Two Funerals, a Party and Some Cookies!

In this past week, as I attended two funerals in our ward and was reminded of my cousin Paul’s funeral only a short year ago, I began to wonder...am I really making the most of every day? Am I taking every opportunity to tell my loved ones how much I love them? Am I doing those things that are most important? Or am I letting those opportunities pass me by because I’m too busy doing less important things? Sadly, if you were to ask my family, they’d probably say that I’m spending too much time doing the “less important things”, although in my mind they’re all still important. After all, how can you say that taking time to keep a journal or cleaning out and organizing boxes of ‘stuff” isn’t important? It may be, but is it the best use of my time right now? So how do you determine what’s important and what’s not? I wish I knew, but obviously I’m still having a problem with it, so I guess I know what I’ll be working on this week!

As I sat here contemplating what we’d done this week that was fun and exciting to share with everyone, I realized that our life has become rather mundane. The kids even had two days off from school this week and I still couldn’t think of much to write. Does that mean we’re boring? I think it means just what I inferred above. I get too busy doing the less important things and don’t take time to find enjoyment in my every day activities with my kids and that definitely needs to change. So I went to my pictures to see if they could help and guess what? They did. There weren’t many, but it’s amazing what just a few pictures can tell.

Since this was a “short” school week for the kids (they had Monday and Tuesday off), Connor didn’t have as much homework as usual, so I was actually kind of relieved because homework time is rarely our favorite time! One of the things that Connor did need to do for homework this week though, was to go on an Alphabet Adventure with the letter C. Now for those of you who haven’t had kindergartners recently, you may not know that that means they have to do something fun and exciting that starts with the letter C, like “clap” out a song, or “count” the number of “cookies” in a “cookie jar”, or making “cupcakes”, or gather “c” items and put them in a “container”…and then write and draw a picture about their adventure. Well since I was going to a party that night and needed cookies anyway, Connor and I decided to make chocolate chip cookies for his C adventure. Little did I know, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of my week!

Connor's Chocolate Chip Cookie Caper = "C" Alphabet Adventure

When we first started to make the cookies, I thought “I just want to hurry and get this done so I can finish doing the other things that I need to before Hayden gets home from school” and my intention was to make the cookies as quickly as possible. Then as we started to make the cookies, I realized that it was something that I had never done with Connor before and my whole attitude changed. I had done it many times with all of the older boys, but never with Connor and I was going to make this a memorable occasion.

Connor couldn't believe that I was actually going to let him mix the cookies by himself

I told Connor to pull his chair up to the counter so he could be high enough to dump all of the stuff into the bowl for me. At first he thought the chair was so he could sit and watch me, but I assured him that I needed his help. We started by adding the butter, shortening and sugars and as I let Connor dump each one of the items into the bowl, I think he couldn’t believe that I was letting him do all of that. He even said he was having fun and when he said “you’re the nicest mom!”, I realized that taking the time to let him help me was way more important than getting anything else done. He even helped me roll all of the cookies into balls of dough, even though we didn’t need to. His favorite part, besides eating the finished cookies was getting to eat the cookie dough. It was a fun experience and it taught me that I need to spend more time doing things like that with my boys!

The final step - making the dough into balls

The party that I was going to that night that I needed the cookies for was a party with all of my “old” 5th ward YW leader friends from when we served together and were all actually in the same ward over 12 years ago. Now we’re in 2 different wards, but there was a time that we were in 3 different wards...and none of us have ever moved, but we’re all still good friends! It was a fun night…and everyone loved the cookies!

My 5th Ward YW friends - Karen Lindsay, Linda Fuit, Michelle Knight, (myself), Sharon Chatelain

On Sunday I attended another ward for ward conferences, and we were blessed to hear from one of our area authorities, Elder Carl Cook. Apparently his wife was a sister to the guy in our ward whose funeral I had attended a few days previously. I’m not sure how he ended up going to the ward that I was attending, but it was a blessing to hear from him in sacrament meeting. Later in YM/YW’s it was only my second time to give the talk that I had prepared for ward conferences and guess who joined us? Brother Cook! Before I realized that, I had been only a little nervous, but when I saw him, my heart fell down into my toes. The only way I made it through my talk without “dying” was to not look at him...and it actually went better than I thought it would! What a relief! Now with two talks down, I only five left to give over the next 2 months...but who’s counting?

Did I say that things around here haven’t change much in the past week? Well just to show how true that is, Hayden and Connor are still sleeping on the floor in their sleeping bags and isn’t that what they were doing last week? It’s their choice, but how comfortable can the floor be? Some good has come from it though...they’re no longer scared of the big scary sliding glass door in the family room! When they first started sleeping out there, they made me cover it with a blanket, but not any more! I’m still hoping that they’ll get tired of sleeping out there soon...but I’m not counting on it!

Hayden and Connor's sleeping arrangements - of their own choice!