Havala's birthday and the Great Morning Race

 Today is Havala's birthday so we're celebrating with yummy food, she's going to take a morning nap while we pick fresh veggies next door and then it's choir and acting stuff all day,  with sports at the end of the day 😀.  Great way to celebrate, eh? She also made fudge last night--her own birthday treat! But she does love sampling it 😉

The first thing this cutie said as she came out this morning, "Is Xai awake yet??" 

I've resorted to bribery with them getting their jobs done in the morning.  They don't watch a lot of screen time (rots the brain and all that 😉), so I let them watch approved nice cartoons in the morning (no rude behavior allowed in the shows....they don't need ideas!). Anyway, if they finish and mark them off, they get to watch them until breakfast and the first one up gets to pick.

Liesl was determined to be first (Xai wants to watch something else), so she planned on getting up in the middle of the night. 

I made her wait until 6:30 am 😏💛.

She is super excited to beat her older brother!

Okay. TV doesn't rot the brain, but it's a fun phrase to say!

Recap of General Conference weekend fun!

We have so many fun traditions that have built around General Conference weekend, the weekend when we gather from all over the world both in person and via media to hear the words of our prophets, apostles and leaders of our church. We posted this to our church FB page:

General conference weekend is almost here! For those who don't already have their own plans or traditions, please feel free to join in with any or all of ours . Please just let me know if you're going to come to any of the food things so I'll have enough.

1- WOOD CUTTING/ STACKING 8 am: the Elders Quorum organized a ward wood cutting and stacking at our house. They're so nice! I'll provide a pancake/eggs breakfast. Breakfast start time will be 8 , with people heading out after their done to cut wood. But you can come anytime and I'll flip you some more pancakes!

2- NOON: watch the first session of conference at the church with pizza for lunch, back in the cultural hall area, along with tables set up for conference bingo, coloring and puzzles. The chapel area is open for sitting after people are done eating.

3- 2 pm FOOTBALL: play our traditional football game in between sessions at a park/field (tbd)

4- 4 pm CONFERENCE: come back to our place after football for dinner and the last session. (Probably pulled pork sandwiches and etc.)

Plug into any or all and feel free to spread the word.

We had a great group help get so much wood!  I served a perfect number of pancakes; my parents picked up some water for everyone; we cleared like three trees and have a huge stack-ful of wood that I will need to restack, but that’s all good, silly missionaries.

We hustled to the church to meet up with Loni and the Brooks and had pizza, puzzles and even some candy jar guessing fun!  It was a great session and I got some great answers, particularly to simplify, in answer how to handle things.  So that is my motto!  I also felt such peace and not busyness in my brain for this week. Super excited!

We had football at a nearby park that was super fun! Marek and Lance, the Wilsons and Brooks all joined us for football. I headed to the local market to hurry and pick up some groceries, where they miraculously had everything we needed.  Maia did an epic tackle of Havala, Piper straight-armed Lance and avoided the attempted arm-tackles of the missionaries, scoring a touchdown.  Eli make a couple of touch-downs.  The Wilsons did some unconventional moves that Dad had to scale back so they didn’t rip anyone’s head off their shoulders (sorry, Elder Florence!)...but it was fun to see them, especially Sister Wilson. She was awesome!

We were late heading to the next session so listened to the sustaining etc on the way home.  I prepped a little for dinner during the next session and cleaned up after lunch. Great talks!  I felt like there were so many I want to re-listen to. It was special to have the missionaries in our home, too.  I was able to help Piper get ready for her date that night as well, which was fun. We had a little voting in our online group about which hairdo I should do. It was fun to have the other kids’ input.

The younger kids were super stoked to wait on the date “party” downstairs.  We were going to have the missionaries help, but it became all kind of awkward, apparently, so we abandoned that idea.  We played some ping pong, took pictures of the dating party and then watched the third and last session with the local missionaries (the zone leaders headed home).

Sunday, Mark arrived at the house next door, which has already become “Markie’s house!”  We helped him unpack, watched the first session over their while eating lunch and then headed back home to a mellow watching of the last session here, after a good nap for me ;).  

