Oh, the little things that make life worth it!

On Labor Day, we had a house full in the morning. Shad had the missionaries, Levi, and 3 other friends from the ward over to play Magic. Ruth came over as well to go over some activity planning with me. She and I are planning a birthday party/getting to know you activity for the 21st. Anyway, with school started now and Shad started work on Monday, these weekly game rituals will no longer exist, as Elder Riha lamented on Sunday. I'm happy enough to sit back and think the same thing, and smile. I'm enjoying having the house back to being mine.

Sometime this week while out walking, Shad and I saw this:


And I mourned not having an income that would allow me to go to the store, by a pack of Maxis and dump it in there. If anyone would like to send contributions my way, I'd receive them gladly:)

Our Wednesday church activity plans kept getting changed this week. At the beginning of the month, it was planned to be a Young Women planning night. A week and a half ago that got changed when the Stake President told us to get our youth on Mormon.org by Saturday. So that changed the activity and those involved because Mormon.org only accepts ages 14 and up for profiles. I decided that since I have 2 beehives with new assignments to decorate and maintain bulletin boards, they could bring their supplies and then the other beehive and I would help. That didn't end up happening due to homework and lack of planning/caring...so we played Apples to Apples. Aside from having fun and enjoying each others' company, I did get 3 Personal Progress goals completed in the travel time and waiting for my ride time, so at least the night was still productive. By the way LORI, I hope you're doing a good job working on your own PP because if I end up beating you in getting done, I'm going to SMEAR it in your face. Just letting you know:)

Thursday I had another prenatal appointment. I really like my doctor. A few weeks ago I heard a fantastic horror story about him that just made me so glad I got him instead of the other doctor. My favorite cashier at the grocery store told me that he let her go a full 2 weeks past her due date before inducing her...and then she was in labor for 50 hours. She was so mad at him for 1) not cutting to the chase and going for a c-section and 2) not releasing her so that she could have her husband take her up to Kearney to get a c-section. I love this story because it shows that he's a patient doctor in letting birth go as naturally as possible. He told me he's a lazy doctor, but only in the sense that he likes to let nature do the work for him. And then after that, he sent me to be a lab rat for the phlebotomists to get my rhogam shot (after they didn't believe I need it and they decided to run a blood test just to be sure), and to get my glucose tested for gestational diabetes after making me drink that vile sugar crap. I'm sure that's the actual technical term for it.

Friday was fun. Shad saw an ad in the paper on Wednesday for a free piano 20 miles away. So we were scheduled to go look at it in the afternoon. While I was on Skype for my Young Womens Presidency meeting in the morning, Shad washed the dishes and worked on rearranging the living room furniture to accommodate, just in case. I really like the new arrangement. It's more inviting and comfortable. We didn't end up getting the piano that day because it was much heavier than anticipated, even with Shad's dad and the missionaries. They returned Saturday morning with an extra hand and a trailer, which made things considerably easier. We love our new piano! Tommy especially. He got right to playing. He started in his Chinese rest squat...



then got more intense with his playing AND singing, so he had to stand up on the bench. Notice the blurred hands. Yep, he was playing that fast. I kept thinking of a line from one of my Chinese movies, "Wow! Turning black keys into white."

Isn't it gorgeous?


Shad gave Tommy a horse ride, which was a new thing. Tommy thought it was pretty cool.


One of the days last week, we decided to just go out to the retail store here in town just to let Tommy have fun walking around with shoes on. He was so excited and thought he was really big stuff to be walking around in a store by himself.


Being a big boy with shoes on also made it easier to wield the foam swords in the toy section.


On Saturday we tried to go see Ruth play in her tennis tournament that was here in Norton. Unfortunately, we got there after her partner rolled her ankle, benching them for the rest of the afternoon. So we played on the kiddy playground instead. It's one we haven't been to before, and also relatively new. Tommy is really starting to get the hang of what to do at playgrounds.


Playing jailbird in his appropriately striped shirt--holding onto the bars, shaking around, and yelling a bit.


Then we went in the tunnel. This was our first successful tunnel attempt. He's wanted absolutely nothing to do with playground tunnels up to this point. But this one was fun because it had the holes in it, and he could make faces with Shad and pose for the camera.


Again...


And again...


We love our little monkey who seems to so instinctively know how to pose for the camera. In the evening, we walked him over to Nana and Bumpa's house to play for a few hours so that Shad and I could have a 2 day early anniversary date. We had an at home date with DiGiorno and Rango, and still dressed up nice for each other. The pizza came out doughy (why is it that the time on the boxes isn't enough to actually cook the pizza??), and the movie sucked (I quit trying to stay awake because it wasn't worth the effort), but we still just really enjoyed having a night to ourselves and being dressed up. And then we had a nice, moonlit walk to pick Tommy up. Now to go with the subject, it really is the little things that make life worth it. Our Tommy has developed a new cuddliness in the past few weeks that we just LOVE! When we take him to bed or get him up from bed, he just hugs us and lays his head on our shoulders. When he's playing, he frequently stops to run over and give hugs--unsolicited! The other new thing for Tommy in the past 2 weeks is that he learned the sign for "bed" (we teach him sign language a little bit). So when we went to pick him up, he dropped his toys to toddle over and give hugs, then put his hand up on the side of his face and said, "Beh? Beh?" He was so happy to see us, give love and ask immediately that we take him home so he could go to bed. What a darling boy! I just love him so much:)

Sunday I got the new experience of teaching Gospel Principles. I've taken the substituting responsibility away from the missionaries. They have enough to do without preparing a Sunday School lesson as well. It was really nice and refreshing to teach a group of adults so willing and eager to learn, participate and engage in active discussion and ask questions. Quite a difference from teaching the beehives, let me tell you! Especially this Sunday.

I was going to write about yesterday, but given the already obnoxious length of what I've written, I'll just save it for the next time.