Hello all,
It has been a week. Busy, busy, busy. Lots of snow. No one putting napkins on our laps and cleaning up all our dinner dishes. Sigh. Yesterday we were trying to figure out lunch and Rachel put her hand on my arm and said, "Mom, just call Joe (one of our servers)!" How I wish we could! Needless to say, we are still adjusting. :)
Monday morning dawned bright and early for all of us. Richard left for work at 6:00 am-lucky guy! The kids reluctantly went back to school and I spent my school day writing last week's family email! Ha! I did get out on a walk with Ziggy while Gretchen was at music class, and he and I both enjoyed that. After school for the big kids, Marshall went to soccer, Bridget and I worked at the farm (that's a slap back to reality for me!) and Rachel had dance. Rachel's competition season is quickly approaching and that night all the competition teams performed their dances for each other. We all went to bed completely exhausted that night. Oh, I also had parent teacher conferences that afternoon with Bridget and Gretchen. Both got rave reviews from their teachers. They are learning, progressing, kind, respectful, friendly, and quiet. :)
Tuesday was just as busy. Richard left for work at 6:00 again and presented at Tumor Board before he started working at 8:00. I volunteered in kindergarten and Gretchen finally passed off all 70 of the pages in her skills book. Hallelujah! This means she gets to move onto reading books and she has been loving that this past week. It is so fun to see her learning this new skill! Soon we will have a family full of readers! After school I chaperoned the musical rehearsal. One of my friends was also helping and it was fun to catch up with her when we weren't helping kids. The songs are sounding SO good. The kids sing with great volume and I am excited to see this all up on stage in just a few short weeks! Gretchen didn't want to come with me, and arranged to spend her afternoon at Charlie's-she had a great time! Rachel had dance that afternoon and Marshall and Bridget had piano that evening.
On Wednesday I helped set up the book fair at the elementary school so Gretchen went home with Mary Grace and played at her house that afternoon. She had a blast, with her only complaint being that she didn't like how her mom made the macaroni and cheese. :) As soon as I was done helping with the book fair, I checked Rachel out of school because she had to go get two small cavities filled. The Leake dentist saga continues. It is nuts. Rachel was a trooper though, it was fast and easy and she did a great job. Here's to flossing! The girls had early out that day because of parent teacher conferences, so once we were all home, I let them watch one movie while Rachel recuperated, and then it was back to our busy life. Marshall, despite his best efforts to not make it into the school STEM Fair, was selected to participate. Last year Richard did major hand holding through his entire project, but this year, Marshall did it all on his own. It caused him quite a bit of stress at times, but he did it all by himself. He wanted a good grade, but just didn't want to be one of ten chosen for the school fair. Anyway, the fair was on Wednesday after school. The judging went from 3:30-4:30 and then there was an open house at 5:30. I zipped over to the school after I got Bridget home from horseback riding and Richard met us there after work. There were some really cool projects and it was fun to walk around and look at all of them. Much to Marshall's chagrin, he placed third! Haha! So, off to the district STEM fair he goes in a couple of weeks. He is happy though because this gets him out of the semester project and he gets to miss a day of school-always trade offs! We are proud of him though, and reminded him this actually means more than last year because he did this solely by himself! The three of us got home just before 7:00 that evening and then I dashed off to the church for as FSY meeting, picked Rachel and Sara up from dance and finally walked in the door, completely exhausted, at 8:45 pm. It had been a day! Thankfully, Richard had cleaned up the kitchen and moved the other kids towards bed.
Thursday was early out again and Rachel had her parent teacher conference. Gretchen was at dance, but I met Bridget and Rachel at the book fair to get books and then we went to Rachel's conference. She is crushing 4th grade and I am beyond proud of her. I was just thinking back the other day how challenging first grade was for her, but she has completely caught up and is above all benchmarks and juggling everything in her life so well. We enjoyed a bit of downtime at home with the earlier school schedule, but once 3:30 rolled around, we were back in it. Rachel had piano and Marshall had soccer and then YM basketball. He wasn't able to play in any games last year because of his soccer schedule, and he has missed the first two this season, so this was his first ever experience with church ball. In these new situations, he hangs back and is so timid. I am sure this email audience knows it is a killer to watch your child under-perform in something you know they are actually pretty good at. Ah! Richard and I were dying! But, it was still a great experience for him and there were two high school aged-boys there and they were so good with these little 8th graders. Bless them. Marshall started to come out of his shell the last few minutes, so I fully anticipate he will get more and more comfortable.
Friday I worked in the Charger Store. It's been awhile, and I loved being back. One kid brought us $5.50 in dimes, nickels and pennies in a ziploc bag! I work with my friend, and I love hanging out with her in between the two lunches. And of course, I always love seeing Marshall! Since I was at the junior high, Gretchen went home from kindergarten with Naomi and had a ball at her house. She approves of her mom's macaroni and cheese. :) Bridget and Rachel were forced to walk home from school that day, a complete travesty in their eyes! Later that afternoon, I took Bridget and some other student council kids to the school to help clean up the book fair. It went way faster than setting it up, so that was very nice! That evening after dinner, we dropped Rachel and Gretchen off at our neighbor's and we took Marshall and Bridget up to the Bountiful Temple to do baptisms-Bridget's first time! It was a lovely night in the temple and so wonderful to be there with Bridget! It was actually really cool to see so many youth in the temple on a Friday night at 8:00 pm. It was a special evening and I hope that Bridget always remembers it. Even though we got home at 9:00 pm, we watched a one hour show about the building of Disney's newest cruise ship, The Wish. Richard and I watched it earlier in the week and we knew the kids would love it. It is so fascinating! We all went to bed late, but got to sleep in Saturday morning!
Saturday morning I made sourdough waffles and they were AMAZING. All children also approved, which is amazing in and of itself. We had Ziggy's bestie over for the day, Leo, so that is always fun. He is such a good dog! If only he could train Ziggy for us. :) Marshall and I went to his indoor soccer game. Richard worked from home 10:30-6:30 pm. All the girls played with friends in the afternoon, which was lovely. The minute Richard finished work last night, he and I hopped in the car and zipped up Millcreek Canyon for a work dinner at Log Haven. Neither of us had been there before and it was delicious and charming. We both enjoyed visiting and talking and eating delicious food. When we left the kids at 6:30 I didn't realize how far up the canyon this restaurant was and we didn't have any cell service. I didn't notice this until about 9:30 pm, and we left at 10:00. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we got out of the canyon and we were not inundated by texts or missed calls from the kids. When we got home, all was well and they were happy, despite still being awake at 10:45 pm. We have become those people who put their six year old to bed at 11:00 pm on weekends.
We have had a good Sunday today. Richard had to work again, but at least he was at home. We got a new bishopric today, so church was very exciting. For now, Richard is still the clerk, his dream calling, so he is hoping that lasts for quite a while longer. :) The kids and I went to Toney FHE at my parents' house tonight. It was loud and wild, but fun as always.
We are gearing up for another busy week. Marshall and I take off for St. George on Thursday for soccer and Richard will stay home with the girls. The girls are less than thrilled with this arrangement, but they will still have a great time at home.
I hardly took any pictures this week. I am still in partial denial that we are home. I keep listening to island vibe playlists on Spotify! Ha!
We love each of you.
Richard, Jenny, Marshall, Bridget, Rachel and Gretchen :)
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