Saturday

Last night I stayed up reading several talks by very inspired leaders.  I was on my second time through reading a talk about Kindness by Elder Joseph B. Worthlin when I fell asleep on the couch.  It was around midnight.

Fast forward exactly five hours and forty-six minutes. 

Kids were tiptoeing down the stairs.  They have this acute sixth sense that reminds them when it is Saturday.  No more faking that they are too tired to get up in time to do all of their chores before scripture study on a school day.  It is quite amazing actually.  Three of them were already down the stairs before I was awake enough to realize that it was not even 6:00 a.m. yet, and they were anxious for their T.V. watching Saturday to begin.

John and I had other plans for today.  It never works out well when we laze around all morning.  People fight.  Chores never get done.  And before you know it, the day is wasted.  So I herded them all back upstairs, kindly (see above talk that I fell asleep to) and extra sweetly directed them to their clip boards and job charts, and explained our plan of attack for the day.   Surprisingly they all complied with minimal complaining. 

By 7:15 the majority of the chores were done, and we were out the door on our way to the store to find Isaac a new birthday bike.  Accomplished.

Isaac was dropped off promptly at 9:00 at the church, with two Krispy Kreme's in hand, for his Scouting for Food service project. 

By 9:30, Nathan, Will and I were laying down for a morning nap.

At noon, we all loaded up in the van to go swimming at the YMCA in Evanston.  We had a blast until the lifeguard blew her whistle, cleared the pool and began scooping something out of it with her long net.  They said they would add some chemicals and we could be back in the water in 20 minutes.  We opted to head for home.

Once home, John settled them into a great flashback movie "The Last Star Fighter," while I cooked some spaghetti. 

Then it was finishing chores.  At 5:15 I took Nathan to a birthday party at Pump It Up, ran home to make dinner, back to pick up Nathan at 7:15, then home to tuck in and kiss and wish sweet dreams.  Everyone was out by 8:00.

Including my Johnny.

On a completely different note. . . Yummers:  loves to wear a beanie like his big brothers, is always packing around more toys than he can carry, can put on his own shoes, and hates taking off his pajamas.