February Ends

Young Women's on Sunday was not my favorite. All the girls were struggling to focus- they were on their phones a lot and whispering/ passing notes to each other. It was a Young Woman teaching and I felt bad for her but unsure how to handle it- it's not the same as subbing, it's such a different environment and I have a lot of yw who are on the fence with church these days that I don't want to drive away. I ended up doing nothing because I know this isn't their traditional behavior but next time we meet, I am teaching and I think I will preface my lesson with something about it because I also don't want this to become a habit. It's just really hard to be the one in charge and I often struggle with knowing what to do.

Monday it was so nice to have the kids back in school and finally be able to give the house a proper cleaning and organizing. I was also able to run some errands. It was good to be back in the swing of things except it was short lived. The kids ended up having a snow days Wednesday and Thursday. There wasn't that much snow but I think the schools were just trying to use up the snow days that are built into the schedule- I think we've only had one before this. Penny was bummed about the Snow Day Wednesday because I was supposed to come in and help in her classroom. And Thursday Lucy was bummed about the Snow Day because it was her I-Pad day in class. Poor things. I was bummed Thursday because I had a dentist appt and Ben had an orthodontist appt and now I had all the kids home. Tyler ended up working from Thursday so I didn't have to leave Steven in charge.

My dentist appt Thursday was not great. In cleaning my teeth, a filling that was coming out officially came out. It looks like it will probably need a root canal because there is decay under it and the decay is close to the roots. Ugh. Soon all my teeth will be crowns. 

The good Thursday was that Steven got to go to lunch and see "Call of the Wild" with his friend Adam. I still don't love this friend. Did I tell you the recent "drama"? I was reading recent text messages from Adam to Steven on the "landline" and Adam was berating Steven for not being able to go anywhere or play video games on Sundays- he was telling him that was stupid and boring. Steven responded with a "no it's not. it's fun." The kid continued to tell him it was boring and stupid. I am glad that Steven defended his Sunday behavior and stayed strong but I am feeling less and less impressed with Adam.

Friday I subbed all day. I usually love this class but they were so chatty in the afternoon and they drove me batty. I don't know if it was coming back from snow days that made them crazy or if maybe it was the fact that I hadn't subbed for awhile so maybe my standards were too high. All I know was it was exhausting and I was glad to be home when all was done.

Today, Saturday, I have a Stake Leadership meeting in the afternoon and was asked to play prelude and accompany the opening hymn. I am soooo nervous. These days I can't seem to play without making mistakes and this is in the stake center with lots of big important people. Ugh. Maybe if I do terrible the perk will be that they never ask me again?

And this week I decided to make something to track the books that I read this year. It has it flaws but it will do.

Mid Winter Break

This week was mid winter break which meant I had all the kids home for the whole week. In actuality Penny only had Monday and Tuesday off (since she's in a different school district than the rest) but I had her play hooky the rest of the week because it didn't feel right to send her to pretend Kindergarten while everyone else stayed home and played. I had asked her teacher what her thoughts were on keeping Penny home and she had heartily encouraged me to keep her home all week. Her teacher's enthusiasm made me wonder if Penny is really as well behaved as she has previously claimed.

On Monday I decided to take the kids to Chuck-e-Cheese. I had considered going to the Toledo Zoo but when I saw that they had free admission for residents on Mondays and with Monday being a holiday, I decided I should avoid those crowds. Plus Chuck-e-Cheese is inside which means I don't have to be cold. The kids had fun as per usual and it helped the day to pass by a little more quickly.

Tuesday we watched the Bloomfield kids which meant I had 3 extra kids all day. The younger 2 boys get real crazy when combined with my kids so it was pretty noisy in my house and crazy. I decided we needed to get out so I piled them in the car and took them to the library. Things did not go so well in the beginning. I am super embarrassed to admit that I left the youngest boy (who is 5) in the car. We had all piled out (or so I thought based on all the doors slamming shut) so I locked the doors and our crazy big group headed in. We turned in the books we had brought back, looked at DVD's, headed to the children's section...and then I was looking around and realized someone was missing. I asked all the other kids if they had seen Jessie and they were all unsure. Ben suggested checking the car and my heart sunk- had we really left Jessie in the car??? Plus he was 5, couldn't he open the door?? Sure enough, he was in the car. Thankfully he wasn't upset, he was just playing on his brother's tablet that had been left in the car. The locks were different then his car so when he realized he was stuck he just entertained himself with the tablet. I felt like the worst babysitter ever. The rest of the outing was fine. The kids calmed down and had a good time hanging out there. I met the Grandma of one of Lucy's friends and had a good chat with her. Then I played Apples to Apples with Alissa and Steven. That was fun. So if it weren't for leaving a child in the car- it would've been the perfect outing.

