Tree of Life Mothering

We watched Part 1 last Sunday night and the kids enjoyed it. I like the Waltons more than I did as a kid, they’ve grown on me, just like all good things have, like squash, spinach, and an early bedtime. Tonight we are watching part 2. It’s good to be reminded that life used to be lived at a slower pace with the whole family eating and working together, and retiring to bed at the same time. We can learn many things from the Waltons! Merry Christmas!

Here’s a bit of the cast remembering the filming.

I am going to put a few ideas here over the next week for Christmas gifts, both homemade and store-bought, in case anyone out there is like me and doesn’t have her gifts all ready. My first idea is taken from something I did the past few weeks to spruce up my home for my returned missionary’s homecoming. Through some miracles, we got the carpets cleaned, got some walls and doors painted, and I finally, yes, after ten years of living here, got some actual art hung on the wall. I actually got the pictures up after the homecoming, so I missed the big day when guests were over, but that’s OK. I decided to go to bed and get some sleep and finish decorating later. At least they are up now for my family and me and whatever guests come now to enjoy!

The above painting is called “The Happy Family” by Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller. It’s so delightful! I love the feeling it portrays of happiness in family life across the generations, enjoying some of life’s simple things: family, books, stories, and conversation. You can buy it already framed here, from the LDS Church (although it says it’s on backorder currently), or, if you are a hoarder like I am, you can just go through your stack of old Ensign magazines that you have been saving and find it on the inside front cover of the June 2005 Ensign. Carefully remove it from the magazine, put in a nice frame, with a mat, if you are fussy, and then voila, you have a beautiful framed work of art. If you don’t cut right around the edge but leave the whole page intact it already has a “mat” or border around it. This would make a lovely gift for a mother, mother-in-law, grandma, visiting teachee or teacher, and aunt.

And if you use a frame from a box of frames that your mother-in-law gave you because she was someday going to use them but never did, and then cast them off to you, then it cost you nothing. If you are not so blessed with the bounteousness of pack-rattyism as I am, you can find frames for cheap at the thrift or dollar store.

For years I have been saving a huge, heavy, box of magazines.Two summers ago I went through it and whittled it down to only those issues that had pictures I wanted to use as framed art. Then last summer I went through it again to remind myself why I was saving the box of magazines. I am glad I did. I love these pictures and hope they inspire my family in happy ways.

Save those church magazines! They are chock full of beautiful depictions of the Savior, landscapes, temples, family life, and other symbols of joyful living. Some are by some of my favorite LDS artists like Greg Olsen, Walter Rane, and Del Parson.

I found this cute picture of a happy girl singing while riding on a bike illustrated by artist Julia Yellow. It’s from the August 2014 New Era (see the top photo, bottom left corner) and accompanied a story by Sister Bonnie Oscarson. I decided was perfect for our hall bathroom. I paired it on a bathroom wall with cheery flowery paper from a panel of a gift bag one of my kids got from a present at a birthday party. Sorry, this photo below is not the best quality but you get the idea.

The picture of the armor of God I hung in the hallway to remind my boys about putting on the armor of God as soon as they walk out of their bedroom in the morning.

Happy gifting and decorating! 

We have 8 days left till Christmas! Today’s countdown activity is to listen to the LDS Church’s dramatized version of the A Christmas Carol here. It’s so good to expose ourselves and our kids to classic literature. Our brains and hearts grow with every read or listen.

This version is a little scary, so if you want a toned-down version, go here.

Here is a link to some other Christmas classics on audio. Enjoy!

A few years ago I remember my sister raving about this movie, which she watched with her in-laws on Christmas Eve in Florida. They were there being mission presidents and got to have their son (my sister’s husband) and his family come for Christmas.

I kept meaning to watch it and finally got the chance last week when we went to a “Journey to Bethlehem” event at a local Baptist church. To help us pass the time while we waited in line for the “journey” (a simulation) we watched it. I enjoyed it. It brought Luke 2 alive for me and made me think about a lot of details of the story that I don’t usually think about it when I read it. Please make time to watch this movie this Christmas with your family. You will be glad you did.

Ten days left until Christmas! I am hoping to put up one Christmas show or idea a day here on my blog. I watched this last night with the kids all cozy by our fire (in the fireplace of course) in the living room. 

Watch it and you will laugh and tear up at the same time. It really made me wonder who out there in my world is like the character Ben, who is practically begging to be arrested and put in jail so he can have some Christmas sociality. Who is out there in our world who isn’t needy of material things, just friendship, and wants an outlet to give materially like Ben in the show?

