Acceptance (and Christmas Stuff)

Thanks to COVID I think I've moved through the 5 Stages of Grief this year.

Denial was the first few weeks when the kids were home from school for what we thought would be 2 weeks. We all thought this would be resolved so quickly. 

Anger was most of April when my life seemed so unpredictable and up in the air. I was thrown into an unexpected lifestyle and I was not handling it well. 

Bargaining also happened in April and through most of the rest of the year. If I write a book, I'll be happy. If we go on lots of hikes, I'll be happy. If we homeschool, I'll be happy.

Depression was November. Everything seemed so hard.

Acceptance is now - at least I hope it is. I've felt really calm this month. This is when I've made peace with the year. I've embraced sleeping in. (7:30 feels early now.)

Or maybe this month just feels good because of Christmas. I'm LOVING Christmas this year. Even Christmas songs that normally bother me, like Frosty the Snowman and Holly Jolly Christmas, put me in a good mood. 

Last Saturday we watched Curious George Christmas. On Sunday Derrick wanted to draw a Christmas countdown calendar like what Curious George had in the movie. So I made him one. He loves crossing off each day. 

 

I finished my last post by saying that Brandon was sleeping on the couch and I planned to join him. I took this picture and then snuggled up with him. We had such a good nap. 

That night we watched The Christmas Chronicles on Netflix for our movie. The kids and Brandon have all seen it, but I haven't. It was really good. 

It started snowing on Sunday and stuck around on Monday.  

When I got home from work on Monday we did a little bit of school and then I said it was a snow day and the kids went out and played. 

They built a snowman in the tree house. 

Here's what the girls do to get eachother's boots off when they come inside. 

Veronica and I went to physical therapy. Her therapist wanted to work on some things to help her be more spatially aware. He'd noticed that she seemed to struggle with positioning her body and suspected that walking on her toes was one of the ways he brain compensated for some balance issues. I've noticed that Veronica struggles with her spatial awareness, but I'd kind of chalked it up to a personality thing rather than a balance thing. I was really happy that this was something that we could work on in therapy. 

On Monday night we had a later dinner and then Brandon had to make a phone call so we didn't have much time to watch a movie. We decided to watch Mickey's Christmas Carol. It's only 30 minutes long so it was a good choice for a night we needed a quick movie. I forgot how funny it was. 

After the kids went to bed, Brandon and I stayed up and watched Die Hard. I love that movie so much. 

On Tuesday we had more school work to do than on Monday. The kids had to take their I -station math tests. And then we worked on other things. We were all getting burned out, but there was light at the end of the tunnel. My plan for these last three weeks had panned out well. 

After school the kids went outside again and built more snowmen in the front yard. Normally its a huge chore to get the kids ready for the snow, but this year they can put their gear on all by themselves. The most I have to help with is tightening boots and helping gloves slip on, but even that is easier than it used to be. 

They even took care of taking pictures for me. 

This is a happy Christmas family. 

Tuesday night I had a staff meeting/mini Christmas party at work. When I started with the clinic I was basically the second employee. Now we have 7 employees. Everyone works at different times so not everyone has met eachother yet. My co-worker and I felt it was important to have a Staff Meeting and to also have some decorations and some fun food. My boss kept saying he would set up a staff meeting, but he just didn't have time to put that together. So my coworker and I said we'd take care of it. We picked two days that worked for us and asked our boss to decide which one was best for him. He picked Tuesday the 15th. My coworker took care of the food and decorations. 

The meeting started at 7:00 and so we were there at 6:30 to set up. Everyone else arrived and it was great to visit with each other. Then we had some business to take care of. I'd already typed up an agenda so all our boss had to do was go over the discussion items with us all. 

The meeting was officially over at 7:50. I told my boss to go home to his family and we'd take care of cleaning up. I figured my job it to make sure he gets to spend as much time with his family as possible so I was really happy when he left right away. 

Two of my co-workers stayed to clean up with me. We got everything done before 8:30. It had been such a good night. I really like the people I work with and the environment my boss has created for all of us. 

When I got home Brandon and the kids were finishing up their science work for the semester. They've been really good about doing science lessons all semester, but they haven't been good about taking screenshots of the quizzes they do at the end of each lesson. So they'd gone back over all the lessons from the quarter and redid the quizzes to get the screenshots. 

Brandon and I have joked that maybe the most important thing we teach our kids this year is how to cram at the end of the semester. 

Brandon set me the screenshots and I uploaded them to the Google Classroom. We were officially done with Science. That felt good.  

By that point it was too late for a movie so the kids just went to bed. 

Wednesday was a good yet quick day at work. I got sucked into a complicated insurance/billing/accounting project. I spent nearly the whole 2.5 hours at the office working on a spreadsheet to figure out the information on about 5 different documents. And I still was confused about what exactly was going on. 

At home the kids and I worked on my school stuff. We had to do the I-station reading tests. We do these monthly and the kids are never happy to do them. But this is another area where we've achieved acceptance. 

We also worked on Writing for all four kids. Veronica finished her writing for the semester. Charlotte and Lydia also had Language Arts. 

