Molly's Baptism

Molly's baptism weekend was really a great experience for her. To start off the weekend, Grandma Carol and Grandpa Don arrived on Friday afternoon (May 1st). They came bearing gifts (that's what they do). ;) Ben got the usual Lego set plus a traditional 4th of July shirt and a handy little pen with his name embossed/printed on it. Ben enjoyed his gifts but it was Molly's weekend to shine so hers were extra special gifts!! Grandpa Don made Molly an amazing doll chest with a real lock and key (I think the lock was her favorite part). :) The chest was made out of cherry wood to match the hope chest that he made for her mom! I can't even count how many times she opened, closed, locked, then unlocked her chest that weekend! She loved it! Then she got a queen size quilt made by Grandma Carol. It's beautiful and a real keepsake too!! She made this one for Molly because Ben gets the one she made for Rachel shortly before she passed away. Molly also got a traditional 4th of July T-shirt (Grandma Carol gives them one every year) and a fun little pen like Ben's, only her name was embossed/printed on it.After visiting for a while and enjoying the gifts (and waiting for Rob to get off work) we went out to eat. We tried letting Molly pick the restaurant, but we wanted something nicer than Chick-fil-A. ;) We chose Johnny Corinos. The kids had a blast and Ben ate everything in sight (as usual). Molly ate her pizza, a few bites of other people's food, and definitely her dessert! ;) (Dessert's the best part).

Saturday morning at 10:00 was the baptism (May 2nd). I forgot my camera (which is ironic because I'm known in my family to be the one to ALWAYS have my camera.) :( So Grandma Carol and Grandpa Don came to the rescue by having TWO and took lots of pics for us! :)

Molly asked my dad to baptize her a few months before her baptism. I thought it was just a whim and that she'd change her mind when it was crunch time because she's such a daddy's girl. However, right until the end she remained firm in her decision and knew exactly how she wanted it to be. She wanted Grandpa Doug to baptize and Daddy to confirm. (I was asked by the stake to give a talk on baptism and was a nervous wreck until that part was over....me and public speaking are not friends.)

The service wasn't really personal, since it was the whole stake combined, (I think it was 6 kids...we had the biggest group and it wasn't even Molly's whole family!!) which was kind of a disappointment for Rob. But then we were able to have just our group for the actual baptism and confirmation. Molly wanted people to write their testimony for her while she dressed after her baptism. (The building was SUPER cold that day and Molly shivered the entire time, except in the font, she said that was nice and warm.) :) The confirmation was really neat and Molly felt that her Mom (Rachel) was proud of her and happy for her decision.

After the baptism we had a shindig at our house. It was pretty packed!! (We'd never tried such a gathering in our little house....it was declared adequate for the group, only just!)

(FYI: In the following picture, Grandpa Don and Molly are sitting on the hope chest Don made for her mom, and next to the doll chest he made for Molly, as well as the quilt that Carol made Molly. Also, Molly's pre/post baptism dress was provided by Grandma Paula. It's one of the silk dresses she had for "Somewhere In Time." After the party Grandma Carol and Grandpa Don went to their hotel for a nap. Daddy went with some of our BIL's and my sisters to watch the latest X-men movie and got out just in time to meet us at Mimi's Cafe where we had dinner with Grandpa Don, Grandma Carol, Grandpa Jan, Grandma Paula, Ben, Molly and I. Lots of fun. After that we visited with Grandma Carol and Grandpa Don a bit more and then had to say good-bye again because they had to head back early Sunday morning.

Sizzling Super Saturday

Saturday was about the hottest day we had all year and we celebrated by working out in the heat!! :P We had our fun first though.

In the morning GM and I went down the street to an open house of a new model home village they opened over the weekend in our neighborhood. They made a big deal out of it by having free food being cooked in many of the homes (by local restaurants), prize drawings, cupcake decorating, a few live bands, and free movie tickets to see WALL-E for the whole family. We had fun looking through the homes for a while (while our kids stayed home and played wii) then we picked up our kids, grabbed some lunch and went down to the theater to see the movie. We all loved it. BR can't stop laughing about WALL-E picking up the bra and covering his eyes with it and then making some exclamation. :)

After the movie we came home, and in honor of the hottest part of the day, we decided to weed our yard and work in our garage and the loft above it. (I think it was hotter in the loft than it was outside!! It felt like a sauna up there. :P) Despite the heat we were able to get all the weeds pulled, the loft organized and some things taken care of in the garage and loft. After that, GM took a little break and then went to the loft to clean his guns (he got most of them done but it's so stinkin' hot up there he almost passed out...in spite of the window air conditioner we put up there) while I did some organizing in the house. We really got a lot accomplished and I felt super (I love that sort of thing, minus the heat).

For dinner I decided to make breakfast and BR offered me his services. He's really turning into quite a good little cook! He made waffles and I made an omelet. (The other night he made spaghetti and spaghetti sauce from scratch with minimal help from me!! Sunday night he and I made fajitas together, but he helped tremendously, he ran the salad shooter himself until we both broke down in tears from the onions.)