I never thought, when I was a kid, that two staples from my childhood: the MoTabs and the Sesame Street Muppets, would ever be on the same stage. EVER. The two seemed to go together as much as seeing my grandparents listen to Menudo. I guess that is what Christmas is for, to bring surprises that you never thought possible, even when I am an adult and I have few surprises at Christmas time. Last Thursday night I got to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas Concert with Santino Fontana and the Muppets. Talk about pure delight!

This concert has become a tradition for our family. It’s free to attend, but you have to enter a drawing in October held online to win the tickets. Or take a risk and wait in a standby line. If you want to enter to win tickets next year, just check the news in early October at Mormon Newsroom to get the alert about when the drawing starts. A few years ago my firstborn son was in the performance as a dancer the year that Natalie Cole and David McCullough were the guest artists. We got 4 tickets then because he was a dancer but for the other years we have been blessed enough to win the drawing. I didn’t get to go the year with Ms. Cole and Mr. McCullough. I had a nursing baby so I stayed home. I was so jealous of my husband and the three kids that went. Last year and this year more than made up for it. (This year’s was probably a lot more fun anyway!) This year they lowered the age limit to 5, whereas before you’ve had to be at least age 8 to attend. So this year we brought my 5 year old, fondly called Bugs, and my new RM son. He entered the drawing from his mission last year and had the tickets sent to us, so this was a nice way to pay him back.

We got to see Santino come down from the ceiling in hot air balloon. He sang a Christmas medley for us arranged by Sam Cardon. I am totally impressed with Santino’s talent. He can sing, play the piano, write music, act, and direct. Is there anything he can’t do? I love his name too. It totally fits a movie star. I wonder if he was born with that name. Did his mom have big plans for him?

Big Bird asked Mr. Mack Wilberg to conduct the orchestra so he showed off his baton waving skills. Grover and Cookie Monster took over the control room, with Cookie ultimately eating his headset. Elmo reported live from Temple Square. Bert and Ernie sang “Sing a Song” with Santino, and Elmo got to meet “The People in the Neighborhood” as the choir sang that number. Abby Cadabby and Rosita got to sing with the choir in their new matching choir dresses. You can see pictures here.

I have to say my favorite part was seeing Mr. Richard Elliott do the traditional organ solo. He has such amazing talent. All four of his limbs are going in opposite directions practically, without any music for him to read. The Count was behind the organ, cracking jokes about the Twelve Days of Christmas as he counted things in the Conference Center while Richard played. My next favorite part was seeing the voice actors and puppeteers come out at the very end with the Muppets on their hands. I am a behind-the-scenes girl who likes to know the inner workings of everything so that was the icing on the cake of surprises for me.

The show will be broadcast next year on PBS during Christmas time. This year, you can watch last year’s performance that involved David Rhys-Davies and Deborah Voigt. Above is the back story about it, and then you can watch the whole thing on the DVD “Let the Season In,” over here or on your local PBS channel.

To top it all off, here are most of the Muppets you’ve ever known and loved in a Muppet Family Christmas special.

How will you share the gift of Jesus Christ this Christmas? I suggest you do it by being someone’s angel. That’s the latest theme of the Light the World campaign, the Christmas Advent challenge from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Watch the video here.

No matter our problems or challenges, we each have the gift of Jesus Christ available to us. Without Him, we would have no hope. With Him, we have all the hope that is possible, to rise above our current circumstances and have eternal life and happiness! We can share the hope we have from Him by being someone’s angel. 

Go here for the current (2024) Light the World campaign, about being someone’s angel. To turn this into an Advent, you could watch one video on that page, use the kindness randomizer, and/or do one idea a day from the “50 Ways to Light the World” PDF, which is on that page. Just scroll down to see and download it. 

Here is a Christmas advent that tells the story of the Nativity, a little bit each day, by one of my other favorite bloggers, using the scriptures. 

If you are up to more high energy ideas of Advent activities, here are a grundel of them, collected by Jordan Page over at one my new favorite blogs, funcheaporfree.com.

Photo Credit: Jordan from funcheaporfree.com

I will also be sharing some links to other Christmas stories I find during the season. Merry Christmas!

