On Friday my five year old asked for a bandaid and being on bedrest I told her to go ahead and get one. We keep the bandaids in the kitchen in a top cabinet to the right of the stove. (If they were more accessible the two year old would have them stuck all over the carpet) Being on bedrest has made the kids very self sufficient and I didn't think twice about it, I figured she would get a chair and reach the bandaids easily. My mom (bless her soul) who has been staying with us to help us out while I am on bedrest had just gotten home one minute before and was changing the two year old's diaper. We had our two 12 year old neighbor girls over and they were talking with me in the family room while I was lying on the couch.

I heard the five year old say from the kitchen, "someone left the stove on" and then "the stove is on fire". She was so calm, I asked the neighbor girls to take a look since it is really hard for me to walk and it sounded like my daughter was describing a hot burner. The one said, "yeah there's a fire" and the second "yep, your stove is on fire". My mom, in the middle of changing the diaper, hopped up and grabbed a baby blanket that was in a basket next to her. I followed after her with another baby blanket.

What I saw when I rounded the corner shocked me! My crock pot was on the stove and it was engulfed in flames that were 3 feet high. My mom tried to smother the flames but it was not going out so she grabbed the flaming crock pot and put it on the ground, now with a fire on the stove and a fire on the ground we kept trying to smother both with the blankets. I was thinking "I don't have a fire extinguisher! I need a large wet towel" Too far away from towels to be fast enough I grabbed some dish towels from a cupboard, wet them down and started putting them on top of the blankets. Just when we thought the fires were out the neighbor girls would tell us, "now the blanket is on fire". My Mom figured out that the reason the stove fire wasn't going out was because air was getting to the fire from the other burners. Once she spread the blanket over the entire stove top it finally went out. Here is the bottom of the crockpot:

and the blankets used to smother the fire:

It turns out that the crockpot was on the counter and my five year old wanted to climb onto the counter to reach the bandaids. She picked up the crock pot (I didn't even know she could lift it!) and slid it onto the stove to make room to climb up. The crockpot must have turned on the burner when she slid it over the knobs.

We were so blessed! The situation could have been so bad. If my daughter hadn't noticed right away that the stove was on, if my mom hadn't have been there, if the blankets hadn't been close by, if my neighbors hadn't been there as extra eyes to guide us where the flames were coming back. To make matters even more scary, that night my husband looked and none of our smoke detectors worked and we actually had a fire extinguisher (I just didn't know where it was) however it was too old that it wouldn't have worked anyway. My daughter could have been badly burned, our house would have been destroyed if it had been just me at home on bedrest. My only option would have been to hobble out with the kids and try to find a neighbor to call 911.

That morning I had felt prompted to pray that my Mom, me and the two little ones would be kept safe that day. I usually don't do that, I always pray for those in our family that are going to school or work, but usually not for those of us that are hanging out at home all day. I was pretty shaken up afterward thinking about all the things that could have happened. That night when I was reading the New Testament I came across the quote up above. I felt it really summed up my feelings about this experience with the fire. All of us were blessed with sound minds, and we were not afraid while we were fighting the fire, I really feel like the Lord blessed us immensely.

Now we have 4 installed smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher installed near the kitchen. For family home evening last night we went over our escape plans in case of a fire and practiced how the kids would call 911. Most importantly we explained to our kids that they should never put anything on the stove. No more climbing up on cabinets and as my friend advised we are going to start keeping our bandaids in the bathroom!

ABCs

For the month of January we have focused our family home evenings on the First Presidency message from the Ensign January 2012 issue "Living the Abundant Life". President Monson talks about the ABCs of having an abundant life. Attitude, Believe, and Courage. Each week we have focused on a different letter. This week we were on the letter C. We talked about what Pres. Monson had to say about courage. One of my favorite quotes from the talk:



Then we asked the kids to give other scriptural examples of courage and then discussed the story of Captain Moroni and the title of Liberty.

In a nutshell Moroni was an ancient Nephite Military Commander who was concerned for the freedom of his people when a wicked man named Amalickiah tried to become King. Moroni raised a "Title of Liberty" made out of his coat and went through the land rallying the people to defend themselves. They were able to put down Amalickiah's attempts and Moroni had a title of Liberty raised on every tower in the land.

In our Family Home Evening, when we came to the following part in the story we read parts of the verse and then did what is bolded in the parenthesis:

Alma 46:12 "And it came to pass that he rent his coat;"
(we tore up one of Dad's old shirts)

"and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children"
(we had the kids take turns writing our goals for the year: following the prophet's counsel to have a good attitude, believe, have courage, and one that we wanted to focus on, serving others)

"—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole."
(we tied the shirt to a miniature baseball bat)

Then Moroni prayed and in verse 19 it says:

Alma 46:19 "And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part,"
(the kids took turns marching around the family room as we called out what was written on our family title of Liberty)

Alma 46:36 "And it came to pass also, that he caused the title of liberty to be hoisted upon every tower which was in all the land, which was possessed by the Nephites; and thus Moroni planted the standard of liberty among the Nephites."

Now we just have to decide where we are going to place our Title of Liberty, probably in the game room.


We ended with taking about personal experiences of when having a good attitude, believing in ourselves or having courage has helped us. The spirit was very strong and we ended with the most important part of any gospel teaching which is to bear your testimony of the truthfulness of the principle. I know we will be blessed with an abundant life if we follow the prophet's counsel. I have already seen a huge difference in our home this month as we have strived to have better attitudes and I'm definitely going to need a lot of courage in the upcoming months having a newborn and trying to regain my strength after being on bedrest.

The kids loved making the title of Liberty, it will be a helpful reminder of the goals we have made to follow the prophet's counsel this year.

And here are some variations of the ABC sign...just because I can never decide what I like better. I won't be having the luxury of all this fun creating signs once baby gets here:)