When we were done with school I told all the kids to get into their snow things. We were going to the park to play in the snow.  We drove there and the kids had so much fun playing in a giant field that hardly anyone else had walked in. 

I forgot my phone, but later I drove home to grab it and some baby carrots for the snowmen the kids made. Here's Lydia with her snowman. Up until about 5 minutes before I took pictures it had been very sunny that afternoon.  

Veronica with hers. 

And Charlotte with hers. She wanted hers to look like it was looking through the fence. 

Another view of Charlotte's snowman. Derrick didn't make a snowman, but he'd had so much fun throwing snow around.

Before we left the kids wanted to explore the skateboard area. Normally this area is full of kids on skateboards so we've never gone very close to it. The kids liked being able to explore the area. 

Charlotte looked so pretty in her pink hat and coat. 

That night we went driving around to look at Christmas lights. Our first stop was the very scaled down Living Nativity. COVID had cancelled the busy market place, but the Holy Family was still represented. 

As we drove past the Nativity Scene, Derrick said something like, "That's where I got lost. I went under the fence. I went back to the car. I wanted to go home." You may remember that we lost Derrick for about 30 minutes on the last night of the Living Nativity Last year. I'd searched all over for him - including at the car. We'd finally found him wandering around the marketplace. The most I'd got out of him that year was that he went on the bridge, looked at stars, and went to the car - we must have missed each other. This year he was able to articulate more about what had happened during that unaccounted 30 minutes.  

I'd looked up a list of houses with good Christmas displays in Twin Falls. So we spent about 40 minutes driving around trying to find the houses on my list. I'd expected the houses to be super bright and amazing, but none of them really stood out. 

I was feeling disappointed and grumpy. Then Brandon said, "well I know were a good display is."

He drove about 5 minutes west of town and then turned down a small dark road. We were surrounded by farm land. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. 

Then we went over a little rise in the road and we saw tons of Christmas lights. There was a cul du sac street with lights up and down the whole street. Each neighbor had decorated their yards and fences with lights.

Since this was out in the country each house had a huge yard. There were so many things to look at. My camera wasn't taking great pictures, but trust me everything looked amazing. 

The kids said things like "Wow! Dad, you win!"  I was like, "Hey, you wouldn't think this was cool if I hadn't shown you all those lame houses."

It was a great way to spend the evening. 

Thursday was a super productive day at work. We are partially open for a few days before Christmas, but this was the last day most of our clinicians were working. I got a lot done in anticipation for being mostly closed the next two weeks. 

For school the kids and I worked on their last social studies lessons. Those are done on the computer and haven't been too bad, but we were all so happy to be done with those for the semester. Then Charlotte and Lydia and I finished their last Language Arts lesson for the semester. 

We got through the second to last writing lesson for everyone. Charlotte and Lydia had been hoping to finish the last lesson two but I felt they were kind of running out of gas on that for the day. So we put it off until Friday. 

Charlotte and Lydia had also tried to finish the last 4 pages of math while I was at work. They'd done a decent job on two of the pages, but I could tell they'd copied from the back of the book on parts of the 3rd and 4th pages. So I'd erased those problems and told the girls they could finish on Friday.  They did not like that. There were many tears. 

Both girls were telling me that they didn't feel well. I was starting to wonder if maybe they were getting sick. Lydia seemed hot, but I couldn't tell if that was because she was crying if because she had a fever. I took both temperatures and neither was running a fever at all. I asked if they wanted to take hot baths to feel better and that seemed to do the trick. 

Derrick was also in a grumpy mood. He didn't want to do his writing, but somehow we finished his last assignment. That meant he was done. So was Veronica. 

After the baths were done we got ready to go to the store like we always do on Thursdays. Our bishopric had brought over two $50 Walmart Gift cards. Since our official Christmas shopping was done I'd decided that the best thing to do with that money was to buy new church shoes and tights/socks for the kids. The kids all outgrew their church shoes while we were doing home church and when we went back to church we didn't go often enough for me to remember to get new shoes. Every Sunday the kids would wear sandals/cowboy boots/tennis shoes to church. I'd be like, "Oh we really need to get new shoes soon." And then I'd forget until we went to church again in two weeks. But last week Charlotte had been pretty vocal that none of her tights fit. And Lydia had been vocal that she didn't have shoes. So it getting new church shoes was actually on my mind. 

I'd been hoping to just order everything online, but the selection wasn't great. So against my better judgement I decided to take all 4 kids to Walmart to pick out and try on shoes. 

I tried to get out of my decision. When the twins had been crying I'd been thinking, "hmm, I can't take kids who might be sick to the store." But then they felt better. It was also snowing again and I didn't want to drive in the snow, but it cleared up by the time we were done with school. Derrick's grumpy mood gave me pause about going to the store. But when I mentioned I'd buy gum at the store he perked up and was excited about going. 

So we got in the car and went to Walmart. When we got there I told the kids, "We are ONLY getting shoes and tights. We aren't even going to look at toys."

