A new week is upon us. I don't think I got enough sleep yesterday, but I'm trying to push through. I have been up and down from the basement today as I put away things we used at the wedding, and like a good little toddler Katharine has been following me around. As I worked at a folding table (emptying sand) She discovered the treadmill. One of the kids must have left it down. The key to use it has been lost (I hid it so the kids wouldn't use it and can't remember where I put it!) So Katharine was playing around it playing with a little hot wheels car and jibber jabbering talking something, I have no idea what, but I did catch her vocabulary of "Ready? Set! GO! - Woo-hoo!!" as she'd jump from the platform onto the carpet.
** * Our Life with 13 Kids * **
Monday, March 11, 2024
Ready - Set - Go! Woo-hoo!
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Ethan and Bella ~ est. 2024
Well, it's been a magical day.
We were laughing and teasing, and I loved being in the car with them. Eternity with them is going to be so fun. They were teasing Joseph about being gone dropping off Eliza last night for an hour and a half, when it is only a 15 minute drive each way. Joseph replied "We'll let the time speak for itself..." Abi stayed back with the girls and Peter as they all needed more time to finish curling their hair. I left my phone with Abi so she could the maps app to know how to get to the Bountiful temple. They were on their way about 30 min after us.
Friday, March 8, 2024
Wedding Dinner
The big task ahead for the past few weeks is now behind us. The dinner is done, and I think it was a success.
Ok I guess I'll blog just a bit more, I'm feeling a bit restless anyway... Hope I can fall asleep tonight. Ethan and Bella sitting at their table of honor. Corey had a mic set up and the Bose and a projector that displayed Ethan's video up high on the wall.
I brought nice china for Ethan and Bella to use, but they just went and got the plastic plates like the rest of us! Silly kids...
A feast of rolls, grapes, two salads, roasted vegetables, chimichurri tri tip, mushroom chicken, mashed potatoes and scalloped potatoes, with some gluten free chicken and rice at the end. Note to self - get more kitchen help next time! I was going to text like 6 people, but Corey told me not to, said he didn't think we needed more than two, cause after the food was out, there wouldn't be anything to do. I said ok, so it was just Terry and Elasha. Chalane told me that next time get atleast six people. Chalane and Nancy helped a lot with the food and clean up. Nancy took all the table clothes home to wash! Grateful for my family for saving me from drowning tonight.
We were running around crazy today - Hyrum to the DI to get pants, Abi stayed home from school and we went to Costco for salad stuff and desserts, then had to pick up more desserts from Kneaders (Hyrum picked up those), and MORE desserts from Gourmandise (Corey got those - he also picked up some Papa Murphy's pizzas for the littles, so that they wouldn't take too much of the steak...) Our friend Laura Blanco from Cafe Sur dropped off the dinner at 6.
We had about 90 people there I think? I was grateful there was plenty of food. We have leftovers of everything (chicken, steak, potatoes, salad, desserts...) that we'll be eating tomorrow when we are cleaning up at the church.
People ate as a video played on the wall that had pictures of Ethan and Bella growing up, and they had a friend come sing "Sunrise Sunset". Corey shared some words of advice on behalf of both of us, then Paul and Lisa and others who felt so inclined. hen they played an updated version of the video Ethan made when he proposed to Bella. So cute. We Wrides all especially love starting at 6:49 when the kids made their dancing debut! So funny! Ethan is a talented videographer! He played Until I Found You by Stephen Sanchez
I'll get the program from Corey later - I can't remember if the videos were first, or the people commenting on things... But it was a good day. Thanks to Terry for saving my sanity before hand at during the dinner tonight. I was not feeling overwhelmed this morning and so I went climbing after I took carpool this morning. Had a good session - I felt so great after cause I did TEN V3s! It was good to start off the day feeling empowered and like I could do anything. I did 18 total. I also read my scriptures and prepared for a lesson in Relief Society that I'm teaching on Sunday. I teach Relief Society tomorrow (Tamara Runia's talk, it was my favorite from General Conference!) She referenced an author Ronald E. Bartholomew in her talk, and I got his book from the library, True Versus Truth. I'm only a few pages in but it's so good!