You may have noticed I’ve been doing some book reviews here with my kids. That’s because I finally bit the bullet and did the Ben Carson mom thing. If you’ve watched Gifted Hands: the Ben Carson Story then you know what I am talking about. When Ben was a youngster, around 12 or so, his mom got tired of her kids watching so much TV. She laid down the law: you can watch three shows a week, and you read two books a week (outside of schoolwork) and write up two book reports. I was listening to the General Conference talk by Elder Callister where he mentions the Ben Carson mom, aka Sonya Carson, thing. He counseled parents to be courageous like her and stand up to your kids by saying no and requiring more from them. “Yeah, why don’t I?” I thought. We don’t have TV service, but we still have plenty of electronic screens around here and way too much begging for “computer time.” Then the kids waste time on YouTube videos and Internet-based games. We don’t have any kind of Wii or video game system but the kids want to gravitate to games when they get on the Internet. I know some people disagree, but I feel like any video games are a waste of time. So I am steering them towards watching educational videos.  

The bigger kids in our family don’t have much time for games because of all their scholar work, but with the little kids, I am still working on getting them to read and study more. The 8 and 10 year olds know how to read, but they don’t read for pleasure as much as I would like and act like the only thing to do once we are done with our homeschool time in the morning and lunch clean up duty is to turn to a screen.

So the solution? They can have “3 shows a week” or what I am saying is the equivalent of 30 minutes of computer time, AFTER they read at least a 100 page book and then review it, by dictating to me what it was about and why they liked it here on this blog. 

So here is 8 year old daughter’s review:

The setting is England during WWII in the country. One day, four Pevenseys named Edmund, Peter, Susan, and Lucy were exploring in the house of a Professor named Diggory. They were living there because of the bombs that the Germans were dropping on England in the cities. While they were exploring they went past a room with a wardrobe. Lucy decided to go into it. She went inside and found herself in Narnia. She met a faun named Mr. Tumnus who invited her to tea. Lucy fell asleep and when she woke up she saw Mr. Tumnus crying. She asked what was wrong and he said it’s because I am kidnapping you. He said he would help her get back to the wardrobe that she came from. He helped her and she came back out. When she told her siblings that she was back, they thought she was crazy. She had only been gone for a few seconds, but in Narnia she had been gone for hours. 

After a few days, Mrs. McCready, who was Diggory’s housekeeper, was walking through the house. She did not like children so when the Pevenseys heard her they ran into the wardrobe. They found themselves in Narnia. Edmund had been in Narnia before. He had met a witch called the White Witch who called herself Queen Narnia. She had made it always winter and never Christmas. They went to a talking beaver’s house. All the animals talked. 

(we are skipping many details of the story here)

The high point of the story is that they had a war. During the war, the king of the world, Aslan, died. Aslan came back to life and killed the White Wtich. The four Pevenseys became kings and queens of Narnia. 

I lived this book very much. I give it 5 out of 5 stars!

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the daily grind of life ? Would you like to change that feeling so you feel like doing a Rocky run every day ?

Are you joyful about the upcoming holidays, but also a little blue thinking about the dreary, drab winter months that come afterwards? 

Do you have pre-addictive tendencies that make you think, “I don’t even want to think about New Year’s resolutions! I always fail at them!”

Are you dealing with a loved one who has addictions and you want to learn how to be cheerful despite the issues of your friend, husband or child?

Would you like to feel more connected to God so that you can unleash your consistent, creative powers that will release happy brain chemicals for fighting the winter blues?

Do you want to learn how to write in your journal in a way that transforms your life?

Come learn how to be consistent in daily spiritually, physically, and family-fortifying actions. This way you will be fighting the adversary’s sneaky, subtle tactics inside your head, so you can make 2015 the best year ever!

Announcing…

A Christmas Discount for the

January Mothers Who Know Class!

sign up by Friday December 19th

and save $22!

Register for $75 by midnight MT Dec. 19th instead of the early bird price of $97 and the regular price of $147!

Give yourself a Christmas gift that will nurture you and affect you for the rest of your life!

The January 2015 Mothers Who Know Class will be:

Fridays

from 1 to 3 PM MT

2 to 4 PM CT

3 to 5 PM ET

noon to 2 PM PT

starts January 9 2015

8 weeks long

ends February 27

we meet over the internet and phone

via Zoom service.

