Short week

This will probably be a quick post because this week was actually a quick week. The kids didn't have school on Monday and Tuesday and so the week felt very short. The week before felt overly long. But this week felt extra short. Like Wednesday felt like Monday. I'd be thinking, "uh, we still have five days til Saturday" and then I'd remember it was Wednesday and I'd be like, "woohoo! It's almost the weekend."

So let's go over this blessedly short week. 

I was determined to actually take a little break while the kids were off of school. And the best way I could think to do that was to go to Utah to visit my sister Emily and LEAVE MY LAPTOP AT HOME. Even if I was tempted to work while I was taking a break I wouldn't be able to do that without my laptop. 

We'd thought Brandon had to work on Monday so he planned to stay home. Then he found out he had Monday off. But he still had to work Tuesday and we weren't planning to be back until Tuesday afternoon.  So he still stayed home. That was just fine though. He kind of needed the house to himself. 

He actually took care of replacing some leaky valves on the lines to our washing machine on Monday. He'd wanted to do that for a few weeks, but he needed to shut the water off to the whole house to do that. And he didn't want to do that with all of us around. So me taking the kids out of town was the perfect opportunity. 

Anyway, the kids and I drove to Utah on Sunday. We had a fun drive. We listened to music for the first half of the drive and then we talked about Disneyland the second half. I went to Disneyland when I was 16 so I was telling them about what I remembered. Then they'd ask me things like, "Is there a Rapunzel ride?"  And I'd be like, "I don't know, that movie came out way after I visited the park."

We are all tentatively planning to go to california sometime in 2025 and we want to do Disneyland while we are there so it was fun to talk about all of that and get the kids a little excited. 

We got to Emily's and the kids were excited to see their cousins - especially Juniper. I told Emily, "Juniper is like 50% of the reason the kids wanted to come here."  I think the trampoline was like another 40% and the other cousins were like 10%. 

My kids were jumping the trampoline for hours that evening. When it was finally time for bed Derrick fell asleep - on the floor- in less than 10 minutes. 

I kept my promise to myself and didn't work on Monday - sort of. I didn't do any work that I got paid for. But there were some other things that had to be taken care of on Monday. I don't really want to talk about it all here, but it was EMOTIONAL. After spending several hours on some tricky phone calls I ended up just taking a nap because I was so worn out. 

But the day ended nicely. My parents came up to Emily's and we had a nice dinner and spent a lot of time talking. 

My kids had a great time with their cousins (and the trampoline.) But we were debating whether or not we wanted to stay for another night. There was a certain appeal to getting to sleep in late in our own beds on Tuesday morning. 

But I was talking about that plan with Brandon when he was like, "Have you checked the weather?"  There was a big storm going through the mountains that we'd be driving through on the way home. So that was the end of thinking about going home that night. 

And good thing too - because I'd been thinking to myself that I could go into work on Tuesday if we went home early. I'd completely forgot my vow to NOT WORK.

So instead of driving home the kids slept one more night at Emily's. Emily and I stayed up drawing plans for our gardens this year. That was fun and really got me excited for spring. (As if I wasn't already.)

Emily's family all had school on Tuesday so they were getting ready while we were still there.  Emily's kids' elementary school doesn't start until 9:00 and WOW what a difference that makes. They had so much TIME. Emily made waffles which to me are a time consuming dinner. And she had time to make them for breakfast.  

I still had all my alarms set on my phone so they were going off as Emily's family was going about their morning. The alarm went off for Veronica to leave for school and Emily still had kids that were in bed. The alarm went off for Veronica's school day to start and Asher hadn't even been picked up for Middle School yet. 

The alarm went off for me to leave with the Middle school kids and David was still home. 

By the time Emily's elementary school kids were leaving for school I would already have been at Castle Therapy. 

I've never really thought about how early my day starts, but this really was showing me the difference between an elementary school that starts at 8:00 vs one that starts at 9:00.

Emily is homeschooling two of her kids this year and they had to get going to coop around 9:15. So we planned on leaving around that same time. The kids had packed their suitcases and we got everything out to the car. 

The drive home was pretty uneventful. There was a lot of fog through some of the mountains, but it wasn't too bad. 

We were home around 12:00 and had lunch at home. Then we were all just kind of quiet and did our own things. It had been nice to be around family, but getting that many kids together is loud and so it was good to be back in our quiet house where the youngest in the family was 10. 

I was still feeling really spent emotionally. I didn't really want to be in charge of anything. So the kids watched TV and I just hung out in bed. I'd get up to move the laundry and to put away my laundry, but I wasn't doing much else. 

Charlotte and Lydia really really really wanted me to take them to the Black Dragon Game Shop that is in the same complex as my work. They'd found out that place sold cute 3D printed dragon earrings and they'd saved up enough money for them. But I was like, "I'm trying not to work today. And if I take you there I'm going to be tempted to check the mail and then I'm going to have to enter any payments that are in the mail. So ask Dad."

So Brandon took them after he got off work. Unfortunately, all the earrings were sold out. The girls convinced Brandon to take them to Toy Town so they could look at the 3D printed dragons there.

And that's when something amazing happened. 

While they were there THE GUY who 3D prints all the dragon stuff showed up to make a delivery. And the girls asked him if he had any earring. And he DID. So he brought those into the store and the Toy Town people purchased them and got them all entered into the system and then Charlotte and Lydia were able to be the first people in Twin Falls to buy 3D printed earrings from Toy Town. 

Here are pictures I took the next day. 

These are Charlotte's. 

 And Lydia's, 

I was supposed to be at a Team meeting at work at 7:00 that night but I had two problems. 1. Brandon needed the car to teach at CSI. And 2. I was all out of decision making ability for the day. So I emailed my coworkers and told them I couldn't be there. Everyone understood. 

I did get all the laundry washed, dried, and put away, so that was good. And I listened to the latest episode of Baconsale where I was referred to by just my first name in reference to a comment I'd made about the previous episode. YES, first name basis!

Wednesday would have been my day off, but since I'd taken the other two days off it was time to buckle down and get caught up. And since I'd ACTUALLY RESTED I felt up to getting things done again. (Funny how that works.)

I got the kids off to school okay and then went to Castle Therapy and got a lot done there. Then I went to Aspen Grove and worked for a long time there. We had a lot of mail come in and that's always fun. 