We had a great talk with Lily, both during the last session and later that night.  That girl. I sure love her. I hurt for her struggles, but I am doing what I can.  I know she will figure it out with God, whether in this life or the next, but I am fervently praying that angels will intercede in the meanwhile so she can feel joy in the moment and find ways to mitigate the pain. She sure means the world to us and so many!

I also finished doctoring up the pictures for Lily’s book and submitted them.  We’ll see how that goes!

Back to the Blog...this one, that is! (Hungary visit, adventuring and older kid update)

 I miss using this blog, with my personally iconic "Singing Bees" label. I guess it has become even more dear to my heart since starting my kids' books, which are such a journey of love.  Here is a link to the "in between" one I used for a couple years: Tokidlihypihamaxelip. (There is also a link in the side bar.) I definitely need to update the side pictures, but (other than adding ones for the missing people) I don't know if I'll be able to do it.  Those pictures are so precious to me, capturing so much.  I am grateful for pictures, blogs and journaling!

I am feeling more inclined to journal every day. Our family is full of joy and sadness, beauty and brokenness, and it is good to record it so we may learn and grow together <3.  I feel that this is the place I will continue to record, as it has so much of our past here as well.

I am currently visiting Hungary with Kel and his beautiful family.  They are so dear!  We had a great day in Vienna, Austria (the city I flew into) taking a culinary tour of the city.  Akos (imagine there's an accent over that "A"!) enjoyed using his little scooter to zoom all over, and reminded me so much of his coordinated little daddy at that age.

We stayed up late last night--chatting and possibly making Réka a little sick, poor dear.  She has had a stressful last week (well, a stressful last month!) and a hard day today, but she is resilient <3. It is good to see her and Kel counsel together and make the best of hard situations.

Piper and Havala are taking on the lion's share of covering me for when I am gone, with a healthy dose of Maia and Daddy thrown in for good measure.  Bless his heart, Quinn is doing the labor of love trying to provide for all of this and all of us. Piper and Havala are coordinating meals, clean-up and basic, basic schedule up-keep.  I couldn't do this traveling without them, and I am so grateful.

I got to video chat with my lovies at home today!  Xai, Eli, Liesl and Penelope were taken on an adventure by Havala and Maia in our woods and Piper and Kujo tried to find them.  Havala said it was crazy how well Kujo found the kids time and again, often getting really close, even if Piper didn't see it too (although she may have been just pretending not to see them...I haven't heard her side of the story).  I am happy that they are having fun doing something besides just watching movies and eating cold cereal for breakfast and fun frozen food for lunches. I do that so that they look forward to me being gone, in one sense.  They kept asking, "Aren't you going yet?" ;). I know that they love it. It is just great to feel they are okay with me leaving.

Penelope wasn't so great with me leaving.  She apparently wouldn't be put down Saturday morning. I video-chatted with her today for a while and she babbled and babbled. I super love her and miss her! She tends to torpedo Quinn at night more with me gone.  That is probably the hardest part--leaving the baby.  Liesl also spent a great deal of time on the video chat and I loved that too!   She asked me often, "So how are you doing today?"  I was in a place where I was keeping people up, so I tried to speak quietly so that was hard, but worth it. They are both so dear.  Xai and Eli got on excitedly, long enough to have a slight well-mannered disagreement about something, dear ones.  

I am looking forward to chatting with Lily tomorrow and possibly Drew and Hyrum, depending upon where we are at in traveling.   Lily only has about four months left, Drew seven and Hyrum is just getting going. 

Ben caught a cute picture of Tova snuggling with Zoe, her older dog.  She is so cute with her two labs and we always enjoy with we get to visit them or they visit us.

You know, I am grateful for the joys mixed in with the struggles.  Big kid problems are way harder on a parent's heart than younger kid problems I always heard and that is certainly true. But it's not even about my heart...it's about seeing my kids and the problems that are no longer fixed by a hug and a kiss. I love these spirits that are a part of my life and pray that they can find meaning in my imperfectly offered love and find peace in their paths.