today at church

Church is always an adventure for us. Sometimes we barely make it through. Sometimes I wonder how we made it through. We are always certain to provide entertainment for the entire ward. And I think I love it. Today at church:

• I forced Sarah to wear a dress that I love and she hates. She was, of course, furious with me. David made sure to mention it during his testimony, so now the whole ward knows that I forced my child to wear this darling dress. If my children hadn't already been climbing under the chairs in our row and taking up all the room down there, I would have crawled under the chairs to hide. (As I am typing this, Sarah is reading it over my shoulder, and she just shouted out, "Don't say that, mom!" Like, what is she, 15? No, she's 5, so I'm going to go ahead and type it.) He also mentioned over the pulpit that it would be really great it everyone could tell Sarah how cute her dress is. I heard several people mention it to her.
• Zach dropped his trains and trucks one million times (I counted.) on the metal chairs during sacrament meeting. While making truck and train noises. No one within a three row radius of us heard much of anything during the meeting due to this. I'm sure everyone in the chapel heard the noises. Note to self: remove the trucks and trains from the diaper bag prior to leaving for church next week. He discovered that his matchbox dump truck actually dumps, so he used it for loads of goldfish which he dumped and dumped repeatedly all over the chairs and floor. I think the final count was 600 goldfish and 439 Yogos on the floor. I may have picked a few of these up and fed them to him when we ran out of snacks. Note to self: bring the Dustbuster to church every week to vacuum up chairs and floors around us after sacrament meeting. The cleaning crew will cut their cleaning time significantly.
• During the closing prayer of sacrament meeting, Zach did a superman flying leap down the aisle and across the diaper bag in search of his sippy cup. When he finally fetched it into his sticky little hands, he shouted out, "Got it!" as loud as his lungs would allow. I thought the ladies in the aisle next to us were going to bust a gut laughing. They told me later that church just wouldn't be complete without Zach. I thought maybe I would let him complete their experience of church next week.
• We made it to the last 5 seconds (during the closing prayer) of sacrament meeting before I had to escort Zach from the room. We're talking if we had sung one less verse of the hymn, we would have been home-free. Making it through sacrament meeting without having to take Zach out is kind of like my goal in life. A goal I may never actually reach.
• I dropped Zach off in nursery at which point he started to cry and latched onto my leg in a death grip. He never does this. Then another little boy came in, walked away from his dad, started to sob hysterically, and grabbed on to my other leg in a death grip. I pulled one off of each leg handed one to each nursery leader, and escaped out the door to safety.
  
• A new family moved in which is fantastic. And they have kids the same ages as my kids. And they live like only a mile away. This is fantastic. Did I mention how fantastic this is?
  
• In Relief Society, I conducted, led the music, taught the sisters how to conduct four-beat music, and then taught the lesson. It was kind of like the Alicia Vawdrey show. I'm pretty sure they're sick of me by now. At least I didn't have to play the piano and conduct. Now that would have been a real trick. I was sweating by the end of the meeting. And very thirsty. And it was fast Sunday which in my world means that I at least try not to eat or drink anything at church--in front of people, anyway.
• A sister in the ward brought us some homemade rice pudding that was super yummy. I might have mentioned to her that the bishop liked it, and she hooked us up.

Last week was even more awesome.

• I spoke in sacrament meeting. Mostly, I just blubbered my way through, and people were nice enough to tell me I did a good job. They really just have to say that because I'm the bishop's wife. I told David I was pretty sure I had immunity and didn't have to speak in sacrament meeting. I mean, what about the children? He made sure he mentioned this when he introduced me as the speaker. At least it got a little chuckle from the crowd. The clean-up speaker. Yikes!
• I helped with the Sunday School lesson by giving a short history of Relief Society as well as sharing the Relief Society theme.
• I conducted Relief Society, led the music in Relief Society, taught how to lead four-beat songs, and for about 20 panicked minutes thought I might be giving the Relief Society lesson. When that teacher showed up, I nearly kissed her. Then I sat on my chair nearly comatose until it was time to close up the meeting.