Dear Jessa ~

I forgot my kid-isms last week!  To atone, I'm putting the last two week's worth at the beginning of this letter.

• Kristen in the dinner prayer: Please help us to eat safe.
  Travis, after the prayer: How do you normally eat?!
• Kessa: Yellow m&ms are lemonade.
• Kristen: “Honky donkey, donkey honky” (repeatedly.  For at least 5 minutes.)
• Me: But what if I don't want to get up?
  BJ: Then you'll take the girls to the splash pad in their pajamas…
  Kristen: What?! No!!!
  Me: Do you remember when we talked about being gullible?
  Kristen: What's that?
  Me: When you believe everything you hear.
  Kristen: I don't believe everything I hear!
• Kessa has taken to wearing a white undershirt under all of her shirts, whether she needs it to be modest or not. Today she showed it to me and told me it was her “garment shirt”.
• Kessa was sitting on Papa Homer's lap watching horse competition videos on the iPad, set to music. Papa asked, “What is that horse doing?” “Singing!”
• The other day Kessa was standing by the open car door and was supposed to be getting out. She paused, looked at the ground, then said, “Ok body. You have to get down now.” Then she jumped down.
• Kessa: I'm taking a night bath because it's dark outside. So if I fall asleep, I'll wake up and say, “Hey! I don't sleep in water!”
• Kessa: Jesus magic--no. God magic made me zero again, because he likes me to be a baby.
• Kessa: I can't plant weeds yet. Planted a weed; nothing growed! If I planted a weed, a rock would come out
• Kessa: Mommy! The family room is all cleaned up!
  Me: Yes it is! Do you know why?
  Kessa: Why?
  Me: Because Daddy cleaned it up last night!
  Kessa: Daddy! You missed an elephant and an owl! … Daddy! Pillows go on the couch and I see a heart pillow on the floor!
• [BJ singing]
  Shawn: Josh Groban sings that.
  BJ: I was singing “telephone” in Spanish repeatedly to the tune of Abba, “Winner Takes it All”.
  Shawn: Oh.
• Kessa took some baby Tylenol because BJ couldn't find the ibuprofen.  She coughed after drinking it so BJ asked if it went down the wrong tube. "It didn't go down the down tube; it went up the up tube."  She has also refused to take baby Tylenol ever since.  "I need kid medicine so it can go down the right tube."
• Kessa: I want to get germs on Heavenly Father and Jesus because they can wash them off themselves in the rain!  {editor's note: This is probably my favorite quote in weeks.}
• While we waited for a car repair:
  Kessa: When is someone going to be in trouble here?
  Me: I hope never.
  Kessa: But I want someone to be in trouble here?
  Me: Why?
  Kessa: Because I want to see them in trouble.
• BJ: I'm really good at pushing buttons on computers!
• Audrey (Kessa's friend we're taking to the cabin with us): When Jesus is resurrected, you can come upstairs.

And now for a little blurb out of my journal:

I have a friend from high school, Melissa, whose niece's apartment burned down recently and they lost everything. So Melissa got on Facebook and asked for 4T clothes for her niece's daughter. I explained the situation to Kessa and had her help me choose some of her clothes to give to this little girl. We gave them to her over the 4th of July while we were in Idaho.

Tonight Kessa came into our room, feeling sick, so I was cuddling with her on my bed. She pointed up to our smoke detector and asked when it was going to go off. I told her I hoped it never would because that would mean we'd never have a fire. “Yeah. I hope we never have a fire because it would burn up all my clothes.” 

We spent the next 10-15 minutes talking about it. She continuously declared herself scared, so we prayed to not have a fire tonight and for Kessa to stop being scared. But she still said she was scared. So I told her the story about Peter on the stormy sea and how Jesus rebuked the storm. I taught her that Jesus loved Peter so much that he protected him. And that Jesus loves her that much too and will protect her. 

We also talked about faith and how that means to believe that Jesus will answer out prayers. But that faith and fear can't live together, so she had to choose to have faith or choose to be scared. She chose faith and then happily went to bed. 

Sometimes I just love being a parent.

Warning to readers that are not Jessa: this next section is very much specific to her mission.  If you don't know her and don't care about her mission, I suggest you don't read it.  Just scroll to the next bolded header like this and you'll get back to my life.  You have been warned.

I have to apologize.  After you told me that I couldn't put real names on your blog, I found myself too overwhelmed to post again.  So I went 2ish weeks without posting.  I'm sorry!  I fail!  But then one morning, after waking up, no kidding, at least 6 times with the kids, I found it 6:30 am and me not being able to sleep.  Go figure.  I woke to an email from your mom asking if I needed help changing the names, so I figured it would be something I could do.  So I came downstairs and spent the next couple of hours until everyone else woke up going through all your old blog posts and coming up with pseudonyms for everyone.  I kept a master list that I will email you separately (it seems it would defeat the purpose if I posted the key on a public blog, y'know?) so when people write you and ask about Sister Kayak or Lookpuu Jordan, you'll know who they're talking about.  :)  But it's all done now and your blog is all caught up.  So now I can move on without any problem.  Except that I'm going to be in Island Park for your coming letter (which is why this is posting a day early), so we'll see if it gets on your blog in a timely manner or not.  My apologizes if it doesn't.

But in reading through all of your old emails, I found myself asking lots of questions to you.  So I wrote them all down to ask you.  First, questions about the whole changing names thing.  I want to make sure I do it right.

