Meeting Week

This week has been our fall Gospel meeting. It's been so encouraging. The theme for the week has been "Keeping our spiritual focus while living in an out of focus world." And our world is so out of focus. I would love to put my children in a bubble. They shouldn't have to hear other people use some of the words they use. I should be able to take my children with me to the grocery store without seeing people dressed the way some people dress - tops too low in the front, pants too low in the back & shirts, shorts and skirts that are way too short and leave too much exposed. I should be able to sit down with my kids at 6 or 7 in the evening and turn on the television without worry that something inappropriate will be playing. But that's not the world we're living in and that's not the world we are raising our children in. I can't put them in a bubble. We have to raise our children well in spite of all these worldly influences.

Chloe Grace has done well for the most part - it's the first meeting week since we've been home and at first she looked at me like "church services again, we were just there." She's been well-behaved, but now it's the end of the week and she's tired. Getting into bed late every evening took it's toll yesterday when I had to wake her up to take Jarod, Madison and Jason to school. She was a grump! I made her lay back down when we got home, but she didn't fall back asleep like I had hoped.

Yesterday marked three months since we arrived home with Chloe Grace. It sounds like such a short amount of time and in some ways has flown by, but in other ways it has seemed like forever. Yes, we've had some things to work out. But for the most part, she has slipped effortlessly into our lives. She loves Sleeping Beauty and chicken nuggets with french fries. She looks forward to reading a book before bed. She still wants me to lay with her while she falls asleep. She's learning English by leaps and bounds. She's playful and funny. And she's ours. She fits our family like I couldn't have imagined she would have. She belongs here. Life is good.