this week.

Week 7 or 8 of quarantine.  I can't wait til this is all done!  I'm very excited to move on to the next step.... hopefully it will be a positive and upward step. My goal is to stay healthy at least through the end of Judy's radiation, then we can have permission to get sick if we need to.  Hopefully we don't get it at all.  We have three more weeks of school left.  A lot of what we have to finish is mostly making sure that kids turn in what they've done and helping Ada finish math.  It's interesting, I'm remembering a lot of math, but there are some things that I remember that don't quite jive with the way Ada has been learning.  She's finishing 7th grade math.   She thinks she's failing because she's stuck right now, but she's not.  She's going to be taking the advanced math placement test in about 2 weeks and depending on how that goes, I'm going to let her choose whether she wants to keep doing advanced math or go more slowly.

My Great-Uncle Frank passed away today.  I have a lot to say about him, but I'm going to post about it on my genealogy blog.  

I'm loving listening to the spring storm outside though.  I've always loved spring storms.

We had the military do a state flyby with their F35 bombers.  They flew from the top of the state to the bottom, directly over as many hospitals as they could.  We live right next to one, so we saw it pretty well.  Sam was so mad.  He waited outside, gave up waiting and went in to get his shoes and that's when they came.

Pictures from my phone

We're starting week 6 of quarantine.  We have given up on making the kids sleep in beds.  They've taken over the family room downstairs and just switch up who sleeps on what.  We're still making them brush hair, teeth, bath and exercise.  It's harder to make them remember to practice ballet, piano, chores, etc... We have started back to yard work, which I LOVE after being inside too much.  The kids have been finding sticks and making staffs out of them.  They go adventuring in the backyard.  We pruned our yard, gathered sticks and went down to Jim and Judy's to gather what Jim had pruned and mow the lawn for the first time this year.  We got to talk to Grandma from a far for a minute.  Her hair is growing in marvelously, she's scheduled to begin radiation on Friday and she's definitely looking more perky and more herself than she has for a bit.  She still has some residual problems with her eyes, feeling in her feet and hands, and her lungs.  She thinks that her hands are starting to heal though.  She's almost there!

My Mom put found a chalk obstacle course somewhere and copied it out of the kids.  Sam took it and drew it down the sidewalk and in front of 3 neighbor's houses.  It's really cute and the kids take turns going down it forwards and then backwards.  How do you do a backwards lunge by the way?

I'm enjoying having our Saturdays, though I miss the kids running and playing at soccer.  Sam and Ada have been having a hard time sleeping lately.  I'm guessing because they are not as tired as they usually would be from all their daily routines.  I feel like an official adult though, we bought a weed eater for the first time.  The other one was a hand me down and died.... Jer was pretty excited.

I need to cut Sam and Jer's hair.  It's gotten out of hand.  This week, that's on my list of to-dos.  I think we finally killed Sam's warts, and I think I just found some on Seth's feet.... so here we go again.

Right after conference, we chatted with both my family and Jer's.  It's so fun to see everyone.

We had our traditional conference lunch.

Sam made these crinkles.  He was very proud of himself.

These kids are way too cute.  Sam has taught both of them to play chess and they decided that they would play together.  

Ada's my good helper

The biggest worm was under the leaves I picked up for the trash.  Sam loved it.

We're sadly saying goodbye to our lovely Party Tree.  I really am going to miss it.  Especially the shade it gives for the kids to play during the summer.  We'll have to hope the tree we planted to replace it will grow faster now that the big tree will be out of the way of the sun.  I feel like it's the Giving Tree.  The kids climb and hand and swing.  It gives us shade and leaves to play in during the fall time.  I'm trying not to be too sad over it because it's just a tree and was only meant to live for about 30 years, but I am.

My Mom's cousin, Brook, posted pictures from her 70's cookbook.  They are hilarious, but some of the recipes were from my Grandma and my Great-Grandma.  Here's one from my grandma.  I've never tried it, but black bean fudge is pretty good, so maybe I'll give this one a go.

Easter 2020

Easter was pretty low key.  We dyed eggs the night before, I stuffed the plastic eggs that my sisters brought over with jelly beans and Ada was super cute.... she got up early, got dressed and did her hair to hide eggs for the kids to find.  She is a cute Easter Bunny.

Sam is so funny about his hair.... he hates when I cut it short, he says that he looks like a q-tip with short hair.  I think that's backwards.  I think he looks more like a q-tip when his hair gets fluffy like this.

