Sunday Study Session

Today we went to church! And now we'll be going every week instead of ever other week, so yay! It was a great and special experience having sacrament at home for these past few months. but it will be nice to have it weekly again now. It was still just for 45 minutes. We went to the chapel for sacrament meeting, and when it was done, the Youth stayed for an in person gathering, and the parents and little kids went home. There was no primary for the little kids, but for Corey and I, we had our first Elders' Quorum and Relief Society zoom calls. It was a little hard with both of us on a call at the same time, so I kept myself muted and my video off as we tried to attend to kids who wanted lunch, but it was good to listen in. Then we had a nice sabbath day together. I love love love the Talking Scriptures podcast, if I haven't mentioned that yet. I started their podcast for today - so good! We're coming up on some of my favorite "I know I this is important and I want to understand this" chapters. I've dived into 3 Nephi 20-26 two years ago with a really cool book about "The Remnant" (that I still need to finish reading/digesting) but this got me excited and into the book again - I loved the thoughts that Bryce and Mike shared - "This is the Savior's favorite story! and he shares it every chance he gets!" Also last week's podcast about made my brain explode. It's 2 hours long and I've almost listened to it three times in my attempt to wrap my head around what they are talking about. I usually need to read and pause and re-write deep concept for myself to grasp it in my brain. It's like drinking from a firehose. I do want to sit and write, but kids make that challenging. I can listen to things while I clean but kids make the sitting down to articulate my thoughts part challenging. I have not been writing up much on my spiritual blog for a while for that reason, but I am keeping a notebook here with notes and random scribbled ideas and a-ha moments. Today I sat at the table to do a little bit of writing and a group of kids were around the table working too. 

There wasn't a sit down dinner tonight, cause the table was full of books, paper, and computers. So we feasted on study. Abi did a bit of family history. Sophi did some reading for school by going through all the picture stories of the Old Testament for over an hour. Mel was at the table studying Preach My Gospel and started to talk with Sophi and answer her questions and explain things.

When Sophi read about Joseph of Egypt, when he revealed himself to his brothers and told them not to be mad at themselves for selling him, Sophi was genuinely touched "Aww!! He is such a nice guy!" It was super cute. 

Mel also helped Sophi write down the Ten Commandments and explained to her what each of them meant. Melodie said Sophi is so sweet, and that she hopes that people that she teaches on her mission have such a love for God and a willingness to learn as this little 9 year old. Peter joined us at the table, and kept getting in Wesley's face, wanting him to hold him, so I brought up the bin of duplos to distract Peter with so that he would leave Wesley alone. It worked. 

Peters love for cars has grown this week. He likes to say "Car! Vrrrm vrrrm!" everytime he sees a car outside or a photo of a car or a toy car!

It's also very fun to stack the duplo bricks. They like to throw stacks of duplos on the kitchen tile because they blow up and explode like toy bombs. And that is one of the reasons why there are now duplos all over the kitchen, front room, and side room. Owen showing off his impressive tower on a toy Mack truck. 

The basement is such a wreck right now. The toys are mostly all down there though, but it's such a mess that we don't go play with the toys, so I need to fix that. But Peter loved that I brought up a bin and was playing with the cars all day. Owen was busy studying on Friday, working on his packet for his first day of online Friday school. 

Owen is so cute. He is "Owen 22" and he knows it and it proud of it. Sometime while I was busy at the table, a kid stole my phone and took a pic of my screen and turned it into my home screen, so when I swiped right to see my other apps, all the apps from the first page were still there behind it. It was annoying. They also moved several of the original apps, which I didn't notice until tonight when I was changing/fixing it. Atleast now I understood why it wasn't working when I "clicked" them - it's cause they weren't there! Some very talented toddler or tricky teenager moved the apps over to the last screen. I set about to put things back as they were (darn kids!) but I couldn't find my home screen photo to reset it. I realize these are not very important photos, but some day, if I see this photo, it might bring back feelings or deja vu memories of this time of my life. 

So I had to get a new photo for my homescreen. This one works really well, so it's ok, I like my new homescreen.

Speaking of the kids messing things up... On our date night, after Corey had finished making Mel and I laugh about his over eating, somehow the conversation moved to talking about how funny it is, when there will be a kid or two missing or gone playing somewhere, it seems like every other kids will walk into the kitchen and say with confusion "Where is everyone?" The kids really do say it all the time, even if the reality is just that Owen and Daniel are down for naps "Where is everyone?!?!" Corey translated it: "Where is the cloud of noise and chaos that usually overshadows our home? I perceive that I might be able to set something down with out it being lost or destroyed, or that I might be able to make a phone call without spontaneous bursts of noise interrupting me..." Last Friday morning, it was an online school day for everyone, so the kids were all home but they were still in bed, except for Owen. Thus the house was relatively quiet when Corey had a conference call for work. Owen was sitting at the counter and seemed to be eating quietly, so Corey took got on the call and let his guard down for a moment. He unmuted himself to make a comment, and as he began to talk, Owen let out a loud scream for no apparent reason. Thus his description of "spontaneous bursts of noise", funny.