Where did that month go?

Okay, here is part two of my attempts to get this blog updated after more than a month of being super busy. 

Part one is about Veronica's birthday and baptism. 

This part is about EVERYTHING else.  And because there is so much this is going to be organized more by topic than chronologically. 

Let's start with the 2 things that were happening the same week as Veronica's baptism. 1. A Magic Valley Symphony concert and 2. My school stuff.

Symphony Concert

There are a lot of things that have come back to me as I've started playing the string bass. I remembered how to read bass clef. I've remembered how to do the fingering and hand positions. I've remembered (some) of the major and minor keys.

This month I also remembered that I basically ALWAYS want to quit, but then I ALWAYS find a reason to stay.  This was a cycle that repeated itself every year between 5th and 12 grade and has started up again.

I almost quit the Symphony in September. I didn't have time to practice and the weekly rehearsals felt like a big commitment when I was already so busy.  Would anyone really miss the 4th bass player anyway?

But I decided to give it one more rehearsal and see how I was feeling by the end of it. And it ended up being a fabulous rehearsal. I'm still mediocre at best, but everyone around me is so talented. It's an honor to be on that stage making music with everyone. 

For example, one of the songs we are playing is the Finale from The Pines of Rome. My part is literally plucking 8th notes of B over and over again.  At the big key change I switch to B flat. It's not fancy, it's not technical, and actually it's a little painful after a while. But oh my goodness there are some amazing things happening with the horns and trumpets while I'm playing. I'm within a few feet of the English Horn during it's solo. I get chills every time. 

The other songs were fun to play too.  We were playing a long Beethoven piece with the Monarch Trio from ISU. There were a lot of parts where the first bass player was the only one who needed to play and the rest of the section just came in at certain parts. I seriously considered not playing that song at all because it seemed so pointless to be on stage for 17 minutes and only play for a total of 5. But at rehearsal I'd had fun with the parts that I did play and I realized if I sat on a stool I didn't feel like I was standing on the stage bored when I wasn't playing. 

Our third song was Conga del Fuego Nuevo. The rhythm had seemed really complicated at previous rehearsals, but at this one I finally figured it out. And it was so fun to play. 

A while ago I saw a quote that says, "You don't have to be good at something for it to be good for you." And that perfectly sums up what the heck I'm doing in the Magic Valley Symphony. 

So I walked away from that rehearsal still wanting to play.  But I also still had a lot to do. 

Namely the pre-concert slide show. Yes, I'm still in charge of that. I tried to get out of it, but realized that it would be easier to do this season because the audience would actually be in the auditorium and  would have the program in front of them.  So I didn't have to stress about putting ALL the program info into the slide show. 

I worked on it a bit here and there and then sent it over to Ted (the director) for approval. He and Amy Toft had some suggestions and I put those in.  Then I told them I had my daughter's baptism coming up and I would only do little edits after that point. Boundaries are good because 2 days before the concert when Ted cc'd me on an email with a ton of info and said that maybe I could put it in the slideshow I just ignored it. And the slide show was just fine without all the info.

The week leading up to the concert was also the week leading up to Veronica's baptism. This is what our rehearsal schedule looked like:

Tuesday Oct 5 - optional rehearsal

Thursday Oct 7 - rehearsal on stage

Saturday Oct 9 - dress rehearsal

Sunday Oct 10 - Concert

I opted to not go to the option rehearsal (I worked on the slideshow instead) but I went to all the others. Brandon and the kids came to the dress rehearsal. They liked hearing the songs. Charlotte and Lydia asked when they can come to a real concert. I told them they can when they can sit through the whole rehearsal without going to the bathroom.  

My parents were still in town on Sunday so they were able to go to the concert. I used the comp tickets that would have gone to my family and used them for my parents. It was fun to have them there. They haven't seen me live in a concert since my Sr year of high school.

The concert went really well. Was I great? No. Did I need to be? Also No. Did I enjoy myself. Yes.

Here's a video of the La Conga del Fuego Nuevo. This song has been in my head for DAYS.

My parents would always say "that deserves ice cream" after my school concerts, so they made sure that we already had ice cream waiting back at the house. 

There wasn't much downtime after the concert though. We had our next rehearsal on Tuesday Oct 12. We are getting ready for our November concert when we play a Gershwin Piece that is back to haunt me.  So I'm back to wondering if I should quit.  (I won't, but I'm going to think about it anyway.)

School Stuff

Okay, now let's talk about what's going on with school because that is a huge backdrop to everything else I'm doing.  

I finished Financial Accounting before we went to Yellowstone and when we came home it was time for me to start Taxation 1. This class is basically an overview of how to do personal taxes. And so, in theory, this should have been an easy class for me. I worked for H&R Block doing taxes for people way back in 2006. In fact, if I'd taken the H&R Tax course in the last decade it would have counted as credit for this class. So this class should have been easy for me. 

But it wasn't easy. It actually was really hard to get through. The problem was that I already knew that I never wanted to do personal taxes professionally. I'd liked working for H&R Block. But I didn't like being that involved in people's personal finances. So the whole time I was taking the class I kept thinking, "I'm NEVER going to use this. I don't want to go over this."

