By Alan on Jul 16 in Blog tagged a sacred time, adjustments being married, Alan's poem, ball parks, bannana splits, being in demand, Big Al, birthdays, BYU Cheerleader, chores, Christmas Eve, clean their rooms, consequences, cousins, deprive something, discipline, eight sons, family traditions, gives me order, grandparents, His Gal and His Pals, home, interview, large family, life began after I fell n love with you, live very normally, measure up, moment's notice, mother, Nativity set and story, non-profit charity, odd hours, One Heart, pajamas, people watching, plays violin, responsibility, reunions, ride horses, schedules, sent to room, soccer games, Suzanne Osmond, temple ordinance workers, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The World, time for dinner, time-out, traditions, traveling, Valentines Day, water and snow skiing | 6 Comments

Today is Suzanne’s and my 38th Wedding Anniversary!  I repost this article which I wrote a while back about how Suzanne and I met and how the Lord brought us together to create an eternal marriage and family.   Oh how I love my wife Suzanne!

An interview with Suzanne Osmond given several
years ago as she was raising her family.

Suzanne was born on May 11, 1953 in Payson, Utah. She is the third oldest of seven children born to Kenneth J. Pinegar and Ruth Richardson Pinegar. She married Alan Osmond on July 16, 1974 and together have eight sons.

As a young woman, her favorite sports were water and snow skiing. She also loved to ride horses.  Suzanne is also a very good piano player and Alan really loves to hear her play.  She is also playing violin in a local orchestra.

She was really active in school. She was a baton twirler and a cheerleader for her high school band and also a BYU cheerleader.

Suzanne is 5’5″ tall and she has blue eyes and blonde hair.

Suzanne remembers, “Seven days before they were married, Alan sent Suzanne seven red roses with a note that said:

“For every day there is a rose,

For every rose there is time;

And when they’ve all been counted for,

I’ll come and make you mine.”

Isn’t that romantic?”

While in Europe, Alan and Suzanne celebrated being married for one month by sending a postcard to themselves at their new home in Provo, Utah telling each other how much in love they were and then signing it “Big Al and His Gal.” After having several sons, they have also added more words to it that reads,  ”Big Al, His Gal, and His Pals.”

The first time Suzanne saw Alan perform was the day  they were married!  She sat in the audience with her “mouth wide open.”   Afterwards she called her mother to tell her about it.  All she could say was, “I’m so amazed, I can’ t even talk!”

Suzanne said, “There’s never a dull moment being married to Alan. Alan is one who is always busy and involved doing all kinds of projects. He has such a creative mind. Its fun to watch him create and see his creations come about.

I’m a very structured person and like my schedules. Alan has taught me to be more spontaneous and just flow with what’s happening or with what his ideas might be. Being married to an Osmond, I’ve been able to do a lot of traveling and see the world, and experience things in that realm that I never had before. I’ve met interesting people too. I remember when we were in the Middle-East and able to meet with Mrs. Sadat. We also met with Prime Minister Begin, President Reagan and other people. That’s been interesting for me, to be in circles where there have been influential and important people. To be able to meet them and see them first-hand.

The toughest adjustment to being married into a family that’s in the entertainment field is being in demand a lot.  You have to be able to pick up and go at a moment’s notice sometimes. The spontaneity has been the thing that I’ve probably had to adjust most to and learn to accept the most. They sometimes keep odd hours, which has been another thing with which to adjust. It’s also having people who are probably watching every move that you make, and feeling like there are always eyes observing everything that you do. You really feel an obligation to set a good example at all times.

I think each one of our boys has the knowledge that there are a lot of people watching what they do and expect a certain standard out of them. So, I think that has actually helped. They have more than just their parents expecting them to measure up to those standards. There are a lot of other people who are leaning on them and watching them. They feel that and they are aware of that responsibility.

Being the mother of eight boys is very, very busy. Boys are very loud and very physical and always hungry! So you’re always running to keep up with them and making sure their stomachs are full. We’ve spent many, many hours at ballparks and soccer games. I don’t know what it would be like to have a daughter. I just can’t imagine that because our home is so boy-oriented.

As a family, we live very normally at home. Our boys do chores. They come home and do their homework and help out with younger brothers. They have to get up, make their beds, and clean their rooms just like any other teenager. It’s the same kind of normal life around this household as what I grew up with so I don’t think there’s anything different here than any other home.”

How do you handle discipline?

Suzanne explains, “There are always consequences for everything that we do. There are good consequences for good things and not-so-good consequences for when we do things that are wrong. The best thing is to take away something, deprive them of an activity or something they want to have. It makes them stop and think. For the little boys, usually they’re tired and so they are sent to their room and have to sit on their beds. A lot of times I’ll have books there that they can sit, read and calm down; think about what’s going on. A lot of people refer to that as a time-out period and I think it helps to take that time to let tempers settle down and think about what the problem is and find solutions.

