Happy birthday baby bug!

Delaney turned twelve on Monday. It’s wild that our baby is such a big kid. 

We did brekkie donuts and sent her off to school. I don’t think we’re allowed to deliver lunches anymore, so school day birthdays are anticlimactic. Then after school they had piano which I even made the birthday girl do. 

She wore her cute Alice in Wonderland earrings from Planet Word. 

She requested a King Cake, complete with a baby that she found, perfect birthday luck. It was an unconventional birthday, but we aim to please. 

Delaney loves fire and plays with candles whenever I have a candle lit, so I discovered that we only had 6 birthday candles and it really was Delaneys doing. I bought these fun tall matches, so we lit those and tried to sing fast before they went out. 

Matt worked late so she’d already showered and this years pics weren’t as cute as all her other years. I love Facebook memories for that. I’ve posted every year on her birthday except for 2022 and that year was garbage anyway. 

Our Great Wolf Lodge trip was her gift, but Lu sent a few things and I let Adi and Frankie pick her something. 

She’s a happy girl that doesn’t like smiling with her mouth open anymore. 🤷‍♀️

Adi and Frankie got her fancy PeachyBbies slime. They love slime. 

Momma and baby. Love love love her. 

And one of my all time favorite pictures. Listen all newborns are ugly in a cute way and I can’t even with this angry little bruiser! I wish I could kiss those little cheeks and that little centimeter of hair on her head! ❤️❤️❤️

Also, adi the master break maker is at it again with her artisan bread which turned out amazing. And she’s always finding new ways to curl her hair. 

Hallelujah! We’re all feeling the midwinter slump and it’s good to remember we’re on the upswing. 

And also hahahahaha. Love their cute relationship!

Stake conference weekend

It was a wonderful and very very cold weekend. Delaney has been trying to freeze bubbles but they keep popping. I don’t think it’s quite cold enough. 

They look cool though, they do some cool electric ripple looking thing before they pop/disintegrate. 

I had an area stake relief society council during the day Saturday. We had a family services counselor come talk to us and it was SO good! I took pages and pages of notes. And now I want to be a counselor again! I wonder what I’ll be when I grow up. 🤔 

Matt and Frankie went to Quinton’s basketball game while I zoomed. They brought the little Dorns home with them for their slumber party at our house while their parents were out of town. 

Wonderful Adi made pizza dough and helped everyone make individual pizzas. Matt and I went to the adult session of stake conference with Alecia, Noreen, and the Frazier’s. It was a wonderful meeting and also just wonderful to be together. I don’t now and I hope I never do take for granted how nice it is to be together in person with groups again. 

Sunday was an early morning, much to the crews chagrin. We managed to get out the door by 8:30 and were on our merry way. 

We packed snacks and paper and pencils and they all did really well sitting the 2 hours with just Matt as the adult. I sat in the wrong spot on the stand where my big head was constantly visible on the screen. Mental note for next time. The crew wrote me 2 notes and the conference was wonderful and my talk went well and also it’s done. I like giving talks, I appreciate the opportunity, and also I want to represent my savior well and so it’s a big responsibility and always nice to be done. 

The kids played so well together, we had zero issues. They played games, both board and Wii and agreed on movies and it was an easy weekend. We had linner and then snacked the rest of the evening. I made a quick smores dip that was just ok but we managed to kill. 

They played our family faces memory game all weekend, it was cute. “I got me!”

Matt took the Dorns home at 8 and I jumped on a presidency meeting zoom and it was just a great weekend. 

And some memes. 

This is so funny and sort of true. Why don’t you want to do the things I want to do???

❤️❤️❤️

❤️❤️❤️

11/10

❤️❤️❤️

All dayers are rough. 

Why is this so hard? 👇🏻 

Weirdest school week

Adi made a blue hole with jello for school. Before she brought it home she and all her friends stuck their hands in and played with it. We had to laugh that you could still see the Ray on the bottom so clearly. Oops. 