Plus I didn't like the layout of the class.  I felt like a lot of concepts were backward from the order that I learned them in when I took the H&R Class.  It felt needlessly confusing.   

I'd given myself 3 weeks to get through the class. In retrospect I probably could have made it through in half that time, but my lack of motivation slowed me down.  I finally muscled my way though the course material and took the test the morning of Veronica's birthday. I was so happy to pass and be done. 

The next Monday I started Operations Management. This is a subject I like and I often say that if I get a Masters it will be in Supply Chain and Operations Management. Plus the course was supposed to be easy. And it was. I'd mapped out three weeks for the course, but I was able to get through it in two. I took the test and passed the Friday before Veronica's baptism. 

Now I'm in Managerial Accounting and liking it very much. I've finally figured out a good daily routine now that the kids are in school.  I spend the morning working on school stuff and then go into work around 12:00. (That may sound like a very simple schedule, but it took a lot of trial and error to figure out that it was the best schedule.)

Oh also I earned a Scholarship. I get $650 each semester.  That's pretty nice to have. 

Going out to eat

I mentioned in a previous post that Brandon's student loans are basically paid off now. It's a huge deal. Now that the loans are gone we have so much more discretionary income. Most of it is going to other important priorities, but some of it is going toward going out to eat. I've never really been a restaurant person because we've had so much debt to deal with, but with breathing room in the budget Brandon and I can finally relax a little.

We want to go out to lunch together at least once a week. But so far Brandon has been super busy with work.  So instead it's been me going out to lunch with various people. 

The first time I went was when my Aunt Diane came into town. 

Wait, back up, I don't think I've talked about my Aunt Diane's visit yet. Diane is my mom's sister.  She and her husband Sean live in Denver, but have thought about retiring to Twin Falls since before I lived here. They decided to come out to Twin to get a feel for the area. They stayed in a hotel and came over for pizza the first night they were in town. Then the next day Diane, Sean, and I went to lunch at the Twin Falls Sandwich Company in Down Town Twin. It was really fun to sit and talk with them. 

The next time I went out to lunch was later that week. I was invited by some of the ladies in my ward to go out to lunch. (They'd been making plans and I'd just happened to be in the right place at the right time.) We went out to Red Robin. Two of the ladies happen to be in Relief Society Presidency. 

At some point in the conversation the fact that I don't have a calling came up. Justine is the counselor over Activities and immediately asked me if I wanted to be on that committee. I really, really, really should have said no. I mean, are you reading this blog? I do not have time for one more thing. 

But.

I LOVE the Relief Society Activity Committee. I have served in that calling in one way or another in nearly every ward I've ever lived in. I always go to the activities anyway, and Justine assured me it wasn't a big commitment.  She just needed someone to give her ideas. Well I can do ideas. I'm made of ideas. 

We decided this didn't  have to wait for this to be an official thing.  We could just get together sometime to talk about ideas.  

So a few weeks later, Justine and I met up at Noodles and Company and had a great time getting to know each other and talking about ideas.  Only there was just one problem. I didn't have any ideas. At all!

We hammered out a rough plan for the next few months, but I started feeling like maybe this was not the season of my life to worry about Relief Society.  

Then last week the Bishop called and asked if I could meet with a member of the Bishopric on Tuesday. And on Tuesday they officially asked me to be on the RS Activity Committee.  And then the ideas came. So many ideas. It was like the revelation was just waiting for this to be official.

I was set apart for the calling today. The bishop gave me a beautiful blessing that involved phrases like "Think outside the box," "help women develop connection," and "we bless you with determination."  (Brandon said I didn't need to be blessed with that last one, I already have enough.) The whole blessing felt like God saying, "You already know what to do. You have permission to go do it." So I'm really excited for this opportunity to do my favorite calling in my favorite ward. 

Anyway, we've digressed from what we were talking about which was going out to eat. 

My bible study group has started meeting at a Java which is a local coffee house. The first morning we met there I was a little uncertain about what I should order.  I mean, I knew I wasn't going to order coffee, but if I ordered hot chocolate it would be in a container that looked like it could have been coffee.  I don't really care what people think I'm drinking, but I'm possibly the first "Mormon" some of the women in my bible study have ever met. (Several of them grew up back East and only recently moved to Idaho.) I don't want them finding out later that Mormons don't drink coffee and then being confused because they saw Valerie drinking coffee a bunch of times at Bible Study.

So I thought about ordering orange juice or something like that.  But the orange juice was like $3.50 and if I was going to pay that kind of money I wanted something warm. So I decided to not worry about appearances and just order a White Hot Cocoa. But when I sat down to drink it I realized that the lady had given me a white mocha. (I don't blamer her, I mean it was 6:30 in the morning, everyone else in line was ordering caffeine.)

So then I had a whole new dilemma.  Do I just politely sip my wrong order, or go back to the counter and correct the lady. I went back to the counter and got my drink corrected. And that took care of letting everyone at the table know that Valerie was definitely not drinking coffee. 

