Sept 11-14

Sunday, September 11th-

Stake Conference today was AWESOME. We were taught about temples today. There were testimonies given about how the temple has blessed lives and we were challenged to find ways to sacrifice for the temple. There was a talk on family history and Pres. Rau gave a talk about some of the major issues we are dealing with in the world right now and how we will be stronger when we are faithfully attending the temple. I believe that is true. Pres. Maxwell said that the temple will help us see clearly in a blurry world. There has been so much confusion in the last year with members of the church and the decisions of the Brethren. I am so grateful that I have seen clearly how the Lord is guiding the leaders of the Church to do His will. I believe that.

Molly brought Silas a blanket and pillow when she saw him
sit down on the couch and say he was tired. He ended up sleeping
there for an hour and a half.

Because we got out of Stake Conference an hour before we would have even gone to church, we were able to have a lot more time to make a big, yummy dinner and to do some family history! I even taught Cleod how to index today and he did it for over 2 hours! He has wanted to start doing some type of family history for a long time and I think indexing is a great start!

Silas had a few appointments as well as a meeting but he was home a lot more than he normally is on Sundays. We all enjoyed that a lot, but probably Molly enjoyed it the most.

Ryan read a ton today, which made me happy, and Grant, Cora and Molly played together a lot. I am already seeing the benefits of decluttering the toys. It still makes a mess but there is so much more room in the playroom and the kids stay in there and actually play. Before it was crowded once they started getting toys out and they wouldn't go back in. More room and less toys equals happy kids. Who knew?

Cleod indexing on the laptop while I did
my family history stuff on the desktop

Monday, September 12th-

After-the-gym photo

Let's just be real...Mondays can be tough. Today had the makings of being a horrible day, but it wasn't. Yea! I think the great spiritual weekend helped me personally get through this day without freaking out.

Cleod practicing bass clarinet

Cleod is a champ at the bass clarinet already. I really enjoy listening to him practice, and he is still super excited about it so it's not a fight. haha.

After school Grant and Cora went outside to do "make-overs" for the neighbors. I normally don't let them charge money for stuff but they were asking 6 cents for a make-over and even some of the parents got into it including Linda, Megan, Scott and James. It was pretty cute. Grant was REALLY serious about it too. He cracks me up.They even had the toy cash register outside with them.

Neighborhood "make-overs"

Silas came home with a bad headache, probably a migraine, so he was out for the night. Instead of watching a movie or feeling badly for myself, we went on with Home Evening like we had planned. Cleod taught us about the Armor of God and had some things for the kids to color and a game to play. He also had a scripture ready to help us.

For the treat we went to DQ to support the elementary. A portion of the money earned today was donated back to the school.

FHE

Today Cora lost her first tooth at bedtime! She was so excited. We had tried to pull it out last night which was pretty traumatizing so I was happy that she ended up getting it out with just a few wiggles.

First tooth gone!!

Tuesday, September 13th-

Today choir started at the elementary. Ryan and Grant are both going to participate again and they are super excited. With Cleod leaving early for middle school, it didn't even seem like a pain to get them to the elementary school early for choir, which was a pleasant surprise.

Tonight I taught about indexing and how that helps us find information on individuals at Relief Society. It was so great! I enjoyed every minute and it made me super excited to do more family history. I hope the ladies got something good from my presentation.

Wednesday, September 14th-

Wednesdays are super busy with late start, early out, paper route, scouts and football (although football is only for a couple more weeks) but of course we had to add more to our crazy Wednesdays. Cleod started piano lessons with a new teacher today. Her name is Clarica Stocks and I think she is going to be great. I am super excited to see how far he can go with her. The hard part is that she lives out by Iron Springs, by Steven and Katie, so we had to make sure we give ourselves 15 minutes to get there. With everything else going on I was a little nervous to commit but today it worked out pretty well. We picked Cleod up near the school, all ready with papers folded and scooters and snacks in the van. We did papers a little differently and did it in less than 40 minutes which is the fastest we've ever done it. We even had time to run home and unload scooters before heading out to lessons. We took books and homework to do during Cleod's lesson so by the time we got home we could eat a quick bite before heading to football.

Tonight only Ryan had a game tonight so Grant got to hang with us and I was able to watch Ryan's game without splitting up with Silas or Cleod. The lost but played pretty well. Ryan loves it anyway and that makes me happy.