So Much Love in a Single Week!

 After turning her life over to to full-time service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for 18 months, Belle is home again.

We spent the day of her return making posters.

This is the working draft of the candy poster we made. 
The final poster included Hershey's Kisses at the end, and we circled or blocked out words on the treats as needed to help the message be easier to read.

And then she finally arrived!

(Our joy sure brought joy to lots of other people in the airport.)

She brought home presents for everyone!

He has collected spoons from new places for years.  They're getting harder to find, though, and he's waaaaay delighted to have one from Aruba.

I love the excitement on Nature Angel's face!

She said, "Now I have 2 pieces of original art from up-and-coming artists!  I bought the first one at the Art Walk I went to a few weeks ago, and now this one!"

This is a reversible doll in beautiful Carribbean dress.

The dolly has beads in her hair, too.

It's as if she never left . . . but she's matured and deepened and grown.

My favorite moment so far was at Morning Meeting when we were having Thankful Thursday.  She said, "I'm thankful for Morning Meeting."

She'd not been part of one for over 18 months--probably closer to over 2 years because she graduated and it wasn't part of her school day even before she left.  But distance and time allowed her to return and want to participate in our family devotional tradition.

She's the first grown-up kid to express gratitude for this work I've done for over 20 years.

I've always known it is important work--work worth doing.

But there's something about having a kid be thankful that . . . I don't know . . . speaks peace? . . . comfort? . . . gratitude that someone noticed?

I'm not finding the right words.

Perhaps another parent understands.

Belle and I were able to serve in the temple together within 24 hours of her homecoming.

We ran into some of her old friends, also serving that night, and it made the time extra joyful.  They invited Belle to several activities where she will be reunited with lots more old friends.  I loved just listening to them catch up.

This is also the week that Super Star and Mr. E-- were sealed in the temple.  They were married civilly just over a year ago, and this ceremony was a religious ordinance that takes marriage from "'Till death do us part" to "For time and all eternity."

The younger kids weren't able to participate in this ordinance in the temple, so they found things to do out on the grounds.  My favorite picture of them is this one:

Poor Super Star and Mr. E-- were stranded at the temple after their photo shoot was over because it ended well after the rest of us all left.  The photographer accidentally took off with their phones and keys in her backpack after she kindly offered to hold them during the shoot.

A friendly soul on the temple grounds shared her phone with Super Star; she called me; I found the photographer and her phone number on Instagram; Super Star was able to call the photographer; The photographer was able come back, and everything ended up just fine.

Now they have a great story to share about the day they were sealed in the temple!

That same evening, there was a special fireside for the youth with Elder Gong.  Nature Angel decided she'd rather celebrate with Super Star, and we decided most of the other kids eligible to attend were not going to succeed at such a large and relatively unsupervised event, so they were all going to attend Super Star's reception.  

But Little Princess felt really torn--loyal to her sister, but drawn to this event. 

We told her she was absolutely free to choose what she wanted, and she had our full support either way.

Super Star told her the same.

She finally decided to attend the fireside, and while she was there, she had several powerful, personal faith-promoting experiences.

I'm so glad she was true to herself.

I'm also so glad her big sister was supportive of this decision.

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We did also do some homeschooling!!

The high schoolers and I finished The Last of the Mohicans.

It's incredibly sad.

I don't know if any of the three of us will ever read it again.

But we certainly will always be affected by it.

The younger kids and I finished Liberty or Death, and I decided that we were not going to finish The Great Little Madison.  Instead I found a couple of books about the U.S. Constitution on our bookshelves.  

I read this one in full:

And I started this one:

The kids are writing narrations on the latter of the two books, so we're going through it fairly slowly to keep reasonable the amount of information they need to process each day.

We went to the park.  The kids skated, climbed, ran, and soaked up a little bit of sun.

On this day at the park, I decided to walk a few laps around the park.  Baymax decided to walk with me.  He held my hand and talked about this, that, and the other.  

It was a sweet shared moment with my "baby."

Working on Audubon paintings

Nature Angel is still studying human anatomy and physiology.

I'm kicking the kids outside as much as possible.  
They're getting old enough that they don't play the way they used to, but they still need the time outdoors.  Even if they Pokemon battle on the deck, they're at least getting fresh air.

I've spent hours on dance costumes, and I have hours of work to go.  

Our dress rehearsal is this week.  

Then 3 shows in a row before our holiday season break.

I don't know how much proper school we'll get done in the coming days, but we'll do our best.

I'll leave with this photo of me in action at a rehearsal, caught by our awesome dance mom/photographer.

My little Stars make me laugh!