BJ and Tianna: In which I write while truly exhausted and the Discovery Museum

Jessa ~

I'm going to assume that I'll have an email from you when I wake up in the morning, as that's how it happened last week. So despite desperately wanting to be in bed, even though it's only 9:30, I'm going to write you. That's how much I love you. :)

Why am I exhausted, you ask? Well, for one, this weekend has been insanely busy with Primary stuff. I think even BJ is starting to be exhausted with all the slack he's having to pick up from me. And you know BJ. He's totally long-suffering and all that, so when he's starting to show wear, you know it's getting busy! But in good news, I think it's going to start slowing down. This weekend was just the climax of everything. Thursday I met at the church for baptism orientation where we meet with all the baptismal candidates and get them fitted and have them fill out a spotlight and give them a tour of the font. It's kind of fun. Friday morning I had a presidency meeting. Then Friday night one of my counselors, Jan, and I went and cleaned the font. Then Saturday morning I had to be at the church at 7:30 and didn't get home until 10:30 or so. (And it was insane! The people who come fill up the font forgot it was stake baptisms so when I got there, the font wasn't filling and it takes 1.5-2 hours! So I had to start filling it up (thank goodness I borrowed keys because I don't have mine yet) and it finished maybe 10 minutes before we started. Yipes!) Then we had about an hour and then we went up to the Children's Discovery Museum, which I'll talk about later. And then today I got about 2 hours after church while BJ was doing tithing, then I went to visit a Primary and sat through two hours of adorable children (after my 3 hours of church) and then had a 30+ min meeting with them. And then I got home and realized that I forgot to take the baptismal clothing (which I spent last night washing) back to the lady with the keys, so I had to leave again and run those over. Whew! It's been so busy! I'm really ready to just drop. (But in good news, I'm really feeling like I'm getting a handle on this calling. Finally. I've still got a long ways to go, but I'm getting there.)

But before I catch up on this week, I realized that I forgot to blog about other things last week! So let's catch up a little.

BJ working at home has been awesome! Seriously. I love it. One time I needed to go to a garden store, so when Abby went down for a nap, I took the monitor downstairs and Kessa and I drove down and shopped and got home before Abby woke up. I did that Friday, too, when I needed to go clothes shopping. (Because, turns out, I'm going to be wearing a lot of dresses. And now that I've put away maternity and winter clothing, I have somewhere around 2 dressy shirts. Yipes! But so far I like my new options. Two sleeveless dresses (one grey, one teal) and three shirts to wear over them.) It's also nice that when I want to talk to him about something, instead of spending 10 minutes texting, I can run downstairs and figure it out in two. And get a kiss. Awesome. And when it's 5:00 and I'm so done being a single parent, and I say, "BJ, when are you going to be done?" and he says, "Two more minutes," that means he'll actually be with me in two minutes. (Well, 3-4. He struggles with time sometimes. :D) Not two more minutes plus a 45 minute commute. HOORAY! It's so wonderful and I love it.

I'll let him tell you about his perspective.

Okay, BJ here. So, working from home is nice. It's nice to be able to spend more time with family; I get to eat lunch with them, see Kessa playing outside the window while I'm working, and come home sooner. It makes my life feel a little more family-centered. Which isn't surprising, because I am spending a lot more time with my family.

In fact, that's one of the things that concerned me at first; I was worried I might end up craving more interaction during work hours. So far, though, it hasn't been a problem. I'm able to focus more, and I can still keep in touch with people in our work chat room. It's different, but I do feel more productive most of the time.

We'll probably need to get a fan down there as the summer heats up, and I admit that the unfinished basement area next to the furnace isn't quite as nice as my old office. But it's quiet and easy to focus, so overall it's a good thing.

Btw, you got a job offer in the mail the other day. Are you sure you want to be on a mission? You could be making $15/hour doing who knows what in Sandy. :) Oddly, it came to my house. Weird…

And a video you can't watch, but everyone else can, and I forgot it last week. Abby saying shoes! It's so cute. :)

And… now I think we're caught up. Whew! Well, caught up to last week. Now we need to catch up this week.

Huh. Actually, it looks like most of my catchup was done in that first paragraph talking about primary stuff. Haha. There's nothing else in my Facebook or calendar other than the Discovery Museum. And when I look through my iPhoto, it's mostly the Discovery Museum and videos. Which is kind of lame for your sake, as you can't watch videos. So, for your sake, I'll put all the videos at the end, so they don't have to taunt you throughout.