Thursday was a talk writing day. Things I did instead:

Cleaned out all the condiments in the side shelves of the fridge and reorganized the junk drawer. There comes a point before every talk or meeting or lesson I give where I realize I don’t have a single thought in my head and I’m on the wrong track. I hit that yesterday and then got over it. I knew immediately what I was supposed to speak about and I’ve been working on it for weeks, so I know it’s fine. It’s just the adversary stirring up my insecurities. I know this game and I’m not playing into it. 

We watched the weather all day yesterday. It did like the weather do - snowy, rainy, nothing, maybe? Rainy, snowy, maybe? Finally last night it looked like it was leaning more towards snowy, but St. Mary’s still hadn’t called school.

And that is the story of how we woke up at 5:20 and got the phone call at 5:40 that we’d have a 2-hour delay. I missed the 5:30 text. 🤷‍♀️ Adi wanted to write “Stonewall” Smith (the nickname the high school set gave our superintendent) a strongly worded letter, but really they’re doing the best they can and someone, lots of someone’s are always going to be upset. Adi went back to bed and I worked on my talk. It does feel like we keep being just on the edge of the weather and missing most of it, so that’s a bummer. 

This week of school:

Monday - off for MLK

Tuesday - delay

Wednesday- delay

Thursday - full day

Friday - delay

Not too shabby, we’ll take it. 

Today chantell and I were trying for take 3 of our temple and lunch date aaaand, cancelled again. Matt didn’t think I should risk crossing the bridge and 95. Matts less conservative than I am when it comes to snow, so I’ll follow his advice. 4th times the charm anyway, right?

Speaking of chantell, the day after Christmas we met up with the Virginia Rays in Richmond for pho and ice skating. 

Incidentally, the day after Christmas is a terrible day to travel even 2 hours and we hit a ton of traffic. 

I have not been ice skating since Matt and I were dating 19 years ago. I was nervous as heck that I’d fall and break something. #oldlady

The girls were great, got right out there and went for it. Frankie was skating backwards and doing twirls, sweet adi skated with me a lot because for the first hour I wanted to hold a hand, and Delaney fell like 20 times, but! she kept getting back up!

❤️

It was a fun evening!

I finally gave it a go on my own and was fine. And check - did something scary for my resolutions. ✔️ I don’t even care that being scared of ice skating is lame. This is my victory arms but I am not taking my eyes off this ice pose. 

After, we met up for our first Giving Machine experience. 

We had watched the Times Square video and so it was fun to see one in person! We looked through all our options and decided a baby goat was the way to go. 

When we watched the video I thought we’d get to keep the little card, but they just go to the bottom of the machine. But there’s our cute baby goat! One of my fav sayings is “But for the grace of God go I, and being at a giving machine is a great reminder of how very very blessed we are. 

After our rainy giving machine experience we headed to sonic for milkshakes before heading home. We wished we could have gone down to the Rays for a longer visit but with the great flood Matt didn’t want to take another day off work. 

Snow’ish

It’s such a sad little amount of snow that we got, but it counts I guess. I was supposed to meet chantell at the Richmond temple today, but we got another 2-hour-delay so I had to cancel. Again. We’re shooting for Friday and hoping for the best. 

I didn’t take a single picture yesterday. I write out a list for myself every day and have been doing the same for the girls, so we were very productive. D and I were just fixing to walk out the door for ballet when I checked one more time and saw that it was cancelled for the weather too. 

Looking back, we all enjoyed our mini waffle iron I won at the Darrow’s Christmas party, so fun!

Trying to ingrain this in our girls. And myself honestly. Some days are easier than others. 

I love this and I believe He does. 

We are heading to Whistler next month, so one day we checked all of our snow gear, and we are set bytheway. Matt bought us these matching snowsuits before we got married, and they were retro even back then. And we still got it! 19 years later and they still fit. Or maybe fit again as the case may be. 

We had so much fun working on our Christmas puzzle every day. We got behind a few days, but we were pretty on the ball. We separated it all back into the separate bags so we can do it again next year. 

We finished our Finders Seekers mystery game papa sent over break too. Paris was hard, but we all like Boston a lot better. Finally getting good at it!