And the kids were great about that, but there were many things to see on the way to the shoe aisle. They were all getting new ideas for Christmas lists and I was trying to keep them focused. We found tights for each girl and a package of socks for Derrick. Then we found nice shoes for each girl. But there were no dress shoes in Derrick's size.  I told him we'd look online. He didn't really care because we got him newer shoes at the clothing swap this summer, so his actually fit right now. 

We had to pick up cottage cheese to make lasagna for dinner so we trekked over there. Then we headed to the cash registers while looking for gum. Derrick took us right to it at the checkout stand. This is where we ran into an issue. Derrick was under the impression I was buying a whole package for him. He started freaking out when he realized we were buying a package to share. 

I was frantically trying to pay for the gum and the cottage cheese with my debit card and then the other things with the gift cards. Derrick was trying (and at one point succeeding) to slug his sisters. People were looking at us, and I was so happy to get out of there. 

We made it to the car and Derrick was still raging. A piece of gum wasn't enough to calm him down. When he gets like this he likes to slam the back of Charlotte's seat in Charlotte, so I moved Charlotte into the front seat. 

We had to pick up pullups and Norco which is next to Walmart. So we did that. I was thinking we should just go straight home, but I'd promised Veronica we'd go to the dollar store so she could get more craft supplies. Derrick seemed to have calmed down so we went to the dollar store. Charlotte and Derrick stayed in the car and I ran into the store with Lydia and Veronica. 

Veronica had 4 dollars so she picked out 4 things. But when we went to pay she discovered that she'd lost a dollar. So she had to put something back. It was her time to burst into tears. 

When we got back to the car Derrick had thrown his pullup packages everywhere and had ripped up the box. Marcia was also being a pain (did I mention that we bring Marcia on all these errands) and to top it all off my phone had been getting automated phone calls from the school district and the random phishing numbers. It was all a bit much for me. It was my turn to bust into tears. 

We made it home and most of the kids went in the basement to watch a movie and leave me alone. But Veronica was still inconsolable about her dollar. And Derrick was still raging. 

I honestly don't remember how I got everyone calm. But gradually everyone settled down. I made lasagna and ordered shoes for Derrick online. (Walmart said the shoes were available in store, but I knew that was incorrect. I wasn't surprised when that order got cancelled later.)

Brandon came home and we had dinner. The kids had all calmed down from the crazy afternoon. Charlotte and Lydia were working on doing those last few math problems. When they were done with those they were DONE with math for the semester.  

By this point was kind of late in the evening so we watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer since it's only an hour long.. That is a movie that is good because of nostalgia. But when you really stop to think about it, it's kind of nuts. I love watching Honest Trailers and the one for Rudolph is hilarious. 

Brandon had been planning to go grocery shopping after the kids were in bed. But we'd had trouble getting his pay check to upload with our banks mobile deposit. His boss was going to have to redo it on Friday. We had plenty of milk and cereal to make it another morning so he decided to wait on grocery shopping. 

I was still planning to have an evening to myself so I headed downstairs and had a West Wing Marathon. I love the second season's Christmas Episode, Noel,  and try to watch it every December. This year I had plenty of time so I went back and watched some of the earlier episodes that tie into Noel. I think I watched about 5 episodes total. It was so great. 

I was trying to figure out when I first watched Noel. The second season of the West Wing broadcast in 2000 when I was 15 yeas old. So I was 15 when I first watched Noel. I'm 35 now, so that means I first watched Noel 20 years ago!?!  This math problem has been haunting me most of the year.  35-15=20 just doesn't compute when we are talking about my life. How has it been 20 years since I was 15?

Anyway, here is one more paragraph about  Noel. The episode centers around one of the characters needing therapy for some traumatic experiences. At the end of the episode the therapist says, that it will all work out because "We get better." He delivers it so sincerely. I've loved that line for 20 years (apparently). I think that line is one reason I love working for a Family Therapy clinic. 

Friday was the very last day of the semester. And the only thing that any one had left to do was the 1 page of writing the twins had. Since I didn't have work, I was planning on sitting with them while they finished it. 

Derrick came upstairs and was in a grumpy mood. Everything was setting him off. He said he didn't want to go to therapy with Miss Nisha, and he was crying about it. I asked him if he was feeling well and he said no. So I cancelled therapy for the day. 

Then he said, "I'm running away. I want to go to the park." He started putting on his boots. 

I told him, "Well give me a second, and I'll come with you." He waited for me and then we went on a walk to the park. 

Or at least we went in the direction of the park. The gutters were full of ice and Derrick wanted to crack every inch of ice. So we walked slowwwwly to the park. While we moseyed I called back some people who had called me lately and even talked to my mom for a bit. 

On our way to the park we passed an abandoned house shack that had a giant frozen puddle in the driveway. This was like Disneyland for Derrick. He had so much fun cracking the ice, throwing the ice, and trying to run across the ice. He played with this puddle for at least 30 minutes and it was a pulverized mess by the end. 

We went back home and Derrick seemed much happier. Charlotte and Lydia had finished that last writing assignment and so we were officially done with school work. 