Monday, March 4, 2024
Clothes Shopping
Today I'm not feeling as panicked over the wedding as I was over the weekend. Big shout out to Terry for saving my sanity. She came over Saturday morning and again Saturday evening. Thanks to her, the centerpieces for the dinner are mostly figured out (I think/hope) and that let me have a good day yesterday. I wore the dress to church that I thought I might wear to the wedding, so that I could run it by the experts, and Terry said no. It was too casual. So, after an RS meeting, the only other thing on my list today was to find something to fancy up my shirt, or to find something else entirely. I didn't want to take P&K shopping, so we stayed home and finished tying ribbons, and I'm basically an expert now. Then I was looking through all the scrapbooks for some "before the blog" photos to send to Ethan. He's using them to make a wedding video, and I wanted them for some side by side photos of Ethan and Bella that I'm going to put on each table, like this cute one!
Oh my gosh, they are such cute kids! I was smiling so big. I'm going through photos that her mom sent me and trying to find good matching ones like that. :) I have more to do, but I think I will get them done. I worked on that today until 3, and we didn't have violin today, so as soon as the older girls were home from school, I took off to do some clothes shopping for hopefully the last time. I thrifted again, just at the DI, and found great stuff. I'm ahead of the game!
Usually when I'm prepping for family photos, I barely settle on clothes like the day before, so good job me getting this taken care of 4 days prior! I got home and put the clothes all over my room and told the kids to come make their final decisions.
Gotta wrap this up!Owen was the first one done, although he might need a larger size pants. Oh, and lighter brown socks probably. But if I don't get to either of those, he'll survive, so sweet, one down. Next: Peter~
He still makes it look easy. Abi chose her, then helped Sophi, who was giddy with excitement when she finally found something she liked among the spoils I came back with today. Natalie tried on all the dresses, even ones that were obviously too big. She was just obeying orders. She ended up settling on an outfit that we've had set aside this whole time. I went back and forth on a few things, but after texting Bella and her Mom and Terry, I got the votes I needed to win over my teenage girls' opinions on my attire, ha. I'm going for "mother of the groom" which I think means formal, old, boring. I can't be cute or casual like a trendy teenager.
It is too large, but that's ok, cause it matches well enough, and it was $5 bucks. Good enough. I'm glad that my wedding day outfit is decided. And I got another dress that is super cute and red, that I justified by telling myself it will be for the anniversary feast next year, but I think I'll wear that to the dinner now! Before I was thinking I'd wear the lavender top to the dinner with a green skirt, and a orange/peach-ish dress on Saturday, but this lavender skirt made it look formal enough, so sweet, done! Lily still needs to voice her opinion (we decide for her, she said she didn't care, but I bet she will Friday) so other than that, I think the rest of us are good! I just need to go get a tan tie for Corey. Sweet. 4 more days!
Monday, February 26, 2024
The Miracle Worker
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, we watched "The Miracle Worker" last night - a 1962 film about Anne Sullivan, who was the blind tutor to Helen Keller. We decided to watch it after Elder Christofferson's talk on Divine Love came up in our family scripture study sometime last week. He talks about how Anne challenged Helen to become more.
The story of Helen Keller is something of a parable suggesting how divine love can transform a willing soul. Helen was born in the state of Alabama in the United States in 1880. When just 19 months old, she suffered an undiagnosed illness that left her both deaf and blind. She was extremely intelligent and became frustrated as she tried to understand and make sense of her surroundings. When Helen felt the moving lips of family members and realized that they used their mouths to speak, “she flew into a rage [because] she was unable to join in the conversation.”26 By the time Helen was six, her need to communicate and her frustration grew so intense that her “outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.”27
Helen’s parents hired a teacher for their daughter, a woman named Anne Sullivan. Just as we have in Jesus Christ one who understands our infirmities,28 Anne Sullivan had struggled with her own serious hardships and understood Helen’s infirmities. At age five, Anne had contracted a disease that caused painful scarring of the cornea and left her mostly blind. When Anne was eight, her mother died; her father abandoned her and her younger brother, Jimmie; and they were sent to a “poor house,” where conditions were so deplorable that Jimmie died after only three months. Through her own dogged persistence, Anne gained entry to the Perkins School for the Blind and vision impaired, where she succeeded brilliantly. A surgical operation gave her improved vision so that she was able to read print. When Helen Keller’s father contacted the Perkins School seeking someone to become a teacher for his daughter, Anne Sullivan was selected.29
It was not a pleasant experience at the beginning. Helen “hit, pinched and kicked her teacher and knocked out one of her teeth. [Anne] finally gained control by moving with [Helen] into a small cottage on the Kellers’ property. Through patience and firm consistency, she finally won the child’s heart and trust.”30 Similarly, as we come to trust rather than resist our divine Teacher, He can work with us to enlighten and lift us to a new reality.31
To help Helen learn words, Anne would spell the names of familiar objects with her finger on the palm of Helen’s hand. “[Helen] enjoyed this ‘finger play,’ but she didn’t understand until the famous moment when [Anne] spelled ‘w-a-t-e-r’ while pumping water over [Helen’s] hand. [Helen] later wrote:
“‘Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten … and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! … Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house[,] every object … I touched seemed to quiver with life.’”
