Small Victories

Every year Bethany's orchestra group performs with many other student groups at Abravanel Hall.  It warms my mommy heart to see and hear her play in such a venue.

Her group sounded beautiful and it is an accomplishment to practice so hard and play so well.  It is also an accomplishment to get all of my family dressed and downtown by 9 AM.  I'd like to take this moment to congratulate myself on that accomplishment.

I have found myself needing to congratulate myself on any small (or not so small) victories I have of late.  I've dropped several balls and disappointed some loved ones lately.  I don't think berating myself will help.  One night I made a list of my fails.  But when I compared it to my list of successes, they were both equally impressive.  I figure I'll be happier if I focus on all the good things I did.  Can you believe I actually cleaned my living room blinds.  Whoa!  Where did that come from.  I understand that some people do that on a regular basis and thus only need to lightly dust their blinds to clean them.  Um, yeah, I do that every three years or so, so there is water and scrubbing involved.  Go me!

 "Necessity is the mother of invention"-- so said Louisa May Alcott and I concur.  Clark needed a new reptile terrarium so he made one out of old broken furniture.

 I read this article in the paper recently that talked about adventure playgrounds in which "free play" is the order of the day.  Not a lot of structured play, rather a lot of junky raw materials and the kids are free to have at it to build or create whatever they fancy.  I love it.  Our garage is kind of like that.  If you can find it and think of something cool to do with it, then go for it.  Note the danger of knives left lying around the floor.  Does that make you feel better about sending your child over to our house to play?

Kind of a cool picture of Faith practicing her gymnastics.  Hmm, speaking of mom fails-- I recently forgot to send Faith in her costume with her hair nicely done for her team gymnastics picture.  So she had to sit out while the rest of the team was in the picture.  Admittedly, not my finest parenting moment. 
Oh, there were tears.  I mean, I did save $15, but it wasn't really worth it.

Peter has been sick again the last couple of days.  He's not eating well and he's throwing up most of what he eats.  He may shrink back down to a normal size baby.  For the last couple of weeks he has been eating a lot and chunking up nicely!
Announcement!  Announcement!  Last night Peter slept completely through the night.  We're talking 8:30 pm to 6:45 am.  Glory Be!

And just because they are too young to protest too loudly, here's a boys in the tub picture.  They are happy now, but I understand that in a few short years my name will be cursed for this picture.  Even so, I cannot help myself.  History... it's family history.  And it's adorable. 

Last week Abe, Elinor, Clark, and I were able to go to the Jordan River temple with Elinor for the first time.  It was so wonderful.  I had planned to stay home with Peter and have Bethany go instead of me, but at the last minute she couldn't find her recommend and so we switched places.  I was so happy to get to be there with Elinor.