The best part of the day occurred when I resolved my major issue of the day: I wanted to keep reading my new book, Portrait in Sepia, by Isabelle Allende, but I also felt massive guilt for ignoring my kids for so long. Finally, I realized the obvious: It was a beautiful day, and I could just read outside on a chair in the shade while the kids played.
We don’t have any toys or play equipment outside, and I wanted them to entertain themselves for a long time. So I instructed them to hunt for fairies. Lydia took that so seriously and for the next couple hours narrated to me all details of her fairy hunt. She was so enamored with the fairies that she’d coaxed from our magic tree that she refused to eat dinner and instead ran upstairs to have a dance party with them. During dinner, she kept showing up and asking us how we liked this article of clothing or that piece of jewelry that the fairies had bestowed on her. I think we’ll play this game every day.
Earlier in the day, the girls made a picnic while I read my book. I took this picture and then quickly rescued my mom’s shawl (the picnic blanket).The fairy tree. Lydia is pointing to the door wherefrom the fairies emerge.On their evening errands with Abe.
We started out this morning with a play date with Jackson. The girls were enamored with his working iPad because ours has been broken for months now.Story time at the library.Eating Candace’s ice cream before our outing to the park.After dinner we all went to the park to play.
The girls had fun going down the slide. Abe had fun taking pictures of their static-charged hair.
This morning started with an idyllic snuggle with Lydia in bed, during which she quietly cuddled with me and her stuffed animals while I read scriptures and listened to a conference talk. Near the end of the talk, she proposed that we make bath crayons. Absentmindedly, I asked her how we’d do that. She responded by saying, “Well, you need one cup of soap, and then you add two teaspoons of water. Then you add food coloring and mash it up, and then you cut it out with cookie cutters and put it in the freezer.”
I was astonished that she had the recipe memorized (she heard it on Creative Galaxy–maybe she watched the episode too many times??), and also that it sounded so easy. So I looked the recipe up on my phone and it was true! Soap crayons sounded pretty straightforward to make. After breakfast, we all made crayons together. The girls had fun, and I had the satisfaction of feeling like a fun mom for twenty minutes.
Making soap into bath crayons.Mary unloaded my cupboards item by item and pretended that she was serving Lydia tea. Lydia was delighted to be served tea. I was delighted that they played so well together.Abe took the girls through the car wash. When it started, Mary said, “Daddy, it’s scawy. I’m going to cover my eyes!” –and she proceeded to do this. Abe held her hand and took a picture.Our favorite soup. It’s not that pretty, but it’s simple and tasty, and I need this picture for my portfolio.Mary shared a vinegar bottle for FHE show and tell. Abe taught a lesson about ZOE, a Christian ministry organization we are a part of. We talked about some of the people in the mission’s latest newsletter, read some from the New Testament, ate more of Candace’s ice cream, and then let the girls take a bath with their bath crayons from this morning’s craft. Sadly, the evening ended with an epic tantrum from Mary when we refused to read her a third Curious George story. (When I suggested she take a Curious George book to bed with her instead, she screamed, “But I can’t READ it!!!”) Happily, she was so tired from her tantrum that she went to bed without any protest or sneaks out of the room.
Sadly, at the very end of the night, Abe found out that his Grandpa Forsythe passed away on Friday. His mom texted him on Friday but didn’t have Abe’s correct number, so he just found out tonight. We knew Abe’s grandpa was not doing well and feel grateful we got to Skype with him the week before he passed. Somewhere in my video files, and I have almost an hour of a video interview I did with Abe’s grandpa a couple years ago. He told me his whole life story, and I want to find that before the funeral.
We are trying to decide when and if to head over to Denver because the funeral is Monday. With our upcoming Illinois trip, Abe is going to be short on vacation days and won’t have any leftover to be with me whenever I go into labor, so we are trying to figure out how to make it all work.
