my growing girl

Here's a couple of pictures of Annie since most of you haven't even met her yet.

This is from when she was 1 week old:


And here she is at a month:


As you can see, she's growing just fine.... it's probably those night-time feedings every two hours...

annie's blog

Just so you all know I started a blog for Annie. It's private, so I sent each of you an invitation. Honestly I probably will be as awesome with hers as I've been with Sam and Liv's, so don't expect too much...

And for our enjoyment:

Swenson Family April Goals

I really liked mom's goal for this month even though I didn't do as well as hoped. We started out with "Choose the Right." We started it for FHE and then tried to sing it every night after family prayer. We also did 'Did Jesus Really Live Again?' because it was Easter time. The third song we did was "Families Can Be Together Forever." And we never made it to #4. Sorry mom. :(

We tried to practice each of these songs either in the mornings after scripture reading or at night after bedtime prayers. These were also the songs that I sang to the kids when putting them to bed. I tried to pick songs that would help with having peace and harmony in our home. p.s. It didn't really work!

I love memorizing the hymns and primary songs and it's amazing to me how many times I find myself singing them throughout the day. I usually try to sing church songs with the kids in the car instead of turning on the radio. A child in Braden's class told him he was weird the other day because he didn't know any popular songs on the radio. Even though I felt a little bad because he was made fun of I realized how lucky he is. Most songs on the radio are filled with bad or suggestive language, so I was very grateful for this goal to help my children remember good songs to fill their minds. Hopefully we will continue to do this so we can be blessed for having good things in our minds.

Jones April results

We did two songs that had a specific purpose.
First, "Beautiful Savior" in the children's songbook. The girls sang this for the Easter program with the primary children. We sang through it many times to help them learn all the words.
Second, "A Child's Prayer". Emmalynn with a small group of other girls, (5 I think) are singing this song for Mother's Day. We were supposed to work on this one at home for the girls to learn it, so it was a great one for our family to learn too. And it's pretty with it's parts. We're not so good at putting it all together though!
That was a good goal for the kids to be involved.
Sorry Mom, we didn't get to the two from the Adult Hymnal.
I think we'll be working on "Praise to the Man" soon. That one's gotta be worth two!

Christenson April Goal Results

We started off really good too. Ron picked The Spirit of God for the first week. We sang it often and the family memorized it really good. Addison picked the 11th Article of Faith song for the second week-also to help her memorize it for her Faith in God award that she is working on. We got that one good too. Kylee choose Love at Home for the 3rd week and I choose A Childs Prayer for the 4th week. My song is the only one we didn't practice enough but I think the girls are close on it Ron and I not so much. That one was fun since it has a girls part and a boys part. Ron does great on his part! Thanks for the fun goal Mom and the girls loved to be involved too. We need to be reminded of the songs to sing when we need them in our minds. The girls talked of how they are using them when they are scared at night or worried during the day, that they could sing a hymn.

APRIL GOALS FOR MOM AND DAD

Well we started out really good, but then Dad went to work up north and I think he forgot all about the goal. The first week we were learning Light Divine in the adult hymnal. Then Nancy brought over a copy of all the sngs for the primary presentation this fall so I listened to that none stop almost. So my next three songs are Praise to the Man and in the childrens song book
Scripture Power and If I Listen With My Heart. I learned them to the best of my abilities!!!!

May Family Goal

Well May has started and hopefully it will stop snowing so this goal can work out. This is not the original goal I wanted to do but since it is May I thought this one would be fun.

My scripture is D&C 89:16
"All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground for above the ground-"

I thought for May we could all as families work to put in a garden spot of some kind, it could be in the back yard for veggies, bushes or trees for fruit, a window box or pot for tomatoes or flowers whatever we can each do. Our spot is not that big and with my baby coming in August I'm not sure how much canning I will be able to do but we at least want some zucchini, peppers, and cucumbers. I'm sure some tomatoes and peppers will be added since Ron still wants to make salsa. We all have different plots and soils but maybe we could each try to grow something to add or our table for our health and saving of money by growing our own food. I hope the weather will go along with this as thus far it has not in Utah. If you can't plant anything maybe you could add to your food storage with canned veggies and fruit. Also just for lots of fun for me the second part of this goal is to guess the sex, weight, and length of my baby!