Oh and if you are wondering what about my Scripture Study group?  Well we were scheduled to meet this week, but a few weeks before I'd noticed the holiday schedule and had just decided to combine Chapter 6 with chapter 5 so we could skip this week. 

I picked up Derrick and Brandon and then went home and took a little nap. 

At 3:00 I picked up Veronica. 

It had snowed on Sunday and Monday, but things were already melting. I took pictures of some things happening in the front yard. You can see strawberry leaves among the tree leaves. 

And there are tulip points coming up everywhere. 

Brandon took the three older kids to Young Men/Young Women. And when they all got home I went to the Warming Center for the last time. The Center is open through the 29th, but somehow I'm not on the schedule for the 28th and at this point I don't mind. I've been happy to volunteer there and help things get up and running. But it's too hard to stay up til midnight in the middle of the week. If I do volunteer there next season I think it will be something like once a month. 

Thursday was supposed to be another big day at work. But Veronica was sick during the night so she was definitely staying home that day. 

I got everyone else off to school and then went to Castle Therapy to pick up some things and then I just came back home and worked from home. (Which is always so fun when it's not planned, but a drag when it's what I do every day.)

It actually worked out really well because I had more than my usual 45 minutes of stuff to do for Castle. I think I did a full hour. 

Then I moved onto Aspen Grove stuff. But as I was working I realized that a lot of what I needed to do was stuff that would be easier at work with my two monitors and my phone there. So I decided to go into work in the afternoon after Brandon was home. Normally I can't work on Thursday afternoon because Veronica has vision therapy and sometimes girls activity. But since she was sick she wasn't going to those things anyway and I was free. 

So I clocked out of work and went downstairs to watch TV with Veronica. She's always asking me stuff about Mickey Mouse and so we watched part of the documentary "It all started with a mouse" or something like that. They showed scenes from The Sorcerers Apprentice  from Fantasia. So we switched over to watching that. Disney Plus is kind of amazing. I keep trying to explain to my kids that when I was a kid you had to know someone who had the movie and then borrow it if there was a movie you randomly thought about watching. They don't understand what I'm talking about.  

Then it was time to pick up Derrick and Brandon. I brought them home and then went to work. 

While I was at work I read the notes from the team meeting I'd missed. Someone had brought up that there was a Transgender Affirming Care Resource Fair and that Lisa Hansen would be the Key Note Speaker. I read that and was like, "Lisa Hansen? I know her!"  She's a long time family friend. I knew that she's done a lot of work with the transgender community. But it was just so crazy to me that she was going to be in Twin Falls.

I was talking to my boss about her and he was like, "Yeah I actually met her several years ago through her husband because he's a lawyer and I needed help with family reunification."  

What a small world. 

Speaking of a small world, have I ever mentioned that my boss lived in Kearns briefly when he was a kid? We figured that out a few years ago. He lived there right before my family moved in. But how crazy is that? Sometimes I look at the company he's created with my help and I'm like, "All this is from two kids from Kearns."

Anyway, I'm trying to remember what we did on Thursday night. It was the first Thursday night in a few weeks that Brandon didn't have to be at CSI. We also didn't have anything else we had to do. It was kind of strange. 

We were all really worn out. Dinner looked like this scene from the Avengers. 

No one was in any mood to do much after dinner so I said we'd all take a 30 minute break before starting with dishes or homework. 

Well Brandon fell asleep during that break and he'd told me not to let him fall asleep, but he didn't get up when I reminded him that. 

So he slept the rest of the evening. I did the dishes and helped Charlotte with her math homework. (More like I sat by her in solidarity and paid bills on my computer while she did math on her computer.)

I was super tired so as soon as the kids were in bed I was in bed too. Brandon usually can't sleep at night if he's had any sort of nap so I expected him to wake up and get up and do stuff. But he ended up sleeping all night.  

He did wake up early and ride his bike to work so that I could sleep in. He'd ridden his bike on Tuesday and again on Thursday so this was becoming a thing. 

I was glad he'd done that because I woke up not feeling well. I had a bit of a cold coming on. That was a bummer because this weekend was supposed to be beautiful and I did not want to be sick during it. I was also supposed to hang out with Jori that afternoon. But I ran through my mental checklist for the day and realized that I would be utterly exhausted after work. So I texted Jori and told her what was up and that all I was going to want was a nap that afternoon. She understood. 

My to do list for the morning was absolutely insane. I really should have taken a picture of it. 

It started with something at 8:00 that I really couldn't miss. I had to try to get campsites at Bear Lake for Cousin Camp this summer. The campsites open up for reservations on a 4 month rolling basis. And they can be hard to get. My plan was to try to reserve them starting with Sunday June 23. I figured if I was trying to get reservations for a Sunday I had a better chance than if I was trying to get them for a Monday. 

But Veronica needed to be at school at 8:00. I was thinking I'd either have to drop her off early or late in order to be at my computer at 8:00. So when I went to wake her up and she told me she'd thrown up in the night and still wasn't feeling too well I wasn't too sad. I was like, "Oh now I can be home at 8:00."

So right at 8:00 I was able to reserve 3 campsites. I got two that I was hoping for, but couldn't quite get the third one I wanted. So I went with another one that is also near the other two. I was so thrilled to have three sites. Bear Lake is notoriously hard to get campsites at so this was a major coup.  

I felt like this was a good omen for the day. I was going to get so much done. I was going to solve all the problems and do all the things. 

And for a while I was. 

I got the middle school kids off to school and then stopped at Smiths for gas and a quick grocery run. 

I was back at the middle school at 9:30 to pick up Charlotte for an orthodontist appointment to get her broken bracket glued back on. Derrick had told me he wasn't feeling well that morning so I'd made a deal with him that if he went to school and still wasn't feeling well he could come home after 1st period. So he was in the office at that time too. 

I dropped Derrick off at home and took Charlotte to the orthodontist. While she was having her appointment I went to the car to call Select Health about one of the clients for Castle Therapy. I was on hold so I started texting out invitations to an Eras Tour watch party I'm having next month. I was still on hold 30 minutes later when Charlotte was done. So that was kind of a bust, but at least I'd tried. 

If I hadn't had sick kids at home I would have taken Charlotte back to school and then basically driven back to the same area for work. But I was planning to work from home. So instead Charlotte and I took a quick detour to my work so I could check the mail and grab a few things. 

We were in and out of my office so fast. I was hoping to have Charlotte back before she had to miss too much of 3rd period. But when I tried to start the car I couldn't even turn the key. 

