It's been a week!

Wow.  I have bittersweet feelings about Christmas break being over.  It was such a wonderful time. It was great to be home for a while and then to take a road trip with the fam.  And now, it's all over and they are back in school.
The break started out nice and slow, we did shopping, hanging out with friends, decorated the house for the holidays, all that fun stuff.  Then Christmas came and went, and we packed up and drove to Denver.  A long, long drive to Denver.  I can very happily say, the kids were FANTASTIC on that 16 hour drive, and it was totally, completely worth it.  We saw family we haven't seen in way too long.  AND-the happy thing for me, is that I am going back (by airplane, all by myself-woohoo!) next week!  Oh yeah.  It's for dental work, but I am so excited.  I get to see the fam again!
The last several days after our trip were quite the whirlwind for me, though.  I am so glad I survived them.  I had a TON of primary stuff to do (I have a new Primary calling...) for the beginning of the year.  Get manuals ready, print out tons of papers and get them distributed to the right people, prepare sharing time, just get ready for Sunday in general, because I made several "tweaks" to how Primary is run on Sundays.  I was so stressed and worried about getting it to run smoothly.  Now that it is over, I can say that even though a few of what I would consider rather big things did NOT get done, things went the smoothest they have since I have had this calling, which is 3-4 weeks now.  PHEW!  It really was a great day in Primary and I am so glad.  I am really glad that when I realized that there were things I really really wanted to do and they just were clearly NOT going to happen, that I just had to take a breath and let it go.  And it went just fine.  On top of all this, I tried to keep up on the house (read:make sure the kids did their chores) while preparing for DH's birthday on Saturday and Sweet G's birthday on Sunday.
For DH's birthday, I wanted to frame a picture we have had for forever, so I took it to Michael's for an estimate.  It was over $400 with their 60% sale, so...........that gift will have to wait.  I then searched thrift stores for a frame so I could frame it myself to have until we can afford a really nice frame.  Couldn't find anything.  So, I got something else which I will post pictures of later.  He wanted to do something with just our family for the day, so we went bowling.  It was so fun!!  What was really funny--DH was bowling a terrible game.  I mean just terrible.  Gutter balls left and right.  He is usually a pretty good bowler, so we thought it strange that he was so off.  Then for the last two frames, he switched hands just for the heck of it.  And....he nailed it.  He had temporarily forgotten that he was left handed and had bowled the whole game with his right hand!  Once he switched to his left hand, the "duh" moment came and he figured out why his game was so bad.  hahaha  Well, he IS 40 now, so what can you expect?  Memory usually goes with age, right?  hehe   I LOVE you, DH!!!  You rock my world and I am so glad we have eternity to be together!
After having a blast with the family in the daytime, we had a super fun double date to the Cheesecake Factory.  (DH's choice)  It was great food and great company.  F.U.N.   Good choice of activities, honey!
Sweet G was turning 15, so she wanted a toned-down Quincinera with the family.  So we had DH's sisters and their kids over, and had yummy fajitas, a pinata, and chips with homemade salsa.  It was delicious and fun to be with everyone.  Sweet G got super cute bedding for her room, and I made her a giant print of sheet music to hang in there.  She loves it!  I will take some pictures when we get it all set up.  So cute!
I was just so worried that getting out of church so late that I wouldn't have dinner done on time, the house was fairly picked up but not cleaned to my liking for company, yada yada.  But, I was able to finish the food exactly on time, and no one cared about the house not being perfectly in order.  All the little kids just had fun playing with each other, and the adults visited and laughed together, and a good time was had by all.
Why do I stress over those things that don't even matter?  I won't say they don't matter, but I guess it is just hard to let go of the strangely high expectations we have of ourselves and just let things be good enough.  I love the quote "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful".  Must. Remember. That.

Now, to prepare for Teeny Bopper's birthday on Saturday...