Memorial Day

 Yesterday was seminary graduation. We’re 70% done with seminary now. We’ve got 3 graduates and Frankie is 1/2 done. 4 years to go!

These beautiful girls. I’m excited to see where their lives will take them. Seeing your kids friends grow up is pretty cool.  

She said it still feels a little funny when she open mouth smiles, but she did give me one. 

We rode up with the darrrows, so that was nice to ride with friends. I also had a lovely chat with President Boyd and President Bracey and Elizabeth and it’s just wonderful to have such a big gospel family. 

They announced yesterday that the picnic was happening today, rain or shine, so we showed up and it was great. I visited around for about an hour and then joined in on a fun new to me game that I tied with Debby for the win on our first round and came in second on the next round. Could I have made a beginners mistake to bring me to those stats? Quite possibly. 🤣

We stayed till just after 2 when the girls converged and commenced staring at me so we could leave. 🤣

Matt and I organized a little of the garage and then I made 80 cupcakes and Adi and Lily worked on their graduation card boxes and Frankie and Delaney finished cleaning and vacuuming their rooms. 

Memorial days of yore. 

I’m obsessed with Frankie’s old lady pose. 👇🏻 Back when I could match them and dress them and do their hair they way I liked. 

It’s been a grey and rainy few days so we’ve been watching the weather and it looks like all will be well for graduation on Friday and our party on Saturday. 🎉🎉🎉

Party party party

Matt decided to run in our Life’s Good in LG 5K, and they had been looking for volunteers, so Adi, Frankie, and I signed up to help with the fun run. And then we woke up early on a Saturday to a cold and rainy day. It was tough to bring myself to go outside, but the fun runners awaited me. 

I waited at my corner and they came in 5 little waves and it was super fast.

Collected up the fun run signs and chatted with Laura for a bit before heading home. The girls passed out the medals but got Ero pictures. 

In my way home I saw the fast runners pass by so I hung out for a few minutes to cheer Matt on at one corner at least. I had told him I needed to get cooking so i wasn’t gonna wait for him, so he was surprised and happy. 

It was Disney lunch day! We watched Frozen and it was probably the most delicious lunch/dinner yet. 

I liked everything and it wasn’t too crazy involved since I phoned it in and bought meatballs. 

My “We finish each others ice cream sandwiches,” could have been prettier, but they tasted good. 

The cutest movie! 

I ate too much for my ice cream sandwich right away, but these girls dived right in. 

Since I was baking my cookies that morning, I also made up 4 batches of (boxed) brownies for the graduation party. I let them cool and then cut them up and froze them for the best trifles ever. 

Then Matt walked me down to the Evans for Sarah’s baby shower. I had told be escorted because I took a box of diapers and some brownies and couldn’t carry both. Then Colleen dropped me at home after. 

Then Frankie went to Arabella’s birthday party, Matt went to the Star Wars movie with a bunch of guys from church, and Adi went to Sarah Cox’ for a Senior game night. It was a fun start to a long weekend. 

It’s getting real!

Kathryn and I went for a walk this morning  she ministers to me and she’s always trying new ways. We had a nice walk and talk.

Today was Adi’s day to be celebrated coming into our neighborhood. Graduation practice starts on Tuesday and we’re one week out and it’s really happening!  

My press release for the visitors center golden jubilee was approved (thank you Google Gemini!) and I’ve made a list of media contacts for each county in the DC North Coordinating Council and it’s pretty wild up in here. Everyday I’m chipping away at everything I don’t know regarding church communications. 

Frankie needs driving hours and also a birthday gift for a friend, so she ran errands with me before we picked the girls up from ballet. We got some more grad party groceries and diapers for Henners and a wall hanging kit so I can finally hang our bowl from Costa Rica. I also ordered Ruby’s water table for her first birthday because why not have 4 June birthdays?! 

I made another 3 batches of my giant cookie dough and deep cleaned another two rooms and Matt and I made some progress on some financial decisions and life is busy but so so good!

It’s so hot

I die. 

