Home church!

We had the best home church! Sometimes we make the best plans and then nothing goes the way we had hoped but today was a great experience! This was our program: 

Church started and Anni jumped up to lead music:

We got the giggles a little bit during sacrament meeting because Caden got ready to bless the water and Shawn had put a huge mug for everyone with a swallow of water in each one😄 

After sacrament meeting we moved on to “Come Follow Me” and Sunday School for all ages. This included singing time led by Isabelle: 

She had a “Singing time tic tax toe” and the first one that Anni picked said “stroke your neighbor’s face as you sing the song”:

She had lots of other fun activities for the kids to do along with the songs and we all really enjoyed it!

Singing “if you’re happy and you know it”:

Everyone playing their guitar to a song:

Anni trying to be super reverent so that she will be chosen to choose the next action/song:

Church over and the “boys” have a quick wrestle:

After church we got started on dinner and at 2:00 Jim, Marilyn and Eli came to eat with us. Then we had lemon meringue and coconut cream pie’s for a late pi day and Caden made homemade ice cream. It was such a great day with all the people I love!

Family stuff

My niece, Abby, was threatening a miscarriage one day so I watched her son Jonathan and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Caden and I brought he and Anni to story time at the library: 

He helped me bake and was as good as gold all day:

Such a charmer:

Eli Anderson’s baptism! (He’s the one in the red sweater with blue stripes):

Shawn doing push-ups with assistance:

Anni at the gym’s dance class:

Kami works at the Spori art gallery and Jorge Cocco Santangelo came for an open house for his work. We got a picture with him in front of one of my favorites that he painted:

Kami working to keep the refreshment table full during the open house:

Aaron gets put in as bishop

Aaron told us a week before the event that he was going to be put in as bishop of his Hermiston ward. It was pretty neat that all but one of my siblings ga were able to come. It’s fun to have reasons to get together all at one time.

Aaron’s three oldest girls (l-r: Jacque, Ellen, Calista)

Calista and Ann:

We had a family lunch after church and met in an elementary school. We filled up their cafeteria pretty good:

Me and all the family except for Eli, oldest to youngest:

Myra and I had a pretty good time all through sacrament meeting and Sunday school:

Proof that sacrament meeting with a baby is the most interesting😉 Look at the bored faces around me😄:

More regular life

The kids are back in school, the snow keeps falling and nothing could be better than having everyone under the same roof for a snatch of time. Kami is close by and comes over several days a week as well. How did I ever get so lucky?!??

We’ve got gophers! I can’t believe all the tunnels these boys had dug all through this snow mound!

Anni wanted lots of pictures of all of her tricks:

Best interest assessment

In February Shawn and I had to take Anni to Portland for a Best Interest Assessment. This is a required assessment, by the courts, that has to be done before we can move towards adoption. 

Anni was really excited for the trip and reminded the kids, on a regular basis, that she was the only one that could go with us😂 They pretended to be very disappointed, but the truth is that they were all relieved NOT to have to make that long trip to Oregon again! 

We broke of the trip by staying at mom and dads on the way over and the way back and by stopping at points if interest on the way:

A picture of the muddy Columbia River. The Umatilla had flooded Pendleton the week before and completely displaced people, my brother Aaron and his family being some of the people that had to leave their home:

The fish hatchery with the HUGE sturgeon is a must stop for all our kids:

Shawn and Anni:

We had a good time eating out and staying in a hotel even though the pool was closed and Anni had really looked forward to swimming! 

The next day at the assessment the doctor admitted us and then told us we could play with Anni for awhile. I caught on that she wanted to see us interact and got down on the floor and played dolls with Anni. I kept subtlety trying to get Shawn to join us, but he kept sitting there....meanwhile the doctor typed away...

Finally after about 30 minutes, Anni said she needed to use the bathroom so the Dr. said she would come get her and do a session alone with her after a short break. 

I told Shawn that I thought the doctor had wanted to observe us interacting and he said, “well she said we could play if we WANTED to and I didn’t feel like playing dolls!”😂

Luckily the dr. Saw this when she came back to get Anni:

She said, “So this is the kind of dad that you are!”

We got high recommendations for Anni to be adopted by us. Hooray!!

On the way home we killed two birds with one stone and stopped at our storage unit to get another load of our stuff. It was a LONG process. Anni got tired of it and tried to hurry the process:

Life, glorious regular life

The Grover’s came up for Caden’s mission report at the beginning of February (February 9th) Anni got to get reacquainted with her cousin Ella. 

Caden had friends come over after his report and I failed to get pictures😬 I was proud of the kids because they sang a musical number during the meeting - a song that my sister Ivy composed- and they were amazing. 

Caden found things to keep himself busy when he got home before he got a job. He cleaned the piano out that is in our rental house and even tuned it!

We had an incredibly snowy winter and the boys played in the snow every single day. If they missed one I wasn’t aware of it!

Sisters❤️

I helped in Pace’s classroom for the 100 days of school party. I hadn’t realized, until then, that he was in the same class as my friend Susan Tietjen’s daughter Charlotte!