Santa

This week was not the best week. On Monday we learned that Tyler's mom has a mass on her ovaries and they seemed confident that it was cancer and were worried it had spread into the lymph nodes. (Thankfully we learned later on in the week that it has not spread and it is either a benign tumor or the cancer is only in her ovaries.) Shortly after hearing this upsetting news, my period decided to start. I was kind of an emotional disaster that night- worried about his mom and sad that I still am not pregnant. Also confused because I felt so strongly that we were supposed to have another child and here we are a year later and I am still not pregnant. 

The next day I got in a good run which always helps my mental health and spent the rest of the day baking a mass load of cookies for young women's. That night I went begrudgingly to bunco- I was still feeling down and not mentally up to so much socialization but then a friend, who had no idea about my rough week, said to me that her 4 year old daughter had prayed for Tyler and me the previous night. To me it was the reminder that I needed that my Heavenly Father is thinking of me and loves me. It wasn't random but inspiration.

The rest of Bunco was fun- we don't actually play Bunco in December. We did a gift exchange where it turned out all the gifts were the exact same thing. She had just wrapped them to look differently so it was a fun surprise when we realized we were stealing and trying to switch for no good reason. The gift was a robe with a dice patch on the sleeve- pretty fun. After that we did the usual saran wrap ball which is always interesting to see how crazy everyone gets trying to unwrap the thing. 

Wednesday night we did a gift exchange with the young women and decorated cookies. All the yw had brought gifts and it was pretty funny that everyone kept trying to steal the one with the penguin bag because they thought the bag was cute. All the leaders' kids got to play too and Penny ended up with the cute penguin bag before the last round and was so excited- it had cotton candy, a notebook and a cute pen. Unfortunately during the last round it got stolen by another leader's kid. She was so upset but then Lucy had a chance to steal and stole it. She said she partially stole it for Penny and partially because she wanted it herself. At least she's honest. Afterwards there was cookie decorating which involved lots of sprinkles and frosting and random kids appearing trying to snitch some of the deliciousness. 

Thursday morning I met with the Young Women's president from the other Ward at our building. She seems so much more organized and put together. I wish I could stop feeling like I can't get caught up. It just always feels like there's so much to do and like there's so much that I am not doing. After the meeting Lucy and Ben had a half day so I picked Penny and Steven up from school and we all went to see Santa at the Bass Pro Shop. We only had about a 15 minute wait and then we got our annual picture. Penny looks angry in it but oh well. When asked what they want Penny requested a camera, Lucy wants a bike and unicorn helmet, Ben wants a bike and Mohawk helmet and Steven wants a go pro camera. We'll see what happens.

After seeing Santa they had fun playing with all the things out at Bass Pro Shop- shooting games, remote control cars, coloring pages, writing letters to Santa, building things...They also had fun "riding" on a nearby boat and quads.

Thursday evening was Parent Teacher Conferences for Ben and Lucy. Lucy's teacher says Lucy is above level in most things and just a joy to have in class. However, Lucy's teacher likes to bring up that time Lucy was sick in class and had strep throat. Lucy was sick BUT she did not have strep throat. I tried to tell her teacher this before but she doesn't seem to believe me. Oh well, maybe she just had to find something to be negative about. 

Ben is not doing as great as Lucy. He is accelerating in math but not doing so well in writing. This is strange because last year his teacher always raved about what a great writer he was. At the end of the conference Ben went over the ratings he had given himself on his behavior. They were kind of low and when his teacher questioned him about why he scored himself so low he started to cry. It was awkward honestly. Afterwards when I was talking to him about it he said he scored himself low because he talked once in class. I told him if that's true, he shouldn't be so hard on himself. Oh my tender hearted Ben.

Friday I had a YW Presidency meeting and a dentist appt for Lucy. I also got asked to sub for 4 different people that day and had to say no. That was disappointing because I could really use the Christmas money. The meeting was probably one of our quickest and most efficient though and I am grateful for that. And it was nice to have everyone's support when I told them about my super frustrating group text incident with the primary president. I had sent out a text inviting everyone to New Beginnings and she had responded by saying that primary was planning on event that involved parents on that same night. So frustrated because she hadn't advertised hers at all nor put hers on the calendar. She should've rescheduled because we had that night first! Ugh.

After the meeting I took Lucy to the dentist. She had some pretty worrisome plaque on her teeth. Thankfully it was just plaque, not cavities so they scrapped it off and even did it with no charge to me. That was a blessing

Friday night I went to see one of my girls (and 2 girls who are coming in to yw's in January) in the musical "Legally Blonde Jr." It was fun but I am not sure super appropriate for Middle Schoolers. It also had a song that pretty much involved singing "Oh my Gosh" but not gosh of course, over and over. So yeah...not the best clean wise but entertaining and it's always good to support my yw.

Saturday as part of our 12 day countdown the kids got a new game. The game got such good reviews online but it was not such a great game for the kids. It is really tricky to get the pieces to stay on and balance we ended up not following the rules and just trying to get the pieces to stay in our own order. It was hard but we did it!