Remember way back in November when I posted about Phoebe being recognized as the BRIGHT student for her class? Well, Sophie's teacher saw her hard work through the school year and named Sophie the BRIGHT student for her class for February!
Wisdom is recognizing when you're extra grumpy and need a cool down, so you put yourself in timeout.
"Oh Mom, I can empty the dishwasher."
"Thanks buddy, but that's Sophie's job." (follows him into the kitchen, sees that he's already in progress) "Oh, uh, sure you can empty it."
Thankfully I had already pulled out the knives and breakable items.
In honor of National Poetry Month, Phoebe's class wrote poems using a very specific template. She shared hers with me today and now I'm sharing it with you. I was impressed at how true a picture she painted of herself.
I am a bibliophile and aspiring author
I wonder about mysteries and supernatural things
I hear the clicking of keyboards
I see words on the page
I want to finish writing a book someday, to bring the untold stories to the world
I am a bibliophile and aspiring author
I pretend to be in the stories I am reading
I feel frustrated when I don’t know what comes next in my story
I touch the smooth cold surface of my kindle
I worry about my family
I cry when my family members are sad
I am a bibliophile and aspiring author
I understand many different feelings
I say that everyone is unique and special. I dream about acting on a grand stage, and in front of cameras
I try to make my characters relatable and unique
I hope that I will be able to finish writing a story
I am a bibliophile and aspiring author
On Sunday night I did bedtime with Topher. When I finish reading our traditional three books (they change each week), I usually prompt him to say his prayers. His standard prayer for every occasion is to bless the food, it doesn't matter if any food is actually present.
When he finished blessing the food this time, I told him that he can say different things in his prayers. I said he can thank Heavenly Father for anything, and ask Him for help. I've told him this before, but it hadn't made much of an impression up until now. This time though he asked if he could try again. I said sure and he began a new prayer. After the proper beginning, this is what he said:
"I'm thankful for blocks and LEGOS and Duplo blocks and regular blocks and five blocks and 1 2 3 4 5 6 blocks and two blocks."
And then he closed his prayer the same way he ends the food prayers. He asked me if that was better. I told him I thought it was wonderful.
I love love love when General Conference and Easter happen on the same weekend. It's a lot of work since it includes our big traditional waffle breakfast on Saturday morning, General Conference notebooks to prepare, lots of reminders to pay attention and stop talking and stop poking each other, some kind of Easter hunt activity, Easter dinner, plus approximately 10 hours (depending on which meetings are happening) of talks. That's overwhelming just writing it out. But I still love it.
The talks this weekend were especially wonderful. There were too many that spoke directly to questions and concerns I've been thinking about to name a favorite, though President Nelson's talks in both the Priesthood session and the Sunday morning session were very powerful. It felt like nearly every speaker reminded us of the two great commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. They spoke of being kind, inclusive, and rejecting racism and abuse in every form. And my heart was so happy with the increased emphasis on the fact that ours is a worldwide church, especially the musical numbers from Mexico, South Korea, and the multi-lingual I Am a Child of God. Topher heard that and exclaimed, "Hey! They're singing Child of God! That's my song!"
Speaking of Topher, he was so excited about General Conference weekend because all the other kids were so excited. He remembered his special notebook and saw me refilling it on Friday afternoon. He desperately wanted to see it and color in it and was not happy about having to wait until Saturday at noon. He kept jumping around the room saying, "It's General Conference!"
When the magical time finally arrived I handed out the notebooks and crayons and colored pencils. He thrilled over all the clean coloring pages and sat down to watch what was about to happen on the screen. When President Oaks got up to introduce the meeting Topher, with an incredulous look on his face, gasped, "Wait a minute! This is just church! He's wearing church clothes!" I guess he had remembered the notebooks, but not the actual meeting. That's okay, he's still little, it takes some time to really begin to appreciate Conference.
And it turns out that Bryan and I were so focused on the meat (both literal and figurative) of the weekend, that we failed to take many pictures. This is nearly all I have.
Saturday breakfast:
I walked into the library today and saw Peter practicing his piano. He chose an unorthodox method of testing how well he had memorized his song.
