On Thursday we had a huge day. We had a lot of activities, and I have to say that the kids were incredibly well-behaved, start to finish. I was so proud of them.
We started off with a 9am doctor appointment for Mary, Ammon, and Clarissa.
After that appointment, we headed to Thanksgiving point to the Scarecrow Festival. It is Fall Break, and so it seemed that all of Utah Valley had the same idea. We waited in line for a while before finally making it in.
The scarecrows were so fun! Too bad my phone was dead or I could have taken some pictures. When we reached the top of the hill, we found a bench and ate lunch. Again, I can not overstate how good the kids were. The girls wanted to play in the bounce houses and roll down the hill, but because Clarissa was strapped to me and I couldn’t imagine how I would get Ammon back up the hill and out of the insanely crowded bounce houses, I said no.
The girls did not beg or insist. Instead, they just sat next to me and quietly ate their lunches while watching all of the kids play. Ammon was, as usual, tired and hungry, and he also focused on eating while watching everyone play. I was so grateful to my kids for being so quiet and sweet.
Then we headed over to the secret garden. We read The Secret Garden to the girls after Ammon was born, and they were excited to see a real secret garden.
The best part, though, was taking the kids through the sculpture garden of Jesus. There were a ton of bronze, life-size sculpture scenes from the life of Jesus, and we talked about each scene and what we can learn from the life of Jesus. We all felt the Spirit and the girls wanted me to walk through the garden again and tell them the stories again when we were through. By that point, we had been walking for hours, and I hadn’t nursed Clarissa since the morning, so I had to say no. I can’t wait to take them back, though. It was such a special experience.
After that, we walked through the waterfall garden en-route to the exit, and then we came home so I could finally attend to Clarissa and sit down. (I had been up since 5am.)
After I rested and ate, we headed out again to Qualtrics. Even though Abe is gone, he arranged for us to get flu shots at the flu clinic yesterday. I took all four kids and again, they were all PERFECT. I was grateful, grateful, grateful. It could have been so hard to fill out all of those forms if the kids had been in a crazy mood, but they were demure and calm and again sat quietly next to me while I got all of the paperwork out of the way. None of them made a peep during their shots and afterward talked about how they love flu shots because they get suckers. (Actually, they had been begging to go get their shots all day because they remembered that after the shots they get suckers.)
Anyway, after that was over, I again decided to Jimmy Johns it and feed everyone in the car. To give the kids more time to eat, we drove through a car wash before coming home. When we got home, I gave people baths and got them ready for bed an hour early. Since they had a spare hour and I needed to take care of a desperate Clarissa, I planted the kids in front of the Curious George Halloween movie.
After the movie, it was bedtime.
For the record, my kids are such good kids. Sometimes Abe says, “Man, we have good kids,” and I just look back at him blankly. In my mind I am usually picturing the latest tantrum or fight, and I can’t usually quite muster up a genuinely affirmative response to his enthusiastic gush.
But I am going on record to say Abe is always right and my hesitations are wrong. My kids are amazing. Abe has been gone most of the week and he will be gone all of next week, and the fact that I am not completely broken down is a tribute to how easy they have made it on me. I am so grateful for their goodness and am so, so happy they’re mine!!!