The Leake's Week-April 17, 2022

 Happy Easter!  I have really loved taking time this week to talk to my kids about Easter and Jesus Christ.  I hope their personal testimonies have grown a bit this week and that they have felt divine love.  We had a wonderful sacrament meeting today full of beautiful music.  We had a short visit from my parents this afternoon, and loved that.  The rest of our day has been very low-key, and that has been much needed!  Richard only had one meeting before church and nothing after!  Yay!  Here's a recap of the rest of our week...

Monday was the return to real life with Richard back to work and the kids back to school after Spring Break.  For the most part, everyone was happy to return.  Gretchen was the trickiest and it took a fair amount of coaxing to help her decide preschool would be a good idea that day.  We were ten minutes late, but she did it, and of course, had a great time.  That evening, Marshall had the first spring season game with his coach's higher level team.  The weather was supposed to turn bad during the game, so I left all the girls at home, and Marshall and I went.  Initially, the weather was windy and we just had sprinkles of rain.  I was wearing my goat and gloves and standing under our massive umbrella.  By halftime, it was raining, and soon after that it was pouring rain/sleet and it was so windy!  Richard got to the game with 10 minutes left when it was an all out downpour, and I said see you later!  My shoes and pants were soaking wet!  The team won 1-0 and Marshall had the assist for their only goal!  He really played so, so well and it was so much fun for me to watch him, despite the weather!  Marshall, was of course, soaked to the bone and freezing.  When he and Richard got home, he went straight to the shower and enjoyed hot chocolate afterward.  After I got home, I put on dry clothes and left again to go to a dance meeting for Rachel.  These kids, they keep us busy!

Tuesday was a day at home for me and Gretchen.  We made a double batch of snickerdoodles together and she was a delightful little sous chef.  Bridget had a primary activity right after school and had a lot of fun there.  I took dinner to a family in our neighborhood and Rachel had dance.  Thankfully, Sara, her friend who broke her leg, still has her brace on, but went to watch dance class on Tuesday night...praise the heavens for a portion of the carpool returning!  That night I had a primary meeting, which was very long, but very good and very needed!  One funny thing to note from Tuesday is that Gretchen had had a cold for a few days prior.  Her cold started when she was in Vernal and she didn't have her nose chargers.  :)  So of course she resorted to using toilet paper and this trend continued upon her return home.  Tuesday afternoon, I realized she had had the same toilet paper stuffed up her nose all night and all morning, and one of them was getting higher in her little nostril!  I convinced her to remove the toilet paper, and she eventually agreed, except she had some stuck up her nose that had broken off the piece she had pulled out.  I tried not to worry, and told her that we would give it a day or two and just hope that it would make its way down and come out on its own.  She was so obedient and didn't stick anything up her nose the rest of the day.  When she was getting ready for bed, I took a quick peek at it and could tell it was working its way down.  I decided to mention it to Richard before I left, just so he was aware and knew that I was aware.  Well, he immediately convinced Gretchen to let him try to get it out.  She was SO cooperative and just laid on our couch while he used a light and tweezers to pull out a substantial amount of toilet paper covered in mucus!  It was crazy!!!  We were shocked how much was actually up there!  We now have a new rule, no sticking toilet paper up one's nose!  Ha! 

Wednesday was a pretty chill day for most of us, and it was a welcome change!  Marshall and Bridget just had piano lessons and Rachel had dance class.  We ended the evening watching Cougarette videos and Cosmo videos.  It was just a nice relaxing way to end the day.  

Richard had the day off on Thursday and that was glorious!  It has been quite a while since he has had a week-day off and it was the best.  We have been planning to get a swingset for the yard since 2019, and finally in April of 2022, we did it.  :)  I told Richard I could not live with myself as a parent if we did not fulfill this want, and with the ages of our kids, we could not wait any longer!  We took Gretchen and drove up to the Lifetime store and looked at everything they had.  Gretchen was in heaven.  There was also another family there looking at swing sets, and just by looking at them, I am pretty sure they were a good 10-15 years younger than us.  They were there with their two year old and a baby and I could not help feeling very OLD as we were there with our youngest child looking for a swingset!  Haha!  But, we found a great one and it will be installed on May 11th, so we have to wait awhile, but the kids cannot wait.  That afternoon, we went down to the elementary school to see Rachel present her biography report on Michelle Obama.  She did a stellar job!  She has been working on this for weeks, and we are so proud of her.  She was the only one to have her presentation memorized and spoke with such confidence!  After school, I picked Mara up from the airport, Richard took Rachel to music class, Marshall had soccer practice, and Bridget, Cambria, and myself worked on the farm.  Let me just once again reiterate how disgusting chicken water is.  Gag!  

Friday morning after I got all the kids off to school, I drove to Salt Lake and met a dear friend for breakfast at Eggs in the City.  Delicious!  It was a great way to start my day, and so lovely, because the rest of the day was busy!  On my way home, I stopped at Target to get some last minute things for Easter, I ran into plenty of moms who were doing the exact same thing as me and we all lamented the traditions we began when our kids were little and now we are sick of them!  After the girls got home from school, Rachel went to her primary activity.  While she was gone, I left for the stake center to help set up for a stake primary activity.  Each ward primary presidency was in charge of a station for the kids about an event from the last week of Christ's life.  My neighbor was so kind to bring Bridget and Rachel and Marshall baby-sat Gretchen.  This activity was poorly planned and communicated by the stake primary presidency, so it left wards scrambling the last few days, but I think everyone pulled it off.  And while I came home completely exhausted, I do think each child walked away with a better understanding of the stories and the reality of what happened so long ago.  As soon as the activity was done, I took Rachel to Ellie's for a late night with a bunch of her friends and Bridget had Cambria and Avery at our house for a late night.  Those three girls dressed up and sang and danced and laughed and had so much fun together.  

Saturday morning we slept in, which was heavenly.  The kids found their Easter baskets in the morning.  At 10:00 am Richard left with all the big kids and picked up Cambria and they all went to see the third Fantastic Beasts movie.  They all loved it and had a great time.  It was just me and Gretchen at home.  She and I played with her new Frozen Legos, I worked on some organization in the storage room while she did her running and playing and then we took Ziggy on a walk.  Once everyone returned home, we hid the eggs in our yard and had our egg hunt.  We gave Gretchen a head start with three eggs, and instead of just picking up the first three she saw, she was zig-zagging all over and was really drawing it out for the big kids.  We thought we got all the eggs, but as luck would have it, Ziggy found an egg in the yard today and definitely consumed some of its contents, so we are just waiting for the aftermath of that!  Richard and I left the kids to fend for themselves last night and we went to dinner at Nordstrom Grill and to the symphony.  The symphony played four pieces, one of which featured a clarinet soloist who is the principal clarinetist for the New York Philharmonic.  He was so amazing and Richard loved it, as did I.  The kids had a good night here at home, and the only tears that were shed was Rachel because Gretchen decided to sleep in Bridget's bed, and Rachel, who begs for her own room, did not want to sleep alone.  Bless her.  I thought for sure we would have some nighttime visitors in our bed due to all of this, but not so!  

We hope each of you has a wonderful week!  I am so grateful for all the rain and snow last week, but very much looking forward to warmer temperatures, and dare I say yard work!

Love each of you.

Richard, Jenny, Marshall, Bridget, Rachel, and Gretchen :)