Wonderful Week

Things I loved about this week:

We've got a missionary!
David's brother just got called to the Florida Orlando mission!  We (including David who left work at 4:30 so he could be home for the important moment) were able to be right with him as he opened his call even though he is all the way in Utah.  It was such a beautiful moment to see him open up that envelope and slowly but surely start at the top, "Dear Elder Hymas, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."   That gives me chills!  What a beautiful example he is setting for my kids!  They simply adore their Uncle Jayson.  And now it's the Uncle Elder Jayson.  And we get to send care packages to a missionary!  Now my job is to find a good airfare deal for him to come up here so we can help him kill the three months that is going to drive him batty waiting for the day he enters the MTC.  That seems like a perfect job for us!   

Amazing field trip with Skyla
I got to accompany Skyla's class to the Performance Arts Center for an amazing jazz performance.  They totally catered to the students and had them clapping and stomping and chanting the beats and really feeling the music.  I love the schools here!   

 

Catching Karsten BEFORE he took his sweet ride down the stairs. 

 Karsten was the B.I.P (Beary Important Person) at school this week.  He got to be line leader and take in special things to share with the class.  His biggest joy was stumping the class on his choice for the "rhyming bag".  He had to bring something from home and give a clue about it.  His clue was "It rhymes with Band Aid."  No one in his class got it and that, apparently, is super duper cool.  Did you guess it?  Gatorade! 

Superbowl Bliss
This is David's day.  He is completely in charge and I love it!  He knows exactly what we're going to eat, takes care of all of it, and it's delicious!  (Although this year on seeing a lack of ANYTHING healthy, I made up a veggie tray which he mocked and yet we ate the entire thing!  Yeah kids!  Veggie victory is sweet.)  He loves his couch, his own TV w/ remote in hand, and his "near beer."  He even turned down other Superbowl Party invitations so he could have it just this way, and our little family, home alone together, thought is was just PERFECT...

Karsten can't take his eyes off the game for even one second! 

Rediscovering bribery
My kids are not big talkers.  They don't come home from school with the details that I am craving.  It dawned on me that I am NOT ok with this.   So I told them that I wanted them to come up with 10 things about their day.  I had subbed in  Skyla's class that day so she didn't think there was anything more she wanted to share.  Karsten had to go to the bathroom so bad (or maybe it was because he was so starving?) that he just couldn't even talk.  So Sierra started on her 10 things.  I threw her some candy.  Suddenly they all had 10 things they wanted to share!  And every day since then they have so much to share with me!  I MUST remember the value to candy! And I am LOVING the details of their days.  Why didn't I do this before?! 

Clutter Corner
There has been a pile of "stuff" sitting in the corner in my bedroom for a very long time.  Just some random stuff sitting there.  Some scissors, a Thanksgiving candy dish, a cake decorating thing, one of the girl's ribbons from a swim meet, etc.  They were there for no reason other than I haven't put them away.  But then one day I did it.  I just picked up each thing and put it away.  And now my room feels so clean!  I didn't realize how that one little corner was bringing my whole room down!  What a wonderful feeling and why in the world did I not do that sooner and why in the world am I not doing that to all those clutter corners in my house?!   So then I cleared off the desk.  Beautiful!  And then I picked up the random things laying around in the kids' rooms.  I cleared off the stuff that was stacked on the washing machine.  And my house suddenly feels clean.

There is so much of every day I want to remember. 

But at least now I've got a couple of those details for this week down...