A day of Firsts!

The Sabbath day, a day of rest. But I don't think that Moms(Dads for that matter) are included in that definition! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining it's just an observation. Today was a day of firsts for Holmstrom girls. I lead the choir for the first time as a choir director for the ward. I have on many occasions lead the ward during sacrament and relief society but to actually take a piece of music and guide a group in learning and then performing said piece was a first and I actually felt a little nervous about it. But being able to look at the music and not stare at the audience made it easier. I could just imagine that they weren't there! Playing the flute was that way too, didn't have to look at anyone. The piece was an arrangement of the hymn "I need thee every hour". It's my favorite hymn and I thought for the first one I would do an arrangment that was easy. It went well even though many of the ward was sick including several of the members of the choir. Jason was a trooper and even though he was plugged up he sang which was very needed since there were only 4 men that showed up! Then we had one soprano and 3 altos. Luckily several of the altos are switch hitters and one sang the other part to balance out the choir. We were small but mighty in spirit!

Linnea is so grown up now! She had her first talk in Sacrament meeting. She had to pick a story from the scriptures that illustrated how following the prophet helps you. She did the whole thing by herself. I didn't even read it before she gave it. I was amazed! She gave it to me to publish in my blog. :)

"Hello, my name is Linnea Holmstrom. Last week I was asked to give at talk on how following the prophet helps you in your daily lives. As you all know, that conference is coming up and we will be hearing from our prophet, he is speaking for the Lord. The lord wants us to follow the words of the prophet for it helps us and blesses us in our daily lives. The prophets have asked that we read the scriptures. What is the blessing for that? Well it's happiness. In Alma chapters 17-19 we read about Ammon and his mission to go and teach the Lamanites. When he was seen by the guards they take him prisoner and King Lamoni makes him a servant. When Ammon went down with the sheep, robbers came and he protected the flocks by cutting their arms off and ran away terrified. That day the servants took the arms to the king and he thought Ammon was God. But when Ammon came to the King this is what he taught (Alma 18:22-28;33-35) Ammon went on to teach all things to King Lamoni. As a result of listening to the prophet King Lamoni, his father and thousands of others recieved the gospel. When we listen to the prophet we are listening to the Lord. This confrence listen to the prophet very closely and take what he says into your lives. Amen"

She did such a great job of organizing her thoughts and tying everything together! Great job Linnea! And she didn't even get nervous. She did say that I distracted her when she was talking because I was smiling at her and she didn't want to smile at me. I couldnt help myself!

So getting to what I meant by not having a day of rest, this will be funny to you the reader so that is why I share it! Because it was a day of importance I was taking more time than usual to do my hair and pick my outfit. Jason had meetings so I took care of getting the clothes ironed(usually Jason does that)boys dressed(since they seem to forget how to do that on sunday mornings)and fed. I told the boys to pick up the legos that was scattered all over the playroom and make their beds and then I headed to my room to get ready. (This is to keep them occupied so they won't be tempted to fight with one another!) Linnea was getting ready also. When I was almost ready she asked me to help her with her hair. So while we are doing that I hear a commotion downstairs. The boys were laughing and then a couple of minutes later Brenden was in the doorway with white balls the size of small marbles entangled all throughout his hair. He looked like he had just been out in a snowstorm! He informs me that Evan was jumping on the bag of beanbag filler.(Jason and I had cleaned out the garage yesterday and this was something that didn't have a place after all. So I planned on making a bodypillow for Evan to sleep with.) Needless to say he popped the bag and scattered it throughout the downstairs. He even took to pushing Jonah and Brenden in it. So naturally they started wrestling in it! I was so busy with getting ready so that we weren't late that I didn't have time to stop them. So Linnea goes down to get shoes on and I hear "Oh man Mom and Dad are going to have a cow!" That was not a good sign. I had hoped that it was confined to one room but that didn't seem likely. When I did get down there to view the disaster it was worse than what I had invisioned. There was white covering the entire living room and family room traces of it in the kitchen and not one thing had been put away that the kids had used that morning! Ughh! I didn't even have time to look too much since we needed to get to the church and run through the song once more before Sacrament. As we are getting there we pass Jason on the road. The kids start groaning "Oh man I hope he doesn't go home now!" and other comments to the fact that they are dead when he sees it. Hee Hee. It was funny to hear them talk. So after sacrament I have to run home to get the snack for the primary class. I asked Linnea to put in a batch of cookies for me and she did but didn't realize that she was using the wrong temp setting on the oven so they turned out like rocks that the boys devoured during sacrament meeting. Anyway so I'm waiting for the cookies to bake and start cleaning the kitchen. I turn to the knife and jam that is lying on the paper towel from the toast that morning and as I pick up the knife it is stuck to the towel and along comes the jam across my face, down the cupboard and all over the rug! Ugh! After I clean that up I put away the jam in the fridge and notice the pizza in the fridge and decide that I will have a piece for a quick lunch while I wait. As I take one another piece falls down the front of me and onto the floor. I clean that up and check on the cookies. Not ready. After I tidy up the rest of the kitchen I am still waiting for the cookies so I turn to the bahemeth of a mess with the filler. That wasn't a good idea. Half of the beans would stick to me as I would scoop them up and the half of the rest would fall on the bag instead of in it! So to me it felt like I was picking up one at a time and dropping into the bag! I check and the cookies are cooked but barely! They are so soft that they fall apart. After two batches I knew that they weren't going to work. So I did what I should have done and that was open the cupboard grab 5 bags of commercially produced cookies and got into the car and left. Fun times, these are the days that we will remember when we are old and wish that they were back again! :)

Life is good!

Well as of September 1 I stopped working for Highplains Marketing as a merchandizer. That's a very fancy term for hanging signs on the shelves at the grocery store. Ok I did do a lot more than that. I seemed to spend most of my time trying to keep the store managers happy. There seemed to be one fire after another that I would have to put out each week. I only had 20 hours a week but it seemed like more! What finally helped me decide was that I heard a quote at church about being too busy. To paraphrase it said that if you are too busy to say your prayers and read your scriptures you are busier than what God intended. That hit me. I had never thought that one could be too busy. And if anyone was too busy it was definately me! So I prayed about it and my answer came from a friend who called me with an another friend's need to have a sitter. She works for the school district and needs someone to watch her son on the days that there is school. That was perfect for me! So I gave my notice for the end of the month and opted to continue doing the demo's for the commissary's a couple of times a month. That way I can still have extra cash for christmas and what not! One thing that I noticed when I was gone that much was that when I was home I was playing catch up doing the things that I would normally do when I wasn't working. Linnea said that even though I was home it wasn't like I was home because I was busy doing chores and such. I had heard from many people about the mother staying home for the kids. But I had first hand knowledge of it from two different families in the neighborhood. Both families have girls that started High school this year. One girl spent all summer at our house helping with the kids and felt so comfortable that she would refer to herself as our other daughter. I know that she did it because she didn't like being at home alone all the time and needed companionship. We didn't mind because she was a delight to have around for Linnea being in house full of boys. The other girl is super sweet too and the first day of school she had the worst day and came to our house and cried and told me how terrible her day was. She just didn't want to be all alone. It made me realize how important it is to be there. And not just a phone call away. Both girls come over daily and enjoy coming over to help with dinner or talk about everything under the sun as girls will do. So sitting for this cute little blond hair blue-eyed baby is perfect (he is 9 months old)! Not to mention that it takes care of that baby craving that every mom gets after their baby isn't a baby anymore!