• Do I need to change the names of people from home? Like, in your first post from the MTC you talk about E. Quinn, Emily, Abbie, Sam Ruggles and E. Denos.
• What about names of GAs? I assume I don't need to change the name of Bishop Causse from the presiding bishopric and Sheri Dew and Elder Bednar. Right?
• What about your mission president? Do I need to change his name?
• In one email you say Sister Oar and another is Sister Our (Sis. Melton's companion). Was one a typo? Are they the same person?  (Ahh!  I used a real name!  But don't worry; after I post this I will come delete this question and say something about how it self-destructed because I used a real name on the blog.  Hahaha.)

And now, a bunch of other really random questions prompted by previous emails.  Mostly it's information you gave but never followed up on.

• What did you leave in your Narnia hole?
• Do you want me to fix typos on the blog?
• Have you found it difficult not being able to distinguish blue and green in language? Do they even see a difference in the two colors?
• What ever happened with Frank from Yugoslavia?
• What about Asorey? You were pushing for a baptism on Resa's bday!  (Again, real names will be changed once this is posted.)

Ok everyone else, this is the bolded header with far too many words that you are all looking for.  You may proceed to read again.

Remember how Kessa was sick with a fever until Sunday, but then got feeling better?  Well, maybe you didn't know she got feeling better because she still had a fever on Sunday when I wrote you.  Well, she did.  And Monday and Tuesday acted completely normal.  But then Tuesday night she went to bed with a fever again.  And kept a fever over 100º through Wednesday when I finally called the doctor because this was now a week from start to present with a little break in the middle.  And fevers shouldn't last that long!  They told me to come back in Friday if she still had a fever.  I told them we were going out of town.  So they told me to come in Thursday if she woke up with a fever.  So I gave her medicine and when our home teachers came Wednesday night we asked them to help BJ give her a blessing, which they did.  She woke up Thursday with a mild fever that a dose of ibuprofen ("kid medicine") completely dispelled.  I tried to keep her resting, but she'd have none of it, so I ended up letting her play outside a little, which she loved.  But then her fever started coming back that late afternoon, so we gave her more medicine and then she was fine again.  Thursday night her fever finally broke.  I snuck into her room on my way to bed and felt her forehead and she was fine!  Hooray!  Today she woke up without a fever and has been blissfully happy and fever free all day long.  Hooray for blessings!  Cross your fingers and say your prayers that she'll stay healthy while in Idaho, k?  

While she was sick she would go to bed in her room, then around 3 am would wake up crying about something.  She wanted water.  She couldn't find her doggy.  Something minor.  We'd go fix it, then she'd ask if she could sleep in our room.  So we'd bring her, doggy, Resa blanket and pillow in and lay her down on a blanket next to my side of the bed (there for that purpose) and she'd immediately go to sleep (after making her go potty).  Then she'd wake up again somewhere between 5 and 6:30 crying or whimpering, so I'd make her go potty again, then she'd go back to sleep.  After a week of this, I was quite exhausted.  But then last night (the night the fever broke) she only woke up once for water, then went back to sleep in her own bed and stayed there all night!  HOORAY! 

BJ took the girls (along with a neighbor guy and his daughter) to Idaho tonight.  I'll follow with the guy's wife and twin boys tomorrow after I go to stake baptisms.  I have to admit, I'm greatly looking forward to sleeping all night long.  Haha.

Part of the price of our house included landscaping in the front which included two trees.  When they were doing our lawn I asked them if I could choose my trees.  They said no, they usually just get two varieties that they'll come plant in a bunch of different yards at once.  I showed them a picture of a flowering tree I saw in the neighborhood (it almost looks like a white mini tulip) and they said they'd see what they could do, but doubted they could personalize.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that my flowering plum variety flowered just like I wanted!  It wasn't the same tree I had asked for, but close enough for my immense happiness.  I'm sure I've blogged all this before.  But it gets better!  "How could it possibly get better?" you ask?  Well, dear Jessa, that is an excellent question.  BECAUSE IT'S NOT JUST A FLOWERING PLUM!  It also produces fruit!  This summer we got to enjoy a handful of plums the size of cherries.  When we first saw them growing we thought they weren't going to be edible. But they are!  And they're delicious!  Hooray!

We went up to your parents' house for Resa's birthday.  We played Settlers with her and your dad and Shawn (and your dad completely destroyed all of us in his quiet, behind-the-scenes way.  While we all thought that birthday girl Resa was winning.  Haha.  Poor girl.)  We had very yummy dinner (of course.)  And Abby learned to say brownie.  "Wownee"  Awwww.  I rushed her upstairs so Grandma could hear her say it and entertained myself by asking her to say several different words and she would repeat them.  Then Shawn burst in and in his energetic way asked, "Can you say gobbledegook!?"  (Or some other such nonsensical word.)  Abby looked at him and in a perplexed/condescending tone yelled back, "Nooo!!!"  It was hilarious.  At that point she refused to say any other words and whenever anyone asked, particularly Shawn, she would yell the same, "No!"  It carried the tone of, "No, you fool!"  The longer it went, though, the more she started to laugh and smile while still refusing to perform for him.

I had my last day of my cake decorating class on Tuesday.  We learned some new roses and how to write on a cake.  But I didn't know what to write on my cake.  It wasn't a holiday or anything.  I had a primary meeting right after, planning a cub scout training, so I considered doing something scouty, but I wasn't getting anything clever.  I started to write, "Take the Cake" when I had the stroke of ... genius?  (That's probably going way too far.) and wrote, "Eat me."

And... now I'm in Idaho and I've got a headache, so I'm going to be done now.  But I'll tell you all about Idaho and the cabin next week. Deal?  Deal.  But here's a sneak peak picture for your pleasure. (Also, sorry about the lack of pictures.  Apparently we were lazy this week.  We have a few videos, but I'm too headachy to deal with those today.  Next week maybe?)

<3 Tianna