When Will We Be Able to Relax?

The morning started off well with a pleasant walk wherein I ran into Shannon Peterson and we talked for half of the walk. The kids had the primary program today, so we reviewed their parts. Isaac and Brooklyn knew theirs, but Lucy wasn't solid on it. I handed her the sheet of paper with her part on it to review--and she ended up reading most of it at the podium. But the children did such a good job singing and I teared up watching Isaac sing "Praise to the Man" like an angel.

Then the rest of church felt pretty normal--Corban needed to be fed and changed, I missed parts of lessons during both hours. . . and then we got in the car and found out that Isaac and another boy had been shoving, kicking, and pushing each other. Isaac was in tears, the other boys in his class had yelled at him, and I felt so stressed and frustrated. Kids shouldn't hate going to church.

I suggested that Doug give Isaac a blessing, and Doug felt impressed to go to the boy's house and talk with his step-dad, who is one of the teachers for the class. The meting went well, and we invited Isaac not to retaliate, and not to talk so much in class. Doug just feels like he needs a friend, but I think he needs more than that. I think he needs to become friendly. He needs to be kind and aware. I love him to death, and I feel like it's dishonoring him to ever act like things are stuck in a bad place for him. I want the best for him, but what if we've made it a million times harder for him to be happy because we moved him out of a place where he had friends?

Here's some of what we were up to this week:

Corban, Cason, and I went to Grandma's house to bring her dinner and visit for a little bit on Monday because my mom and dad were out of town.

Cason and Jet were blurs of movement and happiness.

I've cleaned so much during the past week, and it never stays. I cleaned bedrooms, bathrooms, I vacuumed, did dishes, folded laundry for my family and my mom, and took all the Halloween things down that I could see. This particular picture is in the girsl' room with all their bins dumped out so I could throw away trash and take away toys that belonged in other rooms.

We spent three days working on Reflections last week, and Peanut requested a photo of a happy smiling Corban in his power outfit from Nevah--she's seen it during a reflections session. Lucy asked if she could get in some pictures.

I love the huge smiles.

Lucy got to go to a BYU game with Doug. He said it was wonderful, and she loved it as well.

This is cool, right in front of the huge banner of Dad.

And at the museum of Natural Curiosity. You can tell that this girl likes to get in pictures.

Funny story here. We thought Lucy was supposed to climb this, but this is apparently just a display. A worker asked Lucy to get down.

And Fisher in his power outfit from Granny. Isn't he darling in his big boy clothes?

  At the end of the day, there is so much to be thankful for, and a little bit to be worried about, and I need to count my blessings. I pray that Isaac can become more socially appropriate and that he can be happy. Oh, and Donal Trump won the election on Tuesday night! We were shocked. I predict that he'll embarrass us a great deal but like my friend Lindsay expressed, I hope he's the best president we ever had.