Time is getting away from me! I've been holding a bundle of photos and experiences in my arms--trying to keep them all secure until I can get them safely recorded somewhere, but as more moments keep being added to the pile, others slip from my grasp and blow away before I can catch them!
One thing that's strange in this business of documenting life is how my older kids are somewhat stepping outside of my constant sphere of awareness. Increasingly it seems that the things I am recording are second hand accounts! Much of what I know is only ... what they tell me. And it's a strange business no longer being a primary source. (It feels almost as if they have always simply existed as a subset of my life. And now? They are a life all their own!)
Still, I'm grateful for this unique phase and bit of time where, even as they are increasingly stretching themselves out on their own, they still feel that our house is home and that being a part of our traditions and activities is a given; and yet being home (and us having them here) is novel enough--after weeks here and there away from their siblings--to make every time they are here ... feel like a celebration.
Truly, life feels so much happier when any of these three oldest kids come home. They just make everyone happier and everything more fun and everything easier. They all seem much more mindful of opportunities to help me--getting groceries, putting younger siblings to bed, making dinners and desserts, and getting all the after-dinner clean up and chores done before I've even thought to ask anyone; and they go out of their way to spend time making their younger siblings have fun. (This weekend Abe played basketball with Jesse and Anders, shot arrows with Jesse, programmed a funny, simple little space/shooting game with Jesse, and played rounds of Pokémon with them. Last time Daisy was here, she took all the younger kids to the Treehouse Museum, and this time Goldie took them all--making the house quiet so I could help Jesse get his lesson ready for Teacher's quorum on Sunday.) They stay up late watching movies and playing games and laughing, and I just feel so lucky to have them as they are at this stage. On Sunday, having all ten of my kids along the bench with me at church I just felt like I had an extravagance of riches.
But, since they often aren't here, below are a few second hand recordings of happenings of late:
Abe's boss at BYU took him to Boston the weekend before Thanksgiving to present at a conference. (He works for BYU's language department using his math and machine learning know how to develop better models for correctly assessing a student's language proficiency level. I probably didn't describe that correctly. But it's actually pretty fascinating to hear about. And a pretty big deal to get to go present on it at a fancy pants conference!)
.jpg)
Nearly all of Daisy's closest friends have been off on missions the past few years, so it is fun for her that they have started coming home! The other night she met up with two of them for a Steven Sharp Nelson concert in Salt Lake.
And Goldie. Well. She's working at all sorts of Utah State sporting events and involved in all sorts of fun clubs. ("Like the apple picking club," I tell people. But there's no apple picking club; only some other club ... whose name I can never remember ... that once went apple picking.) But maybe the biggest deal is ... she's opened her mission portal! 😱 She won't be 19 until July, but she seems serious about going and she's begun the process!
Anyway. I like these near-grown children in my life. The end.
(Oh except perhaps this is a good place to share a few pictures Abe texted us from a "cookbook" cousin Devin gave him. Hahaha.)
No comments:
Post a Comment