Crap. 

The whole ignition cylinder was seized up.  I tried the trick where you turn the steering wheel to the left. But that wasn't the problem. The key still wouldn't turn. 

Crap. 

I called Brandon for any tips, but he didn't have much. We both knew what the problem was. Our other Honda had had this exact same issue about 18 months ago. But that time it had seized up in our driveway. 

So I had to figure out how to get home. Charlotte was just fine with missing school. If Derrick and Veronica hadn't been home I would have just gone back inside and worked. But Derrick and Veronica were home. 

So I texted Jori to see if she could pick me up. And she could. So we did get to hang out after all. 

She dropped Charlotte off at school and took me home. I would have stayed and talked to her forever, but it was 11:20 and I'd done hardly anything for Aspen Grove yet.  So I went inside and took care of that stuff. 

At 12:45 I would have met with Ivan at his office. But we did our little meeting over the phone instead. I'd already flacked out on that meeting the last two weeks and I didn't want to do it again.

I was DRAGGING by this point. So as soon as I was off the phone I climbed into bed. I was right. All I did want to do was sleep when I got off work that afternoon. I was so happy that Derrick was already home and that Brandon had ridden his bike. I didn't have to worry about picking either of them up.

I slept for 3 hours. I woke up at 4:00 and started figuring out what was going on. 

Brandon had ridden his bike home and then ridden it over to my work. I texted him to see what was up. He said he almost had the car started again. 

A little while later he sauntered into the house. He was so proud of himself. He'd had to take apart the whole steering column and cut the cylinder with his Dremel tool. The ignition was in pieces. He had to put the key into the ignition and then use something else to actually turn the real ignition switch. But after all that nonsense everything worked fine. 

I had him take me to the back so I could drop off the deposit for work. It was so weird seeing him drive with all the stuff hanging all over the place. He talked about how he was going to install a push button start because the ignition cylinder was shot at this point. I was just so grateful that this amazing MacGyver-Man lives with me. This type of thing would be an absolute emergency for most families. For us it was just a really inconvenient afternoon. 

There was still a lot of work Brandon needed to do to get the car into functioning shape, but he didn't feel like doing it that evening. (And I don't blame him, he'd worked a full 8 hours at work and then another 4 on the car.)

So we just had a nice relaxing evening. We had dinner and then watched a movie. 

Veronica spent a lot of time working on a lego gym. 

It had so many fun details. These guy are lifting weights. 

So is this girl (those are really car axles.)

The motorcycle is a workout bike. 

The girl is doing pull ups with rings. 

There'd a tredmill in the corner. 

I was still feeling a little sick so I was in bed by 9:00 again. 

On Saturday there was no time to be sick. The forecast was saying we'd be over 50 degrees today. I wanted us to spend the whole day outside and I had a whole list of yardwork. 

We started the day around 9:30 with cleaning up the house real quick. Brandon went out and worked on the ignition problem while the kids and I cleaned. 

After the house was in decent shape we went outside. The kids picked up dog poop and I started spraying the fruit trees. Lydia came over and helped with that for a minute. 

Charlotte and Lydia have been hoping for chickens for a long time. I'm okay with us getting chickens, but I didn't want to be the one doing all the work for them. So Charlotte and Lydia were doing lots of things to get the yard ready for them. They started moving rocks from the area where we were going to put the chicken run.

Derrick was bored and so I asked Brandon for help keeping Derrick occupied.  He came out and started showing the kids how to chop down the birch tree. This tree has been dying since we moved in. Last year we knew it was going to have to come down this year. Brandon and I had talked about taking it down this weekend. I was thinking he'd borrow a chain saw. But he was like, "no we can just chop it down with my ax. That sounds fun." It did not sound fun to me. 

But I was the only one. All the kids thought it was great. Brandon showed them the proper technique and they all took turns chopping. So that's a skill they all have now. 

Here's the inside of the tree.

Brandon got the honor of pushing the tree over. 

Then he showed the kids how to chop the branches off. Here's Veronica on her turn. 

Charlotte and Lydia moved all the rock from their chicken coop area. I was like, "yep, you've definitely earned chickens."  So after Brandon finished getting the ignition fixed (or at least to a somewhat put together state) Brandon took them to the store to buy T-stakes and chicken wire to start making the enclosure. 

I have really stuggeled with getting much to grow in this area behind the garage. That wall just makes everything super hot. Everything fries in the summer. But I think it could work as a cool season garden. So I planted a lot of different things in this bed and we'll see what happens. 

I also planted carrots in the deep bed with the onions that I'd planted in the fall. And I planted spinach in the bed behind that. 

Derrick was antsy and wanted to start a fire. But I didn't want to start the fire until we had everything for hot dogs for dinner that night. We were missing buns.  So Derrick and I walked to smiths (the car wasn't quite fixed at that point) We bought buns and mashmallows and then walked home. When we got home the kids worked on lighting a fire. 

My feet were super sore at this point (that walk had pushed them over the edge) So I basically just sat by the fire and supervised. When Brandon did get the car working he wanted to show me how it worked. I was like, "Um I can't walk at the moment. I'll see it later."

We had some old pallets that I'd planned to use for a project that hadn't worked out. They were all weathered so I figured we should just burn them. Brandon got out some crowbars and the kids worked on tearing the pallets apart. Derrick was the one who spent the most time. He loved breaking those pallets apart and throwing the pieces into the fire. 

He'd been begging to go in and watch Youtube all morning. But after we got the fire going in the afternoon he never brought up Youtube again.

Brandon and the girls came back from D&B with the T Stakes and chicken wire. Charlotte had already run a string line with small stakes so we already knew where everything should go. Brandon got out his huge sledge hammer and pounded in all 10 stakes. It was a lot of work, but he did great!

Here's Veronica busting up the pallet. 

Brandon with the last T Stake. 

My feet had started working again so I'd gone in the house and brought all the dinner stuff out. We roasted hot dogs for dinner. 

Then Brandon and the girls went back to working on the enclosure. They carefully rolled out the chicken wire and attached it to the stakes. My sister Emily's chickens are little escape artists so we wanted to make sure that our chickens can't get out. Also we don't want Marsha getting in. The plan is to attach the bottom of the wire to the ground with u stakes. And then we'll piled the rock around the bottom to hopefully discourage Marsha from digging. 

Here's everyone enjoying marshmallows. 

