Sunday Stuff

It was a good Sunday.  It included some puzzle-assembling, some sister-tickling, some Luke-snuggling, some Church-parking-lot-driving, some chicken-grilling, some lava-cake-baking, and some twilight-walking (which included unenthusiastic picture-taking).

For our CFM lesson, we wrapped up our discussion of King Benjamin's sermon by watching the BoM video, taking some time to write down what 5 things we'd like to share if we were delivering our own final sermon, then standing on a tower (chair) and preaching those things.  Luke had the idea that we should put on scripture dress-up for this experience, and even handed pieces out to each of us.

The basics of the sermons I could find in our CFM journals:

Eliza:

1. Believe in God like I have

2. Choose the right

3. Pray daily

4. Be in the service of others

5. Be humble

Me:

1. We always have things to be thankful for

2. Look for ways to help and serve

3. We are blessed when we're obedient

4. Christ knows us, loves us, and made it possible for us to return to Him

5. Families are eternal

Cat:

1. Love and serve God and others

2. Stand up for your beliefs (don't be ashamed)

3. Serve while you can

4. Dedicate your day to God

5. Listen to the prophets and study their words

Ben:

1. When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are in the service of your God

2. Beware and do not obey the evil spirit

3. Christ suffered for our sins.  Salvation comes through Christ.

4. Believe in God and that He created all things.  Proclaim your belief unto God.

5. Write the name of Christ in your hearts.

Luke Turned 7!

How did we celebrate Luke's birthday?  It wasn't a big day, but he had a really good day.  We got doughnuts from our favorite place for breakfast, had mac & cheese for lunch, potstickers for dinner, and ice cream cake for dessert.

Luke opened his presents in the morning, per his request, and enjoyed them all day.  He and Jack spent hours on the little Minecraft LEGO set he got alone.  While he was working on that, he had a birthday video chat with a friend, and his friend started playing with LEGOs too.  He also had two birthday video chats with cousins, which are always great.  He got some movie time in the afternoon and some Nintendo Classic time in the evening.

School was minimal.  He'd worked ahead so that he only had to do a bit of schoolwork (though he did NOT want to even do that much) and he participated in a Zoom class, part of which was a birthday slideshow tribute to Luke made up of pictures and well-wishes from his classmates.  It was really cute.

It wasn't the type of celebration we would have had in the pre-Covid days, but we enjoyed it, and Luke felt special.  We're so thankful this spunky kid is in our family.

Luke received this surprise package the next day :-)

SD Week 6 - Ratatouille, Luke's Birthday, and The Best Day of Cat's Life

There was this one time when Ben and the kids decided to put on their church clothes,
then play a game (match?) of badminton before starting home church.

On Monday we had a Ratatouille night - watching the movie,
eating the meal, and finishing it off with creme brulee from scratch.
Pretty yummy.

"Look Mom!  A pyramid!"

Jack's chocolate milk recipe:
Put as much chocolate syrup in the cup as you can before
Mom tells you to stop, then add some of milk.

Luke lost his first tooth on his birthday eve!
We were on the way to pick up dinner and have a picnic dinner by the Provo River.

After dinner, there were some varations of tag,

then a little hike to the riverbank,

and some stick-and-leaf boat races.

Wavy hair!

Cat's orthodontist appointments kept getting pushed back,
and her braces kept falling apart.  After having two wires come out
and two brackets pop off, she finally got into the orthodontist for an emergency
wire-cutting, and had a real appointment a week after I took this picture.

Luke had a birthday!
More on that later.

  

We drew some pictures to bring to Oma,

then had a social-distancing visit off of her balcony.
It was great to finally see her after only having phone calls for several weeks.

Ben and Cat reassembled the bike that we'd disassembled to have our
cheese/bike wheel race.

Then Cat took it for a spin.

And Eliza took Cat for a spin.

Best Day of Cat's Life!
After weeks of waiting, she got the results of the student council race (remember that outtakes video?),
and she won!  She is now the Sophomore Class President. 
AND, after using a who-knows-how-old hand-me-down laptop for 2 years, we decided to
take advantage of the crazy deals available on 2-year-old laptops from Ben's company
and buy one for her.  She was SO happy.

Ben did prep work to get the garden plot ready for planting,
and Luke helped me draw out a plan.

We bought seeds and plants, and Cat got started on an herb garden right away.

More spring flowers.

Heartbroken

Grammy died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism today.  She was 68.

We're all heartbroken.  I hated hearing the news from my sister in SC.  And I hated having to tell my children.  And I hated making plans.  And I hate that I'm sitting in an airport right now so that I can be with my family in SC in the morning for this reason.

I'm not going to try to put my feelings into words right now, but I will say that more than anything, I'm so thankful for all the time we've had together, though we haven't lived in the same town since I was 17.  We visited her, she visited us, and we have lots of great memories together.  She had a great relationship with all of us and even though we lived far apart, we never felt disconnected.

Here are a few favorite pics from the last few years, in no particular order: