August Goal

My song is Love at Home pg. 294, sorry I don't remember if this song has been used this year yet.
I am also trading with Ron this month.
So last week in church for our fifth Sunday lesson we had 2 people who are therapists from LDS social services come and give our lesson and they gave a lesson on relationships with your family.  One of them had to good points that I think would be great for us all to work on.  They are the 4 main contributors to divorce.  They are
1. Criticism
2. Contemp
3. Defensiveness
4. Stonewalling which is basically the silent treatment
They also pointed out a number  of times and we have also been reminded in our therapy sessions with Kylee that for every negative interaction with someone such as being critical you need to have 5 positive interactions with that person such as a compliment.  We have that brought up every week as we meet with Kylee's therapist so we have been trying to work on that in our home.  When we get frustrated or angry with the kids we try to remember the 1:5 ratio.  I think this month we should pick they ones listed above that we need to work on to strengthen our marriages and work on the 1:5 ratio with everyone in our family.  They brought that we should  not use these terms either:
you never
you always
anything insulting
or act superior
On Friday at Phillips sealing he told them that their job now is to work everyday to make sure they other one is happy they are not to worry about themselves and their happiness but to work for the others happiness.  We are all a spouse to I guess that applies to all of us!

who looks like who

I try to figure out where my kids get their physical features. Sam has Jason's look, Livia has Jason's dad's ears. And I've tried to see who Annie got characteristics from. Lately, I've noticed in some of Annie's pictures that she has Grandma Gietzen's mouth! This picture is one of those where I really see it. What do you think? Do you agree? (Obviously not the green part, mostly the lips and chin.) It will be interesting to see who our next one will take after, guess we'll have to wait until February to find out though. And I'm interested, whose physical qualities do your kids carry?

Sorry I forgot the song!!!   The song is from the primary song book on page #95.
It is "I LOVE TO SEE THE TEMPLE".

I guess I'm it for July!!  Mine is very simple.  Go to the temple at least once in the month of July.
Do either an endowment, initiary or sealings. That is your goal for this month!!!

Leesa's Baby Guesses

Okay family, time to get your guesses in about what our baby will be.
Let's hear guesses on Sex, Day of birth, Weight, and whatever else you want to guess!

May 2012 Goal

Sorry this is late, it's been a busy month!
Last weekend we had our Stake Conference.  They gave us a challenge.  I now give it to all of you as well.
Our stake's focus for some time has been on missionary work.  Dan happens to be the ward mission leader right now too. We are always talking about missionary work with our kids.
SONG:  The song I want you to learn/relearn is "I Want to Be a Missionary Now".  I think the words are appropriate for all of us to want to be member missionaries.
GOAL:  Our challenge is to pray for 21 days straight to have a missionary experience.  If you ask Heavenly Father fervently for an opportunity he will help you have one.  This is  overlap a bit into the next month, sorry about that.

April Goal

So, to be perfectly honest I have been lousy with doing the family goals so far. But since it is my month to post a goal I will try to do better. Since we started this year I have been thinking about what Hymn to focus on. The song,"Have I Done Any Good" p. 223 always seems to stick in my head. So, for the goal, I want you to read through the verses of the song and ponder the message that is in there and then get to work! We all have opportunities to bless the lives of those around us. We all know people who are sad, sick, lonely, etc who live by us, work with us, or go to church with us. And sometimes we can even serve people we don't even know. Another great blessing that comes from 'doing good' is that our lives are richly blessed...so everybody wins! I hope that as we celebrate this Easter month we will turn our hearts to Christ, our true example of how to live and love. Although it is great to serve our families I want you to try and focus on others outside our homes. Of course if you serve at home it still counts, but try to branch out and make the world a better place. Each day try to make at least ONE special effort to help someone. At the end of the month I would like you to report a few of the experiences you have had. Good luck and may great joy come to you this month.

Kylee's 10th birthday!

Christenson February Goal

Thanks for the goal Dan, we sang the song
during FHE. For our part of the goal we
downloaded the indexing and got started.
Our ward is doing a big push right now to
get the members to do that including the
youth we just had our 5th Sunday lesson
on it so I figured it would be great. Thanks
for the extra push.

Thanks Dan for that goal. Dad and I tried to learn that new song. Genealogy thats my thing you know !!!! So I did some more of that. The song was new to us both and now we are going to sing it more!!

Christenson January Goal

Thanks for the goal Dad to remind us the importance of prayer. We worked harder to
remember to say family prayers and couple prayers even at 5am before Ron leaves!
We also sang the song every Monday for FHE and I think everyone knows it pretty good.
So thanks Dad.

Family History

Do you all remember that primary song titled "Genealogy"? You know the one that goes "genealogy I am doing it, my genealogy". Well it was one of my favorite songs when I was a kid and now the song has changed. Look it up if you don't know about the change. You may want to look under family history in the children's primary book.

The goal this month is to learn the new song and apply the teaching.

Good luck,

Dan the man Jones