I took Frankie to the orthodontist and we walked around Bed Bath and Beyond since it’s closing. Sad sad. 

She’s only got about 6 more months of braces! 🎉 

Delaney needed a picture for primary activities and didn’t like the few I’d picked, so we headed to the porch for a quick photo shoot and then I printed one. What a life!

Matt took the girls to ju jitsu and church that evening and I went for a lovely long evening run. The sun was setting and it was warm (it’s been in the 60’s) and I was listening to a good book. 

Christian asked for my white chicken chili recipe and later sent this pic. He said it was a crowd favorite and that made me happy. 

I worked on Women’s Conference and we had our best Relief Society Roundtable Thursday evening. 

On Friday Adi made her debut on L-tv. For heart health month they did a video about how to do cpr and she was the star. She was pretty proud. 

Friday was lovely. Matt and I were able to go to the temple with Josh and Alecia. We participated in an endowment session and they’ve made so many adjustments, it was a little bit mind blowing. I can’t wait to go back! Then we went upstairs to do sealings and I was able to seal my mom to her parents. It was a tender experience and I’m so grateful. 

We didn’t think to grab a picture and then they had to get home to get Emma to dance so we didn’t have time for lunch, but Matt and I continued our date day with dinner at Oga’s. 

Saturday was a free day and we all went to the park to play tennis. It was freezing but we were running around and we had so much fun that we stayed for 2 hours. My arm is still sore, but in a good way. 

That evening I went to Sara Reed’s baby shower and then we had a movie night. 

I was in our ward Sunday and then met with President Boyd after church. I had been working on an email to send to all the women of the stake for women’s conference. I’ve been preparing for a long time, then composing for several days, and I finally sent it Sunday. The church’s email system is super buggy unfortunately, so I always send myself several test emails first, but it sent and the format was fine and I remembered the attachment. 🎉 It feels good to cross that off my list. 

Frankie and Adi went to babysit. Adi’s been asked to babysit on Sunday before and I left it up to her and she told them no, but Sarah G. had family in town and they needed help and that one felt right. They had 4 4-and-under and were there from 2-9 and both said it went well. Frankie will be 13 next month and can’t wait to babysit on her own. 

The sister missionaries texted that morning and asked for a ride to the visitor center for the Why I Believe Fireside. I had a meeting and couldn’t go, and Adi and Frankie were babysitting, so that left Matt and Delaney. We tried inviting the LP missionaries, but they couldn’t make it. D was not super excited, but we talked to her about serving and she decided she could do that and she did it happily. 💕

I had a meeting about President Nelson’s counsel to double the church’s humanitarian efforts. Last year the church gave over $9 hundred million and we’ve been asked to double that. It’s exciting and also daunting, but it was a great meeting, and then a few of us stayed on to continue the council. Exciting times to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

The weather is supposed to be truly bananas this week. From 77° to 42° and snow in 2 days. Definitely feels like spring swings to me. 

We’re all excited for a day off today. Hooray for sleeping past 5:25am! Thanks George Washington!

Valentine’s Day

Delaney is at the age where sometimes childish things like valentines are cool, and sometimes not. She decided they were cool and we ordered some fun ones and she decorated her box all by herself. 

Alecia and I treated ourselves to valentines pedi’s and lunch and it was really the perfect valentines gift. We told our hubby’s we were covered for gifting and thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon. 

The girls were all excited for their annual scavenger hunt. 

My rhymes are the cheesiest and my only rule is that each next clue is on a different floor, so there’s always lots of running. 

I caught both of them laughing at my dumb rhyming clue. 

They did surprisingly well this year, and I threw in some tricky weird word plays and gave them no hints. I was impressed. 

I usually get a game or movie, but this year I did outfits since they all like clothes. And when I saw this giant box of chocolates at Aldi in January I knew it was coming home with me. 

Frankie initially said no dice on her sweater, so we sent pics to Lu and bubba and they both loved it. And when I bought it the cashier at Target was wearing the same sweater, so she’s even ready for employment. 

Tinkercrate day is always a fun one. She always puts things together by herself and anytime there’s water involved, she dyes it with food coloring. 

One of our neighbors is moving and I recommended another neighbor to them to use as a realtor and she dropped off a box of truffles to say thank you. 🥰 delicious surprises are the best. 

I sent Lu and bubba pictures and videos of the scavenger hunt fun. Then after the girls hunt was over we came up with some fun scavenger hunty things for them. We did a who said it with a fav family quote from vacations of yore. Made them send some fav family words - when adi or Delaney get mad at Frankie they’ll often yell “FRANCES!” it’s funny because it’s the only time they ever use her proper name - so FRANCES was def on the list. We made them do the Hansel from Zoolander 👇🏻 and do a dance. And then I Venmo’d $ for dinner. I’m a little cynical about sending packages lately because the last one I sent the boys cost $40 to mail. “It really hurt and it’s still hurting.” (another family fav)

We had Alecia’s taquitos on our heart plates (a dinner everyone loves) and ate our giant box of chocolates while we watched a movie together. It was a lovely Valentine’s Day. 💕

Weekly roundup

I love holiday decorations. I always have. Now that we have only bigs, the sweet little kid art is all the more fun to display. 

Matt found a sudoku book to work on during slow moments in his lab where he can’t have any other computer, and he came home and told me we’d had a moment together at work. He was so excited as he flipped to a page where I had signed my name back in 2007 while we drove to the Grand Canyon. He said the memory made him teary, and Matt so rarely cries that it was really sweet. 