One day we went over to the Henderson’s to climb their rock wall. I’ve always wanted to, and finally got the chance. I climbed to the top on both sides and then I’d climb halfway down and then let go. It is scary and you have to have a lot of faith in that equipment. And one time mark belayed me down and that was scary too. And then Marc wanted to teach the girls, so he had adi belaying me and when I let go she shot up out of her seat. We all laughed and laughed. 

I only took 2 pictures, but everyone loved it. Adi and Frankie had just been, so they climbed a few times and were done, but Delaney climbed and climbed. Amy even came out and climbed, it was a fun morning. 

I’m trying to fight the pms, cold and grey weather, talk writing blues and today I did not win. I laid in bed and read till the girls got home. I know I need to exercise to keep my mental health and it’s so cold outside I’m dreading it. Also old lady pms is kicking my booty and I don’t like it. There’s my complaints. Now for some gratitude. one of my relief society presidents said she’s working on making her prayers more meaningful by saying “I’m grateful for this day because…” so I’m grateful for this day because I was able to take a beat and do nothing. I’m grateful for this day because Matt has a good job and is doing good things. And I’m grateful for this day because we’re all healthy and there’s been a ton of sickness going around. 

Weekend happenings

We finished our puzzle! Except some of the pieces don’t exactly fit, so we went wrong somewhere, but we’re not the type of puzzlers to worry about little things like that. 

The boys sent valentine friendship bracelets, so we had to sport them!

We finalized our Women’s Conference flyer and our presenters and food makers have all accepted their assignments. Yesterday we had a meeting with the stake youth leads and they gave us some good ideas and ways to hopefully make it more inviting to the young women. Now down to the nitty gritty, how to set up, making sure every detail is planned for, and all that. This will be my third in person, and I definitely feel like I know a little more what to expect. 

Madison came over on Saturday and we all went to Curtis’ basketball game at LMS. His team happened to be playing Quinton and Max’ team, so it was fun to watch with everyone and cheer on our boys. Matt and I loved it because we were cheering and happy for both teams when they did well. 

Curtis is kind of the star of his team, so that was fun too. 

The Darrow kids came home with us so their parents could go to a training/fireside up at the temple. I cooked a bunch of pasta and then we had root beer floats and they played and watched a movie and put makeup on Lily. 

This is one of my favorite scenes - family scripture study. It just feels like all are safely gathered in and my mama heart soars. 

I went to the White Plains ward on Sunday. We had a meeting after and then I went up to the stake center to have a meeting with their rsp. It was a good and productive day and I got done sooner than I thought I would. I did have to pull over for our missionary meeting and do that one in my car, but I’ll take it. I got home in time to take adi and friends to Alecia’s so she could drive them to their camp meeting because she’s a youth camp leader. We joke a lot about all of our meetings, and there are a lot, but I think we should be careful to express the joy we have in being able to serve together. We’re all just trying to figure things out, thats why we have so many meetings. And we need each other, so what a blessing to be able to meet together often. 

Monday was pretty low key. I had been asking and asking my crew what they wanted to do and no one had any ideas. It’s been cold cold cold too. Late in the game Matt discovered the countries oldest Carmelite monastery in Port Tobacco and thought it would be cool to check out. So off we went! It snowed the whole way there, just light flurries but so pretty to see. Unfortunately we didn’t see any nuns or hear any singing. But we looked around their shop, which they run using the honor system, and read through some of their prayers and learned about rosary beads. They’re doing a lot of landscaping, so we checked out one of their old historic buildings and then headed on our way. We let the girls choose between Texas Roadhouse and Chick-fil-A and those sillies chose Chick-fil-A. No spend January is going fabulously, bytheway. In our defense, the spending has gone down drastically and you have to get lunch on family adventure days. 

It snowed all evening and we all cheered when we got the text that we’d have a 2-hour-delay for school today. 

We did family night early and watched Napoleon Dynamite- classic! and Delaney made a fun iMovie. 

And this morning we’ve all enjoyed our extra 2 hours of sleep. 🤗