Bible Study has continued to be fabulous.  We finished the book of Titus and I also finished reading the book Women of the Word that Liz, the lady in charge of Bible Study, lent me. It was a fabulous book that completely changed my approach to scripture.  I highly recommend it. 

We are going to study another book during the holidays and then do another book of scripture in the New Year. And we'll be meeting at Java each time. 

I really like Java. It's has a fun vibe to it.  I liked it so much that Brandon and I went there for Hot Chocolate one morning before he went to work. Here we are waiting for our order. 

We still haven't made it on a lunch date yet, but we did go out to eat for a dinner date last week.  We left the kids home watching a movie on Friday evening and went to O'Dunkins on Main Street. We both had really yummy sandwiches.  Then we walked around Main Street. 

Okay, let's move onto some kids stuff. 

Charlotte's story

A few weeks ago the Elementary School had Author Gary Hogg come do some writing workshops with the kids. He went to each classroom and had the children think about something they could write about a potato. It could be fiction, personal narrative, non-fiction.  What ever they wanted.  He gave them a few minutes to write and collected their responses.  

All week long my kids were coming home and telling me about this guy and what he'd done in their classroom.  Charlotte brought home her potato story because she wanted to keep working on it. She read it to me and I thought it was really clever, but I didn't think too much about it.  She and Lydia are always writing and drawing things. 

Well she finished her story and took it back to school. She came home and told me that her teacher had taken the story and said something like, "Oh Gary will want to read this." We weren't sure if that meant he'd want to read it to himself or out loud at the family event that night. 

Well that night we found out that it meant he wanted to read it out loud. Here's the video of him reading Charlotte's story. (Sorry about the background noise.  Derrick was sitting in my lap and decided this was a perfect time to make some odd noises.)

I was so proud of Charlotte.  I hadn't heard the second half of the story so I was genuinely laughing at the clever little things in her story.  And she was quite proud of herself too.  She was so flattered that another author had told her she had excellent "Authors Voice." She's comes from a long line of writers so it's not too surprising. 

Speaking of things at the school let's do a quick update about . . . 

PTA

I was put in as Treasurer, but since the previous president was stepping away, and we didn't have a new one yet I seemed to be doing a stint as the de facto president. At the Family Night I'd made an announcement asking anyone who was interested in volunteering to talk to me.  I got contact info for a few people, but when asked, none of them were interested in a leadership role. 

I also led the September PTA meeting where two other parents attended.  But again, they weren't interested in a leadership role. 

At this point I was like, "Well I tried. If the PTA dies this year it wasn't my fault."

Fortunately, Liz from Bible Study is also a parent at the elementary school. And when I texted every parent I knew asking them if they were interested in being one of the co-presidents she actually replied affirmatively. 

She has a few commitments that are ramping down so we have plans to get this PTA thing going slowly for now but come in strong in January. 

Okay, let's see what else is there to talk about. Let's look at some random pictures for a minute. 

When we were in Yellowstone Derrick picked out a volcano model kit. It came with a mold, some plaster of paris, and some paint. Brandon helped Derrick work on the model a little bit every day.  Derrick was so excited when it was finally time to see the Volcano explode. 

 

Here's some cupcakes Brandon made one Sunday. 

Brandon and I were chilling out on the couch one evening when the kids came up the stairs wearing funny hats and boxes on their heads. 

Here's one of the books that Gary Hogg wrote.  Each of the kids got free books from him. 

When my Aunt Diane was in town we took her to see Twin Falls Falls. We have a super low water situation right now so the falls were mostly a trickle. 

Tooth Adventures

Derrick had a loose tooth and wiggled it out.  The tooth fairy came and he was exited to get money. A few days later he said he had another loose tooth.  It didn't seem that loose to me, but he worked at it and pulled it out.  I'm about 60% sure this was a baby tooth, but part of me is still wondering if it was an adult tooth that he somehow broke out of his mouth.  Brandon had a long talk with Derrick about not pulling his teeth out until they are super wiggly. 

Speaking of teeth we had quite a little tooth saga that I might as well talk about here. 

One Friday after school Charlotte mentioned that she'd bonked her front tooth on a pole on the playground and it had chipped a little bit.  She said it hurt when she bit down.  So I called the dentist office.  They were already closed so I just left a message. 

On Monday they called me back and we made an appt to go in on Tuesday morning.  I took her in and they x-rayed it. The chip was small and the dentist wasn't too concerned, but we decided to have it filled anyway. Charlotte wasn't in much pain so I wasn't in a rush to get an appt. We picked the earliest available morning appt which was like 3 weeks away. 

They next day Lydia was making a big deal about how she didn't want to go to school. Her teacher was gone for a few days. Lydia hates substitutes under the best of circumstances and these were far from them. The school district had a massive substitute teacher shortage and so there wasn't a substitute available for Lydia's class. The Principal was forced to cover the time by rotating in the Librarian, Music Teacher, Computer Teacher, and PE Teacher during the times they didn't have classes in their rooms. Then she and other staff covered the remainder of the time. So basically Lydia's class was getting babysat by a rotating slate of teachers. 

