Every year Waterford has Spirit Day and this year the Sophomores wore green. Madeleine is always very creative at finding something in everyone's closets.
In Cub Scouts, Clark earned and received his "Bear" badge. There are several requirements and he worked hard to earn it plus a few extra arrow points for Mom to sew on his shirt. He is very excited now to be a "Webelos" and join some of his friends who are a bit older. So far he has made a catapult out of tongue depressors and a car out of a mouse trap -- cool huh?!
This month my baby turned 10 years old! For his birthday party, we had a few of his friends over to our house for gifts and treats and then we took them all downtown to the Clark Planetarium where we saw the Deep Sea 3-D IMAX movie. We had never been there since it moved to its new location at the Gateway. There were a lot of fun exhibits including a fun "blue" screen where the kids could pretend to be weathermen. After watching the movie "Groundhog Day" earlier that week, it was especially fun for my kids – you'll understand if you know the movie!
The next day we had a family birthday dinner with the Grandparents. Clark decided to switch from his usual grilled cheese and fries request to something more appropriate for Sunday dinner -- chicken, roasted potatoes and asparagus. We all thought that was a great idea! He chose oatmeal cake for his birthday cake which his grandma was happy to make for him. Tess came up from BYU with her roommate Laurel, so it was a very fun evening.
Shirley is a few years older than Clark -- she just turned 77 years old! It is always easy to remember how old she is because she was born in 1930 and so is always the age of the current year. Alan and I and her siblings, Wally and Pat and David and Gayle met at the care center to have pizza and birthday cake. They have a nice dinning room that we can use to have private family dinners.
As far as an update on Shirley's health, she isn't doing too well, I'm sad to say. All of her toes have contracted under and consequently, it is incredibly painful for her to stand and walk. She is also having stomach and bowel trouble that is keeping her from being able to eat and enjoy most foods. So the days are long and hard. Please keep her in your prayers.
I also had a birthday and am somewhere inbetween 10 and 77! We celebrated my birthday on Presidents Day because Tess was up again for the weekend and the other kids were out of school. We mostly had a lazy morning and then played games in the afternoon. Alan cooked a birthday dinner for us all and then I got to sit on the famous "birthday ottoman" and open a bunch of birthday presents -- pretty fun, all right!
The end of the month was spent working on and pulling off a Community Service Day which I ended up being in charge of as our Stake Humanitarian Specialist. It had been in the planning stages for several months and I was glad that the day finally came. All day long, women in the community were invited to come to the church and spend as much time as they could or wanted to, working on various service projects. We made fleece blankets for Africa, fleece cancer caps for the Hunstman Center, "feelie hearts" for a grief counseling center, ABC coloring books for the Humanitarian Center, Afghan squares for nursing home patients and 300 women's hygiene kits for several shelters in downtown Salt Lake City. The day was a success and the projects got completed and it seemed that all the women enjoyed it. It was gratifying to me to see such a wonderful response to our requests for help and I really think it brought the community together. I hope we will get a chance to do it again!
All the kids are doing great. Loren has a new companion, Elder Valente who is from Mexico. Loren is helping him with his English! Phillip is working full time and taking a religion class at BYU once a week. Tess is enjoying her second semester at BYU a bit better since she switched roommates and has smaller classes where the teacher knows her personally. Madeleine and Elliot just finished another round of finals at Waterford and are looking forward to their two week Spring Break. Clark finished the term with his class assembly where he was able to present some of the information he had learned about his assigned country -- Guatamala. I'm happy to report that everyone is healthy and happy.
Our crocuses started blooming yesterday, giving me hope that Spring is really on its way. After all the snow the past couple of weeks, I was really thinking winter would last forever! I also took some photos of some gorgeous tulips we got from Costco a couple of weeks ago, just as they were beginning to come up. It has been way fun and worth every penny to have been able to see spring come into the house right before our very eyes!