Changes are afoot

If you're a member of our ward, than you already know what I'm going to blog about today. I got a new calling today. I had to say goodbye to my class of 10 year old boys and girls (Or in their words, I was "fired"), which I must say I'm really going to miss. They are a really good group of kids; smart, participatory, and really a lot of fun to teach. They're at that age when they're old enough to really understand doctrines and ponder different issues, but they're still young enough that a lot of what we talk about is still "new" to them, and they still volunteer to help and share their ideas, and participate. And the lineup of lessons for this year is from the Old Testament; so a lot of really cool stories that someone else is going to get to explore with them. It makes me just a little sad (even though I must admit I dreaded preparing a lesson every week; I'm not going to miss that part.)

My new calling is actually not that far removed from the old, and yet so very different. They've asked me to serve as the second counsellor in the Primary presidency. I know enough to know that I SHOULD be overwhelmed right now; but the fact is that I don't know enough to actually be overwhelmed...yet. I haven't served in a leadership position in the church since I was a Mia Maid in the class presidency; and I'm pretty sure this is going to be just a little bit more involved.

So right now I'm in a little cloud of "sure whatever"ness. I got to meet the rest of the presidency today and they're fantastic women, with whom I'm really excited to be working. We got to attend a stake leadership meeting today and I've got meetings starting to line up with the old second counsellor and the new presidency and such. And overall I just have this sense of impending responsibility that I just have no idea what to expect, and there's just no way to even imagine what this will entail until we just start doing what we need to do.

So I'm going to enjoy these couple days of calm before the storm of responsibility and schedule demands. I know the Lord is in charge of this Church, and if this is where He wants me to serve Him, He will help me to do the best I can, and then make up the difference through His infinite love and understanding of His children. There's a lot of peace in the knowledge that this is His work, and I just need to be a good tool in His hand.

I'm grateful for my incredible husband, who already has shown immense support and confidence in me. I truly am blessed to have him by my side. Truly, Life IS Good!

What do the following have in common?

Applesauce smeared into the carpet
Cat poop on the love sac
Hairspray on the computer
Crayon all over the tv screen
Broken Christmas ornament
Cat pee on my clothes
Cat itself completely soaked in Hairspray
Broken lightbulb (still in the socket)
Lost computer mouse
Ruined surprise for a handful of birthday/easter/christmas presents
Not to mention screaming fits & tantrums

Can you guess?

They are all things my precious Princess M has accomplished in the past couple HOURS! Not days...not weeks...HOURS!! I'm so mad, I can barely write this without steaming up the room. All I can say is she better stay quiet in her room for a nice LONG time this afternoon.

"Mommy, can I have a candybar?" Yeah right!
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Update: We can add stolen candybar to the list now too.

A Prayer to Remember

"Dear Heavenly Father,
We thank thee for this day. Please bless us to have a good night sleep. And bless all the food that we have, that we won't die. And bless that our toothpaste will last a long time until we can get new toothpaste. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

We really don't have to worry about any vain repetitions with this princess. And really, what more do we need than good sleep, enough food to eat, and clean teeth? Not much. It was just perfect.

I wish I had a working camera!!

I braided Banana Girl's hair for the first time today!

Now I know you're glancing above at the picture at the top of this blog and thinking, "What hair?" Well she's got this tuft of hair about the size of a quarter that grows right at the base of the back of her head, where her neck begins. And it's about 2 inches long. How weird is that?

Yes, I know, my cute little baldy, actually has a mullet. Should I be ashamed for her and chop it off? No, instead I braided it in church today when she was distracted enough to hold still. And being, tiny & frizzy, it stuck straight out. The 11 year old girls next to me couldn't stop laughing. Poor girl. Mom's already getting great enjoyment at her expense.

Wish you could've seen it.

What are they teaching these kids?!!

So we always ask Princess M about her primary class lesson when we're driving home from church. She usually doesn't remember a whole lot, except maybe the main idea of the class, and then we're able to talk to here a little about the topic too. This weeks conversation is worthy of recording for history.

Mom: "M, what did you learn in your sunday school class today?"

M: "I don't know...Mmmm...maybe... about Jesus."

Mom: "What about Jesus did you talk about?"

M: "About how we need to follow in his footsteps and he lives up in the clouds, only we don't know which cloud he's on. And you need to watch out for the aliens up in the clouds too, you know like in Chicken Little, because they're flying up there, watching us, and could come jump down on us. They want us to follow them, but we want to follow Jesus..."


That's the main jist, although she went on for 5 minutes on the subject of Aliens. Must have been some sunday school class!

Things I'm learning in 2010

1. Just Quit (sometimes.) It's ok to stop in the middle of a project. Tomorrow is another day. And hey, it could even wait until next week. (This is a hard lesson for me. I'm very much a one-track-minded person.) Some things are just more important.

2. Basic Math: If it takes 10 minutes to drive to the church, and 5 minutes to load all the children and things into the car; getting in the car at 1:40 will NOT get you to church in time for the 1:30 meeting. (Oops)

3. 2 Days, not just 1. When Alex leaves me on a business trip, I need to not plan anything on either the day he leaves, OR the day before. I'm learning that I start mourning in anticipation of the departure. How silly is that? In any case, I neither have the energy or the mental capacity to handle much on those two days. Then reason and practicality will set in, and I'll be fine. (4 more days and he'll be home!)

4. Kids are smarter than you think. I seem to be relearning this every other day. Today Princess M memorized the first article of faith in very little time. It's so cute to hear her say "ThEternal Fadder"! Only 4 and already quoting scripture; they grow up so fast, don't they?

