Watching the Grass Grow.

Two very exciting things happened this week!

First, our grass is finally coming in. We literally watched the grass grow this week.

We will no longer be the embarrassment of our neighborhood in this respect. In many other respects, we will remain the embarrassment, but we can check this one off the list. 

ALSO! The window treatment guy was finally allowed to install our blinds.

No more mattress box against our bedroom window so we can change clothes! We are really coming up in the world.

I was surprised what a difference having blinds makes. I feel like our house is more homey now. Rollin' with the homies!

Other developments from this week:

Gwen finally let me take out one earring she has been wearing for months. She let one ear close up awhile back, but continued wearing just one stud in the other ear for a long time. This week, she decided that looked ridiculous and agreed to have the stud taken out.

This next development might have been as big of a deal as the grass and blinds:

Sand for the sandbox.

I had ordered some from Amazon for Harris' birthday, and it was delayed a bunch. And then when it finally got here, I realized that the two boxes I ordered were itty bitty and yet super expensive. So we filled up 1/32 of the sandbox for $40. And then Dan went to Lowe's and bought four huge bags for $5 each and filled up the rest of the box. Harris is in heaven. The girls love it too, but Harris never tires.

There is a never-ending trail of sand from the back door to the kitchen table. I sweep it all day long. But he's happy and busy, so I'm happy and busy. I'm hoping it distracts him a lot when we do school this week.

Speaking of Harris, he cut his hair off this week.

You may recall that each of my girls has done this. And it was terrible. But at least I didn't know it was happening when it was happening. Harris did it right in front of me, and I still didn't notice. I was doing Gwen's hair, and in order to do her hair or June's hair, I pull down my "hair box", a little container with dividers for brushes, hair ties, scissors (that I use to cut stubborn elastics), etc. Harris was sitting next to me and grabbed the scissors and chopped off some bangs without my noticing.

And then I did notice.

But.

It wasn't as bad as the girls. You can't really super duper tell.

And to my utter shame, this contest continues.

Dan is getting better, but he uses more than one piece of gum! Disqualified!

And school continues. And sending pictures to teachers of assignments being completed continues:

And the girls made a fort and slept in it Friday night.

And yes, that is Harris' potty in the middle of the toy room. But it is unused! So it's fine. But also not fine. Because why won't he use it.

And the highlight of my week:

It was my sister Heidi's 40th birthday. Are we all really going to turn 40? I guess so.

Anyway, my mom and all my siblings had a Facetime chat and told Heidi our favorite memories of growing up with her. It was so nice to talk to everyone at the same time. Confession: I didn't always feel as close to my siblings as I do now. Which is weird, because now we all live far away from each other and have our own peeps and lives to worry about. But I had a lot of anxiety as a kid, and it got in my way of developing relationships. It's wonderful to feel closer to them all as I do now.

My brother Steve interviewed my dad before he passed away and asked him for memories of each kid. So he played the portion about Heidi for our phone call. That was tender. Even BETTER was that Steve tracked down an old family video clip of us all singing "Happy Birthday" because my dad used to add a great harmony to the end of the song. Made me tear up to hear his dramatic flair.

Doug Beck was a great man.

And finally, church today.

June was sad that Beck always misses the church photo because he's down for a nap, so I let him stay up for the photo this week. She put that bow tie on him so that he would be appropriately dressed for the photo.

She wanted me to let him stay up for our sacrament meeting. Nope. I have my limits.

Our sacrament meetings continue to be great. Today, after Dan administered the sacrament, we sat for long time in silence, just thinking and listening and praying. And then I realized that it had been a really really long time. I was impressed with Dan and his serious commitment to this time of meditation. More time passed. Finally, I realized that maybe I should open my eyes and see if they were done. I opened them, and everyone was just staring at me. I then realized that they had been trying to conclude the quiet period for a looooooooooong time now, but were just watching and waiting for me to open my eyes to signal that I was done. Haha whoops. That quiet time was still amazing though, and I have no regrets.

The End.