Drunk Up

Jessa ~

This week I thought was going to be a lot more chill, but turned out to be busy anyway.  Haha.  Such is life, right?  Kessa had swimming lessons every evening, just as BJ got off work.  Bless him, he took her each night so I could do dinner ... or other things.  

Tuesday evening I had to get a babysitter for Abby while BJ had Kessa at the pool, because I went to the temple to be with one of my counselors who was being sealed to her recently-adopted 2-year old from China.  It was so sweet to be there.  (And fun fact: Jon Schmidt was there.  And my entire presidency, minus the one who knew him, were all star-struck and we acted like teenage groupies.  Even the one that could be my mother, age-wise.  Looking back it was a little embarrassing, but as all of us did it, it was also fun.  Hah!) And then right after that I had two stake meetings, so I didn't get home until well after the girls went to bed.

Kessa was quite proud of her trampoline tower.
But very upset that it wasn't "perfect"

Thursday I had to get a babysitter starting right after lunch because I was invited to wedding sealing for an old friend of mine, Taralyn (she was my roommate 5 times!) I was endowed in 2006 and this was my first sealing outside of my own I've attended!  Insane, huh?  (Now just to get you and your siblings and my brother to get married so I don't have to wait another 7-8 years...)  It was beautiful and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her, because she just looked So. Happy.  But the problem with having not spent much time with her over the last several years is that I didn't really know many people there.  And it was during the day so BJ couldn't come.  So I felt a little lonely.  But I attribute part of that to the fact that I drove around my old neighborhoods beforehand and I was feeling nostalgic and wistful even before the sealing.  And then I stayed down there and went to another friend's reception in Orem, so I drove around our old condo.  And then went to Travis' house and I hadn't been there for awhile.  And ran into an old neighbor at the reception.  Just so much nostalgia.  I guess it was just a little hard to handle all day, on my own.

Friday night my brother, Damian, and my dad came down on some carpet cleaning business, so we went out to dinner with them.  (Including Damian's three boys.)  Do you remember me raving about Cafe Paesan in Orem?  The Cafe Rio-style italian place?  Did I ever tell you it closed and how sad I was?  Well, turns out, they just changed their name to Wild Zucchini Grill and moved to American Fork!  Right by me!  Clearly they can't live without me and we're meant to eat there all the time.  ;)

Karl, the hamster, continues to be a hit with the girls

And then the week became blissfully peaceful. Though, we still managed to stay busy.  BJ taught Sunday School today and so many people told me he did a fantastic job.  I missed half of it, because it was another ward's ward conference today that I went to.  So I got 5 hours of church today.  But the last half of the class was really good.  He mostly raised questions and let people answer.  There was a lot of group discussion.  Which I love.  RS was the same.  Which was nice, because after I'd already been to 3 hours of church, it was nice to really enjoy the last two hours.

We got some new books for Christmas.  I may have told you about them?  They're the Little House on the Prairie, but written and illustrated for kids.  We got three of them.  The girls love them.  Abby especially.  There's one she's latched onto, called Winter Days in the Big Woods and she doesn't really let us read anything else these days.  Which surprises me, because it's a big paper book, and I thought she'd still be loving the board books more.  There's a page in there that says, "But the best time of all was at night, when Pa came home.  He would throw off his fur cap and coat and mittens and call, 'Where's my little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?' That was Laura, because she was so small."  Abby loves that page and because of it calls the book, "Drunk up."  It's funny when she wanders around to find it saying, "Drunk up?  Drunk up?"

Kessa's favorite part is when it talks about the work that belonged to each day.  Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, etc.  So we came up with our own list of daily chores.  She helped me.  We first went through their list to see what things we do the same, like washing clothes.  But there were a lot that we don't do, like churning butter or mending clothes, on a regular basis.  So then we substituted our own.  So here's our new list:

Wash girls' clothes on Monday

Gather and take out garbage on Tuesday

Organize toys on Wednesday

Clean the hamster cage on Thursday

Wash mom and dad's clothes on Friday

Vacuum on Saturday

Rest on Sunday

We've done everything from the garbage on, so far, except organizing toys. But that's because we started on Wednesday with garbage and didn't get both tasks done in one day.  Kessa has been surprisingly excited to help get everything done.  Wednesday was actually a really great day for her ego.  It started with taking out the trash.  It was her job to gather all the small garbages, dump them in a bigger garbage, then replace all the small liners (with grocery bags).  She did really well, but had a hard time opening the knots that we tied the bags into, so I did it for her.  At one point I put Abby down for a nap and by the time I got out, I found her studiously trying to figure out how to open a bag.  She tried it the way I showed her, but it wasn't working, so she figured out a different way!  She was so proud of herself.  She had no idea I was watching, but her grin was still huge.  And then she got up and emptied the trash and replaced the liner, then saw me.  It was a very proud moment for me.  And then later at Preschool they told me that she was almost done with the red books (which are the long vowel sounds) and we needed to buy the next set of books (which we did).  Both her teachers and the front desk ladies gushed over how well she was reading and how fast she was progressing.  I think we both beamed brighter than the sun for a moment.  She is just doing so great in so many ways.  I love it.

Kessa built 2 Lego towers, one for her and one for Abby.  She wanted to display them in her room, soon to be their room, but I convinced her that she needed to take them apart so we could play with those pieces again.  We compromised with a picture, so the towers could live on in memory.

I've been getting more and more into family history.  I still don't do it often, but when I do, I usually get sucked in for hours.  It's bad.  But Jessa, there are so many broken things out there that I can fix!  The latest one was my great-aunt that died last month.  Within days her temple work started being done in Brazil, but on a duplicate record.  Which is bad, because she hasn't even been dead a year yet!  So I had to contact the church to bring it to their attention.  (When I merged the two duplicates, it made it clear that this was Not Right.)  And to add some sadness to it, her brother promised he'd do her temple work, and if this work is considered legit, he won't be able to.  :(  So hopefully we get that all straightened out.  But the good news is, I fixed a lot of broken, have learned way more about my great-aunt than I ever did during her life, and everything I couldn't fix, I brought to the attention of someone who could.  Hooray!

Oh, and for part of Kessa's resting activities today, she wrote you a letter!  

Translation: Dear Jessa! I love you... We got a globe for Christmas. We found Cambodia on it ... it is vere [very] foor [far] away!

Kiddisms:

• I was dictating a Facebook comment to my phone, so I was saying the punctuation out loud.  When I finished Kessa looked up, grinned, and said, "Mommy, I love you.  Period."
• Me: There are still several things we need to do before the baby comes. Like figure out his name.
  Kessa: And get him trucks. And tractors.
• Me: Oooh. You can get a free 100th anniversary Sun-Maid e-book.
  BJ: Just what I've always wanted.
  Me: Maybe I'll get it for your birthday.
  BJ: Correction: Not what I always wanted.

Have a wonderful day!  Hugs and prayers,
~ Tianna and Co.