Church and Temple Square

This morning I woke up, as I do every Sunday morning, and started to wake up little kids and get them dressed and ready for church. All by myself as usual, trying not to feel resentful again, but I was. Around 8:10, like every Sunday morning, I made my first attempt to wake up the teenagers. When they all continued to lay there like dead people, I just got fed up. I decided "Fine. You guys can sleep. So can your father. (I was feeling a bit feisty) You're all grown up and responsible, you're awake enough to know it's time to get up and go to church, not like you haven't hear all your little sisters and brothers squawking and screaming for the past 40 minutes, you know it's time to get up. I'm sick of it, it's not my job, we'll just leave without you." I closed their doors so they wouldn't hear any more of our bustling to get ready. When I closed the door on Wesley and Hyrum's room, Wes heard it click and thought "This is weird..." and he quickly got up. I told him yes, I was going to leave without you. And I am leaving without them. I'm not going to nag them to get up today. I'm tired of it. And since I'm ticked right now, I'm not waking you guys up for school anymore either! So there. I don't even want you guys to go to public school, I wanted everyone to home school. So why am I the main person supporting this and making it happen!?!? Boo, just let them all sleep in and be tardy and absent so many times that they get bad citizenship and bad grades. They can own it themselves. So, I got the 6 kids I feel I am responsible for, plus Wesley, up and fed and hair done and ready for church, and we left on time at 8:45. Church begins at 9. If you're early, you're on time, if you're on time, you're late.

Wes is in the white shirt in the right side of the photo, ready to pass the sacrament. When we left, Corey and the 4 teenagers were all still in bed with their eyes closed. I don't know how out of it any of them were. I guessed that Corey would probably notice the quiet house and would then get up and wake the kids up and they'd arrive at church around 9:20.

When the sacrament music started, and there were 3 empty priesthood seats which could/should have been filled by my 3 boys at home, I felt pretty regretful and thought I had made the wrong decision in leaving them. Wesley turned and looked over at me like he felt sad and guilty too. Then, exceeding my expectations, Corey, Joseph, Mel and Hyrum all walked in at 9:05. Hyrum's hair was a little disheveled, Mel's hair was in a bun, Corey and Joseph looked a little bit like they'd just woken up, but I was impressed that they could get to church so fast. (...which, unfortunately, is one reason why they don't/won't get up when I tell them to, they'd rather get a few more minutes of rest and then hustle out.) I knew Ethan takes longer, he needs at least a half hour to put in his contacts and feel properly presentable. But still pretty good for a bunch of slackers! Corey drove home to get Ethan around 9:30.

After we got home at noon we talked about what happened. Corey said "I didn't expect you to leave us, you've never done that before!" Yeah, I'm tired of it, I'm not doing it anymore. You are all big enough and should be responsible enough, I'm done. I quit! If staying up late on Saturday night is more important to y'all then getting to church on time, that's your choice. If wearing contacts instead of quickly putting on glasses is more important to Eth than getting to church on time, whatever. I am tired of nagging, you guys do what you want. "Oh no" Corey said. "I've pushed you too far, I've abused my privileges and now I broke you!" No, I'm just feeling feisty. Everything is fine, I was just fed up. And despite my current mood, I'm sure that I'll be getting up at 5:30 yet again tomorrow to wake up kids and make oatmeal even though in my heart I don't want to. This house would fall apart without me. Today I kinda resent it.

So that was this morning. Tonight we went to Temple Square to see the lights tonight. It was a perfect opportunity, because Joseph was singing with the Concert choir and Madrigals at the Assembly Hall there. Joseph got a ride down with friends who picked him up from Corey's parents' house, where we had all gone to celebrate the December birthdays. Joseph left at 4:30, the concert started at 5:30. We made the mistake of not leaving the inlaws house until 5. At home we had loaded up the car with the double stroller and blankets and I grabbed hats and a box of gloves. I was glad there wasn't snow but I knew we should prepared for cold. After parking the cars at the Conference Center, we tried or best to cross the street without losing anyone. We kept counting kids as we hustled to the assembly hall. It is a very rare occasion that we all go out in public together. Corey gave me a few wide eyed expressions of "this is nuts" and made me laugh when he kissed me on the cheek and said "...If I were ever to have a dozen children, I'd have them with you." Then watching the clock he said "Come on kids! If we hurry we might get there right when it ends." We made it into the Assembly hall, up the stairs to the balcony, and the 12 of us probably making a scene as we entered... we sat down, listened to a verse of Silent Night ~ and Daniel started to squirm and fuss. And then it ended.

An announcer went to the podium and thanked the Skyline Choir and Madrigals and proceeded to announce the next group that was performing at 6:30. So we basically missed the whole 40 minute thing (Concert choir was for 20 min, then Madrigals for 20.)

The audience was invited to go outside. Ok kids, good thing we didn't take off our coats! So we got back up and headed outside where Joseph was. He asked if we saw the performance. "Yes, the last song." No problem, that is totally what I expected. Joseph knows how it is trying to get all of us out for Christmas concerts. He showed off Daniel and Natalie to his friends, he's in the red coat holding Daniel ~

Then the kids started to scatter like cats so we knew it was time to keep moving. We walked toward the Salt Lake Temple -

Pausing to listen to sister missionaries singing -

Then taking a quick kid pic! (Daniel, hold still)

Corey was taking us over to the Joseph Smith Memorial building so we could see the Light the World vending machines. Unfortunately the building was locked, so we could only peek at them through the window. I think it is such a great idea, I hope they put them in every state and all year long, not just at Christmas. I love the Church.

We walked past the the Joseph Smith Memorable Building and turned to go back to the temple. We approached the place where Corey proposed to me. Corey is funny. His sense of humor gets him out of a lot of trouble, (like after this morning.) He does make me laugh a lot. Like he did before we took this family picture. He asked the kids "Would you like to see where I asked your mom to marry me?" Ethan, in a I'm-trying-to-sound-like-a-bratty-teenager voice said "We already know the whole story Daaad!" Then Corey continued as if he hadn't heard Ethan... "This is where I took your mother's hand and said 'Someday I'd like to have eleven children, and you're the only woman who would survive it..." He makes me laugh. I think I'll keep him.

If you zoom in on that, some of us are missing our noses. Eth freaked out cause he looks like Voldemort. Then through the main street plaza and back around to the north gate, We went inside the North Visitor's Center to warm up. Watch a film, kids used the bathroom, some went outside to see the nativity narration thing, and then we headed home. We were proud that we went on an outing and didn't lose anybody, good job team.

The end.