Sunday Notes

 4/28/24 -- Stake Conference 

Am I looking for reasons (or events in my life) to feel either superior or inferior to others? (Examples: Do I feel inferior to people who have struggled more? Do I feel superior to people who don't take care of their bodies or who aren't as well off?)  Love people instead. Live in a way that makes me happy and brings joy and peace, serve as an example, and love people where they're at. 

Studying the Book of Mormon will increase the Savior's power in my life, power to do things that I could not do on my own. 

Bishop Causse - "Are we active in the gospel? Or are we busy in the church?" 

I should host a girls night for women in Relief Society in my ward -- summer evening fire and s'mores? Or game night? 

Jack's Birthday

 Jack turned 7!! We had a great day together. We, of course, did not do any school. Instead, we took a leisurely morning getting ready and went to the Dino museum, which was what Jack wanted to do. 

Jack wanted a recreation of this birthday cake when he turned 2: a garbage truck cake. I spent much of the day baking and decorating said cake. I think it turned out pretty well. Probably one of my better cake creations. 

We invited Gramma and Grampa Holbrook for Jack's birthday dinner, per Jack's request. He loved having them celebrate his day. 😊 And they have him a tool belt as a gift, which he couldn't love more. 

Jack is a delightful seven year old. We really struggled a lot doing school together this year, but he has such a great brain. It's been fun watching him make such great strides in his abilities to read and do math. I also love watching his brain work in his imaginative and creative play. He's super creative! Some of the things that he builds out of Legos or magnatiles or brain flakes are so cool, and I cannot even conceive how one would put them together. It's so fun to watch him and Sawyer play together, and how their little brains work. 

Jack loves watching TV, and he loves the show "Firebuds". His favorite movies are Zombies and Zootopia. He's highly motivated by watching TV, so when he has chores to do, I usually tell him he can watch TV afterwards. 

Jack is obsessed with all things police and swat. He has police and swat costumes and tools, he loves drawing pictures or coloring pictures of police or swat. And he wants to be an NYPD police officer someday. He went through a phase recently where anytime we had to go somewhere, he would change into his police uniform to go out. People everywhere would make comments, and one time a little kid came up to him and said, "thank you for your service" completely straight- faced. It was adorable. 

He's still a picky eater, but I'm hoping that someday that will change. He loves pizza, hotdogs and hamburgers, and he asks for chicken nuggets and fries almost every day for lunch. He loves most fruit, but, unbelievably, not melons. 

He loves playing with his siblings, especially if it involves cars, trucks or Legos. But he'll even play dolls with the girls, if they let him. He and Sawyer are pretty good buddies. They love playing together, and I love it when they get really deep in some imaginative play together. He loves riding his bike, too, and he's a pretty good sport when I take the kids on hikes. He loves the Dino museum the most, but he loves the farm and aquarium as well. He's pretty curious about things he's interested in, and he asks me to look things up for him a lot, or to see pictures of something he doesn't understand. When we go to the library, he'll mostly come home with nonfiction books about police and swat officers, also army books and books about cars and tucks. But he almost never picks picture books or fiction. He's still learning to be a good helper, but when I assign chores on Saturday, he does them mostly willingly. 😂 

Jack is a tiny person. He's so skinny, it's hard to find clothes for him. And sometimes when i squeeze him, I'm afraid I'll break him. But he's so cute, and he has the handsomest face and eyes. 😍

I love my Jacky Boy. He's a delight to have in my home, and I'm so glad he's mine. ❤️

So, a big decision has been made. I've been bugging Daniel for two years now about having another baby. I have hinted, heavily, about having another baby, and we've also had full in discussions. It's been hard sitting on this decision for the past couple of years, mostly waiting on him to say "yes" or "no". I've been hanging on to baby clothes and things just on the chance that Daniel will feel good about having another baby. But the longer it's gone, the door to that dream has been slowly, ever so slowly, closing in my mind. Because I just haven't been able to convince him. 

