She was wonderful the whole time, even though she went without her naps and got less sleep at night than usual. I wish we could do it all again. Ever since getting home she hasn't stopped talking about the things we did and saw. To me, that's the best reward - knowing how much she enjoyed it all.