Day #268

The girls were in a major tizzy last night because I told them there was a 30% chance of snow for like 3 hours this morning. The put spoons under every pillow, ice in the front yard and flushed down the toilet, put a white crayon in the freezer, and everyone wore their pajamas inside out and backwards - including me. I didn’t make the switch till they went to bed, so I documented it to show what a good mom o am. I did switch my shirt back around because I didn’t like the way it felt on my neck and I am so very princess and the pea when I sleep. Seriously, I often have to take my socks off in the middle of the night because it’s making my heel or the top front of my foot sore. If there is anything under my pillow or rubbing wrong at all it will wake me up. Old lady problems. 

I’ve been staying up late every night in an effort to read all my old Ensigns. I always want to read them, I just don’t make the time. I started off reading one every two days, and then started reading a whole one every night. It’s so peaceful cuddling under a blanket with the Christmas lights on. Everything is clean and quiet and peaceful. I am loving my nighttime ritual. I have six old ones left, so I’ve got at least another week. 

Rainbow Ellie Sparkles was in the freezer this morning in hopes of making it snow. We got a few teeny tiny flurries throughout the morning, but mostly just white/gray skies. 

Laney and I went with Alli and Tenkor to training this morning. The trainer makes it all look so easy and it all makes so much sense. It’s a lot like parenting, honestly. We haven’t been practicing with her like we should have, but we are repenting and moving forward. That’s so like me to spend a lot of money to fix something and then not follow through. Maybe subconsciously I feel like I paid for it so it should be good to go. I don’t know. But we already got Tenkor up to 2 minute stays, and our goal is 15 by the end of the week, so I’d say we’re doing pretty good today. Also, our training room had this cute Santa bench setup so we did a doggo and mom photo shoot. 

T was so good on the drive home too. She usually walks all around the back, but this time she listened when we told her to sit. D loved sitting in the middle seat next to her. The girls love her SO much!

The girls asked Alli to take them shopping for Christmas presents for Matt and I, so with some instructions and parameters, we sent them off for an afternoon of fun and Chick-fil-A. Johnna dropped off her delicious secret recipe bbq sauce and requested a picture to light the world. 🥰 She is one of the most amazing ministering sisters in the ward and she loves and cares for Charlene like she’s part of her family, which made my life so much easier for the last 5 years. Plus she’s an amazing piano teacher. We love us some Johnna. 

We planned home evening yesterday and Delaney wanted to do a jeopardy game. Last night I happened to come upon a Book of Mormon Jeopardy someone shared on a Come Follow Me group I follow, so we did that for her lesson and she got to be a little Alex Trebek, may he Rest In Peace. I have been reflecting on Come Follow Me and how grateful I am for that inspired program. I always meant to follow along in SS, but always somehow got off schedule and then would do my own reading. When the reading assignments were shared I tried to come to church prepared, but it was always weird to study anything other than the BoM with the family. CFM keeps us on schedule and provides amazing questions and talking points, and the journals add that much more to our weekly study. I love that we all study the same thing and i just really love it and am so grateful for it. 

We’ve not been great about formal home evenings for the past few weeks. We read every night and have treats and play games frequently, but I know home evening is important and I felt the spirit as we sang about how we’re trying to be like Jesus and then tied each other in our jeopardy game. Then we played Frankie’s cute new Dressed up Dogs game she bought for herself and addie beat us all with 8 matches. We enjoyed Addie’s brownies and our variety of non milkshake ice cream (see Annmarie Gardens Lights blog for explanation) and it was a lovely home evening. 

Tonight we’re watching The Nightmare before Christmas for our Christmas movie and D ate her Chinese food gummies with chopsticks. 

I tried to get ahold of Charlene to #lighttheworld by decorating her door and dropping off a gift the girls picked for her, but she didn’t answer. We’re getting behind on a few of our Christmas fun goals, but there’s always time to catch up. 

In Montana family news, Alexis has been working a few days a week for CPS. Thankfully, Cade is usually able to be home with Emmett and then they have a friend that watches him when he can’t. The stories she shares with me are SO sad and she said she comes home and just loves up on Emmett so hard. I just want to adopt all the kids but then I remember that I’m old and tired and have been raising kids for 24 years and kind of want a break. I think maybe I could foster babies but I know my heart would break. Maybe I could be strong like a doctor and learn to compartmentalize? 

One time we had a young mom in our ward that had a bunch of littles at home and had had a high risk pregnancy. The ward had done a lot for her and her family, including having sisters sit with her at the hospital after she’d delivered to hold her newborn when she couldn’t care for her. The baby had been released, but because of complications the mom hadn’t. Long story short, I didn’t have anyone to go sit with her, and I really needed to be home with my family one evening, so I picked up her days old teeny 5lb baby and brought her home for a few hours. it was the weirdest feeling leaving the hospital with someone else’s newborn and I was nervous I might get in trouble, but apparently I have an honest face. 😇 I remember pulling up to our house and getting out this precious baby and thinking we could totally foster little tiny babies. We loved up on her all evening and then I returned her. Anyways, alexis is amazing and such a good little momma with a huge heart. She’s doing an important and really difficult job and I’m so proud of her.