Here are Brandon and Charlotte doing the last of the first layer of chicken wire. When they'd started Brandon hadn't been wearing gloves. I was like, "Do you want me to get your gloves?"  And was like, "No, I hate gloves."  then we all laughed because he literally had two bandaids on his hands from earlier projects. I was like, "Are you sure you don't want some bandaids that cover your whole hands so that you don't get cut in the first place?"

We all had a good laugh at that. But Brandon still wasn't wearing gloves for a while. When I came over and noticed that he was finally wearing his gloves  I teased him and said, "Oh you found you're whole hand bandaids."  

Anyway it was really funny.

The chicken coop is going up right next to my Raspberry patch to I had to move some of my raspberry support T stakes so that I could have a walkway. I was able to use Brandon's smaller sledge hammer to get those in place. I also attempted to transplant three plants to a better spot. We'll see if that works. 

The sun started setting so I made sure to clean up all the tools. There were things everywhere. Shovels, rakes, the ladder, sledge hammers, a giant magnet we were using to pull nails out of a pile of dirt, crowbars, the spray bucket, little stakes, the wheel barrow, and a few pairs of work gloves. It had definitely been a productive day.

I can't believe we did all this on February 24th. But hey, take the good days when they come because it's probably going to rain all through March.

We put the fire out and everyone went inside to take showers and baths.  Brandon went first. I went last, but that's because I wasn't planning to watch a movie with the kids. My feet were DONE for the day and I had no plans to go up and down the stairs. 

And that gets us caught up to today. It's supposed to be another beautiful 50 plus degrees day today. So we are going to enjoy that because it's supposed to get all cold and maybe even snowy again on Monday. 

Thanks for reading. 

Birthday and Valentines 2024

I feel like I start every single blog post by saying I'm behind on the blog. So I won't say that this time. But I am feeling the pressure to get this thing updated before too much longer. 

The last two weeks have been a mixed bag. There have been some AMAZING days like my birthday. And some not so amazing days. 

And really at this point I'm not interested in a super detailed play by play. So this will just be stories, pictures, and occasional introspection. 

Let's get going. 

I've been lamenting for a while that I haven't had a full week where ALL my kids going to school EVERY day of the week since like late November. That's due to a combination of holidays, sickness, and outright school refusal. 

My kids were getting to the point where they didn't feel bad missing a day or two of school here or there. And yeah, that's fine every once in a while. But it was starting to add up and drive me crazy. So something needed to change. 

I realized the kids needed some sort of incentive to get up and go to school. Brandon and I don't like getting up for work every day, but we do it for the money. I figured the kids needed some similar motivation. 

So I came up with a plan. If they went to school and stayed there all day I'd put a dollar in a jar. If they stayed home from school I'd take 2 dollars out. At the end of the quarter I'd take all the money in the jar and divide it equally among the 4 kids.  This way they would have an incentive to go to school, but they'd also have an incentive to encourage their siblings to go to school.  

On Monday I made a little sign explaining the new system. It also said that if they came home early they'd have to take a dollar out. (Which really just means not dollar for that day.) And if they were late to school it would cost 50 cents. We don't really have a problem with being late very often, but I figured it needed a consequence too. 

The kids all went to school and stayed at school on Monday. So when they came home they each were able to put a dollar in the root beer bottle that has been repurposed as a bank.

So far this system is working really well. The kids are more motivated to go to school. One of the biggest evidences that this is working is my time card. For the first time in a long time I got my full number of hours at work TWO weeks in a row. It's amazing how much more I can get done when I'm not constantly having to drive to the school to pick up "sick" kids. 

On Monday I spent a little bit of time rearranging our kitchen cupboards. When we moved in here Hillary did an excellent job unpacking our kitchen and we've followed her set up ever since. But I realized a few things needed a change. We had snacks in a big cupboard with a lot of wasted space. And we had a lot of things on top of the cupboards. (Brandon's favorite thing is to put things up there and forget about them.)  So I moved the snacks and was able to move some of the bigger things from on top of the cupboard to the old snack cupboard. And I reorganized a small awkward corner cupboard better.  

This was kind of the last thing on my mental list of Winter cleaning things I wanted to do. It's been really fun to go through the house and get things more organized and put together. I think I'll plan on doing that every January. 

On Tuesday Lydia stayed home from school. She'd been on antibiotics for strep since Friday, but they didn't seem to be working as well as they had in the past. She was really tired and slept for like 3 hours that morning. 

And she was totally fine with me taking out $2 from the jar. 

After Tuesday she started feeling better and didn't miss any more school. (Though she did tell me and Brandon on another day, "I thought about calling home today. But I didn't want to loose out on a dollar."  And Brandon told her, "Good, that's the point.")

That afternoon and evening Brandon and I started working on the cupcakes for my birthday party. Because, yes I was throwing myself a party. 

I've thought about doing a party for myself for a couple years, but never got around to planning it. This year I made sure it happened. It helped that I already had the study group. I just planned to have that at 10:00 and then roll right into the party at 11:30. 

I'd texted out invitations a few weeks before and did that thing where I basically invited everyone I've ever spoken too. Brandon was like, "How many people are coming to this party?"  And I was like "I don't know. I lost track of who I invited."

So we decided to make 2 dozen cupcakes. We had lemon ones and vanilla ones. I was thinking of just some sort of chocolate or vanilla cupcakes when I had an AMAZING idea. I realized I still had raspberries in the freezer and I figured we could use those to make raspberry frosting. 

I found a recipe online that talked me through the process of cooking and then straining the raspberries. And then Brandon followed the directions to make the butter cream. Everything was going well, and looking good. And them we each had a little taste of the frosting and were like, "What did we just create?"  It was the best frosting I've ever had in my LIFE.

I was riding that high and decided to do basically the same thing with the last of my frozen Blackberries to make a syrup for Black berry mojitos. Meanwhile Brandon was cooking the cupcakes. It was really fun to be creating with him.

At 8:00 the kids helped me clean up the house to get ready for my Birthday Party the next day. We've got into the habit of cleaning up every Tuesday evening so that the house is clean for my Wednesday Bible Study group. It's been nice to have a day in the middle of the week where we make sure the living room is picked up.

Then at 9:00 I hosted the online scripture study group. Here is the recap of Mosiah Chapter 4 I posted later. 

This week was much easier to plan thanks to the book "A Brief Theological Introduction to Mosiah" by James Faulconer published by the Maxwell Institute at BYU. There were two whole chapters of the book dedicated to Chapter 4 of Mosiah.