Tuesday evening I went to my friend Corinne's house to help with her baby while she did dinner and bedtime routine for her other kiddo (her hubby was working late). I forgot how weak I am until I have to hold a 11 lb baby for a long period of time. He was real cute but got pretty fussy the second half of the night and I always struggle with fussiness when it's not my kid. I just wanted to hand him back and say fix him, ha ha, but I was there to help so I did a lot of back patting and bouncing.

Wednesday I watched the Bloomfield's 2 younger boys (I am surprised they trusted me again). The Bloomfield's oldest, Alissa, had gone to a friend's house for the day. My girls had a play date with a new friend that morning so that helped things to be a little less crazy. I was grateful for that. It was a pretty uneventful day with no children being left in the car.

Thursday we met the May's at The Commons- it's that fancy church that has an indoor soccer field and play place. It was a real nice outing because they all played so well together so I was just able to sit and chat with Caroline. 

Friday I took the kids to see "Frozen 2". The girls had seen it already but the boys hadn't and it was still at the cheap theater so it seemed like a good outing. While we were waiting in line to get tickets the people around me were real chatty- asking me if the kids were on break, telling me about the movies they like to see, showing me pictures of their grandchildren--- it was a loooong wait ;) I felt a lot like my daddy chatting with all these strangers. When at last we watched the movie, the kids all seemed to enjoy it. 

That evening I had a late nighter at my house with my Young Women. We ended up with 9 girls and 5 leaders. I had left a puzzle out and that was a good choice- my more reserved young women really liked working on that. They even finished it and then finished another later that night. Some of my younger Young Women got real crazy at some points- playing with Ben's plastic weapons. I actually had to take the "weapons" and put them in the basement. Oi. We had one mom who came to do hair (Melissa Bloomfield) and all the girls really seemed to love it. We also had a leader do nails. At one point we went and delivered "heart attacks" to people. That was a quite the experience for the 3 girls in my car. 

The first door we went to put hearts on was Corinne's but we had the joy of arriving at her house right when her husband pulled into the driveway. He totally knows me and saw me- caught. So I told the girls just to tell him that we wanted to heart attack his wife. They did so and he said he'd keep her away from the door but he didn't. As they were putting hearts on the door she peeked out and said "hello". SO much for surprising her.

For the second house I got lost- so lost. And we drove in circles FOREVER before finding their house. It was really embarrassing and I ignored one of the girl's advice for finding it- which turned out to be the right advice. I felt so bad. Anyways as they finished it up the light turned on and instead of running to the car- one ran back to grab a fallen heart. Caught again.

The third house went fairly smoothly. When we finished that house Alissa suggested we do a couple of her neighbors. I thought this was such a nice idea but it turned out to be super traumatizing. Megan and I went to the one's door while Alissa and Abbie went to the others. Unfortunately as we were finishing sticking hearts on the door someone pounded on it from the other side scaring me and Megan to death and we fled. I thought that was a good idea but they didn't stop at pounding. She came out yelling at us "What the **** are you doing!?" etc, etc. Me and my non confrontational self wanted to just get in the car and flee but Alissa and Abbie were still out. The lady started taking my license plate down and I realized I was not going to be able to avoid confrontation so by that time Alissa was back trying to explain- hey I live right there, I was trying to do something nice- I went out and we all just apologized profusely. Eventually she understood and things were smoothed over but oh my goodness. It was awful.