That's it for now. I'm falling asleep as I write this, so I'm going to take lesson 1 to heart and go to bed.

For those who may be wondering: Banana Girl had her doctor's appointment this week for her 16 month checkup. Apart from having to get 5 shots (poor thing!) we were thrilled to see that she has jumped from the Zero percentile (not even on the charts) for height and weight up to the 60th percentile in just 3 months. The doctor would still like to see her gain a little more, but at least we can all breathe a lot easier now, knowing that she is not starving, and seems to be making up for lost ground in the growth department. Yeah!!

Ok, good night.

Now what?

So this is the part in the blog when I'm supposed to say, "Wow! what a busy holiday season this has been. I can't believe how long it's been since I've written. Let me just post all the pictures of the holidays and get caught up quickly."

That's what I should be writing right now, except for one problem: I have absolutely no pictures. I spent the past couple hours reading everyone's blogs and then went to my photo folders to see what I could post, only to find Banana Girl's tooth as the last and final picture on my computer. Then of course I remembered: my camera is broken (not recognizing the memory card anyway, so it might as well be broken, since I can't take a picture.) So yeah, snow...no pictures. Christmas...no pictures. My entire (almost) family gathering for the holidays...no pictures, New Years...you guessed it...no pictures.

How do you blog without pictures? How am I supposed to think of something to write without some sort of visual cue? You mean I actually have to think now? I don't know if I can handle this.

And yet, I made a resolution this year to write in my blog every Sunday (Happy New Year Everyone!!!; and yes, I do want you to hold me accountable for this) since this blog is really my only venue of journal writing anymore (hey take what you can get; I was even worse at writing in an actual journal.) So think of something I must.

You know, it really is a shame that we don't have a single picture of this Christmas and New Years. My parents and maternal grandmother came out to Colorado and stayed with us in our home; as well as my brother and sister's families from out of state (although they stayed at my other 2 brother's homes here in the Springs.) We had a blast with everyone and really had a fantastic Christmas.

You know I take that back, almost my entire family was not here. It seemed that way, because there were so many people around, but in actuality only 3 of my 6 brothers, and 1 of my 2 sisters were accounted for. That's only slightly over half. Although, I guess it's not improbable that Marty and Scott could have dropped by in spirit to say Merry Christmas as well. So we'll say 7 of 9. Still, Art & family & Mike, we wish you could have come as well. Hopefully we'll see you soon.

You know, that is really the best part of Christmas. I didn't hardly bake anything this year. I didn't send out goodie plates. I didn't send out Christmas cards; I did very little present shopping (thanks to couponing and such, I was done shopping waaayyyy early this year.) Heck, I didn't even put all the decorations completely up; the top half of my tree still doesn't have working lights on it. You know, I can't even really think of what we DID do; all I remember is being busy all December. However, we did have LOTS of family around, we talked, and laughed, and ate, and played a lot of games; and that made Christmas great! I loved it!

Oh, I remember a few things I did! I did make our Christmas pjs this year. Princess M and Alex picked out the pattern after Thanksgiving; and now we're all sporting new flannel skeleton pjs. Yep, skeletons. They're pretty cool, if I must say so myself. (Although I only finished the pants in time for Christmas; the shirts are still pending.)

And I did color my hair again. The roots were getting pretty long against the nice orange/blond color, so I went dark again. Now, I'm a nice, dark Burgundy. I'll post a picture when I get a working camera again. I like it a lot better than the orange. Thanks for your help, Maryle!

Oh, and one more thing: while in the sewing groove, I made myself a new purse! I found the pattern while waiting to cut my pj fabric on black friday (madness)and was able to find everything I needed to make it before my number was called. I made some modifications to the pattern to make it perfect for me (I LOVE pockets and compartments) and it actually turned out great! I love it! It's strong, functional, really cute, and just everything I've ever wanted. I'll see if I can get a picture to put up as well. Who needs Gucci?

One highlight of Christmas was reading the new chapter in my brother Don's book about our childhood here in the Springs. He's been collecting memories from everyone in the family and spinning them all into a biographical tale that has just been hilarious and fantastic to read. I've only read two chapters so far, and I understand it's still a work in progress, but I find myself looking forward to the next one like a Harry Potter novel.

It's dawned on me that our childhood, growing up in Palmer Park with 9 kids in the house was really NOT the normal childhood. Every American boy or girl did not have a state park at their disposal to play in; a pig-spitting, marijuana growing neighbor, take regular trips to the ER as a normal course of childhood frolicking, or even simply have 8 other brothers and sisters to entertain, annoy, and even endanger each other. Heck, I lived it; and I still love reading about it. Of course it doesn't hurt that Don is a great story teller. Even so, I think it's going to be a great book. Keep up the good work, Don.

New Years was a lot of fun too. Some of our friends in the ward (with a girl Princess M's age to boot) invited us to a New years party. Actually we were thrilled to get a couple invites this year; thank you everyone; and were sad to have to choose just one. But Princess M actually stayed up all the way until midnight and beyond. Banana Girl thankfully was able to sleep the night away in an unused room. The food was really good, the friends fantastic; and we stayed up way to late laughing into the night. Who knew that catch phrase could be so hilarious?! I learned a lot of things I never knew before about these people. Perhaps it was better that way. ;) It makes me smile to think about it now.

Well, I think that's enough rambling for one night. I know it's pretty daunting to read without pictures. I'll see what we can do about this problem. Till then, Happy reading!