A cough, Frozen 2, Thanksgiving

On Tuesday this week I was asked to guest teach in the morning. I hated cancelling on my volunteering (again) but I need the Christmas money, so I took it. Afterwards I went to visit Jessica(the mom with breast cancer). She is having a hard time with things. She's worried about losing her hair, struggling with having to cut back at work and just feeling generally down. I have never had a friend with cancer and I struggle with knowing what to say. I can't imagine how hard it would be to think life is going one way and then totally be thrown this curve ball.

Unfortunately my visit to Jessica was cut short by a phone call from the school- Lucy's cough that she has had for weeks had escalated. I felt bad leaving early and hoped I hadn't shared germs with her. I also felt bad about sending Lucy to school when I knew she was coughing a ton. I just felt like one big mom fail. To compound that mom fail feeling, I had already bought tickets to see "Frozen 2" with the girls that night and I didn't want to cancel so I took them anyways. Lucy ended up coughing through the entire movie. I felt terrible. The movie itself was alright. There were some scary parts and Olaf definitely made for a good comic relief. The best part was when Olaf acted out a summary for the first Frozen movie.

Wednesday Penny didn't have school and I decided to stop mom failing and kept Lucy home. I was going to have a special Penny day and take her to the mall to get pretzels and play but with the awful coughing that did not happen. Instead the girls had fun playing together and had a sister day instead.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and it was not stressful which was real nice. Caroline took over the turkey and some sides. Corinne took over the rolls and pie. And all I had was the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and mac n cheese. I slept in, had a lazy morning, did a little online shopping, made my sides and then everyone came over and it was feast time. It was real good food and a real good time afterwards- chatting, finishing up a puzzle I had started, Tyler and another husband playing the ukulele, my friends singing along....It was real fun. Afterwards everyone left but my friend Caroline- together we hit up Meijers and Target to get some puzzles that were on sale for Black Friday. Target was a little crowded but the lines were not bad at either store.

After Thanksgiving I had promised the kids we would put up Christmas decorations so most of that day was spent decorating. It was a lot trickier figuring where to put the trees since I rearranged the house and it was made even more trickier by children that kept hounding me to get them up already so they could decorate them. But places were found and trees are up and decorated.

We did take a break from decorating in the afternoon and went to Chuck-E-Cheese. We still had a little left on the giftcard Tyler's parent's had given us for last Christmas so we figured we would use it up and get the kids out of the house for a bit. It was a good choice. The kids enjoyed all the silly little games and getting tickets for cheap-o prizes.

As you can see, Penny is wearing her fake glasses and has been ever since. When I asked her, "How long have you been blind?" She responded with, "A hundred thousand years."

  

Bear Rank, Band Concert

Monday evening I was able to go visit one of my girls that doesn't come to Wednesday Activities and her Sunday attendance can be kind of sporadic. It was a good visit and I felt like I was able to create more of a rapport with her but she gave me a very flaky response about why she doesn't come to activities and I don't think much will change.

Tuesday I had plans to volunteer and meet my minister for lunch but I got hassled into subbing instead. It started out with the automatic sub line advertising a job at Lucy and Ben's school, I rejected it and put in a non-work day but then the district absence manager called me and left a message. Then the secretary from Ben and Lucy's school called. I was feeling annoyed but ended up calling the secretary back and agreeing to take the job. They said I could still help out in the library while the class I was subbing for had their specials- so nice of them to let me spend my break volunteering 😑 It was an ok day, the class itself is a pretty good class (I had subbed for them Friday) but the lesson plans stink. They are full of way too much sitting and listening for the kids and so the kids got real restless by the end of the day.

It ended up being a good thing that I took the job Tuesday since I had no more come up for the rest of the week. That led to a real relaxed rest of the week. I was able to work out, do crock pot/casserole dinners so life was less hectic when the kids got home, I got binders ready for new YW's class presidencies, I prepared my talk for YW in Excellence (starting to feel nervous about that), I prepped and wrapped Christmas books for our Christmas countdown, I got all our Christmas cards for family addressed with my fancy lettering...All around it was a productive but at the same time relaxed few days. It was nice to do everything without feeling rushed about it.

