This week was kind shaped like a suspension bridge. We had two special days on opposite sides of the week. Those special days held up the whole week and made it all feel special.
Monday was our first special day. It was Brandon's birthday. Normally I struggle with the Monday after Thanksgiving. It's so hard to get back into the routine after a 4 day weekend that somehow isn't quite long enough. So when Brandon's birthday is on the Monday after Thanksgiving I'm always a little worried.
But this year the day went really well. First of all, we didn't have to get up early. There were no kids that needed to be dragged out of bed at 6:45 in order to start getting ready for school. There was no job clear across town that Brandon had to be at early in the morning. We all slept in and woke up when we felt like it.
I had an epiphany about sleeping in. For most of this pandemic I've struggled with feeling like I should be getting up early (or at least before 7:00) every day. But this week I realized that in 2 or 3 years I'm going to look back at this time and wonder why in the heck I didn't take advantage of the fact that we could sleep in. I imagine myself in 2025 thinking back to 2020 and saying, "That was such a great year! We got so much rest!" So now I set my weekday phone alarm to 7:30 and don't feel an ounce of guilt about it.
Brandon was in a great mood on his birthday. Which despite what he says is not always the case. Some years he gets a little morose on his birthday because he thinks about all the things he'd hoped to accomplish by now. But this year has brought a lot of acceptance. Yes he's not working in aviation, but the aviation industry is not really in great shape right now anyway. Right now he is happy to be working for a great company fixing RV's RV's aren't what he wants to do forever, but they've been a good challenge.
I went to work and took care of things there while Brandon started on the great homeschool catch up. We basically are cramming a whole quarter's worth of math into 3 weeks. Charlotte and Lydia have to do two pages of their math books every day in order to stay on track. Brandon sat with them and worked every problem with them.
When I got home I helped all the kids with their writing work. Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick are all behind in writing. They all basically have to complete a lesson a day to finish on time. Veronica slightly behind, but not as much.
And for the record, we are behind because of poor communication from our program leaders about what assignments had to be completed when. It's not because we haven't been doing school.
We got through the writing and the Language Arts. The kids also had to complete a Social Studies lesson for the week. Normally we do that on Friday, but everyone was in good moods so I figured we should do that today while we were still jazzed about school. So everyone did their online social studies.
It was a good day back at school. I'm so glad we took the whole week of Thanksgiving off to recharge.
After we were done with school I was upstairs and I noticed a U-haul truck outside our house. That seemed odd. Then I saw to UPS guys get out of the truck. One took a package to our neighbors and the other brought a package to our house. I'd read that online shopping over the weekend had increased over 44% compared to the same weekend last year. Obviously that shopping was overextending the shipping companies.
The package was from my parents with specific instructions to open BEFORE Christmas. So we opened it and found some fun Christmas decorations. My mom bought this ornament from someone on Etsy. We were so happy to get it, we'd been saying we needed a 2020 ornament.
In fact, Lydia had made this ornament when we put up the tree on Friday. It says "Covid 19 came and destroyed us all. Merry Christmas 2020."
The kids spent a long time playing in the basement. Veronica and Derrick set the "beach" up again and played together really well.
Normally we wait to put up the tree until Brandon's birthday, but this year we put it up early. So I put Brandon's birthday presents under the tree. The kids thought this was fun.
The kids all took turns climbing into the box.
Here's Derrick
Here's Charlotte's turn.
And Veronica's.
>After presents we had cake. This cake had been Charlotte's idea and she and Brandon made it on Sunday.
Here's Brandon blowing out his candles.
Brandon wanted to watch Christmas Vacation for his birthday. So after cake we went down and watched that. We had to skip a few scenes and I wish there had been a language filter, but it was fun to watch it with the kids.
I didn't take many pictures throughout the rest of the week. It was a pretty run of the mill week. We had LOTS of school work, but kept up with the plan I'd made.
Here are the finished results. This is the living room to Charlotte's house. She made a plant, a rug, the couch, the tree, the fire place, and she even made pictures for the fireplace.
