This Week at Our House # 14 Spring Break and a Birthday

We had a nice spring break with warm weather all week. We went to the beach on Monday, had Rachel's birthday on Tuesday, did house projects on Wednesday, yard projects on Thursday, and free days Friday and Saturday.

1. The 30 hour project that John did for a possible job has turned into a phone interview which he will have Tuesday afternoon for approximately an hour. John continues to work very hard on his own things. He stays up all night most nights working. Goes to bed around 7am, sleeps 6 hours, gets to work again, spends about an hour doing scripture study with the family and gets back to work. 
2. I finished reading the 8 book Anne of Green Gables Series for the fourth time. I love them so much. I am always sad when I finish those books. They are like family to me. Actually,my great grandparents lived just a few miles from Prince Edward Island and left the area not too long after the time period the last book was written, so while these are all fictional characters, I feel like I can claim some kinship to the area. I went through all of our clothes storage. I haven't done this seriously since we unpacked from our move from Utah. It took me several hours. I got the kids their spring and summer clothes out. That is probably my least favorite project. I got some things planted in the garden. I have one row of potatoes that have come up well, and I had several more potatoes that we were going to eat, sprout, so instead of eating them, I planted them in the row of potatoes that did not seem to grow. I have a lot of tomato, pepper, and butternut squash seedlings all sprouted from seeds that I harvested from our store bought food. I will get those planted in the garden in about two weeks.
3. Ruth is such a good girl. I worry about her, but I know that the Lord will bless her with the appropriate inspiration to deal with whatever she needs to because she is doing all she can to be right and good and to know God. 
4. Kate loves the Anne of Green Gables books like I do, and even had me wait to finish the last one so I could read it to her. That is why while I was feeling sad that the books had ended, I remembered that I had gotten a free kindle book called, the Story Girl from the same author and started reading it to Kate. I had read it years ago and loved it and now Kate is loving it.
5. Johnny is making a game for an android phone too, and while he had spring break, he still made progress on his game. We are hoping that he will be able to earn some mission money from this.
6. On our yard work day, I had Johnny and Adam dig about a 2 foot deep trench the width of my garden to bury our leftover food and kitchen scraps in as a slow release fertilizer. Adam quite liked the trench and got the kids going on a game of world war 1. We have these trees that have dropped a lot of woody spike balls, so those are their ammunition. I love my kids playing like this. 
7. All day Monday, Rachel was very excited for her Birthday on Tuesday. I think she enjoyed her birthday and was very grateful with her very small gifts. She got Kate to play with her for hours over the whole week as a sort of birthday present too, but could never feel satisfied that it was enough.
8. I don't really have a story to tell about Anya. She is my sweet, quiet girl. She loves to play with Rachel and Joseph and is very obedient when I tell her to do any chores. She's always a delight.
9. Joseph got to play outside all week and and so our house was less bouncy and since we did not do any school, Joseph and I got along better.
10. Joshua and Susan both like to claim Arwen as a playmate. Joshua often gets Arwen because he is older and that makes Susan cry and tattle that Josh is hurting her.
11. Arwen has decided that no one can call her anything but beautiful and pretty. If you say she is smart or cute, she corrects you.
12. Susan kept walking up to Rachel randomly and saying, "you're cute!" We moved the toys from the hallway that connects the 3 kid bedrooms and bathroom to Susan's room because each night she is sent to bed, Susan would get up and dump out all the toys and block the entrance to the bathroom. Now she leaves them alone because she does not like staying in her room.
13. All the boys were out in the yard having a stick/sword fight using pvc pipe they found in the woods. Sam stood in my window watching them, grabbed a plastic sword pointed it at his brothers and said, "yay! yay! yay!" Then the boys took him out and he joined in their sword fight. The boys all came in and reported how cute Sam was taking his sword and hitting theirs.

