nice

Here comes the sun.

This flash mob rendition of "here comes the sun" done in a Spanish unemployment office is lovely on so many levels.

now what?

 

Today G got baptized!  It was wonderful and I'm so grateful for the whole experience.  G memorized the 13 articles of faith thanks to a challenge by one of the sister missionaries who taught him.  Just 2 hours before the baptism he was still polishing up #13 and I heard him say he better get it done so he could be baptized.  Oops!  I'm so proud of his desire to be baptized even to the point of memorizing the Articles of Faith.

Sometimes you have to decide to not let fear rule your life.  Ever since G was 1 and newly in remission, we've been counting the years to this day.  So now he's been baptized, and maybe I'm allowed to look past that day.  Until tonight I hadn't realized how fixed this goal was in my psyche.   Even today minutes before we packed up and went to church, the kids were out in the front yard and I was terrified that he'd get run over, right before his baptism.  I'm grateful for this little prince and the gift that he is in my life.  Long may he reign.

cleaning house

Over Christmas break we were super busy.  I've been back from travel for a week and a half and finally have the house in order, and only now because I have a play date tomorrow.  I like having a clean house.  I like having someone come over about once a week so I get it cleaned.  I would like to figure out how to be motivated to just clean it because it needs to be cleaned.

A feeling that is tickling my awareness is the idea that if I don't keep my house clean, I'm ungrateful.  We are so blessed.  It's obvious that if you are grateful for something, you take care of it.  I am aware of feeling self conscious that with such a nice house, I don't want people to think I care too much about material things.

I tell the kids over and over that people are more important than things.  This comes up often when they have hurt one another over toys.  The way this is important to me and my house cleaning is that I'm a nicer mom when the house is clean.  I read stories to them at night when I take care of the dishes earlier in the day.  My kids are more important than my mess.

photogenic

These sweet sisters have been coming to teach G some lessons preparing for his baptism.  They motivated him to learn the articles of faith and he's just got 4 more to go.

We got to spend several days with our P family cousins.  M and A were thick as thieves.  O and lP were super cute.  lP got along better with O than any other person in her life, ever!

 We went on an epic road trip to Atlanta with my mom.  While we were there and it was too cold to 

go outside, and to cruel to stay inside the hotel room all day, we escaped to a magical place called Monkey Joe's.

The only down side was the arcade games.  But at least my kids got to learn the hard lesson that when mom has paid $9 for you to spend 6 hours in the bounce houses, we are not spending more money to play games of chance to win tickets to buy garbage.

  After Atlanta we headed North East to DC.  We had a nice visit with a lot of my family and M got to meet Silver the rabbit.  Silver is a Rex rabbit, know for their fur and meat.  My sister got him for free on the condition that she wouldn't eat him. 

 Tonight G went to cub scouts for the first time.  P is the scout master and I hope they will have almost as much fun, as G is handsome in his uniform.