Playing 'Mom' and 'Dad'

Matt and I had a fun time this past week playing 'mom' and 'dad' for my 5 younger brothers and sisters while my parents enjoyed a little vaca in Hawaii.  My parents went to Hawaii to celebrate their 25th anniversary (which is coming up in April) as well as to go to the BYU Vs. Hawaii football game and have some much needed rest & relaxation time.  Funniest thing, my mom called the day after they arrived in Hawaii to let me know they were having such a great time and even slept in that morning!  They woke up at 6:00 am Hawaii time, but that is really 9:00 am Utah time so they had a great sleep in. :)

This week was a little bit challenging logistically, simply because our lives are already SUPER busy each day without taking care of 5 children, but if I do say so myself, Matt and I make a great team and we survived!

Here are some highlights of the week:

My favorite thing was having 'family scriptures and breakfast' each morning at 6:45.  I loved being apart of this on a daily basis with my brothers and sisters! Of course Matt and I have our own family scripture and breakfast time, it just isn't quite the same as reading with all your little brothers and sisters.

In fact, my gratitude towards my parents grew tremendously this week.  It isn't always easy getting up early to make a hot breakfast and then to get all the kids up for scriptures at 6:45.  However, my parents have had this same family morning routine since as long as I can remember.  Even when we lived in China and had early morning seminary at 6:00 am, we still had family scriptures and breakfast at 5:30 am.  Seeing my little brothers and sisters willingness to participate in reading the scriptures each morning seriously warms my heart.  I am so grateful I grew up with this family routine and that the routine continues each day. What a blessing!!

Thankfully my mom has an awesome 'personal secretary' Katie, who helps her with random projects throughout the week.  My mom arranged to have Katie make a couple dinners and to help with the laundry during the week so that Matt and I could keep our same schedule with school and work.  Another huge blessing!!

I LOVE HAVING A HUSBAND!!! I am no stranger to playing 'mom' to my brothers and sisters. While living in Australia, my parents would travel every six weeks to do zone conferences and during that week I was often relied on to get things done on the home front of things.  So I have done it by myself before and I am so grateful I don't have to do things alone anymore. It was so amazing to have Matt working together with me this week to make sure everything went smoothly.  

I also LOVED seeing Matt as he interacted with my brothers and sisters.  I am pretty sure my brothers think he is the coolest ever.  They love watching sports with him and engaging in all the associated sports talk.  And Alysa (my youngest sister who is 8) is such a crack up and Matt is such a crack up, so when you get the two together they constantly tease each other and it is too funny.  It melts my heart.

More things I loved:

Listening to my little sisters prayers each night.  They have the sweetest, purest hearts.
Learning how much my little sisters love to read.  Why didn't I know this??
Making homemade Pizza with my little sisters.
Helping Kelsi (My 11 year old sister) with her Christmas house school project.
Listening as my 18 year old brother and 16 year old sister got up at 5:00 in the morning to go to the temple.  What examples they are!
Cheering my brothers on at their basketball games.  (We get to do this every week anyways, but it was fun having them come home after the game and hearing all the game talk)
Taking Kelsi to choir practice with me on Sunday morning.
Having two companions, Kelsi and Alysa, accompany me on my Saturday errands. (It is really important that we make sure the time they each spend sitting in the front seat is 'fair' haha)

And the cherry on a week of goodness was watching the Christmas Devotional all together last night.  What an amazing devotional that was.  I loved the music, the uplifting messages, and the new Christmas movie.

Thanks Mom and Dad for vacationing in Hawaii so I could remember how fun it is to be a live at home big sister/ 'mom' for the week!