Quite a bit of our discussion centered around King Benjamin's use of the word Nothingness in Mosiah 4:5 and verse 11. That word can be problematic, but Faulconer puts forth a convincing theory that another meaning for Nothingness is Formlessness or also No-thing. It appears that King Benjamin was trying to remind us that we were created from formlessness/no-thing/dust by God. Metaphically we as humans are no-thing without God.

We become no-thing or formless again when we are separated by God through sin. Through the atonement of Jesus we become something again as we are redeemed.

Then we discussed what actions people who are redeemed do. These are listed out beginning in verse 12. And if you read slowly and carefully you'll find 4 actions in verse 12. (Why is reading slowly so hard?)

We paused at verse 16 and had a discussion of the three social classes that King Benjamin is highlighting. The Rich (those who have possessions/property), the poor (those who have enough to remain from day to day), and the beggar (those who will perish immediately because they do not have anything.)

We looked at how we are all beggars because we (metaphorically) will stand before God with nothing.

We also looked at how the poor are commanded to give of their hearts in verse 24. They can't give of their property (because they don't have any) but they can give of their hearts by looking at the beggar with compassion.

King Benjamin's final item on the list of actions redeemed people take is a little anti climactic. In verse 27 he says that you should return things that you borrow from your neighbor.

Faulconer says of this, " we must use wisdom in deciding how best to serve, not running faster than we are able yet also being diligent. But even if diligently applied wisdom says that we should remain where we are, there is much to be done locally, starting with honest relations with our neighbors . . . the work of charity is respecting your neighbor, as well as answering the petition of the beggar-- both, not one or the other."

Wednesday February 7th was my 39th birthday. I've taken my birthday off of work every year since I started working for Aspen Grove. This year it just happened to be on Wednesday which I always take off these days.  Still it was nice to not have to worry about work. 

Brandon also took the day off so that he could help me with my party. I'm glad he was there. He ran to walmart to find mint leaves and a few other things. He also took care of frosting the cupcakes and putting together the 7 layer dip. And when Derrick called home trying to come home early, Brandon got on the phone and told him he needed to stay. 

I had three friends come for Bible Study and we had a good time with that and then it was party time!

Here's the table that Brandon had all set up. Everything was so good!

And here is the most amazing cupcake ever. It was a lemon cupcake with the raspberry frosting. I can't even with how good this thing was. 

I totally forgot to take pictures of any of the people at my party. But here's a list of who was there. 

Jori, Carol, and Aki from my scripture study group. Jori brought me earings and when I was like, "Oh I let my holes grow over years ago" she was like, "I can pierce them for you." So that's how serious that friendship is getting. 

Shari and Ferin from Bible Study. I haven't seen Ferin since last years ladies retreat and I was so excited to see her I just kept repeating things she was saying to me. So basically she was like, "Happy Birthday and I was like, "YEAH HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"  It was like she was a celebrity and I was just fan girling and loosing my mind. Ferin is so cool and I'm still in awe that she even remembers me and considers me to be a friend. She even brought me a gift - a mug with sun flowers. I'm still so happy that she came. 

Uli, Darla, Megan, and probably someone else from my ward also came. 

My friend Rachel came too. She's actually more Brandon's friend because they were in Music Man together, but she lives in our neighborhood. If our ward boundaries were slightly different we would be in the same ward. I wanted her to come so I could get to know her a little better and so she could meet some people from our neighborhood. Her husband used to be the school counselor at the Elementary school back when we first moved in. I think I met her briefly back then. So actually she's one of the rare pre-covid friends.  She ended up sitting by Megan and they both realized they have celiac and bonded over that. They were exchanging phone numbers by the end. I'm so excited when people make connections like that. 

Macey, the other twins mom came. I haven't seen her since Christmas. It was good to catch up with her.

I feel like I'm missing someone. Sorry if you were there and I forgot to mention you. I should have made a list right after the party. 

Everyone had a good time talking and getting to know each other. After about an hour a lot of the people went home, but about 5 stayed and we had a longer conversation. 

Brandon had asked me if I wanted him around during the party. I said yes, as long as he was having a good time. Well he had a great time. He and Macey had a long talk and then he joined in with some other conversations. Ferin was so impressed that he'd made all the food. She was like, "You guys should do a catering business. This is all so good!" I later heard from a mutual friend that she was praising Brandon's cooking a few days later. Yep, I married a good one. 

The party ended around 1:30 (I only remember that because Brandon picked up Derrick at 1:15 and Derrick was there while people were saying goodbye)

It had been wonderful, but I was feeling all talked out. I love people, but at my core I'm an introvert and I was needing some quiet time. 

I think I went and took a nap or something. I really don't remember much after the party. 

At some point I took a picture of all my gifts. I really didn't expect any of these so I was really touched the people brought things for me. Not pictured is the butter that Aki gave me. She was kind of embarrassed about handing it to me, but I was like, "This is perfect. We used up all our butter making buttercream frosting. So now we don't have to buy more."  

That evening a present arrived from my sister Lindsey. It was a little book light and a bar of soap. The book light has been put to a lot of use already. 

And the soap was amazing. 

It smelled like a starburst. 

We had left over cupcakes so the kids each got one when they came home from school. 

I didn't really have anything planned for dinner. I think it was just kind of leftovers . . . I really don't remember. But it didn't really matter. I'd had plenty of 7 layer dip at the party. 

Anyway, it was a really great birthday and the party had been just wonderful. Next year is my 40th birthday and it's on a Friday so I'm hoping to do something BIG. I have no ideas yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something. 

Oh and one more cool thing happened that day. I published another blog post for the Exponent. This one was based on some deep exploration into the phrase "Keep the commandment that ye may prosper in the land" that pops up all over the Book of Mormon. It showed up early in Mosiah so I took some time to research it for my scripture study group and then turned it into a blog post. You can read it here.  

I'm trying to remember anything special about Thursday, but it was in the shadow of my birthday and I can't think of anything. I did take the box that Ferin's mug came in to work and put it on my book case. It's so cheerful. (And check out that cute lemon that one of my coworkers made for me.)

Friday I'd scheduled the girls orthodontist appointment for that morning. This was the third Friday in a row with an appointment and I was like, "Why do I do this to myself?"