Now it was time for me to take pictures and upload them to Google classroom. This was tedious as always, but seemed to go faster than usual. When I was done I could hardly believe I was really done. 

Brandon had been able to remote deposit the corrected check so I ran to the store to take care of the grocery shopping. Before I went into the store I set a timer for 45 minutes. My plan was to make sure I was in the checkout line when the timer went off. Instead I was back at the car when it went off. I was so proud of how quick the trip had been. When I made it back home the kids couldn't believe I was back already. 

We worked together to clean up the Family Room and living room. When we cleaned up the family room we put away the Chromebooks and took down one of the school tables. 

Then we got out our old Christmas tree.  We were so surprised at how small it was. I'm glad we bought a bigger one last year. 

We were talking about what ornaments we should put on this tree. Charlotte said, "I know, let's use my fuse beads." So she got out her box of fuse bead creations from the last two years. They were perfect ornaments and she had so many of them. 

They looked so good!

Like seriously, so good. 

After the tree was up I went up stairs and started getting dinner ready. But this wasn't just any dinner. Earlier in the month I'd told Brandon's something like, "We need to have a huge party on the last day of school." Then I realized we were already planning a big party. Our family tradition of "Christmas Under the Tree" is always on the Friday before Christmas. 

Christmas Under the Tree is an event that Brandon's parents made up when he was a kid. It's a night to talk about the real meaning of Christmas and to spend time together as a family. We've been looking forward to it for weeks. 

We'd decided to just have snacky food for dinner to go along with Christmas Unde the Tree. So I put together a crackers and cheese tray, a veggie tray, and cut up a pinapple. Veornica came in while I was working on everything. She was so excited and took my camera and took pictures of all the food. Here's the pineapple. 

The juice, and the veggie tray.

And the crackers and cheese tray.

Meanwhile Charlotte and Lydia were busy with more Barbie clothes creations. Charlotte made EVERYTHING for this outfit - Pants, shirt, and jacket. She is so talented and fearless with these projects.

Brandon is normally home around 6:30, but at 6:00 he texted me and said he'd try to be home by 7:30- and that his phone was about to die. That was okay with me because I still had a lot of food to prep, and I this way I had time to make some things more elaborate. 

We decided to open the box with the new Christmas Jammies before he got home. That way the kids would be ready to start the evening as soon as he got home. Everyone loved their pajamas.  

Lydia had done such a good job sewing these. 

A few minutes before 7:30 we set out the food on a bench in the living room. I expected Brandon home any minute.  

7:30 came and went without any sign of Brandon. The kids were super hungry so we started eating at 7:40.  We had such a fun time together. I'd been really nervous about eating cranberry-sprite in our fancy glass cups, but the kids did amazing. We sat around the bench and had fun with all the snacks. 

While we'd been waiting for 7:30 we'd made zebra striped popcorn with almond bark and white chocolate. I'd made this because Winco had been out of those big tubs of popcorn. The kids declared this the BEST popcorn ever and asked for it on Christmas Eve. They called it NumNum.

Charlotte kept finding kernels that she thought were cute and had to take a picture of them before she ate them. 

We ate and talked for almost an hour. I'm not sure I've ever had a meal with the kids last that long. Brandon finally made it home around 8:30. He'd been clear out in Gooding working on someones complicated RV problem. He changed into his pajamas and sat down to eat. 

While he ate, I read the Christmas Story. The kids filled in the manger scene with characters as they were mentioned in the story. Usually we start the story in Luke 2, but I backed it up to Luke 1 where the Angel Gabriel Visits Mary. Women have so few voices in the scriptures that I think it's important to let them speak when we can. So we read Mary's response to being told she was to be the Mother of God. 

Then Brandon got out the boxes that held the ornaments that his mom painted this year. These are always such a fun surprise.

The ornaments were beautiful as always. 

We finished the "official" part of the night by watching Pokey's Christmas. It's a silly little movie that Brandon and his brother made in highschool. It's about a turtle that writes to Santa. The kids love it every year. 

Then it was time to make beds for the under the tree part of the night. I thought there would be a fight over who slept where, but the kids had already worked it all out. Charlotte got the couch, Lydia had the little blow up mattress, and Derrick and Veronica shared the air mattress. 

They settled down really quick. 

Brandon and I had planned to wrap presents, but we were tired. We went into our room and watched a few silly things on Youtube. I think I fell asleep within a few minutes. Brandon wasn't too far behind me. I woke up around 1:00 and was so confused because the bedroom light was still on. I don't think we've ever been so tired that we both forgot to turn off the light. 

Saturday morning was super relaxing. Actually the whole day was relaxing. Back when I worked for the Treasurer's office I got in the habit of having Christmas prep done as early in the month as possible. I learned that I really like having NOTHING planned for the Saturday before Christmas. So there was no shopping that needed to be done or another other rushing around. 

The kids woke up and played in the living room for a long time. The morning after Christmas Under the Tree is like Christmas Morning, only without presents. We just enjoy each other's company all morning. 

