Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Oh, my goodness. I believe I left you last Wednesday before all the dancing happened, right? The dress rehearsal went pretty well on Thursday, although my oldest surprised me last minute with her assumption that tights would be worn, and where are the dance tights? Yeah, good question. She hyper-focused on that while I tried to deal with picking up littles and prepping the laundry room for a new washing machine, since the old one stopped spinning on me early last week and my hubby had bought a new one on his lunch break on Thursday and picked it up after he picked up our completed car after work. When my first suggestion of where they might be didn’t pan out she didn’t immediately take my second or third suggestions (both of which would have saved her time and stress). We did survive, though! Friday afternoon was madness–piano after school and then straight to my friend Andrea’s after piano, since I can’t French braid, and then home (by way of the pharmacy for a prescription) so that all the girls could get into costumes and do stage makeup before heading off to the recital. My in-laws are out of town, so no actual family came, but my oldest had two (male) friends come (one we brought with us) and Neighbor Michelle came, too, so it worked. We had ice cream when we got home and then started packing people off to bed.

We had to leave for our nephew’s wedding before 9:30 on Saturday morning, so chocolate muffins happened a bit earlier than usual. The best news, though, was that my hubby and I got to attend the wedding together, and our children managed to keep peace with each other while they were waiting outside the temple. (Having cousins there as a buffer undoubtedly helped.) We did have to wait around at the luncheon for a good bit before it started–my youngest was sure she was going to die of hunger–but once we finally got going, it was lovely.

We didn’t get home until after 4, though.

The rest of our Saturday was spent doing bunny cages, family scripture time, and getting everyone but my 13-year-old packed off to bed early. (She had a babysitting gig.) On Sunday morning we had to be on time for sacrament meeting, since we were bringing the bread, and then my hubby and I taught our Sunday School lesson.

And THEN we crashed.

We ended up having my Rhode Island friend over for dinner last minute–she’s moving away from Utah this weekend, sadly–and then got people off to bed again. Monday was my I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE BECAUSE I’M CLEANING UP LAUNDRY ROOM STUFF AND DOING LAUNDRY ALL DAY day, because OH, how that needed to happen, and then Tuesday and yesterday were PTA and errand kinds of days.

In other news, I did finish reading Kayla Miller’s Crunch yesterday, which my 13-year-old is going to be happy about. (She likes Miller’s ‘Olive’ series more than I do, really, but she’s the intended audience, so that makes sense. And I do enjoy it–it’s just that unlike Chmakova’s ‘Berrybrook Middle School’ books, which are easily enjoyed on multiple levels, depending on your age and stage, the ‘Olive’ books are very much meant to be read by their target audience.) Olive’s latest adventure finds her trying to swim in a sea so crammed full of activities that she doesn’t have enough hours in the day for them all; luckily, she has good friends and supportive adults in her life to help her figure things out. The mean girl from the last novel is still mean in subtle ways, but that’s probably one of the most realistic things about the book. (Although I still want to slap her.) Middle schoolers should enjoy this one, and the message is an important one for kids, so grab it for your kiddos today!