Matt worked the late shift all week and I didn’t love it. We did all our normal things. Mondays piano and ju jitsu. I had a presidency meeting Tuesday and a long list of women’s conference to-do’s. Also a Just Serve/communications/self-reliance how-do-we-figure-this-all-out meeting Thursday. Wednesday was ju jitsu and youth activities. Since the older girls did something Thursday and Matt was working late, I stayed at the church. Actually, D and I went shopping and then back to the church. I’ve been so spoiled not usually having to be there Wednesdays! We dropped off a crew of girls after church, and another day down. 

Me! 👇🏻 

I’d been wanting to understand our church area’s better and found this graphic. Our area is big, but dang 8!

School got out 2 hours early on Friday and Duke had a family dance. D has a friend who’s dad is blind and mom just had surgery and can’t drive, so she asked if she could come to the dance with us and I’d take her home. Then Hayden came home with them too and almost immediately the other girls started talking about going to Hayden’s to put on makeup for the dance. I talked to Delaney and she didn’t want to go, and wasn’t going to put on makeup and I tried feeding and distracting them, but they insisted. Then D brought home a dress of Hayden’s to borrow that was about 2 sizes to small, but she figured wearing tights would manage the too short dress. 🙄 Anyways, it felt like a good deed that turned into a fiasco. But we had a good talk and life is all about learning. 

V true. 

The LP RS had a big Emotional Resilience Conference Saturday and had invited our ward. My counselor Amber was the keynote speaker and she did such a good job! I picked up groceries and cooked up some party foods and worked on my talk for Cyndi and Chris’ baptism and on my lesson for the DC Branch. C&C live in our neighborhood, so last year I was going to lessons with her every week with the elders and then we took her to the temple open house. And she got baptized Saturday night! It is the coolest thing to be part of someone learning the gospel, I am so so happy for them. 

One of my goals for this year is to host more, so I had invited friends for an adult dinner Saturday, but then the baptism was scheduled at the same time so we invited friends for appetizers and games. Darrow’s and Aina’s came and it was so fun to hangout and beat the boys. I tried a few new easy party recipes - a pimento cheese dip and ricotta lemon honey dip and neither was terrible but also neither was fabulous. Another goal is to cook something new each week, so ✅. And also ✅ for hosting more. 

I woke up early Sunday to work on my RS lesson for the DC branch. I was a little nervous because I’ve never taught in the deaf branch and obviously the best lessons have lots of participation. The lesson was Elder Renlund’s Framework for Personal Revelation and studying that talk was wonderful. 

I made a Keynote presentation that I am pretty proud of. And the lesson went well and we did have lots of participation. 🙌🏼 

I used quotes and added some of my favorite things as graphics. Tulips, beaches, birch trees. It was pretty fun to make and I only asked the girls for help a few times. 

We still have our recliner in our room from my septoplasty when I needed to sleep elevated, and Matt looked so comfy reviewing his lesson Sunday morning. 

I had to laugh at this and make note that we need to up our sign advertising game for next year. The DC Stake is making our Suitland Stake advertising look like an elementary science fair presentation. 😂🤷‍♀️ I set our poster away from theirs and it looked just fine on its own. 

I stayed for their mission correlation meeting and with 5 sister missionaries, 2 youth representatives, 2 RS and 1 EQ leader all excitedly working together - it was such a cool meeting. At one point it seemed like everyone was signing all at the same time and it was lively and lovely. I’m working on Spanish right now to help me in the Spanish branch, but I’d also love to learn some ASL, even just the alphabet. It’s such a beautiful language. 

I had a stake mission correlation Zoom meeting next, and since the YSA ward was meeting and i knew it wouldn’t be needed, I decided to sit in the comfortable chairs in the mothers lounge. It was perfect. As I came out of tha room I’d never been in there was this beautiful picture. We loved choosing art for the RS room when we beautified it and I just loved that this picture was chosen for that spot. I know what goes in to choosing the art, and this is beautiful. It’s called Bless Them in His Name. 

We went to Aina’s for the Superbowl and it was a fun night to chat and semi-watch. Rihanna represented for all pregnant women and her outfit, while odd, was actually very modest, so 👍🏼👍🏼 We ended up staying till the end and that is the story of why we were all 5 tucked snugly into our beds by 9:00pm sharp Monday night. 

Back to September

At the beginning of September Matt came with us to 6 Flags! He came twice and I can’t remember which time this was.

The first time he rode 2 roller coasters with the girls and felt dizzy the rest of the day. The second one was an upside down, spinny one and it was just too much. We didn’t stay too long. Not our best 6 Flags day, but also fine because we could go anytime. . 

I love when they’re sweet with each other. 

Then they showed how you rode the Bat Wing. This one’s a favorite of the girls. 

I went to a fun baby shower for Susanna. It was fun to see Kitty and other friends from LP. 

I don’t know my own strength. 🤷‍♀️😂

Carter got the sweetest back to school pictures!

One day the Queen of Sheba made herself a bed to read on. 

I took adi to Jeanne’s salon for a proper back to school haircut. She was so excited!

Jeanne does such a good job!

Emmett started preschool! He was so excited!

And then he got to school and was so sad! This picture breaks my heart. He stayed sad every morning for a few weeks, but by the end of the day he didn’t want to go home. 

One day I read the girls the Anne story with the raspberry cordial and we all enjoyed a small glass from PEI. It was tasty!

My early morning on the road series. 

Matt visited Seattle for a week in the summer. It had been years!

Mike took him out for tapas one night. 

We sent them this in return. 

😂🤷‍♀️ - this is the appropriate caption for so many pictures.