Father Son campout

On Friday Abe, his dad, and Ammon left for the Father Son campout that Abe organizes yearly for the Elder’s Quorum. I haven’t heard from them since they left in the late afternoon, but I hope they have a terrific time.

We had a great day here at home. Shauna, Abe’s cousin, is staying with us. The morning babysitters have cancelled for the past two days, so Shauna was so helpful in the morning. She put some KT tape on my back, helped with breakfast, and even helped with Lydia’s harp practice while I changed Ammon.

My mom helped with Mary’s piano, which was a great relief. After Lydia’s practice I always feel a little burned out–although she was pretty good yesterday with Shauna there.

While my mom and Mary did piano, Ammon and I came upstairs and to look out the window at Lydia, who was scootering around the cul-de-sac. We spent twenty minutes blowing kisses to her, shouting, “I love you!” and “Hi!! Bye!!” to her. She had the biggest smile on her face and blew us kisses while shouting the same phrases back at us. It was a love fest.

I was grateful for the love fest, because right after she came in to practice reading. Reading is like harp practice for Lydia, only maybe even a little worse. She melts into a puddle on the floor every time she can’t figure something out. Usually, my patience for this is non-existent, but we had just had such a beautiful exchange that I was a LOT more patient, and she recovered a lot more quickly from her frustrations. That was a good lesson to me.

After reading and lunch, I put Ammon down for a nap and finished Lincoln in the Bardo. I loved it.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing granny squares. I have given up on knitting temporarily because I have no idea how to fix my mistakes. How in the world did I use to knit??? Did I never make any mistakes, or did I just know how to fix my mistakes? At any rate, until I find a great tutorial teaching me how to fix dropped stitches and inexplicable knots, I am sticking with crochet.

The girls played quietly by me while I crocheted the granny squares, and they immediately seized the finished products as blankets for their Little Critters.

In the evening Shauna came back, and she had bought us hat looms and yarn! We spent the rest of the evening loom knitting and chatting.

My mom went to help our friend, Jenny, pack for her move, and when she returned, she brought Jenny with her. Jenny and Shauna immediately hit it off. It was such a delight to hear them discuss everything from their cats to Dr. Who. I knew they would get along the minute Jenny stepped through the door. In the morning, Shauna had shown the kids pictures of her cats. (Ammon meowed at her phone the whole time.) One of the first thing Jenny did was whip out pictures of her cat to show us. It was so fun to witness such a confluence of souls.