Recaps

Jared has been bugging me all week to do our previous week’s update. I did manage to write down a few things that happened, so that week isn’t lost to us forever.

We recently finished reading the Book of Mormon for the first time as a family. It took a couple years, but that represents a couple years of almost nightly gathering the family together to learn from the scriptures. How I wish I could say that the pushing, shoving and flowing of tears that so often occurs prior to scripture study has been because of our angelic children’s efforts to be the first one quietly seated and in position. Ears perked up. Legs still. Arms folded. Eyes, heart and mind focused on the Word.

In reality, scripture study often occurs once an impatient and shouting mom has somehow managed to corral everyone together for a few minutes, while threats and cutting sideways glances kind of, sort of keep the kids in line while dad reads. On nights like this (ahhemmm, most nights) the pace of dad’s reading isn’t exactly conducive to insightful discussion or explanation. Is this the kind of environment the Prophet had in mind when he counseled us to study the scriptures together as families? True, the quality of our scripture study could be improved, but we tell ourselves that we’re at least trying and sometimes we are blessed to see the fruits of our efforts.

For example, Jared was reviewing the first part of the Book of Mormon with the girls and he mentioned that they had to go into the wilderness. Brita cut him off and enthusiastically said, “Oh yeah! And they had to eat mayonnaise from heaven.” Our scripture study has obviously been going well. And we’ve suspected nothing was sinking in.

For our Family Home Evening activity Leah wanted to have Brita join her in performing a play of The Three Little Pigs for Jared and me. They set up a little stage and seating area in the twelve inches of free space they have in their bedroom, and the show was on. Brita hid in the closet and gave Leah all her cues. Leah was all of the little pigs and Brita was the big bad wolf. I don’t remember what they used them for, but in one of the scenes they managed to use all of the toilet paper rolls Leah has been collecting and stashing under her bed for at least a year. I was glad to finally see them put to use.

Jared says that since I procrastinated last week’s post for so long, I can just write about Thanksgiving now too. Our plans changed at the last minute (after some scrambling and drama), so we ended up getting together with some friends who also had some last-minute changes. We had such a good day. The Cochran boys are nearly the same ages as our girls and they always play together so well. After we’d been there for five hours, Brita was bummed that we had to leave already.

One memorable moment occurred when Leah threw up all over her plate. It appears that she gagged after tasting the sweet potatoes and then proceeded to, uh, expel it. The kids, including Leah, were all in shock. I was a little frazzled myself. Later that night when I brought it up with Jared, he was completely unaware of the incident. I think he had been thrown off at the beginning of dinner when we requested that the kids be allowed to get their food first. It must have been the first time he wasn’t the first to dish up at an event where food was being served. By the time he finally sat down, he was much too intent on eating that he didn’t notice all the commotion. Can blinders like that be purchased somewhere? If so, I’d pay at least twelve bucks for some.

We've loved celebrating holidays and special events with friends and we have been blessed to have some really good, close friends here. At the same time, I'm getting a little trunky for home and can't wait to surround our kids with family, especially cousins in the coming years. We're so thankful for friends who feel like family, and we're thankful for the real thing too!