So then, on April 1st, April Fool's day, I sent him a text, kind of as an April fool's joke, but also kind of to feel him out. I said, "I'm going to start getting rid of baby stuff. Cool?" And he said, "We can do that." 😭😭😭 

Which led into a discussion about him not feeling the need to have another baby. We talked about it again, not at very much length, because we've really already done that multiple times as I tried to convince him that we need one more. But it sounded this time like he had really finally decided. 

A couple of days later, I had a discussion with a friend about this, and she said she went through something similar with her husband. She asked her husband to pray specifically about if they should have another baby. They prayed together over conference weekend, a time when it's good to receive personal revelation. She suggested that I ask the same of Daniel. Conference weekend was the next weekend, a perfect time. 

So I did. Over the weekend, I asked him to pray specifically about having another baby. And I prayed too... a few different times. I did not get an answer either way, either to definitely have another baby or to definitely NOT have a baby. I felt very strongly a "you choose" kind of answer. And after conference was all over, Daniel and I talked, and he felt the same. We can choose. But he wanted to choose not having another baby, which is what I predicted when I got my answer. I told Daniel that I would close the door on that dream. 

I've had a lot of different emotions about it the past couple of weeks. I'm completely satisfied with my kids. I love each of them, and I love that I got four. I wanted one more baby. I felt a little cheated out of my baby experience with Sawyer because it was 2020, a stressful time. I'm sad to be done with having babies. I loved having babies. I think this will be something that I need to feel sad about for a little while and then move on from. I also really thought I would have a bigger family when I was a young woman. I always imagined 6 kids. So, I have to adjust the vision for my life a bit. 

But it's okay. I love my husband. He's wonderful and dedicated and hardworking and righteous. I don't want to make him bite off more than he can chew. And most people don't get to live all of their life dreams. I can be grateful for the brood of kids that I got. 

I am grateful to be able to get rid of all of the clothes and baby things! That's a little looking on the good side. And I do recognize the benefits of being done having kids: no more pregnancy, easier to travel with 4 kids, no more diapers and potty training, etc. There are benefits to this course of action. It will just take me a little minute to adjust into this life. And it'll take me a little minute to not be sad about it. But I'll get there. 

It is comforting, though, knowing that God was okay with us deciding this. I have felt like someone is missing from our family. Maybe it was just my desire to have another baby coupled with still being in that stage of life, where we expect to have a baby in the family. But my answer was strong. And God was okay with whatever we would choose. That does make me feel a little bit better about it all. 

So I'll start giving away all the baby stuff this summer and work on moving on with my life. 

 Me: Where's dad? 

Sawyer: Anywhere.

The week after Easter was our spring break. School has been tough on me lately, so spring break was much needed... couldn't come fast enough. And, of course, it flew by. I made a gigantic list of things I need to do, and I worked on that list nearly every day. We did do some fun things: movie days, playing with friends, going to the park a couple of times with friends (and meeting up with Aunt Michelle once), mommy time, etc. But mostly the kids just played, we hung around at home, and I tried to get things done. I did not finish my to-do list by the time the week ended, but I was glad to at least get some of it done. 

It was so nice to have a week when nothing was going on. All activities were canceled, we didn't do school, and even though I had a list to get through, it felt nice not to have all of those actual commitments. I need more of that in my life, haha. 

General conference came at the end of that week. It was wonderful. We got together at Sammy and Brian's house on Sunday morning for breakfast and watching conference. 

I didn't hear we much as I would have wished. Sawyer was really disruptive this time, more than he has been before. But the girls listened more than usual. They were very interested in being there the whole time, and I bought them some new jewel paintings to do while they listened and that definitely helped. 