Today was a really restful Sabbath.It concluded with a grand finale when we opened our freezer to discover Candace had stocked it with BYU Creamery ice creams. We ate until we were comatose, and then we headed down to the basement to watch some Living Scripture videos until bedtime.
Mary slept in this morning. Amid the hustle and bustle from the rest of us, she remained like this.Mary doesn’t nap on Sundays, so she fell asleep in her dinner.
Abe took tons of pictures of Mary sleeping in her dinner. He couldn’t stop himself.
I forgot to mention a really exciting thing that happened today. I was visiting teaching with my visiting teaching companion, and she told me about American Heritage School. It is the first viable educational option I have encountered since our move to Orem. My only complaint so far is that they don’t offer preschool!
We started out the day just visiting with Candace and her family, after which we headed over to the Provo library. Afterward, we came home for naps and homework. Then we had dinner and headed out again for errands. It was a pretty laid back Saturday, and Abe is now hard at work in the garage organizing all of our stuff. He has the phone with most of our pictures and videos from the day, but I have one picture:
I heard an NPR interview with the author of this book, and it finally came in to the Provo library! I am so excited to read it.
Now it’s the day after, and I have Abe’s pictures from yesterday here:
Piglet in the morning.The girls looking at roly poly’s.
We started out with a play date at my visiting teachee’s house. She is moving, so I watched her kids while she packed. My kids loved her back yard, and Candace came and joined us to make it extra fun.
Candace karate chopped the swings instead of pushing, and the kids thought that was hilarious. When I came over, Mary told me to go away because she was afraid she might have to trade the fun for more boring fare.
Candace trying to demonstrate that Percy is friendly and lovable. Lydia gave a skeptical pat.
I did a practice run through of my final dinner tonight. I forgot to take pictures!!! Argh. You can see traces of it on the kids’ plates: fried chicken (first time I ever tried it), baked cheese grits, salad, glazed carrots and apple cobbler. I made it in two hours…but I miscalculated the chicken. It took an extra hour to fry up all the batches of chicken. I’m glad that in the final, I only fry one chicken, and I can do it in one batch in the deep fat fryer. That gives me some hope I can get it all done in the two hour window.
Today my dear friend Candace came to visit! I spent the day preparing the house and cooking in happy anticipation.
Lydia helping me make bread.speculaas.
Lydia and I woke Mary up early from her nap, and she was a little weepy for the rest of the day. Abe had to carry her during chase because that was the only way she wanted to play.Mary is crying for her nap and making a break for her bedroom. We didn’t let her, but our tactic didn’t work…she’s still awake and chattering excitedly to me as I blog.Enchiladas.Bentley!Mary and Cadence acted like best friends on first sight. Aria is looking in on the fun.
We went to the tulip festival with Chelsea, Olivia, Carter and Camden today. I have so many pictures that I’ll just let them do the talking. (Plus, I have hours of homework in front of me, so it is just easier.)
Running toward the statue garden. Since Thanksgiving Point is privately opened by an LDS person, he installed a series of statues depicting Christ. They are all beautiful. I took pictures of almost all of them because someone in Abe’s class on Sunday references one of the statues, and I wanted Abe to see them.The first vision.Raising Lazarus from the dead (from Lazarus’ perspective!!).Jesus drawing in the dirt when asked to accuse the woman taken in adultery.Christ gathering the chicks to himself as would the hen.Mary and Martha with Christ.
The woman with the issue of blood touches Christ’s robe.Christ teaching the Samaritan woman about living water.Jesus healing a leper.
I am blogging early because my online class is not letting me log in and I have been on hold for half an hour. Meanwhile, Abe and the girls are playing around in the beautiful weather outside, and I can. not. wait. until I am done with school.
In the meantime, today felt very productive. Lydia and I made cookies when she got home from school, and Mary has refused to eat nothing but cookies ever since. We told her if she didn’t eat dinner, she wouldn’t get any more cookies, but maybe she’s so full of cookies by now that she just doesn’t care. She boycotted dinner.
