Month: October 2018

On Sunday I taught a lesson on Larry Echo Hawk’s talk on forgiveness. 

The lesson went well because everyone had so many insightful things to share. One of my neighbors will have imaginary conversations where she will apologize to people she’s held secret grudges against. Then she asks them to forgive her, and she visualizes them saying “yes.” She then asks God to forgive her, and then finally she asks herself for forgiveness for harboring ill will and hurting her own spirit. Isn’t that an inspiring practice? I found it so.

Another woman shared how her sister and she didn’t talk for years and years, but in the ten days between her sister’s cancer diagnosis and her sister’s death, they reconciled. This woman cried when she talked about how horrible she would feel if they had never reconciled. It was very tender.

There were lots of other good stories too.

I think we forgot to take pictures on Sunday. Darn.

 

On Saturday morning we took Lydia’s best friend, Grace, along with our family to Wee Witches in Gardener Village. It was a lovely day and a fun outing for everyone.

After this, we dropped Grace off, headed to the library to check out books, and spent the rest of the day reading books to the kids. I think I read thirty books. I know my voice was threatening to go out, and I was just thankful it held up because the kids kept wanting to read more and more. That was a very cozy and happy part of the day. Honestly, I wish I had a picture because I liked it even more than Wee Witches–and I am a BIG fan of Wee Witches!!

On Friday we drove down to Bryce Canyon National Park. It is the last national park in Utah that Abe and I had yet to visit. I was blown. away. I love all of the Utah parks, but I have to say, Bryce Canyon is absolutely, without question, the most beautiful.

We did have one rough moment when Lydia didn’t want to look over the rim into the canyon, and Abe, in an attempt to quickly cure her of her fear, threw her on top of the fence that is supposed to keep tourists from falling into the canyon. This made Lydia scream, all of the tourists gasp, and me…say bad words. Abe immediately put her down, apologized, and asked forgiveness (even though he admitted he had no idea what he had done wrong.) I was giving a lesson on forgiveness the next day, so I waited until my rage and adrenaline dropped before having a much needed healing conversation with Abe. (It took ten minutes for my chemicals abate to the point where I could see straight again.) But after our conversation, we went on to have a wonderful rest of the trip.

We finished by hiking the mossy cave hike right outside of the park. It was our absolute favorite part of the trip. I wish I had taken close ups of the river there. The rocks were all pink and purple. It was amazing and the light was incredible. Sigh. We’ll just have to go again, I guess. I can’t wait!

Today Abe took the day off of work. He has been working SO hard, and he really needs a break! Plus, it is fall break and our family photo day to boot. So it helped that Abe was around.

After doing bikram this morning, I got ready…and then went back to bed. Abe brought me breakfast and played with the kids. He is a saint.

When I got back out of bed, I cleaned the house. Then my neighbor came over to teach me how to curl my hair. I am very challenged when it comes to hair tools, so this was quite difficult. She gave up and ended up curling it for me.

Then we all changed and were off to Jolly Ranch Campground for pictures. We should have taken some ourselves so that I could blog today, but, alas, we didn’t. We left that up to Wendy from Blue Lily. She was spectacular. I really couldn’t rave enough. We adored her, and our kids ate out of her hands. Speaking of spectacular, Abe and I were blown away by how GOOD our kids were. They were sweet, charming, perfectly obedient, and just amazing in every way. We were so thrilled. And shocked. And thankful.

Afterward we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. We waited approximately one million hours for dinner, but boy was it worth it. I probably ate five thousand calories because I had starved myself before the photos. Now I am a plump ball blogging away in bed. This was a great day and actually, I think I might be sad it is over.

On Wednesday I played with, read to, and sang with Clarissa and Ammon all morning. When Clarissa woke up from her nap, she screamed a lot because she is constipated and her poop gets caught halfway. This is the second time I had to frantically pull it out of her because this time, her poop was ripping her perineum and there was blood all over. It was horrifying and I don’t know if I have yet to recover. I am praying she gets better and doesn’t have to suffer like that ever again. I am going to cook broccoli soup for her to see if that helps. I don’t think she gets enough vegetables. Or water. She just drinks milk and eats carbs. Poor thing–she needs a more attentive mother who hasn’t given up on mealtime!

After naps, we then picked up Mary and Lydia and headed to Qualtrics for our flu shots. Ammon fell asleep on the way over. We decided to give him his shot while he was asleep. Talk about a rude awakening.

Afterward we all headed to Malawi’s pizza to kill time before ballet, which is right next to Qualtrics. It didn’t make sense to drive home and then drive almost directly back, so pizza with Abe and the kids was a nice way to fill that window.

After ballet Mary had a piano recital. During her recital Abe and I put the kids down, left them with my mom, and went on a date to clean the car and pick stuff up from Target.

Then we picked Mary up, let the girls watch The Great British Baking Show until far too late, and watched The Good Wife ourselves. Abe stayed up until 2 am working.

It was a full day!

