The Beloved Jakobi Family

I looove my visiting teaching companion, Dani (and her family). And she does a lot for me. Since I had a free week and knew she had a lot to do (she's a lawyer), I offered to play mom while she got stuff done in her office.

I was surprised how much fun I thought it was to be domestic. I:

• went shopping
• organized family night
  
• figured out meals from food storage
• made my own hash browns since I couldn't find them in the stores (I should have gone with browning them in a pan instead of scalding them--the starch made them too sticky and dream potatoes turned into dream potato soup)
• made smoothies
• made banana bread
• made grilled cheese sandwiches
• made pancakes
• drove Elisa to seminary at 5:30 in the morning
• filled up the car
  
• brought Finn to and from Kindergarten
• drove for what seemed like a whole day
• never got lost in the city
• dropped off and picked up kids at and from school and piano lessons
• helped kids practice the piano
• helped kids do their homework
• got called "cleaning lady" by the 14-year-old who didn't want to do his homework (practically the only low point)
• jumped on the tramp (how did I use to do that for hours every summer day? Now it hurts my brain!)
• sword fought with Finn
• played this counting game with Finn and only won once out of at least 20 games
  
• petted bunnies
• went shopping again
• picked up stuff for the Young Men's bike tour to Denmark, twice
• brought Sammy to pick out biker shorts ("I don't like them. They're ugly! Especially this padded part on the front." "That's so you can have children some day.")
• washed lots of laundry
• etc.

I've been teaching Elisa to sew. So far she has a beige and blue/white striped bag and a polka-dot skirt. Here's her first skirt.




Sammy's rabbits were pregnant before the male got castrated and they now have a total of SEVENTEEN rabbits/bunnies! But the neighbors don't seem to mind . . . yet:




When I was bringing Finn to a birthday party, I saw a bunch of sheep and mentioned them to him. He hadn't seen them and said he'd never seen sheep before. So on the way back, we jumped out of the car and stared at them staring at us. They also cuddled with a tree. My bright idea was to run to the car screaming so we could laugh our heads off watching the sheep running away. Ha ha. I told them I was sorry, kind of.




Finn could not wake up long enough to get out of the car after that. Let me tell you, birthday parties and sheep-watching are tiring activities.




Elisa wanted me to take her to get some more material, and while searching for a material store, Finn, Liv, and I climbed onto a giant metal ball and took this classy picture:





But what made it the most fun was being able to help Dani. That made me really happy.