Primary Program

I am home sick today--and I missed the primary program at church. I am in the primary presidency so I feel bad, but what can you do? A stomach bug has been going through my family and Sam and I are the last ones to get it. He just fell asleep on the couch while I have been typing. He must be sick because he never just falls asleep.

Anyway, yesterday we had a primary practice at the church and it was crazy for me. Terry had a class he had to go to so I had all the kids with me. Actually Ellie wasn't with me because she was home sick. We left her home alone but she had a phone and I had a phone and I wasn't too far away. So we checked in with each other every few minutes. She likes feeling she is old enough to be by herself.

At the practice I wasn't much help. I will just describe some crazy moments. Ainsley had been doing well sitting in her chair and being good, but then she had an accident. The primary president was trying to tell her it was her turn and she moved Ainsleys chair. AInsley had been standing for a song so she sat down without looking and fell on the ground. Anyway, after this she refused to do anything and just wanted to be by me and cling to me. Then Abby came over to me in tears. I couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while. She just kept saying she didn't want to do her part. She just wanted to go home. I finally figured out that she had missed her turn to go say her part and she ended up going up at the wrong time. Another primary kid told her a little harshly it wasn't her turn. So Abby filled up with anxiety because she didn't know when she was supposed to go up. I reassured her we would make sure she knew. So in the process of calming her down, Isaac was crawling around and he crawled up on a little stand and fell backwards and bonked his head and started crying. Sam was being cranky and was crying pretty much the whole time over different things.

So at one point I had all four kids clinging to me and crying. One mom looked at me and said, "Boy you REALLY have your hands full."

Anyway, Terry called after the primary program and said it all went well and the girls all remembered their parts.

Soccer

Abby finished up her first soccer season--and maybe her last. She did a good job this year, but sometimes was reluctant to go to practices and games. But once she was there she did her best. She was funny to watch because she wasn't the one scoring the goals or anything but she was really positive with her teammates and cheered them on really well. One day she told her team mate who had made a mistake, "It doesn't matter if you win--only that you do your best."

Abby also ran around with a really determined look on her face. She wouldn't give up. Good job Abby.

Swore Farms

On Friday afternoon, Terry and I took the kids to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. It was a cute maze and they had farming questions at different turning points with each answer pointing a different direction. The kids liked it. Terry and I learned we don't really know a whole lot about farming.

After the maze the kids had to get their faces painted. And then they went to a story time corner. A girl who was probably 10 was reading the story and it took about 15 minutes to get through it. I don't know if she had read the story before or not, but she would stop after turning the page and look at the pictures for a minute before going on with the story. It was funny.




After the story we went to the pumpkin patch and the kids each picked out their own pumpkin.




It was all great fun.

Kids

Here are just some pictures of my kids.




Ainsley is so funny. She loves the feel of skirts on her head because she feels like she has long hair. For a while she had a skirt on her head every day. She has calmed down a little, but she recently had this get-up on.

Ainsley's preschool teacher called me the other day to tell me a funny little story. She said that one day Ainsley was playing with a barbie and she was naked. Ainsley said she needed a shirt so the teacher grabbed the closest one which was a spaghetti strap shirt or something like that. Ainsley said, "That is NOT modest!" Her teacher was tickled that she knew about modesty and would care about it. Little does the know that Ainsley knows about it because she is always running around in next to nothing and I am telling her she isn't being modest.

Ainsley has also been talking about the eggs in her tummy. All my girls know about the birds and the bees is that they have little eggs in their tummies. I have told them that much. Well Ainsley has been curious about it in the last few days and she keeps asking me questions about her eggs. Where are they exactly? How big are they (asked while we were cracking eggs)? When will they be a baby? Anyway, I was pushing her on the swing yesterday and I was kind of pushing her stomach to get her going. She said, "MOM!, you are pushing my eggs!." I laughed and laughed. Kids are so funny.





Abby is very studious at doing her homework. She has been doing great in school. Her teacher was talking to me one day and said that she loves Abby and she has been such a big help. There is a special needs boy in her class and Mrs Westwood said Abby always tries to help him and make sure he is where he needs to be, doing what he needs to do.

Harry Potter

Ellie just finished reading the last Harry Potter in the series. I am impressed that she read them all as a third grader (I am sure there are others who have done it too). But I think I would have looked at the size of the book and said no way. In fact it was funny to look at her reading the books because the books look bigger than she is.

Anyway, she had to do a project at school on a book she read so she and Terry made a salt dough diorama of Harry and Dumbledore going across the lake to get the horcrux. It was fun for them to work together. And I guess I forgot to get a picture of the final product.

Harvest

I haven't posted for so long so it is hard to start again--because where do I begin?

Well I'll begin with harvest. We had a great garden this year--our first one and we loved seeing how big and lush everything got. We have so many tomatoes and I think I have done about all the canning I am going to do this year. I have done peaches, pears, pizza sauce, fresh salsa, pickles, pickle relish, and have juiced enough tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. I am just waiting for a little more ambition before I finish the last one.




I don't know why it is so satisfying to grow things and can them, but while Elder Uchdorf was speaking during the general relief society broadcast I had an insight. He talked about how we find joy in being creative-- in taking unorganized matter and organizing it into something beautiful. We are exercising godliness when we create and therefore we find joy in it. When I garden, I am creating and so that is why it is so satisfying. Anyway, I think tomatoes and cucumbers are beautiful vegetables.