And I also wish I had better baby pictures of Lu and Bubba, but it was the 90’s and I was young and poor. 🤷‍♀️

Delaney got a large fluffy blanket for Christmas and often walks around with it over her shoulders, old witch lady style. She was just fixing to clip her ballet feet toenails at the dinner table when I shamed her with a picture. These kids  🤣

Our patient continues to feel better. She’s eating soft pasta and weaning off her pain meds and has been a fun little buddy to have around. As soon as she’s done recuperating Imma put her to work, so that will be lovely. 

Matt went into work. He thinks he’ll have to go in most days now. Of course during the summer when the girls are home, Matt leaves so I am never alone. 🤣 it’s fine, I got used to having him around and I do like that, and I also like my alone time. And hanging out with the girls. 🤣

I went to the middle school to collect the last of my stuff there from teacher appreciation week. I deleted my TA note and am waiting for my check and then I’ll be well and truly done. ⭐️ 

Today’s grad party prep is dessert baking shopping. Adi said she’s excited for the party, I like to throw a party, and throwing a party with a friend - perfect. 🤩 

Scheduled

 One youngest daughter’s pile of clothes is always twice as big as her sisters. I’m suspicious I might be washing clean clothes and, while doing my children’s laundry doesn’t make me angry, doing clean laundry does. 

Adi slept all night (no meds!) and woke up swollen but only a 2/10 on a pain scale. Yay!

Alecia and I walked before Inklings and we had a lovely meeting talking Elder Bednar. I am following a strict schedule to be prepared for multiple families of guests starting next Thursday, a graduation, 2 birthdays, and the graduation party next Saturday. So far so good!

For family night we watched the Sunday afternoon session go conference and now we’ve watched all of them together as a family. I hate doing it this way and look forward to watching again as normal, but Europe was cool too. 😉 

Wisdom

 Adi-cakes had her wisdom teeth removed this morning. I dutifully recorded our first few minutes together, but she was pretty normal. 

She had a “special” look with her mouth open and she kept doing silly poses. 

And then she wanted to go to the library, so that was pretty fun. 🤣

I dropped her off with Matt and ran to get her prescriptions and then nurse dad and I removed her gauze and got her applesauce and medicine. And then she slept for several hours. 

She’s been a very easy patient. She got lightheaded and was pretty pale this morning, but after her nap she was ship shape. 

Bubba and Jeanne have been busy busy moving in! And bubba found this “Little Arizona” overalls that he wore once upon a time and Ruby looked so adorable in them! Her hair is getting longer and starting to curl in the back too. Love her!

They had a ballet birthday and all the girls got cupcakes - so cute! I hadn’t even considered sending in a treat, so that was very thoughtful. 

It was hot hot hot today and at this stage of life I can’t even think about not having ac. Getting old is wild. 

Longer longer*

*that’s what it always corrects linger longer to. 🙄 

Our moana dinner was very involved and took a very long time. 

The girls guess every week (before they see anything) and they’re always wrong. 🤣

I cut up, marinated, then kebabed chicken and veggies.

I fried coconut shrimp (from scratch) and made an apricot horseradish sauce. 

 I made pineapple upside down cupcakes.

And I made Hawaiian pineapple fried rice.

  It was all very good, just a lot.

The last time I sat down and watched Moana was probably in the theater, so it was really fun to watch because I remembered so few of the details. 

Also, we found this cute note at Target. 

After the movie and before bed, Adi was asking about a Pilates or yoga kind of bedtime stretch so Delaney offered her dance warmup? Didn’t really make sense to me, but I enjoyed the 5 minutes they were tandem warming up. 

Today was the Linger Longer. I made a raspberry trifle, Adi made cookies, and Frankie made the sign. ❤️

I helped in nursery and it really is so fun. The lesson was about families so I hopped on Facebook last night and saved a bunch of pictures of the kids families. Then we talked about families and I showed them the pictures. It was cute when they recognized their families. I even did Cherissa’s and she chuckled. 