Plus Lydia didn't like the boys she sat by. Her best friend hadn't been in class on Tuesday and Charlotte had been at the dentist in the morning.  So Tuesday had been a hard day. She did not want to go to school on Wednesday.  

I tried to convince her that maybe it would be better on Wednesday. Maybe they'd have a sub the whole day. Charlotte would be back and maybe her best friend too. But Lydia was not swayed.  We finally agreed that she should go to school and try it and then if it was terrible she could call me and I'd come get her. 

Brandon and I always walk the kids to school in the morning. We mostly do it for Derrick because I need to see him enter the building.  But we really like talking with the kids as we walk to school. So we dropped the kids off at the school and then walked home.  It was barely 8:00 when we got home. We'd been in the house for maybe two seconds when I got a call from the school. I was like, "Lydia, at least give the day a chance."

It was the Assistant Principal. She explained that Lydia had tripped on the playground, skinned her knee, and chipped a tooth. 

I thought, "Wow, she really committed to getting out of school today."

I drove right over to the school and picked up Lydia. Her chipped tooth was much bigger than Charlotte's had been.  I called the dentist and got her an appt for about an hour later.  When we arrived at the dentist's office I joked that it seemed like we'd just been there. And I said something about "there must be some sort of 5th Grade Fight Club happening on that playground."

The dentist looked at Lydia's tooth and then sent us to make an appt in order to get it filled. This was a much bigger priority for me than Charlotte's had been and I was willing to come it at any time to get it fixed. The had an opening in about two hours.  

So then Lydia and I ran to my work so I could get some things done there.  Lydia had fun chilling out on my couch. She was in a good mood and we took this picture to document her chip.

I realized that Lydia probably wouldn't want to eat after she was numb. So before we went to the dentist we stopped at McDonalds. 

Then we went back to the dentist and got the chip filled. This is the only dentist office my kids have had where I've been in the room while they get worked on.  It's very strange for me and I usually just play on my phone while the work gets done. 

Here's the after picture of her tooth. As good as new. 

Car Problems

Oh and I really should mention that it was a good thing the girls didn't chip their teeth the week before because we didn't have a working car for a couple days there.  

The jeep is still in pieces and Brandon has been waiting on various parts.  

So Brandon and I have been sharing the Honda. He took it to buy something or other at a tool store one Monday evening.  And when he was in the parking lot he couldn't get the key to turn in the ignition. 

He finally got it to work and drove home, but after that the key wouldn't turn again. Brandon ended up riding his bike to Auto zone to buy a new ignition cylinder and then there was some stuff with tumblers and chips and sensors and I really don't know what else.  All I know is that it's a good thing I've set up my life like a medieval peasant - everywhere I needed to go was within one mile.  I walked to work, and Derrick and I walked to his speech therapy appointment on Tuesday. And I had a work meeting instead of rehearsal on Tuesday night so getting to rehearsal was a non issue. 

We did have to go to the church for Veronica's baptism interview and our church is a little beyond walking distance.  But Brandon had his work truck so we all drove in that. And on Wednesday afternoon Brandon took the girls to their activity in the truck.  Brandon was able to work whatever magic he needed to finish fixing the ignition and the Honda was working again by the time we had to pick the girls up from Girls activity. They were so excited to get in the Honda again. 

Buying Stuff

Since we refinanced the house in September we didn't have to make a mortgage payment in October. And that meant we were able to take some of the money that would have gone to the mortgage and buy some things we've needed but just haven't bought for one reason or another.  

Some of the things included new sheets for our bed, a large laundry basket - with wheels- for Charlotte and Lydia. and an over the door mirror for the hall. 

My favorite purchase ended up being this behind the toilet shelf thing for the kids bathroom. The kids bathroom has always been something of an embarrassing room for me. I try to ignore it as much as possible. It's small and laid out weird and it always seems to be a mess. I really want to remodel it, but that's not happening at least until the jeep is done (and probably not for many months after that). So I decided we might as well try to fix the storage situation in the bathroom.  One of the problems is it always seems to have towels on the floor so I bought an over the door towel rack to hang on the back of the door and this storage thing to hold other towels.  It COMPLETELY changed the room. Just a few shelves, some decorations, and some artfully arranged bathroom items and suddenly this weird little bathroom looked kind of fancy. It definitely looked nicer. I also replaced to burned out light bulbs and the better lighting helped the room too. For the first time since we moved in, I like looking in this room. I even use it sometimes. 

Garden stuff

What would a blog update be without a garden update?  My garden has been producing a lot this fall. 

Here's Charlotte with some of the raspberries.  We've had so many. I keep thinking we've had the last of them and then a few days later I go outside and there are more.  Even the few frosts we've had haven't stopped the berries yet. 

Here are the girls on another day after harvesting cucumbers, beans, hot peppers, and the last of the onions. 

My tomatoes had a rough start this year, but they eventually did what they needed to.  

Here I am with the tomatoes. They are taller than me.  

See! This was a goal of mine for a few years so I'm excited I finally did it. 

Here's more raspberries.

Jalapeños. 

And carrots! I've never grown these successfully so these were a surprise.  I'm going to plan more in the exact same spot next year. 