When we got back to my house I was so frazzled. I felt like a giant emotional, embarrassed mess and I wanted to just hide in my room but the party wasn't over. I had Melissa do my hair and that helped calm me down some. The other girls filtered back in and we all swapped stories. Then their was more nail painting, the starting and finishing of a second puzzle, and the guinea pigs were brought out. The girls also heart attacked my door and left hearts in random places around my house (on the garbage lid, and on the toilet were 2 of the most randomest places ;) ) and that was really nice. I hope all my young women had a good time and that I didn't traumatize them too much. Glad to be done and not sure how I feel that we have plans to do this again in April. Definitely will probably never heart attack again.

Steven is 12

Poor Steven had a pretty bad cough on his birthday but the silver lining was that he didn't have to go to school on his birthday. He started his morning with Lucky Charms and opening birthday cards from my family (unfortunately no gifts to open from us since he already had received the guinea pig cage from us). I made him take a picture with the guinea pigs to help remind of his birthday gift.

I spent his birthday morning cleaning while he laid on the couch playing games on the phone. Then for lunch we went out to Subway. After lunch I had an afternoon sub job and for the first time ever I left Steven home alone sick while I worked (and on his birthday none the less). I think he was quite happy to have the house to himself and just play video games. That night we were going to go out to Chili's to celebrate but Steven was not feeling up to it. Having just subbed the afternoon I had been looking forward to not making dinner so I was extremely disappointed that I had to cook something. I may or may not have lashed out at Steven more than I should have because I really, really didn't want to cook. Not proud of myself- I've been way too easily irritated lately. 

Tuesday was volunteering and catching up on life. Then that evening we had Bunco and I had amazing luck- I got 4 BUNCO's!! I think that's only happened like once before. I ended up winning a prize- a nice necklace. We also had a baby shower/going away party for one of the ladies in the group. I always enjoyed hanging out with this lady one on one but in a group she had kind of an loud personality and she spread this habit of saying "listen" at the beginning of every sentence to several of her friends in the ward. So though she drove me crazy, I am bummed that we are losing more people in our ward.

Wednesday I visited Jessica and it was nice to hang with her, if only for a bit. She said she was having a rough week last week but snapped out of it and she seems to be doing well with everything. She really impresses me with how she handles having cancer, working, and taking care of her family. After my visit I picked up 2 of Caroline's kid and brought them to Defy (an indoor trampoline park) so she could take her youngest to the doctor. Caroline has pneumonia and her youngest has a severe ear infection. They are going through a rough time health wise.

That evening we did Baptisms for the Dead for our Youth Activity. I was a little perturbed because the Bishop had told me that we were only supposed to bring 7 YW and 7 YM and if you know me at all you know I am a rule follower so I made sure we only invited 7 YW. Apparently that wasn't a hard and fast number because he brought more like 11 YM. He also re-invited a girl that I had told wouldn't be able to come because we had 7 people already. I wish he had just told me it was a more flexible number and then I could have invited her. I felt like he made me look like the bad guy but oh well. You live, you learn. Driving home I was giving 2 girls a ride and it was craziness- the girls and Steven were all throwing garbage from the car at each other. Totally seemed like I was watching some flirting going down.

Thursday morning was a YW's presidency meeting- our young women have lots of things going on in their lives so we spent a lot of time trying to talk about what we can do for them. That afternoon I started on the beast that was Steven's cake. I had so many issues making that cake and it took me until Friday afternoon to finish it. Issue #1- one of my cake layers got stuck in the pan. Issue #2- my drip on top went totally crazy (it was too thick so I microwaved it and then it was too thin) so I ended up scrapping it off. Issue #3- I dropped the cake on the stove top- had to frost again. Issue #4- I had just finished my second round of dripping ganache on top, put in the fridge and a box in the fridge fell on it. It was like the elements were against me. But in the end it turned out pretty good.

Thursday night we ended up going out to Chili's for Steven's belated birthday dinner. It was a good outing and the kids even got complimented by the people at the table next to us for how nicely they were behaving. That always feels good. 

