About Me

How many of you have been affected by a divorce or a separation? Whether it has been within your own family or with people around you. Divorced families are everywhere, even though I haven't gone through that experience myself, I've seen close friends of mine go through the different processes of a broken family and I've seen how much it can affect a single person. Twenty-four percent of people who get married will get a divorce. Seventy percent of those divorced families say that they could have and should have saved their marriage. I don't know about you, but I see a little problem here. Why do people get divorced? For selfish reasons, for the easy way out, or for help, a better direction in life? I will say this, it definitely isn't an easy way out of anything. There are so many steps to go through, and it's even harder if you have kids with that spouse. I'm not saying that getting a divorce is a bad thing, I know that it is a better choice when the spo...

"Protect and prepare children to survive, and to thrive in the world they're going to live in."                                                                                - Michael Popkin Obviously, I won't be able to touch on everything about parenting, that would take me forever to write up and you forever to read, so I'll sum it down to what I thought was most interesting and hopefully you'll be able to love it as much as I have. Teenagers, just like younger children, need physical contact, a sense of belonging, they need to be loved, held and hugged. For the parents it is obvious of what they need to do, offer contact freely. I knew that being loved and having that sense of belonging was important, especially growing up. After my teacher shared a story with us made me realize h...

Men who are married, aren't married, single or in a relationship, I am going to focus this message on you guys today. Have you ever had a vision of your own where you would one day be a father? Having kids of your own that you can raise and teach them the important things of living? Keep those dreams close to you and keep aspiring towards them! As men, there are many out in the world that say they would want to be a father one day. Many men were asked the question, "Why do you want to become a father?" Their response was, they want to have that opportunity to carry on traditions or family history. Why do you want to become a father? Is it just to say you have kids, to have your own little family growing in front of your eyes, to share this life with them, or like others, to carry on traditions from your own families or start new ones? Even though these men say they want a family, how soon do they mean? Many couples (both men and women) want a family, but they are a...

How do you communicate with others? I'm going to talk to you about three different types of communication. The first is our words. Speaking is normal for us right, we speak every day. In our generation we only use 14% of this type of communication. Words are so important and how they are interpreted and used each time we speak. Let me share a little example my teacher shared with us. As two individuals speak to each other one is the speaker, while the other is the receiver. The one speaking expresses their thoughts/feelings which then travels to the receiver and they must encode and decode the message. They are then the speaker and express their thoughts/feelings. And back and forth. Here's an example. A wife, whom we shall call Brittany, is home alone all day because her husband, Caleb, is always working. As the days go by, she feels sad and lonely, wishing he would stay home more often. When Caleb returns home one evening, Brittany expresses her thoughts/feelings into wo...

Everyone has a stressful day, some days are harder than others, but we always have those days where that stress keeps us on edge and a little irritable. Today I am going to talk about how stress affects not only yourself, but your family as well and those who are near you. Growing up both of my parents worked. My mom did her own quilting business and my dad worked at a phone company in town. At one point in my high school time, my dad was having problems with his left eye. He would talk about the pain he would have behind his eye, and how he could see things behind his eye that were floating around, he explained it as a bubble in his vision that no one else could see. Pretty soon his eye got bad enough where my mom had to take him to the doctors. Weeks and months had passed, my dad had to have surgery on his eye because something inside his eye was going wrong, and the doctors didn't catch the problem soon enough. Now because of that little incident, my dad can no longer see out...

To start off, I'm going to warn you that my blog today is going to be pretty blunt with the message I have chosen to share with you, because it is something that needs to be treated seriously and not as a joke. This topic has broken up so many families and continues doing so because many people, especially your children, don't know what it is, how to handle it and how to fix it.  My topic I'm going to talk to you about today is pornography. Years ago, pornographic images were only found in magazines at the store. Now, years later, porn is everywhere! Technology, on billboards we pass by while driving, in music we listen to, in books we read, and even in the words we hear each day. This horrible addiction is everywhere! As parents, our job is to protect our children. To teach them of the worldly things and how we can best prepare them for the future. I know pornography may be an awkward conversation, especially with kids under the age of ten, but all ages are affected b...

Who enjoys being married? Is it easier, or harder, than you thought? Many people have this fantasy that when they get married, all of their problems will go away, and they will have their happily ever after. Well, in a way you do have a happily ever after, you have a great soulmate, but it does not get easier. I am not married so I don't know the full extent of the problems that many married people go through each day, but I have learned a little about it in class, and I am wanting to share with each of you! As singles, we have our usual trials of trying to get through each day with classes, friends and even dating, which is such a joy right! As married couples, you still have trials in your life, but they are a little different. Have you heard of the phrase of those who get married disappear off the face of the earth? I'm sure you already know why, they have found their best friend and are happy with life! Also, after being married, being able to be with your spouse is somet...

