A Couple Crazy Days

I've been so overwhelmed these last couple days that I just haven't felt like blogging. I had tons of stuff I wanted to blog about, but boy, i've just been wiped out at night. Today was an interesting day. When Beth came to pick up Maeli she ended up staying for 4 1/2 hours to clean my house (okay, just one room in my house...the study). I can't even remember what brought it up, but she looked in the study and we started talking about organization and she got really excited and off she went; and I was thinking, hey, if she's willing, it needs to be done, so why not? She said "I'll only stay for an hour"...4 1/2 hours later she decided that it was probably time to go home. I'll say this though, she's good at what she does. The study looks amazing and Dan was so excited when he saw it (the study is his little haven, and he hates it when it's messy). I can't even explain what all Beth did, but it was a miracle and we (Dan and I) are both extremely thankful for her efforts. I'm not entirely sure that this says good things about my house-keeping abilities. I mean, if it takes 4 1/2 hours with two people to clean/organize a room that must be pretty pathetic, but I'm sure if you know me well this isn't a shock to you at all. It was eye opening for me though.

Friday morning was the play group Valentine party.

Why is it that you can always find my children with the food? This was the only thing that calmed Caden down. He was having a rough day (it was way past nap time) and if I left the room for a second he would scream and scream and scream. Loads of people tried to help and entertain him/pick him up/distract him, but nothing worked (except the food). I was in charge of the bean bag toss. It was fun, but only a few kids did it. I should have been more proactive about getting kids to do it, but I admit I was a little pre-occupied with other things (aka the three children that were in my care).

Trying to keep track of all three kids was a logisitical nightmare for me. I eventually gave up and let other people keep track of them all. Lots of people held Maeli, lots of people watched Kember (one mom even took her to the bathroom), and like I said earlier, lots of people tried to watch Caden. I randomly asked around to find out where my charges were, and they were all happy (mostly) so we let it be. I was a little sad that I missed out of the fun stuff that Kember was able to do. They had the kids find candy around one room, they decorated cupcakes, and other stuff, but other people had to take Kember to these activities. I was so tired by the end of play group that I've decided that next year I need back up if I'm going to attempt three children again. I must send out a huge thank you to everyone who helped me though. You are all awesome women! Thank you!

Saturday Dan and I went on a date. I know, I know, it's shocking! It was for me too. We dropped the kids off at Chad and Jessica Christensen's and we had no idea what to do with ourselves. We grabbed some lunch, walked around downtown Pullman, went to the Dollar Store and Shopko. It wasn't very exciting, but it was nice to have some time just to ourselves. Later that night we went to "How to make good marriages great" by Brother and Sister Lund. This was an amazing fireside and as sad as it sounds it made me miss school sooooo much. I love the stuff they talk about, and I get really passionate about it (it was a lot about communication) so you all get to hear the things that I thought were cool. He said that the definition of communication was an exchange of understanding, and that talking and listening are only tools of communication, not communication themselves. I found this definition interesting. I don't believe that it has to be "of understanding"...most communication isn't understood. He later said that one out of every five communications are misunderstood. One out of five! It's a miracle anything gets done in this world and that so many relationships are good relationships. Anyway, he talked a lot about saying what you mean, and mean what you say. This is content communication, so regardless of how you say things, with a sigh, being sarcastic, whatever, if you say it, you need to mean it. He said that men (stereotypically) want to know three things. one: Is what you are going to say going to be painful? two: How long is it going to take? and three: What exactly do you want him to do about it? I thought this was hilarious, but Dan says it's true. Brother Lund said that if you don't really want to know his opinion, don't ask for it. Don't hope that he is thinking what you are thinking and then get disappointed if he says something else. I really liked when he said that if you can't come to an agreement on something then you need to take turns and support the person whos turn it is....and be happy and excited about it. Dan and I are excited to try this one. You have probably all heard about love languages. Brother Lund came up with them first...the popular one out there is the 5 love languages, but he orignially came up with three of them: Touch Oriented, Verbally Oriented, and Visually Oriented. This was really eye opening to me. He had us take a quiz to find out which one we were, and after doing so I could think of all the different times that I've just got Dan's love language wrong. He's a Touch Oriented person and I'm a Verbally Oriented person. I really liked how Brother Lund said that we needed to not assume that the other person should automatically know what we want, even if we've told them before. If we want a hug when we come home, we need to ask for it, and not be offended that we had to ask for it. Anyway, I'm sure you are all bored out of your mind, but like I said, I love this stuff. It was great and I'm really glad we got to go.

Sunday we had a Bang Extravaganza party for our friends Heidi and Justin who are moving next weekend. It turned into a Bongo party, but it was a lot of fun to get together with everyone and wish Heidi and Justin luck in the future. We're going to miss them, but at least they are close enough that we can still get together with them.

I was the lone member of the presidency on Sunday. All my counselors and my secretary were gone visiting family (or taking care of new baby). I think it went alright. Not many kids were there because of the long weekend, but this sharing time seemed to go alright...better than my last one anyway.