During Conference Weekend I spent all Saturday outside working on the font yard.  My main goal was to divide the Tulip bulbs I planted two years ago and to add in Daffodils, Crocuses, and Hyacinths. A few other projects happened along the way.  

In order to divide the bulbs I'd have to dig up a lot of the wild flowers that were growing on top of them.  So I took pictures to document all the pretty flowers before I had to dig them up.

Look at this Gladiola. I didn't plan any Glads this year. And even if I did they usually bloom in July. But this one popped up out of nowhere and bloomed on Veronica's birthday. 

I like all these little flowers. 

Here's the Hollyhock still blooming. 

I love these little pink and blue flowers, but I don't know what they are. 

Okay now for some before and after pictures. Here's a before picture.  

And here's the after.  I dug out the cement that was holding the Times-News sign, moved a rose bush and moved the big rock that was covered up by one of the rose bushes.  

You can see the rock and the rose bush better in this picture. 

I also redid the little brick walkway. 

And here's the other side of the garden bed.  There are now lots of bulbs waiting under this whole garden bed. They are going to look amazing in the spring. 

Doing all that yard work was fun, but it completely wore me out.  I was so sore and so tired afterward. I spent a long time laying in bed. 

On Conference Sunday I just sat on the couch and worked on uploading pictures for scheduled posts for the Family History Facebook and Instagram Pages that I created for my dad's family history book. 

Brandon Adventures

Brandon's work schedule has changed.  When we were homeschooling he wouldn't go into work until 10:30 and then would come home at 6:30.  Now he goes into work around 8:30 and comes home around 4:30. It's nice to have him home earlier in the evenings.  But I don't really count on him too much because sometimes he gets sent out on mobile calls that take him all over.  He's go as far as Sun Valley on a regular basis. 

He's also gone to Sun Valley two times for non work related stuff.  One time was on a camping trip with his Brother in Law Justin. Justin is part of a drone search and rescue group that looks for remains of missing hikers. His group was going to be in the Sun Valley area.  Brandon had a blast on the trip and came home talking all about how he wants to get a drone pilot rating.  

The other time was to visit his friend from ISU. 

My work

I'm still loving my job. It's been pretty steady lately and I've sort of been able to catch up on a lot of things. There were a few days that I had to cover front desk and those were a little nuts.  But other than things have been pretty routine. 

I realize this is a little tiny burb for something that takes up 15 hours each week, but really there's not much to tell about my job. 

Last little bits

I think we are reaching the end of this recap. We did a lot of fun stuff over the weekend, but I think I'll save all that for the next post.  (Which hopefully will be sooner than a month.)

Here are Veronica and Lydia playing with the hot wheels track.  I think they did this during conference. 

And here is a picture of one of my favorite parts of each day.  I love when the kids come home from school. We have a snack and they sit down to do home work.  I'm glad I'm able to be home for them at this time.  

Charlotte and Lydia spent a lot of time dressing their dolls up for halloween. 

They even sewed some costumes for some of the dolls. Charlotte did this black cat outfit. 

and I think Lydia did this cheeta one. 

And here's a hint of other things that have been happening.  We are getting ready for Halloween. But I'll save all that for another post. 

And look we've made it to the end of this recap.  Thank goodness. 

Hopefully this format wasn't too crazy for you to follow.  And hopefully my next post will be a lot sooner than a month away.  

Thanks for reading. 

Veronica's birthday and baptism

Thank you so much for reading along with my recap about our trip to Yellowstone.  Now it's time to catch up on the things that happened after Yellowstone.  

And boy, do we have a lot to talk about. 

The last non-Yellowstone day I talked about was Saturday, September 11th. And now it's October 17th soooooooo yeah. We have a lot to talk about. 

So much in fact that we aren't going to be able to do this post in a normal chronological order.  This is going to be set up more by subject.  

Starting with the two most important things that happened in the last month. 1. Veronica turned 8 years old. And 2. She was baptized. 

Veronica's 8th Birthday

Veronica always has very clear ideas for what to do on her birthday. Very.clear.ideas. This year she talked for months about wanting a store bought cake. She even told me the specific day we would go buy the cake. 

Turns out that a store bought cake was PERFECT for me this year too. I was in the middle of finishing a course during the week leading up to her birthday and I probably wouldn't have had time to bake her a cake.  So I was very happy we'd agreed on a store bought cake.  

The day before her birthday we went to Smiths and picked out a Chocolate cake with Chocolate frosting. 

Veronica's birthday also happened to be the day the school was doing an Active Shooter Drill.  The kids would barricade their classroom doors, and sit very quiet while, police officers searched the school. This was part practice for the children and also practice for the Twin Falls Police Department. I was just fine with the drill, but when Veronica started telling me that she was worried about it, I agreed that it sounded like a major birthday buzz kill. So I agreed to check Veronica out of class early on her birthday. 

And then I thought about it and realized that Derrick probably shouldn't be at school during the drill either.  I could just see him not understanding the concept of being quiet during the drill. Or not understanding that it was just pretend. 