Even so, we may be quite content with what we have done in our lives and that we simply are what we are, while our Savior comprehends a glorious potential that we perceive only “through a glass, darkly.”
Each of us can experience the ecstasy of divine potential unfolding within us, much like the joy Helen Keller felt when words came to life, giving light to her soul and setting it free. Each of us can love and serve God and be empowered to bless our fellowman. “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
I'm grateful to be a mother. I get to labor with zeal with God for the immortal souls around me - working out my salvation and the salvation of my family. It's the best job ever, and I'm so grateful for an AMAZING FATHER who works hard (NOT lazy), is so smart (not stupid!) so experienced and patient (NOT immature) and over the top awesome "I'm the luckiest woman that he's mine" - I love and respect Corey, he's the best. And I love my Father in Heaven. He's the true miracle worker in all of our lives.
We watched it on youtube for free (with ads) via that link. Btw, I was totally amazed with the actress Patty Duke, wow. And Anne Bancroft who portrayed Anne Sullivan. Anne Sullivan was willing to put up with getting her tooth knocked out - God's long suffering patience with us (except for when he drops us on our butts!)
___________________________
God and Anne Sullivan: What I Learned from Re-Watching “The Miracle Worker”
by Dr. Tod Worner, 3 April 2018
It had been years since I had seen it.
And it was even better than I remembered.
The Miracle Worker is a play written by William Gibson in 1957 and made into an Academy Award winning film in 1962. Culled from Helen Keller’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, the play tells of the fierce, harrowing first encounters between the feral blind and deaf child and the tenacious, indomitable teacher, Anne Sullivan. Set in 1880s Alabama, Anne Sullivan found herself wrestling (physically and emotionally) not only with an overindulged, ignorant child, but also with a family broken by abject helplessness and unbridled pity.
At first, Anne kept her misgivings regarding the Keller family’s misguided indulgence to herself. She penned an exasperated letter to a colleague saying: “And, nobody, here has attempted to control [Helen]. The greatest problem I have is how to discipline her without breaking her spirit. But I shall insist on reasonable discipline from the start.”
When Anne dined with the family for the first time, Helen wandered around the table snatching food from each person’s plate with nary an objection from anyone. When Anne, aghast, refused to allow Helen to steal from her plate and grabs her wrists to arrest her behavior, Helen launched into a tantrum. Almost on cue, the family flew into a defensive rage toward their new guest.
Captain Keller: “Miss Sullivan! You would have more understanding of your pupil if you had some pity in you. Now kindly do as I—”
Anne: “Pity? For this tyrant? The whole house turns on her whims, is there anything she wants she doesn’t get? I’ll tell you what I pity, that the sun won’t rise and set for her all her life, and every day you’re telling her it will, what good will your pity do her when you’re under the strawberries, Captain Keller?”
Captain Keller [Outraged]: “Kate, for the love of heaven will you—”
Kate Keller: “Miss Annie, please, I don’t think it serves to lose our—”
Anne: “It does you good, that’s all. It’s less trouble to feel sorry for her than to teach her anything better, isn’t it?”
Captain Keller: “I fail to see where you have taught her anything yet, Miss Sullivan!”
Anne: “I’ll begin this minute, if you’ll leave the room, Captain Keller!”
The next scene is one of the most extraordinary I have ever seen on film. Anne Sullivan (played by Anne Bancroft) and Helen Keller (played by Patty Duke) find themselves alone in the dining room in a face-off of violent wills. Anne’s effort to get Helen seated in a chair, folding her napkin, and eating her dinner with a spoon results in chairs furiously overturned, spoons being thrown, hair pulled, food spat into one face and a pitcher of water thrown into the other. Exhausting and unsettling, the two angry and defiant figures nearly destroy the room (and each other) in an effort to take (or repel) one bite of food off of a spoon. Emerging from the ravaged room, Helen desperately finds her way to her mother and Anne stands wearily and caked with food.