I realized I didn't really have enough time to go to work before it would be time to pick up the girls from school so I just worked from home for about an hour and then went to get the girls. We went to the orthodontist and they got all their wires and things changed out. Lydia had her Marah device removed. And Charlotte had brackets installed so she can wear rubber bands. 

Then I took them back to school and basically turned around and went back the same way to go to work. It was one of those days where I drove a lot on Eastland Drive. 

That afternoon Aspen Grove hosted an open house so show off our new office space to the community. I brought all the kids and they had fun in my office. Here's Veronica playing with the 10 key.

Here's Derrick on my couch. At one point all 6 of us were standing in my office and I was like, "Wow! We all fit in here."  I never minded the little closet size office I had at the old building. But it is nice to have a bigger space here. 

The Childrens Museum had come out and brought some things to play with. Here's Derrick playing in our meeting room. (Though most kids ended up playing in the Play Therapy room because that room has some really fun toys.)

I'd invited Ivan to the open house and he came for a little bit. He and Brandon started talking about Ivan's Treasure Island play that will be happening in June. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but basically Brandon has a part in the play now. We'd been on the fence about it since June is already filling up. But I realized that it will probably work. So that's on the schedule now too. 

When we got home Charlotte and Lydia pulled out their instruments and practiced for a while. 

And here's a lego creation that Veronica had been working on.

She even had lights in it. 

Saturday was a really busy day. We got a lot done in the house, ran a lot of errands, and I even went out and pruned the raspberries and blackberries. 

The girls rearranged their lego area. It's similar to how it was, but different enough that they like it even more. 

A friend in our ward was giving away a desk and no one else was interested. So Brandon and I went and got it. I wanted to put it in the craft room. Brandon had to cut away the existing shelf/work area to make the desk fit. But it was totally worth it. I'm looking forward to sewing here. 

Here's the whole craft room. It still needs a little bit of organization, but it getting there. 

That night we watched Ready Player One. The kids absolutely loved it. 

Okay, I considered stopping here, but I'm in the zone so let's keep going with the next week. 

Sunday was a good day. After church we went on a little hike on the canyon rim from Federation Point to the Perrine Coulee overlooks. I'd left my phone at home so I took pictures with Brandon's phone. And I haven't taken them off yet. So sorry, no pictures. 

Back at home Charlotte and Veronica decided to update Veronica's Llama Valentine Box. Her teacher had told the kids they could bring boxed from home and Veronica was like, "YES!!!"  Charlotte and Lydia had made her the box when she was in First Grade and we were doing homeschool. She took it to school on Second grade and everyone had loved it. But in Third grade her teacher didn't allow boxes from home so she was sad about that. 

She was excited to bring it again. But when she and Charlotte brought it upstairs from the craft room they were like, "this is old. Let's make something better."

The llama box was unceremoniously tossed into the recycling bin outside and they went to the garage and found new boxes. 

They started working on making a dragon. Lydia was drawing at the table and so this was very much a "craft night at the Illguth's" type of moment. 

And here's a funny picture of Marcia. 

I'm not sure if any of us were really ready for the week to start on Monday. But we all got up and dragged about our days. 

There were some happy things though. I noticed that I had tulip points popping up in the front yard. That made me happy.

Derrick had his orthodontist appointment after school on Monday. Every time we go I ask him if he wants a new color for his bands. And every time he just says, "No, I like gold." It's impressive how much his teeth have improved in just a few months. The flare is a lot less noticeable and his gaps have closed a lot. 

All the way home from the orthodontist Derrick was telling me stuff he wanted to do. This ranged from going on a trip to New York or even England to going to the store to buy candy. I was like, "Hey I know something we can do. Do you want to do in the backyard and do a fire!"

He liked that idea. I'd piled all the dead raspberry and blackberry canes on the fire pit. So all we had to do was stuff some paper towels under them and then light that on fire and voila we had a roaring fire pretty quick. 

So quick in fact that I didn't even have a chance to grab my phone from the house. And I didn't want to leave the fire unattended so sorry, no pictures. 

There's nothing like a fire to motivated an 11 year old boy to help clean up a yard. He was running all over the place pulling up dead weeds and plants. We have a bunch of sun flower stalks that never were cleaned up last fall.  He pulled them all up and threw them on the fire. He cleaned up dead sweet pea vines. He pulled up tried up weeds. He picked up sticks. That yard looked so much better after 1 hour. 

Later that evening I had Bible Study with Twin Falls Community Church. I realized I smelled like smoke so I took a shower right before I went there. I showed up with slightly damp hair. But I didn't care. I was so happy to be at Bible Study. I haven't been since December because the roads were too snowy in January. It was so good to see my friends and to learn about Philipians 2:1-16 from my friend Liz. She is so good at teaching. My bible was full of notes and things by the time we were done. AND the things we were studying happened to tie in perfectly with Mosiah 5. So that was great!

Back at home Charlotte had been working hard on the dragon box. She'd painted it orange. She wanted the teeth to be while, but we didn't have any while paint. She used some of her gel nail paint. But then realized it needed to be sealed with the UV light. So she put that on the teeth. It looked funny so I took a picture. 

Veronica and I realized that Tuesday would be the best day for our little Valentine's Day party. We set it up after school. Derrick took this picture of us.

Here's the table.

I'd made a cake roll with red velvet cake and the last of the raspberry frosting. 

And Lydia and I had made cake pops. (I think we made these things on Sunday because I don't think we had time on Monday.)  The last time we'd tried to make cake pops was like 8 years ago in Alabama and they had gone terribly wrong. This time we were following an actual recipe instead of just a Tasty video. And they turned out. 

Things that helped were to use buttercream frosting instead of frosting from a can. And to melt the candy melts with a double boiler instead of in the microwave. We also learned that a little bit of shortning in the candy melts helps give them a thinner texture. 

I was so happy that these turned out. Lydia then volunteered to bring cake pops to her Primetime class party on Friday. 

Here's the table from another angle. I'd bought the balloons at Dollar Tree on Monday morning. Usually I spent a lot of time picking out the balloons. But last year the kids just wanted to suck the helium out. so this year I just grabbed four balloons and didn't put much thought into them. 

The kids are all a little old for this tradition. But they still like it. And we still played don't Eat Pete. 

I really like this little tradition because its a LITTLE tradition. We just have our own little fun as a family and we don't have to make it complicated. It's like, "hey kids, I love you. Have a balloon."

Brandon was already at CSI so he didn't come to our party. He normally only teaches on Tuesday or Thursday. But this week he was teaching both Tuesday AND Thursday. 