Brandon had a sleepless night on Wednesday/Thursday. I found him asleep on the couch when I woke up. I asked him what had happened and he mumbled gibberish about the door and belt loops. Later, when he was more coherent, he said he hadn't fallen asleep until 5:00 AM. He didn't think we was awake enough to go to work. So he called it a sick day and didn't go into work. The kids didn't have to do school in the morning and Brandon just slept until about 11:00. After I got home from work we did school at the same time. Then later he did some Christmas shopping.
Then we drove to the Twin Falls Temple. Our Stake Center is next to the temple. Back when the baptism was planned for April I'd imagined that we'd take family pictures on the temple grounds before the baptism. I've kept that plan but never adjusted it for the weather.
We watched a different Christmas Movie almost every night this week. I think this is the order we watched them.
Sunday - the Legend of Frosty the Snowman. Charlotte watched this version of Frosty in first grade and has been searching for it ever since. We finally found it on Youtube. (Which in retrospect should have been the first place we looked.)
Monday - Christmas Vacation. I had to explain to the kids that this was supposed to kind of like a cartoon with real people. After that they understood it better.
Tuesday - A Christmas Story - I nearly cried when it was the part when the Dad watches Ralphy open his BB Gun present. It's the only time in the whole movie where he smiles.
Wednesday - Charlie Brown Christmas - After watching full length movies the last 6 nights it was nice to watch one that was only 30 minutes long. Derrick loves to recite parts from this movie.
Thursday - We skipped a movie this night.
Friday - The Polar Express - It's been years since I sat down and watched this movie with the kids. Usually I snarkily call it the Bi-Polar Express because the conductor changes his attitude toward the main kids so many times throughout the movie. It was fun to watch this movie on our big screen. Also I really like when Santa says, "This bell is a symbol of Christmas, as am I." I feel like that is such a great way to think about Santa.
Saturday - Klaus - the kids have watched this Netflix movie, but Brandon and I hadn't. We loved it. I think watching this movie will be a Christmas tradition.
Saturday was the other special day of the week. It was Derrick's baptism day!
First a little bit of back story. Derrick turned 8 on April 8th. Before the pandemic happened we'd been anticipating his baptism on April 11th because that's when our Stake was doing Stake Baptisms. When COVID shut everything down for the month of April we knew that Derrick wouldn't be baptized that month.
We were hopeful that everything would be back to normal by May (We were so young and innocent then) and so we scheduled his baptism for May 2. Then that day didn't work for Brandon's work schedule so we moved it to May 10th. I created a Facebook event and invited lots of people. The plan was to have the baptism and then have a party at our house. It would be a baptism/house warming party. Well things with COVID didn't improve in May so the baptism was postponed indefinitely.
Our bishop told us that if we wanted we could have Derrick baptized outside in a lake or river. If it was any of our other children I think we would have done that. But with Derrick I wanted to make sure that he knew he was getting baptized. I worried that if we took him to a river he'd just think we were swimming or something. I could just see us going to all the effort to get him baptized, but then attending a baptism in a church and Derrick would be like, "I want to be baptized too." So we opted to wait until the church was available again.
There was another reason I was okay waiting. One of the things that comes with Derrick's Autism is a diagnosis for Intellectual Disability. (That's the nice way to say Mentally Retarded now a days.) He's about 2 years behind mentally. A lot of times when interacting with Derrick it helps to just subtract two years from his age. So with school he's in 3rd grade, but doing a lot of things on a 1st grade level. I often refer to Derrick and Veronica as my other set of twins because mentally they are on about the same level. So part of me wasn't quite sure that Derrick was mentally 8 years old. He was kind of irreverent when taking the sacrament at church and didn't quite seem emotionally ready.
Brandon and I actually considered the possibility of just waiting to have Derrick baptized until Veronica turned 8. Then we could have them baptized together. But that gets tricky. After a child turns 9 they have to take discussions from the missionaries before being baptized. That seemed like more hassle than necessary. Brandon talked to the bishop about it. The bishop recommended just having Derrick baptized before he turned nine. So we went with that plan. We'd make sure he was baptized before April 2021.
