What a Sunday

Sometimes there are forces at work that just fight against you no matter what you try to do to rectify the situation. We left for church on time this morning. Soon after leaving it began to rain. We have a 15 minute drive to church on a good day. About 5 minutes into our drive it really starts to pelt us and then we see it. A big white wall. That is seriously what it looked like. Ray slows way down and we merge into the wall of rain. It is coming down so hard we can't see more than 10-20 feet in front of our car. It reminds me of whiteouts in a blizzard but of rain. Finally almost to the church it lightens up. It's barely raining at the church but it is thundering and lightning. She-girl is scared of thunder so she and I run to the church building while Ray is getting T-man out of the car.

Once inside the chapel (even though we were earlier than usual) all the pews on the side we usually sit on are filled up. We see one pew on the other side of the chapel empty so we head over. The bishop stops us and ask us if Ray and I will be willing to offer the prayers during sacrament meeting. We say we will and sit down. She-girl didn't want to sit there. She wanted to sit on the other side. Ray finally took her out and got her a picture of Jesus from the table of Missionary pass along cards.

After the opening song I head up to say the prayer. She-girl freaks out and runs after me. She trips on the stairs and falls and just continues to lay there and scream while I try to say the prayer. I think I said some nice things. I go over and pick her up and took her out into the foyer. I see that she bit her lip in her fall and now has a fat lip. We make it back into the chapel for the sacrament. But during the whole meeting we are in and out with the kids. I take She-girl out for time out for grabbing a car from T-man and then throwing another one at him. When we leave T-man freaks out and starts screaming. Ray takes him out. I go back in with She-girl and she sees her daddy is gone and so starts wanting to go out and starts claiming "Stinky!" So I grab a diaper and head out again. We find daddy and T-man and we all go back in together. I ended up taking T-man out at the end and She-girl followed us out and then wanted her daddy so I stood in the back of the chapel while she walked back up to the pew. I ended up standing out in the foyer and Ray took She-girl up when he said the closing prayer.

Off to nursery. T-man's first official day. He didn't want any of it. I sit in there with him but he won't leave my lap and when he does he ventures away only for a few minutes. She-girl is hiding behind the cabinet door the whole time. Almost an hour into it She-girl decides she wants her daddy and runs out the door (she opened it herself) and runs screaming down the hall. The nursery leader runs out after her. The nursery leader comes back and says Ray intercepted her. A few minutes later Ray came back in with She-girl. That started the next fight. (I should mention besides my two there was two more throwing tantrums at the beginning. That will come in to play in a few minutes.) Both wanted to sit on Daddy's lap. T-man started pulling She-girls hair and She-girl started pushing T-man.

Snack time. Kids love that right? Not my kids. They didn't want to sit in their seats. She-girl pulled all her grapes into pieces. T-man started throwing his at the other kids. Then they both started crying and screaming again. Ray takes She-girl out for a walk. My kids started the other two back up again so I kindly removed my other child from the situation.

We left a little early and when we got home She-girl had to sit quietly in time-out and only got church related books to look at. My parents use to make us sit for an hour if we acted up in church when we got home in our church clothes. I didn't make her sit that long. I about died of the shock when she actually sat there the whole time and just looked at the books.

Ray and I decided that she never acted out in nursery until we started sitting in there with T-man so we will just leave both of them next week and then if T-man has a hard time the nursery leader will bring him to us after a few minutes if he doesn't stop crying. I also decided our FHE lesson tomorrow will be on reverence and how to act at church.

Ray let me get a nice nap and then when I got up I started dinner. I was making a really simple dish. Meatball Calzones. Just thaw a loaf of frozen bread dough. Roll it out to 12*18 inch rectangle. Put meatballs (I use frozen ones usually) and one cup of mozarella cheese. Fold over and seal ends. Brush with egg white and sprinkle on italian seasoning. Then let rest for 15-30 minutes. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 400 degrees. Heat up pizza or spaghetti sauce and serve over calzone. So I go to roll out the dough and no rolling pin. We search the house high and low and still can't find it. We call our two neighbors we know really well and neither of them are home. I end up pushing and pulling the dough into a rough rectangle. But it works and dinner turned out beautifully.

I finished my lesson on reverence for tomorrow. It's amazing how one bad day can give you a kick in the bum to get you headed in the right direction. Ray and I have made a vow that we are going to hold FHE religiously now (we have struggled in the past, we usually do something but not always lessons.) Ray even wants to do two a week for awhile.