Primary Lessons Work

This is a copy of a letter that Roy sent to D's primary teacher this week:
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Sister Hunter,

Below is an edited excerpt from my journal entry last Sunday.  I thought you might enjoy hearing how your lesson in primary last Sunday brought the Spirit into our home and helped another member of our ward make an important decision regarding paying his tithing.  Thank you for the testimony you have shared with D these past few years.  He feels it keenly.

The Pyatts

September 23, 2012 (Sunday)

D met me in the cultural hall this afternoon.  I was just finishing up speaking with some of the brethren after elders quorum.  D was very excited to show me his new treasure from primary class: a small jar filled with paper and two hearts.  As we left the church and drove home, he told me about the jar, how he had received it in class from Sister Hunter for a lesson on tithing.  When we arrived home, I asked him to share the meaning of the jar with Sheena.  We suggested he teach the lesson to us either tonight or tomorrow for family home evening. . . .

Brother Smith (name changed) came for dinner this evening as usual.  We stood in the back yard watching the kids play for a few minutes.  I asked how he was doing.  He responded that things at work were going poorly.  He was broke and struggling to survive financially.  He gets paid weekly, but said he has not paid tithing the last two weeks in order to buy groceries.  I asked if he had spoken with Bishop Neil regarding this.  He responded “no.”  I told him I would personally rather pay the Lord the money He requires and take my chances with earthly creditors rather than the other way around. 

We had a pleasant dinner.  The kids like playing games with Brother Smith, so I gave D the option of playing some family games this evening with Brother Smith or sharing his lesson with us.  To my surprise, D chose to give his lesson.  By that point, I think I had forgotten that the subject matter of D’s lesson was tithing—at least, it was not on my mind in light of my earlier conversation with Brother Smith.    

After singing an opening hymn from the Children’s Hymnbook and family prayer, D proceeded by having each of us pull a “blessing” paper out of the glass jar.  Each of the folded pieces of paper had some blessing that D had written which he said comes as a result of paying tithing.  D chose to expand on some of the blessings; others he had no comment for. 

We finished the blessings and I encouraged D to share his testimony, but he did not want to.  I was a little disappointed as I knew Brother Smith needed to hear this, but such is the teaching style of an eight year old on occasion.  A minute later though D remembered a story that Sister Hunter had told in primary and he wanted to share with us.  This is my recollection of an eight-year-old’s recollection of Sister Hunter’s story, so it may not be accurate, but the principle taught is still the same. 

Sister Hunter told the children that she was a widow many years ago and had a young child.  Sister Hunter needed milk but did not have enough money to buy milk and pay her tithing.  She went to the Bishop to discuss her situation, thinking that he might tell her it would be okay not to pay her tithing.  But the Bishop encouraged her to pay her tithing anyway. 

Sister Hunter chose to pay her tithing.  Later on, her neighbor stopped by her home, saying she had bought too much milk from the store and asked if Sister Hunter would like it.

I felt the Spirit of the Lord poured forth very powerfully into our home as D shared this story, given to him by a beloved primary teacher.  With great fondness, I reflected how perfectly this story and this lesson matched the very need of the man sitting on our couch.  I wondered how Brother Smith was receiving it. 

When D finished, I asked the children what decision the Lord would want them to make if they only had enough money to either pay their tithing or buy milk for a little one.  K responded that the Lord would want her to pay her tithing instead of to buy milk.  D agreed.  I affirmed K’s answer and shared my testimony of how the Lord watches over his faithful saints who pay their tithing.  I also shared the time from my mission in Chilton when I needed some things from the store, but did not have enough money to pay for them, how a member happened to be in the store the middle of that work day, and volunteered to buy our things.  That had never happened before on my mission, and never happened after, but did happen the one time I needed it.

After the lesson, Brother Smith sincerely stated the lesson on tithing was just what he needed to hear.  I had no doubt that the Lord taught Brother Smith this evening through the mouth of a child—doctrine that child had learned in primary.

Today

Today's Lunch:
A peanut butto and honey fandwich cut into tri-nagles followed by a blue hockasicle

Today's Concert:

Today's FHE:
Jumping on the trampoline and grilling hamburgers for dinner wrapped up with ice cream and a rousing hand of Uno.
Today's Disturbing Scene:
Fruit flies procreating on my nectarine.  Thanks for the loss of appetite guys.  At least they died happy.
Today's Field Trip:
A and I went to the "baby doctor" to check up on the baby.  All is well except the nurse put my weight in wrong so the doctor's record says I gained 9 pounds in 6 weeks.  Um, yeah, NO.  Did get flu shots for A and I.  (feeling bruised on my arm...)
Today's Naptime Movie:

*sigh* Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy....