In about August the Primary president started talking to me about when the next Stake Baptisms would be. We were able to start having baptisms at the church again. I guess we could have gone ahead and planned our own baptism date, but I really like the concept behind Stake Baptisms. The font only has to be filled once, the Bishop and other ward members only have to block out one day to attend. And best of all, I don't have to do much to plan the program. Our Primary president initially thought the next stake baptism would be in October. So we tentatively planned for that. But really they weren't until December. So we scratched out the October baptism on the calendar and wrote it on Saturday, December 5. I wrote in pencil.
I really thought this baptism would be cancelled too. As COVID cases skyrocketed and Idaho moved back to modified Stage 2, I couldn't see the baptism happening. But as we got closer, it seemed like it was still going to happen. Brandon and I decided that if it did happen we wouldn't invite any of our friends or family to come in person. We didn't want anyone travelling to attend. But we could do a zoom meeting to allow family and friends to attend virtually. This was actually a really great benefit. My parents and siblings that live on the other side of the country would be able to attend. Pre-pandemic this was never a possibility.
In the days leading up to the baptism I kept forgetting it was even happening. Our primary president took care of making the program. We were just using the wards Zoom account for the meeting so I didn't even have to set that up. The biggest non-stresser was that I didn't have to worry about hosting a party after the baptism. With Charlotte and Lydia's baptism I'd been really busy with getting the house clean and prepping food.
On Friday night I laid out Derrick's clothes. I made sure the girls all knew what they were wearing. Everyone took baths. That was about the only physical prep we needed to do.
On Saturday morning I thought I work up early and then 5 minutes later my 7:45 alarm went off. Early is very relative these days.
We had breakfast and got ready. Around 9:00 we drove to our church building for the "Drive through Christmas Party." They had egg sandwiches for everyone to eat. Santa was there and handed out candy canes to the kids.
Instead of beautiful flowers there were dead looking trees and bushes. Instead of happy smiling children dressed in their Sunday best the kids refused to take off their coats. And actually it was a small miracle the gates were even unlocked.
This is the best picture I got of the kids.
And here's Derrick's picture.
We'd forgot Brandon's computer at home and we needed it for the video I was showing for my "talk" so we ran home to get that. Then we headed back to the church by the temple.
We walked in and a man from the Stake was there to help Derrick and Brandon get into their jumpsuits. I went into the chapel to make sure the laptop hooked up to the projector. It did, but then the Primary President came in and said she already had the video on her computer along with the song videos so she hooked hers up.
Derrick was so excited to be in his baptism jumpsuit. He was so excited to take pictures.
And here's the family picture. Charlotte and Lydia were wearing their baptism dresses that I made 2 years ago. They still fit, but are a lot shorter these days. Veronica's wearing her favorite dress that is getting very short and worn. It's basically the ONLY dress she will wear. She wants me to make a bigger version of this dress for her baptism dress.
The Stake had divided each ward into their own time slot. I'm not sure if this was a COVID thing or just the way this stake does things normally. So we shared the meeting with another little boy from our ward, but all the other kids from other wards came at other times during the day. The other boy's family had about 40 people there. I just kept telling myself that they must all live in Twin Falls. I didn't want to consider the fact that they might have all traveled here.
In comparison our little family of 6 looked small. But before the meeting started I took a peek at the list of people attending the zoom meeting. We had so many people in the meeting. I think there were somewhere around 20 names on screen. As I sat with my family I realized this is how it's often been for us. The six of us have often been on our own, but we have lots of people cheering us on and supporting us from afar.
One of the counselors in the bishopbric took care of managing the zoom meeting. He had a camera on a tripod and even carried it into the room so everyone could see Derrick get baptized. His wife is the primary president and she was there too. She said, it's like the camera is a person walking around with all of us.
Our bishop presided at the meeting and one of his counselors conducted. Derrick and Brandon just sat on the same row as us. Derrick was so comfortable and happy.
