March 29 Update

March 29, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Monday was a slow day for us. We had our normal routine, and then that evening we went to a friend’s house for dinner. We had to “sing for our supper” (as my dad calls it) and I was in charge of the FHE lesson. It was a little funny to try and do all our little routines at someone else’s house. But it was still fun. I wonder if my parents got nervous to have nonmembers over for FHE with our family. They never seemed nervous, but I was shy with friends that are in our church!

Tuesday B-man had preschool. He always loves going and was very excited to learn about the letter “y”. It has really surprised me how his attitude has changed through the year. He has always liked it, but now he is retaining the information and making connections outside of the class. It is really fun. He has also started asking to learn about other letters. The other day we had this conversation…

“Mom I want to learn about the letter d. When can we learn about it?”

“Well I can teach you about it today when we get home.”

“Not with just me! Maybe we could invite Connor and Grant over!” (They live on our street.)

That afternoon B-man and I worked out in the yard. We spread some grass seed and dirt on top of our grass. I guess the hope is that the seed will help fill in and thicken up our grass. We’ll see how it works… It was a lot of work and I was pretty exhausted by the end of it all. It felt great to get some work done, and to be out working in the yard. I can’t wait for our flowers to bloom, and to put in our garden.

Wednesday we had David. David is a little boy that I watch several days a week. His mom is in our ward, and I have been watching him for the last year and a half. It was an easy day. We ran a few errands, and enjoyed some sunny weather. That evening before Young Women’s I had a friend and her little boy over for dinner. We are both husbandless on Wednesdays and so it’s a perfect night for us to get together. The hardest time of the day is from 4 – 7 so it is nice to have other people around during that time. B-man and I went to mutual together. The young women all went to Kohl’s and they were then split into groups and each group had to find and model modest outfits in a certain category. For the most part it was a success. At the end of the activity B-man and I literally ran next door to Target to get some treats. I look ridiculous when I run, and having my super speedy four year old speeding ahead of me doesn’t help. B-man could be the “Flash.” You would think since he is so large he would be slow, but instead he is as quick as he is big.

Thursday I had a busy morning. I dropped off B-man at preschool and then rushed to my doctor’s appointment. I had to bet here a little early for the glucose test. After the normal routine at the doctor I left and then went to do some visiting teaching. That afternoon after preschool B-man had a play date with a friend from his class. They played pretty well together and then we dropped him off. That night we had dinner at some friends. B-man loves their house and was so happy to be able to play over there. We have some pretty amazing friends out here that always take good care of me when M is gone. It makes it a lot easier to be without him. (I would still rather have him home…) After B-man was in bed, I had a sitter come over and then I went to book club. We discussed Cold Sassy Tree which is one of my favorite books. I was a little surprised that more people didn’t love it as much as I did. But I guess that is what makes book clubs great, discussing differing opinions about books.

Friday was a slow day. We had David and took it relatively easy. We enjoyed some warm weather outside, and had a nice afternoon. B-man helped me with some small painting in his bathroom. We also worked on getting the water turned back on to the outside spigots. M walked me through it over the phone, and then I was able to hook up the hoses and water the grass. We’ve had a lot of rain, so this was the first time we needed to supplement with the hoses. That night after dinner we went for a bike ride. B-man rode his bike, and I tried to keep up walking behind him. B-man's seat on his bike kept changing positions (something obviously needs to be tightened) and so I think that slowed him down just enough so that I could at least feign keeping up with him. Now we can really get rid of that bike without him throwing a fit. It should help the process of learning to ride with no training wheels.

Saturday was one of those days where you just feel in a funk. I wasn’t feeling great, but I think I was mostly just tired of being the lone adult in our house. After lunch B-man and I made our first trip to the farm for the season. They were having a marshmallow roast and an Easter egg hunt. The weather was warm but pretty wet and drizzly. Luckily we wore our rain boots, and so the mud didn’t slow us down at all. B-man LOVED the farm. During the Egg Hunt Benjamin rushed out ahead of the kids, and then only picked up yellow eggs. He could have had millions of eggs, but I think he ended up with eight because he was focusing on the yellow eggs. It was slightly hilarious. He also loved the creepy Easter bunny. We had a great time, but it just made me more excited to go back when the weather was nice. It was fun because we had two families there that we are friends with. I think the farm got about five or six families to sign up because of my efforts to tell others about them. Sadly I don’t get a kickback on that, but it will be great to have lots of friends with us at the farm. We were all so dirty after leaving the farm that B-man went into the car without pants and then went right into a shower when he got home. That night I was really tired, and decided not to go anywhere.

Today has been a good day. This morning I was working on getting dinner ready for one of the other leaders in Young Women that just had a baby. I started out thinking I would make lasagna because I had everything. Then this morning I went to get out all the stuff and realized that half a box of noodles, was really two. Then after modifying my plan to a baked ziti, I opened up my ricotta cheese and found it moldy. After several minutes of wondering what to do, I remembered that I had cottage cheese. I measured out what was left in the container, and mercifully it enough that I could use it. Here I started out making something I was very familiar with and changed to a new recipe and making substitutions within it. I hope it tasted okay… I NEVER have these problems when I am cooking for myself, but they seem rather common when I am dropping off a meal. It’s sort of embarrassing. Oh well, nothing I can do about it and it’s not like they would ever say if it was gross… Church was wonderful, during the third hour a member of the bishopric spoke to all the youth and the leaders got to go to the adult meeting with the Bishop. The adult meeting had our stake representative giving a presentation on all the services available through LDS Family Services. It was very interesting and informative. After church we had dinner at some friends. I had actually called to have them over for dinner, but they were hosting other families as part of an optional ward activity, and so they invited us to tag along. There were four families there and there were ten boys, and one infant girl. We figured out that from the age of seven on down we had every single age group represented at least once. Those boys had a lot of fun together.

We love you all!

R, M, and B-man