Pictures

Happy Birthday, Rachel

It's hard to believe this tiny girl is 12!!! I just had her weigh herself. She is weighing in at 49 pounds. We thought maybe we should try again after she eats, so that number bumps back up to 50. Two weeks ago, Kate measured her and she is 4'4.5". That half an inch counts a lot when you are as tiny as Rachel. Kate also looked up her 12 year old statistics on this blog. Kate was 60 pounds and 4'5". So Rachel weighs 10 pounds less than Kate did, but is only a half inch shorter. That gives me hope that Rachel will grow up to be a normal-sized short person. Years ago we took her to the doctors because she didn't gain any weight between the ages 3 and 5. But the endocrinologist only checked to see if she was getting taller. He said weight does not matter. If Rachel is always this naturally thin, she will be happy, though.

Rachel has grown up a lot, though she is still very innocent and child-like. For example, Rachel cried today during our story club tea party because she wasn't given the spoon she wanted. However, Rachel loves to read and she is very often considerate of the feelings of others. These accomplishments have come in time. The love of reading took a few years to develop, but now Rachel reads three to four books a week. She reads some children's books and some more adult literature. She can tackle a 300 page book in 3 days. Along with that, Rachel has begun to develop her mind. She is learning to study and memorizes things very well. I can give her some complicated concepts, set her down to learn and she will come back with an understanding. I think in time, she will be as good at academics as Kate.

Rachel loves to draw and she is a very good artist. She spends time at it. She has also been pouring over books and reading about drawing to help her improve.

I am worried about sending Rachel to young women's. She is both innocent and social. I want her to be able to have friends and be social like she was in Utah, but I want her to have friends with the highest of moral standards. She's entering a critical time in her life and a critical time in the history of the world. A strong family is the most important, but who one's friends are shapes that person as well. Rachel needs to be around young women who will lift her up and she needs to be lifting them up. I pray that she can have this.

I didn't have the same worries 8 years ago when Ruth turned 12 or 6.5 years ago when Kate turned 12. I often think that we have moved into an age very much like the days of Noah. I want all my kids to know what is necessary and be who they should be to go against what is seen even as rational if it is not what is the desire of God. In Noah's day, only his wife and sons had enough faith to enter onto the ark. I wonder if there were more people who thought about it but were persuaded by their friends or family that it was too extreme to do something like go aboard an ark in the middle of dry land. The parable of the 10 virgins is a warning to us. Only 5 had enough oil to get to last until the bride groom came. I want Rachel to have that extra oil. I want her to be one of the 5.

Stories from Ruth #30

We met Chris when we walked outside a library and he accidentally blew out while smoking onto

Sister Georgieva. He apologized and Sister Georgieva immediately started speaking to him. He told us that his wife had been investigating the church when they were having a divorce. After she left him she was baptized and their two daughters are heavily involved in the church. He said he loved the Book of Mormon, the nephites and the lamanites and had read it twice, but struggled with the word of wisdom. He believed it was good but was struggling to quit smoking. He happily agreed to meet with us and we went through the rest of our day. That night we felt like we needed to walk into town, there Chris approached us and told us that he had been thinking a lot and said that the biggest mistake he had ever made in life was leaving the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He had gone to and researched many other churches Christian and even nonchristian, but he knew that ours was true. We invited him to conference ans he told us that long ago he had seen it. He had heard Spencer W Kimball speak and said that he was a powerful man. It is true. He is and was a prophet of God. Chris kept repeating that he was excited to see us again and to hear more about the gospel again.

 

We felt impressed one Sunday to go to this suburb. Nothing happened then, but we felt like we would need to come back another time. Well we did. And while tracting we stopped at this house I had thought was cute the last time we past. There was a woman and her daughter there. The woman said that she had a mormon friend that had told her some about the Book of Mormon but she did not know much. We taught her more and showed her the scriptures and although we did not have a copy to give her at the time (we gave all of them away already) we set a date to return and bring her one. Then we found the Bulgarians. Thwn we felt like we had to walk home a specific way, so we did. We got lost trying to get there and I saw this girl in her twenties carrying to giant bags. I felt strongly impressed to offer to help her carry them home. We offered and strange enough she accepted. No one accepts help in England. Her name was Denise and she told us she worked as a nurse and was attending the uni. She is very big on taking care of herself physically and spiritually. She said that she knew she did not meet us by coincidence and started asking us about what we do. We told her. Then the conversation changed and as girls we talked about clothes and she told us that she likes to dress modest that she believed that it wrong not to cover up more. She is not as modest as a mormon but she does not wear very sleezy clothes. Then she asked us about the Book of Mormon and taught her the restoration and she wants the Book of Mormon. She was going to come to general conference, but she got called into work, but she wants to watch it on her own time.