So on the afternoon of Veronica's birthday I checked both her and Derrick out of school 90 minutes early.  (Charlotte and Lydia were both fine with the drill.) Veronica felt like she was getting away with something HUGE and was so happy as we walked home. 

She'd brought airhead treats to school to give to her class and she had some leftover. She had a plan to make a road out of the airheads to decorate her cake.  It didn't make sense to me, but it seemed to make her really happy. So when we got home I let her start decorating. 

She and Derrick worked together. I wasn't involved at all.

My only contribution was to help Veronica figure out how to stick candy corn Traffic Cones onto the cake with frosting. 

Here's the finished product. She added a ton of candy pumpkins to be a "Pumpkin Patch." She also found a car and added it to the "road." Will it make it onto any Pinterest Boards? No.  Did she have a blast decorating it. YES!  And that's really all that matters.  

She wanted Little Caesars Pizza for dinner and once again that was just perfect for me. So we picked that up a little bit before Brandon was due home.  

Then she opened presents.  This year each child gets to spend $100 on legos for their birthday.  (Thanks to Derrick wanting a $100 lego rocket set in the spring.) Veronica loves police things so she picked out about 4 different Police sets that added up to about $100. We picked them out online and had them shipped to us. (I love doing it that way because it's so much easier to keep track of the running total.)

She was so excited to get her Legos and started building them right away. We had to keep reminding the older kids to leave her alone and let her take the lead with building. 

Here she is, putting together a police car. 

Then we had the cake. The actual cake tasted better than our homemade cakes, but the frosting tasted exactly like canned frosting.  So it was about the same as always. 

Then it was back to more legos. Veronica wanted to go bowling for her birthday and we'd planned to go this evening, but the legos ended up being more fun.  (And we were all super tired from our week anyway.) 

On Saturday Brandon's parents stopped by for a little while to drop off gifts. We cleaned really well before they came over and when the kids asked me why, I showed them this cartoon from James Breakwell. 

They gave her a little card game. (Which she had not asked for and so promptly ignored because it didn't fit her predetermined birthday plan.) And a fishing pole which she was very excited for. 

Brandon's parents stayed for a few hours and then had to get going. After they left we drove over the the Bowladrome so we could go bowling.  

We love bowling as a family and used to go once or twice a year. But two things paused our bowling fun.  One was that we moved and we hadn't found a new bowling place.  And the second was COVID. 

But Veronica wore me down and convinced me it was time to go bowling again.  She even pointed out the bowling places in town every time we passed them.  Everyone was so excited to walk into a bowling alley again.

We were all kind of rusty, but by the end I think everyone had remembered how to bowl. I bowled one strike near the end and Veronica got two strikes. 

Here's everyone waiting their turn. 

I love getting pictures like this. 

Here are me and Brandon.

And here's our final score card. I won. 

Charlotte and Lydia have already decided that bowling has to be one of their birthday activities. So we'll be back again. 

Veronica's Baptism

Okay, now let's skip ahead a few weeks to Veronica's baptism. Veronica's baptism was scheduled for Saturday, October 9th.  I was about 75% sure that the baptism would actually happen on this date. Thanks to COVID, Derrick's baptism had been postponed for over 7 months so I was mentally prepared for the same thing to happen with Veronica's. 

But as we got closer and closer to October it looked like the date would stay.  That meant I had to actually start planning some things. 

I was trying to hit a sweet spot between the big, surprisingly overwhelming event that Charlotte and Lydia's baptism had been, and the tiny, blissfully uncomplicated event that Derrick's had been.

Veronica, Brandon, and I decided that we'd only invite our parents and siblings to attend the baptism in person. It was just too complicated to try to invite EVERYONE.  Plus Veronica said she would be shy if there were too many people looking at her. 

Our ward/stake would take care of most of the logistics for the actual event so that was nice.  I also delegated all the food responsibilities to Brandon.  I just didn't have the bandwidth to think about that at all.  

I was focused on the dress. Veronica really really really wanted a Baptism Dress like Charlotte and Lydia's which I found odd because Veronica doesn't like dresses. When she goes to church she wears a shirt and pants and then throws a "dress" on over them. Usually the "dress" is basically a long shirt with a vague skirt shape. I'm fully expecting her to one day just ask to wear nice pants like Derrick does.  And I've started wearing dress pants to church so that she knows that's an okay option. (Plus, I figured out pants are WAY more comfortable than tights on cold days.) 

But she had her heart set on wearing a white dress with a red ribbon. We went to Joanns to look at fabric and she ruled out anything too sparkly. She said she wanted satin like Charlotte and Lydia, but I had my reservations and figured if I did the dress in double knit it would suit her better.  That way we wouldn't have to worry about a zipper and she could just throw it over her head like the dresses she currently wears. 

I planned to just reuse the same pattern as Charlotte and Lydia's dresses, but when I got it out to look at it I realized we had a problem.  That pattern was a 4, 6, 8 pattern. It had seemed so big three years ago when I made Charlotte and Lydia's dresses on size 8 so they'd be able to wear them a long time.  But Veronica needed at least a size 10 - or bigger if she wanted to wear this dress for several years. I would need to buy a new pattern. 