Kate Keller: “What happened?”
Anne [Exhausted]: “She ate from her own plate. She ate with a spoon. Herself. And folded her napkin.”
Kate [Softly]: “Folded—her napkin?”
Anne: “The room’s a wreck, but her napkin is folded.”
Contrary to the first time I saw The Miracle Worker (in high school), it dawned on me that this play is not an inspiring story of a young disabled girl who finds her voice. Instead, it is an indispensable parable about the human need for structure, order, and discipline. Before we can do anything, we must understand what we cannot do. We must comprehend what is right and what is wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable. And that is damned hard. Although Anne recognized that the Keller family’s pity and indulgence was a misguided manifestation of love, it was in fact devastating. It trapped Helen in an abyss of appetite with no ladders of discipline or ropes of order to climb out. The food would come, but you first must fold your napkin. Your doll awaits you, but you first must spell D-O-L-L. Sacrifice is hard, but necessary. Just consider, no athlete, student, musician, or worker ever willingly sacrificed without a greater end in sight. Neither would a young Helen Keller.
And this is how Anne Sullivan reminded me about God.
Those laws and rules, strictures and standards that God revealed to his people? Even those that seemed harsh and difficult to understand? They were intended to pull us out of the abyss of ourselves, to rescue us from our selfish appetites and animal desires and usher us into the blinding light of God’s love. Laws and rules exist for the sake of reminding us of our dignity, not to assault it. God’s law says, “You can’t do that because you are better than that. You should do this because this is your high calling. It doesn’t always make sense, but it will, trust me, it will.” “Have faith,” says God to a broken creation. “Have faith,” said Anne to a broken child.
There is one scene in The Miracle Worker that epitomized the work of Anne Sullivan. Exhausted and exasperated from a day of little gain, Anne turned to a well-worn book for perspective and hope. She read a familiar passage aloud:
“This—soul—This blind, deaf, mute woman—Can nothing be done to disinter this human soul? The whole neighborhood would rush to save this woman if she were buried alive by the caving in of a pit, and labor with zeal until she were dug out. Now if there were one who had as much patience as zeal, he might waken her to a consciousness of her immortal [soul].”
Anne Sullivan insisted that you can’t stop digging. The child inside is dignified and worth saving. It might be painful and it might require great sacrifice. But you dig anyway.
Because that’s what you do.
Sounds a lot like God.
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Wayne's Sister's Funeral
Wayne's only sister, Anna Marie Turley, passed away a week ago on February 18th.
Anna Marie Turley
November 20, 1937 - February 18, 2024
Anna Marie Turley passed away after a short stay in hospice on February 18, 2024. She was the eldest of two children born to Wayne and Helen Wride. Anna Marie is survived by her children Julie Turley, Shelley Turley (John Rothermich), Scott Turley (Sara Swim), Karen Turley, eight grandchildren, and her brother, Wayne Wride. She was preceded in death by her parents, and her beloved husband, Thad Turley. A native of Payson, Utah, Anna Marie moved to Arizona with her husband in 1963, and never left. She loved living in the desert, was an avid reader of Elizabethan history, and a college basketball fan. She loved watching her musical Arizona-based grandchildren perform. A lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she earned an education degree from Brigham Young University, served full-time as a missionary in the Church’s Eastern States Mission, happily served in church callings from visiting teacher to Sunday School librarian, and was an active and cherished member of her local congregation up until her death. Anna Marie married Thad Brady Turley on August 16, 1963, in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple after meeting him at a Brigham Young University singles dance seven weeks prior. The couple moved between Arizona and California where they raised their four children. After her husband’s death, Anna Marie was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. The diagnosis of her disability did much to explain her life’s challenges, and compelled those close to her to interpret her life with more generosity and grace. A viewing prior to the funeral service will be from 5 pm to 6 pm on Sunday, February 25th at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1054 West 2nd Place, Mesa, AZ 85201. The funeral service will commence at 6 pm at the same location. Interment will take place on Monday, February 26th at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona.
