The best part of Friday was an evening walk. Abe spent two hours walking around our block and neighborhood with the older girls, and Lydia talked the whole time. Abe was so thrilled because he didn’t have to do anything but listen, respond occasionally, and enjoy the kids. He said that it was the first time that it felt like just chatting with friends instead of with children.
They spent a lot of time imagining crazy science experiments. When I unburied myself from my book and joined them, I got to be the judge of whose experiments were the craziest. And then we sent the girls in to put themselves to bed while we did a few more laps around the block. At one point, as the sun sank, the trees erupted in bird song. That was magical. And oh my goodness, the view from our house is insane. We watched the sun set over Utah Lake and the mountains beyond. So beautiful.
I think we’re going to try to make this a routine because it was just so fun.
Lately at bedtime, Mary gets a giant surge of energy. The last couple days I’ve noticed her burning off her energy by bouncing on the couch like she’s on a pogo stick. This is her right at bed-time!
Lily has been very busy at home schooling the children. Georgia has also been pitching in. It’s amazing to me how well Lily has everything running. The kids have been working very hard. Here is Mary catching up on all of her math homework that she’s behind on.
Seeing the microwave in the above picture reminds me that today Ammon said, “I’m making tea” while I was preparing dinner. It went in one ear and out the other. Thirty minutes or so later, we realized the microwave was running and had been running for half of an hour. Ammon had put in a glass that may or may not have had something in it, but the glass was shattered into many pieces from the heat and the inside of the microwave (walls, ceiling, turning plate etc) was intensely hot for fifteen minutes or so. Oh Ammon…..
Lily took this picture below to highlight to her friend group she did not eat all of the children’s leftovers like she normally does. Lily and her friends are supporting each other in their health goals.
Lily worked a ton with Lydia yesterday to memorize Marullus’ speech to the Roman’s. Lydia memorized it!!
Today Lily and I got an e-mail from Mary’s teacher saying she is not really turning in any of her assignments……We were a bit confused because Lily has been sending Mary upstairs to spend time on assignments that Lily predesignated for her. Today, Lily took it one step further, and sat down next to Mary to personally supervise ten pages of math homework. Mary is so behind, that is about how much she will need to do each day in order to eventually catch up.
Mary was so pooped after all the math and the other activities of the day, that she flopped face-forward into the couch pillows and fell asleep when she was done. That was just after dinner.
This is a good time to highlight how much I love our couch. We got it used from the owners of the house before us and it is perfect for kids. We are not stressed out about it because it is clearly used and we know we will eventually replace it. And yet, it is so so soft and comfy. I can collapse into it, and get completely lost in it’s softness and seemingly endless areas. Add in all the pillows we added and you have a cozy wonderland……perfect for……children playing imaginary games of course!
Clarissa dressed up in a 6T Jasmine dress today. She’s so cute and Tall!
The highlight of my day was walking around the block 5 times with Lily as we just caught up with each other. I love that woman, and time to just connect with her in simplicity is among my most prized possessions. On one of our final laps the birds were singing. We also saw progressions of the sunset every time we rounded the corner before our house. It was a very magical evening.
After our walk Lily went in to Ammon’s room and caught this picture of our adorable little Ammon in his new bed:
I am sooooo glad to be back on our schedule!! Oh my goodness, there’s something so much easier (in some ways) when the kids have specific tasks they have to complete…all. day. long. Oh, it’s so nice to be in that groove again. By the end of last week I was kind of dying. We are going to need to keep some sort of schedule in the summer because letting the kids do what they want all day long makes me slightly crazy. (Not that I mind their activities–but it actually ends up being almost more work in some ways…)
I also added two new things to the schedule. At 2pm we had our audiobook time where the older girls and I all listen to E.H. Gombrich’s History of the World while coloring or playing with play dough. Then at 3pm we had our Shakespeare tea time. We eared Marullus’ speech to the Romans about a dozen times while drinking tea and eating biscotti. This was my favorite part of the day. Ammon loves to join in and repeats the lines after us in his half-way-there linguistical way. It is darling. Like, so, so, so cute. Lydia and I both fed him the lines of the entire speech at least once each because we thought his acting was so hilarious. Next time I will get a video.
Happy Easter everyone! Easter was very eventful in my home. For better or worse, I chose to stay up until 1:30 last night to catch up on blogging, so I was quite tired today, but it was a beautiful and splendid day nonetheless.
Lily was a rock-star and got up before me to get the kids going while I got a little more rest after my late night. When I finally got going, I go Clarissa bathed and dressed.
The picture below characterizes very well how Ammon was today. He was fun, wiggly, so full of energy and a bit wild 🙂
For breakfast everyone ate Peeps cereal, and ate yummy things from their Easter baskets.
