Last month, at the beginning of the month, I decided that we would try to memorize a scripture a month this year. Last year in the Friend magazine, each issue focused on one scripture from the Book of Mormon, and they called it "Book of Mormon Reading Club". I didn't discover it until December, when I was going through all the Friends and pulling out stuff I wanted to keep. And I thought it was so cool, that they focused on one scripture a month. Well, they aren't doing that this year ... at least, not to my current knowledge. But I decided we'd do it anyway, even if we are a little late. So, for January, we memorized 2 Nephi 25:26: "And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies; that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins." Brooke learned it through first. She had it down so good! I kind of learned it somewhere along the way after Brooke, and helped Camille to get it. And she did! I was a little surprised, and very proud. She didn't have it perfect; she always skipped the "we preach of Christ" part. But I still counted it, because 1) she's 4; and 2) it was good enough to get the message. I was so proud of my girls, and to celebrate, and as a kind of reward, we all went on a family date to Chic-Fil-A for chicken and fries and to play on the indoor playground (our original plan was to go to the duck pond and feed the ducks, but it was raining pretty hard all day long on Saturday and we didn't want to put it off).
This month we are memorizing my favorite scripture, the one that I've always called my "Christmas scripture", because it gives me the same feelings I get in December when we focus so much on Christ: Moroni 7:41: "And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold, I tell you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of His resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal; and this because of your faith in Him according to the promise." It's a bit longer than the last one, and it doesn't have so many obvious actions to go along with the words. But I think we can do it.
Daniel and I went on a little date Saturday night. We had Nora come babysit last minute and we went to dinner at Chop Stop and then to do a little window shopping in the mall. We had a good time. It was nice to spend a little time together. That's been rare in the last month.
Sunday was nice. It rained most of the day, and it was fast Sunday. I felt very close to the Spirit on Sunday, probably due mainly to fasting. But I noticed that most of it came through the music I was involved in on Sunday: choir pieces, primary songs the kids are learning, the music I listened to while I made dinner. It was lovely. Music can be so powerful in bringing the Spirit into our lives! I also went to a first song practice for a musical number I'm doing with friends at the end of the month. And this time, I'm actually singing, not playing! It's a nice change.
This week has been a little crazy, partly because I'm just fed up with the state of my house. It's been like a year and a half since I did that big purge when I got rid of a ton of stuff, and the house is starting to feel all cluttery and disorganized again. The girls' room and the loft are by far the worst of it, but Jack's closet was really bad, and the loft closet needs a little straightening out. Basically, every room in the house is due for reorganization and deep cleaning. So for the last few days, I've been going through different rooms in the house, cleaning them up, organizing the closets, moving the furniture and vacuuming. I even had the girls help me by cleaning the mirrors and windows in their and Jack's rooms. I did Jack's room a couple of days ago, the girls' room yesterday and the loft today. Get the worst of it out of the way, and I feel so much better already. I also did a good cleanup of the laundry room, which needed it badly. The afternoons and evening have been taken up with getting the house cleaned up. Jack's room took the longest, because I was also switching out his clothes into a bigger size, and I had to go through some piles of clothes that had been just thrown into the closet. It's nice to have these rooms at the very least done.
On the day that I did Jack's room (Tuesday, I think?), it was super crazy. It took me, like, 2 hours, and while I was working, the kids were running amuck in the house, doing who even knows what. By the time I emerged and looked around, the rest of the house was a wreck. Jack's room and the kids bathroom were clean. But the girls' room was a disaster -- toys, clothes, dressups, coloring things, trash, trash, trash all over. The Loft was a disaster -- see girls' room. My room wasn't a disaster, but it's gotten a little cluttery. Downstairs was a disaster -- dishes everywhere on the counters, on the table, box of playdough out and playdough strewn about the table and floor, dozens of pairs of shoes out, laundry piled up in the laundry room. It was pretty bad. I sent Daniel a Snapchat of it, taking him on a little tour of the house, just to show him how CRAZY it was.
Monday, I did a little family home evening lesson with the girls and Jack. Daniel was working late, but we had it anyway. I taught them the primary song "Faith", because lately, we've been having lessons about planting the seed in our hearts and growing faith and testimony. It seemed fitting, and they seemed to enjoy learning a new song. FHE and scripture study has been a little difficult lately, though, in that the girls don't seem to want to sit down and listen as well as they did a few months ago. They are very rambunctious a lot of the time, and often they choose to be so on different days than each other; so if Camille is having a hard time sitting and listening, then Brooke will be sitting still and listening really well, and vice versa. But, I just plow ahead regardless, and hope that someday these things I'm teaching them will take hold.
