Mother's Day

Yesterday about an hour before we were supposed to pick up the kids from Sara she texted and said that she and Kenneth wanted to go out to dinner and could they bring the kids early.  We said yes.   She also wanted to know if the kids could spend the night as her play that she is starring in was going to get out late. But she wanted to come and pick them up in the morning by 8:00 a.m. so no church.  We said ok.  But that evening by the time they got through a traffic jam at 410 and 281 they were almost an hour later.  I don't know if they ever got dinner before the show.

David, Sammy, Maggie, and Isaac with the milkshake machine

When the kids came they had a mother's day present for me.  It was a milkshake machine with cards from them and a picture frame with a promise of a picture to put in it.  They wanted to make milkshakes right away.  But we talked them into going shopping first.

We went to Wal-mart and Larry and I told them what their amount they had to spend was.  Then they picked out the things they wanted.  After looking for a while they decided to get Sara some chocolate covered strawberries, a beautifully decorated sheet cake, some flowers and three cards.  Maggie was the only one that did not choose a card so we had her make one for her mom on Sunday morning.

We went back to the apartment and made chocolate milkshakes, and s'mores and they played on their Ipads and watched Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer.

When it was time for bed we read scriptures and a story about the whatif monster and had prayer and then the kids called their dad and had prayer with him.  They had fun telling him what they had bought and telling him about their day.  Then we all finally went to sleep.

I was laying by Maggie because she insists that she wants me to sleep with her.  After Maggie was asleep I went to work on the computer for about an hour and then I went to bed.

I set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. to get the kids up and get them dressed.  As they were going to fix breakfast for their mom in bed I figured that I didn't need to get them up any earlier.  They got up and got dressed.  But no one showed up at 8:00 a.m.  Finally about 20 minutes after I texted Sara.  She said that Kenneth was on his way.  When he finally got there at 9:05a.m. he said he got lost.  Anyway that was a time when it was good to have the Ipads to entertain them so that they didn't get upset about getting up so early.

When Kenneth came they excitedly showed him all the stuff they had purchased and bagged it all up and went home. 

I have to admit it is hard to have this man Kenneth in the place where my son once was.  I am not going to say anything further but it is really hard to deal with and I am upset everytime I have to mention his name as if he belongs there.

Larry and I read scriptures and had our prayers.  Today we read a talk by Elder Todd Christofferson from the April General Conference entitled, "Why Marriage and Family Matter".  It is a powerful talk that helps us to understand why marriage is not something that can be decided politically because it is an institution of God.  I feel like I need to study it again and again.

 After reading we got dressed and guess what it was time to go to church!  Today the topic was Christ like attributes.  Something that I needed.  But most of the talks seemed to center around the Christ like attributes of Mothers.  One young man gave a talk mentioning how important our Mothers are in our lives and said how much he appreciated his mother who had gone out to drive him to prom when she need to be home for something else.  He also mentioned several other sacrifices that his mother had made for him.  I thought it was touching and very mature to recognize that he owed so much to his mother at a young age.  They had another lady talk a lot about characteristics of Christ from the scriptures and related them to experiences that she had with her own mother.  Then they had two people bear their testimony.

After Sacrament they passed out the same book that Erick and Heather had given me with a Hershey's chocolate bar inside and a small bouquet of plastic flowers that actually looked quite real.  I don't believe I have been in another ward that has given that much to the mothers at one time.  Of course I ate the chocolate bar immediately because I was so hungry this morning.

Sunday School was a lesson on the importance of the scriptures in our lives and described the blessing we get from reading the scriptures which are a strengthening of our testimony and power to overcome Satan and his temptations.

Relief Society was a Visiting Teaching Conference today with ideas on how to be a better visiting teacher and how to do home teaching.  Of course because it was technically a conference they served refreshments and I ate them all so I ate 50 points worth of food today with the cheesecake and cookies I ate.

We came home and Larry fixed dinner.  He made boiled shrimp with sauce for dipping, a spinach salad and he cooked some frozen Mozzerella sticks that we have had.  They were yummy but they were a couple of points each so I probably shouldn't have eaten so much but it was all good and I appreciate him fixing dinner.  I ordered some new clothes for the mission for my present from him.

Kirsten texted while we were eating and wanted to Skype like we had planned.  So we Skyped with her and Taylor and Kyle for about an hour.  Taylor showed me my card that they are sending me so I would know I had one.  Kyle came over and talked under pressure as he was playing a basketball game.  He is graduating soon and because we cannot go to the graduation we are flying him down for a week to spend time here with us.

 After that we read the scriptures and such that we read at night and said our prayers even though it was only about 4:10 p.m.

Mom in the new swing

Larry took a nap and I called my Mom and talked to her for a while.  She said that it had really rained in Lehi yesterday so it was good that the patio was covered so Keith could put the new gliding swing the family bought her for the patio together.  She let me know about Clair graduating and a few other things I did not know like Cory and Rebecca have taken in a set of 3 month old twins to care for because the mother was having a hard time.

 After the call to Mom I have worked on the blog to get it all caught up.  I have been working on it now for about 4 hours.  I am so slow at writing and I often want to express some things differently but it is hard to express the feelings that are inside my head with the intensity that I feel them.  Part of the reason it has taken so long is that I also had to get up several times and move my legs and my computer seems to be dying for no reason this evening.

Jacob just called me for Mother's Day.  That means a lot to me.  We had a good visit but he needed to go because he gets up at 4:00 a.m. to go to work tomorrow.  He is such a hard worker. He really works hard to provide for Nikki and the kids.

Well until tomorrow or next week...............