Ok, here's something. The other day Kessa begged to go to IKEA. So I packed up the girls and went. Kessa went to the play place and where I have nothing really I was buying (in fact, I was specifically not planning on buying anything) I decided to let it be play time for Abby, too. So she and I went upstairs and just let her wander wherever she wanted. She loved it. She learned the word "cool" there. She was obsessed with the different light fixtures and I guess I must have said, "Oh yeah, that's cool" a lot, because then she started to point at lights and say, "coo!" Haha! We only stayed about a half hour or so, though, because Abby was exhausted. Guess I timed that poorly. But we had fun while it lasted. Aren't I just a cool mom? (Hah. Cool. No pun intended.) :)

Speaking of Abby learning words, she can now say doggy, cheese (though she hasn't said that for a long time), tickle, shoes, woah, uh-oh, hi!, Kessa (maybe?), cool, and Jesus. In fact, Friday when I had my meeting, she came up to me and was all upset about something. Like she wanted something. I couldn't figure out what it was, so I finally just picked her up and stood up. She reached over my shoulder towards the picture of Jesus on the wall and said, "Jesus! Jesus!" And then she was content. Hah! She just wanted to point to Jesus! She is JUST SO PRECIOUS and I can't get enough of her. It's also cute when you tickle her, then stop and pay attention to something else and she starts saying, "Kickle! Kickle!" And she is mobile! Oh my gosh. During Sunday School and Relief Society today, she just made the rounds and walked around the room, looking and smiling and talking to everyone. Of course, everyone was enamored. :) But had I been one of those moms that needed her right there every second, I would have been frazzled. Instead I figured that so long as the doors were shut, she was fine. There were basically dozens of moms and grandmas keeping their eyes on her. I would keep a basic idea of where she was if I couldn't see her, and I was fine and she was happy. And I got to pay attention to most of my meetings! End of July will be nice, though. Then she goes into nursery. (Here's a happy fact for you. While it may seem that you're gone for most of my girls' lives, Abby will still be in nursery when you get home!)

Kessa bonked her head the other day. She was running away from BJ (she didn't want him to choose her cereal!) and turned to see if he was following. She tripped and hit her head on the trim of the cupboard door and got a nice scratch down her forehead and bruise on her eyebrow. It was really sad. So she got a bandaid on it. A nice bright one. And then, of course, we took lots of pictures that day and then today in Primary they sang Happy Birthday to her. Haha. Nice and public, that owie is! (It's not that bad, either. Just a scratch. A deep scratch, but just a scratch. It didn't even bleed.) But Jessa! She's turning four on Thursday! Argh! What happened to my baby girl?! I've really got to figure out her party. She wants a Dora party. I'll let you know how that goes next week.

Ok, Discovery Museum. So, have you been there? Up at the Gateway. My cousin, Amanda, is staying in Bountiful for about a month with her daughter, Addison, who is about 6 months older than Kessa. So we decided to get together and play. So we went to Litza's Pizza, then off to the Museum. It was really fun! Kessa and Addison did a class where they learned about atoms and how they're made of protons and neutrons (which form a nucleus) and then surrounded by electrons. They got to look under a microscope, draw a helium atom, then fashion one out of wire, beads and pom poms. Then they talked about chemical reactions and let them pour water on polymer beads and watched as they changed colors and grew to make "snow". It was fun.

Abby loved this wind tunnel thing. Almost the entire time we were in the class, BJ was out with her. There were a bunch of paper things around, you put them in the bottom, and then the wind blowing up through it blew the papers up and out. Over and over again.

There was a playground full of giant foam pieces. The girls built things and just ran around and had fun. BJ took Kessa into a helicopter. She was a bit nervous, but enjoyed it. (Amanda tried to take Addison who wanted nothing to do with it at all.) There was a water feature that they could play in that was fun. A kid-sized house and grocery store. And a little toddler area that both Kessa and Abby loved and stayed in for ages.

When we were done we went out to the fountain area and let them play. Kessa, predictably, didn't really like it and wanted to stand out of it. Abby loved it and kept running through the water, even getting a couple of direct hits. She was soaked by the end.

Over all, it was really fun. I really enjoyed it. We applied our fee to a 3-month pass (it cost us $11 more), so I guess we'll have to go up at least a few more times. Kessa keeps asking when we're going back to the "moo-seem". And it was really fun to see Amanda again and get to know Addison better. They live up in Idaho so we don't get to see them often at all. I'm trying to get her to be brave and drive down to Thanksgiving Point so we can go to the Dinosaur Museum, but she's a scaredy cat of Utah traffic. ;) I'll figure it out somehow…

And now, Kessa-isms!

Kessa: Did you know that cherries grow on Brand. New. Trees?
Me: What grows on old cherry trees?
Kessa: Old cherries!
Me, incredulous: You have a school hymn?
BJ: You barely had a school; you can't laugh.
A dog was wandering through our neighbor's yard. Kessa: Did he get a toy dog and it grew like a real dog?
Me, singing: Oh, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas…
Kessa: No mommy! We can't have a hippopotamus! They eat *everything!* They'll eat our plants and food and lightbulbs and paper and table and everything healthy for hippopotamuses!

Wow. There weren't a lot this week. Sorry!

Bonus: