The Beginning of the End

Today was our last day in our ward in Washington. We begin our journey down south on Saturday. I knew that today was going to be hard. For one, I was going to have to say goodbye to many of my good friends. The other was, I knew I would be released as Primary President today and would have to say goodbye to all of my small friends. It was even harder than I thought.

To begin with, my dad was conducting Sacrament meeting, so he was the one that had to release me. He started choking up and could barely speak. He finally got it out that I was released and they called the new presidency. Then I was asked to bear my testimony. I was warned in advance, and luckily they put an extra box of kleenex up on the podium. I forgot everything that I planned on saying, but did a bit of a thanktimony before I bore my testimony.

And then it was time for Primary. I was conducting, and I did the best I could holding it together. I explained to the kids that I was moving and that it was my last Sunday. At the end of Sharing time, just when I was getting ready to release the children to go to their classes, a couple of small kids came up to hug me. Then a few more, then a few more. Then I was enveloped in the biggest group hug I have ever been in. It was amazing. I have had the thought a few times this week, "Have I made any difference to the Primary kids at all?" And when I felt them hugging me, and saw the tears of some of the older kids, and even received a bracelet from a little girl "so I would remember her," I knew that I had made a little bit of a difference. Even if it was just that they knew that I loved them. I hope they all know that. Because I do. And getting released didn't make that go away. And I hope they will always want to come to church because they can remember feeling loved there. I will miss them. A lot. But at least a good percentage of the primary lives in my home and gets to go with me. What am I going to do when my kids are all grown? I better have loads of grandbabies by then!

My Life this week...

This has been a very productive week, thanks in a huge part to this guy:
My dad has single-handedly taken down our play structure (okay, truth be told, he did use two hands), painted our family room, and a lot of other stuff that I can't think of right now. You know, for an old guy, he's pretty useful.

Regan and I squeezed in some mommy daughter time on Saturday night. She figured out a beautiful pattern of colors for our nails. She did mine and I did hers. I didn't think I had the time to do this with her, but I'm glad I made the time. She is a sweetie.

Practicing. Yes, we are still practicing every day. And I still plan on going to lessons on Thursday. I am really, really going to miss our violin teacher, and our group lessons, and our violin friends (the only ones who REALLY understand the logistics of lots of kids and lots of instruments). I know it won't be the same in Arizona. At least now I have enough kids that play that we can have our own group lessons. ;)

Many man hours (and woman hours) have been spent erasing artwork such as this off our walls. Well, we repainted. "After" pictures to follow at another time.

With Dix gone, the kids have been taking turns having "sleepovers" with me. This is how my bed looked yesterday morning. Note that there is a small one foot space over on the right. That is where I slept. No, we didn't start off this way. Yes, the person whose turn it was to sleep in my bed feels cheated. Four kids, one adult and one dog. Amazing that I got any sleep at all!

The countdown to moving is on. Which as exciting as it is, means saying goodbye to many people we love. We have been so blessed to have such great friends here. Here is Regan with one of her besties. We will miss their family so much! They have a friend for each of my three middle kids. We love hanging out with them. The kids could just play for hours and hours and hours. It was really sad saying goodbye.

2011 Resolutions

We did a Family Home Evening last week where we all set our resolutions for the new year. I made sure that no one was afraid to have them publicized before I posted this, don't worry. Here they are, in order of age.

Cooper (assisted by Landon):

Stop beating up Turner

Stop coloring on walls and books

Turner (done all by himself!):

Stop slaping [sic]

Stop hitting

Regan:

Learn Ballet

Read the scriptures

Practice violin and piano

Landon:

Practice (violin) without anybody's help

Read the scriptures

Do some triathlons

Porter:

Make a usable knife

Make a good short movie

Say my personal prayers every day

Brush my teeth every day

Shower more often

Go to sleep more often

To obtain a Flip (video camera)

Hayden (his were written in German, I think I will just post them in English):

I want to write in my journal more often (every week)

I will read the Book of Mormon (or other scripture) every day

I want to participate in the Youth Triathlon Championships

I will swim in the State Competition

I will not procrastinate...quite as much

Leslie:

Spiritual Six (family/personal scriptures daily, family/personal prayers daily, FHE weekly, Temple monthly)

By following the guidelines in Eat to Live, I will weigh ***** lbs (sorry, TMI)

Run a full marathon (I am currently registered for the Seattle Rock and Roll in June, but will probably be in AZ by then. Plus I don't have time to train for a full marathon with Dix gone! So I will find another one in the fall.)

Go on a vacation! Haven't done this in years. Seriously.

Get better at getting kids to do chores.

No yelling.

Dix will have to add his later.

