Erica Turns 9

 We started the celebration early by taking BFF Madison along with us to see a movie on Saturday (The Amazing Maurice). Even those these two don't see each other very often, they don't miss a beat getting back to their goofy ways. 

Henry hung out at their house while we were at the movie. I didn't get a picture of him and Wayne because they were running around the whole time.

That night after we put Erica to bed, the boys helped me decorate and wrap Erica's presents. Our dining table has been in the living room since Justin's birthday and it's fun to have the table extended to all it's 10 foot glory.

Henry made this cool streamer effect.

This is her wish list. I made her write it in order of what she wanted most to least because it was so dang long. She wanted mostly clothes and snacks.

Since her birthday was on Sunday, she had to wait until Justin came home from a break between meetings to open presents. But we were afraid that by then Henry would be gone doing fast offerings. So she opened all of her snacks before Justin got home.

"That's the biggest bag of Doritos I've ever seen!" She also got circus cookies, jello cups, Sprite and cereal.

And then Justin came home and we had about a 10 minute window for Erica to open her "real" gifts before Henry left to do fast offerings.  A unicorn blanket....

A soft fleece sweater.

A book of sudoku puzzles.

New boots (#1 on her list). She also got some other clothes and a new walllet.

Cute kiddos.

Then she had her breakfast for lunch. French toast, whipped cream and strawberries.

Oh and chocolate milk and powdered sugar.

And then we played hand and foot until Justin had to go back to the church. She had some time to do her sudoku book since we have 1:30 church. I've decided Sundays are long no matter when you have church.

I stayed home with James that day since he had pinkeye. Then after church church I took Erica to drop off some treats to Delaney. Delaney was supposed to come to the movie with us the day before but she was sick but she still wanted Delaney to have the candy I would have snuck into the theater for her.

And then it was time to finish her cake and get ready for birthday dinner!

She wanted a unicorn cake but after thinking about how she doesn't really like cake, she wanted brownies with marshmallow frosting. But after realizing brownies don't have the volume that cake has, she wanted a cake and brownie mix. I whipped that up and baked it in a bundt pan and it turned out big just like she wanted it. Add cups and cups of homemade marshmallow fluff and she was very excited with how it turned out. We topped it off with some unicorn candles so she still got the unicorn vibe she was hoping for.

That's a big dessert!

After dinner (homemade mac n cheese with ham, broccoli, red jello) she opened presents. Birthday money from my mom and dad.

A stuffy, earrings and...

unicorn pajamas from Nadine.

She wore them the rest of the night and every night since.

Then it was time for cake!

And then it was basically time for bed. It took a long time to get her settled down, of course.

A couple of days later Delaney was feeling better and brought over her present of a backpack for her big dolls. Fun fact: this day was Delaney's birthday. They are birthday buddies.

Here's her birthday interview page.

She's not shy about having a thing for Truman Chase. He lives near us and his brother is James's best buddy so they see each other a lot outside of school. 

9 Fun Facts about Erica

She loves gymnastics, tolerates piano, hates pokemon.

I *think* she's everyone's favorite sibling. She's the easiest to get along with and is up for whatever they want to do. 

She's a homebody. All my other kids would rather play at friends' houses but she always wants friends to come here.

She says she wants to be a veterinarian but she's afraid of animals. She also wants to be a mom and she's going to be the best mom because she's so kind.

She's the child that will look after me when I'm an old lady. 

She makes the biggest messes when she plays. Always has and probably always will. She also watches TV the least so that's probably the trade-off.

At least once a week she comes home from school and announces with irritation, "My teacher said 'acrossed' again." (As in "He went acrossed the street.") She doesn't dare correct her but she may snap one of these days.

She sings and hums to herself while we play games. She can't help it!

She is Justin's snack buddy. Corn nuts, Doritos, jerky, sausage, pretzels. Pretty much everything he likes, she likes. She doesn't like sugar cookies and I don't know where I went wrong.

Happy birthday little lady.

That was a weird month

For some reason our kids didn't go back until January 4 and we can all tell you that was too late. They were all ready and no complaints come Wednesday morning. Tuesday I took Erica to the dentist to get a cavity filled and our dentist asked how our new year was looking. "Pretty good," I said. "We don't have a whole lot going on." You know how when you say something you think is true and there's a little voice in the back of your head that says, "that's not right"? I got that feeling. The last time I got that feeling was when I tucked Sarah into bed and told her that I would take her to the store the next day. "No you won't" said the little voice. I gave birth to Erica that night.

