The boys have been on Spring Break this week. Because of Cooper's baptism on Sunday, we opted to stay in town. But that doesn't mean we haven't had fun. The kids spent lots of time outside on Monday and Tuesday. They even built this wigwam out of sticks they dug up from the garden/weed patch.
Then on Wednesday, it started raining. We played some board games and watched movies. They still got about thirty minutes outside between cloud bursts.
And it rained today as well. What to do when it's too wet to go out? Why, you build a fort, of course!
There was lots of laughter, some frustration over the power of gravity on heavy blankets, and a few tears because of a sweet two-year-old who didn't understand that the blankets were for climbing under, not wrapping up in.
It's been a break full of backyard, movies, and pajamas. In other words, it's been just what Spring Break should be.
For my book club this month we're reading Pride and Prejudice. I've known Lizzie and Darcy for many years, but it's always a delight to visit with them again.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go catch up with the inhabitants of Longbourn, Netherfield Park, and Pemberly.
Last night, after a particularly long day, I opened my computer to write my post. I had pictures and text and was ready to publish when I realized Blogger wasn't saving my work. And then it wouldn't publish. And then it wouldn't load any other posts.
With eyes heavy, I looked at the clock. It was 11:30. I could either reboot my computer, rewrite my post, and hope that Blogger worked this time, or I could close my computer and go to sleep.
Guess which one I chose?
Now that Blogger appears to be functional again, I'm going to publish yesterday's post as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Cooper turned eight this month! In our church eight is an extra special age because that's when kids have the opportunity to be baptized. Cooper chose to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was baptized by his dad on Easter Sunday.
We were so happy to have members of our family drive and fly hundreds of miles to be there to support Cooper. He asked each one of them to participate in the meeting. This is what the program looked like:
Pianist: Nana Shari
Chorister: Aunt Kate
Opening Song: When I Am Baptized
Opening Prayer: Nana Cris
Baptism Talk: Papa Ron
Holy Ghost Talk: Grandpa Marc
Closing Prayer: Great-Grandma Bonnie
Refreshments: Uncle Jordan
We are so happy that Cooper made this wonderful choice. Having his baptism on Easter, with so much family there, made it an extra special day.
Not to be left out of the fun athletic pursuits, Cooper chose to do track every Saturday morning for a month. He learned how to run and do hurdles. On the last Saturday our family got to go watch him show off his fleet feet. I took several pictures, but, due to Cooper's speed, they're all blurry.
Our Relief Society lesson yesterday was about the Atonement. The sweet woman that taught the lesson struggled from the very beginning. She felt so strongly and so deeply about the topic that she had a hard time organizing her thoughts. As she faltered to find her train of thought, one by one, the women in the class shared quotes and scriptures and personal stories. After each quote was read, the teacher held up a paper and said, "I was reading along with you. I have that quote here."
She had not handed out any of these quotes. We were finding them on our own, some from the lesson material, some from notes we had in our scriptures, all by listening to the promptings of the Spirit. The change in the room was amazing. Instead of being uncomfortable and concerned for the teacher, we felt the Holy Ghost witnessing to the truthfulness of what was being shared.
One quote that won't leave my head was from Chieko Okazaki. She was the first counselor in the General Relief Society presidency in the mid-nineties. Someone shared a quote from the preface to her book Lighten Up. I've been trying to edit it to share here, and I've only been able to pair it down a touch.
“Well, my
dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know
that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It’s our
faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don’t
think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities
about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human
family. But we don’t experience pain in generalities. We experience it
individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of
cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it
felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the
brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship
sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau.
He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.
"Let me go
further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also
know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your
baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain
of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and
menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last
recorded words to his disciples were, “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto
the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when
your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your
fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down
syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter...abuses
your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when
someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when
you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when
you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple
last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband
has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He’s been there. He’s been
lower than all that. He’s not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people
don’t need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is
the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by
us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness,
in our guilt and our grief."