The Procrastination Gene

I think procrastination must be genetic. That's the only way I can explain why my kids (not genetically related to me) would be so devoid of it, and I on the other hand...well, you will see:

Last Wednesday, BR came home from school and said enthusiastically, "I've got a TON of homework" and proceeds to plop down at the kitchen table and jump right in. I marveled at his enthusiasm but thought it was some math he wasn't able to do in school and didn't give it another thought. (This kid so seldom has homework. When questioned about it he says he's finished it during school. Last month, he had a book report that I heard about the day before it was due. I was freaking out and he calmly tells me about how he's completed the written part of it and the wind sock display during his free time at school!! I sputter..."Well, what book did you choose??" and he tells me that he chose the novel Grandma Carol sent for Christmas. I continue, "Well, well... you have to have it approved by your teacher." Once again, he's ready with the answers. His teacher thought it was just great. He got it all read and everything is under control, Mom. (I never heard the likes of a kid like that! Well, I certainly never displayed such self sufficiency till I was in high school, if not college.) :P ).

Anyway, let’s see if I can get back to my original story. After about a half an hour or so BR approaches me and asks if he can have a whole roll of tape. Now I'm mystified. Come to find out that he’s got a report to do on “Jim Bridger” and he’s got to make a poster board about him for it. I tell him that first he needs to do the written part. He assures me that he’s finished that part already and that now he’d like to tape a bunch of pieces of paper together so that he can create his own “poster board” since he knows we don’t have any. Well I, the eager procrastinator, (as well as having too much pride to let my son take a hodge podge poster to school) tell him that since the report is not due until next Wednesday, we’ll go another day and get one and he can make it then, we’ve got plenty of time. I told him he could design it on a small piece in the mean time if he’d like. Well, almost as soon as the words have left my mouth, the thought has left my mind. It didn’t return until this afternoon when I got an email from his room mom reminding us about the “Mountain Man Rendezvous” tomorrow. Suddenly my folly comes rushing into my mind and I know that his report is due tomorrow and he’d have finished it if his mom hadn’t been such a horrid procrastinator. I rush to the store and buy some poster boards and then during dinner prep I ask BR to read me his assignment so that I can “help” him. As he starts reading we both realize that we’ve gotten the date wrong and we’re a week early. It’s not due till NEXT Wednesday!! Well, can you guess what I say to that?? I promptly proceed to tell him that we’ve got plenty of time then, and that we don’t need to worry about it tonight!!

P.S. MC does the exact same thing! No begging, scolding, cajoling or pressuring...she can hardly stand to change her clothes first or put away her coat before she pulls out her math and starts figuring away!! Go figure.

Christmas is officially over at our house

On Saturday we finally got together as a family and tag teamed taking down everything Christmas. The kids did their own little projects while ML and I took turns working on the major stuff and picking out pictures to put in our adoption profile. It feels great to have that checked off the list, but on the other hand taking down all the fun lights/trees/decorations etc. always seems to leave our home feeling a little less warm and cozy to me. I made this comment to ML and so he starts singing, "I CRY THE DAY THAT I TAKE THE TREE DOWN...". lol (That song has never been one of my favorites.) :P

Late Night Addictions

I've determined that being a night person is quite a serious addiction for me. I believe it is as intense as any drug addiction and has many of the same side effects. First of all, I know it's not healthy for me. More often than not it means I miss out on valuable sleep when I stay up late because there are things that require me to be up early (namely appointments, or taking my kids to school) and when its daytime I think myself an utter fool and feel less than great because of my lack of sleep. And yet when it becomes night again there is something very seductive for me that lures me into staying up longer, and longer, and longer still. Further, I know that I'll regret it later, but this knowledge still fails to deter the behavior. There has even evolved a physical reaction, similar to a high, that occurs in my body to being awake at late hours. This physical "high" has led to many late night cleaning frenzies, admittedly this is when I feel most like cleaning my house, or embarking on any other project. My body has adapted to staying up because this has been my habit for as long as I can remember. I have memories of my dad sneaking into my bedroom to tell me to go to sleep in the middle of the night when I was not past 5 years old when all my siblings were sleeping in the room around me. One of my younger sisters reminds me of "exclusive celebrations" she and I would have in the middle of the night, just to celebrate a new month.

For the past year I have been seeking to metamorphose myself into a morning person (well this has been a wish for several years but lately an increasingly larger goal), and have made some progress, but again feel like a struggling addict. With the slightest slip, or taste of late hours, I feel overwhelming temptations to slip back into my old late-night-self, I too frequently succumb to such temptations and begin anew the struggle within myself to transform into a creature of the morning. I'm tempted by anything really...a project, hanging out with people, folding laundry, cleaning, cooking, catching up on emails, my blog... And so here I am at 1:00 am writing about battling my addiction rather than sleeping. ;) On that note, I will bid you good night...or rather good morning to all you morning people.