Nice Things

These are our small triumphs for the week:

1. Hannah was so excited to go to nursery this week. We weren’t going to let her go because she had a runny nose, but when we walked past the nursery door she walked right in, so we decided to just let her go and hope she didn’t infect anyone.

2. We got family portraits taken for the first time ever. I’ve been meaning to do it every month since Hannah was born , but finally got around to it. I don’t like how I look in them, but I’ve noticed with these things it just takes a few years for me to be able to look back and think “Man I looked good back then!” I’m not going to post any pictures because I may just be cheap and vain enough to give some of you pictures of myself for Christmas.

3. Devan’s family, plus Chad and Ashley, all came over for Sunday dinner. I was able to fit 11 adults and 5 babies into my apartment and it really wasn’t horrible. I’m so happy to finally have a bigger place. I made soup and attempted my first ever homemade chicken stock. It was so much better than the salty bullion I’d been using.

4. I went to (and enjoyed for that matter) my very first opera. A friend was in it at BYU. It was beautifully done. Good stuff.

5. We got to watch baby Xavier twice this week and Hannah is really warming up to him. When he got to our house the second day Hannah ran into my room saying, “Baby! Baby!” and jumping around. She loves giving him hugs and kisses.

6. I finally got the nerve up to go to an activity of a stay-at-home mom’s group I joined a few weeks ago. It was just pancakes at someone’s house, so it was a nice, low pressure morning. It was still scary and I don’t think I made a great first impression because I was so shy, but I’m glad I went and I’ll try to make myself go to something else next week.

7. I played the piano in Relief Society on Sunday. In our ward, we don’t have a single woman who plays the piano, so we were extended a challenge to practice the piano and learn one hymn that we could play occasionally. Only me and one other girl signed up. I practiced for two weeks and by Sunday felt confident enough to play. Then I got up and completely choked. I don’t know how to catch back up once I lose my place so at least a quarter of the song was sung acapella. I kept getting more and more nervous and my playing kept getting worse and worse when some mean lady in the back would snicker every time I’d mess up. After I was done I said to everyone, “Now I know there have got to be other people here who can do better than that, so step up!” If anyone asks, that was my master plan, to get up and play so badly that I’d guilt other people into playing. After church a member of the Relief Society presidency came up to me and asked me to keep practicing and try to play those same songs again in a month or so. The idea of doing that terrifies me to my core, but I’ve decided I need to be brave.

It’s been a pretty blah week and I really didn’t get much else done other than dragging myself out of bed to go to the occasional class. And I do mean occasional. We’ll see how this semester pans out. Oh! And I finally broke down and went out today looking for a job (yuck!). Devan has only gotten 5 days of work since the third week of August, so please send out happy thoughts that one of us finds something soon. We only have a few more weeks until we don’t have a penny to our name. I know that everything will work out fine, but prayers would be appreciated.

So, that’s been our week in a nutshell. Thank you to everyone for your support last week and for leaving a record number of comments. I sincerely apologize to everyone whose phone calls I haven’t returned. As you probably know, I’m not great at answering my phone even when everything is okay. But we’re still here and hanging on. Love you all!