2022 :: week 15

April 10

Dad is in the pews! Miles has been a little confused at what to make of Dad sitting with us at church, but he's getting used to it. The first week Anthony was so accommodating and eager to help with everything, I enjoyed sitting back and listening without distraction. This week Anthony was called to be on the high council. The Stake assigned him to the ward that meets in the same building as us to minimize Sunday distance. Anthony and I were also called to teach the Stake Youth Temple and Mission Prep class together. We will teach that in the afternoons on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. There is no set curriculum, so we are excited to come up with lessons to help the youth prepare for adulthood. We plan on drawing from The Power of Everyday Missionaries, Preach My Gospel, the church's emotional resilience course, Gospel Topics essays, etc. I will be released from my Sunday School calling.

 

April 11

I saw this sports rack/organizer thing on an amazon lightning deal and impulse bought it in the hopes of keeping our ever-growing sports supplies in check. One week in and we are doing pretty well. The kids have been great about putting their stuff away. Having the stuff easy to see and accessible instead of buried under a pile makes preparing for practices and games much smoother. It has been especially nice to have all of these things out of our front room. Now to clean out and organize the garage...

April 12

Miles was in a mood Tuesday afternoon. My attempt to snap him out of it was to go outside and draw with chalk. Miles has been really into drawing on the driveway lately. My artistic skills are limited so we drew a scene from the PBS Kids show, "Peep and the Big Wide World." Miles loved it so much we redrew it the next day after it rained overnight. Lauren drew a few Daniel Tiger characters on the driveway for Miles later in the week. 

April 13

We are still getting to know our new ward. Only two young men moved from the previous OP2 to the Oak Park ward. There are about six deacons now, and Will is making some new friends. At this point he is known for being good at basketball. After the planning activity the boys played several rounds of knockout and Will was in the top three every game. 

April 14

The highlight of the week was Lauren's performance as Camper #4 in the OPC 4th Grade Play, Camp Fanada. The fourth graders did a great job. The entire grade danced to three musical numbers, a few smaller groups performed skits and then eight kids had short monologues. The kids have worked hard on this all semester and it was fun to see it come together so well. The weather cooperated, and though it was a bit windy, it was a nearly perfect evening. 

April 15

There was no school on Friday, and Lauren and Daphne had their spring craft sale. It was extremely successful--they made $70! In other less financially exciting news, I took our van into the dealership for its 100K mile maintenance/tune up and new front tires. Unfortunately for my wallet, I left a few thousand dollars poorer. Our van has given us a wonderful 6.5 years, and hopefully many more in the future. 

April 16

On Saturday we introduced a new gadget into our household, behold Dobby Roberto. Sweeping is one of my least favorite chores, and with our darker floors and four active kids the floors constantly need to be swept. I was influenced by a few friends talking about their robot vacuums. It was pretty awesome to be sitting on the couch, working on my lesson while "Dobby" cleaned my floors.