Dona nobis pacem

The girls watched “Let it Go” fromĀ Frozen for a little bit this morning.

IMG_6700Then we ate breakfast and read books until it was time for Institute. Today Institute featured some artist who has studied how Joseph Smith looked in life, and so the talk was slide-centric. Unfortunately, Mary was pretty tired and sad, so we ended up leaving early.

Then we came home for naps. I could have done so much during their nap marathon! Instead I wasted massive amounts of time online and just dozing off. But after their naps, Anique and Fleur came over for an impromptu play date. I should have taken a picture since Fleur and Mary are almost the same age, and they were so cute together. Next time.

Abe came home in time for us to head over to the Jewish Community Center for their preschool open house. We love the JCC more than ever, but it seems to be the most expensive preschool around. Gulp. Good thing we saved! The other good news is that we get a student discount since I am in school, so that’s great. And Lydia loved the preschool. She didn’t want to leave and talked the whole way home about how much she wanted to go there.

lydia at preschool girls at jccThen we came home, had FHE, and watched more of the Olympics. The ladies’ short program was tonight, and I am so glad we got to see it.

olympics

mary with carrotOn a different note, we said many prayers for Ukraine today. One of my friends posted an excerpt from the Book of Common Prayer on Facebook, and I had never read anything from that before. It was beautiful and so relevant. A phrase she posted later has been ringing through my mind ever since: “Dona nobis pacem.” That’s what I hope to fall asleep praying tonight.

Play date, soup and FHE

This morning I sneaked in a trip to the library and grocery store before our fun play date with Paige, Ada, and Liv.

Here are some pictures from the play date:

We did a lot of art: painting, coloring, stamping, and playing with chalk.
We did a lot of art: painting, coloring, stamping, and playing with chalk.
Paige brought over some polymer sand that was incredible. It looked and felt like sand, but it cleans up like cotton candy--a no mess kind of sand that just makes you marvel at technology.
Paige brought over some polymer sand that was incredible. It looked and felt like sand, but it cleans up like cotton candy–a no mess kind of sand that just makes you marvel at technology.
Um. Adorable.
Adorable.

Then the girls were so worn out from the fun that they took a three hour nap. Hallelujah. I read a chapter in my book and then proceeded to do the same.

By the time we woke up, I just had time to make some soup, feed the girls dinner, and eat the last piece of last week’s cake before Abe came home.

We finished up with a Family Home Evening lesson on what it means to be children of God. Of course, we ended by playing parachute…

dinosaurs, Dead Sea Scrolls, and dinner delayed

This morning I took the girls to the dinosaur play area at City Creek. I told the girls I would bring them yesterday because Misty’s play group was meeting there, but then I started feeling tired and slightly sick that I had to renege on my promise. They had fun today, though.

dinosaurs 2 dinosaurs 1Then I took them to church and dropped Lydia off at nursery while Mary and I attended a lecture from a BYU professor/Dead Sea Scroll scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was a little late, but what I heard was fantastic. This wasn’t his most important or emphasized point, but he did point out that a lot of Book of Mormon names which were completely unfamiliar to Joseph Smith and everyone else at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon (some of which had been used by anti-Mormons to prove the Church was not true) show up in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, critics used to say that Alma, the Book of Mormon prophet, had the name of a South American woman; when the Dead Sea Scrolls were interpreted, Alma comes up as the name of a Hebrew prince.

The professor said he was going to give a lecture at 4pm today on the historicity of Job. Every part of me was DYING to drive to Provo and sit in on his lecture–to which he invited all of us–but, alas, that was not practical. So instead, we headed home, ate lunch, took long naps, and cooked food. Specifically, I spent two hours doing simple standard breading and baking to three eggplants. I streamlined the process as much as I could, and yet two full hours later, there I was, still dealing with the eggplant. Perhaps the fact that I was also feeding children had something to do with that, but still. It was ridiculous. I didn’t even make the rest of the dish; instead I told Abe to fend for himself for dinner and plan on having eggplant Parmesan tomorrow.

After dinner, I got my first real burst of energy of the whole day (it happened none too early at 8 pm) and cleaned the downstairs for the arrival of my home teacher from Chicago, Brother Richardson. He is flying in for Roots Tech, which starts tomorrow. While I was cleaning away, Abe was upstairs bathing and playing with the girls. Here is a picture he took:

Mary loves, loves, loves to brush her teeth...and tongue.
Mary loves, loves, loves to brush her teeth…and tongue.