That slowed everything down.  The pattern I wanted was sold out at Joanns so I ordered it directly from Simplicity. (It was Simplicity Pattern 1456 for future reference.) The pattern took forever to come in the mail. It didn't come until Wednesday, September 29th, 10 days before the baptism. As soon as I had the pattern I got online to order fabric from Joanns. But I quickly realized we needed to go there in person to make sure we got quality double knit. So Veronica and I went to Joanns while Derrick was at therapy that afternoon. 

Veronica was fascinated by the whole process of picking out fabric and then getting it cut. She was like, "And these people will just put away the other fabric for us? Wow." She also had many opinions about thread for someone who has never sewed. She very reluctantly let me buy the Sulky thread after I told her it was the very best.

We ran into a problem when it was time to pay. My card kept getting declined. And then when I finally decided to write a check I realized I used my last one months ago.  (It's been so long since I had to write a check I'm lucky I even had a check book with me.)  So we had to leave the fabric at the store and go home to get cash or more checks.  Veronica started crying when we left. She's always conscious about money because me default answer is "we don't have money for that right now." (Meaning we have a budget, not that we don't have money.) And she's always thrilled when I buy something. She'll ask me, "You have that kind of money?" So she got really worried when the card was declined.  

Fortunately, I remembered we keep emergency cash in the car! Technically its for if there was ever a power outage and we had to pay cash or if we were stranded and needed a hotel or something while traveling.  But it comes in handy at times like this too. So I grabbed the cash and went back into the store to pay. Veronica was very happy to see me come out with her fabric. (And the next day I called the bank and found out there had been suspicious activity with my card so I had to get a whole new one set to me.)

I worked on the dress over the next few days. It was actually a pretty simple dress made even simpler by the fact that I wasn't doing a zipper. I did decide to line the whole thing so that kind of slowed things down a bit. I put the most time into it on Monday afternoon after the kids were home from school.  They just watched things on Netflix while I sewed. 

I finally finished the dress around 10:00 PM. Here's the dress!

I'd listened to old episodes of the At Last She Said It Podcast the whole time I was sewing. So when I was done I sent this email to the hosts of the show:

Subject: Thanks for helping me sew a dress

Hi Cynthia and Susan,

I've been listening to the podcast since somewhere in Season Two. I've been slowly working through earlier episodes, but haven't quite caught up yet.

Until today.

My eight year old daughter is getting baptized this weekend. She doesn't like dresses, but she wanted me to sew her a baptism dress like the ones I made her older sisters. So I've been working on that for the past few days. 

Today I spent the afternoon and evening finishing her baptism dress. To keep me company, I listened to many, many episodes from Season One while sewing, and ironing, and pinning.

Thank you so much for all the great conversations. 

As I put together the dress I was grateful I had you to listen to. I also thought about how the ALSSI podcast has helped me navigate my relationship with the church. There have been a few times in the last few years that I've wondered if there really was a place for me in this church. I've wondered if there is a place for my head-strong daughter. I've wondered if staying in the church and having her baptized was the best course for us.

But every time I listen to the podcast I feel like there is a place. That I'm wanted and needed. And if I'm wanted and needed so is my daughter.

So I've stayed. And she's getting baptized on Saturday. And I finished the dress. And you both helped - in many ways.

I've attached a picture so you can see the dress. 

Thanks!

Cynthia wrote back: Valerie, that dress is stunning and the red sash just makes me even happier. thanks for sharing! I'm so glad we have been able to help you in some small way.

With the dress finished my stress levels regarding the baptism decreased quite a bit. Brandon had the food side of things handled so I could just enjoy the weekend. 

Our small guest list ended up very small. Brandon's sister Shannon wasn't able to come. And my sister Emily had just had a baby so we didn't even count her family in the total number of possible people. My sister Hillary was going to drive my parents up to Twin Falls, but she was having some heath issues and she (rightly) decided to just stay home and focus on herself. 

For a while, I was worried that my parents wouldn't make it, but they were able to drive up on Friday and stay the whole weekend which was very nice. This was the first time they've visited us since we moved to Twin Falls.  (They only moved back from North Carolina at the end of June so it makes sense that this was their first visit.)  We ordered Pizza Pie Cafe pizzas for dinner. Veronica was like, "let's get two Oreo pizzas" and I was like, "Why not!" We also ordered pepperoni, cheese, and the spud-o-licous because that's my mom's favorite. 

On Saturday, I helped Brandon prep some meet and veggie trays.  He said it's been so long since we've hosted anything that he was super rusty.  He was looking at the veggies like, "what do I do with these."  He eventually figured it out and did a great job.  

Everyone changed into Sunday clothes and I took pictures.  Here's Veronica in her dress.  She was mortified that I wasn't letting her wear pants under the dress.  She kept saying, "I feel NAKED!" She did like the sandals I'd bought her.  Somehow she is incapable of wearing typical dressy shoes.  She can't walk and keep them on her feet.  She's been wearing tennis shoes to church for months. But I wanted her to have something new and nice.  Sandals ended up being the perfect thing.  She's outgrown the pair she wore over the summer and so she needed new ones anyway. I was able to find the same sandals that Charlotte and Lydia love in white so we ordered those from Walmart.  Veronica was very happy with them. 