Veronica had wanted doughnuts for breakfast, but I hadn't felt like getting a fancy set of a dozen doughnuts. I'd just bought plain glazed doughnuts and we'd drizzled leftover frosting onto them. 

Then there was more playing in the living room. I showed the kids all the silly little games I used to play with them when they were babies/toddlers. Games like "Kick Kick Kick, and This Little Piggy."

While the kids and I were goofing off in the living room, Brandon was mopping the kitchen floor. That sounds kind of mean, but honestly it was easier to just have one person do that.  He was able to do a really thorough job without lots of little "helpers" slipping and fighting over the mop. He even mopped under the oven. He finished up and was sliding the oven back into place when suddeling we saw sparks fly out from the back of the oven. 

He did some investigating and discovered that a positive connection of some sort had melted through a plastic mount and had made contact with the metal plate that was also the ground. It instantly welded itself to the plate. This seemed like something that would have happened eventually, but this was good timing because Brandon had the time to fix it right away. 

By this point the kids were starting to clean there rooms and I was walking back and forth around the house to check on all of them. I went through the kitchen while Brandon was grinding the weld off the plate. Sparks were flying everywhere and I was like, "This is normal."

He had to run to Home Depot to buy a new something (I'm so ignorant of this stuff, I'm so glad I have Brandon.)  

I helped make sure the kids were cleaning their rooms, which was honestly really easy. Derrick needed a bit of help, but Veronica and I had done a deep clean of her room the week before and she hadn't messed it up to bad. 

Charlotte and Lydia spent HOURS on their room. But that's because they were setting up their toys in cute ways on their shelves. 

This is the Barbie shelf.

The LOL shelf.

And the Calico Critters. 

After Veronica was done with her room, she went downstairs and played with her doll house. She added lots of accessories to the kitchen. There are little pots on the stove and thigns like that. My favorite thing is the box of Nerds that she says is a cereal box. 

She also added lots of decorations to the living room. She made decorative pillows to the couch with pipecleaners. I also love the little rectangle of double sided tape that she added to be a light switch cover. She did that in each room. 

I wanted to go for a walk and we had some library books that were due, so I decided to walk to the library. I've been curious how far of a walk it would be. I discovered that the library is almost exactly a 30 minute walk away. I was there and back in just under an hour. On my way to the library I passed the park. Most of the snow was melted, but the kids' snowmen were still standing. 

That evening we finally got around to watching The Christmas Chronicles Part 2. It wasn't as good as the original, but it was still pretty good. Kurt Russel is Santa and Goldie Hawn is Mrs Claus. When the movie was over I showed Derrick our copy of Overboard which has Kurt Russel and Goldie Hawn on the cover. I said, "Look it's Santa." Derrick said, "No, that's just some guy. He doesn't have a beard."

Then I showed Charlotte and Lydia. They remember watching that movie about two years ago. Charlotte quoted Goldie Hawn saying, "Oh eat your checkers!" Brandon and I laughed so hard at that. 

Brandon and I went out to the garage to wrap presents. We had a lot of fun doing that. But wow, it was exhausting. 

We all slept in nice and late on Sunday morning. It wasn't our week to go to church at the building so we just watched church via zoom. The kids worked on day two of wearing the new jammies. (Eventually we made them take showers.)

Lydia showed off her sewing skills. She'd made the pants and shirt earlier, but the jacket was new. 

Back when I told Lydia I'd pay her a $1 for every pair of pajamas she helped sew, Charlotte had wanted to come up with a way to earn some money. I told her she could help with neighbor gifts.  At that time the plan had been to make goodie plates like always. But then I decided that thanks to COVID and homeschool, it would make more sense to just give out brownie mix. 

I looked on pinterest and found a peom that Charlotte helped me tweak. She helped me type it and print it out. The poem said:

Christmas is Jolly

Christmas is Sweet

COVID is scary

so make your own treat

Then Charlotte wrapped all 24 boxes of Brownie mix. She did it completely by herself and earned $5 for helping me out. 

She was so proud of her handy work. 

Here's the pile when it had only 4 boxes. 

And here's the completed pile.  I'd partially expected her to ask for help at some point, but she did it all. 

Our primary president had dropped off these super cute ornaments for each child. So we put those up.

Brandon spent the day baking up a storm in the kitchen. (Good thing he'd fixed the stove.) With help from various children he made, peanut butter cookies, ginger snaps, fudge, a pumpkin roll (I helped with that), and a pumpkin pie. He also somehow made dinner. 

We'd talked about watching another movie in the evening, but to keep Derrick occupied we let him re-watch Christmas Chronicles 1 and 2 and that was enough movies for the day. 

It was wonderful to wake up today and realize that we didn't have to do ANY school. The kids could just play. Actually I'd turned off all our phone alarms and so I didn't wake up until 8:45. And I had work at 9:00 - good thing my office is a 2 minute drive from home. 

Derrick held the record for sleeping in. When I came back home at 10:40 so Brandon could go to work, Derrick had only just got out of bed about 5 minutes earlier. 

