Mother's Day

Since moving to Charlottesville, we have always had church at 9am.  Most wards share buildings, so they trade off times each year, meaning every other year, you'll probably have 1pm church.  Afternoon church is terrible-- if you have young children, it's ALWAYS during naptime, and even if you don't have young kids, it's still just lame.  The only good thing about afternoon church is that you might be able to sleep in (depending on whether or not you have kids or teenagers) and it gives you the chance to make dinner in your crock pot and come home to dinner all ready, which is pretty sweet.  But really, those are the only advantages.

But our ward here shares the building with a YSA ward (Young Single Adult), and they LIKE getting to sleep in.  So they take the afternoon time, and we get the morning time.  And I LOVE that pretty much every Sunday out of the year.  Except Mother's Day.

I would reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllllly like to be able to sleep in on Mother's Day.  And once I'm done sleeping late, I would reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaalllllllllly like to be served breakfast.  None of that happens when you have 9am church.  (And I'm pretty sure that it really doesn't happen if your husband is the bishop.)

So I was delighted when Craig informed me that on Mother's Day this year, there would be no scheduled Zoom meetings AT ALL.

I slept in SO LATE.  And then I nudged Craig and suggested he get to making orange rolls for me.  And then I laid in bed checking Postsecret and Dear Abby while the kids all wandered in for hugs and snuggles.  It was so great.

(The only bad side was that I waited so long to shower, by the time I got in there was no hot water left, so that was kind of lame.  But I couldn't really complain, since that was mostly because Craig and the kids had been doing dishes all morning.)

The orange rolls came out of the oven right as I was hurrying out of my lukewarm shower, so I didn't bother drying my hair before we ate.  (Who am I kidding-- drying my hair has TOTALLY gone out the window since COVID.  Along with makeup and pretty much caring what at all about what I look like.)  

This is what greeted me when I came down the stairs!

COVID Hair, Don't Care

Rather than getting cards, the kids all write me a letter in the same Mother's Day book each year-- so I'm building up a collection!

Ryder can be weirdly affectionate

After we'd eaten our fill of orange rolls, we had a quick church meeting.  Craig made Bentley and Kendra give Mother's Day talks, so that was fun to hear!

Ryder continues to be weird:

This isn't how you do church?

Later in the evening, I decided we ought to have a picture of me with all the kids.  Of course, they all freaked out and it was lame and frustrating.  But we still managed to get this out of it:

Thanks to my wonderful family for spoiling me so well!

Let There Be Light

The lights we'd ordered for our deck arrived Monday, so that evening Craig pulled them out and began wrapping them around the poles he'd added to the railing.  He kept wanting to try different ways to string them-- I never would have given it this much thought!  But unfortunately, it was cold outside and I quickly ran out of steam helping him.  I wandered off to fold laundry and let him mull things over a bit more.

Tuesday afternoon, I returned home from my walk to find that Craig had added a hook outside Ryder's (second-story!) window and had rigged the lights up with a rope to pull them up that high.  Now he was carefully re-stringing them to get the loops all just right.  I wasn't freezing and I wasn't busy, so I buckled down and actually helped this time around.  This strand of lights came with the bulbs tucked away in a separate box, which meant that while we kept re-stringing them and lifting them up and down from the second floor, we didn't need to worry about breaking any bulbs, so that was great.  Once Craig had things mostly how he wanted them, we began screwing in all the lightbulbs.

There were still a couple more glitches.  We had enough left over to add one more swoop angling towards Bentley's room, but that was against the house.  But we didn't want it ACTUALLY against the house, or it would rattle any time the wind was blowing.  Fortunately, we have a couple large hooks for hanging baskets that we haven't used, so we moved one of them up to Bentley's window, and it's perfect for keeping the lights a few extra inches away from the wall.

It's hard to see Craig's master vision in this picture, but everything radiates out from Ryder's window and then travels the edge of the deck.  It's a nice look!

Artsy!

I've never been so anxious for it to get dark before!  But, naturally, Craig was busy with Zoom meetings, so we had to wait even longer.  Finally we were able to step outside and ask Bentley to plug them in for us so we could both see it for the first time together-- and it was so magical:

This picture really doesn't do it justice-- in reality, it's a much softer, yellow glow, and it lights up all the trees in our backyard, too.  I absolutely LOVE it.  (Also, see Ryder's head poking out his window up there?)

Ryder had been about to fall asleep, but this woke him up in a big way!

Bentley was also very excited about the whole thing!

I think we might need to throw a party on our deck now...  We will definitely be spending a LOT more time out here!

So Much Painting

Remember all that grey paint we decided to not use on the deck?  We couldn't just let it go to waste, so Craig worked his tail off Saturday afternoon (and got most of the kids to help him, too!) and used it to paint the tree house!  Another project DONE!

Yay for the outside of our home looking better all the time!

"New" Deck!

The deck is finished!  Craig worked so hard and it looks SO MUCH BETTER now!!!  AND, Craig very helpfully made side-by-side comparison pictures, so it's super easy for me to show it all off to you!  (Also, in the same manner of weight-loss ads where the people always seem to gain a greater fashion sense and a lot of joy along with their slimmer figures, in this case, we have the pleasure of the "after" pictures having lush, green backgrounds as spring has progressed!  Craig really ought to go into advertising!)


Behold the difference:

Sigh.  Doesn't that just feel so much better???

Notice that Craig also straightened out that handrail!

He also fixed a bunch of the steps so that they were no longer sagging... 

AND he got rid of quite a bit of the fencing there, including the gate. I like how it opens everything up so nicely!

Now we're working on getting outdoor lights that we can string across the deck as well as some solar lights to light up the steps at night.  It's going to be so lovely!  I almost wish we could throw a dinner party out there or something!

GREAT WORK, CRAIG!!!