Wednesday night we had a skit night combined with the Young Men for our Youth Activity. I am so grateful I am not over the boys- holy cow were they wound up and not great listeners. I ended up having to ask the YM leaders to step in so the skits they created actually had substance and weren't just all violence. What I don't understand is why they didn't just step in and that I had to ask... The highlight of the night was when Lily came- she was late but she came! I had met with her and her sister a few weeks back and had a good visit about coming to Wednesday night activities and I was so glad she was there. She is such a chatty Cathy and we talked for a good long time after the activity. She is struggling with school- a lot. But she has no plans for college and I feel like that might be one of the reasons she's struggling. Lack of motivation... Anyways my girls got to participate in the skits too and here is Lucy defeating the "Scottish man".

Also that night I got to sneak over to Cub Scouts and watch Ben earn his Bear Rank. They knighted him and it was pretty cute.

Thursday night Steven had his first Band Concert. We had to bring him there a half an hour early and it only lasted like 20 minutes. So basically the wait was longer than the actual concert. It was fun to hear him play with all the other instruments. I really hope he sticks with it. There was some drama at the end with finding him after it was all done. They told us to wait in the gym and the kids would come back to us after packing up their instruments. We waited and waited and he never came. Tyler had a neighborhood meeting he needed to be at so he was getting real frustrated. Tyler went to our car, went to the band room- still couldn't find him. Then as we were about to give up we see him huddled on the floor near the gym entrance with a friend, looking at his friend's phone. Unbeknownst to us he had invited this friend to come to the concert. I wish he had told us because Tyler very rudely jerked Steven away and we might have been a little bit nicer had we known they came just for Steven. As we were trying to rush out another band mom (also friend from church) insisted we needed to get a family picture. I am glad she did, even though Tyler was very unhappy about it all and just wanted to leave.

Friday the kids had a half day and Steven's friend Adam (the one that came to the concert) came home with him after school. He's kind of a quiet kid and seemed uncomfortable with me but Steven and him play well together. And his friend went along with my screen time limits with little complaints so that was nice. They text each other a lot so it looks like this is becoming one of his close friends. But according to one of the texts- Steven is Adam's second best friend so they have not quite reached bestie status yet.

Friday night I went to see a high school production of "Cinderella." This time I went not supporting my youth but as a friend- Corinne was going to go with her hubby but he had to work so she asked me to come with her instead. It was not my favorite version of Cinderella but it was nice to get out and spend time with a friend. 

And now today I am going to support 2 of my Young Women who are in the play "Matilda". I am just becoming so cultured ;)

Field Trip with Lucy and Snow Galore!

Sunday was Ward Conference and afterwards we had some training by the Stake YW's Presidency. Of course the counselor that really needed this training was not there. But it was still some good information and some good ideas for things. The only frustration was that I felt like my Secretary kept trying to be president- sometimes I want to be really rude and tell her that she is just the secretary. Instead I kind of lashed out in another way and equally offended her. I had went back and read the text messages from the great dramatic group text with YW's parents that past week and I had seen how a mom (who was already upset and irritated) could have taken my secretary's first text wrong and been offended. Yes, that mom should not have been offended but I could still see how it happened. I told my secretary this and thereby offended her. Reading back what I just wrote this is all so confusing but basically I offended my secretary by telling her how her text could have been offending. Oh my gosh. My life as YW's president has been so ridiculous. I ended up smoothing things over with my secretary but I am so over all this drama.

Monday we woke up to snow and it continued to snow until late that night. Of course that day also happened to be the day I was chaperoning Lucy's class on their field trip to the Outdoor Education Center. It was stressful getting Penny to her bus stop and then going to Lucy's school because the snow had left some pretty slippery roads and some fun traffic but I made it (car only spun out once). The field trip itself was not super exciting- they tried to camouflage a potato (Lucy's favorite part), they pretended to be spiders, they got to dress up like bugs and they learned about dirt. But Lucy had fun and it was nice spending time with her.

