My Pleasure

Cooper has loved working at Chick-fil-A this summer. He has just over a week until he starts at-home MTC, so his job is coming to an end. On Friday night we went to visit him at work and cheer him on.

See the Need

I mowed the lawn today. This is usually Cooper's job, but between all the hours he's been working at Chick-fil-a and the crazy rainstorms we've been getting, he hadn't been able to get to it for a while. It took me five hours to do the whole thing, and that's after Cooper had put in about 30 minutes mowing before work.

Our lawn is not flat. The main part of the lawn has some gentle sloping. We also have a significant swale in the back. All of it had to be mowed today. This meant sometimes while mowing uphill, the lawnmower was higher than my head. It was hard physical labor.

By the time I finished at 5:00, I was exhausted and I ached all over. While I was nearing the end I noticed that Topher had come out onto the deck. He set-up some camping chairs, then brought out plates and his water bottle (mine was already on the deck). When I turned off the mower for the last time today, Topher informed me that he'd prepared a picnic for us. "I made you a corn tortilla! I got out a quesadilla from the bag and put cheese on it and cooked it for you."

I did not point out that some of those words were swapped. I love that he saw me working hard and wanted to show his love through an act of service. After I put the lawnmower in the garage and washed my hands, I joined him on the deck. It felt good to sit after such a long day. The company was pretty sweet too.

Peter: Week 8 in Pictures

Cake Masters

We hosted the Youth activity last week. They were planning a bake-off and we have two ovens, which turned out to be pretty important since they split into two teams. We worked hard and got our house company-ready. The evening was loud and fun and chaotic. Two of the leaders brought their kids, one leader had driven his son, plus another young man and his little brother who is Topher's age. That meant instead of going to bed, Topher also got to stay up and play host. It's a good thing I haven't given away the toys our kids have outgrown, because all those kids sure had fun exploring our playroom.

First the teams mixed up their cake mixes (not from scratch, no, we didn't have that kind of time), one gluten-free and one gluten-full. When those went into the ovens, we pulled the already-baked-and-cooled cakes (using the same brand and flavor box mixes the youth had just prepared) out from the panty for them to decorate. We had frosting and sprinkles and one of the leaders brought two secret ingredients that had to be used: raspberries and mint leaves. These are their final creations:

The leaders announced a tie, so Sophie arm wrestled the other team leader and came out victorious. Cooper, who doesn't attend these activities anymore, came and helped since his friend who moved away a few months ago surprised us all by showing up to the activity. Phoebe and Sophie were on the other team. I'll give you a hint about which cake they made: Phoebe really loves Spider-man.

When we bought this house I could envision the Young Women, who I was serving in church at the time, gathering for activities around our kitchen island. I'm glad a version of this was able to come to pass.

Serve Those Around You

The service activity on Saturday was a success! This is a combination of pictures from me and Phoebe. She was much more thorough in her recording of the event than I was.

Here's the food area:

And the service area, we added another service table after this was taken:

These were the dining tables, each associated with a different holiday or pair of holidays.

Here we have Memorial/Veteran's Day:

Day of the Dead, from a few angles:

Spring Equinox:

Thanksgiving:

Valentine's Day:

Christmas:

Breast Cancer Awareness Month:

These are the wall decorations, I'm sure you can tell which holiday each one goes with:

And the service projects themselves, starting with our wall of options:

The girls added some chalk art:

And here's the activity in full swing, plus a few finished ornaments to send to families who don't have any, the first done by Phoebe, the second by one of Topher's friends:

It was well attended and a lot of service was accomplished!

All the Holidays

I'm in charge of a ward service activity tomorrow. We're calling it A Year of Service in a Day and have seven different service options for people to help with, each connected to a different holiday. Cooper and Topher went to help me set up and decorate this afternoon and we ended up staying until nearly 10pm. We did detour to Walmart and Costco in the middle, but still, that's way too long. They were both really helpful and very good sports.

