Weekly Review April 24 '10

Seth got ahold of the camera this week and decided to take some pictures. He took *SEVERAL* photos of his own fingers, but a few turned out pretty well. Here's one he took of Snickers:

And here's one looking out our front door (you can see that most of the flowers are looking scraggly now):

Last, here's one I took of a couple of new tulips that showed up this week:

Well, I had a lot of things to get done when I left off last Saturday. I did manage to get everything done, but I had a little adventure with making the cookies. I’d forgotten that when I tried a new recipe last week (sausage popovers; they were really good), quite a bit of oil had dripped onto the bottom of the oven. I already had the dough mixed most of the way up and the oven was pre-heating when I noticed the room was getting smoky. I immediately remembered the spilled oil, but since I’d already made the cookie dough, I didn’t want to quit. We had to open all the windows and disconnect the smoke alarms all over the house while we baked the cookies; there was pretty thick smoke coming out of the oven the whole time. The cookies turned out delicious anyway, thank goodness! On Monday I cleaned the oven because I wanted to try another new recipe for family night treat—chocolate turtle cake. It turned out yummy, also. I skipped making rolls on Sunday, though—we had store bought bread instead.

Sunday was a busy day. Frank’s feet were hurting him quite a bit, but he went to church anyway and stayed for the first 2 hours. Scott was ordained as the Teacher’s Quorum president at the beginning of the 3^rd hour, but after that Frank went home. I had a visiting teaching appointment right after church and then two visits with Primary children after that. We had some good visits. We haven’t seen either of the families we visited at church much lately, so it was good to touch base with them. At the first house, when it was time to go, the 9 year old little girl said “I don’t want you to go yet” and gave both of us hugs—it was very sweet! After I got home, we had dinner and family night. I was tired that night, but I felt like it was a very productive day.

Monday was also busy—I spent a lot of time getting caught up on Primary things in addition to the already mentioned oven cleaning and my regular jobs (grocery shopping, laundry, vacuuming). Frank did not have a very busy week last week, but starting on Monday, he has been very busy again, working long hours every day. He didn’t get home until pretty late on Monday evening, so the boys and I had family night activity without him. We played some bowling on Wii sports, but we only did one game because it was one of those nights where the boys were all bickering, and I couldn’t stand it any longer. It seems like we had a lot of nights like that this week!

The busy trend continued on Tuesday—I had book chat in the early afternoon, the older two boys had to meet at the church at 4:45 for a temple trip, and Jared had soccer practice at 5:30. Fortunately, Frank got home just in time for me to take Jared to his practice, so I didn’t have to take Seth with me. That was nice because I got to sit in the car (it was windy and chilly) and read the whole practice—peace and quiet!! At book chat, we had a very nice discussion about Man’s Search for Meaning. Now we are going to read a book called The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. It sounds interesting, but I haven’t been able to get it from the library yet. Scott and Tanner enjoyed their trip to the temple, but they didn’t get home until 11:00. Scott tried to get up for Seminary the next morning, but he just couldn’t do it, so he missed Seminary that day.

I had a visiting teaching appointment Wednesday morning and Tanner had a check up that afternoon. He also had to get shots, but only 3 instead of 4. He got out of getting the chicken pox booster since he had shingles 5 years ago. I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time at doctor’s visits lately!

On Thursday I went to help my friend with her one month old twins. It was really fun to cuddle with some little babies for a few hours! They mostly took turns being awake, so I got to hold one or the other of them the whole time I was there. My friend was able to get a one hour nap and I got both babies asleep right before I left, so I felt like I did my job! As I was leaving, I got a call from the school nurse—Jared and another child had bumped heads and Jared got a fairly deep cut on his ear, of all places. When the nurse called, she said they were having a hard time getting the bleeding to stop, but by the time I got there they had managed to get a butterfly bandage on it and the bleeding had stopped. I’m glad Jared is ok, and I’m also glad that he timed his injury so well—if he’d done it a couple of hours earlier, I would have had to leave my friend without help. While I was helping with the babies, Seth stayed with his friend Henry (son of Tammy, one of my counselors). I don’t think I’ve ever left him that long with anyone before (4 hours), so I wasn’t sure how he’d handle it, but he did great!

