Friends

The girls love Johnna’s tree swing. Adi swung as she read on her phone on Monday and I just admire this girl so much. She’s always marched to the best of her own drum. She loves books and safety and bread and she’s kind and thoughtful and quirky and funny. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’s a good, responsible babysitter and she’s smart with her money. She’s smart and works hard and is always a peacemaker. She’s the best. 

Braxton loves Delaney, and even more surprising, Delaney loves Braxton. Delaney is a typical youngest child, feisty and not always patient with kids, and definitely not one to play with and give attention to them. But she loves her some Braxton, she takes him outside to play and dotes on him and he loves her. 

We had the missionaries and the Huang’s for dinner and home evening on Monday. I really wanted to pass the buck to the missionaries to teach the lesson, but I really wanted to show them what a normal, everyday home evening looks like. So we sang our off-key songs and watched our general conference talk and shared our takeaways, and I gave the lesson about studying the scriptures that I’d been wanting to give for Frankie and Delaney mostly, but really for all of us. I shared a scripture study method I learned from a Come Follow Me podcast:

1. Pray. Express gratitude. Repent. Ask to gain knowledge and inspiration
2. Read. (Not necessarily a chapter a day.) Smaller portions. Learn to cross-reference. 
3. Ponder. What does this have to do with me? My family? My job? etc. Why was this saved for my day? 
4. Write. Write down the scriptures that touch you and your feelings about them. 
5. Pray again. Ask for help and guidance to apply the things you learned. Thank Heavenly Father again for the rare opportunity you have to have the Book of Mormon.

Cyndi brought ice cream pies, so after dinner we had pie and the girls rooms Braxton outside to play frisbee. Iris even stayed to hang out with the girls after her parents left, so that was good. We want her to feel like she belongs and to know she’s got friends at church. It was also Sister Wing’s last few days in SoMd, so we got pictures and said our goodbyes. 

Lexi is always so good at gifts and remembering everyone on special days. She said when they were talking about making this Emmett said “my Mimi doesn’t like dinosaurs, but she likes flowers!”

Early Tuesday morning brought a thunderstorm that found all 7 people sleeping at our house awake at 4:30. It wasn’t a loud clap of thunder or anything, it was so strange. Katie and I had planned to go strawberry picking that morning but it started raining. We decided to go that afternoon and Frankie offered to keep Braxton so we could fly solo. It’s so fun to think that Katie babysit the girls and now the girls babysat Katie’s baby. ❤️ The strawberry fields were muddy, but the berries were big and bright red and beautiful, so it was totally worth it. In all my years of berry picking I’ve never seen so many beautiful berries ready to be picked. When we were done we had to keep stopping to pick ripe berries that caught our attention. 

Crossing fingers that this years jam won’t be runny. My jam has never not been runny though, so I don’t have high hopes. 🤷‍♀️

Adi loves her Italian class. Her teacher is fun and the kids are drawn to her. She even wants to take Italian all 4 years. The other day they did a National test and adi got a high enough grade that she got a silver medal. Miss smarty pants. 😍

Braxton loves Matt and loves the girls, but is veeeeery lukewarm on me. I did get to play with him several times and babies are so fun to take pictures of. And don’t mind our catchall dining room. 

Katie and Braxton left this morning, so D said her goodbyes with hugs and love. We’re so glad Katie and Brax could come visit, it’s so fun getting to know Katie as an adult and a mom. We can’t wait to visit them at the beach!