Holy Week

I have loved trying to make Holy Week much more of a celebration for the past few years. And it's been a bit of a work in progress, every year adding or adjusting things that I felt would be meaningful. This is how it ended up this year:

• I started Holy Week by fasting. I did this a few years ago, when it just happened that, because of general conference, we were fasting at the beginning of Holy Week, and I really loved that little spiritual boost before Easter. So I've been doing it since then, and I love it. 
• I do an Easter Week devotional every day, telling stories of the last week of Jesus' life, with the kids
• We listen to sacred music instead of worldly music. I listen to Rob Gardner's "Lamb of God" cantata, and it's such a great way to bring the Spirit to the week and make me think of Jesus. 
• We have our "Jerusalem Supper" on the Thursday of that week, when Jesus would have been having the Last Supper with His disciples. And we usually have discussions about Jesus, and I answer the kids questions, or sometimes I ask them little pop quiz questions about Holy Week. 
• We do our secular "fun" Easter traditions during the week, like dyeing and hunting eggs and Easter baskets. We dyed eggs on Friday this year, and the kids were so into it, especially Sawyer. He loved dyeing his eggs and was so thrilled with trying different things. Jack, too, was very into experimenting with different colors. It was fun. 
• The kids got their Easter baskets on Saturday morning. We always do fun cereal and Easter candy, and this year, I went to Deseret Book for some religious reading material and activity books for Sacrament Meeting. 
• Easter Sunday we go to church, have an Easter lesson at home, and this year we tried something new that may be a yearly thing. We did a testimony meeting after the lesson, just with our family, which was kind of nice. Brooke bore her testimony, which was so sweet. But none of the other kids did. 

Doing all of these things during Holy Week just invites the Spirit and makes it feel special. 

We invited Brian's and Scott's families to come participate with us in an egg hunt. They came for lunch, where we did panini and fruit and chips, and then when we were done eating, we went the kids downstairs while we hid the eggs. It was fun to do our egg hunt with more family! 

Emily came to church with us on Easter, and then came over afterwards to do a lesson and lunch and games with us. We loved having her. And we dropped her and Sammy off when we went to Michael and Michelle's house for dinner. It was a great Easter Week and Easter day. 

March

 March was a busy month. It was busy with my calling for 2 reasons: 1) there was a lady in the ward with disabilities who was moving and needed extensive help with packing and moving and cleaning -- it took several people coming multiple days to help her with everything over the course of 2 weeks, but we got it done; and 2) I was learning how to accomplish welfare and self reliance things -- food orders, meetings, emails to the Bishop, etc. It's been quite the learning curve there. 

Mom and dad were also here for the first part of the month. Mom came mid-february because she needed a little escape from her life. She stayed with us and Scott and Melanie back and forth. But then Scott and Melanie were blessing their baby, Alden, and so Dad flew out for that. We did some family things while they were here before they went home. And mom helped Daniel with the kids while I was in Texas. 

Then: 

• I had book club; 
• there was a caucus meeting for voting in the presidential primaries; 
• Daniel and I had an at-home date night salsa dancing; 
• Brooke and I went to the Draper Temple one morning to do baptisms 
• I had many meetings and trainings for my calling, and visits with ladies in my ward
• Bunco (which I was late to because I had a self reliance with the bishop and someone else) 
• Took the kids to see kung-fu panda 4 for a homeschooling event -- the movie was very meh
• Camille and I had a double mommy daughter date with Annette and Lexi -- we went to the butterfly biosphere and then to get fries at Arby's. We had a great time. 
• Jack and Camille got sick with something weird, some stomach bug that made Camille feel sick to the stomach and have diarrhea and Jack start throwing up and have diarrhea. It lasted for both of them for several days. Camille was sick first, and after she'd been well for a few days, Jack got sick. I stayed home with him a few times while Daniel took the kids to various things. No one else got sick though, thankfully.
• We had our St Patrick's day dinner and movie night the Friday before St Patrick's day, which fell on a Sunday. I did Irish trivia questions at dinner and we all learned a little about Ireland. 
• There was a relief society broadcast and testimony meeting on the 17th, which was really excellent. 
• We had a family service day -- the girls came and helped me with that sister's move and cleaning her apartment, and Daniel took the boys to help his dad take some things to the dump. They were thrilled with that service project! They haven't been able to stop talking about the dump since then. 
• I gave a talk about the Holy Ghost, and the preparing of it was awesome. I really only had like 7 minutes to speak, though, so I had to rearrange my talk considerably.
• Sammy and her kids came over to play one day, which was fun.