Today = Good Day

Following Up and Stuff

I feel as if I should follow up after the spew from last week.  I actually really like the regular bus driver, B.  She is reasonable and nice.  In fact, yesterday she was 10 minutes earlier than she has been all year so naturally I wasn't out there.  I heard the bus and ran outside not long after she got there.  She was very pleasant and kind and joked about how she had time to kill because she was so early.  K was off the bus as soon as B saw me come out the door.  I still think the bus rules and restrictions on Kindergartners gets carried away and haven't completely dismissed the thought of driving K myself.  However, I do appreciate the goodness and convenience of the bus and the nice regular bus driver.  And K does love to ride the bus - she really does not want me to drive her to school.
(tangent story: When D was in kindergarten, he had a friend who rode the same bus, got on/off at the same stop and was in the same class.  Two-thirds through the year, this friend skipped into 1st grade.  All of a sudden no one had to meet him at the bus or drop him off.  Nothing changed, he just was in 1st grade now but was still D's same age. Feels a bit silly to me....)
So anyway, still easy for me to be irritated but I really am trying to work on it.

Today was A's second week of preschool.  Last week was our first week.  It didn't seem too different because I was teaching so she didn't actually get to go to preschool.  She just kind of was at preschool.  Every morning she asks me if it is a preschool day because she loves it so much.  This morning those were literally the first words out of her mouth!
A: "Is today preschool?"
Me: "Yes baby, today is preschool"
A: "Today is a school day for everyone!"
We have a sweet little group of girls for preschool this year.  I was hoping to keep the group smaller and younger since A is only 3.  It worked!  I found three other moms of 3yo girls who all live in my neighborhood.  I was worried about A holding back and not participating, especially since the other 3 girls know each other well from a playgroup they had last year.  I think starting at our house helped that.  She was able to get back into the routine of preschool and meet her new friends in the comfort of her own home.  Today she was as excited as could be and sounds like she was involved and happy the entire time she was there.  I don't worry about A being happy.  She is almost always happy and peaceful.  But she is also reserved and content to hang back and watch.  Going to preschool for a few months at the end of last year with K helped out too.  She just really loves preschool!

In other news:

How awesome is that!  I've seen all the pictures Heather took at D's baptism now.  As soon as I can figure out how to download them from the site they're on, oh baby, watch out for deluge of pictures!  Also, I really want to blog about D's baptism.  It feels overwhelming though.  I want to do it justice but I don't think I can so I guess I will just blog what happened.

Bus Rant

I have something of a bus rant to post here.  In reality, it has been over 6 hours since the "final straw" fell on the camel's back but I would still like to put this out there.
Let me begin by saying that I have had issues with the transportation department in our district since before D started kindergarten.  This was when I first discovered the hoops necessary for parents of kindergartners to jump through in order to retrieve their student from the bus.  D and I managed to make it through kindergarten with relatively few bumps but I suppose I will mention some of my hang ups from then to give a little background into what happened today.
See, in this district, in order for kindergartners to get off the bus their parent has to meet the bus.  If there is no parent, the child does not get off the bus.  While this seems like a good safety rule in general, when it comes to practice there are some snaggles.  For example, there were only a few times when I could not meet the bus.  On one instance, I knew before hand.  I had an appointment that could not be changed and had been made months in advance.  So, I jumped through the ridiculous hoops of having a signed letter faxed to the transportation department and another copy given to the bus driver stating that D could get off the bus with our next door neighbors.  I carefully worded this letter to apply to always but unfortunately, the transportation department only interpreted it as a one time deal.
On another occasion, I was planning on being back but was detained in traffic and knew I wouldn't be there.  I called my persuasive neighbor (who happens to be one of my emergency contacts) to get D off the bus.  It worked because it was late enough in the year the bus driver knew both of us and had seen us together on numerous occasions.  Apparently, emergency contact people can pick your child up at school but are not allowed to retrieve them from the bus stop even if there's an emergency where the parent couldn't be there.  If the bus driver hadn't allowed my friend to get D, he would have had to ride back to the school where they would have called this same friend to come pick him up.  What?
Anyway, water under the bridge.  Like I said, we made it through the year alright.  Now we are 8 days into K's kindergarten career and I'm already fed up with the bus.  To begin with, K is gone from home for about 4 hours every day.  4 HOURS!  Which would be fine if school was a little longer but considering kindergarten is only 2 hours 40 minutes, 4 hours seems a bit long to be gone.  Especially since we live ONE MILE away from the school.  ONE MILE!!  I am willing to cut some slack for running a bus route to pick up other kids but almost an hour and a half of a 5 year old's day is a really long time!
The bus keeps getting earlier and earlier in the morning (we missed it yesterday!) and later and later in the afternoon.  Then today, the bus finally pulled up (30 minutes after school got out) and stops at the corner.  I'm casually standing across the street on my corner waiting for the driver to open the door and release my sweet little K but nothing happens.  And nothing and nothing.  My mind is going all over "she peed her pants and doesn't want to get up" "she spilled her backpack and is taking forever to clean it up" etc. When the bus driver waves me over.  Concerned now I walk over as she finally opens the door and K appears in the walkway.
You know what the bus driver tells me?!  "You have to come to the door to get your child."  Are you freaking kidding me??  I'm 20 feet away in plain view but I have to come to the door?  As K is trying to rush off to give me a hug the bus driver calls after her, "Is this your mom?"
I was dumbfounded and said nothing but what I wanted to say was, "No.  I'm a psychopathic murder that she's never seen before but she can't wait hug me and tell me about her day."