I hope people show up tomorrow.

Called, Again

Tonight something happened that Peter has been hoping for ever since he got his mission call in September.

He switched from a service mission to a teaching mission.

We got the word a few weeks ago that his request to transfer had been approved. We've spent the time since then trying to get him ready. Many errands were run today gathering all the needed items.

And then we drove him down to the mission home this evening and dropped him off.

There were tears, at least from those that were in the van as we drove away.

It was a mixture of happy and sad tears, but mostly joyful.

Off to the Temple

The Work of Christmas

Before we get to Christmas, the Saturday prior to Christmas was full of celebration. 

In the morning we had our ward Christmas party. After the movie nativity we made last year, I wanted to do something a little simpler. In March the idea came to me that all the Primary kids should draw pictures of the scenes of the nativity and we would put them on the wall like an art gallery. We asked the kids to draw them during singing time a few Sundays in November and December. But the last Sunday we planned to finish the project, church was canceled due to snow. We sent out a message to all parents of primary kids and asked them to have the kids do the final picture at home. We got fewer of that one, but the ones they did were awesome.

We set it up before the party started. I love how it turned out.

The first picture was of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

The second picture was of the angels and shepherds.

The final picture was of the Wise Men and the star.

When the party was over we rushed home and loaded up the car for our final kid choir performance of the season. We had been invited to sing downtown in a nearby city that is famous for its Christmas traditions. We sang to draw in crowds and bring their attention to an emergency shelter that our youth serve at once a month during the cold time of the year. Our set was about an hour long. We performed the same songs we'd done at the interfaith concert, as well as standard Christmas carols. Bryan came as the sound guy and set up the mics and speaker. Just as we were about to start we discovered that our entire file of audio tracks had disappeared. While my friend and I directed the singers, Bryan recreated the set list on the fly by remotely connecting to his desktop at home. He's amazing and I'm so thankful for him!

We were all chilly, but it was warmer than it had been for most of the week, a miracle that we were grateful for. Many of our singers couldn't be there, but we had some bonus singers in friends and siblings that joined us, so we had enough people to be heard! We performed in a courtyard next to an inn on a busy street for foot traffic. We had a steady audience the whole time, though not everyone stayed for all the songs. Those that listened seemed appreciative of what the kids were doing. And we're glad we could help the emergency shelter in their fundraising efforts.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

After our ukulele performance on Saturday, we had to scurry across the street for the next performance of the day. The intermediate school theatre troupe performed a ten minute set of Christmas songs. Sophie's teacher knew she was running from one gig to the next and said they would wait for her. But when we walked into the museum where they were performing we were told the room was full and we wouldn't be allowed in. Sophie finally told them that she was in the cast and they waved her up the stairs. She got there just as they were starting.

The rest of us had to convince the woman guarding the stairs that our children were the ones performing. She finally let us up, but we had to stay in a separate room. We could hear them, but we couldn't see them. Thankfully another mom took videos and shared them with me. The lone picture I have is a blurry screenshot from one of the videos.

From what we heard, they did a good job!

After they finished performing, the kids got in line for free hot chocolate and a donut. Then I handed Sophie off to a trusted mom friend so she could stay and take her turn volunteering at the hot chocolate table (a student government responsibility) and I took Phoebe and Topher to the next activity, with a quick detour for an even fancier donut.

Both Phoebe and Sophie had been asked to help with a three-hour free babysitting drop-off that a family in our old ward was hosting. Though I hadn't originally intended to, I dropped off Topher with Phoebe while I went back to get Sophie. When her shift was over (and we were both thoroughly frozen) I took her to help babysit too. Both girls held babies and enjoyed their service. Topher had a blast playing with his friends. It ended up being a giant primary-age Christmas party with pizza and crafts and games and treats. A good time was had by all.

After all that party food, Topher announced at the end of the day that he had had too much junk food and needed to just eat lettuce. We granted his request by eating chicken Caesar salad for dinner.