Charlotte and Lydia obliged me and wore their baptism dresses.  Charlotte has worn her's recently, but it's been a while for Lydia.  She barely fit it. But she wore it.  

Brandon had made some amazing cupcakes and then we put powdered sugar donuts in "8" shapes on them.  This ended up being the only picture I took of the food which was a shame because we had quite the spread. 

We went over to the church. Several weeks ago our ward was moved into a brand new stake. But our Stake Center is still in the building by the temple.  I kind of knew what to expect because this was the same place we had Derrick's baptism, but that had been in a different stake and had been in the middle of some strict COVID measures. So in a way this was all new again. 

Derrick's baptism service had been in the chapel and we'd walked down to the Relief Society room for the actual baptism.  But this time the whole thing was in the Relief Society room. 

Before Veronica changed I had the kids line up for another picture.  This time Derrick joined in.  He'd even agreed to wear the vest I'd made for him. 

And here's the whole family. 

Brandon's parents arrived and Jacque handed me the towel that she'd embroidered for Veronica.  When Charlotte and Lydia were baptized in Pocatello the ward had given them huge white towels with their names embroidered on them. We've kept that tradition going with Derrick and Veronica by having Jacque do the embroidery with her machine.  Veronica was so excited. 

Brandon's sister Melanie and her family arrived, bringing the total number of our guests to 10. Another girl from our ward was also getting baptized and so her family was there too.  And the Bishop, Relief Society President and Primary president were there as well.  I think we had a total of about 25 people there. 

I helped Veronica change into her jumpsuit.  Then she went into the Relief Society room. For Derrick's baptism the ward had set up a Zoom link. This time the ward didn't do it, but we were allowed to set up our own. Brandon had taken care of that, and my Brother in Law Justin monitored it during the meeting.  My Grandma Mary Ann, my Aunt Vera, my sister Lindsey, and my friend Justine were able to watch the baptism over zoom.  (And maybe some more people, I really wasn't paying much attention.)

Our bishop would be baptizing the other little girl so he conducted the meeting in his white jumpsuit. 

Veronica had wanted me to give the same "talk" I gave at Derrick's baptism which was really just showing a Youtube video about baptism.  I was just fine with that plan because it was one less thing to worry about.  But that morning an idea for a talk had popped into my head and literally wrote itself.  So we had a last minute change.  This is basically what I said in my talk. 

When I was packing things for Veronica today I thought about how wet she was going to get.  She'd need a towel, and dry clothes, and maybe even a blow dryer.  It seemed like a lot of stuff to bring for only being under water for a few seconds. Shouldn't she just be a little wet from being in the water a just a little bit of time? But water doesn't work like that. No matter how quick she comes out of the water, her whole body will be physically changed.

And I realized that's how it is with Jesus.  When you accept him and his atoning power into your life you get completely changed and it can happen in an instant. 

I want you to watch as these girls get baptized today. Watch how quickly they change when they come out of the water.  Now obviously we'll change their clothes and dry them off and you won't be able to see the physical change after a while. But the spiritual change will always be there. 

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good analogy. 

When it was time for Veronica to be baptized the bishop said, "She will be baptized by my good friend Brandon Illguth."  I wanted to watch the baptism from the Relief Society room so Brandon helped her find her way to the font.  (I'd felt invisible during Charlotte and Lydia's baptism because I'd been waiting in the wings beside the font.) Veronica wanted both her Grandmas to be the official witnesses.  So my mom and my mother in law stood on either side of the font. This was the first time either of them ever had the chance to do that.  (YAY for policy changes!)

Brandon said the prayer and baptized Veronica. She went completely under on the first try. Then I hurried around to help her get dry and back into her dress.  

I'd brought the blow dryer because Veronica had wanted to be warm, but there was no where to plug it in so we gave up on that plan.  Soon we were back in the Relief Society Room and listening to music that the Primary President had on her phone. It was the same play list as Derrick's baptism and so once again we heard the song Miracles. I really love this song. 

After Brandon and the bishop were done changing it was time to Confirm Veronica a member of the church.  I think she kind of forgot about this part. Brandon gave her a beautiful blessing.  Then the other little girl was confirmed.  

The bishop gave a few remarks, we sang a closing song, and were were done.  The whole meeting had lasted 30 minutes.  It was great!

We went back home and pulled the food out of the fridge. We had a nice time eating and talking with our small group. I'd completely forgot about my camera at this point and so I didn't take a single picture. (Note to self: Hire a wedding photographer for the kids' weddings because you are super distracted during your kids' special events.)

Eventually, Brandon's family members left and it was just us and my parents again.  All the adults found different places to take naps.  Here's Brandon passed out on the couch. 

Here's me before I conked out. I really liked how my makeup looked. 

What a great day it had been. 

And you know what.  I think we are going to make this it's own post. I was going to switch gears to ALL the other things that happened in the last month.  But let's just leave this one here.  I'll get this published and start working on another post.  

Thanks for reading!