Hope you can see/read my completely not bitter or sarcastic photo additions!

As it was I said nothing.  Because anything I would have said would not have been nice.  My problem, I think, is that I feel like it has little to do with child safety and EVERYTHING to do with control.  There could also be something in there about pregnant and emotional but I wouldn't swear to it.
Anyway, I'm really not looking for the voice of reason here.  Mostly just fed up with other people telling me what I have to do to get my OWN CHILD off the bus.  And I know there are solutions.  I am seriously considering picking her up from school (but she likes riding the bus) and I could *gasp* walk across the street to meet the bus (but I tend to be stubborn).  We'll give it a few more days.  Maybe the other bus driver will come back.  The only who only cared if I was visible somewhere outside my house.

(Also, this is pretty tame considering the rant I gave to my mom on the phone immediately after the event which didn't involve any swearing (outloud) but did involve several references (that were less than Christian) about what the transportation department could do with their rules....)

D's Baptism

Today was a very special day for our family but most especially for D.  Today he chose to be baptized.  And I really do mean he chose. We have talked about this choice quite a bit to make sure he understood what he was choosing and if he meant it.  I'm very proud of him and his maturity.  He wants to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We handed out invitations earlier this week.  He took a few around the neighborhood and he took a few to school for some friends and his teacher.  Saturday morning we went to the church early to make sure everything was ready and so he and daddy could get dressed in their baptism clothes.

Then we waited for his friends to come.  Both my parents and Roy's parents were there.  We were very excited to see a couple of kids from D's primary class, a couple of our neighbors, and one of his friends from school came to be with D for this special occasion.
D had asked my dad to give the talk about baptism.  It was a good talk.  Then Roy baptized D while all the kids went up front to watch.  It was sweet for K and A to watch D get baptized.  They have both been super excited for this!

After the baptism, D's friend from school was walking back to sit by her dad and she said, "That was cool!"
We listened to primary music and wrote notes to D while we waited for him to get changed into dry clothes. Then Grandma Pyatt gave talk about the Holy Ghost.  She also gave a good talk.  I forgot to ask her until a couple of days before the baptism so I was grateful she was still willing to do it!
Roy confirmed D and the Bishop, both grandpas and Brother Wallace stood in the circle.
After the baptism, we had cookies and visited with the people who came to celebrate with us.  It was a special time.
My friend, Heather, came to take family pictures for us to help immortalize the day.  They turned out amazing!  I'm so grateful for talented friends!

 I can't believe my little boy is 8 years old.  He is such a handsome and loving boy.  He is growing up so fast!  He is a great example and big brother for his sisters.  We are so lucky to have D as part of our family!

1st week of school fashions

Here is a girl who loves new clothes!

Big Day Today

Today has several things going for it.
#1: Today is D's birthday!  He is 8 today!!

 He is such a great kid!  I am so lucky to be his mom.  We had dinner at Roundtable Pizza before going to Walmart to pick out a new radio.  Finally back to our house for some cake and ice cream.

K picked out a book light for him and was really excited to help him unwrap it.

D saw these pictures at Deseret Book and asked for them.  Who can refuse that face?

#2:  Today was the first day of school!  Do you think they are excited?

K is at our neighborhood school so she will ride the bus.  I remember her waiting with me to get D on the bus.  That seems like not so long ago and yet a lifetime ago.  Funny how that works.

She hopped right up on the bus.  I barely managed to get a picture before she entirely disappeared.  She's on the top stair right by the bus driver.  My girl is so brave.  She loves adventure and a challenge.  She's going to love school!

Maybe my new favorite picture!

Roy took D to school on his way to work.  He's in the same classroom with the same teacher as last year because his class is a 1st/2nd grade split class.  His teacher is awesome.  He had a great day.  I sent him with a big box of Oreos to hand out for his birthday treat.  D got to go to the front of the class and invite 2 friends to join him while the class sang "Happy Birthday".  He rode home in the carpool.  

#3: Grandma and Grandpa Pyatt arrived today.  They will be here through the weekend because D is getting baptized on Saturday.  It was really special to have them here when D got home from school and for his birthday party.

Like I said, a big and totally AWESOME day!