"Cooper, you just have to be good all the time. You have to be good because it's good, not because you'll get a reward."
This is what Peter told Cooper after dinner one night this week when Cooper was having a particularly rough time. Peter said it in a kind, caring, older brother sort of way.
I was looking through some old pictures and found this treasure. Cooper had a funny habit of getting himself wedged under beds. It's hard to tell, but that's what he's doing here.
Phoebe has been actively wiggling her bottom right tooth for weeks. Each day she would show me how much looser her tooth had gotten. On Friday it finally came out.
That night she put the small escapee under her pillow with a note to the Tooth Fairy. Would you believe the Tooth Fairy actually came that very night? That doesn't always happen at our house. Phoebe found a small Rapunzel doll where her tooth had been the night before. It was so much better than money.
Last night I had the opportunity to give service at an organization called Feed My Starving Children. A few women from church and I, along with at least fifty teenagers and young adults, measured, scooped, sealed, and packed dry baby food that will be sent to malnourished children all over the world. The boxes our table packed will be sent to Burkina Faso, a country in west Africa.
I was a little late and missed the video that introduced the procedures. One of the friends I went with mentioned that they said they would pray over the food at the end of the night. The Spirit whispered to me that when the time came, I would say that prayer.
After an hour of combining powdered soy, sweet potato, and white potato, we were told to clean up and gather in the warehouse. Again the Holy Ghost told me that I needed to give voice to that prayer. We looked at the eighty-nine boxes we had just packed between us, a total of 38,448 servings of baby food. The woman in charge of the warehouse said that we would pray that the food would arrive in safety, much of it going to dangerous and war-torn parts of the world. She also asked that we pray for the children it would go to, both for their physical well-being and their spiritual health. She said to remember those that gave of their time to prepare the food and those larger organizations that helped this charity function. Then she asked for a volunteer to pray.
My hand shot high in the air.
When we walked in that night, I had noticed that many of the volunteers were wearing black shirts naming the club or group they were representing. There were also many high school athletes dressed in orange to show school spirit. I was the only person in the room wearing a hot pink sweater. Maybe that's why the woman in charge saw me as soon as my hand went up.
In my extra-loud theatre voice, loud enough to be heard by all those people in that spacious warehouse, I said the prayer. I had taken extra care to note each group I needed to remember and I felt the Spirit as I prayed. Afterward, a woman that I didn't know walked up to me and said, "That was lovely. That's hard, giving a public prayer. You have the gift." I was gracious and thanked her.
She walked away before I could tell her that in our church everybody has the chance to pray publicly starting at a very young age. We learn the language of prayer, the reverence of prayer, and the vital importance of daily communication with our loving Heavenly Father. She was sweet to compliment me, but my prayer was simply a result of thirty-five years of daily talking, both publicly and privately, with my Father in Heaven.
Peter finished a beginning archery course this week. Now, you're probably either thinking, "Wow Margot, that's awesome that you let him do that" or, "Wow Margot, you've completely lost your mind letting Peter learn how to use a weapon." Both are true. However, the supplies were all provided and stayed at the class location, so we don't have any bows or arrows at our house. And Peter had really been wanting to learn archery for some time, so I finally relented.
Bryan took him each time while I got the other kids to bed. Last week Bryan took this slow motion movie of Peter shooting an arrow. Peter is the tall kid in the blue shirt.
A woman that I visit teach told me that the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago was free for children during February. The kids had a few days off, and Bryan took one of those as a vacation day, so we went to the city. It was so cool. We've been to several science museums, and this might be the best.
We saw lots of miniature boat replicas and this not so miniature steering wheel.
This screen had images of beads (or water droplets?) projected onto it. But if you stood in front of it, you could stop the images with your shadow. Everything would pile up until you moved, then it would flow again. The kids (and grownups) were fascinated.
The kids got to "drive" a combine. They sat in the driver's seat while a movie of a cornfield being harvested played on a giant screen in front of them.