The kids were excited to deliver neighbor gifts. Last year, in an effort to get them to participate in delivering the gifts, I'd told them they didn't have to wear seatbelts while we drove around the neighborhood. This had turned into the kids running gifts up to people's porches and then diving back into the car through open passenger windows. I'd added to the fun by (slowly) driving off while their legs dangled out of the window. They were all looking forward to doing this for a second year. 

So they all happily piled into the car and took turns running gifts up to porches and then running back to the car. There was much laughter especially when Lydia said things like, "Coming in Hot" while she ran toward the car or when Derrick got stuck upside down. 

We delivered gifts to the people who live in the houses surrounding our house and the ones with neighbors we've talked to. Then we did my Ministering Sisters. Finally we went to some other people in the ward. (We wore seatbelts for the ones outside our neighborhood.) The kids had a blast. 

We didn't go home when we were done. Instead we went to Mainstreet to try out the mini-ice rink there. This rink is run by Twin Falls Parks and Rec. This year they are doing free skating and free rentals. But there can only be 10 people on the ice at a time. So we signed the wavers, but then had to wait for our turn to get skates. 

We checked out the big kaleidoscope in front of City Hall. 

Soon it was our turn to skate. The kdis were super excited to put on the skates. 

The rink was really just a glorified circle. There also wasn't any ice. There was just some really slippery plastic or something on the ground. Veronica liked this because it was easier than ice. 

But Charlotte and Lydia were pretty disappointed. They kept telling me this was boring and they wanted to go to the real rink in Ketchum. 

Derrick had fun for a while though. And check out his short sleeve shirt. Everyone had worn coats, but we quickly realized that it was not coat weather.

Derrick and Veronica were in short sleeves. I was in long sleeves, but wishing I was in short sleeves. 

I didn't skate, so I could take pictures. The little city park had really pretty decorations. 

Here I am.

And here's the city tree.

And a city marker. 

Veronica stayed on the ice the longest. When she was tired we went home. We wer all so hot. The car temperature gauge said it was 55 degrees outside. In the car all the kids told me they wanted lemonade when we got home. So we had lemonade on the porch.

This was the first day of winter, but it was the warmest first day of winter I've ever seen. I checked the weather forecast and Tuesday was supposed to be back in the 30's. I told the kids that we were going to enjoy this day. I didn't let them watch any movies or Youtube for most of the afternoon. They road their bikes up and down the street. I opened all the windows and let the house air out. 

At 3:00 I had all the kids take turns picking up dog poop in the back yard. This is always their responsibility, but it's been neglected thanks to bad weather. I think it's been over a month since any poop was picked up. To give you an idea of how gross this was each kid took a turn picking up 5 clumps of poop at a time. They each did this 4 times. So that's 4 X 5=20 X 4 = 80. Eww!

Veronica had Physicals Therapy so we went to that and I let 

other kids watch movies. I also shut all the windows before we left. Veronica bought a box of brownie mix for Spencer her therapist. She was so excited to give it to him. Therapy has been good for Veronica because she loves all the attention she gets from the adults that work with her. They love her unpredictable answers to the questions they ask her.

In the evening we were hoping to see the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky, but it was too cloudy. Lots of other people got really good pictures so we'll just enjoy those.

After dinner we watched The Santa Clause. I really loved that movie as a kid and there are still some really cool visuals, but as adult I'm perplexed by that movie. What were they trying to say with that movie? Like Scott Calvin straight up kidnaps Charlie.  What?  But my kids loved it so I guess I shouldn't think to hard about it. 

And that get's us caught up to today which is really Tuesday because its' 12:11 AM right now. 

This is probably my last post before Christmas. So Merry Christmas and thanks for reading. 

Zooming through December

This week was much less eventful than the last few weeks. But I'm going to do a quick post so I can keep up prior to busy Christmas time. 

Veronica drew this picture while I was blogging last week. It's the world surrounded by the Coronavirus. The X's on the continents are people that have died. Later she added swirly hurricanes to the oceans. 

 

I guess Veronica is paying attention better than I thought whenever I show Brandon charts like these. This is a chart from the New York Times daily email that I received on Thursday December 10th. It's a little faint, but you can see that daily deaths have now surpassed the amounts from the spring. (Use this link to sign up for your own daily briefing email)

Here's a happier picture from Sunday. Brandon asked me to grab a cookie sheet for him. I was kind of reluctant to do that because getting a cookie sheet out of the cupboard usually means all the other pans will fall out. But I went into the kitchen to help him. I was so surprised when I opened the cupboard and found it nicely organized. I'd talked to Brandon about doing this, and I knew he'd taken out the shelf, but I didn't know he'd build everything yet. He'd done it on Saturday and I hadn't even noticed. 

On Sunday night I was a little grumpy about the fact that the weekend had gone by so fast. I was not looking forward to getting back to the grind on Monday. I ended up going to bed at 10:30 which is the earliest I've gone to bed in a long time. I woke up the next day feeling so good. I've realized lately I need to take better care of my body. I've started taking iron suplements and those have helped. Going to bed at semi decent times is also helping. 

