Sunday thoughts on Monday

Yesterday our sacrament meeting theme was charity, specifically President Monson's talk Charity Never Faileth from the last Relief Society broadcast. It struck me when I first heard it, and it was good to hear about it again. He really emphasizes not judging others in this talk, and as I listened to the speakers, I was mentally reviewing. I decided I was doing pretty well with not judging.

That was during sacrament meeting.

Fast forward to our bishop's youth discussion last night, where I was struck with a blow – I realized that I was not doing so well with not judging after all.

The bishop had invited a young-ish couple to speak to us. As soon as I saw them sitting there, the judgments started pouring out (only in my mind, thankfully, but still):

They are young and wealthy.
I wonder how they got so much money?
Their kids are always wearing new, cute clothes.
She always looks perfect.
How does she stay so thin?
She's kind of standoffish.
etc.

Then the bishop announced that he had asked them to talk about the importance of material things. Come again? I was squirming a bit.

She went on to tell us about the struggles they have been confronting during the last couple of years. He was a successful entrepreneur (ah, that's how they got all that money), but when the economy tanked he had to close down his business. They decided they would rather try to pay their creditors than declare bankruptcy. His employees were at least able to collect unemployment, but as the business owner, he had no such recourse.

She decided to sell whatever she could on eBay or ksl.com in order to generate some income. She sold the art she had been collecting for years. She sold their TVs, DVD players, furniture, clothing, anything that was not a permanent fixture. He would come home, look in his closet, and say, "hey, what happened to...?" and she would reply, "Well, you didn't wear it last week, so I sold it!"

She told us with tears in her eyes that as hard as it was to see all of their possessions going out the door, she was so very thankful that she learned what was truly essential to her: the relationships she has with her family. Now that their financial outlook is getting brighter, she said she is holding tightly to the lessons she learned during this long, difficult struggle and knows what it means to be thankful for trials.

He talked a bit about learning the value of money, putting in an honest day's work, and learning to live within your means. He challenged the youth to save towards their missions and education.

I feel like I was served, yet again, a big slice of humble pie.

It just goes to show me that everyone has their struggles, even when they are not visible to others. I have no right to be judging people, for any reason.

How I wish I could learn this lesson, once and for all!

p.s. For family home evening tonight, we talked about money management: the importance of paying tithing first, and we implemented a plan for the kids to put aside savings for missions/education. I passed out allowance for the month and they divvied up their money in different envelopes. (Eva was excited to join the ranks.)

lesson (re)learned

Apparently Mondays are just really busy around here, today even more than usual.

I had to take Eva to dance and get her dressed there, much to her distress. (Not because of any modesty issues, just that she could hear the music starting and was worried they would start without her.)

Lucas needed my help (a lot) to put together the display board for his science project. (Which we thought wasn't due until Wednesday.)

At 6:45, when we hadn't eaten and we were still in the throes of the formatting and printing and cutting and gluing, I was about ready to say we would just have to postpone family home evening until another night, but Eva was in charge and she was not going to wait one more day.


She gave us all a piece of paper and instructed us to fold it in half and cut out a heart. She assigned us each a member of the family to make a valentine for. She recommended quite strongly that they should include animal drawings.

She was definitely enjoying her reign.

Marc brought out the old Dad humor and made me a "Hop you will bee my valentine!" picture.

Max's was hilarious – all about cows and math. Drawings of stick cows and equations. He colored the back to look like cowhide and wrote "I'm cownting on you to be my valentine!" for Marc's benefit.

Lucas drew pictures of Max's favorite animals: cow, pigeon, emu, and flamingo (not sure if that last one is a favorite, but he really does love birds).

I gave Eva the one I made for her – a cat with one of those standard "purr"-fect messages. She looked underwhelmed.

Then I noticed she was writing a message to Lucas on the back of his valentine:

"O haw nis you are
You allwas promis to playe
You are a good bruthr."

I took back the one I had made for her and wrote a message on the back. She beamed.

This time it wasn't the children who needed a time out to regroup as a family. I needed it most of all. I came away energized, more patient, less tired. When will I learn?

Thanksgiving in January

In November, I searched all of our local grocery and drugstores for Brach's chocolate stars – a necessary ingredient for our chocolate Thanksgiving turkeys. Alas, I searched in vain, and my kids were quite disappointed (as was I).

Imagine my surprise when I spotted some on the shelves at Target recently. On the baking aisle. So weird. Of course I bought them.

Tonight it was Lucas's turn to plan Family Home Evening. Making turkeys was the central focus of the night. He gave us a brief message about Thanksgiving not being the only time we should be grateful. We can just as easily express gratitude in January. And so we did.


Thankfully, it turned Eva's day around. A day fraught with emotion and tantrums. It didn't get turned around until 7:00 p.m., but I was grateful nonetheless.

After we ran out of chocolate stars, Marc fashioned this malted milk ball caterpillar. A first.

Lucas always has to make one with a smiley face. It's a tradition.

Especially on a busy day filled with bill paying, physical therapy, chauffeuring, dance class, helping with a science fair project, calming over-the-top emotions, and making dinner, I was happy to take time out for this gathering, talking, and laughing. It was definitely a good thing.

Welcome, Mr. President!

Last night we wrote letters to our new president for Family Home Evening. I downloaded the cards from 2cleverblog.com's eavesdropper email (sign up to receive it on their blog). Thanks, Kristi & Stacy for the great idea and darling graphic! (They have cards you can send to the outgoing president and the new president, but I rightly guessed that it would be enough of a struggle for my family to do just one!)