After church we enjoyed the linger longer then there was a baptism, but I had a communications meeting, so we had to head home. I thought I was done with zoom but I was v wrong. 

These cuties were hanging outside so it was picture time! Adi and Frankie drove up to a Ycl camp meeting with Sarah and crew.

Amber and I went and visited with Jackie and Richard and are praying so hard for them. 

And Henry is learning the fine art of the sippy cup. 

We went and picked up a v nice free high chair from a lovely couple out past the high school. Someone gave it to them for their grands and now they passed that on to me. ❤️

ADHD

I’ve switched my welcome wall to a travel wall. I’m a sucker for a themed wall. I went through each item to remember where they came from.

In no particular order:

Brown frame - Ysleta Mission, El Paso, Texas (my dads picture) 🇺🇸 

Farmhouse tile above brown frame - Gyongyos, Hungary 🇭🇺 

Blue salmon - Orcas Island, Washington 🇺🇸 

Clay door - San Marino 🇸🇲 

Boat picture - Rustico, Prince Edward Island, Canada 🇨🇦 

Wood poster - Whistler, British Columbia, Canada  🇨🇦 

Hand painted flower  - Lake Bled, Slovenia 🇸🇮 

Hand painted waterfall - small square - Road to Hana, Maui, Hawaii 🇺🇸 

Illustrated poster - Llangollen, Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 

Illustrated poster - The Big Island, Hawaii 🇺🇸 

We also bought an expensive (to us) piece of original artwork in Paris and unfortunately cannot find it. It had been rolled up in a tube and I think we got it out to flatten it and now it’s gone. So that’s a big bummer but I feel like we’ll find it someday. Being married to someone with adhd you often find things in real weird places. Like his wallet and phone on the jolly greens running board in our garage (today) or the church key in his pants pocket (also today) after I suggested that spot but then we searched around for a few minutes. 

Tangent, but if I didn’t believe in eternal marriage, this really could lead to divorce. We have had so many stressful situations searching for things. Matt is not doing anything malicious or wrong for losing things, it really is just a way that his adhd shows up, but for someone like me that can be so very frustrating. Thankfully I do believe in eternal marriage and I mostly don’t get twirled up when this happens anymore. I also don’t always help him look because I have learned what I need to do to stay married. And sometimes that means walking away, staying asleep, or otherwise removing myself  from the situation. And I know I’ve got my tough things too. I mean, I don’t know, because I think I’m pretty down to earth and willing to work on my flaws, but I’m sure there’s something. Also, I could have been the Paris art misplacer. 🤷‍♀️

Yesterday Delaney went to her first and last middle school dance - the 8th grade formal. 

She really wanted a waistcoat and found this cool one and the blouse in Hungary. She really wanted to wear pants and I had some feelings about that. Why is middle school so hard? Matt and I talked and prayed and ultimately decided to let her. She’s very much in her alternative phase with music, makeup, and fashion, which is v opposite of me but v on brand for Matt. 🤷‍♀️ And she’s a total ballet girlie, so 🤷‍♀️.

She reported that the dance was boring but she did dance YMCA. 

Frankie had her new friend Carter come over. We watch Jumanji and I made movie theater popcorn that Alli gave us for Christmas. It was so good! We used to make popcorn on the stove daily when we were kids and I haven’t lost my knack. 

Adi went to Senior Sunset and stayed for the movie and then Lily came over. So we played Quiplash with everyone plus Carter and Delaney’s friend Alex, then more Quiplash with Adi and Lily when they came home. It was a fun night. 

Today Delaney headed to dance at 8:30, I made waffles for brekkie, and then we cleaned the church. We were all very excited to find a new vacuum! We are thrill seeking people. 

We had operation go-so-fast at Aldi and Target. We were out of everything, so it was truly an impressive team effort when we finished both places in under an hour. The crew went to the Stake Olympics activity and Adi and Frankie only grumbled a little. 

I spent my quiet afternoon prepping, cooking, and cleaning for our 9th Disney dinner. We’ll be heading to the Village of Motunui and I’m super excited!