We're all a bit of a mess, but we did our yearly Easter family picture.  These guys are growing so fast.

The dog decided to be part of our picture and even looked at the camera.  That made the kids laugh for sure.

April General Conference 2020

I'm not even sure what to write yet.  Several things have happened this weekend while listening to our prophet and the apostles.  There was a general call for putting our faith in Jesus Christ into action around the whole world.  I don't fully understand where this is going to hinge us as a church in the last days, but I do understand that we're in the final preparations.

This was the bicentennial conference, or the 200 years celebration, since God the Father and Jesus Christ showed themselves to Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove.  We've been asked to prepare spiritually for this conference.  I read the Saints v1 book to the kids and I have loved every minute of it.  I was impressed with how well the kids listened and I'm looking forward to reading the v2 together.  It is beautiful, faith lifting, and 100% from original sources.  They said that if the book says it was raining that day, the historians have it documented in original documents that it was raining that day.  We've read The Living Christ together and studied it as a family.  We took a church history trip to the early church sites this summer to help our kids humanize the stories that they've been hearing.  We read and finished the Book of Mormon and the New Testament as a family.  I'm reading the D&C.  I think the best thing that we could have done that didn't happen, was helping each of the kids to identify the Holy Ghost.  I've tried, but I still get kids saying that they don't feel it or they don't understand.  Maybe they will.  Enos took a while to understand.  My last effort is telling them that they have to intentionally invite the spirit, it won't just magically be there.

The things that I loved the most were:  Pres Nelson talking about standing in Holy Places and be not moved, the Hosanna shout and Solemn assembly, Bro Ballard talking about the Smith family was united through their trials, Ada commenting that she was probably one of the angels at the restoration (That would be so neat!), Joy Jones talking about how the Lord loves effort, , Bro Homes talking about choosing repentance for ourselves, Pres Eyring telling us to pray, pretty much everyone telling us to stay focused on Christ, Elder Renlund talking about having reverence for the givers, Bro Stevenson talking about foundations while the world shakes around us, and I especially loved Bro Gong's talk... he made me feel like Christ would be coming again at the end of the week, it's so thrilling to be in the last days.  

I loved that they spoke about temple work around the world and the world getting ready.  I also feel that this was a dedication of our homes all around the world in preparation for the coming of Christ.  I keep thinking about how exciting it will be to see grandparents and friends again at the resurrection.

After speaking about temples, we all got out our white handkerchiefs and the kids got to join us in the Hosanna shout.  I've been able to participate in it several times, but this one was my favorite because we got to do it as a family and with the entire world.  (I have gotten to do it at the Mt Timp, Winter Quarters, Provo City Center, Nauvoo, Oquirrh Mt, Draper, West Jordan, Brigham City, Ogden, Conference Center, Payson, temples and maybe a few more dedications.  Ada got to go to the Provo City Center temple dedication when she was 8.  She says she doesn't remember it well though.)   It was hard to get Seth to sit still for it and for Sam to sit up and pay attention, but hopefully they will realize what it was someday.

My Uncle Brad was called into the General Young Men's Presidency.  He's going to do great job.  I've loved seeing his spiritual progression through the years as he's gone from speaker and author, to mission president and religion teacher and now to working with the young men.  Perfect timing as they switch to doing churchwide FSY.  I've seen him as he's progressively understood more of the gospel and humbled himself as he teaches others.  

Personally, I wouldn't have met and married Jeremy or been able to work at home for the first 7 years without him, my dad and my Uncle Chris.  My sister and I lived in and helped my Dad upkeep and care for his home while he and his wife served as mission presidents in Chile.  That put me in Jeremy's ward where we dated and were married.  I worked with them as the MightyAuthors office manager, IT, shipping, design work, trainer, etc... I loved it.  He was also my professor for an education course that I took at BYU while I taught school in Kenya. He was so kind and let me drive his car for 2 years while they were gone, which helped me be able to get to school and work without a car payment which helped me get through school with no debts.  I'm excited that he will be part of the new YM program as Sam becomes a part of it.  It probably means that Sam will not be doing his maturation program with Uncle Brad (that was supposed to be in the next month or so, but with COVID-19...), but we'll survive.

After conference, we did a zoom meeting with my family and then Jer's family.  I love being able to see everyone.