It is important to manage your time with a large family.  That’s why I like schedules. If I don’t have a schedule then I get frustrated. I have to have order and know what the next move is going to be so that I can plan. You have to control your time. It’s the only way you can get through without having the chaos that can come so easily. With a lot of people going a lot of different directions, that can happen very easily. There’s usually a set time for dinner that we like to gather for every evening as a family. That’s an important time and a sacred time in our home, to have dinner together. That keeps me on track. It gives me order in my life.“

What are some of your family traditions?

“We love birthdays. We always celebrate birthdays and make it really fun for the person who is having the birthday. My mother always calls on the telephone with a certain song she always played for us when I was growing up. Now she does it with the grandkids on their birthdays.

Christmas is probably our very favorite season of all. On Christmas Eve, everyone gets to open one gift and it’s always pajamas so they always look nice for the family videos the next morning. We always read the Christmas story and have a Nativity set that we use as we tell that story. Alan started a tradition several years ago of having banana splits on Christmas Eve, so that’s the last thing we do is have banana splits. Then everybody hustles off to bed so that Santa can come. On Christmas morning, the kids get up and they’re filmed walking into Christmas for the first time and all the excitement with that.

We also have family reunions throughout the year and that’s always fun to see everyone and catch up on brothers and sisters and cousins.”

Currently . . .

Now, after Alan and I have spent 38 wonderful married years together, we have 8 sons, 7 daughters-in-law and have become grandparents to 20 grandchildren with 2 on the way!  We continue having family nights with many of the same family traditions today and we love life.

Several years ago, we started a non-profit charity called One Heart for Strengthening Families.  One Heart truly describes the kind of marriage and family that Alan and I share together and know that our family will be together for all eternity .”

Alan and Suzanne serve as temple ordinance workers in one of the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

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Alan & Suzanne Osmond
For The Family

By Alan on May 04 in Blog tagged grandparents, her birthday, her cabin, Idaho, Luke and Shayna Waldron, Marie Osmond, museum, Olive May Davis Osmond, rebuilt the cabin, rededicated, remembering, samaria, The Osmond Familiy, The Osmonds, Thomas M. Davis, tour, Vera Ann Davis | 2 Comments

Remembering Our Mother Olive May Davis Osmond

Today – Her Birthday
May 4, 1925
Samaria, Oneida, Idaho

Learn more about Olive May Davis Osmond at http://osmond.org  
or go HERE.

Have you read her book?

Have you visited the cabin where she was born in Samaria, Idaho?  This photo is when her cabin/home was rededicated.  (The Osmonds are sitting down in front of the cabin.)

SAMARIA, Idaho — About six miles southwest of Malad, Idaho, a girl was born in a log cabin on May 4, 1925.  Eighty-five years later, seven of Olive Davis Osmond’s nine children walked into the restored cabin. “This is so surreal,” Donny Osmond said. “You can feel her presence here”

Luke Waldron and his wife Shayna are the ones who rebuilt and restored The Olive Davis Cabin.  They give a high five to the Osmond Brothers who were there for the dedication.  If you would like to arrange a tour to see The Olive Davis Cabin, Call (208) 776-4139.  It is located at 4575 South 4400 West on Samaria Road in Samaria, Idaho.

You will see several personal things that belonged to Olive when she was a baby, her pictures, quilts she made, etc., and even the original Singer Sewing machine that she had where she sewed her sons and Marie’s clothes when they were young.  In fact, see where the Osmond Brothers each engraved their names into the wood cabinet when they were young kids!  Many schools, family reunions, relatives and fans of the Osmonds have visited this site quite often!

Olive was an awesome wife, mother, and grandmother!

If you would like to know if you are related to the Davis or Osmond family, CLICK Here and then click on the first letter of your last name.

If you see your name, CLICK on it to expand it to see what names we have found so far.

If you find we are related, email me at alan@thefamily.com !!!

Alan Osmond
For The Family 

By Alan on Feb 05 in Blog tagged Alan Osmond, ativities, caring and supportive, chores, creating bonds, daily, empathy, family home evening, farming, father work, father-child relationship, fathering, feelings, gardening, George V. Osmond, good times together, grandparents, hauling hay, hoeing sugar beets, irrigating, like father like son, memories increasing unity and love, milking a cow, mother, raising chickens, share love, siblings, study the gospel together, talk with one another, thoughts, work hard | Comments Off

FATHERING – Like Father Like Son

George V. Osmond and son, Alan Osmond

Fathering is not just a social role; it is the work fathers do every day. This work is different from a job or career, in that it stems from a moral obligation to meet children’s needs and actively build a caring and supportive father-child relationship..

