March Madness Week #1

"Without reservation I promise you that if each of you will observe this simple program [re-reading the Book of Mormon], regardless of how many times you previously may have read the Book of Mormon, there will come into your lives and into your homes an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God."- President Gordon B. Hinckley (“A Testimony Vibrant and True,” Ensign, Aug 2005, 2–6)

Okay, here we goooooo! Tomorrow is the 1st day of March and the beginning of our March Madness Challenge. I decided to post the reading schedules the day before each schedule starts, so I'll post them every Sunday for the month of March. And in case you haven't decided if you want to participate you can take a look at the schedule to give you an idea of how much reading you will have to do each day. It's not easy, but it's definitely doable if you make it a priority. Also, reading a novel in one month isn't that big of deal, so why not the Book of Mormon?

I love that reading so much at a time makes The Book of Mormon feel like a real book, not just a collection of quotes like it can feel if you just read a couple verses a day. Reading it so quickly you get a real appreciation for the plot of the book. You actually remember who all these groups of people are whose history you are reading because you don't have time to forget from day to day what you read about. I think you get a lot more out of the book as a whole.

Did you know Book magazine ranked the Book of Mormon as one of the "20 Books That Changed America" along with books like Common Sense and The Grapes of Wrath. An article in the Ensign this month talks about the the growth in distribution of the Book of Mormon. By March the church expects to have printed 150 million copies of the Book of Mormon! It is currently being published in 82 languages and is available online at lds.org in 16 languages.

So without further ado, here is the reading schedule for the first week of March Madness:

March 1: 1 Nephi 1-10:7
March 2: 1 Nephi 10:8-16:32
March 3: 1 Nephi 16:33-2 Nephi 1:24
March 4: 2 Nephi 1:25-9:28
March 5: 2 Nephi 9:29-19:11
March 6: 2 Nephi 19:12-27:31
March 7: 2 Nephi 27:32- Jacob 5:15

I want to hear back from everyone next Sunday to see how it's going, and you can expect to hear from me. Ready, set, read!

Full March Madness Schedule

In case you just want the whole schedule now...

March 1: 1 Nephi 1-10:7
March 2: 1 Nephi 10:8-16:32
March 3: 1 Nephi 16:33-2 Nephi 1:24
March 4: 2 Nephi 1:25-9:28
March 5: 2 Nephi 9:29-19:11
March 6: 2 Nephi 19:12-27:31
March 7: 2 Nephi 27:32- Jacob 5:15
March 8: Jacob 5:16-Mosiah 2:4
March 9: Mosiah 2:5-11:3
March 10: Mosiah 11:4-19:3
March 11: Mosiah 19:4-26:22
March 12: Mosiah 26:23- Alma 3:22
March 13: Alma 3:23-10:26
March 14: Alma 10:27-17:25
March 15: Alma 17:26-24:15
March 16: Alma 24:16-31:24
March 17: Alma 31:25-37:47
March 18: Alma 38- 46:6
March 19: Alma 46:6-52:11
March 20: Alma 52:12-58:10
March 21: Alma 58:11-Helaman 2:10
March 22: Helaman 2:11-8:25
March 23: Helaman 8:26-15:17
March 24: Helaman 16:1- 3 Nephi 7:26
March 25: 3 Nephi 8:1- 14:27
March 26: 3 Nephi 15:1- 21:29
March 27: 3 Nephi 22:1- 4 Nephi 1:49
March 28: Mormon 1:1- 9:21
March 29: Mormon 9:22- Ether 8:26
March 30: Ether 9:1- Ether 15:13
March 31: Ether 15:14- Moroni 10:34

March Madness

The Book of Mormon? Do I have you confused yet? Isn't this post suppose to be about basketball? No, if you had your hopes up expecting an exciting summary of the upcoming college basketball tournament you can just stop reading here. But, if you want to hear what the Book of Mormon has to do with March Madness, then read on!

