Letter - My Birthday Week

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

It’s been a fun weekend celebrating Easter and my birthday.  I’ve had way too much junk food and so now I vow to eat better.  I feel better when I eat well.  Speaking of feeling better, my headaches are gone now.  Last week at my weekly visit I told my chiropractor that I’d had a headache every afternoon for a week and so he and his massage therapist worked their magic on me and now I don’t have headaches anymore.  YAY!!

 

Last week went well too.  On Monday I went to our stake’s Zumba class.  It was SO fun.  I love Zumba.  That night for Family Home Evening we went to Chad’s brother’s Devin’s house to help him get his back yard set up.

Marlee got a cute CTR owl necklace from her Primary teacher as a belated birthday present.

On Tuesday morning I got sucked into the computer, because I needed to veg for a while.  I cleaned up my email inbox, added the 1985 Jake and Mary Louise Flake Family picture on family search and then I started checking Facebook.  I was enjoying my relaxing morning so much that I forgot about Marlee’s preschool, I forgot one of Bryant’s football practices last week too.  I don’t like it when I forget things like that.  It makes me feel ditzy, and I worry about what other people think of me when I forget stuff like that.  I shouldn’t worry about that, but I do.

On Wednesday I went to the temple during Grammy Day’s and had a special experience where I was taught more about the importance of garments and how they protect you from the Destroyer, those thoughts are recorded in my last letter.  That evening I hosted a practice for a double trio Easter special musical number that I sang in.

Fun times at Grammy Days.  Heather and her kids are in town visiting.

Shannon brought her bunnies so the kids could have some Easter pictures with a live bunny.

Tilly loves to go into her Aunts' closet and get their high heels.

Thursday I was pretty tired since I didn’t get much sleep.  Tilly woke up at 3:30am and I couldn’t get back to sleep because I kept thinking about what I was going to teach my young women about modesty.  I finally got up and wrote all my thoughts down and now it hasn’t been pressing on my mind as much.  I plan to teach it as soon as I get a chance to teach all the young women in the ward together, unless I’m asked to teach it in Sacrament meeting.  The thoughts I wrote down aren’t verbatim of what I will teach to my young women, but they are a starting point.  Several things are my opinions.  I won’t teach my philosophies.  I will try to find quotes from general authorities teach of the protective power and importance of modesty and properly wearing garments.  I plan to ask a lot of introspective questions like in Alma 5.  Thursday afternoon I took the kids to the splash pad. They had a great time, we were sad we could only stay for a few minutes because I had to take Bryant to football practice.  We’ll have to go back again soon.  Chad’s flag football tournament was on Thursday night.  He played two games that night.  Since there was no school on Friday I took Marlee and Karalee with me to the championship game at 8:40pm.  Spencer and Bryant didn’t want to go so I opted to leave Tilly at home with them. J   Chad’s team won the tournament and got a cool trophy that will stay in the office of the company who sponsored the team.  Chad had 3 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in the championship game. 

Friday I went to Zumba again.  I love it!!  Since the kids were out of school on Friday, for lunch the kids and I went to Red Robin and got my “free” birthday burger.  My free burger cost me about $40 since I had to pay for everyone else’s food.  That’s how they get ya.  I know it’s all a marketing strategy though so I'm good with it.  J  Friday afternoon the kids colored Easter eggs and then we had a picnic in the back yard that evening.  We had egg salad sandwiches at our picnic so we could use up some of the eggs we colored.

 Saturday morning we had a ward Easter egg hunt at our neighborhood park.  Bryant had a football game at 1:30 and Spencer had a game at 2:00.  Bryant’s team lost, for the 5^th time.  They have yet to win a game.  This loss was particularly hard on Bryant.  He played well and caught a lot of passes, but they gave up too many touchdowns in the first half.  L  Spencer’s team won their game.  It was the last game of the season so it was nice that they could finish with a win.  Spencer caught 2 passes and almost scored a touchdown off one of them, but was tackled at the 1 yard line.  Sadly we didn’t get to see either of his catches because we were still at Bryant’s game.  L  Saturday evening Chad and I went to Costa Vida for our date and then we went to Walmart to get some stuff for Sunday dinner.

Marlee has been playing with that tiger mask for awhile.  She asked if she could wear it to the Easter egg hunt.  I said sure.  She looked so cute.

This picture cracks me up.  Marlee is on the prowl for Easter eggs.

Chad and Spencer team up for the three legged race.

Karalee in the egg and spoon race

Spencer is the closest player in blue with the white helmet.

 Sunday was Easter and my birthday.  You can see our Easter pictures HERE.  My Mom and Celeste hosted an Easter/birthday dinner.  A week or so ago I asked my Mom if she would come down to Mesa  so we could have a family dinner with the all of her children and their families down here this Easter since it was also my birthday.  She agreed to it.  Thank you Mom!!   It was nice to spend time with you and the rest of the family that could make it.  It was so nice to have my birthday fall on Easter.  Especially since all leadership meetings were canceled!!!  It was such a relaxing Sabbath Day.  I got many nice calls, notes and gifts from my family and friends.  It was a wonderful birthday.  I have a few birthday lunches set up for next week to look forward too.

Love,

Mindy

P.S.  Here is a video of Karalee playing “Our Monkey Bars” as a duet with me on the piano for her online recital.  It does something special inside of me to play a duet with my daughter. Karalee loves playing duets.  After we finish playing a duet through for the first time she always asks if we can play it again.  It makes me feel good that she likes to play duets with me so much.