Anyway, I'll get to the rest of that in a minute.

James was wondering if you can count by other numbers, not just 2s. Why yes. So we went over counting by 4s. I wrote them down as he figured them out. Then we wanted to count by 12s. It took him a second but he could tell me what number came next. I only wrote down what he said. We were laughing every time he came up with the next number because neither of us could believe he could do it. He told me his classmates call him the smartest kid in the class. "Well just Soren calls me that because I can answer any math question he asks me." He's almost done with his 1st grade workbook so I'm going to get him a second grade one and see how far he can go.

No one is more excited about playoff football than Henry. He's set up a big bracket on his bedroom wall and fills it in as teams win. He talks to me all the time about who he thinks is going to win and I try my darndest to pay attention.

He was ordained a deacon on January 8 and got to pass the sacrament on January 15. He was all smiles sitting up on the stand with the rest of the deacons. I could see him concentrating so hard to do a good job. When he sat down with us, he was still smiling. "That wasn't as hard as I thought," he said. He has to be to church 15 minutes early (which is fine since we have 1:30 church this year) and has a great attitude about it. He got to do fast offerings the morning before he was ordained and was fine about that too. For being a kid that whines about work, he sure shines when given responsibility It helps that he has great friends in the deacons quorum the year ahead of him. He's happy to be with them again.

Sarah played with the school district's honors orchestra. 8th graders from all over the district practiced for just two rehearsals before the concert on the 18th. They did such a great job!

Sarah is still playing the viola instead of the violin. I thought maybe she would switch back after her last concert but she is still all about it. I think she likes being a bit more unique since there are so many violin players.

Henry is playing basketball in the city league this year. Last year he didn't play so he's a little rusty. I already see a lot of improvement since his last game.  He has a lot of fun so that's all that matters.

The littles are doing an 8-week gymnastics class at Springville High. Erica did it last winter and loved it. Now that James is old enough to go at the same time, I talked her into talking James into going. James needs something to do to pass the cold winter. I don't have photos yet because I've been bribing them to go inside and come out on their own so I don't have to get out of the car. But one of these days I'll go watch and get pictures. Promise.

So that's what I imagined my January to look like and only all of that. Well that and Fancy Dinner Night.

Dinnertime at the Dye house has not always been a joyful affair. On any given night we were getting after the kids for kicking under the table, complaining about the food, lying down on their chair, wandering away, not eating, being gross, yelling, bad conversation habits (ie "I was not talking to you!") and just overall unpleasantness.

So I pulled out some candles and candlesticks, taped each of the kids' names on them and told them the rules: You light your candle after the prayer. As soon has you have bad table manners (we went over all the dos and don'ts) Dad or I will blow out your candle. Once you're candle has burned itself out, we'll take you out to dinner. We had no idea how long it was going to take but they were motivated and dinners instantly improved. They all had their candle blown out at least once. The biggest improvement was just overall eating while they should be eating. James and Erica, who are usually slow or just push food around, actually ate mindfully and thoroughly so they could stretch out their time. It immediately put an end to yelling and the other most heinous behaviors. It took about 6 weeks. To celebrate and to fulfill our end of the bargain, we took them to Magleby's in Springville. The evening before I made my kids all stand closely in our entryway and practice not shoving each other and then sitting at the set table for 10 minutes while dinner finished cooking. We were ready! 

It's a good thing we practiced waiting because even though we had reservations we had to wait to be seated and then wait a long time for our food.

Just happy to be eating somewhere without a playground inside.

James drank 3 cups of soda and two bites of pasta and then declared he had a stomachache.

Erica did much better and helped herself to Henry's fries.

No one loves a burger like Henry.

Sarah chose the prime rib sandwich and regrets nothing.

James's stomachache miraculously disappeared when dessert arrived. He ate half of that slice of chocolate cake. 

Overall I think the incentive worked. We'll see if they keep up their good manners. 

It was at this time that we broke big news to the kids. Before we could say exactly what it was they said "Are we moving?" (Sadly) "Are you pregnant?" (Happy). Nope and wow I really nope not. The real news was that Justin was called to be the bishop of our ward and was being sustained the next day. The reactions to that news was also mixed. Henry and Sarah were mostly excited and kind of didn't believe it. "Dad??" and later "I can't believe Dad is going to be the bishop." Erica was mostly sad because she doesn't like change and was worried Justin would be gone all the time. James was like, "Really?" and then over it.