Monday started our second week of trying to catch up on some of our school work. It started out well. I think we are actually going to make it to the end of the semester. 

In the afternoon we had to get out of the house so we went to the park for a bit. Charlotte and Lydia noticed the tennis courts had a fence and gates on them. They suggested we bring Marcia on Tuesday and let her chase a ball around in the tennis courts. 

So that is what we did on Tuesday. And it was the best idea EVER. Marcia got her energy out by chasing the ball, and the kids got their energy out by chasing Marcia. We did this on Wednesday afternoon too.

On Tuesday night I got to have a super fun zoom meeting with the hosts Baconsale. This is my favorite podcast and I've been a patron for the show for about 2 years. They usually have an event for Patrons this time of year, but I can never go to that because I'm out of state. So when they announced they'd be doing a zoom meeting for Patrons I was super happy. They divided us up by what level of money we contribute to the podcast. I contribute $8 a month so I'm a Tier Two patron. My call was at 8:00 and there were about 5 other patrons on the call.

It was so great to actually talk to the show hosts. I've listened to this show since it began in 2015. I've interreacted with the hosts through email and Facebook for a long time, but this was the first time really talking to them so it was great. I like all three hosts of the show, but I have a special affinity for Kenny/Kent. I've listened to him on other shows and I often joke that he's been most stable friendship during the many times I've moved. 

At one point Derrick wandered into the room with me and I had him come sit with me. I said, "Here is a visual representation of how long I've listened to Kenny. This is my 8 year old. I discovered Kenny on the radio when I would drive to my appointments when I was pregnant with my son. I even planned my appointments to be on Tuesdays' and Friday's so I could hear Kenny's radio segments."  Kenny got a kick out of hearing that.  

The zoom meeting was only 30 minutes long, but it was so much fun! I was in such a good mood after the call. 

In fact I'd had such a good time that I signed up for another zoom meeting with another podcast host. I occationally listen to Leading Saints and the host Kurt Frankhom was putting together informal meetings with listeners. So I signed up for one of those on Thursday around 5:00. That meeting was fun as well. I've listened to podcasts for so long that it's really nice when I get to actually talk to the hosts. 

I also interacted via technology with my mom. She loves seeing pictures what the girls make for their doll houses. So I suggested we do a Google handout so she could get a tour of the houses. That ended up being super fun. She was able to see ALL the little things the girls have made.

Then I realized that she's never had a tour of my house. So I took her all over the house and gave her a tour. 

Our neighbor Jennifer brought over some hand knitted dish cloths. Well, they were so pretty we decided not to use them for dishes.  Charlotte and Lydia used them as blankets for their barbies. Here's one of Lydia's all wrapped up and taking a comfy nap on the couch. 

And here is one of Charlotte's Barbies enjoying her new bedspread. 

Veronica spent some time making presents for her house. She also has a tree made out of magnet blocks. 

And here are some adorable little letters the little barbies wrote.

Kathy, another one of our sweet neighbors invited the girls down to her house to pick out some facemasks she made. (You can see them wearing theirs in the pictures at Derrick's baptism.)  While we were there she told us her birthday was the next day. Charlotte remembered so she put together a plate of cookies and made a card for Kathy.  

Kathy was so touched she reciprocated by knitting some adorable things for all four kids. (She told me that knitting is like breathing for her.) She made scarves for Derrick and Veronica's stuffed animals. She made dresses and wraps for Charlotte and Lydia's barbies. 

Here's Veronica's lion with one of the scarfs. 

And here are the barbies in their new dresses. 

On Thursday we ran a whole bunch of errands. One of them took us to DI where Derrick found this amazing Hotwheels track for only $5. He'd just got $5 in a baptism card from my Grandma Mary Ann so this was perfect timing. I was so impressed by his luck. I've been to DI twice in the last month hoping to find Hotwheels so I know what a rare find this was. He and Charlotte put it together in the car while I was in another store. It had all the pieces and had batteries. When we got home he played with it for hours. (And has continued to play with it for hours.)

Derrick has been doing 10 hours of behavioral therapy every week. At the end of the week he gets a reward if he's done all his work for his goals. This week his reward was to buy a soda from a vending machine. He was so excited! Miss Nisha said that he didn't even want to drink it. He just wanted to hold it and occasionally gave the bottle a kiss. When he was playing on a playground he would often ask, "Is my soda okay?"

We've continued to watch a Christmas movie nearly ever night. Here's what we've watched. 

Sunday - The First Presidency Christmas Devotional, The Christ Child, and a few other youtube videos. These were all really good to watch. Veronica started crying because she felt the spirit. 

Monday - How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original version.) We were all tired so we needed a short movie. I know I was awake for the whole movie, but I completely blanked out and I have no memory of watching the Cindy Lou Who part. Like I said I was tired. 

Tuesday - Elf. We all laughed super hard at this one. I ducked out for a bit to do the zoom meeting with Baconsale, but came back for the end. 

