We had something going on every night this week. All of them were good things and we had a good time doing them.
On Monday we had our normal family home evening. It was pretty good. Eliza is getting better and better at singing. When we have family home evening she has to go get her little children’s songbook and open it up to sing. We almost always sing “I am a Child of God” or “I Love to See the Temple.” She knows those two songs pretty much by heart and will sing along with us for some of the words while she leads the music from her little music stand. In our home evenings we’re using the nursery manual which has tons of awesome lessons and methods that Eliza resonates with. This week our lesson was “I Have a Body Like Heavenly Father’s.” We talked about how each of us has eyes, ears, nose etc and how Heavenly Father has those too. We sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” (another favorite) and had a little closing prayer. These lessons are just about right and we love having them.
Tuesday I had my usual scout meeting. We spent the evening getting ready for our canoe trip this coming weekend and also brainstorming plans for the coming year’s camps. The boys had some fun ideas and I think we’re going to have a great year! I took the boys ice cream because usually we do this activity as part of our camp and make homemade ice cream but because this year we’re going to be canoeing I figured this would have to do.
Sarah has been working on some family history names for one of her lines and on Wednesday she got to go to the family history center up in Georgetown to look at some films that she had ordered from Salt Lake. She found the name of the father that she was looking for and she thought it was a successful night. She said it was a bit sad that there was no one else there. In fact, the people that were there working were planning on leaving early at 8:00 but Sarah needed to stay until the real posted closing time of 8:30. That tells you how little traffic they get if they’re used to being able to leave early. Sarah is going to try to make a habit of this and go up once every week or two. We figure that if she can get into this she’ll be able to start making progress toward her accreditation.
Thursday evening was a Relief Society meeting so I was home with the kids again while Sarah was at the church. I know they made some little purse things (Sarah calls them “purse caddies” — golf anyone?). . . but that’s about all I know. The kids were pretty good. James has a hard time getting to sleep sometimes and has to be rocked for a long time. I try to be patient but sometimes he tries my patience. I love him lots but he just refuses to sleep sometimes!
Our friends the Larsen’s invited us over for pizza on Friday. We went over and ate with them and then we brought Eliza’s friend back to our place so they could go to the baseball game. We had our family scripture study and burned the rest of the night on stuff.
Saturday was a full day for the kids. Eliza was going, going, going from the minute she got up. She really wanted to help me mow the lawn and helped me push the mower again. She also wanted to go shopping so I took her with me to get some lightbulbs at Home Depot and then to HEB for groceries. She was not excited about Home Depot because she just wanted to go to HEB. We were hoping to find her a pool noodle that she can use swimming but they were out of season. We did find some little splash balls that she wanted to get so we got those. She had been looking forward all day to going swimming. After we got back from shopping, we all got dressed to go to the pool and headed out. She was so excited! She played in the little kiddy pool for a while and then wanted to “go swim like a fishy.” In the big pool she’ll walk down the steps and then step off into the deep water and let her float wings hold her while she swims. She’s gotten so much braver. She started to get really tired while we were there and was starting to fall asleep in the pool. She was about to put her head on the water to sleep. She also got out at one point and curled up on the cement to fall asleep. . . needless to say, we went home. She almost zonked during dinner and so we just put her to bed (around 6:00) and she slept until morning. James also went down super early and both of them were sound asleep at 7:30. We didn’t really know what to do. Sarah prepared her lesson for church today and I went and got us some ice cream to celebrate.
Today was nutso. It was the Arnesen show at church, at least that’s how it felt. I accompanied someone singing and Sarah played the organ. Sarah taught gospel essentials and I entertained James. I had a youth fireside tonight at 7 and Sarah had a musical number rehearsal at 8. Yep, nutso.
We had a pretty good week all told. We have some great kids and they keep us on our toes!