In no particular order:

We got dumped on this weekend.

Jaclyn shovelled the neighbour's driveway (Steven's job) (in her pajama pants) while Steven and Ken were away at a basketball tournament. I started to shovel ours, but my brother-in-law came along and saved me. (Thanks, Bruce.)

In other news, Chloe has gone from rewriting the New Testament (as she reads aloud she substitutes in synonyms that make it 'easier' - move over KJV, prepare yourselves for CV) to total despair that she doesn't understand what she's reading. Family scripture has never been more miserable. It seems like Carmen just came out of this! What I need to do is pre-read the chapter with Chloe before family scripture, but it's hard enough to carve out time for the family let alone an extra 15 minutes for Chloe. I know it's worth it, I just haven't figured out the how yet.

Carmen took the Red Cross Babysitter's Course today. She's already a terrific babysitter, but she really wanted the confidence of the first aid instruction. I took her out of school to make it happen - we're not on the same school schedule as the rest of Calgary - most schools had today off, thus the course offered on a Monday.

Meanwhile I'm doing everything I can to keep Steven from missing any school (cough medicine, extra early bedtime) because he has midterms coming up next week. We've been winning the battle for 10 days now.

Ken's work is driving me a little crazy at the moment. He doesn't know whether or not he's flying to Abu Dhabi at the end of the week. As in it's possible that he might fly around to the other side of the world on a moments notice for who knows how long? I don't know, it just seems to me that this kind of business trip should get a little more notice and planning than jetting to Denver for the day.

Because today was a day off school in Calgary (yes, back to that), Steven didn't have seminary this morning even though he did have school. I got up at 6am to start laundry anyways. It was the only way everything I wanted to do today was going to get done, plus dinner on the table. Ken was sure there had to be another way (not that I woke him up). Makes me think of another quote:

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Quotes

My niece just started herself a new blog for her quotes she appreciates and wants to share. Funny, I posted a quote earlier this week, and somehow felt restrained from posting more so soon. Why? If that's where I'm at then I should throw it out there! Thanks for the inspiration, Missy. Here's what I've been hanging on to:

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

-- Calvin Coolidge

Ring the bells that still can ring 

Forget your perfect offering 

There is a crack in everything 

That's how the light gets in. 

(Leonard Cohen)

What you saw as falling apart was actually things falling into place…

(via Lelly)

I like this quote I found on the blog 71 Toes:


INTERRUPTIONS

"When you are exasperated by interruptions, try to remember that their very frequency may indicate the value of your life. Only people who are full of help and strength are burdened by other persons' needs. The interruptions which we chafe at are the credentials of our indispensability. The greatest condemnation that anybody could incur - and it is a danger to guard against - is to be so independent, so unhelpful, that nobody ever interrupts us, and we are left comfortably alone."

-Anonymous
from The Anglican Digest

Last week

Carmen made dessert from a Nintendo DS recipe and it was delicious!
(We'll double the cherries next time.)

The tallest guy on the team was burdened by injuries,
placing Steven at Center.

Steven, Carmen, and Chloe had Western Days at school.

Chloe was the only one willing to pose for pictures.


(Steven didn't actually dress as a cowboy. He dressed as a Mexican in a hand-me-down jacket from his dad.)

And today is the 3rd last Sunday of NFL! (The girls are relieved)
If each of their favourite teams win today, they won't be able
to sit together two weeks from now.

Recently

Stevens' been playing a lot of basketball. 

We've switched to 9am church, which is giving us more time together for things like board games. Carmen won Monopoly (Alberta-opoly, actually). By the end of the game she owned every property and had a hotel on each one.

Grandma (my mom) gave Jaclyn a bell from her collection. This is the beginning of a new tradition (Jaclyn is the oldest grandchild) for grandchildren to choose a bell from Grandma in their last year of high school.

For Chloe I was going to share that she quit violin this month, but it would be more accurate to say that I quit. Chloe is remarkably compliant considering how strong-willed she is, and would have continued for as long as I told her to (probably). Basically, between Christmas and mourning we went for a month without practising the violin and I didn't miss it. In fact I realized that all violin was doing was stealing time from piano and Chloe clearly prefers playing the piano.

While we were quitting things, Carmen quit Irish Dance. The end was near, anyhow, because Irish Dance lessons directly conflict with Young Women's activity night and Carmen is nearly 12 years old! 

It hasn't been all quitting. Jaclyn is starting her new tutoring job today and Carmen began voice lessons yesterday. (Poor Steven. He already thought Carmen did too much singing around the house. He wouldn't mind having all sisters if they would just. stop. singing.)

First lesson.

I should have done video and then had you guess at Mrs. Stephen's age. I'd say 75 years old. She's very nurturing but also very proper, which will be awesome for Carmen. (Video also would have been amusing just to capture the vocal warm-up exercises.)

Her Pretty Little Head

I spent 45 minutes curling Jaclyn's hair on Friday night while she shared what was going on in her pretty little head. (The physics of race car driving as it turns out.) (Specifically how to calculate the banked curves when building the track.)