This Week at Our House # 39

1. We have General Conference which we all love. On getting my kids to listen and behave during General Conference, I have tried a lot of things over the years from coloring pages to sending them off to play in a different room to lots of snacks-- making general conference a big party-- to putting up names and pictures of the apostles and having the kids plaster them with sticky notes of the notes they took. But in the long run, the thing that has made the biggest difference in their ability to pay attention is doing a daily 45 minute or longer family scripture study. It's a daily battle, but when it comes to General Conference, the kids are seasoned listeners, all of them. For the last 2.5 to 3 years, I have done nothing other than a small snack, the kids excitedly gather because they have learned to love General Conference and even the 5 and under kids tend to sit quietly through most of the 8 hours. Now for John, he has taken up bike riding with Joseph and Adam and I think they enjoy it.
2. I had a bureaucratic busy week between being asked for more and more paper work for the house and trying to get the car registered. We still don't even have an official closing date, though they have everything they need. I am trying not to be critical, but I have a collection of crazy stories from their incompetence. The car did not get registered either because I remembered too late in the month and suddenly the cracked tail light that got cracked 7 years ago is not going to pass inspection like it did for the last 6 years, and it takes several days to get one shipped here. It looks like I am in for another week of annoying bureaucracy.
3. I woke up to a lovely email from a Sister Westenskow, one half of the couple missionaries in Ruth's area. She told me that Ruth came prepared and that she helped without being told during a lunch. That did sound like Ruth.
4. It was lovely to have Kate home. She is my companion and the kids playmate and the baby's nap place. I missed hearing her play the hymns everyday and it was nice to have those playing throughout the house again.
5. Johnny got another 29 on the ACT, so he is done and won't bother again. His foot is almost better-- still wearing the shoe-- so I  asked him to mow the ditch. It was soggy and the grass was long from being flooded for a good month, but he did a fantastic job. Our new house is set nearly 400 ft from the road, so we will have no ditches to mow. Hurrah!
6. Adam is just so big and strong. The three kids older than him, were so tiny at 12 and 13. Adam is huge in comparison, but probably more normal compared to other kids.
7. Susan steals food after she is sent to bed at night and brings it to her room and then often sleeps with it in Rachel's bed. This brings a trail of ants into Rachel's bed. Rachel is very, very patient about this. In fact, she hasn't ever gotten angry with Susan over it and she has saved her complaining for my ears. This morning Rachel cleaned up a cookie and ant mess from her bedroom floor as soon as she saw it. I think Miss Rachel is growing up.
8. Anya stayed home from a birthday party because she wanted to play with Joseph. I love how much my kids love each other and what good friends they are. I think the relationships they  build now will be a huge blessing for them as adults.
9. Joseph had an hard time with school this week. He has so much energy. But he does push through, and he does know his stuff.
10. One of Joshua's beginning reader books starts with "Mom and Dad had 10 tens kids." It shows a pictures of these 10 tiny kids all about the same age. The first time Josh saw it, he exclaimed, "Wow! That is a lot of kids!" I laughed and asked him how many kids we had in our family, and he said, "I don't know, a lot, I think." I told him that we had 11 and he said, "That is a lot of kids!"
11. Arwen is now afraid to go to the bathroom by herself because of bugs. She will come to me looking desperate saying she really has to go to the bathroom but she is too scared. I then tell Suzy to take Arwen to the bathroom. Suzy gets excited, grabs Arwen by the hand and leads her to the bathroom. It's hilarious! Arwen had a tiny scrape that she was crying about. John was looking for it, and having trouble finding it, because it was that small. Joseph had fallen off his bike into the rock part of the neighbor's ditch and had a large nasty scratch. Dad compared Joseph's big scrape to Arwen's little one and she said, "They're almost not the same. Ok, Joseph's is bigger."
12. Joseph was playing plants vs Zombies and he had it connected to the big tv. I was sitting on the floor playing skipbo with Anya. Suddenly, Susan laid her head in my lap and said, "I'm scared, mom. Help me." Poor little girl. I have been thinking that we may need to clean up some of the gruesome from our home. We don't have much, bu if it is scaring our babies, it does not need to be here. Arwen and Susan were wrestling each other over a little dinosaur they both wanted. Susan won out because I told Arwen to get off Susan, so Arwen gave up the fight. About an hour later, Joseph brought the cat into the house. Susan popped up, put the little dinosaur into Arwen's hand and went to get the cat.
13. Sam took his first two steps this week, but that is all he will take. He takes one or two steps and then drops down and crawls away quickly.

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