Wednesday -  Miracle on 34th Street (1994 version) No one in the family besides me has ever seen this movie. And I only ever saw it once when I was about 10. All I remembered was the very end. After watching it again I see why, this movie is not very exciting for kids. But I'm glad we gave it a try.  

Thursday - Home Alone 1. This movie is a classic for a reason. We loved every minute of it. The kids love "the traps."

Friday - Home Alone 2. Watching these two movies back to back makes you wonder how in the heck that family let Kevin out of their sight the second year. I would have been holding onto him the whole way through the airport. But whatever, it was still fun. (Though the parts with the bird women drag a bit.)

Saturday - Curious George Christmas. Brandon was in the zone on a project in the garage so we picked a movie he didn't mind missing. I've listened to this movie a lot and seen parts of it, but this was the first time I sat down and watched the whole thing. It was adorable. 

Saturday was the day we'd planned for "Dollar Store Christmas Shopping."  This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. Brandon waits in the car with the kids while the I take each kid into the store one at a time to help them pick out gifts for their siblings. I also have them pick out a tube of wrapping paper.  

We went to the store and then came home and cleaned the house. We hadn't cleaned very well last Saturday because of the baptism, so it was really nice to get the house cleaned up this week. It looked so good. 

When we were done cleaning the kids took turns coming into my room to wrap presents. That was really fun. Now we have presents under the tree. 

Brandon spent a lot of the day out in the garage. I went out to talk to him and found him hard at work with a hand planer. He's working on a headboard for our bed. He's had so much fun using the new router and his table saw. I'm so glad we bought a house with a big garage that Brandon can fill with toys. 

And that gets us to today. It was our turn for church at the building today. It was our Christmas program. There were no choir numbers this year. Instead we had 3 musical numbers. One man played a Christmas medley on the viola (he's first chair in the Magic Valley Symphony so it was very good.) Another man played Carol of the Bells on the organ and had it programed to play bell sounds. When he started playing Derrick perked right up to try to see the bells. And Charlotte whispered, "YES!" under her breath. The Bishop spoke for a bit and then a lady sang a really pretty solo. 

After church Brandon and the kids frosted Gingerbread cookies. They'd made the cookies last Sunday. Then Brandon put them into the freezer until he'd have time to frost them. That was today. 

And now we are having a relaxing afternoon. Brandon's taking a nap and I think I'll join him. We only have one week left of school, but we still have a lot of work to do to make sure we finish on time. We need all the rest we can get today.  

Thanks for reading. 

Brandon's birthday, Derrick's baptism, and the things between

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."

My parents also sent this cute snowman scene. We put it next to our ceramic train. It looks a little like a Christmas Village. 

The kids spent a long time playing in the basement. Veronica and Derrick set the "beach" up again and played together really well. 

Charlotte and Lydia have loved making things for their doll houses. 

They each made little math books for their barbies. 

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. 

Brandon stopped by Burger King after work and picked up burgers and fries for everyone. This is what he wanted for his birthday dinner, and it had the added bonus of not making me cook on the Monday after Thanksgiving. 

After dinner Brandon opened his presents. I'd stuffed a ton of socks into this little box. 

My parents sent a whole bunch of new kitchen utensils like rubber scrapers and serving spoons. His parents sent him a speed square. 

And I bought him a router. Really he picked it out himself. Because I had no idea what he wanted. Actually when he first told me he wanted a router I thought he meant the internet kind. I was like, "why do you want that? We already have one."  But then I realized he was talking about a wood router. I told him to just pick one out and buy it. He ordered it online and was so happy when he picked it up at the store. 

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. 

Once again Brandon wanted his candles lit in binary.

This picture looks like it's Veronica's birthday. 

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. 

When they weren't doing school work, Charlotte and Lydia were busy making more things for their barbies. They made stockings from foam paper. 

They also made fireplaces out of boxes.

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. 

This is Lydia's house. She made the tree, TV screen, coffee table, and the fire place. She put decorations on the fireplace. She bought little presents at the dollar store. 

She also made a wreath for the kitchen. Earlier her barbies had been decorating a gingerbread house and making gingerbread cookies. There were even little gingerbread cookies in the oven. 

Another thing of note is that my latest post for East Idaho Mom's was published. I've had an idea to write a Thank you note of sorts to all the Secret Santa's that have helped us over the years. I wrote it at some point before Thanksgiving. I was so busy that I kind of forgot I wrote it. So it was a nice surprise to see it show up in my news feed on Facebook. Here's the link.

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.  

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. 

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. 

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 didn't even try for a family 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. 

Here are Brandon and Derrick. (and Jesus)

All there of us. 

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.  

Derrick and Brandon came into the font. Brandon said the baptism prayer and then put Derrick under the water. They had practiced this several times the past few days. Derrick had said that he wanted to be dunked twice. I told him that would only happen if something like his foot popped out of the water. After I told him that, he started practicing having his foot pop out of the water. 

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." 

The bishop suggested stepping on Derrick's toes. So Brandon said the prayer again and dunked Derrick. He leaned his body over Derrick's legs so they wouldn't pop out. That one worked. 

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.  

As always, Thanks for reading.