Productive Weekend

I love productive weekends. Unfortunately they don't happen very often but it is nice when they roll around. The weather was beautiful on Monday and we were able to wash our cars and get them cleaned out. I made bread. I got time to reorganize my food storage. I was able to buy quite a bit of baby food for my food storage. I reorganized my kitchen cabinets. Mike got new tires put on the car.

We actually made it to church which is two weeks in a row and that is like a world record for us. J/K. I was super prepared and had my bag of goodies to keep Olivia occupied. It worked pretty good. She was occupied for 75% of the time. The problem is she naps around 1 pm and that is exactly when church starts. And anyone with toddler aged kids know a sleepy child is unruly and impossible to reason with. I was very very tempted to leave after sacrament meeting and put her down for a nap.

The funny thing is right after sacrament meeting was over. Olivia zipped past me and Mike and all the older members and ran down the hall and waited for us next to the nursery room. I guess her reward to herself is if she can make it through sacrament meeting she gets to go to nursery. What a relief!! I feel bad for the nursery leaders because late church is such a hard time with children that age. They are tired and grumpy and there are a couple of kids that still hate it. Anyone who has that calling really is special.

The ward Mike and I belong to has a lot of older members. The average age in our ward is probably 55-60. And I am probably underestimating. There are a few families around our age but not many. It is a huge change for us since we came from a married student ward and everyone was around the same age but we were all in similar life situations i.e. recently married, maybe a new baby and someone was a student and we were all poor. When we went to church for the first time in November I'll admit that it was quite a turnoff. But I am happy to say that I am actually enjoying it.

We have an awesome Sunday School teacher. I love his teaching style but I always feel the spirit when he teaches. And the older members always have great input about the gospel and life and it is nice to get that variety. I'll be honest. Mike doesn't love church as much as I do and he isn't always excited to be super active. There are also other women in the ward that are married to non-members or not active husbands or converts or come from families where their parent was the first member and it is nice to meet other people who are in similar situations. When we lived in Utah I felt like sort of an outcast because I was a convert and we weren't super active. I definitely felt a lot of pressure.

I just wanted to thank those that gave me encouraging words about Olivia and sacrament. I am glad to know that I am not the only one that has a little stinker at times.