Missionary Support Group

Today was weird. I was pretty stressed about dinner tonight. I invited all of the parents in our ward that has a missionary out right now. I was excited for it, but I am not a good host. It scares me. It made me anxious, which made me easily annoyed. Jorja went out to Chick-Fil-A after school with Madison and Spencer. She was not clear in her communication. She took forever to get home. I did not like that. I snapped at her when she got home asking what took so long. I didn't mean to be so on edge, but I was so annoyed that she went to Chick-Fil-A. Especially because I knew Mitchell was working. I felt like she was sneaking to see him. I was also furious because I read one of her happiness notes. I love reading those. Except this one. Her good thing today was that she had a bad day and called Mitchell and he cheered her up. I started wondering when she could have called him. Was that the reason why she was late getting home? I looked at her phone, but there was no record of her calling him. This made me furious. I knew she deleted the record from her phone. The number one rule of her cell phone is she is not allowed to delete anything. I don't know why she was hiding this from me. It is something stupid to hide from me; but if she is trying to gain my trust back doing things like this is definitely not going to help. I ended up talking to her about this, but I can't remember the exact day. Hopefully things like this won't happen again. Anyway, I made her sad without meaning to and that made me frustrated. She had a date tonight with Carter. They had been talking about going to the aquarium together since the summer. I felt so bad that I made her sad before this date. I want her to have a good time, especially since the date is not with Mitchell. I also really like Carter. He has been so nice to Jorja and was such a good friend to her last year. Luckily Jorja was able to have a good time despite me getting her in a bad mood.

Jorja & Joe

 Jorja & Spencer

 Carter & Jorja

 Jorja

Jorja ended up getting home a few minutes before people started coming over for the missionary dinner. That surprised me. Usually she is gone forever! She was excited to make it home in time for lasagna though. Mike does make the best lasagna.

The missionary dinner ended up being a hit. There are a lot of families with missionaries out right now. Only two couldn't make it. The Bartons (Jake) and the Mogensens (Daniel). The families that came were: The Maxfields (Landon), Clarks (Kelsee), Becky Johnson (Isaac), Batemans (Severine), Hayes (Bowie), Covingtons (Jordan), Heaton's (Jaxson & Dylan) and of course Stockton. It was so nice to talk with people who are experiencing all the emotions we are experiencing. Plus it is funny to hear their stories. For example, in Kelsee's mission they are now requiring them to wear orange vests when they ride their bikes or walk at all times. It is hilarious. Something bad must have happened to prompt that change. Ron and Jennifer Covington had to leave early to pick up a ring at the jewelers for their newly returned son Andrew. Looks like he will be getting engaged really soon. He is Maysen's age and that seems crazy. Anyway, tonight was such a fun night. People stayed for about three hours. I wish I had written this blog earlier so I could remember more. I just remember that I loved it and I hope this is a tradition that continues.

Rand Bateman, Jennifer & Ron Covington, Kanani & Monson Hayes, Nellie Bateman, Becky Johnson, Camee & Al Clark, Stephanie Smith

 Becky Johnson, Camee & Al Clark, Mike & Tiffany Mayfield, Stephanie Smith, Rand Bateman

I CANR BELEIVE U

Mike and Jorja have been making bread lately and it's delicious. Jorja wanted to bring some bread to Hailey's family.

Jorja and Mike

Speaking of Hailey, I saw this text conversation between the two of them last week. I laughed so hard. Hailey is a good sport. (Also, neither of the girls worried about correct spelling/punctuation. I think that is obvious.)

Hailey's I CANR BELEIVE U text made me laugh so hard. Hailey ended up having a great time, so it worked out well. Plus a cute ballroom dancer asked her during the slow song and she was spun around like crazy. Anyways, I like Jorja and Hailey together.

Now for pictures of ducks.

 Jorja

 Mike

The End

Jorja's Beautiful Day

The kids love ducks. Here are lots of pictures.

Jorja

The ducks love crickets. They went crazy chasing them when Mike put them in the cage yesterday. Jorja found a cricket and tried to feed it to them. They aren't as adept chasing them when they are not in their cage.

The Bradley's came over to meet the ducks. And & Alex

 Georgia

 Olivia

 Zoe

Heather was in town from Georgia. Andrew, her second oldest, is going into the MTC on Wednesday. We came down to see them! Stockton drove separately with Gavin. They left after ten minutes to go to Dani's house. She received her mission call when she was in Africa. It has been sitting unopened at their house for a few weeks. She ended up getting called to San Diego, California speaking Spanish. She will go into the Mexico MTC, just like Brandon. Except in November.

Stephanie & Heather

 Stephanie, Heather & Mike

 Jorja back with her ducks.

Jorja's Beautiful Day

Preston loves the ducks too.

 Jorja

I laughed so hard when I saw Maysen with her book pillow.

Jorja and Mike made bread today. She wanted to give a loaf to a few friends. It didn't finish until close to 11:00 at night. They were still up, so we dropped the loafs off as fast as we could. She dropped a loaf and a bag of Charleston Chews at Traven's house, a loaf and a case of a weird flavor of Mountain Dew at Kenzie's house, and a loaf with two different cards at Carter's house. One card for Carter, one for his family. Carter was waiting outside when we got there. We were quite late.

Mario Ducks

So.... Mike got ducks. They arrived in the mail today. The post office called him. They thought he had ordered turkeys.

Mike's ducks

Mike leaving the post office

Unboxing

Here they are! The kids are smitten. We have two girls and one boy. They decided to name the ducks Quackletta, Princess Peep and Waddluigi.

Ducks

 Ducks eating out of Preston's hand

 Maysen

 Jorja

 Madison & Jorja

 Jorja

 Madison, Jorja & Grace (Madison's sister)

 Maysen

The ducks

Eating from Preston

Jorja came back from leadership camp today. The ducks came a few hours before she got home. Jorja was waiting for me at Alta with Mr. Packer and Traven. Everyone else had gone home. I came the second she called though. Jorja was so tired. She got a total of eight hours of sleep while she was gone. She left on Monday. Today is Thursday. Oh boy, she has some catching up to do. Except, ducks. Anyway, I tried to get her to sleep for a few hours before she needed to leave to Addie's house. Addie was doing a voice lesson with her before she moves up to Provo. When I scheduled this I did not realize Jorja wouldn't have any sleep while she was gone. She seemed to do fine though. I gave Addie Michael's number. I gave him Addie's number when I saw him at Aimee's wedding. Hopefully they can hang out together and not be lonely. Addie gave Jorja a picture booth picture that Carter had taken home. They took it at the Pepperwood party. She was excited to get it. Carter is in student government and is so nice to Jorja.

Hailey, Jorja, Carter

Jorja got a bit of sleep before I woke her up to go to the church for a trek dance practice. She did not want to go. She was so tired. And grumpy. She came back with Madison super happy though. Being around people perks her right up. It is the opposite for me.