There were a handful of noteworthy things about this past week:
My half birthday was on Thursday–we had ice-cream. 🙂
On Friday, Josh and I had a great date after our house was miraculously cleaned by angels.
The downstairs bath and shower is complete, beautiful, and has been used by every member of the family.
We made the very wise decision to hold off on starting the other bathroom. (It is a step toward curbing our large-project addiction!)
Other than that, here are some pictures of the cutest kids in the whole world.
said it
Here’s Helen out-eating most of the family at Grandma’s house last week.
On Monday we got a fabulous snow storm! Fay had one dream for that storm: A snow-woman! Here are the two best friends (as Fay said).
This is the outfit Portia chose for herself on Thursday. Shirt, tights, diaper cover. I made her put a skirt on with it.
Carter is a builder! Here is a castle he made. He wouldn’t allow his creations to be put away until they had been photographed.
Also, here is one more picture from the snow storm. The evergreen tree in our front yard looked like something from a Christmas fairytale, so I took a picture.
Come Follow Me is studying John 1 this week. One of the sections noted how John began his Gospel with his testimony of truths about Jesus Christ. It suggested that we might consider doing the same thing: writing down what we know about Christ. It also suggested we consider who could benefit from hearing our testimonies. I thought perhaps somebody could benefit from mine through this venue. If anybody else feels comfortable sharing theirs with me, I would be only too delighted!
Here is what I want my children to know that I know about Christ:
Jesus Christ is all about love. He made the world, paid the price for our sins, obeyed perfectly, and everything else He has done and continues to do because of his pure, perfect love for the Father and all His spirit siblings. He was able to do those things because of love. That love lives on today and is available for all who seek it. The Savior’s love is enough to heal any sin, any hurt, any weakness that any person may experience. But He will not compel anyone to embrace His love. He allows us each to choose for ourselves. He is also able to bestow His love for humanity and individuals we encounter on us. As we seek His love for ourselves we will develop love for Him which He can translate into love for those around us. And sharing His love through selfless service is how we show love to Him. If we focus on Christ’s love, how it can change us and how we can use it to bless others, we have caught the essence of Christ.
I feel like this past week was our first real week of the new year. Last week (which feels like SO LONG AGO) was full of wedding festivities, etc. so it felt like an extension of the holidays. It is nice to be back to a routine. Nothing particularly monumental happened this week except one project we have been discussing for … the whole time we’ve lived in our house.
When we moved into the house neither of the bathtubs were fit to bathe a child in. We actually bathed Fay and Carter in the kitchen sink for about two months because I didn’t dare put them in either of the tubs. We put a shower mat down in the one downstairs that Josh and I used while we scraped old paint off the upstairs tub and walls, and then repainted the tub because we were in no position to replace it. If you are ever considering painting your tub just for aesthetics, my recommendation is do. not. do. it. It doesn’t last very long and when it stops lasting it is quite terrible. Anyway, we’ve been using the upstairs tub, painted, for the past 3.5 years and it is starting to “stop lasting” so we knew we needed to do something soon. We promised ourselves when we stripped it and painted it the first time that we would never do it again, and we still feel that way. But we don’t want to be without a bathtub–especially since we have twice the number of children now–so we decided to do the downstairs tub first and then use that one while working on the upstairs one.
Josh wanted to do it himself in the interest of conserving resources, and I have been really impressed by how thorough he is being. I was nervous about DIYing something that had potential to leak without us realizing and Josh has allayed my fears significantly by doing lots of research and refusing to cut any corners. I truly believe he has done a superior job to the original work.
This is the moment right before the old tub was removed.
Now the old tub is out, the new tub is in, the old tub surround (which is newer and we really like) is back in along with a new faucet, shower head, and drain system. And, as far as we have been able to observe, there is no leaking! (We saw that there had been leaking before. Good thing we didn’t use it much.)
Other than that (and I do admit that remodeling bathrooms is significant) we have been enjoying doing normal-type stuff like school, reading stories, and even doing some dishes.
Here are some pictures.
