Busy, Busy

You know you've been ridiculously busy when you forget to put your baby to bed for her nap. Sorry about that, Lady Harriet.

Last week was pretty busy. A lot busy. Busier than I like. But, like most things, it doesn't sound that bad in the retelling. The first part of the week was spent delivering invitations to the RS party. We had our Relief Society Birthday Bash on Wednesday, so we made 100 invitations and delivered them (not us the presidency--we had visiting teachers deliver to their sisters) to the least-likely-to-come sisters. I also went shopping for all the food ingredients and tried to nail down food donations for the funeral on Thursday.

Wednesday was the party. Our theme for this year is "Charity Never Faileth." Yes, I am aware that is always the RS theme, but I wanted to get back to our roots to go along with Daughters of My Kingdom book. So, to stick with that theme, I chose a picture in the book (its on 64 or thereabouts) with the two women standing in front of boxes that say "layette" on them and tried to recreate it.

We served white chicken chili (Kayli, your recipe got RAVE reviews and so many people requested the recipe that I'm sending it out through our RS email group) and crusty bread. I was going to for a meal that they would have eaten way back when, and beans said that to me.

Then, along the stage, we set up a bunch of tables and put together 40 layette kits. I've been collecting the items from the sisters for the past month. Oh yeah, that's another thing we worked on Tuesday--figuring out what items we needed more of to make up the last few kits.

At the back of the gym we put up tables to recreate the pic, and brought some dress-up/era clothing for people to put on and take pictures of themselves. This wasn't as cool as I'd hoped because Kami moved to Houston and took her hats with her, but the sisters still had a great time.

Along the far wall my RS Beautification Specialist (yes, I made up her calling--RS presidents are allowed to do stuff like that) put together a display of RS type items. We had a bunch of old RS magazines and books and several old sewing machines. The lady who put it together is an artist with a real eye and talent for stuff like this and the display was lovely. She put baby blankets in the sewing machines to make it seem like we were really making layette stuff and she brought old blankets and canning equipment, etc. It was beautiful. She also printed off some of our favorite pics and quotes from Daughters of My Kingdom and mounted them and put them on a bulletin board.

So right after dinner, I spoke a few words about charity and asked the sisters to fill out a little paper that asked them to record one experience about someone/s being charitable toward them that made a difference in their lives. Now, on Weds., I'll be sending out a Charity Never Faileth Experience to all the sisters via email.

Basically, the party went like this. Eat really good food. Listen to Sister Young. Split up and wander around chatting, dressing up, filling out charity papers, or working on layettes. Eat cake. Go home. It went well. I was happy with the turn-out, even though it was less than we got out for the Christmas party. We had two really inactive sisters come and several less active and everyone was silly and chatty and had a good time.

The sisters below are Valerie Atkinson (Eli's sunbeam teacher), Rachel Kulhmann (my counselor), and Sue Bowen (my other counselor).


The next day I dashed in and out, helping where I could for the funeral in between feeding my own kids and getting Cowen to and from speech therapy. That made for a rather frenetic morning/early afternoon. Then I went home and frantically put my lesson plan/activities together for the class I teach Thursday nights. I was so happy to get home Thursday night! Long day. Long week.

On Saturday, Timothy roto-tilled the garden and rest of the awkward spots in our backyard. He and the kids were outside in the sun all day. Everyone has mild sunburns and everyone was pretty zonked out today. Eli had to sit with me in RS for a few minutes, but I taught today (another thing to put together this week!), so I had to take him back to his teachers. Breaks my heart when that boy cries. We have the most awful church time known to man and Eli still takes a nap every day. Some Sundays he is so zonked his teachers carry him into nursery and he sleeps in there. Other times I've walked by primary and various leaders/teachers have been holding him while he sleeps. Rough on the little man.

And now, I'm off to continue sorting through ancient Greece library books to pick which ones I'm using for homeschool and which ones I am not. Adios.