Friday was Valentine's Day. I gave each of the kids a love gift and Grams and Poppy Brady sent them Valentine's and $5. And that was about the extent of Valentine's celebrating in our house. The younger 3 of course had party's at school and I was able to attend Penny's. Her party was pretty fun until she spilled some sprinkles on the floor and her teacher jokingly said she could vacuum them up and then Penny started to cry because she felt like she was in trouble. She is such my kid. I hate getting in trouble.

For Valentine's Day I got Tyler a Dad Jokes Calendar and Oreo's. He got me flowers, a Lego cactus key chain (so I didn't have to have his Steven key chain any more) and Girl Scout cookies.

Saturday morning was Steven's birthday party. Tyler took all our kids plus Steven's 3 friends to see "Sonic." It was real nice to have the house to myself for a bit. Then they all came back and had pizza, played Nintendo games and then had cake and ice cream. Steven's friend Adam did not get along well with his friend Max. They fought over holding guinea pigs, they fought over who was Steven's closer friend and they just butted heads. And instead of Steven creating peace, he sided with Max. His other friend, Evan, basically just steered clear of the drama and did his own thing. He's a good kid. Maybe we need to go back to just inviting one friend to birthday parties if they are always going to be this dramatic.  

Guinea Pigs, Temple

This week was mostly subbing which made it pretty tiring. I subbed for a fourth grade class Tuesday afternoon and there were a few kids that were just determined to make it a rough day- messing around and causing fights with everyone. Wednesday I got called in last minute to sub all day in the Junior Kinder class that is next door to Penny's. That class is much more active than Penny's class but it was nice to have Penny randomly coming in throughout the day to give me hugs. It reminded me of how much I miss our days at home together. Thursday I subbed all day for a different fourth grade class. This one was pretty well behaved so the day went fairly smoothly. And Friday I subbed all day for Ben's class. Ben's class was Jekyll and Hyde. They were perfect angels in the morning but they came back from lunch and PE total monsters. The afternoon was difficult and super exhausting. This is probably the most I have ever subbed in a week and I am going to be honest, I did not love it. But the money will be nice and with Mid-Winter Break coming up, it was probably good to sub when given the opportunity.

Wednesday night for our Youth Activity the girls made hearts that we are going to be putting on people's doors in the near future. I feel a little off as president and especially that night. I don't know how to explain it exactly but I haven't felt fully committed to my calling lately. I wonder if that is normal? If your energy as president sort of ebbs and flows. I'm just kind of tired of girls who don't participate and their excuses and honestly a little tired of exerting lots of effort and seeing little results. Just a little worn down. I know that's a selfish attitude but just give me some time and I am sure I'll get back in the game.

Thursday night was an exciting night for Steven. I had been messaging the Humane Society about adopting guinea pigs- did you know they have guinea pigs? We had been looking into a male pair they had but the lady was being super picky and not impressed with our cage (yes I caved and bought the cage as an early birthday present instead of having him make one himself). She was saying the cage I had bought was too small and the pigs would squabble too much. But after asking if she had another suggestion, she told us they had a female pair that would work better. So Thursday night we went for an hour drive to a Petsmart in Chesterfield where we met Mariah and Maddie. Steven was immediately smitten and we went home with 2 guinea pigs. He kept the one named Mariah since he likes his Aunt Mariah and he renamed the other one Pearl. It is the fluffier one and it has some fur that is kind of Pearly (you can't really see it in the pic though). 

I'm not sure why I caved and let him get them. Maybe because they are easier than a dog but maybe more fun than a fish? Maybe because at least he wasn't asking me for a cell phone or a tablet or some other annoying electronic? Maybe because I loved my pet birds growing up so much? Or maybe he just finally wore me down, ha ha. But here we are pet owners and already their are wood shavings ALL over my house and I am going a little crazy so wish me luck.

Friday night I took Steven and his friend, Gavin, to do Baptisms for the Dead at the temple. This was nice, I always enjoy the peace of the temple but I did feel a little out of place just sitting and watching. I've got to find something else to do next time he goes- maybe initiatories? After they finished I took them to Wendy's for frosty's. It was a good little outing and I am grateful for a kid who likes going to the temple- this was his suggestion.

Saturday I had to play the piano for a baptism. Because I had been working all week I didn't have the chance to practice as much as I needed so I pretty much stumbled through the songs but at least I made it through them. Tonight I get to go watch one of my Young Women perform in "Once Upon a Mattress." I hope it's a good rendition because I could use a good escape.