Here is Clarissa munching on her chocolate Easter bunny.
After everyone had “breakfast” (Mostly just sugar today), we started the egg hunt! The Easter bunny said in her note that there were 107 eggs. The kids were so excited! Lydia was in an awful mood, largely because she woke up while it was still dark, I think probably from her Easter excitement. Her mood got better throughout the day, but she was very distraught when she didn’t find all the eggs that she wanted to get at the end.
Here is Mary with her bounty. I can’t get over how much I adore her toothless smile. That girl melts my heart!
All the girls got nail polish in their Easter baskets, and after the egg hunt, Lily painted everyone’s nails.
I love how glammed out Clarissa is with her pink sparkly toe spacers, her pink dress, and her pink flower hairpiece. She seems a little subdued in the pictures, but I’m pretty sure she was having an amazing time.
Mary wrote the Easter bunny a sweet letter and gave her a gift which was a paper cutout drawing of a white bunny. Here is the Easter Bunny’s reply.
Clarissa is supposed to be holding her painted nails out to dry.
There she goes!
After the morning festivities Lily and I relaxed and rested for a while. We listened to some of the Community of Christ Easter service and Lily spent time with friends on social media. I was passed out on the couch so buried that Lily commented that I looked like part of the couch. Haha. I never really fell asleep, but I was definitely resting for a fair chunk of time and I loved every second of it.
After I got rolling, we did home church. We had an opening song, I blessed and passed the sacrament, and then I read most of the last three chapters of Matthew. Lydia looks very bored here, and she may have been, but she’s an amazing listener, and I’m always surprised by her intelligent comments and questions when I’m thinking she might not be listening. Sweet Ammon is getting back scratches from his doting sister in this picture :).
After I read the scriptures, I turned it over to Mary and Georgia who prepared a wonderful lesson.
After the discussion, Mary had two more parts to the program. We colored paper Easter Eggs in the basement, and then planted cilantro seeds to signify new beginnings. It was a very delightful and well-rounded home-church. Thank you Mary and Georgia for all you contributed!!!!
After home church, I played “nobody leaves the couch” with the kids while Lily started on dinner. We also did a facetime with Clark and Swathi and my dad and Suzanne. It was so nice to talk to them!
Dinner was leftover Mo-Bettas, a Trader Joe’s Lasagna, an amazing Kenoa, beet, carrot and feta salad and yummy rolls. The kids were a bit of a disaster at dinner and the adults were tired and stressed too. I shared a gospel message during the chaos, which added to the chaos and stress, and Lily and I agreed after dinner that I was too much. We are going to suspend “Come Follow Me” dinner lessons during Covid while we are already taking on home church. Lily and I both felt very burnt out after dinner. Lily did all the clean-up while I put the kids to bed, and then Lily and I just chatted for a while. Lily has been feeling so stressed because she has so little time that feels like it is truly hers. This Covid situation has really put additional pressure on her (having the kids home all the time), and our conversation really opened my eyes to what she is going through. I love that woman so much and am so profoundly grateful for every sacrifice she has made for our family. Lily, when you read through this blog and see all the fun, and joy and cheer, I hope your spirits are lifted a little because you make this all possible. I also hope we can work together to find ways to give you more space for you, to thrive, to write, to learn, to think thoughts without the constant interruption and needs. I love you and I am so so so grateful for everything you do for us. Our first focus, as you rightfully requested, will be to make sure the kids are down by 8:00 so you can have at least two hours per day to yourself. Thank you my love. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
After dinner, some of us ate bunny cupcakes. Our sweet neighbor Lynette Bateman dropped off a bag for us with all of the ingredients and instructions to make them. Lydia did most of everything, I just helped with some of the finally assembly. Lydia made such cute ears for them!!
I don’t know if it was the 15 minutes I had Thursday that wiped me out on Friday, or the multiple times I listened to the wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot, but I felt a little blue yesterday, mostly just a bit distant from God and Her/His love for me. I’ve had a prayer in my heart lately to not feel that distance, and today I feel my prayer was answered. I had a really, really good day.
First of all, I want to mention that since we got Clarissa off the bottle about two and a half weeks ago, she has been sleeping through the night almost perfectly, and I have been sleeping so so so much better. It might take Lily and I a year to recover from all the night wakings we’ve done in over nine years, but I do feel like that recovery is taking place. Lily and I slept very very well last night.
I had a slow morning and caught up with my great friend Morgan which was really nice. I love Morgan, and start to miss talking to him if too much time goes between conversations.
