PAY IT FORWARD

I have been putting off blogging for a while...why? Because I LOST our digital camera (sob, sob). It had almost a whole month of our lives on it including mini-movies of the girls...it really makes me want to throw up when I think about it. I think I have unconsciously been neglecting the blog because I am so depressed about it.

So, a while ago I took a class called "Family Money Management" at BYU. My teacher was Bernard Poduska. I adore this man...he was one of my favorites to be sure. Anyway, one of the many important things he taught us was that in family money situations we need to distinguish our "needs" from our "wants". Jeff and I had a discussion after the camera was officially gone (after I searched EVERY nook and cranny fifteen times over and after I prayed at least that many times and finally said a prayer to ask Heavenly Father to help me cope with the loss...He's still helping me with this one).

The discussion was about if a new camera was a need or a want. I mean you CAN live without a camera...you won't starve or anything. But to make a long story short, it was determined that when you have two adorable little baby girls that are growing in front of your very eyes, a camera is a NEED. Sooo, we started finding places in our budget where we could scrape a little extra money together to get a new one. A coupon from Costco came in the mail and I thought I found the one we could afford that had everything we needed. So I was waiting for June 2nd to come so that I could go and take my coupon and get the camera. In the meantime trying to console myself as the girls keep doing the most AMAZING, ADORABLE things and I don't have ANY proof!

And then something happened. I mentioned to my brother-in-law in an email that the reason I haven't been blogging was because of the loss of our camera. That very evening he called and said he had a "proposition" for us. He told us that he had received a new digital camera as an award at work for being so awesome (okay he didn't say he was awesome, I did). He wanted to give it to us. GULP...WHAT?! My first instinct was "NO! That is too generous...we couldn't!" He told us to think about it and do our research to see if it was even something we would want. So we did and found that it is MORE than we need and just a great little machine. I almost said no a million times...I am learning that it is really hard for me to accept so much generosity. Since we have had Laurel and Maisy, so many people have just been showering us with so much...I just feel lately like all we do is take, take, take! I really was ready to say no.

Then I remembered another thing I learned...from James E. Faust. He taught that we need to remember that there are seasons in life. Times when we will be able to serve and other times when we will be the recipients of service and we need to be good at both. I decided to let go of my pride and let him do this. When I wrote to him and told him we would accept, he wrote back and said among other things that someday he knew we would "pay it forward".

Thanks Curtis (and Heather) for your goodness. Thanks to all of you who are reading this who have given us so much in the way of love, support and gifts. We will never be able to repay you, but you can be assured that we will PAY IT FORWARD.

Here's a few photo's that Jeff's mom took of the girls...there will be more to come!