Weekly Review January 1 '11

My planner for this week looks refreshingly...blank! That doesn't mean I sat around doing nothing all week--far from it, actually--but it was nice not to have a bunch of meetings, appointments, etc. to go to. I did some serious sleeping in a couple of days, which was very nice for a change. I just wish Frank could have had more days off so that he could relax a little more, too. He did get off work early a couple of days and he had yesterday off, so we got to see him a little more than usual.

My week was dominated by Primary preparations. This is unavoidably the busiest week of the year for Primary leaders. I still had a lot of documents to update (my new secretary will take care of that from now on, but all the information she would have needed to do it herself was scattered in several different places so it was just easier to do it myself). One of my counselors is out of town and the other one's whole family was battling an extremely nasty stomach virus all week, so just my secretary and I met one evening to put up the new bulletin board. I think it turned out nice. We are combining the weekly scripture assignment with the spotlights this year by having each child choose their favorite scripture to share with us. They will either write what the scripture means to them, or draw a picture (for the younger kids). On the bulletin board, we have a large set of "scriptures" where we will add the children's drawings / thoughts throughout the year.

I also spent a lot of time this week making phone calls and sending emails. I had to find a substitute for one class (a teacher hasn't been called yet) and then there were a lot of arrangements to make for nursery, also. That's because the couple who has been serving as the Junior nursery leaders called me on Christmas day, late in the evening, to let me know that they had just got a call that morning to "come get their baby". They have been in the process of adoption for a while, but the baby arrived a little earlier than they thought. I can't feel too bad about how much that complicated my life, since I am so happy for them! For now, we have decided to combine the Junior and Senior nurseries and see how it goes. Even with the 6 children who are moving out of Nursery and into Sunbeams this week (Seth is one of them!), we still have 12 nursery age children, with about 6 more coming in this year. So we are not going to be able to keep them all together for long.

Sunday was crazy / busy since we had to scramble to get someone to cover nursery, another teacher wasn't able to come at the last minute, a third teacher's substitute didn't show up, and one of my counselors was out of town. I'm hoping that with all the preparations I've been making this week that this Sunday will be a little less hectic. I was not feeling my best still that day, but I was thankful that I was well enough to do everything I needed to do.

Sunday afternoon Scott had his friend David come over for a while. Here is a blurry photo that Seth took of them:
We watched the movie "It's a Wonderful Life"--one of my favorites; believe it or not, my boys had never seen it! Scott and David had planned to make cookies with the dough I made earlier in the week, but they got lazy and decided not to do it. I finally got around to making the cookies on Wednesday. Here is Seth, painting some of them:

He took his job very seriously! I had to coax the other three boys to help, but they all finally came in and did a few. I didn't get any photos of Jared, though--he kept coming in and painting one cookie at a time, so I never caught him on film.

Here's the end products--don't they look beautiful?!:

They tasted good, too! Here's a few pictures of Seth and Jared with Christmas projects they made at school. Seth made a popcorn tree:

Apparently, his teacher's family made these trees when her kids were young and one of them has lasted for over 30 years! We'll see how long Seth's lasts...

Jared made a gingerbread house in his Spanish class--they combined this activity with learning all the Spanish words for different parts of a house.:

While I've been busy with Primary stuff, the boys enjoyed playing their new games and Seth has kept quite entertained with his new toys. They all had chores to do each day, as well and the older boys worked on some homework projects.

On Thursday, another family in our ward called to say they were going to the temple to do baptisms and could use some more people to be proxies. Tanner went with them. Scott wasn't feeling very well (he's been battling a milder version of what I had last week) and Jared doesn't have a recommend yet. We might have tried to get in touch with our bishop to get him one, but Jared's had a cold all week and wasn't feeling very well, either. Tanner got home pretty late, because they stopped to get some dinner on the way home and the restaurant was crowded. Frank and I went over to my friend Rebecca's house for a while so that he could help her with some computer issues.

Yesterday Jared spent the day with his friend Sage. Frank and I went to look at three houses. One of them was a really good price, but unfortunately it needed a lot of work. I liked the third house we looked at the best, but it is more expensive so I doubt we can swing it. Frank took Scott and Tanner to see the movie Tron in 3-D--that was one of their Christmas presents, to go see a movie of their choice. Jared got home around dinner time--we had our traditional "appetizer" dinner. I made a lot more food than we needed so now our refrigerator is overflowing! Frank started to feel sick last night, and today he has been pretty miserable, with chills, aches, dizziness, and nausea. Not the best way to start the new year!

Scott went to a dance / midnight breakfast at the church last night and didn't get home until nearly 2:00 am (he was helping with some of the clean up). Tanner was going to go also, but his stomach was hurting last night so he decided not to go. We watched movies and played games and enjoyed a quiet evening. I forgot to get our new puzzle out, so we'll have to do that another time!

While I was waiting for Scott to get home, I finished reading a book called The Singing Tree. I read that book as well as it's predecessor, The Good Master, the last two weeks. We are reading The Chestry Oak for book club this month, but since I've already read that one, I decided to read some other books by the same author. I still think The Chestry Oak is the best book Kate Seredy has written, but I really enjoyed these two books, The Singing Tree in particular. Ironically, I think my least favorite of her books is The White Stag (I liked it a lot, but not as much as her other books) but that is the book that won the Newberry Medal. Both The Good Master and The Singing Tree are Newberry honor books, but The Chestry Oak isn't even an honor book--go figure!

Today we've been busy taking down all the Christmas decorations and cleaning up. The house looks a little bare--but less cluttered. It will definitely be nice to have more space in the living room again. (The Christmas tree takes up a lot of space!) Since Frank is feeling terrible, the older boys helped take down all the decorations, which was a big help to me. I also made a trip to the store to pick up snacks for the Sunbeams and the nursery kids--when I checked the closets earlier this week, all the snacks were gone and since both groups have new teachers, the new teachers wouldn't know that the snacks need to be replenished.

It's always kind of sad to see the Christmas season end, but I like the feeling of "new beginnings" we get at the beginning of the year. I am determined that this year I am going to find ways to enjoy January (usually my least favorite month)! I am very thankful that, because of the Savior, I have the chance to change, improve, learn, and "start over" every day--to try to be a better person than I was the day before!

Here's one more photo of Seth, playing with the chicken nugget dinosaurs that I made last night as part of our new year's eve appetizer spread.:

Here's to a wonderful 2011!!