It was so fun to see what the kids wrote in their cards -- I scanned them to have as keepsakes. A wonderful new tradition!

**Edited to add:

Lucas's letter and a selection of Max's. (Eva's was a drawing of Randall from Monsters, Inc. She signed the back and scribbled all over the White House...)

spring break & good mail

Today was the first day of our Spring break and, as if on cue, the Spring weather arrived! I'm not sure how warm it actually got today, but the forecast was for 76 degrees. Let's not forget that we had 3. snowfalls. last. week. I've been waiting and waiting for the Spring weather, but I've gotta say, I'm not a fan of the instantly hot weather. Where are the weeks of 60 degrees, my ultimate temperature? Utah weather is schizophrenic during the season changes -- I know this -- so why am I always taken by surprise? I know it happens suddenly. I just was not prepared for it to happen this suddenly. That's all I'm saying.

Lucas made a list of possible fun things to do this week. Max didn't seem to have anything to add, so we're going with Lucas's list. And at the top of his list was going to the "wooden park", otherwise known as Pleasant Grove's Discovery Park, where all of the structures are made of wood.

Max decided that he was finally ready for a foray outside of the house (after 9 days of being sick inside).
He did get tired easily. Good thing he brought along the Sudoku book that Jill gave him, it's been his trusty companion all week.


Eva's favorite activities were playing with the echo box, the musical stations, and getting her brothers to play with her.


It was a beautiful day, and it seemed like a good idea until we saw that at least 50 other kids had had the same idea. The kids were not deterred, but after an hour and a half they were so hot and thirsty they wanted to leave. You don't have to ask me twice.

We stopped at Walmart on the way home for drinks and treats for the week, as well as a few other staples. They were having such a great time scouting for treats they didn't seem to notice we were grocery shopping! When we left, Eva said, "It's fun shopping with Lucas and Max!". Truth be told, it was. They never go on errands with us anymore because we always do them when the boys are in school.

We had lunch at home and Eva went down for her nap. The boys were playing a game together and I ran out to buy a gift for a baby shower tomorrow. I browsed at Barnes & Noble for awhile and just generally enjoyed some quality alone time at last -- it's been too long.

I had to wake Eva up because her nap was going on too long. Seriously. And after my little alone outing, I had the energy to make dinner -- for all of us.

This is where you are rewarded for reading this long post by my shamefaced admission that we very rarely eat a family dinner all together. My kids are terribly picky eaters, they never want to eat what I cook, and it all seems like just so much effort. I've made attempts in the past to get family dinners going, but my family was not supportive of it at all. Yet it keeps weighing on me. Every time I read about one of those studies showing the many benefits of sharing mealtimes, a fresh wave of guilt washes over me. Every time I wonder how they're going to learn good table manners, or appreciate vegetables or foods with more than 2 ingredients.

The final straw was when I opened up my Conference notebook before the first session of Conference last weekend. I glanced through the last page of notes I had taken from the October conference. Elder Oaks had reiterated how important family mealtimes are and said "What your family wants for dinner is you!". That combined with Elder Bednar's talk about praying with the intent to act made me determined to make this change that I've been ruminating over literally for years now.

So. We've had dinner together for two nights in a row now! I decided not to wait around until my family became more supportive and just go ahead with it. I didn't say a word about it, I just asked the boys to set the table and we sat down together. (By then it was too late for anyone to complain!) I don't know that we'll do it every single night, but I know that it will definitely be more the rule than the exception. It does take more effort, but I am seeing good things coming of it already: the boys are setting the table and clearing the dishes, Max has tried pork chops and liked them, Lucas has eaten sugar snap peas, Eva pronounced cauliflower to be yummy, and we've had some laughs together. Victory will be mine.

For Family Home Evening tonight, we watched The Bee Movie (funnier than I expected) and ate popcorn with Wild Cherry m&ms. Everyone but Lucas liked them.

In addition, I have some good mail to report:

I got some Royal Mail from Amanda! What a treat. Decorative napkins (always a favorite), cute post-its, and one of her painfully cute cards made with artwork from an old children's book. I am now on a quest for a book like that!

Tasha sent Eva this adorable Gymboree shirt and some ponytail holders to match. She said the sale was too good not to share. I think it's just plain nice!

Amie sent me a belated birthday card with a Sonic gift card inside -- my first Sonic gift card! I can definitely put that to good use. Thanks to my friends for thinking of me!

Other happenings from today:

We actually had to turn on our air conditioner -- even though we had the heat on until two days ago. Would it surprise you to know that it wasn't functioning properly? Even though we replaced the air conditioning unit about 5 years ago? Even though the furnace motherboard died and we replaced it right after Christmas? We turned it on and nothing much happened, just the faintest of breezes came from the vents. I changed the filter, just in case. As the interior temperature climbed 4 more degrees and I could hear the unit limping along, I decided to just turn it off in case it was causing more harm than good. Guess what? After I turned it off, a little cool air started to come out of the vents. No joke. Luckily, snow and rain are in the forecast for tomorrow!

And a little mouse update. Recently I discovered new mouse activity under the kitchen sink. I immediately cleaned out the cupboard -- again -- and set a trap (one of the old-fashioned ones, Dad). When I checked it today, I saw that the cheese had been completely cleaned out of the trap, yet the trap had not been triggered. Really? The super-mice had to choose our house to try out their powers?!

I could be wrong, but we could be in for a long week here.