I bought Isaac new church shirts today-whether he wants them or not! I say he NEEDS them! And I bought groceries (so basically I spent an arm and a leg and didn’t come home with much) my people are all in the other room watching a movie but I figured I better blog instead shop…

So let’s see: Saturday Tan had a basketball scrimmage-yikes we got smoked! I really wanted to get some pictures of him playing but…I forgot to give my phone to Cannon with that request-darn. Maybe tomorrow. 

After basketball before Isaac and I went to a wedding we swung into Walmart because Grandma had hooked us up with a pretty fun Walmart order for Rizzy’s birthday! 

That’s only the 2  kids I got pics of—it was pretty fun and I definitely didn’t have to cook on Rizzy’s birthday! 

Can you believe he would be 3?!

It’s crazy-it’s still hard- and that whole weekend and the time of year still suck but I really wouldn’t change it. I have learned things I never would have otherwise and I know I get him back-in the end it all works out. But it’s not the end yet. So it’s okay if it’s kinda cruddy. Oh Sat Isaac and I went over and cleaned up the Christmas decorations at the cemetary and put a Happy Birthday balloon up. 

Sunday I got a text and this pic from my sweet friend Marisa—she helped me so much when she was here. 

👍🏻

How bout it?!

I think I blogged about Cannon teaching me about that slang…

Sunday I took Cann down to the World Wide Youth discussion on the youth theme.  Oh Cann talked in church and did a great job (also on the youth theme “I am a disciple of Jesus Christ”) Tanner told me Sunday morning “oh yeah I have a talk in Primary”…so we scribbled one out quick on what we’d learned in Come Follow Me and went with it. 

I didn’t get to see it though because a guy brought his nonmember girlfriend who we know from when she worked in the school of business office at Truman. So Isaac sent her to Relief Society with me. If Tanner had prepared and we’d worked on it I probably would have felt bad about missing his talk but since it was a scramble I figured oh well. 🤷‍♀️ 

But back to the fireside-thing, it was really good. I liked getting to go. 

These are the questions they discussed:

What are your holy places? 

How do you find them? 

How does gathering with holy people strengthen you as a disciple of Christ?

When has that been true for you? 

When have you had the chance to testify?

Or when has someone else’s testimony strengthened yours? 

I didn’t really love coaching basketball Saturday, (could’ve been lots of things) but that fireside was also really good cuz I got to chat with a couple of the basketball moms after, we were pretty late getting home. 

Monday  morning (all morning) I cleaned up the weekend bomb…then this: they get them all back out! 

It’s a losing battle I fight! 

Monday was warm enough to get outside!!! 

Isaac didn’t love them playing on this—good thing I got pics before he told us. It reminded me of them doing it right after Riz died. 

That night-since Sis Stoddard went home and we don’t have any missionary weekly emails to read, so we had to change our routine and had some acting out of scripture stories for CFM instead. 

Colts elbow…can we pretend he’s going to get it up? He doesn’t. But they were being creative with the broken bow story-they couldn’t find and arrow (I threw them away after the Christmas Eve debacle) so Colt threw the ball when Tanner said “fire” anyway they had fun. Perfect! 

Wednesday when I was taking Cannon into weights we saw Enzo half way down the gravel road…I called Isaac and he said he’d deal with it—so I drove on past…but drove up on this scene when I came back. 

Me, I’m cuss’n that horse, Isaac? He’s give’n him grain! Well in this picture I think he’s putting the halter on but I’m pretty sure he just had a pail of grain in the tailgate getting the horse to walk behind. Most of the way home (actually probably until I came up behind them.) 

Let’s see…

We fed the missionaries that night. Here is Tanner sharing his favorite scripture with them-it was so cute. I was scrambling for my phone to take a pic. 

This girl loves the pups (just like her brothers) so she puts on Seth’s rubble shirt whether I let her or not…so we’ve been stashing it under her jamas. I’d buy her own but…then I’d have to deal with that being the only thing she ever wanted to wear…so I’m holding out.  

This next pic isn’t so much about the football—although I played all time quarterback with them a little this week and that Tan is fearless (to a not good level…moms don’t really like to watch that try to hurdle but upended twirling through the air and landing -thud- on his back as the air knocks out of him stuff. Yikes.) finally I had to say “No more trying to jump him when he goes low!” But defensively he has pretty dang good instincts. 

However the picture is more about the mud on his knee—they are both COVERED. Actually maybe you can see it better in the pic below—Colt was so pumped his monkey slippers finally came! So much for 2 day shipping he waited 3 weeks for these things, we had to order them twice-they canceled the first one. But in the background you can see that Isaac got a little too deep when he was clearing snow with the skid steer. And holy cow-the mud!!! It’s everywhere and with 5 kids tracking it in🤯🤯🤯 


Sis getting in on the football action too! 

And today Tan and I had basketball—the rest of them went on a little adventure to look at…a project he might want to bid on. 

Of course I’ll keep you posted. 

Oh wait 2 last things—

Over time our bedtime routine has evolved right? Well-we try to do a family prayer and then pray with each kid individually. They pray we pray.  (I mean, it takes a little time when you just want them to go to bed—never does Isaac get in hot water with me faster than when he sits on his phone and doesn’t help or doesn’t help enough with this) but anyway, the time worth it to me. If they have a math test I want them to know their mom is praying it will go well—type of thing. And ultimately these kids with make their own choices, they’ll choose to believe (I hope..and pray, since we’re on that subject—) but that scripture about “they did not doubt, their mothers knew it” I want my kids to come out of our home knowing that I know!!! It makes sense right?  Well all of that paragraph to set up a Seth story…he’s trying his hardest to “teach” me how to say shorter prayers 🤣🤣🤣 I think it’s so hilarious! 

And while I’m on the connection to heaven thing…Addi-she hates her crib! Unless…I lay next to it (my ache’n back on that hard wood) and reach up and hold her little hand. It’s impossible to get comfortable but I do a lot of thinking while I’m laying there hoping she’ll drift into a deep enough sleep I can sneak away. I love that to hold my hand is comforting to her, and I love to ponder on ways that our Heavenly Parent reaches through-and “holds our hand” on things. I know he doesn’t sneak off on us—ever. 

Alright—those last two were for me—cuz it’s my family journal—and  I want to remember them! 

I’m pretty sure I’ll be back next week…