Penny told me the other day that her friend at school had the "flues" I love that she calls the flu the flues. It makes it sound slightly less awful.

Things

Once again this Sunday I had a meeting before church and a meeting after church. Once again my friend took my kids home for me after church. This is a real nice set up and seems to be helping keep my kids from rioting too much. During one of these meetings it was established that the youth fundraiser will be selling mulch. Honestly I am not excited about this fundraiser at all. It requires passing out flyers door to door and then back breaking work of delivering and spreading mulch- none of that sounds fun. I wanted to do a color run but bishop was really vying for this mulch fundraiser. Surprisingly my girls liked his idea better- I think they view it as simpler but I think they will regret it when it comes time to deliver and spread it.

Monday evening I went over to one of my yw's house to invite her to be in charge of the Ward Talent Show. She said yes which is great because she's been pushing away from the church a bit and I think this will help get her back in. However, this is also the girl who has had some drama with another girl that I have been trying to help resolve and that night I realized it's just not going to get resolved. We were talking about other things and she brought up some different drama she was having with her school friends and how she's just too mature for them and she just can't wait to get to college. Ugh. If she wasn't edging out of church I would have condemned her on the spot, ha ha. It's like she's not aware that the person at the center of each drama issue is her. I left feeling discouraged because I was so hopeful that I could make peace with her and the other young women but she's just not ready to realize she has any part in the problem.

Tuesday I volunteered in the morning. I love the library but there are two other volunteers and I'm starting to feel superfluous. I'm getting tempted to come in on a different morning so I feel more useful. That afternoon I subbed for a second grade class at Kurtz and the class was amazing. It was a real easy afternoon. That evening we had our Youth Activity since we were helping at the Bishop's Storehouse which isn't open Wednesday nights. My younger girls are so wild and kept trying to avoid helping scrub out grocery bins but we eventually got the work done and they all seemed to have fun. Afterwards we went and got ice cream at McDonald's. I had said I'd treat them and then realized I had forgotten my wallet so that was super embarrassing. Thankfully another leader was willing to pay for me. I felt so stupid. After ice cream I drove two of the girls home and we listened to "The Greatest Showman" and they sang along. Honestly I really enjoy my nights with the youth.

Wednesday I subbed for a different second grade class that was equally amazing. Both classes are very small- 18 kids- and I think that was very much part of it. This week helped me remember why I love subbing. 

Thursday I did a trial run of Steven's birthday cake. I finished up Friday and my chocolate ganache drip definitely needs work- it all just dripped and puddled on the bottom. 

Also Thursday I did my taxes- which seemed to go more smoothly than usual. That either means I totally goofed somewhere, or I am getting the hang of it. We shall see. It will be nice to get that tax return though. It'll be so nice to have money in savings again.

Thursday evening I met Stefanie at Sweetwater Tea and Coffee in Milford. I got an over priced piece of cake and she got tea. We had a nice chat but the shop was doing an art gallery expo the next day and had decided to set it up before closing. They stood awkwardly by the table next to us with the pictures they wanted to hang up on the wall by us so we decided we'd move so as to stop being stared at. But then they got over to where we had moved to with more pictures to be hung so we moved again. It didn't end there. They got some curtain thing that they wanted to hang over the pictures so they stood by us again. We finally took that as our cue to go. Not great customer treatment there but at least Stefanie and I were able to catch up in between all the awkwardness.

Friday evening I went and did puzzles with my friend Melissa. She is the Seminary teacher so sometimes it's nice to chat with her about the yw and get her viewpoints and added info on things going on with them. Also I just really enjoy hanging out with her and doing puzzles so it was a good night.

Saturday we took a trip out to Somerset Mall for some much needed Chick Fil-A and then the kids always like to look at the Lego Store and the Disney Store. The Chick-Fil-A cow was also there in all is glory- strolling the mall. I am not really sure why since the line is always ridiculously long- they don't need to strum up business...But the kids were real excited by the cow and basically stalked it through the mall so they could give it a high five.