Monday was also Veteran's Day and Tyler had it off so after Lucy's field trip, I made him drive me to Walmart to pick up groceries so I didn't die on the snowy roads. My Stake YW's Pres called me while I was on this errand and we had a good conversation about things...but then she kept going. She is such a talker. She was telling me all about her week and she would keep saying she was going to let me go...but then she would keep on talking. I've got to make sure not to answer her calls unless I have a long time for chatting.

By the time Monday ended we had gotten 11 inches of snow. So much snow for November. Thanks to all the snow, school was cancelled Tuesday. It was also super cold that day but the kids didn't mind. They went out and played in the snow and seemed to have a lot of fun. Here's a picture of them burying Lucy in the snow:

Tuesday night was Bunco. I drove my friend Melissa over and the car ride with her was fun. I love that I can be my weirdo self around her. Bunco itself was alright. It gets real loud and lately that loudness is just not my jam. I did work hard to get the loser prize though, and I totally succeeded. I earned myself a blanket scarf. But afterwards the host handed out what she called "booby prizes" to everyone and there were actually some of those that I liked better than the blanket scarf. Oh, well. Since everyone was there for once, no subs, we took a picture of the gang. 

Wednesday night started off a bit heart breaking. My YW whose mom has breast cancer was looking upset so I pulled her aside to check in on her and she broke down. It was so hard for me to see her that upset because I am a fixer and I want to be able to fix her problem. But obviously I can't. I am just continually amazed by her strength, even when she is struggling you can see her faith in Christ. It's just such an awful situation for a 16 year old to have to go through. On a lighter note, the rest of the night went really well. We had a pretty good turn out and it was a game night and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. It was nice to see some of my YW come out of their shells.

Thursday I had a YW Presidency Meeting and Bishop came. This past Sunday Bishop had met with Stake Presidency leaders who had basically backed up everything I had been saying. It bugs me that he had to hear it from them to believe me but I think this helped immensely. The meeting went smoothly and for that I am grateful.

Right after the meeting, someone sent me a text asking me if I could sub so I did. Then I also subbed Friday. Good to be making some more Christmas money and the jobs went fairly smoothly so that's always nice too.

And today,Saturday, is the first day in a long time that I have no Saturday plans so I am going to enjoy this nice, calm day!

Bronner's

Monday Steven had a half day but the other kids did not. When he got home, I asked him if wanted to go running with me and surprisingly he agreed right away. Maybe he likes running more than he will admit? Of course he toasted me- he was about a minute faster and he took a slightly longer route. It was fun. I also convinced him to go with me to pick up groceries afterwards- more like guilted him by telling him he'd miss doing this with me someday ;)

On another note, we have Ward Conference coming and part of that is that I get to visit families with the Stake YW's President. Monday night we went on our first visit. This was to a family that comes on Sundays but the girls do not come Wednesdays, even though they could. It was a really good visit- a lot of fun getting to know the girls but also a good talk about the importance of Wednesday night activities. I am not sure anything will change, they didn't come this week, but it was good to get it out in the open. Also afterwards, I had a good conversation with the stake YW's president about some of the obstacles I have been facing. She was very supportive and it's good to know I can come to her with problems.

Tuesday the kids had off of school for Voting Day. I decided this would be a good day for our annual trip to Bronner's to pick out ornaments. It was a little busy but not too bad. We did our annual picture taking with all the fun photo ops outside and in.

Then came ornament picking time. Penny had a few she wanted- a hedgehog, a cat, a dessert one...In the end she picked the hedge hog with the Santa hat. Steven wanted a candy/food one (and was further encouraged by a couple from our Ward that we ran into there- they informed us that they have a Christmas tree with 600 candy themed ornaments on it). He ended up picking the yummy looking chocolate ice cream one. Lucy wanted a unicorn one but anytime I pointed out one she wouldn't want it- she informed me she didn't like when I told her which ones she should look at. Miss independent. She ended up with a unicorn carousel. And sweet Ben picked a penguin on a polar bear. He was undecided until the couple we ran into said that it was a winner. Honestly their feedback was super helpful in getting my kids to make decisions. I am glad I ran into them.