When I put Veronica to bed I found her dragon already in it's bed. She was so excited about that thing. 

I'd realized that it would be best to combine Mosiah chapters 5 and 6 this week. So Scripture study was about both of those chapters. 

Here's the recap that I wrote later. I feel like these keep getting longer and longer. 

King Benjamin's speech has been going on since Chapter 2. But it hasn't all been one long speech. Chapters 2 and 3 were the first "cycle" of the speech. At the beginning of Chapter 4 the people respond to the speech by repenting and receiving a remission of their sins.

Then King Benjamin spent the rest of Chapter 4 talking to the people about actions that redeemed people take in their lives.

Chapter 5 begins with another response by the people. They talk about being changed by the Spirit and say they are willing to enter into a covenant. Then King Benjamin talks about the importance of the covenant and how they are now called the people of Christ. (Remember back in Mosiah 1:11-12 we saw that he wanted to give the people a name. The name is Christ.)

The majority of our discussion time was spent around Mosiah 5:13 where we are told that we should serve God so that we can know him. The word know is more than just knowing facts. It's about a relationship.

One reason we come to know God through service is because he is also a servant. I happened to be studying Philippians 2:1-18 with the Ladies Bible Study with TFCC this week. The verses from 3-8 were especially applicable to this lesson. Here they are in the ESV translation.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Even through Christ has all power, he was full of humility and was a servant. We can learn a lot by following his example.

King Benjamin ends his speech at the end of Chapter 5. In Chapter 6 we see his son Mosiah become king. Priests are also appointed over the people. And the people go home. Now it's time to live what they have learned.

What's amazing is that they do it! There is peace in the land for at least 3 years. (Probably more, but the record doesn't really say how long it lasts past three years.) King Benjamin lives during those three years and I'm so happy that he gets to see the fruits of all his labors.

This was our last meeting for almost a month. We'll be taking a break and then starting with Chapter 7 in March. Here's the schedule in case you think you might be able to make it. 

Wednesday was actual Valentines Day and it was a DOOZY!

The middle school kids had "Cub Club" in the morning. It's a fun reward for the kids who don't have grades below a C. They can do fun activities like playing games, watching a movie, making crafts, etc. Everyone loves it. Except Derrick. 

He hates when the schedule is different. And due to Cub Club his school day would go from 11:00 to 2:00 ish. 

Plus there was going to be a safety drill at some point that day. 

So I got emails from two different people suggesting that it would be okay if Derrick just stayed home that day. 

So even though it was okay with everyone - including me - we would still not have a week where ALL the kids went to school EVERY day that week. 

They wouldn't be on time either. Charlotte had broken a bracket so we had to go to the orthodontist right at 8:30 to get it looked at. Lydia came along because I was her ride. 

When we were done with the orthodontist we went to the City Parks and Rec department so that we could turn in Lydia's entry for an art contest. They are holding a contest to find art to put on 5 electrical boxes around town. Each of the 5 winners will get $1000. 

Lydia had been working on various drawings for weeks and finally finished one that she was happy with. So we got that turned in. It's called, "In the Canyon." 

So after all that I dropped the girls off at school at 9:00. Then I went home and got things ready for the study group. 

Study group went well and was over by 11:30. If Derrick hadn't been home I would have had a chance to relax. But Derrick was full of ideas. He was like, "Mom, we didn't have any little candy hearts yesterday. We need some."  And because I felt guilty about that I took Derrick to the store so we could buy conversation hearts. We also went to Joanns so I could get more cake pop sticks and candy melts for Lydia's next round of cake pops. 

Then I dropped Derrick off at home and went to the school to get Veronica. She would have had therapy on my birthday, but that would have conflicted with my party. So we'd moved her appt to this Wednesday. But the catch was that it was at 1:00 instead of 12:00. 

Therapy was good. She has made so much progress in a year. We are actually going to start winding it down and be done by the summer. 

Then we hurried to pick up Brandon from work. And then I dropped Veronica off at school. 

She'd been worried about having her large valentines box at school all day. So it had been hanging out in the car. She took it into school for the party that started at 2:00.  Everyone loved it!

Here's the picture we'd taken that morning. 

And here she is with Charlotte. 

By this point I was feeling really wrung out. I wanted a nap, but Brandon was already taking one. So I tried to take a little nap on the couch and kind of succeeded. But before too long it was time to pick up Veronica from school.  She proudly carried her dragon across the school grounds. Kids were staring at it because it was so cool.

She told me all about her party and how fun it was. Charlotte and Lydia came home, but they didn't have time to relax because we had to go to the dentist to get sealents. (Why did I schedule that appointment on Valentines day.) Brandon was going to take them, but he was still sleeping and I wasn't messing with that. So I took them. It wasn't hard, but three different appointments in one day is a little beyond my limit. 

When we came home I was just done. Brandon was awake and working on dinner and I went and took a little nap. 

I thought I could rally for dinner. But I wasn't into it. 

I did give out the presents that had arrived that day. Brandon got a new watch. The girls got dragon necklaces. And Derrick got more rubber bands. 

Veronica had also ordered some things that were in that same Amazon package. She's been saving her money for a bunny for a long time. (Originally it was a snake, but then she changed it to a bunny.)  I was getting a little concerned about our ability to care for a rabbit. I had a talk with her about how I didn't think a rabbit would be very happy at our house. During that conversation we both realized that she kind of just wanted something fluffy to love. So we ended up buying a robot bunny. It was fuffy, and hopped, and was very cute. And best of all it was like $15 and didn't care if we forgot about it for several days in a row. 

Here it is hopping. 

The Young Men and Young Women were supposed to have a combined activity. But it was cancelled at that day with instructions for the youth to watch younger siblings so their parents could go on a date. (The sentiment was sweet, but I was like, "this sounds like someone forgot to plan the activity.") So the good news was that we didn't have to take the kids to the church. The bad news was we really didn't have anything planned. Oh and I was like on the verge of a panic attack because my day off hadn't been relaxing at all. 

Brandon and I attempted to go grocery shopping together, but I was so keyed up that I just stayed in the car while Brandon ran in for a few things. 

When we got to home Brandon just sent me to the garage to have a break from everyone and he took care of bed time. Thankfully I'd had the foresight to cancel my shift at the warming center for that night when I'd noticed how packed the calendar was for that week. So I didn't have anywhere I had to go. 