Then I went on an unbelievably fun bike ride with another one of my great friends, Daniel Olsen. I think a bike ride about a year ago was what kicked off our friendship, and it has been so nice to have him as a friend. He is way more in shape than me, but he is always super nice when we ride together, even though I know he’d be going faster without me. He also lets me ride his spare bike since I don’t have a good ride yet. Today I disinfected his handlebars before and after the ride (and his seat after the ride) because of Covid. The ride was absolutely amazing. We went up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park, and then rode 4 miles up Vivian park. I don’t know what got into me going up the canyon, but I pushed it really hard, and maybe was even going as fast as Daniel would have been going if it were just him. But I was so tired after that that I was slow the whole way home. Daniel was super nice about it, and only genuinely asked me if I wanted a protein bar at one point. We talked about gardening, covid, kids, food and more. He is so fun to talk to and I also get so much joy out of using my body and exercising. Thank you God and Lily for that bikeride. I was so grateful that Lily allowed me to take that three hours on a precious Saturday. When I came home, she was a bit frazzled from all the chaos that was happening with the kids. Ammon and Clarissa were being their energetic selves and Lydia was throwing a bit of a fit about wanting to dye Easter Eggs. After I had a massive and yummy lunch, I looked for the Easter Egg dye, and couldn’t find any and told Lydia we’d get some today, but we might not do eggs, today, that it might be tomorrow. After her lecture on not whining and being entitled, she chose to have a good attitude about the situation, and I was grateful for that. I also learned something new. The kids explained to me that our tradition was that we leave out decorated eggs for the Easter Bunny and that’s why it was so important to do them today. I guess I forgot that was our tradition, but I noted it 🙂
I then played Operation left handed with both Lydia and Mary. Then I gave Lily a foot massage and let her rest and have some time to herself after she gave me the gift of my bike-ride.
After that, I played a little basketball, and started working on the yard. I reconnected a pipe, connected with our lawn-care person, and found the place to turn on the sprinkler water. Then Clarissa woke up and we headed out to do errands.
First we spent about an hour at our old house so I could turn on the sprinklers, test them, and fix a broken one.
Then we went to target to get the Easter egg dye and some other things. We tried going to Trader Joe’s but there was a huge line because they were only letting so many people in the store at a time, so we decided to go tomorrow.
At home, we ate Mo-Bettas (so good) and then I did egg dying with the girls while Lily talked to her mom and gave her a foot massage.
Lydia and Mary were so happy to be decorating eggs. At one point Lydia exclaimed something to the effect of, “This day before Easter is turning out great!” It really was fun. I was tired, and the scene was very chaotic, but it pulled off, and a good time was had by all.
Ammon is sad in this picture below because I just got upset with him after breaking his second egg in a very short amount of time. I was too hard on him, and I’m quite sure I apologized.
Clarissa barely understood what was going on and spent of a lot of her time spinning, dancing and running around the Les Miserables soundtrack which I was really enjoying today. Before this Lydia Clarissa spun around until I think she actually fell over. I didn’t get anything that funny from her spinning in this video, but I did get her sitting on the bin of Lincoln Logs and acting like it was a potty. 🙂
The kids put out a shrine for the Easter Bunny, completed with decorated eggs, a note, and a gift which was a paper cut out and colored to be a bunny.
After all the egg dying we put the kids to bed. Then Lily and I cleaned, hid Easter eggs and assembled baskets. Lily did such a wonderful job getting all the goodies for the kids. She’s a great mama bunny. When we were all done, Lily grabbed a picture.
And one more with dramatic lighting :). I love her!
I took another day off today. I was so tired from the crazy marathon of yesterday, that I questioned, at times, if it was worth taking a day off given how intense and painful Thursday was. But, I felt affirmed throughout the day that yes, it was worth it.
I did an easy home workout in the morning and called my aunt Andrea and loved talking to her. I also set up some bins for Ammon’s bedroom while listening to Gordon Lightfoot. I was newly appreciating just how good his music is. I heard it growing up from my dad, but I’m falling in love with it now on my own. He makes such.good.music.
While I was in my room, I helped Clarissa crawl into my bed to watch a show. She looked so cute so I snapped a picture. I think the shirt she is wearing is an old hand-me-down from Lydia and Mary. We have a TON of 3T clothes and it fits Clarissa perfectly because she is so big (mostly just really tall). We just got out all those 3T clothes so you are going to start see a lot of pictures of Clarissa in Lydia and Mary’s old clothes :).
Also, during the day, Lydia got the idea to make a quilt out of pieces of paper that everyone on the family had taken turns designing. Georgia said that Clarissa could make modern art :). It was an adorable idea and the final product was really great. Nice work Lydia!! She told me she did something like that in school and that’s how she got the idea.
