Sparkle Student

We had sparkle day at school. I love sparkles. It was a good day full of sparkles and glitter. A few of us gals at work ordered the same shirt in different colors. The shirts arrived with printed sparkles, we got high using glue to add real glitter to really make those shirts shine. Josie and I spent a lovely hour at the dollar store getting sparkly gift bows and getting distracted with all the other fun items at the store. I loved the bows on my shoes, that felt very fancy. 

Josie earned student of the month for Mrs Hodges class. Way to go sweet girl. Earning student of the month is a much bigger deal because students only get 9 chances to earn the reward. Last year we had student of the week which means each student had about 32 chances to earn the award. I told her there was a surprise on Thursday for her between 8 am and 5 pm, she was very excited. I sprinkled clues throughout the day until Justin arrived at school to cheer her on! She went home early with Justin. Josie’s class is quite challenging, out of the 5 4th grade classes hers is the most difficult to teach. I spotted a very large wheel of fluffy yarn last week at Walmart in just the right colors. Josie’s begged me to help her crochet a blanket. She named the super skein of yarn: cheese wheel. I started off her blanket with a foundation-less chain (the best thing ever) with 71 single crochets. By the 5th row she was down to 60 stitches, it was too hard to count and keep track of the sc stitches. I unraveled three rows and showed her how to crochet a hdc stitch that is easier to tell where to crochet on the next row. She is now speeding through her blanket! The cheese wheel is no longer chunky and her blanket is about 3 feet long. 

Evelyn finally got her wish. She’s asked me everyday for 2 weeks if the new MCO music is available to print. It finally came out on Friday. She is very excited to sing for this coming concert. She worked through some homework this weekend without a huge ruckus. 

Phillip is wading through piles of wood shavings in the garage. He made a weapon thing with his Christmas gift of new wood tools. It’s fun to come home from school and find him carefully shaving wood into some new interesting shape. He got some stain and wood oil recently so is learning to care for his wood creations. 

Everett came to Justin and I on Thursday evening wanting to know how to get a patriarchal blessing. That original request turned into a loaded situation as he eventually told us the spirit knocked him quite forcefully to go and talk to us about some of his recent struggles. We had a really good discussion with Everett. Growing up is not easy, there are things young men need to deal with and overcome (same and young ladies). I felt grateful Everett came up talk with us instead of hiding and making life more complicated. He is struggling with some brain boogers like Phillip. I told Phillip that Everett was struggling with brain boogers, Phillip’s eyes widened and he gave Everett the biggest, most sincere hug, saying he knew what Everett was dealing with. Today we got to sit with Everett and the bishop and have a discussion about repentance and our Savior. The spirit was very strong, repentance is real and those first steps are the hardest.  

I cleaned the stove and oven. Thursday night I was cleaning up after dinner, the stove was gross. I needed some oven spray to remove a stubborn part. The spray kept spraying and before I knew it the oven was in deep clean mode, rather I was in deep clean mode. I really did a good job! I took apart the doors to clean the inner glass, removed the liners for cleaning, and scrubbed the racks until they were silver again. The oven is now blue inside, it was a lovely gray and black with spots of blue. Now I don’t want to cook because the oven will get dirty again. Pat me on the back will ya? 

Evelyn, Josie, and I spent an hour at the Meridian temple Saturday morning. The girls walked around the grounds while I took some photos of a family that were sealed together. I quite loved watching their children during the sealing and afterwards. The girls and I discussed what it meant to be sealed and why they did not need to be sealed. We stopped at Fred Meyer on our way home to get some Valentine goodies and let Josie choose a couple birthday gifts. The boys bathed all 3 dogs as part 1 of dog spa day while we were gone. The spa opened for part 2 once I got home. It is not fun thing to groom 3 dogs. SO MUCH HAIR. My socks turned into hair slippers over the course of the 3 hour endeavor. Eve squirmed at exactly the wrong moment, I cut her ear pretty darn good as a result. She was flicking blood all over the floor, our faces, clothes, couch, etc. I used some blood clotting stuff that worked until she rubbed her ear again. We tried wrapping her ear but that just slipped off. Then, yes, I wrapped her ear and her head so she could not flick it off. She was not happy at all until we went for a walk. All three dogs are completely nuts when walked pulling like nascar drivers. We took off her bandaid today, it ripped off the scab. There was a moment of panic as she flicked her head spraying blood all over the laundry room floor, door, clean laundry, and my church dress. The cut started to clot so we went outside to try and bandage her ear again. I gave up and locked her outside until the cut stopped bleeding. So, if you come over and spot blood here and there, no one died.