Tuesday night there was more YW's drama. A group text with the mom's of the yw and a certain mom was suggesting to us that we do better with parent contact. I felt that whole conversation would have been suited for more of a private setting but nobody seems to be up for that. I feel so emotionally drained from it all. I wish people could nice and respectful and patient with me as we figure things out. I also wish instead of just the negatives I could get some positive feedback. Is there not one thing that I am doing well?

Wednesday night I got to rake leaves with the YW. We had an awful turn out of only 3 YW. Probably because it was sooooooo cold. The picture below shows 2 of my layers but I put on another 3 after that. Everyone else had on like 2 but I don't regret my 5 layers one bit. I was not even a tinge cold. 

Thursday I was feeling particularly emotional and worn down so I decided to text a friend to see if she was up for me coming over to unload. It was a good choice. She's a real good friend and helped me feel better about things- if only for that moment. 

Thursday evening Lucy got a belated birthday gift from our friend, little Lucie-a bed tent! She absolutely loves it!

Friday I had a sub job. Friday seems to have become my regular sub day and honestly, I love it. It works good with my schedule. The class was overall good- no major issues so the day went well. The only thing was that I was asked to sub for PE while my class was at technology. I have never subbed for PE before and I was not excited about it. It went pretty well except I overly exhausted a kid. They were doing this obstacle course and I was timing them at one point. And half way through he threw himself onto the floor and cried. I don't know if it was because he was embarrassed for taking so long or just so exhausted. I didn't force anyone to do it, I had just encouraged him and now I regret encouraging him. 

Saturday morning was Super Saturday at church. Tyler was teaching a class on 72 hour kits so we all got to head to the church. I took a class on Midwest vacations which was very informative on future vacation ideas. I also took a class where I put leaves in a picture frame and then wrote fancy on the glass. It looks nice. After that super Saturday fun I went to see "Last Christmas" with my friends, Melissa and Caroline. The movies was good, not quite what I was expecting though. Really it was just nice to hang with friends.

Birthdays and Halloween and Elder Ballard

Time is such a thief as it cruises by so quickly! On Tuesday I picked Penny up early from school so she could celebrate her friend, little Lucie's, birthday. Little Lucie is not in school yet and had requested to go bowling (in costumes) with Penny. And since Penny is in what I call fake Kindergarten, I allowed it. Even with bumpers Penny's bowling skills were not super but I think she enjoyed it- even wiggling her butt occasionally before tossing the bowling ball down the lane (and I do me tossing). Afterwards we went to Long's Farm for doughnuts and hot cocoa. It was ridiculously cold so they didn't last too long there (especially since Penny hadn't worn her coat). It was fun afternoon playing hooky for Penny.

Wednesday evening we had cancelled activities so me and Chalsea went to visit the mom of one of our young women. This mom had just got a mastectomy last week and found out that the cancer had spread and she will need chemotherapy. Chalsea was planning to visit her and I asked to tag along so I could get to know her better. It was a good idea. In visiting with her and getting to know her better, I feel like I can better serve the family as they go through this crummy time. Plus she is a really good lady and even though at times the conversation was tough and sad, I really enjoyed spending time with her.

Thursday was Halloween and for the first time in awhile, I was not in charge of a single class party! So what did I do!? I ditched all their class parties. Lucy and Ben's stuff was at the same time as Penny's and with them being at different schools I would miss someone's things either way. So rather then deciding who would get me and who wouldn't, I did't go to any. Instead I let Steven miss school since he didn't have any parties and we went and saw "The Addams Family." It was a really dumb movie but it was nice for us to have an outing and it helped alleviate some of the mom guilt I experienced for missing all the other things.