One of my seminary teachers back in the day did a Book of Mormon challenge every year where his classes would be challenged to read the entire Book of Mormon in one month, March. We all had little place marks on the wall showing our progress so we could see who was winning and at the end of the month, see who had actually finished the challenge. He called it March Madness. Whenever March comes around and talk of March Madness starts up I always think of this Book of Mormon challenge. So this year, I'm actually going to do it! And I'm going to use our blog to hold me accountable.

Starting March 1st I'll post the required reading schedule for the next 7 days (or you can go to readthescriptures.com to set up your own schedule to be emailed to you each day) and I'll report back the next week on where I'm at. Any one want to join me? Leave your progress in the comment section to hold yourself accountable. Who's with me?

The Getty

Last week Julia and I headed out to West L.A. to meet up with an old friend, Tara and her baby Celeste. Tara was one of my roommates in college and I haven't seen her in ages so I was really excited to see her again! She lives in Japan now with her hubby, but she's in SoCal visiting her in-laws. We decided to meet at the Getty since it's kind of meeting in the middle for both of us. (and Tara had never been there and it's been a couple years since I've been there.)

Yes, we took two babies to a museum. I figured the Getty encourages families to bring their kids so they wouldn't mind us bringing babies. And they didn't, in fact the docents loved them. And there were plenty of other babies there too. This was, however, the fastest I have ever gone through the Getty.I was sad the lady who took our picture didn't get more of Celeste. In fact, I had to crop this photo so you could actually see us. She mostly took a picture of the landscape behind us.That's the ocean out there.

Julia was well behaved during our picnic lunch when we first got there, and she was well behaved for the first room of paintings we saw (the Impressionist room), but by the time we walked through a couple other rooms she was squirming all over the place. She wanted to get down and crawl or walk. Not that I was going to let her run around in the museum, but I was interested to see what she would do, so I let her down after we had moved to a less crowded side room. Poor Julia, the the nice waxed museum floors were so slippery she couldn't get anywhere.

I think the moment that stands out the most to me was as we were leaving a large exhibit featuring drawings by Rembrandt. Celeste was crying. I set Julia down on the floor so I could put something away in her stroller and gave her a water bottle to keep her entertained. Only the water bottle tipped onto it's side and started rolling away. So of course Julia slip slides crawling after it. I opted not to go after her so I could just put the object away and get on with things. So as I struggle to fit whatever it was into the stroller, Tara struggles to get Celeste to stop crying and Julia struggles to get the water bottle, getting farther and farther away from us. All this while everyone entering and exiting looks on. Finally, I get it put away and chase down Julia and we both make a hasty exit outside. It was a little bit of a chaotic moment.Luckily I snatched a picture of Tara with the babies that captures Celeste in her cuteness. Oh yeah, and that's Celeste in Julia's stroller. Julia refused to ride in it.

But we had fun! And the babies really liked the garden. And it felt like we were back in college again having fun as college roommates do, except now we had to change diapers.

For Grandma Wendy

Julia has started to get the hang of her Christmas present from Wendy, and she absolutely loves it. She always has a big smile on her face when she's racing across the room. Thanks Wendy!


Julia also has a new favorite sound. She babbles a lot, (our most common conversation is Julia: "Da-da" Me: "Dada's at work. Can you say ma-ma?") but she has recently picked up this sound as her new favorite and she goes around doing it all day. This girl cracks me up.

Naptime

Julia has a really hard time taking naps in her crib. She usually just naps on my bed, which means I have to nap with her too or stay around my room to make sure she doesn't roll off the bed. I finally had enough of it thinking of all the things I could be getting done while she's napping. I've been thinking the big culprit for ruining naptime is all the sunlight, so I got some blackout curtains to hang in her room.

Yesterday was the first day we tried them, and after twenty minutes of crying in her crib, she did finally take a one hour nap. Same thing today. I wish she would nap longer, but she is pretty stubborn. So stubborn in fact that she falls asleep sitting up. This is how I found her yesterday and today after she had finally stopped crying and I peeked in to check on her:
She is completely asleep! I think it's pretty funny, even if it scares me because it can't be the best for breathing. Luckily by that point she was tired enough that she just kept right on sleeping when I put her on her back.