Ben's Sweet 16

Sunday was a Relief Society Sunday. That meant I had to pass around sign up sheets for missionary meals and for the RS activity. I don't love doing that because I feel like I am intruding when I go into primary. After that I went back to Relief Society and sat next to a newer and younger sister in our ward. She said something to me when I sat by her like 3 times and I don't know if it was because I literally had clogged ears that day or if my brain had died on me but I couldn't figure out what she was saying and felt so stupid. I had no problem properly hearing after that so who knows what was wrong with me. I will forever relive that embarassment.

Monday we did homeschool in the morning which took much longer than usual because the girls had writing assignments that they needed me to edit. Lucy's was a short story but it was actually quite long for a school assignment (9 pages!). I did not realize how long it was until I was half way through it and decided we needed to end it sooner because the teacher might not want to grade something quite so long. It was a story about a girl with a crush on her best friend. It was definitely a story that a teenager would love to read. She has got some good writing skills.

Monday after dinner we went on a quick trip to Chuck E Cheese. The kids blew through their play points but they had all accumulated enough tickets over previous visits that they each got themselves cotton candy with their tickets. They only had the green apple cotton candy and that wasn't the best flavor I have ever tasted and Ruby ended up leaving hers in her car seat. She was not a fan.

Tuesday while the girls were at school, Ruby and I went to story time at the library. We usually keep to ourselves but for some reason I sat by 2 ladies that were a little more friendly. One was impressed by how tall Ruby was for her age- probably because her own kids were very short. During storytime Ruby made things weird by petting everyone who had soft looking clothes on. She actually petted one girls butt because she was so intrigued by the girl's soft sweat pants. I wasn't close enough to stop her and I didn't want to draw attention to it so I sat there mentally willing her to stop. Thankfully I don't think anyone saw her do that. After torytime I started chatting to a grandma who was there with her grandkids. She was a young mom, first kid at 19, but then had her next kid 7 years later. Now she is 50 with 2 grandkids. I think I might be closer to her age than to the age of a lot of the moms at storytime. I really do like connecting with the grandmas more than the moms.

Tuesday night I had a girls night with Grace, Nahoko, and Kara. I had also invited Cherish but when I sent her a text to see where she was, she said she had fogotten. This happens a lot with her and I am not really sure if she forgets things on purpose or on accident. Anyways, it was a good night. Grace, Nahoko and I colored and Kara did cross stitching. I asked Kara for some teaching stories and she shared some heartwarming stories with us. I was actually hoping more for funny stories but they were nice stories nonetheless.  Kara is honestly a much nicer person than me and I wonder how long it will be before she realizes I am a little bit more rough around the edges and she decides I am too bad of an influence for her. She actually invited Nahoko to our Relief Societ Activity Saturday and I discouraged Nahoko from coming- mostly because Nahoko seemed uncomfortable at our church before and also because this activity is probably going to be pretty boring. I really am a bad influence. 

Wednesday the girls and I ran some errands when we finished our homeschool work. First we went to Five and Below to get some little gifts for Ben to unwrap on his birthday since his big gift is tickets to a Weird Al Concert. I ended up spending more than I expected on candy for him and probably should have just gotten him 1 or 2 nicer things. It's amazing how expensive everything is these days (is that an old person thing to say?)

Wednesday night Tyler ended up at the church with the kids so it was just me and Ruby chilling. Ruby had a fun making faces for me. She really is adorable.

Thursday I was going to go for a walk with Kara and her baby outside (because the weather was beautiful) but she had to cancel because her baby got sick. We probably shared Ruby's germs with her somehow. Such a bummer. Also as a first time mom, it really worried Kara. She asked me if she should take her baby to the ER and it was nice to play the wisened mother role and advice her to wait. 1 incident of throwing up does not equal an ER visit. Shortly after that cancelation, Julie sent me a text seeing if we wanted to walk with her and her boys. Of course we did. We had a nice walk with Julie and ended up at the dog beach. Ruby kept trying to strip down and get in the water, she can't wait for summer. Julie's friend Erin met us at the dog beach as well. She brought her kids and the girl she watches, Adie. Ruby chased Adie for a bit and I could not tell if Adie loved it or hated it. Asher also had fun sharing sandy high fives with Ruby and Adie. It was a good outing and I got to know Julie's friend Erin a bit better.

Thursday night the boys had their Archery Banquet. We sat next to the Mays. I had an ok conversation with Caroline. She did ask me about my trip and actually seemed interested for a bit. But when we got talking about her life, it was like she can tell me good things that have happened to her, along with the bad, but she can only see her life as bad. She seems determined to fixate on the bad and be angry with God. It's quite sad. She said our relief society lesson about trials on Sunday had a lot of "toxic positivity." She didn't like when they said we can wallow for a bit but then we need to get on with life. We can't very well wallow forever can we? 

Besides conversing with her ,the banquet was long and boring. I really wish they would do separate banquets for the elementary, MS and HS, but I also understand that that would be difficult to execute that. I always feel out of place at these banquest because Tyler knows everyone but no one knows me. But regardless of my feelings I am proud of the boys for having a good season. Steven of course was the best 12th grade boy archer in bullseye and 3d since he is the only boy archer in 12th grade. It was fun to see his banner hanging in the high school and they also talked about each of the seniors. He must have told them about finishing his associates at OCC and then going on a mission because that's what they announced for him. So I guess he is planning on going on a mission which is good.

Friday afternoon we had Ben's 16th birthday party. We wanted to have it before his friends left on vacations for Spring Break. He had Andrea, Paulo, and AJ over to play video games, eat pizza and eat cake. His friends spoiled him with gift cards, cash and a REPO keychain. It wasn't his favorite party though. He had wanted to just do video games but AJ got antsy and said he wanted to walk to seven eleven. They ended up doing that but apparently no one had brought money except Ben, who had his debit card. But then Ben's debit card didn't work and the person behind them ended up buying their candy for them. Awkward. Ben did not enjoy that and it left him feeling flustered. He had also invited a friend from school and they ended up never showing. He was pretty disappointed by that. Kind of bummer that his 16th birthday party wasn't the best.

Also Friday, Ruby learned how to use scissors and told me to take her picture with them.

Saturday I had the Relief Society Activity at lunchtime. I came a little early and helped set out food but that was about the extent of my helpfulness. They started about 20 minutes late, and then we watched the RS Broadcast and after that, someone spoke about Easter symbols. I wish they would have let us eat while the broadcast was showing but they were cooking the meat then. I am not a fan of watching broadcasts for activities but I guess this was kind of an obligatory thing so whatever. If I was in charge activities would be different but I am also glad I am not in charge. The decor was cute and the food was good. I sat next to fancy Nancy, Melissa P and Tana. I was glad people sat with me and I wasn't alone.

After the activity I went dress shopping with Lucy. It is a bit of a struggle because she seems to only like the tiny dresses. Anytime I showed her a dress with good coverage she immediately deemed it ugly. She is very opinionated. I ended up getting her a dress and a tshirt to wear under the dress. It's cute but still a little short. Her shorts peak out beneath it. I am still not sure what I am doing as a mom of a teenage girl. I also ended up buying myself a dress so I could match the blue and white dresses of Lucy and Penny and Ruby.

That evening Tyler and I went out to the Filling Station for dinner and then I watched a movie the kids- "Arachnophobia". It was a pretty fun watch as most early 90's movies are. We hadn't done a family movie night for awhile so it was nice to bond over a silly movie together.