Justin and I had known since January 8th. That's the perfect amount of time. Long enough to get over the initial shock but not too long that he procrastinated getting counselors or put it on the back burner. 

I think Justin knew exactly why were going to meet with the Stake Presidency that fateful morning. I was in denial and hoped it was just a check-in or maybe a different stake calling. Justin had only been a high councilor for a year and our bishop still had 4 more months before his five years were up. The stake president called Justin into his office and the counselors hung out with me in foyer. It felt like a gameshow when the contestant isn't to hear their partner's answers. Then I was invited in and President Jones got right down to business. 

  

He started off by saying we were all there because of me and how impressed he was with me and then all the stake presidency all admitted that they were all where they were because of their wives. It's a high compliment but not one I think I fully deserve. I met with President Jones privately in December, ostensibly to see how I was doing, as a wife of a high councilor, but he revealed this day that that interview was to get a better idea how our home life and marriage was going and just a better feel of who we were and wives are the best indicator. And man was I honest that day. It had been a long time since I've met with my bishop or stake president for no other reason to see how I'm doing. Instead of assuring him he can take me off their worry list which is my usual angle, I decided it wouldn't burden him one bit to tell him all the things: that I hate how busy we are, and anything that pulls anyone of us out of the house better be dang important. How I want my kids to see me serve in the church but not resent the church for taking me away. I told him I didn't understand why Justin and I both had such time consuming callings and that at times I resented it. But to ask to be released is like saying "this is my max, all I'm willing to give" and I'm not willing to say that. I can give more, I can give way more and people give more without complaining. And he didn't seem burdened or think less of me. Nor did he reassure me or give me any sort of indication he would remedy the situation. I didn't expect him to but it felt nice to just lay it all out there. So there is some comfort that President Jones is basing his esteem of me on this interview where I did not paint a rosy picture of myself.

Anyway, back to THE MEETING. It's weird when you know what they're going to say and it makes perfect sense when they say it. I guess my denial wasn't too deep. He asked me if I could support Justin and I said yes. Inside my head I'm saying, That's all I ever want to do. I think it's the only thing I'm actually good at. Then they asked Justin if he would accept the call and he said "Are you sure?" but President Jones only heard "sure" and that amused him. I only heard "sure" as well. So technically Justin didn't say yes.😉 I could tell Justin felt overwhelmed and shocked even though he knew why were were there all along. But I know now his call to the high council has prepared him for this calling and I know my year in the relief society presidency has helped me get to know the sisters in the ward. It was a rough year but I see the wisdom in it now.

For the next two weeks I asked Justin at least once a day, "How are you doing? Are you okay? Anything you want to talk about?"

It didn't seem real even as he took his seat on the stand. A little more real when he was set apart. He's already conducted his first meeting, led his first 5th Sunday discussion, had the priests and oldest girls over for a bake off, and answered emails and texts into the night. His first item of ward business was to release me from my calling in the relief society presidency. I thought I'd feel more relieved than I do. I guess when I don't do ministering interviews or just go to the next activity instead of being in charge or don't go to 6 other meetings I usually have in a month then it will really sink in. 

Right off I have been blown away by the love and support of our ward members, especially the empathetic hugs by former bishops' wives (there are a lot of them). I think we can do this.

And during all this our fridge died and we ate out of coolers in the backyard for four days. The fridge is good as new and it was just an inconvenience, really.

But it made for a really weird month.

Happy Birthday Justin!

While Justin got up early to buy fish (and a couple of other things I forgot) for his birthday party, the kids and I got ready to surprise him with is birthday presents. They each picked out a treat from the store that they thought he would like.

James picked chocolate almonds (safe choice) Sarah picked jalapeno kettle cooked potato chips, Erica chose Triscuits and Henry picked a 12 pack of Dr Pepper. I got him a big thing of mixed nuts.

He also got a sweater from me and whatever he picks out for himself because he is impossible to shop for because he keeps changing his mind or wants to find a really good deal or it's something that I can't pick out.

The theme for this year's potluck dinner was "Seafood and Eat It"

After dinner I made everyone play a game of pictionary. 

Then we had lots of different ice cream for dessert. He started eating it before we even sang and while it was still aflame.

Then we played more games and ate more food. The kids ran around downstairs shooting each other or spinning on the swing. We stayed up until midnight and then we were done.

Happy birthday, babe. We love you.