The Name Game

Last night we had a Relief Society meeting. We did '3 Classes in 60 Minutes: Shop, Clean, and Cook'. We had 3 different instructors - one taught a garage saling class, another shared some very helpful house-cleaning tips, and the last instructor - her name is Peggy - she taught a wonderful cooking class - complete with a yummy chocolate cake demonstration. I had a great time and learned a lot. However I have to write about the ditziest thing I did last night.

Peggy came up to me before the meeting as I was preparing some mint lemonade for refreshments, and handed me a slip of paper and a pencil. She informed me they were doing some giveaways and that I needed to write my name on the paper for the drawing. Great! So I quickly filled out the paper and gave it back to her.

So after the first presentation, my friend Caroline - who is sitting right next to me - had the honors of picking the first name. It was Peggy! Peggy won a super-cute apron. But as I looked over Caroline's shoulder I noticed that the name loooked suspiciously like my hand-writing. Then I suddenly occured to me to me - I wrote Peggy's name on the slip! That is my handwriting!

Someone teased Peggy about 'rigging' the drawing. She must have put her name several times in the cup. She assured everyone she only put it in once.

Oh know - I think. No big deal - I'm not going to say anything. What are the chances that her name will be drawn again. There are nearly 30 of us here.

So the 1st instructor had 2 prizes she was giving away and so the next person immediately drew the 2nd name. Yes - you guessed it - it was Peggy again! Mortified - I had to explain what I had done. What were the chances her name would be drawn - twice!?! I'm such a ditz!

Nightmares

I wonder if the various seasons in one's life can be defined by one's nightmares during that season of life. As a kid I remember having monster and other fanciful creature nightmares, nightmares with big dogs attacking . . . in grade school - nightmares of friends shunning me and of the classic 'forgetting to put on clothes and going to school', in college I'd have nightmares of realizing half-way through the semester that I have forgotten to attend a certain class I'd signed up for, etc . . .

Well, this morning I woke up and realized that I am truly in the full-fledged motherhood season of my life. My nightmare was horrific. Allison went to her first day of kindergarten and suddenly forgot how to use the bathroom. We had company over and I was cleaning the counters with - I think it was Comet - but the powder was turning my counters a solid shade of baby-blue. I was scraping with all my might to try to get it off. Someone had let me borrow a hand-sewn quiet-book and for some reason I felt the need to wash it in the washing machine. I had planned on putting it on the delicate cycle in cold water with just a little bit of detergent . . . however, went I left the laundry room for a moment, Anthony had come in and put the quiet book in the washer with all the dirty towels, on the regular cycle with hot water! Oh the horror. Potty-training, cleaning, and laundry - those are my nightmares. What else . . . did I have the dream where I went to run some errands and forgot Evan - who was sleeping at home . . . no, that's that one that plagues me during my waking hours. I'm driving in the car to the grocery store - the kids singing in the back seat - when *PANIC* - where's Evan! I don't hear him! I whip around in my seat - and, oh wait, I did remember to put him in the car.

The nightmares of a mother.

Magazines

I love the Friend magazine. Each issue has so many activies and Family Home Evening ideas- it's great! Allison also loves the Friend magazine . . . and any other magazine actually. Whenever the Oriental Trading Magazine or the Family Fun magazine comes in the mail - I will lose my Allison for several hours while she puruses all the fun activities and stuff in each one. She'll take her marker and circle everything she's interested in, and then bring the magazine to me with the marker and I am supposed to then put a star by the things I like. That is our system. Allison does the circles - I do the stars. Oh and if she's super-duper interested in something (particularly from Family Fun or the Friend) - she will take her scissors and cut it out, and then put it in a special box in her room.

This special box has recently started to overflow and become quite a mess-maker in her room. I asked her to go through all the magazine cut-outs this week and throw away what she didn't want because the box was too full. She threw away a few of the papers - but really, it didn't make much of a dent. The box is still full. I can't just throw them away when she's spent so much time and effort purusing the magazines and cutting them out . . . but her room really is a mess. Oh well.

Oh and I wanted to write about the Oriental Trading magazines. I think Allison got Grandma Jensen's shopping genes. She loves to shop! She will look at those magazines for hours trying to decide what she is going to buy (We have yet to actually buy anything from there - but she sure enjoys looking). Speaking of shopping - today we went to Michael's and Target to get some patriotic things to decorate their bikes with for National Night Out. As we were in the car Allison asks me how much money we have. I told her that we have $5 to spend. "5 dollars!" she says. "But Mom - remember last week when we were at the store - the rasperries cost 3 dollars and you said that was too much money. You were wrong. We have enough money. We have 5 dollars!" I couldn't believe she remembered the raspberry incident. And how much they had cost. She's becoming a lot more interested in money matters lately.

Anyway - magazines. We love them around our house. And the lastest edition of the Friend magazine had this great play in it called 'Naaman Learns to Obey'. We decided to put it on for Family Home Evening last night. Allison has been taking this drama class at the Rec Center - and loves it! She got her own prop box, and explained to me that a narrator is the person who tells a story. We even set up our 'staging area' at the bottom of the stairs.

So here's the result . . .

The Jensen Family presents: NAAMAN LEARNS TO OBEY
Starring: Allison Jensen as 'The Girl' 'The King of Syria', and 'The Messenger'
Carter Jensen as 'Naaman' and 'The King of Israel'
Anthony as the Narrator and Elisha
Evan as Elisha (in the last scene)
Wendy as the videographer and producer