2024 Moments: Week 17

 Four of my five boys are in Arizona this weekend. They are celebrating Grumps!!! 

I’m here with Brigs. I was having a ministering interview this morning. I asked this sweet sister the question: 

“What’s your relationship like with the temple.” 

Her response was…. Well I’m not 100% sure. Because at that very moment, Brigs jumped on my lap and started pinching and hitting my chest because I wouldnt give him  a jolly rancher. (He’d already open 3 on the table and wasn’t eating them…) 

Anyway, the interview ended. And Brenda (who doesn’t know me all that well) said “I know your boys are hard at this age, but they turn into the sweetest boys.” 

My heart. I felt like that was God talking through Brenda. I will hold on to that forever. Because some days I literally wonder how I’ll get through this raising boys thing. 

I’m feeling really introspective in this quiet house of mine. I know I do good things, but am I doing the right good things. I felt like I missed the mark A LOT today. Any maybe that’s me being too hard on myself. Or maybe I’m not being brave enough to take another step into my growth. 

But what I do know… I need to find more time to be still. But intentionally still. 

I guess, I just want, at the end of all of this life…. To have 5 out of 5 boys impacted positively by my efforts. And Heavenly Parents proud of my efforts. 

So I’ll keeping forging on.  

2024 Moments: Week 16

Luke turned 6 this week and I’m obsessed with him. He is so happy and handsome and fun and giggly and competitive and bright and LIGHT GIVING!!!! I’ll always remember how patient he is with Brigs. He told me tonight that Dad doesn’t think I can ever top

His birthday trip to the indoor water park. I think he LOVED his time with Lando. 

Lando: Lando woke up kind of down. I think part of it is just feeling burnt out from work and heavy cases. But his calf was also hurt so he could run. Anyway I kind of kicked into “boost lando mode.” We went and did a work out together and then we planned a trip with him and the boys to go to Arizona and then we went to lunch and got a turkey on turkey sandwich. After that, we picked up bikes for the boys, kissed, and he went out to the temple! When he got home we had a yummy dinner and then he went to mutual and helped some young men ask some girls to prom. He got home around 10:30. I was asking him if he was feeling better. I repeated his whole day to him and said “could you have had a more perfect day.” To which he immediately responded “yeah! I could have had more protein.” 

Becs: I went to the temple on Tuesday! Annie text me to ask what I was doing and I invited her to join. I loved discussing temply things with her in the celestial room. 

Jax: He met Elder Gong on Friday night at the temple. And then told me absolutely nothing about it. I heard it from some other youth! 

Ty: Ty arranged a big night games on Friday night. While Jax was at the temple. He knocked on doors and had me text people and set things up. I was pretty proud of him! 

Luke: We had a really really sweet dinner Tuesday night. Which is kind of crazy because just minutes before I was ready to give up. Poop was smeared all over the bathroom. Brown Sugar was all over the floor. It was already 7:15. BUT! We sat together nonetheless. We started telling about our days and then popcorning to the next person. Luke didn’t get picked and kept saying in disbelief, “WHAT! I had the best day ever!” So we held him til very last. As he began detailing his day, (and I mean detailing… after 2 minutes we were at first recess) he realized all in his own that he says “um” a lot. He made fun of himself and then tried his darndest to not say um anymore. For the next five minutes we all laugh hysterically every few words as “um” continued to make its appearance. It was a heaven moment for sure. 

Brigs: that same dinner, we had BLTs. Another frustrating moment… I ended up getting to Great Harvest Bread at 6:02 and they were closed. That’s really the only bread we like to eat. I almost threw in the towel and had cereal for breakfast. But I drove to a grocery store and bought some mediocre bread. Anyway we loaded up the BLTs for the boys. Brigs devoured his. And that’s insane. Cause he never eats dinner. BLT and all! Jax was mid story time and I said “wait! Brigs! Where did your sandwhich go?” While we were all looking around his place setting and under his table, brigs got off his chair and headed to the front of the table. It was there, that he revealed where his sandwhich went. He lifted up his shirt, opened his mouth, patted his stomach and said “see!!! It’s in here!!”