This Week at Our House #13 Easter and General Conference

We had a normal week of school, followed by an exciting weekend. Friday night began our spring break. We have not taken a day off from school since January 1st, and have not even had a field trip. This will be a welcome break. Saturday and Sunday were General Conference and Sunday was Easter! All of these are a great way to begin spring break!

1. John has now had two interviews in which they have asked him to do a huge project. He worked 30 or more hours this week on two projects requested to see if he will move on to another portion of the job interviewing process for a company. It seems almost criminal, since he is not paid and they may use his code, but he needs the job and he can use these projects to show what he can do in the future if this job does not work out. He learned a lot with this too.
2. I enjoyed our fun weekend of Easter and General Conference. I was so happy to have them combined this year. It seemed perfect.
3. I sure miss being able to talk to Ruth on a regular basis. Yet I am so proud of how she is doing. She is strong and good. We missed having her around for Easter.
4. Because of our church record fiasco, Kate's mission paper opening and starting was probably undone. But I think we can still go ahead with her medical and dental and getting her drivers license since they only have to be done no more than 6 months in advance. I cannot even think of Kate going, though. There will be such a blank left in our family. But serving a mission is Kate's deepest desire.
5. I've finally got Johnny to write for the story club. I had no idea what a good writer he is. 
6. We had nice weather this week and Adam spent a good deal of time outside. He has been the force getting other kids outdoors and playing different games. Over spring break, I will be having him dig trenches in my garden. He likes to dig holes, so hopefully this will not ruin it for him.
7. Rachel has my long feet and she hates them. She is very tiny, for her age, and she says that it is not fair that her feet are too big. Kate has tiny feet. Rachel's feet are almost the same length as Kate's.
8. We have learned to call Anya our professional ignorer because she is there and she is taught, but she tends to take that time to daydream or sleep. Of course, we are working to convince her to focus her mind when it is important.
9. I was woken up from an short nap in the late afternoon Thursday by Susan, Arwen, Joshua, and Joseph making a lot of noise and commotion. Apparently there was a large bug in the garage. Joseph squished it and it's guts came out. This whole little group of kids were stunned. They were not sure what it was. Joseph said, "I did not know guacamole would come out." And then they were questing whether or not that meant that the bug was dead and if the guacamole was the bug guts. My city have moved to the country!!! 
10. Joseph convinced Josh to share his m&ms (Josh's reading treat) by telling him to throw them at him so he could catch them in his mouth. Joshua thought that was a good game and readily tossed lots of m&ms at Joseph's face.
11. Arwen is a very helpful and capable little 5 year old. She cleans and organizes exceedingly well for her age. She is a great comfort to me, but I don't think she really knows it.
12. Susan came to me and said, "Are you a girl?" I replied in the affirmative. She then said, "I'm a girl. I'm a princess. So I am beautiful. I am pretty like a flower." Later that night she was looking at her reflection and sang, "I am beautiful. You are beautiful," to it. Getting out of the car one night after dark, Susan listened to the frogs and crickets for a moment and said, "What's that beeping?"
13. The night I grocery shopped, I came home with everyone's reading treats. Anya requested some m&ms. While she was opening them, Sam was watching. He put his hands in the air, bounced up and down and said, "Yay, yay, yay!" in a very excited voice. Sam has taken climbing to a whole new level. He is up on the counters and everything else. He is moving chairs to get things he wants. In one day he moved the chair to the front door to try and unlock it; he pushed a chair up to the bar to climb up, he climbed on the table and on the counter by the kitchen sink by using the table; and he stood up to play the piano in the middle of family scripture study.

Pictures

We had our candy hunt outside this year. That was a nice change.

watching general conference

Our traditional Lamb dinner for Easter