Voldemoo

Jessa ~

I had another midwife appt. this week.  Everything is looking great.  As of Friday Baby 3.0 weighed about the same as a large mango.  About 1 pound.  He's growing a lot!  He's starting to move more; BJ's felt him move a few times.  Kessa doesn't have enough patience to keep her hand there long enough to feel him.  But I think we'll get it as he grows and moves more and more.

We put a closet organizer in the girls' closet this week.  But turns out we're going to have to be handy and tear stuff out in order to get what I really want.  So... it's only half done.  And currently really does no good.  Haha.  But we'll get there eventually.  I hope.  Maybe we'll have to make Nick or Travis come do the dirty work...  You asked for a picture of the girls' room.  Here is one, taken from inside the closet.  It's not a great picture, but it's hard to take a picture of a bedroom.  The dresser is at the foot of Abby's bed.

I taught Joy School again this week.  The Joy of Obedience and Decisions.  I focused on Obedience.  It was fun, but also a little frustrating as we're talking about a specific rule as one or more of the girls are breaking it.  But they're only 3 and 4.  So it's hard to really be tough on enforcing some of the rules, unless they're actually distracting the rest or causing problems.  And honestly, in any other lesson, I wouldn't have thought twice about their behavior.  It was just talking about obedience that made it way more obvious and frustrating.  But we managed.  And now we can talk to Kessa more about being obedient and how rules make us happy, and how breaking rules ends up with punishments.  But how we can always repent.

We had Parent/Teacher conference on Wednesday.  My parents were in town for RootsTech and had come down that night to bring us the meat from Voldemoo!  (More on that in a minute.)  They also brought two of the young women from their ward, who have adopted my parents as grandparents.  Like, they call them Grandma and Grandpa.  Anyway, they were there for dinner (and Trav), so they watched the girls while we went to Kessa's preschool.  Basically, it's what we expected.  She has improved a ton.  She is brilliant.  :D  (Ok, that's my word.)  Apparently the next set of books she's going to get into will put her up to a 1st and 2nd grade reading level.  (Those focus on blends and digraphs, respectively.) I have no doubt of her getting to those books shortly.  We're back up to two books a week and she's breezing through them.  She's also making impressive progress on coloring and writing.  And apparently she'll now play with anyone that's playing what she wants to play.  Where at the beginning of the year she was way more timid and cautious.  She's definitely coming out of her bubble a little.  She still has trouble standing at the front of the class (doesn't surprise me), and singing songs when she's not in the mood.  This is what her teacher wrote about her on her report card, "Kessa is a joy to have in class. I look forward to seeing her smile.  She is smart and reads really well.  She asks and answers questions.  She tries hard in all she does.  Look forward to watching her learn and grow."

So, Voldemoo is here!  Yay!  He filled 8 apple or paper-sized boxes.  We got 3/8 of the meat, so almost, but not quite, a half a cow.  We started first with a steak.  I'd never made a good steak, and I'd never been a lover of steak.  So I talked to a friend who loves cooking and is really into the chemistry of cooking.  So he pointed me to a couple great methods and I tried it out.  It was So Good.  Mmmmm.  I couldn't believe how good it was.  Tonight we had steak again (and this time I made gravy! From scratch!  From the drippings!)  It was still good, but not quite as good.  It tasted more salty and less buttery.  Alas.  But still good.  So I guess I just need to keep practicing.  We're having roast on Tuesday, when a friend of mine from high school comes to dinner.  So I'll keep you posted. :)

What a full cow looks like in boxes.

What 3/8 of a cow looks like in my freezer.
(Plus a few other things.)

So BJ and I decided we'd like to go to RootsTech, the family history conference my parents were down for.  They were having an LDS day on Saturday, and it was free.  So we talked to your mom who agreed to babysit the girls so we could go.  And then we discovered that it was sold out.  But we weren't discouraged!  Instead we just left a little later and came back a little earlier.  And instead of going to sessions, we went to the expo hall, then went out to lunch with my parents and co. then went to the Family History Center to look at microfilm and do family history work. And I was able to prove a marriage that most of my work this past week has been hinged on!  I had found 21 new people to add to my family tree (and since 3 more, at least), which was about 10-12 of each ordinance.  But it all hinged on proving one marriage... specifically the fathers of the bride and groom.  But I did it!  I proved it!  Hooray!!! So now I've got some temple work to do...

Finding proof in microfilm!

A selfie of BJ and I at the family history center.  :)

I wrote this in my journal on Tuesday about my family history work/conversion:

I think I figured out why I'm spending so much of my time on familysearch.org and figuring out my totally messed up family tree. Because data is how my brain works. It's wired to enjoy mundane, tedious, stressful things. It's wired to fix broken data. That's why I worked in digitizing books for 5 years.

But more, as a stay-at-home mom, I feel like my brain doesn't get taxed like it used to. I'm not complaining; I love teaching my kids and spending time with them. But my brain doesn't get stretched academically like it used to. Genealogy is forcing my brain to stretch again. It's making me think through massive mostly-non-mathematical story problems. And I'm good at it. Not only is it working my brain, but it's also making me feel like I'm making a contribution to society.

Just tonight I've added 16 new people to my family tree. Most aren't a direct line. Which means that I've added to hundreds of other people's family trees. They're not connected to them yet, but that doesn't mean they won't be eventually. I've just opened up hundreds of possibilities. And have done all the leg work to show sources and prove they are where they should be. That makes me feel pretty darn great.

Abby wanted to see herself, so I turned on my camera on my phone.  She sat there and grinned and made adorable faces for several minutes.  I took pictures of a few of them.  Here's one.

Abby fell asleep standing up.  It's a Where's Waldo photo.  Can you find her?
Hints: look for the shoes, her head is on the bed, Kessa's nightgown is wrapped around her head.

Kiddisms

• Me: Uh-oh!
  Abby: Skettios.
  Me: Did she just say “skettios?”
  BJ: She did.
  Kessa: What's the issue dear?  (quote from Frozen, but still, hilarious coming out of the mouth of a 4-year old)
• I threatened to take away suckers as a great if Kessa started whining about her sense of entitlement to them.
  Kessa: But then they'd go to waste!
  Me: No, we could give them to Audrey or Izzy. Or maybe mom and dad could eat them.
  Kessa: No, you can't eat them.
  Me: Why not?
  Kessa: You two eating them would just be…weird.
• Kessa is learning to write phonetically. It’s adorable. Especially her misspellings. For example, she sent a message to Daddy today that said, “I love you mor then pech cos dade sed kessa” Translation: I love you more than peach coins daddy said Kessa.

<3 Tianna and Co.