Brandon came out after the kids were in bed. He had a box of chocolates for me and some root beer. We ate, and I cried, and things were better by the end. But wow, what a crappy way to end Valentines Day. 

Wednesday had felt like a Friday so Thursday just felt like death. I was like, "WHY do we have to get up and go to school?"  I was still feeling fragile so I wore my stretching comfy yoga pants to work and basically wrapped up in my blanket while I was there. I was like, "I don't want to be here, but I'll at least be comfortable while I'm here."

I made it through the whole long day of work at Castle for 45 minutes, work at Aspen for 3.5 hours, picking up Derrick, picking up Brandon, dropping them off, picking up Veronica, taking her to vision therapy, and then I came home and took a long nap. 

Brandon left for CSI while I was asleep. I felt so much better after that nap. I was able to help Lydia with her cake pops after school and also make sloppy joes for dinner. 

After dinner we walked over to the Middle school for Charlotte and Lydia's Orchestra Concert.

We got there around 6:30 and the concert didn't start until 7:00. I was kind of trying to think of something Derrick could do during that time. Then he told me, "I forgot my quiet headphones!"  So the way to keep him occupied was to walk back home and get the headphones. I left Veronica at the school to save our seats. She just watched Instagram videos on my phone. She was so calm about being left there. She's definitely made progress in the last year. 

We live close to the school so we were back by 6:50. I'm so glad we live within walking distance of the school.

Lydia is in beginner orchestra so they went first. I think her beginner orchestra is bigger than my Jr high orchestra. 

Here she is. That's her on the back row. We'd learned to sit farther back so we could see her. 

They played several little songs and then played their first long song. It's called Russian Music Box and Lydia has looked forward to playing this for a long time. I made sure to record it. The sound comes out more shrill than it is in real life, but you get the idea. 

Charlotte had been sitting with us during Lydia's songs. Then she went onto the stage and Lydia came and sat with us. Here's Charlotte. 

Here she is after playing. 

Her favorite songs is the Cliff of Moriah or something like that. But they aren't playing that until the May concert. So I filmed Tocatina. 

After the concert was over we came home and Lydia and I finished up the cake pops. This was our third batch in like a week so Lydia knew exactly what to do. She was basically doing everything I was was just there to help and do the dishes. I know I took a picture of us working on them, but I can't find it now. That's too bad because they turned out really well. We were like, "We figured it out!"  She was so excited to take them to school on Friday and she got a lot of complements on them. 

Friday was another rough morning. I seriously laid in bed for a while thinking about how empty I felt. I was like, "I worked straight through Thanksgiving and Christmas and didn't really take any time off. And I've been going like crazy without much of a break through January and February. I NEED A BREAK!"  

And then I remembered that Monday was a holiday and the kids had Tuesday off and we were going on a little trip and I wasn't going to work Monday or Tuesday and all that was going to be a break. So that motivated me to get up and get going. 

But then Derrick wasn't in a good mood and he was sitting in the school office acting very grumpy and I didn't feel good about just making him go to class in that kind of mood. 

I didn't want him to stay home. And I didn't want him to go to work with me. So I told him he'd have to go to work with Brandon. (Which is impossible, but Derrick didn't know that.)

So I called Brandon and Brandon told me to bring Derrick to him. And so I drove over to his work. Brandon came out and had a talk with Derrick about how he needed to go to school. There were tears, but by the end of the talk Derrick was in a better mood and I was able to take him back to school and he stayed there all day. All day I was like, "Brandon is my HERO."

So anyway I got to work about 45 minutes later than I wanted to and I felt like a towel that had been all wrung out."  But I made it through the day. 

After I picked up Derrick from school and Brandon from work I went home and just sat in my bed for a long time. Brandon and Derrick went to get the tires rotated on the car. (I'd had that on my to do list since January, but hadn't got to it. So I asked Brandon to take care of it.)  

I picked Veronica up from school and then went back to bed. 

Brandon picked up pizza on the way home. It was so nice to not have to cook anything. 

Brandon and I had plans to go see The Relationship Show at the Orpheum. This is a improve show like Whose Line is it Anyway but with local talent. It's actually run by Heath Harmison who has a few Dry Bar Specials. Brandon and I know him and his wife a little bit from a party. But it was like a year after the party that I realize Health was like kind of famous. (I'm a little slow sometimes.)

Anyway, I took a shower and felt so much better. I think this was the first time I'd actually blow dried my hair all week. I was excited to go on a date with Brandon. Here we are at our seats. 

They played several improv games and they were so funny. But the big draw for this particular show is that they take a couple from the audience and have them tell the story of how they met and then the improv group acts it out. Brandon and I were trying to get picked as that couple until another couple said, "We're married, but we found out we are cousins."  And EVERYONE - including us - wanted to hear that story. 

Turns out they are cousins through marriage, but it was still hilarious to hear their story and then see it acted out. Brandon and I laughed so much. 

Here we are outside after the show. It was a good way to end the day.

On Saturday I had a big to do list, but one of the things on the list was SLEEP IN. So I made sure to do that. I think I was in bed until 9:30.  Then I got up and was productive. 

Brandon and I went grocery shopping and bought THREE carts full of food. That was very needed. 

Then we came home and I took a long nap. 

At 5:00 we went to a family Valentine's Day Party hosted by our friends Joe and Megan. They'd come to our Halloween Party and Megan came to my birthday party. They were like, "We wanted to host parties too."  Brandon and I are very happy about this trend we've seemed to kick off. (Actually I really should give credit to our friends Bryan and Candy for hosting parties and reminding me that I like parties too.)

There were so many fun families there. A few years ago I used to lament that I was one of the youngest people in our ward's Sunday school. But in the last few years we've had several more younger-ish couples move in. It's been so much fun to get to know them. 

My friend Olyvia was talking to someone about their birth stories and then casually asked me, "What were your births like?"  And I thought "you have no idea what you just opened up."

Out loud I said, "Oh I've done everything. I had a C-section with the twins. Then a medicated VBAC with Derrick, and then Veronica was an unplanned home birth."  And then everyone nearby wanted to hear that story.    

Back at home we packed for our little trip. Lydia wanted to show me her lego tree house. She was very proud of the LED lights that she'd put into the lego lanturns. 

there were so many cute details. 

Here are the lights again.

Here's a candle. 

Here's a hammock. 

And a bed room.

And that's the end of the pictures and basically the end of the week. 

Thanks for reading!