I also took Ammon and Clarissa to the dumpster to get rid of all of the trash (mostly from boxes and wrapping from the bed we set up in Ammon’s room). It was a Spring cleaning week in Orem, so they just had the dumpsters in the parking lot of the city park. I also had a quick chat with my dad around the time of arrival. I love connecting with him. Ammon was so adorable when I was loading the dumpster. Without even being asked, he took it upon himself to unbuckle and hand me things from the back of the van. It was so fun to have him as my little pal working on the project together. He has so much youthful energy! He also involved Clarissa, who apparently wanted to help, but was strapped into her car-seat. He would hand her a piece of trash, and then ask her to hand it back to him, and then he would give it to me. And everyone was happy :).
On the way home, I got Murphey’s pizza again. It was soooo delicious. This time I put the Gourmet veggie on the bottom rack of the over. At first I thought that I made a mistake when the crust cooked so much faster than the top of the pizza, but when I took a bite into a crispy crust, with a gooey saucey top and al dente veggies, I went wild with delight. It tasted soooooooo good. :).
Also, Lily has been super involved one facebook and marcopolo. She has been building friendships, processing general conference, sharing her newfound place of love that extends to and through the church and churchmembers, and also just having a good time. I forgot to mention she had a long chat with her Thrive group the night before (Thursday).
Also, tonight, I talked to my brothers for our bi-monthly bro call. I learned Jere is learning the computer language “Rust” to pass the time being homebound and David and Olivia just got a new washing machine. It seems Olivia is doing well with her new job and David enjoying his new home-office equipment that he was able to expense to his university. I watered the lawn while I talked to them. I just recently realized it was dying and that I need to figure out how to get the sprinklers going (in addition to watering in the short-term to prevent it from dying more).
After the call, I think I watched the beginning of the second “Pirates of the Carribean with the kids”. I think I might have also played Operation with them earlier in the day. It’s a fun game and we’ve been enjoying it together. I also cleaned the basement (which was a disaster from all the new art supplies that were recently utilized), and did Mary’s eye exercises. For dinner, I made Euros, a current family favorite! Lily worked a wonder on the upstairs in the morning. Sorry this is so out of order, but it was a good day!
As I mentioned in a recent blog, I’m trying really hard to support my team right now, especially because I feel like for one reason or another I haven’t properly supported them the way I would like to in the past when I was in a dual role. I have felt very committed to not cancel coaching sessions, pipeline reviews, territory planning sessions or one on ones even when I take a day off. That requires a lot of rescheduling. I planned to take Friday off, so that meant stacking extra meetings on Thursday so I could take Friday off. In the end, I had 15 meetings. I feel very grateful to God that I had strength for all those meetings, but I was definitely flagging at that end. Also, in my last meeting, my anxiety really started to creep in when I gave some critique feedback to one of my reps that seemed nitpicky and I worried that I should not have given that feedback. I was so tired after all of my meetings that I didn’t do much afterwords. Actually, I can’t even remember what I did after my work day. I just know I was super super tired.
Today I took a day off of work. It was WONDERFUL. Super busy, but still wonderful. I’m quite busy again at work since they added two people to my team, causing me to manage 9 (which is one more than I’m supposed to). I’m also trying really hard to not cut corners with the ways I’m supposed to support my team since I did a lot of that in the past when I was working two roles and focused on my promotion. I have been working very hard lately and it was so nice to mix things up and spend time with my beloved family. I’m writing this entry on Saturday, and I actually now don’t remember a ton of what happened during the day. But these following two photos are jogging my memory.
After my stationary bike workout in the morning, I helped Lydia to make lemonade and then I enjoyed a glass with the kids. It was wonderfully refreshing!
Over one of our meals, Lily shared this letter which she really enjoyed reading. It’s very amusing. I’m sure it came up as we were all discussing covid-19, which is a regular topic of conversation in our home.
There are two other highlights I can remember. First, I think this was the day that Lily and her mom hand a long healing conversation. There had been some friction and wounds regarding faith (I was partly to blame also), but Lily and Georgia really had some beautiful healing conversation. I was in and out of it as I was likely just doing things around the house, but I could tell something special was going on. I love those women.
The second highlight is that Lily and I made great progress setting up Ammon’s bedroom. We set up his bed, and carpet.
I also had my weekly meeting with my psychologist Mary Lou. I actually felt quite good today, so it was more like a nice chat catching up with my grandmother, but that was still nice. Mary Lou is a bit like insurance. When I’m not doing mentally well, I feel very very grateful for each visit. It is still healing and sustaining and good weeks though too.
Also, I played “nobody leaves the couch” again with the kids. Man we all love that game 🙂