That afternoon Steven got to go to his friend Max's house because now he's all grown up and celebrating holidays with friends and not me :( I made him take pictures before he could go and he was not super happy about that. It was weird not having him around with trick or treating that night but I think he had fun with his friends- even if all he would tell us about that night was that his hands were cold. Such a complainer.

I got a few pictures of the rest of the kids before it started raining harder. I made Tyler take the kids out trick or treating in the lovely downpour that followed. However, Ben ditched Tyler and went trick or treating with his friend Jacob instead. It appears that both my boys are growing up. It was so cold and rainy so I was more than happy to stay home and pass out candy. Unfortunately we got very few trick or treaters due to the crummy weather and so we have a ton of leftover candy. I do not need all this candy in my house. Not at all. 

To deal with the rain we gave them all ponchos so they came back not too soaking wet but definitely still cold. Halloween in Michigan is not great. Down below is the picture we got at Trunk or Treat that weekend- not my basically closed eyes. Ugh- they just can't seem to stay open for pictures.

Friday was Lucy's 7th birthday! I was a lame mom and had to work that day so I didn't get to pick her up from school or anything special but I did send in a unicorn book for her to give to her class and a special lunchable. She did guilt me by telling me that her favorite thing about her birthday is that I come visit her at school. Uggghhh. So after that guilt trip I told her we could go out to dinner after school. That helped some.

As per usual we opened up presents first thing in the morning. She got American Girl Accessories from Grams and Poppy Brady, a mermaid tail blanket from Grams and Poppy Hatch and a Lego set and camera from us. Unfortunately the camera had a broken SD Card so it was a bust. We sent it back to Amazon and are hoping they send us one that is not broken,

After school we went to dinner as promised. On the drive over we heard multiple times about how it was her birthday and certain sibling should be nicer to her because of that. Oh dear, quite the diva. For dinner she decided on Steak and Shake which is not our favorite after the last time we went and had such poor service. They lived up to the memory. Once again the service was real bad. They all just stood in the back and you literally had to beckon them over if you needed anything. The kids love their shakes but it's such a drive and the service is so crummy, I am not sure I would be up to going there again. But it sure did make Lucy happy so there is that.

That night they were all playing with her new Lego set so nicely together and I had to take a picture because it's a rare moment.

Saturday was a busy day. I played the piano at a baptism in the morning and it wasn't the best. I haven't practiced much lately and it showed. They had me play some interlude while the girl was drying off and changing and I fumbled through it. Oh well, I learned next time I need to practice more.

After the baptism was Lucy's birthday party. She had 4 friends come: Eris, Emery, Jenna and Peter. We had pizza, played BINGO, decorated the mane on a unicorn, decorated a unicorn horn (upside down ice cream cone)- so many sprinkles on this one, did a Unicorn Horn ring Toss and played pin the Horn on the Unicorn. The kids had a lot of fun decorating the horn and spent the most time on that. They had less fun with pinning on the horn. But all in all I would call the party a success. My only hang up was that Lucy kept asking to open presents and was so focused on them. I wish she could have focused on just having fun with her friends instead.

Saturday evening I had the real special experience of attending a Youth Leadership Training with Elder Ballard. I was in the front row so I was super close and it was real cool to make eye contact with him as he spoke. He was such a down to Earth guy and he was funny too. He joked about how we might think we have it hard but he has to convert the world. He also gave us all an air handshake and said we could count that as our handshake. Elder DeVries spoke too, our area authority, and had a really good story about keeping our eyes on the edge of the sail- or in other words our focus on Christ. It was good meeting. I was looking for some confirmation that I was on the right track with the new YW's Program- especially because there have been disagreements with Bishop, parents, and one of my counselors. And at the very end I felt that confirmation when Elder Ballard said we are preparing our Youth to take over our responsibilities. I know I am on the right track but as they also said at the meeting, the adults are the hardest ones to get on board with the changes and I am finding that to be so true. Today I met with Bishop and had to end with agreeing to not quite agree and trying to figure out how to compromise without sacrificing the integrity of what needs to be done. This calling is going to be a struggle and it's only just begun.