I am back blogging and can’t remember this day, except for the fact the girls went to ballet. I have a picture of a tree in our backyard that Abe took a picture of recently. He loves the colors on it. So do I! I will now post this random picture as a stand-in for this apparently very forgettable day.

Today I took Ammon to the library preschool program. It’s a little thirty minute program where the kids go in a room without parents. The parents can watch them on a screen outside to see how they’re doing. This program is for three to five year olds, so it was the first time Ammon qualified. I was a little nervous to see if he would actually sit down when asked, but from what I could tell on screen, Ammon enthusiastically and cooperatively participated in the whole program.

In the meantime, Clarissa had a great time on the chairs outside. I took her to baby story time for a while, too. At this age, Mary and Lydia would sit still and participate in the story time. They never wandered or caused any problems. In the past three years I have never actually unstrapped Ammon from his stroller at the library. I didn’t need to experiment to know it would not end well if I let him wander all around.

Clarissa might be another Ammon. Today her great sense of stranger danger kept her planted on my lap for about ten minutes, and then her desire for freedom got too strong and she started to wander. I took her straight back to the waiting area for Ammon. We’ll see if she gets better with practice…

In the evening Suzanne dropped by with the best present ever for Ammon. She and Tom gave him remote control cars!! Ammon was completely captivated, and Mary and Lydia were too. Ammon actually yelled with delight when he figured out how to control the car.

On Monday Ammon woke up to balloons, donuts, and presents.

After Ammon played with his new presents and had some quiet time, we picked the girls up early from school and went to the Scarecrow Festival. Ammon ran almost the entire thing. Only at the end did he slow down and walk quietly next to my mom. Until that point, he ran from scarecrow to scarecrow yelling,
“LOOK, MOMMY!! LOOK!!!!!” It was so cute.

Then we toured the Light the World sculpture garden because my mom had never seen it. It was wonderful to hear the girls recite the stories of Jesus while we walked around.

Afterward we met Abe at Maria Bonita and had molcajetes for dinner. Afterward the staff brought Ammon a frosted donut and sang Happy Birthday to him, complete with “cha-cha-cha’s”! Ammon was so cute. He got this slow smile on his face while they were singing, and when they left, he whispered “cha-cha-cha!” to himself.

We were going to do a piñata after, but on the way home Ammon said he was tired and wanted to go to bed. It was a really big day for my favorite three year old in the whole world. I love this boy so much. There’s no way for me to capture him in writing, but his enthusiasm for life and for people is contagious. There are times when I am out and about with Ammon and his smile, desultory chit chat, and enthusiastic way of greeting and introducing himself to EVERYONE just make my day. He just wants to make everyone happy. I couldn’t ask for a better son.

Happy birthday, sweet little Ammon!!!

On Sunday Ammon was totally crazy in sacrament meeting. When Abe finally had enough, he gave Ammon a hard stare. Ammon gazed back into Abe’s stern eyes…and then he fell promptly asleep. He stayed asleep through nursery.

Abe and I helped sub in the nursery. Afterward Abe announced he didn’t need to mourn the growth of our kids so much because all of the kids were so cute. If we ever need our toddler fix, we can just sub in nursery.

After church Mary wanted to eat an apple. I told her she could, and I wish I captured what followed next on camera. She took the apple to the backyard and twirled and danced by herself for twenty minutes while eating her apple. It was so cute.

Then she and Lydia tried to rake some leaves into a pile.

In the meantime, Clarissa wandered around the house making mischief.

Then we did a FHE my mom prepared about Abe. She made a matching game and a quiz all about Abe’s life history and favorite things. Then the kids had to match the cards and guess the answers. Lydia knew all of the answers, and Ammon and Mary know basically nothing. Sometimes I think their comprehension level is actually pretty similar. That might explain why Mary is STILL not totally potty trained.

After we put the kids to bed, Ammon played quietly in his room for a couple hours. Abe checked on him and found that Ammon had taken out a bunch of his books and created a play land for some of his other toys. He was “reading” quietly to himself next to his creation.

He is the sweetest, cutest little boy and we can’t wait to celebrate his birthday!!

On Saturday I almost passed out in yoga, so I left the room early. I came home, took a long bath, and tried to see straight again.

Abe and I were both trying to recover all morning and early afternoon. Abe stayed up late working and still had work in the morning. Once we had recovered, we gathered everyone up for a hike in the Alpine loop. It was so muddy! And also so gorgeous. The sky was bright blue, the white and black Aspen trunks were stunningly graphic, the leaves sprinkled yellow dots everywhere and the evergreens were almost neon in the light. The air was so fresh.

The best part was that our kids were universally PERFECTLY behaved for the entire outing. There was a lot to complain about with the deep, muddy trail, but Lydia was totally enamored with all of the leaves and kept exclaiming delightedly over new leaves she discovered for her leaf collection. We didn’t hear one complaint! Ammon was, as usual, my sweet little buddy who occasionally held my hands and made observations that ended with, “See, Mommy?” Abe loved carrying Clarissa, and Mary was enthusiastic and happy. Abe and I looked at each other and felt so blessed.