Carter and Portia enjoying a snowy day. Carter’s hats kill me! Also, Portia!
On Saturday the kids “decorated” Josh. He looks pretty dashing, I’d say!
Also on Saturday, Josh helped the kids build a house out of cardboard boxes (the one the tub came in was particularly exciting!) Here is a video tour!
Next week’s project is supposed to be potty-training Portia. Wish me luck!
I can’t believe it has been less than a week since New Year’s Day. It feels like we have done SO MUCH! My sister, Christina, got married on Friday and the week was filled with festivities galore! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here is what Christmas looked like after Santa came!
Please notice the big white present on the left-er side of the tree. I am SO PROUD of that bow!
And here is what Christmas looked like on Christmas morning!
So fun!
We had the perfect Christmas day! We opened presents at home, then we went to Grandmother’s house and talked with Mary on her mission, and opened more presents and played with cousins, then we went to Grandma’s house and opened more presents and played with more cousins! So so happy!
I am usually super stoked to take down all the Christmas decorations the day after Christmas; but with our trip to Disneyland in December I was feeling like I had missed a week of Christmas. I could’ve kept the decor up until the new year, but Josh was ready. So I think we lasted through December 27.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve with the Monsons, though Fay and Carter were having a sleepover at Christina’s house. It made me feel better that Josh and I were not the only ones having a hard time staying up all the way until midnight; though a lot of the party consisted of parents, so whatever that means. 🙂 We celebrated New Year’s Day with the Muhlesteins eating the traditional black-eyed peas, rice, and collards along with the traditional frozen finger foods! So yummy!
Josh and me getting ready to ring in the new year!
I know you all must be SO CURIOUS to know what my theme-verb is for 2019! So I’ll tell you! It is ………………… Laugh! My goal with this word was to sort of embrace the goodness of delight again, but also to really simplify things for myself. If I laugh or make somebody else laugh (especially my kids) in a day, I count it as a success. Fortunately I live with Portia, so it hasn’t been very hard to find a reason to laugh each day! Another element to the laugh goal is to laugh more about the little things going wrong instead of getting frustrated. I’m excited for some good ab workouts this year!
This past Friday, January 4, Christina and Colton got married! They are great together and we’re excited to add Colton to our family! We had a ton of fun with all their wedding festivities! It was a wonderful privilege to be in the temple with them when they got married and to have my own prince holding my hand reminding me how glorious it is to be sealed for time and all eternity! I can’t recommend it highly enough!
The happy couple and the siblings at the wedding! Isn’t Christina a stunning bride?!!! (I stole this picture from Daddy’s family email. he he he!)
Christina asked Josh and me to make her wedding cake, but Josh was throwing up on Wednesday and I didn’t dare let him make the cake and make the newly-weds throw up their whole honeymoon, so I made it! I did get help from Kathryn (thank you a MILLION for letting me use your house to make the cake instead of my potentially-contaminated kitchen), Michael and Natalie (though they claimed they were terrified of baking), and Josh on Friday after he had been “clean” for 48 hours. I probably wouldn’t have dared be the head chef except that she only wanted a single tier. Because of that I wasn’t really concerned about it coming together nicely. Josh pointed out that it is pretty impressive that I could feel that way about any wedding cake. I am pleased with how it turned out, and Christina’s wedding planner said that it was the “best ever” as taste goes, and she would recommend us! How fancy is that?!
Ta da! That’s Fay and Carter running up the stairs in the background.
As you can see from the pictures, the wedding was in a beautiful venue! It was at the Capitol building, and I don’t think I’ve ever attended a fancier wedding. But people who live anywhere besides Utah probably have.
After we got home that night I showed the kids my wedding dress. They wanted me to try it on, which I did, then Fay wanted to try it on, which she did. She had gotten some flowers from the table decorations to take home and used it as her bouquet! It was so cute! I guess this is why I’m keeping this dress!
Here comes the bride!
It has all been so much fun these past few weeks! But I must confess that I am looking forward to going to bed on time a little more frequently this coming week. 🙂