Look, buttons to push!
Oh! All four kids are in this picture, can you find them?
This is a human-sized hamster wheel. Peter took a turn, but it was before I walked over with my camera. Here's Cooper.
Sophie stepped on and then quickly stepped off.
Instead, Bryan used Sophie's turn.
Then came Phoebe.
And finally me. Phoebe asked if she could take my picture. I said sure and figured I'd be able to get at least one good shot. This is the best one I got. It's also the only picture that was taken of me that day. As for the hamster wheel, it was kind of like a treadmill, if the treadmill let you walk up the wall in front of you and was powered by your legs and not electricity.
This is a two-person neural feedback machine. The goal was to move that little ball from the middle all the way over to your opponent. Each person put on a headband and cleared their mind. If you had lots of brain activity the ball would come toward you, but if you had little brain activity, the ball would move away.
Guess who's a pro at completely clearing her mind? I like to think that's why I stay calm with the kids. I also like to think I stay calm with the kids.
I want to hang this quote in my house somewhere.
The more we moved, the more these faces laughed. The kids got a couple of the faces laughing hysterically.
After this we saw some large airplanes hanging from the ceiling and this model train. It's even bigger than these pictures show, and these were taken from the second story looking down.
A few displays that we loved but didn't photograph include a mirror maze, a children's hands-on area, and a circus exhibit.
Phoebe and Bryan's favorite thing at the museum was the Fairy Castle. It was amazing. We didn't take pictures, but Bryan did take a movie while he walked around it.
We didn't get to all the exhibits in our three hours there, but we're already looking forward to our next visit.
I had the opportunity to teach Relief Society yesterday. As a member of the presidency, I get to teach roughly once every three months, and I choose the topic. Our focus for the year is on service, so I figured that would make for good lesson material. I worked under that assumption until yesterday. The quotes and talks I found were good, but I felt that something was missing. So I prayed and waited for inspiration.
That's why I spent the Sunday School hour of church standing in the church library, sketching out my lesson plan. I had several quotes to choose from and a rough idea, but that was it. Even after I had it planned, I made changes in the minutes before I stood to teach and then again as I was teaching. I believe that good teachers prepare much more than they need to, plan, then improvise changes as needed. Rather than teaching about service, I taught about sisterhood through service.
My main quote that I kept referring to was from Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith. She said, “We must cherish one another, watch
over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit
down in heaven together.”
Want to read the other quotes I used?
The
Savior taught that the first and great commandment is: “Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… And
the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these
two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” The Savior’s words are
simple, yet their meaning is profound and deeply significant. We are to love
God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we
can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ,
anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around
us—our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. -Elder M.
Russell Ballard, OCTOBER 2012 Be Anxiously Engaged
That
simple practice is: In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to
guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children.
Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for
someone to help... If you do this, your spiritual sensitivities will be
enlarged and you will discover opportunities to serve that you never before
realized were possible.-Elder M. Russell Ballard, OCTOBER 2012 Be Anxiously Engaged
For
some, serving or ministering one by one, following the Savior’s example,
doesn’t come easily. But with practice, each of us can become more like the
Savior as we serve God’s children. To help us better love one another, I would
like to suggest four words to remember: “First observe, then serve.”-Sister
Linda K. Burton, OCTOBER 2012 First Observe, Then Serve
One
night our little son Richard, who had a heart problem, awoke crying. … Normally
my wife always got up to take care of a crying baby, but this time I said,
‘I’ll take care of him. Because of his problem, when he began to cry, his
little heart would pound very rapidly. He would throw up and soil the bed
clothing. That night I held him very close to try to calm his racing heart and
stop his crying as I changed his clothes and put on new bedsheets. I held him
until he went to sleep. I didn’t know then that just a few months later he
would pass away. I will always remember holding him in my arms in the middle of