To perform these critical duties, fathers can focus on seven specific categories of work:

1. ethical work,

2. stewardship work,

3. development towrk,

4. recreation work,

5. spiritual work,

6. relationship work,

7. and mentoring work.

I had a good relationship with my Father.  He asked me lead our music group as well as to learn to work hard doing chores like milking a cow twice a day, gardening, raising chickens, hauling hay, hoeing sugar beets, irrigating and maintaining a small farm. This I did with 7 other brothers and one sister.  But, my father was always there by our side working right with us and we had good times together.

Relationship work consists of the father’s ability and responsibility to commune (to share love, thoughts, and feelings with their child) and to comfort (to express empathy and understanding with the child). The desired result of relational work is loving fathers and caring children. Relationship work involves not only maintaining loving relationship with the child but also facilitating the child’s relationships with other family and community members, especially the child’s mother, siblings, and grandparents.

A father’s work is important in creating bonds between themselves and their children. Much like two people rowing a canoe, fathers and their children must learn how to work together. At times, the father will have to paddle stronger or lighter to compensate for their child’s paddling capacity, adjusting to their child’s social, emotions, and physical abilities. Just as those traveling the water in a canoe must communicate with each other to accomplish their goal, fathers and children must talk with one another in order for their relationship to take them across the waters of life.

There are times along the waters of life when you will encounter rough waters, but as you work together you will pass them by. As you talk with your children and establish good relationships with them, together you will enjoy your voyage and the many places which it takes you.

One thing that we did as a family that helped build unity and communication was to have one night a week set aside, Monday night, as “family home evening.” Our Father would close the office down a little early, Mother would cook a nice family dinner, and we brothers would practice a song during the week to sing at family night.  This was also a time for our family to study the gospel together and to do other activities that strengthen the family spiritually, creating family memories, and increasing unity and love.

I grew up, met the dream of my life, Suzanne Pinegar, married her and became a Father myself.  I hope that I can be as good a my Father.  ”Like father, like son.” Suzanne and I have eight sons and yes, we also have family nights together!  Our sons ’strengthen our family’ by lifting weights.  Without a choice, we get picked up to be their dumbbells!  We go along with it because a family that plays together, stays together!

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22: 6

Alan Osmond
For The Family

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By Alan on Sep 18 in Blog tagged answering machine, borrow the car, children stay with us, grandparents, happy to help, invite us to dinner, meal for Sunday, need money, pick up kids at school, sleep here tonight, to the theater, wash your clothes | Comments Off

GRANDPARENTS ANSWERING MACHINE

Good morning . . . At present we are not at home but, please Leave your message after you hear the beep.

“beeeeeppp ….”

If you are one of our children, dial 1 and then select the option from 1 to 5 in order of “arrival” so we know who it is.

If you need us to stay with the children, press 2

If you want to borrow the car, press 3

If you want us to wash your clothes and ironing, press 4

If you want the grandchildren to sleep here tonight, press 5

If you want us to pick up the kids at school, press 6

If you want us to prepare a meal for Sunday or to have it delivered to your home, press 7

If you want to come to eat here, press 8

If you need money,press 9

If you are going to invite us to dinner, or, taking us to the theater,start talking we are listening !!!!!!!!!!!”

WHAT IS A GRANDPARENT?

(Taken from papers written by a class of 8-year-olds)

“And this is mine everlasting covenant, that when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy.” JST Gen. 9: 21-25

Marlon Snow
For The Family

By Alan on Feb 27 in Blog tagged Apostle, declining, destroy, Family, first, God, grandparents, M. Russell Ballard, misplaced, parents, priorities, Proclamation To The World, sacred, society, tolerance, values | 1 Comment

We need to to put family first and  identify specific ways to strengthen their individual families.

Parents, grandparents, and extended family members everywhere, we gave been given a Proclamation To The World on The Family by the Prophets of God that we need to hold fast to and make it a banner like unto General Moroni’s “title of liberty,” and to commit ourselves to live by its precepts.  As we are all part of a family, the proclamation applies to everyone.

Public opinion surveys indicate that people everywhere in the world generally consider the family as the highest priority; yet in recent years the broader culture seems to ignore or misdefine the family. Consider some of the changes of the past decade:

• Many larger national and international institutions that used to support and strengthen families now try to supplant and even sabotage the very families they were created to serve.
  
• In the name of “tolerance,” the definition of family has been expanded beyond recognition to the point that “family” can be any individuals of any gender who live together with or without commitment or children or attention to consequence.
  