Mark and Chalane came by here very early this morning (5 am) to pick up Corey, and the three of them drove down to Phoenix Arizona for the funeral tonight. The burial will be tomorrow morning. Anna Marie's husband, Thad, served in the armed forces and was buried in a veterans cemetery, and it is not open on the weekend, so they had to wait for Monday for her to be buried there with him. Wayne, Nancy, and Anna Marie's daughter, Karen, who lives here in SL, all flew down together. Selfie at the funeral -
I met Anna Marie a few times, but it's been a while. Joseph was the last one in our family to see her.Pictured here, Corey's cousin Scott, his wife Sara, their kids and Anna Marie.
We are glad that Corey was able to go down to be with family and support Wayne. They got there at 3, cleaned up in Wayne and Nancy's hotel room, went to the funeral, and then started the drive home right after the funeral, so they are on the road now. Mark had to get back for work at 10. I think they'll be here around 6:30 am. Doesn't sound any fun to sleep in a car or to drive in the dark. And a 10 hour drive is nothing compared to a drive to Dallas for the eclipse, which I have been talking about doing... Perhaps I have not thought that through! That's coming up in just over a month. We'll see. Things were good here. The house was super quiet today. It was a beautiful warm day (58 degrees!) and the little kids were playing outside while the teenagers slept most of the afternoon. We watched "The Miracle Worker" tonight, the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Anne Sullivan, and wow, so powerful! I watched it as a kid, but didn't catch most of it. I was so inspired, I'll talk about that tomorrow. We're probably going to have to watch it again next Sunday so Corey can see it too (and Abi missed most of it too. Lily Sophi and Natalie and I all loved it!). It brings up great topics of discussion on love, pity, enabling or authoritative parenting/teaching, lots of good stuff. Helen was so blessed to have a teacher with such vision and long suffering patience! (...and we have one too, in Christ! <3)
Friday, February 23, 2024
School Stuff
I drove the high school kids to school today early for a morning side devotional. Brandon Doman was the speaker. He was the quarterback at Skyline back in the day when Corey and I were there. Brandon was a junior when Corey and I were both seniors. I dropped the kids off at the church across from Wasatch, where Corey and I used to go for seminary waaaay back in 9th grade, 1990-91! After I dropped them off, I went toward the back to turn around, and passed the little spot of grass where we had an end of year party. One quick story about that spot of grass... (My kids know this story, but I don't know that I've ever documented it here, but it was a core memory for me). SO, we were studying the Book of Mormon, I remember, because we had to report each day if we had read, AND if we read every day, we could attend the party at the end of the year for everyone who read 100%. Maybe it was like 90-95%, I don't remember that part, but I DO remember that I often said I had read, with the intention of catching up, or reading later, or just feeling pressure to fib a little bit so that I could go to the party, cause I REALLY wanted to go to the party and be there with Corey! And other kids were probably lying too (nice justification there, tiff...) (Oh, and also REALLY NICE JOB to younger me of the past that I was 1) LYING (cue 9th commandment?) 2) in a SEMINARY CLASS (where I am learning about God and hopefully following him better as a result????) about 3) READING THE BOOK OF MORMON?!?!?! A book that is helping me understand and keep the commandments better and follow Christ better?? Like really?? Nothing here pricking my conscience yet???) Nope, nope, shut that all out - Pressure was on and the Party is of utmost importance... I'll learn about keeping those commandments and following God eventually, maybe next year for sure! Spring comes, warmer weather is here, the school year is ending and the end of the year party comes. One by one, our names are read to say we have been successful and can go outside to the party! Just about everyone "earned" it. The kids that didn't were going to stay inside and have a regular seminary lesson. AND GUESS WHO stayed in the class room. Just TWO PEOPLE: some goth looking girl (judgy a little bit, tiff?) and... Corey. And I was kicking myself the entire time, feeling guilty that I lied, and mad at myself that my lying kept me from what I had really been looking forward to, which was spending time with Corey. Lesson learned. Well, mostly learned? I did try to stop cheating and lying with seminary stuff, but I struggled quite a bit with other school stuff through high school into college. There are two other core memory stories that I shall try to share later someday (AP History test at Skyline, and Spanish History test at BYU after we were married. If I write those up sometime, I'll try to remember to come back and put the links to them). Anyway, all those thoughts were in my head as I dropped the high school kids off. Lily headed in, and I told her to pause so I could take a photo of her shoes.