We'd been asked to give one of the talks. I decided to just show a video about baptism because I figured Derrick would pay better attention to that than someone talking. This is the video we showed. (We watched it on 1.50 speed.)
The other little boy was baptized first. His whole family went to the room with the font. We waited in the chapel. Derrick came and snuggled up next to me. It was so sweet. At Chartlotte and Lydia's baptism I really hadn't had a minute to process anything. This day was much more chill and I felt like I really got to enjoy the little moments like snuggling with Derrick.
Then it was our turn. We went to the font room. Brandon and Derrick went into the font. Within the last two years the church has changed the policy on who can act as witnesses for a baptism. It used to be only an adult male could be a witness. But now it can be any member of the church over the age of 8. When I first hear the policy change I said I wanted to be a witness and Derrick's baptism along with my mother in law Jacque. But when we decided to make this an immediate family event I asked Charlotte and Lydia if they wanted to be the witnesses. They agreed.
I love this screen shot one of my aunts sent me. It makes my little feminist heart happy.
So I was not surprised AT ALL when Derrick's foot popped out of the water. I'd told Lydia and Charlotte to watch to make sure all of Derrick went under the water. They both were quick to point out that Derrick's foot came out. Lydia had no qualms loudly saying, "His Foot Came OUT."
As Derrick and Brandon started walking out the font Derrick bent down and tried to swim in the water. He was very disappointed that he couldn't keep swimming. (He'd earlier been asking about wearing goggles so I was not surprised by this.)
We went back into the chapel while Derrick and Brandon changed. The primary president was playing songs on her phone. We listened to The Miracle. I've heard the song before, but I really liked listening to it. Here's a link to that. I've been a little Luke-warm in my testimony of the church lately. But sitting in the chapel and listening to the music felt really good. It was the kind of spiritual experience I've needed for a while.
Brandon and Derrick came back in and so did the other little boy and his dad. The grandma for the other little boy gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. She had both boys stand on some squares of paper. Derrick was so much taller than the other boy. Later he sat on the bench in the front. He kept turning around to smile at me. He gave me a big thumbs up and winked at me. The primary president saw it and later told me she wanted to give him a big hug.
Then it was time for the boys to be given blessings confirming them members of the church and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Derrick waited patiently during the other little boys blessing and then almost JUMPED into the seat for his turn. He'd been waiting for this moment ever since Charlotte and Lydia's confirmation. When Lydia was done with her blessing Derrick had jumped up and said, "Derrick's turn!" Now it was finally his turn.
Brandon invited the three members of the bishopbric into the circle with him. He gave a beautiful blessing. A few times he made some odd word choices that actually made a lot of sense. For example he said something like, "You will bless the people that help you." That sums up Derrick so much.
Then the bishop made a few remarks and I said the closing prayer. (I'd asked Veronica if she wanted to say the prayer, but she declined.)
We had to leave the chapel pretty fast to make room for the next ward. So we left and went to the car. It wasn't until we got home before I realized we never got a picture of Derrick and Brandon in their nice clothes. So here they are together.
Derrick was so excited for the present that he knew he was getting. At his baptism interview the bishopbric had half seriously asked him if he wanted and old CD player that was sitting on the shelf. Derrick had been asking for something just like that so I said that we'd be willing to take it if they were really offering. They said it had been on the shelf for years and so we were welcome to have it. Derrick was thrilled to get his present.
He tested out all the buttons and spent the rest of the day listening to the radio and CD's.
Brandon and I spent the rest of the day working on Christmas stuff. I did a little bit more shopping. Brandon worked with his router in the garage.
In the evening we watched Klaus on Netflix. Then we had a dance party with Christmas music playing on Derrick's radio. Derrick and Lydia discovered that they make excellent dance partners. They danced together for a long time. Charlotte danced with Brandon and I danced with Veronica. We had such a good time.
This December has been a lot different than other December's. But I love this chance to really spend a lot of time with my family. The 6 of us are really happy together.
This December has been a lot different than other December's. But I love this chance to really spend a lot of time with my family. The 6 of us are really happy together.
As always, Thanks for reading.
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