Monday is trash day here for us, and of course, every Monday we get up just in time to see the garbage trucks come to collect our trash. Jack loves it, and now, it's tradition. Usually they come pretty early in the morning, right about the time we are waking up. So I rush into Jack's room, and he's usually awake already, because he heard it coming. And we open the shades and watch out his window. Or if we are already downstairs, we'll rush out to the street and watch it for a while. Well, this last Monday, it was raining, so we just opened the garage door and stood in the garage to watch. The guy who comes to get our recycling is different all the time, and it's sometimes a woman, even. But the guy who picks up our trash is the same guy every week, and he's a really nice guy. He waves and smiles to me and Jack when he comes. This Monday, like I say, we were watching from the garage because it was quite wet out. And after our trash man had gotten our trash can, he opened his window and slipped out a couple of Waste Management coloring books for Camille and Jack (though we gave Jack's to Brooke because he doesn't really color yet). It was so sweet.
Camille has had this funny fixation on the age 89 years old. It's the age she always says whenever she wants to indicate that she's older, or grownup. Like, "So, when I'm 89, can I (insert some kind of grownup activity here)?" "When I'm 89, can I have my ears pierced? Can I have a purse?" It's so funny. So, last night, at the dinner table, Brooke was asking (AGAIN) about when she can watch Jurassic Park. She was making all kinds of plans for a fun and special movie night to watch Jurassic Park when she turns 11 or 12 (I'm interested to see if she still has the same interest in the movie by the time she gets there). And the Camille says, "When I'm 89 years old, can I watch Jurassic Park?" And I told her that when she's 89 years old, she can do whatever she wants. We got into a discussion about how an 89-year-old woman is a really old lady, and at that point, she can do whatever. And I told the girls that on the day I turn 89, I'm going to eat chocolate chip cookies all day long; which morphed into a pizza and Choc chip cookie eating day; which morphed into a huge family party with all the kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, in which we would only eat pizza and choc chip cookies, chat, let the kids play, maybe watch a movie. Sounds like my 89th birthday party is gonna be one helluva shindig. Can't Wait!!
I went to volunteer in Brooke's classroom on Tuesday. They were celebrating Chinese New Year that day, so they were doing Chinese crafts and I helped them at the end of the morning with a little Chinese snack: sticky rice and chow mein noodles (from Panda Express). They loved it! It was a fun day to be there. Camille and Jack went to the Erdmanns to play while I did that, and they gave Jack a big fire engine, about the size of his garbage truck, on our way out the door. Actually, he really just walked out the door with it, and Hillary said it was fine, that they were getting rid of it anyway. But he's thrilled to have another big truck to play with.
Aside from our usual shopping and errands yesterday, Camille, Jack and I got some organization products (plastic bins and big baskets) to help us in our cleaning quest. We also stopped at Children's Orchard to get some pjs for Jack. I realized after I switched his clothes out that he had basically no jammies in 18 month size. And, they had a whole bunch of books there, too, and so, we came away with quite a haul. After our errands (which they were so good for), we took lunch over to Brooke's school to have lunch with Brooke. It's bring your family to school week, and they've had activities all week that involved the parents and family members. I thought it would be fun and that Brooke would be glad we came; but she didn't seem as excited as I'd anticipated, and it was quite uncomfortable for me, with so many parents that I didn't know. We were a little late, and Brooke had already mooched some pizza from one of her friends' families, and even though they said it was fine, they didn't say a word to me after that. It was very uncomfortable; I feel like the other moms TOTALLY judge each other and everyone. It didn't help that Brooke has been doing her own hair for a couple of weeks, which I think is so cute and charming, but her hair does end up looking a little unkempt a lot of the time -- pigtails with most of the back of the hair out, and super-messy ponytails. I love it; but I'm sure we get judged a lot.
Camille helped me make cookies yesterday. I came up with this brilliant idea that I'd make chocolate chip cookies for Mary and send them to her. I don't know how it'll work out, but I thought it might help her feel that we love her and are thinking of her. I hope so. I also wanted to send little cookie decorating kits to Julie and Diane for Valentine's day; but shipping is crazy. So, Julie and her boys will be here next week to stay a night with us after they do Disneyland, which means I can actually send the cookies home with her!!! It worked out so great. But, anyway, Camille and I had a great time in the kitchen making cookies and dinner together.
Mom is here this week. I mean, not here-here, like in my house. But she flew into LA on Sunday, she's staying at Uncle Bob's house and spending the week trying to get going on cleaning up Grampa's house. It hasn't been a great week for her, though, because A) Grampa's house is super overwhelming to clean up; B) my Uncle Gary is being an A** and yelling at her and being so rude to her, etc. -- she told me she's in hell; and C) she and Aunt Liz actually got sick a couple of days ago, so she hasn't been able to do much work. Poor mom. I feel so bad that she has to go through this. It's been so hard for her. But I'm hoping they can get this thing over and done with this year (like she wants to -- it's her big goal for this year) so that we can all move on. She'll be here this weekend with us. She and I have an awesome date on Saturday that I'm so excited about.
I'm exhausted from this week's work. I feel like I haven't had one minute to sit down and do nothing. It's okay, I like having busy weeks; it beats the boredom for a time. But I'm super tired.
One last tidbit: When Camille was tinkering around on the piano yesterday, she stumbled upon a 3rd interval. She must've liked the sound of that, because she turned to me and said, "Mommy, these ones rhyme!"
*Jack eating cake mix cookies that we made for our FHE activity on Monday night. He was a mess!
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