She was wearing two different shoes. This was not entirely by choice, but mostly it was. Her left converse shoe was missing, and she only has this one beat up pair of shoes to wear to school (doesn't want another pair, but I might put my force a new pair upon her soon). She asked Abi if she could wear her adidas, Abi said "sure, but I can't find the other one..." But lucky Lily - her missing converse was a left and the missing adidas was a right! That means Lily now had a pair of shoes to wear. Lily chose to wear non-matching shoes over any of MY matching shoes. How rude. I guess I don't have good style. "They're just not my type..." As she came out to the car with her mismatched shoes, she happily said "This was on my bucket list anyway!) So Abi, Lily, Stein and Eli all had me laughing on the drive to school. Abi was playing love songs. Lily likes Fictional and agrees that all the perfect boys are only in fictional novels (that were probably all authored by women...) "Don't Sweat the Technique" was the last song I played. I've had that on repeat lately when I go climbing.Abi loves "Lost in the Woods" and was only semi-joking as she said how it makes her so emotional! And "I Love You Too Much" too - it was funny. Stein and Eli were bantering with the girls. Eli had to ride the middle seat today. It was Lily in the middle, but then Stein couldn't open our broken door, so he went around and then Eli had to scoot and take the middle. Oh the shame! Yeah, they are all basically joking and laughing the whole ride to school. It's fun to listen to. They are good kids.
He even went to play at Lucy's house this afternoon, yay! Friends! A few BeReals from the college kids - Joseph in his blue shirt, blue jacket, blue jeans, with his blue car. BLUE.
Mel at work at the Sky Room.
Aaaand guess who got 100% on his spelling test today!!! Owen earned a lego set!
AMAZING! And we're going to study spelling words every day now, right?? And get 100% every week, RIGHT?? You can do this! You are smart! It just takes practice. He was really excited to tell me that he got 100% after school. Like will not happen with Peter and the lego set he got for eating his pb&j, you will NOT be earning a lego set each week for your good spelling test score. I know you can do it, and I'm expecting it now! A job well done is it's own reward.
Thursday, February 22, 2024
It Works
We've been talking about goals around here. I've been doing good with stepping up my reading and some of my good habits. I've been pretty consistent with exercise for the past 12 years. I'd like to be more consistent with not eating to escape my uncomfortable emotions when I feel restless or stressed. I've been doing pretty good with reading, there's just too much to read though, and I keep hopping from book to book, depending on which one I can find at the moment (since I move my books from my room to the car or to the table and then can't find the one I was just reading, so I have to pick a different one, so I'm in like 10 and not finishing any of them... So I need to also get more organized and clean up around here. I haven't been caring about the mess that much lately. I'll blame it on the winter blues. Hopefully it will return in spring as warmer days of sunshine return. One thing I did try to do today was to help Owen with his homework. And I was successful!
So Owen earned a party with friends this past weekend for doing an AMAZING job with his checklist. He was the first kid to finish! I appreciated him playing along. I updated the checklist for February and March, cause there is one area in his life that is lacking... reading and spelling. This was evidence by very poor spelling test scores that I saw in his folder last night - 3 out of 15. Ugh. I don't do a good job checking his folder, and he doesn't do a good job showing me his folder, so it's a loose-loose. I like never see his spelling words and never have helped him practice them. So last night, we sat down, and it wasn't an assignment and his teacher didn't say anything about it, but I had him write all the words he missed three times. As we were starting that though, after the first few words, we had to stop, had to tell him HOW TO HOLD A PENCIL (I remember getting HOUNDED on that in 2nd grade.... I can't believe he is able to get away with his incorrect hold!) and had to practice writing out each letter, where it starts, a j starts in the middle then down with the candycane and then the dot) which way the circle goes around on b's, d's, p's, & q's, and do lower case d not an uppercase D, and some technical things like that. OK - after 10 minutes of practicing each letter, then doing a row of the ones he got wrong, we were ready. Back to the spelling words. He did each words each 3 times, and I could tell he was concentrating cause he was sticking out his tongue, it was cute. I had him take both his Alphabet paper and his corrected spelling words to school to show his teacher today. He got home, I asked him if he showed, her, he said yes, and then I opened his folder and found TWO MORE spelling tests, 4/15...
...and 2/15, doh...