that night. - Elder Richard G. Scott, APRIL 2011 The Eternal Blessings of Marriage
In
the strength of the Lord, we “can do all things.” We continually seek His
guidance in prayer, in the scriptures, and in the whisperings of the Holy
Ghost. One sister, faced with an overwhelming assignment, wrote, “Sometimes I
wonder if the sisters in the early history of the Church didn’t, like us, put
their heads on their pillows at night and pray, ‘Whatever tomorrow brings, will
Thou help me through it?’” Then she wrote, “One of the blessings is [that] we
have each other and we are in this together!” Whatever our circumstances,
wherever we are along the path toward salvation, we unite as one in our
commitment to the Savior. We sustain one another in His service. -– Sister Carol
F. McConkie, OCTOBER 2015 Here to Serve a Righteous Cause
None
of us is perfect. We have all made mistakes. But we repent so that we may be
better and “retain the name [of Christ] written always in [our] hearts.” When
we serve in the name of the Lord, with purity of heart, we reflect the Savior’s
love and give others a glimpse of heaven. -– Sister Carol F. McConkie, OCTOBER 2015 Here to Serve a Righteous Cause
I
love the women of the Church, young and old. I have seen your strength. I have
seen your faith. You have something to give and are willing to give it. You do
this without fanfare or publicity, drawing attention to the God we worship, not
yourselves, and with no thought of what you will receive. That’s what disciples
do! - Sister Linda K. Burton, APRIL 2014 Wanted: Hands and Hearts to Hasten the Work
Though
in many ways we are different and unique, we also acknowledge that we are all
daughters of the same Heavenly Father, which makes us sisters. We are unified
in building the kingdom of God and in the covenants which we have made, no
matter what our circumstances. This combined assembly is, without a doubt, the
most glorious sisterhood upon the face of the earth! To be sisters implies that
there is an unbreakable bond between us. Sisters take care of each other, watch
out for each other, comfort each other, and are there for each other through
thick and thin. The Lord has said, “I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not
one ye are not mine.” -Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, APRIL 2014 Sisterhood: Oh, How We Need Each Other
(W)e
have each other—sisters in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been blessed
with tender and charitable natures which enable us to render Christlike love
and service to those around us. As we look beyond our differences in age,
culture, and circumstance to nurture and serve one another, we will be filled
with the pure love of Christ and the inspiration which leads us to know when
and whom to serve. -Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, APRIL 2014 Sisterhood: Oh, How We Need Each Other
Oh,
how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young. And,
hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological
fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships
with each other. - Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley, Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, ed. Virginia H. Pearce (1999), 254–55.
Phoebe swapped her usual ballet (because her mom signed up for classes too late) for gymnastics. She's enjoying it immensely and has been a quick study during her two sessions. She does struggle with waiting her turn on the apparatus, but I don't mind giving her the chance to practice that skill while under someone else's care.
Also, she can't remember what the activity is called. She usually refers to it as karate, as in, "I'm so excited for karate!"
Peter completed his Cub Scout Bear award way back in November, but due to an off-sight pack meeting and a clerical error, he didn't receive it until the Blue and Gold dinner in February. I dutifully went to the front of the room so he could pin the Mama Bear pin on my clothes. Fear of blood and a constant state of cold prompted me to keep my jacket on, but we discovered the pin back wouldn't go through the fabric. So, ever the problem solver, I had him pin it to my hood drawstring instead.
Peter doesn't like public recognition, (he did not inherit this trait from me) so he sat down pretty quickly after the pin was affixed. I leave you with this slightly out-of-focus picture of us, mostly because we both have pleased looks on our faces, and also because it's the least blurry picture that was taken.
We were happily surprised a few weeks ago when Cooper brought home an invitation from school to a district wide art show. Specifically, his presence was requested at a special Open House for the show. We went, not exactly knowing what to expect.
This weaving was selected by Cooper's art teacher for this art show. As far as I could see, there was only one other weaving on display. I asked his art teacher what her selection process was. She said it was based on workmanship, design, and class behavior. He enjoyed doing this art project and was pleased to see it on display among the other pieces.