Friday was our 18^th Anniversary. We celebrated by going out to dinner, and then we did some shopping. One of the things I was looking for was a dress that would be appropriate for attending a wedding—Frank’s boss’s daughter is getting married next month. The only semi-formal dress I own is black, which I didn’t think would be appropriate for a wedding. I didn’t find what I was looking for, though, for several reasons. For one thing, casual knit dresses seem to be all that is “in fashion” right now. For another thing, pretty much every semi-formal dress I found was sleeveless. For another thing, dark colors seem to be really in fashion also. Practically every dress I saw (semi-formal or casual) was black or some other dark color. Doesn’t anyone go to weddings anymore?! Anyway, even though I couldn’t find what I was looking for, we had a fun time and Frank was a real trooper for going shopping (especially with his sore feet). Tanner went to spend the night with his friend Ryan that night, and in the morning they went together to do some yard work for a member of our ward. He didn’t get home until late afternoon, but he earned $50 to help pay for scout camp.

Saturday morning I had auxiliary training meeting with our stake leaders. I’m not usually too enthused about going to these meetings, but this one was excellent! One of the counselors in our stake presidency gave a great talk, and then we divided up and all the Primary presidencies met together. We have a brand new stake Primary presidency, so this was the first chance we had to meet them. Each of them did a short presentation and all of them were fabulous. This new presidency is going to do a wonderful job, I can tell! I came home with a lot to think about. Then that evening I read a whole bunch of conference talks that I’d been asked to read for Ward Council Sunday morning (I didn’t find out which talks I was supposed to read until that day) and reading several talks in a row, combined with what I’d heard that morning at the meeting had the effect of just knocking me in the face with some things I need to do. (But a good knock in the face, really!) The message I got loud and clear, is that it’s going to get harder and harder to make the right choices as time goes on, and that it’s vital that the children and youth become strong enough to stand on their own two feet and make the right choices, no matter what. They need to be strengthened, and they need to be given responsibility. I feel a huge responsibility, as a mother and a leader, to make sure that I help them become stronger. And not just the Primary children and my own children, either—I need to be helping all the youth that I know. So I’ve had a lot to think about and ponder since then. I already know a lot of things that I need to start doing.

Meanwhile, Jared had a soccer game Saturday afternoon. The game ended in a tie, 4-4. Frank took him to his game and I stayed home with Seth. We’ve decided to trade off going to his games because Seth runs all over the place and doesn’t really allow us to watch the game if he’s there. I was glad it was Frank’s turn this week because the weather was even colder and wetter than last week.

I had Ward Council Sunday morning, and we started earlier than usual—at 9:00. It was a very good meeting; very inspiring. The choir sang in sacrament meeting and we did something different. We had a “congregational choir”. Those of us who attend practices had practiced “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet”, but when we got up to sing, we invited anyone in the congregation who wanted to sing to join us. We sang parts the first two verses and unison the last verse, and there was some original accompaniment on the last verse also so it was unique, but not so complicated that those who hadn’t practiced couldn’t follow along. It turned out great—we had a huge number of people join us, including the entire bishopric and quite a few Primary children. Our director says we’ll probably do that about once a quarter. I think it’s a great idea because there are a lot of people who want to sing in choir who can’t make it to the practices for various reasons.

Scott had BYC after church, so I waited to give him a ride home. Our home teachers came to visit us in the afternoon, and in the evening Frank and I went to a stake fireside on strengthening the family, so we were going most of the day. We had a pretty decent thunderstorm last night and today it is still raining. Maybe some day the weather will warm up! We can always use rain, though, so I’m not complaining much.

Frank’s feet have been improving all week and they are definitely much better now than they were a week ago. It’s a blessing that he wasn’t so busy last week when they were really hurting him, and it’s a blessing that he’s busy again now, to make up for last week! We’ve had some rain this week and the weather has mostly been colder—I’ve had to wear long pants and long sleeves most days, although a few days have made it up to the low 70’s. Unfortunately, the colder temperatures seem to have led to an ant invasion at our house. They got into the basement somehow (I don’t normally see ants down there, although I have seen them on the main floor.) and got into the laundry room. When I was doing laundry on Tuesday, I discovered ants and their larvae in the basket of clean clothes! I had to wash two batches all over again. I sprayed for ants all along the floor by the wall, so hopefully we won’t have that problem again.

You’ve probably figured out that I didn’t get this posted on Saturday—It’s Monday now and I have piles of things to do, so I’d better get going. Congratulation to Anna on her engagement!! It was very fun to get Erick’s phone call last night. We look forward to meeting her future husband when we are in Utah, which will be in only 7 more weeks!!