And his poor teacher didn't write the correct words for him on the 2/15 one... She's probably like "I don't have time to write out ALL the words for this kid every week... doesn't his mother help him!?!?" I had no clue where the original list was, so we had to try and decipher this 3rd graders poor handwriting. Owen's sisters tried to help me. Owen wasn't self conscious or beating himself up over his poor performances, so that's good? We never did figure out what #11 was. Natalie said "I don't think that would be a spelling word..." Did he put "succeed" twice? It was like a game trying to figure out the word, and it was a fun game. Even Owen had no clue what he wrote for most of these. His small g's weren't under the line, so they looked like backward e's, all his Ds are uppercase, and his r's could be v's and his u's and n's looked the same too... any idea on some of these? We did the best we could, I didn't have him redo these ones, but I did decide to text his teacher and ask what the spelling words were going to be for his test TOMORROW. She replied right away (with an image of the paper that was once again misplaced at our home): eagle, grown, clown, bread, reach, cried, owl, crow tough, snow, crew, young, screw, spread, tough. "Tough" was there twice, so he'll probably have one mystery word that we won't have practiced, but I'm hopeful. We practiced them all before he went to trumpet, and he wrote them very carefully and correctly. We reviewed them orally in the car on the drive to his trumpet lesson, and we had a practice test when we got home. He only got one wrong! He spelled eagle "eagel" which I think is a totally understandable mistake. 13/14. AMAZING job. I told him that if he gets 100% tomorrow, I will give him a lego set (the kids are a little jealous with how much Peter has been able to cash in on toys this week cause of his croup...) Yes, Owen, you can have the Boba Fett lego set if you get 100%! We're going to review the words again in the morning. He's got this! I will try to be a better mother and teacher of my children. I gotta help them learn to write properly, spell correctly, and how to hold their pencils! It's important! Going to help the kids currently in school and the ones coming up the pipeline. That's you in the fall, Pete! Don't get too comfortable. Cute K tuckered out. After a good evening of helping kids with homework, taking O to his lesson, etc, I left for the temple and Natalie woke her up after I left.I'm grateful my kids are so helpful to me, I will work to be more helpful to them as they learn. Putting it on my checklist. Setting goals and keeping ourselves accountable works. I'm glad we're all here to help each other.
Ethan and Corey are 10 days into their Nazarite Vow challenge with each other. Every day they start a timer when they start their study of the Book of Mormon, and then send each other a screen shot of their time. Yesterday they reported to each other of what a great day it had been. One of Ethan's goals is daily temple attendance (wow!) and even on Monday, when temples are closed, he just walked on the temple grounds.
Each day he does something: sealings, initatories, a session, baptisms, repeat. Corey said that he, too, can tell that he is able to better hear the quiet promptings of the Holy Ghost when he's firing on all his spiritual cylinders. Today he had a question of where to find some lead aprons for an x-ray test he's doing tomorrow in Logan, and he followed a prompting to go to the store, and on the way there, he passed by a friend's house who is a dentist, and he then reached out to him to ask if he had some lead aprons Corey could borrow, and he did! As he shared with the kids tonight how good things are going for him and Ethan, Corey told them "I've never seen commitment to God and his gospel NOT work in improving people's lives." Then explained that the greatest variable is whether we really are drawing closer to God, or if we just think we're doing everything when we're actually not giving 100%. Two years ago, when Corey saw a note from 6 months prior that told him he was pre-diabetic, he was shocked cause he felt like he was a healthy person. "Surely you're not talking about me! True, I can't tell you the last time I exercised in the past 5-10 years... but I consider myself healthy!" Just cause we see ourselves as healthy or righteous doesn't mean that we're doing everything we should be doing, or that there's not room for improvement. Ethan said, after the first few days of the Nazarite Vow, he was surprised to realize he actually had NOT been doing that great in offering earnest prayers, reading his scriptures, or attending the temple. Keeping score on ourselves helps. When Ethan's friend Truman heard of Eth's temple attendance commitment, he was amazed... "How do you find the time?!" Ethan replied "Well, you watched that youtube movie yesterday for over an hour..." Ethan has cut out time killers, like all social media (that's one of his vow goals), and when you do that, it's amazing to find how much time those things suck away from your day. So, good job Ethan and Corey! They are really striving to follow God, and that's set a good example for all of us to work harder to follow, too.