• Rampant materialism and selfishness delude many into thinking that families, and especially children, are a burden and a financial millstone that will hold them back rather than a sacred privilege that will teach them to become more like God.

And yet most parents throughout the world continue to know both the importance and the joy that are attached to natural families. Friends of mine who just returned from speaking to families and parents on several continents reported to me that the hopes and concerns of parents are remarkably similar throughout the earth.

In India a concerned Hindu mother said, “All I want is to be a bigger influence on my children than the media and the peer group.” And a Buddhist mother in Malaysia said, “I’d like my boys to be able to operate in the world, but I don’t want them to be of the world.” Parents from all different cultures and faiths are saying and feeling the same things we are as parents in the Church.

The world needs to know what the proclamation teaches, because the family is the basic unit of society, of the economy, of our culture, and of our government. And as Latter-day Saints know, the family will also be the basic unit in the celestial kingdom.

In the Church, our belief in the overriding importance of families is rooted in restored doctrine. We know of the sanctity of families in both directions of our eternal existence. We know that before this life we lived with our Heavenly Father as part of His family, and we know that family relationships can endure beyond death.

If we live and act upon this knowledge, we will attract the world to us. Parents who place a high priority on their families will gravitate to the Church because it offers the family structure, values, doctrine, and eternal perspective that they seek and cannot find elsewhere.

Our family-centered perspective should make Latter-day Saints strive to be the best parents in the world. It should give us enormous respect for our children, who truly are our spiritual siblings, and it should cause us to devote whatever time is necessary to strengthen our families. Indeed, nothing is more critically connected to happiness—both our own and that of our children—than how well we love and support one another within the family.

President Harold B. Lee spoke of the Church as a crucial “scaffolding” that helps build the individual and the family (see Conference Report, Oct. 1967, 107). The Church is the kingdom of God on earth, but in the kingdom of heaven, families will be both the source of our eternal progress and joy and the order of our Heavenly Father. As we are often reminded, we will be released one day from our Church callings; but if we are worthy, we will never be released from our family relationships.

Now, one may ask, How do we protect and preserve and strengthen our homes and families in a world pulling so hard in opposite directions? Let me make three simple suggestions:

1. Be consistent in holding daily family prayer and weekly family home evenings. Both of these invite the Lord’s Spirit, which provides the help and power we need as parents and family leaders. The Church curriculum and magazines have many good ideas for family home evening. Also consider holding a family testimony meeting where parents and children can express their beliefs and feelings to each other in a private and personal setting.
2. Teach the gospel and basic values in your home. Establish a love for reading the scriptures together. Too many of our parents are abdicating this responsibility to the Church. While seminary, auxiliaries, and priesthood quorums are important as a supplement to parental gospel instruction, the main responsibility rests in the home. You might want to choose one gospel subject or a family value and then watch for opportunities to teach it. Be wise and do not involve children or yourselves in so many activities out of the home that you are so busy that the Spirit of the Lord cannot be recognized or felt in giving you the promised guidance for yourself and your family.3.  Create meaningful family bonds that give your children an identity stronger than what they can find with their peer group or at school or anyplace else. This can be done through family traditions for birthdays, for holidays, for dinnertime, and for Sundays. It can also be done through family policies and rules with natural and well-understood consequences. Have a simple family economy where children have specific chores or household duties and receive praise or other rewards commensurate to how well they do. Teach them the importance of avoiding debt and of earning, saving, and wisely spending money. Help them learn responsibility for their own temporal and spiritual self-reliance.

We call upon government and political leaders to put the needs of children and parents first and to think in terms of family impact in all legislation and policy making.

We call upon Internet providers and Web site creators to become more responsible regarding their potential for influence and to adopt the conscious objective of protecting children from violence, pornography, filth, and sleaze.

We call upon educational entities to teach universal values and family and parenting skills, supporting parents in their responsibility to raise children to become the leaders of families in generations yet to come.

We call upon our own Church members to reach out in love to neighbors and friends of other faiths and include them in the use of the many resources the Church has to help families. Our communities and neighborhoods will be safer and stronger as people of all faiths work together to strengthen families.

It is important to remember that all larger units of society depend on the smallest and most fundamental unit, the family. No matter who or what we are, we help ourselves when we help families.

Brothers and sisters, as we hold up like a banner the proclamation to the world on the family and as we live and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will fulfill the measure of our creation here on earth. We will find peace and happiness here and in the world to come. We should not need a hurricane or other crisis to remind us of what matters most. The gospel and the Lord’s plan of happiness and salvation should remind us. What matters most is what lasts longest, and our families are for eternity. Of this I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

M. RUSSELL BALLARD
Of The Twelve Apostles
From: “What Matters Most Is What Lasts Longest,” , (October 1, 2005)
For The Family