removing my faith training wheels

the most stressful 10 minutes of my week are when reagan passes the sacrament. he does well most of the time. he's definitely come a long way in his passing ability and when i watch him i can see his brain scratching the place where his intuition should be. a few weeks ago he was acting erratically because he was distracted by the presence of a friend's grandparents. he started off strong but i could see from my vantage point that he was deeply distracted by something. he went out of order because he wanted to pass to abuela julia. he tried to recover but he was quite off for the rest of the sacrament. on christmas day we had an unusually large congregation and reagan ran out of bread and abruptly finished passing and got back in line. other deacons had to quickly jump to attention to finish his rows. other weeks, he is excellent. though he cannot stand quite as still as the other deacons and his shirt nearly always comes untucked at some point during the administration of the ordinance, he has had moments when he is able to dig deep and figure out what to do next with no prompting. last week he ran out of bread again. another deacon assumed he did not notice that he missed a row and tried to point it out to him. reagan stopped and rose a single finger in the air to indicate to give him a minute and held it there until he was at the priest's table to retrieve more bread.   he then proceeded to finish administering to his rows. it was hilarious and scary and my heart stopped for a beat and then i felt overwhelmed with pride and gratitude for that moment. 

so even though reagan struggles, he still has the authority to act in Christ's name. it's rather humbling. while i stress out to the point of wanting to vomit each sunday, i need to dig deeper and let reagan figure things out. i also need to let my fellow ward members be okay with him figuring it out too. i love my faith training wheels but i don't actually need them. they are the antithesis of faith. i always think that i should pedal cautiously and put my feet back on the ground anytime things get hairy. i really need to approach more gigantic downhill slopes and let it rip. i've got years of training from seminary attendance, church attendance scripture reading, prayer and temple attendance. i'm meant to ride up and down big hills. pedaling slowly on flat ground is not the point.  

a waffle house kind of christmas

this should be several posts but it is not. because christmas is now 3 weeks ago. change the title of this blog to yesterday's news, now with mom jokes!

in the beginning of december, 2 weeks after we set up our tree because i am a firm believer in low stress november christmas preparations, the family made a list of activities we wanted to participate in for the holiday. we had most of the usual activities but we added lake lanier christmas lights to our list. we'd never been there before but you can't live in atlanta and not know about it. on the designated night, we made about 7 trays of cookies to deliver to friends and only one of them was home so we drove to lake lanier with 6 trays of cookies in the car. the car line to enter the park was astronomically long and we lost interest after about 30 minutes but there was no getting out of line at that point. everyone had to go to the bathroom. at the 1 hour point we were all starving and eating the cookie trays. by 1 hour and 30 minutes of waiting to ENTER the park, we were all climbing the walls of the car. when we finally got inside the park and they charged us $45 instead of the advertised $35. then we almost got in a fight with another car who did not want to let us merge. then we got stuck behind THE SLOW-W-W-W-EST driver of all time. no one needs to examine a lights display that closely and carefully. after we made it through the entire light display, we had lost the christmas spirit and gained bladder infections. the nearest quiktrip couldn't be found soon enough. it was nearly 11 by time we made it home. needless to say, we have had our fill of lake lanier lights for the rest of eternity.

christmas eve the kids put together a little show. lots of singing of songs made up on the spot and traditional hymns sung to unrecognizable tunes.

christmas morning. athena blythe commemorated the event by pulling out a swimsuit and slept in it and spent christmas morning in it.

all of hersch's visits to target paid off as santa gifted him with the much sought after paw patrol sea patroller. he would only pose in this picture if the sea patroller could be in it too. 

note: hersh was so enamored with his sea patroller that he sat in a filthy diaper for quite a long time without complaints and got poop all over the rug. merry christmas to me.

we went to waffle house for breakfast. we had to drive by about 5 locations before we could find one that didn't have an inordinately long wait time. along the way, we passed this holiday gem:

you may be thinking, "where is santa claus?" he's hard to see because he's wearing camouflage. 

i tried to make a charcuterie board. it was pretty good but could easily be renamed a constipation board. that much cheese, fruit and processed meat is an long, uncomfortable night waiting to happen.

my mom flew in later christmas night and the next day thomas and i embarked on my christmas present. thomas surprised me with an afternoon at the high museum of art and a night at the georgian terrace hotel. 

the high museum had a special exhibit i had been wanting to see, "making africa: a continent of contemporary design" and a permanent exhibit of african art. thomas and i have bonded over our love of african art. who knew?

 i'd like to wear this pronto, please.

we ate at a tavern in atlantic station then went to out hotel! it had a round ceiling in the bedroom! 

our view!

we watched jeopardy and semi pro wrestling and slept for 12 hours. it was amazing. 

the hotel restaurant:

historic pit stop in the hotel:

we arrived home to a very sick grandma and a lot of chaos. 

i got my first hair cut in almost 8 months. 

we made all the blondies we could possibly make in a 24 hour period.

we saw ferdinand. it was good. but expensive. i'll never get over the shock of how much it costs to see a movie. 

herschl almost escaped through the emergency exit but i was able to catch him at the very last minute, as witnessed by the entire theater.

tea party and toy story memory with grandma:

saying goodbye to grandma sandy is always the hardest. she is everyone's favorite. 

merry christmas the end.