Guess which one of mine is the hardest? Yep, no yelling is harder than running a marathon. Seriously. Which resolutions will be the hardest for you to keep?

One Week Down; Too Many to Go

This week went pretty well. Until the weekend. I was missing Dix. I ended up spending most of Saturday running errands and so the house was, well, not exactly how I left it when I got back. So more nagging, more cleaning, plus putting away groceries. Then haircuts, making sure church clothes were clean, and showers and bedtime. I didn't have nearly enough time to get everything done that I wanted to.

Early church is hard for us. Even though we went to bed reasonably early it was still hard to get up. I pushed snooze until 7:45. Big mistake. By the time I was showered and dressed and had to wake up the kids we were late. Well, not really late, but later than we had hoped. The boys are supposed to be there at 8:30 to prepare the sacrament and I like to be early to get the Primary room ready. We didn't get there until about 8:45 or 8:50 so we were scrambling. Some hurtful words were said by some people, some smoothing over happened just before the opening prayer and luckily everyone performed their duties, even though it was questionable for a moment there. I was REALLY missing Dix after church when I couldn't get Cooper to nap. Dix has the magic touch and unfortunately has spoiled Cooper so that he won't go to sleep on his own for his nap. So I tried laying with him and he fought it for about half an hour (I DON'T have half an hour to waste!), and so I finally sat him on my lap while I checked Facebook out and it bored him to sleep. After naptime we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house and watched a family movie and baked some cookies. Then back home for dinner, chaos, scripture reading (those two kind of happened at the same time), and finally....bedtime. It has been a rough day for me. It doesn't sound so bad, but it was just really chaotic with lots of children being contentious. I feel a Family Home Evening lesson coming on. What luck, it's my turn tomorrow.

The best part about the day is that the boys did the dishes themselves. We split it into three parts. Hayden cleared and wiped the table, Landon rinsed and loaded, and Porter washed the pots and pans and wiped the counters. One of the times when it's helpful to have lots of kids. Of course if I didn't have so many kids, there wouldn't be so many dishes, would there?

I'm ready to be reunited with Dix. Except that means a move. Yuck. We should find out this week the status on our house so then maybe will know a little more about when we should move.

Christmas...Funny Gift from Dix to Les

Christmas Bells

By the way, I got a Flip for Christmas, so there will be lots of videos now! Especially since I just figured out how to download them. All. by. myself. My teenagers are not even as smart as I am. hahahaha. Okay, so this first one is Turner playing the piano and singing. I just find him so incredibly charming. He is one of my most difficult children, but he is just so sweet and boy does he love to sing. You should hear him in Primary. I get to. Every week. I'm a lucky girl. And each night I get to hear his music of choice for the night. The last week or two it has been The Flight of the Bumblebee. On repeat. Every. Night. During the day it's usually the Brandenburg Concertos. He loves it. He is a very interesting boy. I love him.

Turner on the Piano

This kid cannot walk past a piano without playing it. He is so full of music sometimes I think he's going to burst. In church, during the speakers, I have to tell him to "keep the music inside." He sings, whistles, hums, even snaps his fingers all the time. And of course loves the piano. And tolerates the violin. He'll love it when he's proficient.

Turner's First Group Lesson

It's just a 10 second snippet, but an idea of what group lessons are like. Turner was disgruntled for much of the lesson because all he can play so far is "Twinkle," but he was so excited each time they would play a different Twinkle rhythm. And afterwards, when asked, he replied that he "LOVE, LOVE, LOVED IT!"

New Dooz

I love short hair! Stephanie did a great job! We both feel much better!

Turner, the Drama Queen

He has been known as our drama queen for a while. What a sweet boy he is, but MAN!

So today at school Turner stabbed his pencil into his finger. It was near the end of the day, so apparently he didn't have time to go to the nurse. The second he walked out of his classroom, I knew something was wrong. He scowled, and then started crying when he saw me. He cried the whole way home. And when I say cry, that's rather an understatement. There was a lot of howling involved. It was awful. I was trying to soothe him, to no avail. We arrived home and rewashed his hand and got it under the light so I could take a look at it. He rubbed the spot, then realized that the pencil tip wasn't actually in his finger any more. I had told him earlier that as soon as we pulled out the tip, the finger would feel better. So he looked at his finger and smiled, then started playing like nothing had ever happened. I guess it didn't hurt after all.

Sadness

We dropped Dix back off at the airport tonight. We woke Cooper up and took him with us so that he would be able to say goodbye. He cried and cried after daddy left. Why daddy go to Arizona? Why Daddy not take me? I want to go to my new bed in Arizona with Daddy. He cried and cried and cried. And then he was fine for a few minutes. And then "I HAVE TO GO PEE PEE!" And so Daddy was forgotten.