Frowny Faces and Giraffes

Another school week is almost done. When I looked through Owen's papers earlier this week, I felt so bad when I saw his spelling test! He got 12/15 on his spelling, which is really good since I didn't even help him study, but the poor kid got three frowny faces on his oral dictation!

I hadn't helped him prepare for that either, so I felt bad and I felt like frowny faces was a little harsh. I admit that I did not go to back to school night, and because of that I probably am not at the top of my game in knowing what he has to do, even though I've had this same teacher for 6 of my children (EHALSN). But luckily I don't think it hurt his feeling. He is already really improving. Cause atleast he had spaces between the words in that sentence! ...unlike this one from Sept 10th - 

So that's an improvement worth a smiley face! Here's another cute giraffe he drew on Oct 3...

I don't think he really likes giraffes all that much, so I don't know why he keeps drawing them. My mother detective skills have me thinking that he might hear JRAF/giraffe when his teacher says to JRAW/draw something. At parent teacher conferences she asked me if I've ever had his hearing tested.  No, but he has always checked out ok at his pediatric visits. She said they will have screening tests at the school this year, so we'll see if those reveal any problems. He's a cute kid. We have studied the spelling words and his sentence a lot this week, and I'm hoping he'll remember to capitalize the M and put a period in this week's sentence. "Mom got a rock." I'm hoping for three smiley faces for him on his test tomorrow!

Other than that, it was a good day. I caught up on the blog on September posts quite a bit. Daniel has been sad today that no friends are home and he can't play with anyone. Peter likes to watch the frog dvd (Talking letter factory). Here are two pics of Abi and Lily' from last night at a young women activity. Abi and her group -

I don't know what food they made, but the activity was to go to the store, buy the ingredients, and made a meal. Lily and her group. 

Today I had a nice lunch with a scripture study group. We used to go over to the church every week, but these days it's just over zoom. We got together today to visit with our friend Nila before she moves. 

We talked about moving and packing up things and Nila said it has made her a little sad as she finds all these projects that she wanted to do that she never got around too. It reminded me of when we packed up for Costa Rica and I was listening to one of my all time favorite talks - Sister Julie Beck "And Upon The Handmaids in those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit" and I quoted this part to my friends: "A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all of the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do." That part hit home in 2010 cause I was packing up all my scrapbooking stuff that I was so behind on. But blessings can come as we let some things go - I haven't really scrapbooked since, but I did start blogging more when we left for Costa Rica in 2010, and that has been a very good thing for preserving memories. I am able to keep up with it better here online than I was through scrapbook albums. So it's a good thing as life and time and constraints pressure us and squeeze us and make us drop things and decide what is worth holding on to. As I quoted that talk though, some of my friends commented to each other on my photographic memory. I know that I do not have a photographic memory, but blogging things here and sharing talks that mean something to me, and then revisiting them a few years later, does make some of those quotes stick. (My friends just haven't noticed yet that I keep quoting the same 2-3 talks over and over again, ha!) My top three classics pff the top of my head are that talk above by Sister Beck, then President Hunter's "An Anchor to the Souls of Men" (quote at the end here) and Elder Holland "Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence". Good stuff. I am sooo grateful for modern prophets and messages during General Conference! The light of Christ that they share have restored my trust and saved my spirit and hope many times.