So you can join us as long as you have long-distance or Internet service

Please register by going to paypal.com and paying me, Celestia Shumway,  the tuition

$75 if done by Friday Dec. 19th midnight

$97 if done by Friday Dec. 26th midnight

or $147 if done after that

using the account

info (at) treeoflifemothering (dot) com

or you can mail me a check

call me at 801-544-7548 to get my address

You will also need to buy the class materials, which includes the book, pictured below, a DVD, and a link to Maurice Harker’s recordings

Call 1-877-HERO-877 to buy this kit of class materials

This book is about how young men can recover from porn addictions but the principles apply to any addiction or pre-addictive tendency

Here is what others are saying about the class:

Celestia,

I just had to write and ‘report in’- I completed my 8^th day today! This is the first time I have made it past 3 days, and it feels good.  I have made a few changes that have given some of my time back to me and I am amazed at what I can do when I do not have the drag of being overburdened pulling me down.  I can see that without sincere desire and commitment, my newfound time could easily be frittered away or re-allocated to other good things, but I have keenly felt the absence of consistent PoWeR actions and remain committed to using my newfound time for them. One key for me to be able to be consistent has been to get up earlier, stay up, and do my GRL PWR actions first. That theme was repeated over and over during our class and I am finding it to be true for me also!

Thanks again for the great class.  While I was not as successful during the course as I would have liked to be, I feel the time I spent there helped keep this battle in the forefront of my mind and set me up to be in my current successful position. Thank you again!

Much love,

T.M., Utah

Hi Celestia,

I just wanted to thank you so much for teaching and mentoring me in the Mother’s Who Know Class. It was sooo beneficial. There were so many wonderful things about it. One think I particularly loved was how it has helped me to be more aware of where I’m at on the Chemical Scale. Just that knowledge is absolutely priceless.

I also really appreciated the fact that even though I’ve never met you, I felt like you actually cared about me! Not only me, but the other students as well. You could recognize our voices and really lead a path to self discovery.

I’ve struggled recently with various things, particularly being highly guilt prone and perfectionistic, and I feel like this class helped me start to have tools to step out those negative habits. I’ve been using a drill and I know it’s helping me!! As a missionary, I will still utilize what I’ve learned.

Once again, I just want you to know how grateful I am for my chance to be a part of your class! It has changed my life for the better.

Warmly,

N.N., Oregon

See you in the class!

A week ago, we greeted our firstborn at the airport after not seeing him for two years (except for Skype on Christmas and Mother’s Day) as he served in North Carolina to bring people to Christ through faith, repentance, baptism, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. This was a long-awaited for day. I’ve known my whole life I would someday put my babies in the hand of the Lord for missionary service. I feel blessed to do this. I didn’t even cry the day he left. I know some moms do, and I thought I would, but I ended up not even crying a drop. I was surprised at myself because I can be very emotional.  Sure I missed him, but he had already been gone a year before that to attend college so I didn’t have to cry when he left for his mission. I did tear up a bit when he hit the ground back home in Utah last week. His grandpa teared up a bit too, and that is saying something.

It seems like just yesterday that he was like this in my arms:

Then two years ago, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I sent him off into the wilderness to preach the gospel. This was taken the morning before he entered the MTC.

Then two years after writing to him every week, sending some packages, and praying daily for him and all missionaries and investigators, he came home and I got to hug him again!

Here’s how most of us first saw him after he got off the plane. I tell you, this was just as exciting as waiting for his birth, and a lot less painful! Thanks to my big brother for these amazing shots that show the story of his arrival.

Here he is after he saw his little siblings, waiting to be pounced on:

They mobbed him. In case you can’t tell, those are three little kids glomming onto him. I didn’t know if the youngest would remember him, as firstborn left when the youngest was 2 to go to college, but he did!

Son #2 caught up to him in height.

Here he is with my husband. Husband saw this picture and asked, “Who is that?” He didn’t recognize the back of his head, he thought it was Sister Timothy from our ward. 🙂 Apparently he doesn’t know what a gorgeous, curly mop of hair he has. He’s been letting me give him haircuts lately so I know the back of his head well.

We are so glad to have him back! A new chapter in our life has begun. I look forward to more missions and now, weddings. Having him come home was like childbirth, there was a ton of physical preparation to do to make room for him and spruce up the home for our open house to welcome him and his friends and family.

Here’s returned missionary son with his cousin and cousin’s wife. They got married while he was gone. The cousin served a mission to Brazil, following in his dad’s (my brother’s) footsteps, who also served in Brazil.

I was thinking a lot about that and how all of life is a lot of preparing. Getting ready for meals, events, holidays, etc. Ultimately I am preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ and my interview with him, as Elder Russell M. Nelson states that we will all be personally interviewed by the Savior. I’ve decided that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the gospel of preparation. It’s following the Holy Ghost every day to prepare for temporary separations and reunions and ultimate togetherness with those you love. I am so grateful to get this practice of physical preparation for the time when the Savior comes on the earth again.