I Want to be a Missionary Now

After an inspirational workshop at Women's Conference on Sunday about "How to Prepare Your Children to be Missionaries," we decided we needed to follow the advice and talk about our missions more. So for family home evening we went through my very fat mission scrapbook. We had fun! The next night during family scripture prayer Jell announced, "I want to go on a mission when I get bigger." Yes! Success! Then she said, "So I can do lots of silly things like Mommy did." Uh, what? See in retrospect, the problem with mission pics are that they're either taken on P-day, at night when you've worked your brains out, when you're leaving an area or when there's a baptism. None of the day-to-day what-missionaries-actually-do is recorded - just stuff like getting stuck trying to climb over a fence, or your companion ironing your hair with an actual iron, or your district leader making balloon animals in the mtc for somebody's birthday or the elders getting their faces shoved in their birthday cake by a Hispanic member family, or ... you get the picture. So not so much a success (don't you love how kids ALWAYS get the wrong thing out of what you're trying to teach them?) and we might have to do that FHE over again and leave out the pictures. Sometimes visual aids only get in the way.
Oh and by the way, don't ask what they're wearing. My kids tend to look like little vagabonds with their layered looks - Meri added her dress when she was pretending to be Belle, who can't be played in jeans and a sweater. And Jell added the second skirt "when [she] wanted to." I guess where one is good, two is better. Lately, Meri's favorite beautifying tip is to go into the bathroom, stick her head under the faucet, and rub her hair all around till it's half wet and sticking out in a million different directions. Whenever we ask why she did it, she responds, "Because I wanted to look pretty" and does the smile and shoulder shrug seen in the first picture along with a little batting of her eyes. Oh boy. Yet somehow, despite their severe fashion handicaps, they still pull off "cute!"

Ah! The beautiful tulip festival...

So I included slightly less than a tenth of the pictures we took. With such gorgeous surroundings and such cute subjects, it's hard to stop snapping pictures! Jell was a little distraught to discover she didn't fit inside the shoe as well as she did last year while Meri still disappeared inside:
Not sure what the tulips did to deserve this grumpy face but it's sure one I'm familiar with:
The girls only smelled a gazillion tulips this day - do the different colors really smell that different?
Some of the tulips were nearly as tall as Meri, and with her headband, she looked like she almost fit in!
Where have you been all my life? Love the drama and enthusiasm in all she does:
And the posing:



Somehow we made it home without any major encounters with the mud puddles, I mean lakes, and without caving in to the girls' requests for rides, popcorn, ice cream, or any other thing for sale that they laid eyes on. All in all, a beautiful family outing (Coop was there too, although he didn't make it in any of the photos)!

Jell really likes to tape her creations on the walls

Resulting in our family room, kitchen, her bedroom and even our bedroom walls being covered in her drawings/paintings. I, of course, make an effort to make sure Meri is also represented but it's rather hard to keep up with the tape machine. Here are just some of the things taped up around the house, starting with the infamous brachiosaurus, which has probably replaced her three-headed monster as my favorite drawing of all time:
I might need to switch these up. For example, I think it's time the Christmas tree comes down:
And the three-headed monster makes its appearance, although the difficult one to see on the left is the most intricate with two witches holding hands with their cats, train tracks, and a train going over three mountains.
This is evidence that she gets carried away. She drew this banana as quickly as she could for the sole purpose of taping it on the wall:
Then comes the grand tamale. Jell drew this lovely portrait of herself surrounded by me and Coop standing under a beautiful rainbow. Meri was upset she wasn't included. Jell brushed it off and, this is the best part, taped it up in the grand place of honor right where a family portrait had recently fallen off the wall and we hadn't got around to replacing it, right over Coop's and my bed. That way we got to see it always. Unfortunately, so did Meri. She kept insisting Jell add her and for whatever reason Jell kept not caring. So Meri took matters into her own hands. The squirt on the right that looks a little like a googly-eyed alien? That's Meri's addition of herself. She was quite pleased with her efforts. Jell was upset that it didn't look like Meri, which led us into a talk about only being complimentary about other people's artwork especially when, like Mer, they did their best (although I also liked the idea that Jell's were totally realistic. Nice mohawk Coop). And besides, you snooze you lose. Now our family portrait is complete:

Where did my brain go?

I think I've lost my mind. I'm hoping I'm not the only one. So I'm asking, do you ever have the kind of day where...

you're singing a primary song that you've known since you were in Sunbeams and you're on autopilot while your mind is wandering and you suddenly don't know where you are in the song or which verses you've already sung or what rhymes with what you just said and could possibly come next?

you leave your wallet at the grocery store, don't manage to notice until you get all the way home with kids unbuckled, have to go all the way back and after scouring the parking lot, find they had it inside all along?

not only can't seem to interpret a single thing your toddler has said correctly but mishear adults on the tv like every five minutes?

you assure your husband that you have a bag of nectarines that you've been enjoying all week, he doesn't believe you, you keep insisting, before he realizes you're actually talking about tangerines?

you're trying to help your daughter calm down for bed by singing sweetly but suddenly feel a little night drunk yourself and start giggling and are unable to keep a straight face because the brachiosaurus that your daughter drew and taped above her bed looks so goofy?

I've lost my mind.

Weeeeeeeee!

We'll take any breaks in the rain - no matter how short they may be. We love spring!


Also, overheard this conversation in the car:
Meri: "I want to sit by my FAVORITE big sister because she's my FAVORITE big sister to sit by."
Jell: "THANK YOU Meri! That is SOOO sweet of you!"

I loved that there was no sarcasm in Jell's response, nor any half-hearted compliment intended by Meri. Instead, Jell sincerely appreciated and was touched by Meri's remarks without the thought entering her head that she is her ONLY big sister.