January was pretty busy for someone who is used to being a stay-at-home mom. Other than going to Steamboat and Dan switching jobs (which means he is home about 10 hours less a week due to an increased commute), some other great things happened. Christy and I earned our Young Womanhood medallion, she as a mom and me as a leader. Every year the stake puts on a nice dinner and I was happy to celebrate, especially with Rebecca, Alex, Lora, and Camille as well. I miss being able to hang around my Laurels every Sunday and Wednesday, but am loving my calling as Personal Progress advisor too.
My dear husband let me throw a Chinese New Year party with the families of these Taibei missionaries. Can you believe there are so many people in our little city who served in the same mission? It was the biggest party I think this house has ever seen. I was worried we would feel like sardines, but putting the dozen children in front of Ni Hao Kai Lan's Happy Chinese New Year in the basement after dinner made the house seem much bigger and calmer. lol.
In January Dan & I picked out ALL the details of our new home while my parents babysat the children. It was a giant multiple choice test dealing with everything from where to put the extra outlet in the garage to what faucet to put in the kitchen sink to figuring out what flooring & cabinets together. We tried to upgrade only when necessary. The word Quartz practically became a swear word. Formica countertops come standard -- a bad word at times too -- but all the counters I had loved on Houzz.com were quartz. I was hoping quartz would be cheaper than granite since everyone talks about granite. Ha! Not even close! We found out we could take our soon-to-be family of 6 to Hawaii twice for the amount of money it would cost to upgrade from formica to quartz. So quartz became "the Q word" in our home and formica will be put in our new home along with the standard carpet and the upgraded carpet padding. lol.
Playing nicely at the park and with the Kett cars our neighbor, Darrell, is storing for a friend.
Danny's igloo he made at co-op preschool vs. the destruction of Danny's bedroom while I was downstairs doing the dishes.
Also for the new year, Kaelah began taking dance classes at the M. family's house from their 3 oldest daughters. On Thursdays she goes straight from co-op preschool to there and then we get to bring Lizzie & Emily back to their homes too. Last Thursday Danny was on a date with Grandma and Michelle had insisted on dressing like a ballerina to drop Kaelah off. Driving around after dance class I realized life can be oh, so good as I enjoyed having 4 little ballerinas all strapped in their car seats and asking me to turn the Rapunzel (Tangled) music up louder in the mini van. That moment in time was pure perfection. I just might love being a soccer mom.
In another very mom moment, the thought struck me about a children's book I grew up with and probably read to my children a hundred times. Scuffy is a toy tugboat who isn't satisfied being on a store shelf, so the own of the shop takes him home to his son. Scuffy isn't happy with the bathtub either, so they take him to a brooke in spring. He wants more than this and off he goes down the river, vacillating between being proud of his river and wanting to see the shop owner and his son again. Finally, upon seeing he is about to head into the ocean, the shop owner and his son scoop him up out of the water and take him home, where his is very happy to sail in the bathtub. My thought: the owner is Heavenly Father, the son is Jesus Christ, and we are all the little prideful tugboat with our own ideas of how we want our lives to be. Then we have those moments, and like wanting to be saved from the ocean, we turn to God and realize His plans for us are always better than our own.
I didn't tell my children what I was thinking, but I told Dan and the group of women I met with that night while discussing the topic of humility. They seemed to like it, so I thought I'd write it down.
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