What do you look for in a guy or a girl? The most I've recently heard from guys is that they look for a girl with luscious locks. I also know a few popular things that either gender look for in the other, for example; their personality, how adventurous they are, their good looks, a good or bad attitude on different things, or their spirituality. Some girls are picky and like guys that are taller than them. Some guys are picky and like girls that have long hair. We each have our special perks of what makes us who we are. But because we don't have those "perfect traits" others are looking for, doesn't mean we should change who we are. You are perfect just the way you are, and someone is looking for a personality just like yours. Going back a few years, more like thirty or so years, you look at those who dated. Those in high school, and those in college. Ask your parents or grandparents how they dated when they were in school. It isn't the same as it is today. ...

For women, how do you see your husbands or your fathers. How much of your life have they affected you? For the men, how do you see yourself? Do you feel like your fathers are proud of who you are, and what you stand for, for your successes and even your failures in life? Are you proud about who you have turned out to be? Think about it, we are all unique in our own special ways, and we all try to do our best to accomplish our goals in life. In my life growing up, my dad has been a significant role model for me. I admired him each day, as he left the house to go to work and providing so much for my mom and each child. He worked hard outside of the home while my mom took care of me and my siblings. Some days I know it was stressful for my mom because my siblings and I can cause some great chaos in a small home. But, every day my dad would come home, give my mom a kiss, and take me and my siblings off her hands. That's how my life was, my mom took care of us while my dad went to wor...

Let me start off by telling you a little about my family culture and how amazing it is! As you know, I'm from a family of ten people. Growing up in a decent sized home we were never alone, unless you were in the bathroom with the door locked. We have two stories in my home and each room had at least one kid in it throughout the day. Growing up, we would tease constantly to the point my mother would have to separate us. Then we would find another sibling and tease them! If we weren't teasing and causing problems, we would be tackling each other or running around in the house, or in our yard, playing games. We always had someone to be with, someone to blame things on, to get in to trouble with, and to look out for, or look up to. As we grew up, we started doing chores, helping my parents with younger siblings, school work, and sports. Or, in other words, you could say we became a little more mature in our activities. Of course, we still had to tease one another here and there...

Growing up, I thought my parents didn't allow us to do a whole lot in our small town. It's the small type where everyone knows everyone and their kids. I was always frustrated why we couldn't have sleep overs or go to a friend's house during certain days of the week, or why my sisters and I couldn't play tag in the stores, or go up the escalators that were coming down. These things are all so much fun and my parents were just sucking the fun out of all of them. I felt like we couldn't do anything. I wasn't happy about a few things in life, and I didn't understand why my parents had so many rules until I got a little older. In my home we have rules. These rules don't suck the fun out of our lives, but they are there to keep each one of us safe and protected, to keep order in the home, for the most part. Another reason we have rules is because they help all ten of us become more united by understanding each other and their situations, we can relat...

Families are one of the biggest things in my life. I come from a family of a total of ten. I have friends and roommates that say they are from a family with two other siblings, or they are the only child. My first reaction is asking them what they think of that. If they enjoy it, or if they would have liked to have had more siblings growing up. Some say no, that they enjoy being the only child having all of their parents' love. Others say they wouldn't mind have one more sibling, but all in all, they were happy with they amount of kids in their family. I know for some of us, when we reach high school, we kind of get the idea of how many kids we would like to have one day. For those with smaller families, they are fine with a smaller number, and same with those with bigger families, they would love to have a big family of their own one day. For me, it all comes down to how many kids my Father in Heaven wants me to have. Growing up, I always thought my parents wanted a big famil...

My name is Donni Lee and I am a student at Brigham Young University Idaho. For the next three and a half months I will be blogging about marriage and family. Finding the important rolls in these topics each week. I am from a family of ten total and I love being in a big family! I am the third oldest of the eight kids, I grew up in Rockland Idaho and love the country life! My town consists of about four-hundred people and my graduating class was eight. I know being in a small town each of us have been protected from the worldly things that go on in bigger towns or cities. In my family I am also known as the little peacemaker, or the jelly that keeps people together.  Ever since I have left my little nest and gone off to college I have realized the importance of families. The kinds of rolls the parents play in the lives of their children and even how siblings play those important rolls. As I was in Kentucky for a year and a half I was introduced to a new culture of family r...