Morpity Morp Morp Morp

So.....it looks like Stockton has been messing with my computer. My original title was MORP. Super creative, I know. Jorja had to work for four hours today. She came home and fell asleep for a bit. I ran to the store to pick up some last minute things she needed. I felt I needed to talk to her before she went. I just felt super anxious about some things. As soon as I got home from the store I went downstairs and talked to her. I talked to her about how she is in such a good position to make a difference in so many people's life. She has such a knack at making other people feel important. I love that about her. I talked to her about how it is so good she doesn't have a boyfriend. This way she can bring joy to lots of people instead of just focusing on one person. I told her that I didn't want her to kiss anyone tonight. That is what I was really worried about. I felt she was in a vulnerable place tonight. She has worked so hard on Morp and is soooooo stressed. Not only about Morp, but about her grades. Her body is also worn down. She has been sick for so long. I just had a really bad feeling about that. Anyway, Jorja rolled her eyes at me and said, "I'm not going to kiss anyone mom." I mean, she hasn't kissed anyone for a long time, but still.....I was worried.

Mike and I had to be there before Jorja. I wanted to be one of the first parents to arrive, because I wanted the spot we had at the Christmas dance last year. We got to play on rolling chairs and it was so much fun! I kept asking Jorja to make sure I got that spot and make sure I had chairs to play on. She did not. When we walked up to the table, Packer was there waiting for us. He said in a super serious voice, "I need to talk to you and your husband." I thought he was going to give us a lecture to not play on the chairs. I started kind of jumping on my toes and saying, "Please, please, please. We will do our jobs. Please let us play on the chairs." He laughed. He had the chairs waiting for us and assigned us to the exact spot I wanted. He said that we were the only parents that showed up last year so, "Jorja's mom gets whatever she wants." Hahahaha! I like that rule! Bode's parents were assigned to be with us. We went to high school with Destiny, Bode's mom. Mike and Destiny were in student government together. Destiny was the head cheerleader. We got Destiny to play on the chairs once, but that was it. It was okay. Mike and I had sooooo much fun by ourselves. I can't imagine how bored I would be if I had to just sit there for three hours. Plus, the chairs made me feel powerful. I chased so many kids out!

Anyway, Morp was a huge success. Except Jorja wasn't happy with the DJ. I guess he would play all of the song and have a few seconds of silence while he was switching things. Someone even told her that their friends were planning on toilet papering her house because of it. Weirdos. The dance started off slow as usual. At first there was only the sophomore officers and some other student government people there. Jorja was so worried no one would come, so I'm guessing this part was quite stressful. The dance was packed by the end. A lot more people were here then to the Christmas dance we chaperoned last year.

 Jorja & Kylie

 Kylie, Jorja, Stephanie

 Jorja and Stephanie

 Everything was decorated with different sports. I won't bother to label all of them, because it is obvious. I wonder if Jorja liked being the delegator or if it stressed her out. I should ask her. Okay, I did. She said it stressed her out, but she liked being in charge. So, there you go.

 Nice Chungus jersey. My kids are obsessed with Chungus right now.

For some reason, I always love watching the kids dance to Sweet Caroline

This was not our best work, but here is just a bit of our chair dance.

If you look closely, you can find Jorja. She's number 64.

I like this one because Raychel come running up to me at the end. That makes me smile.

Raychel is John's little sister. John was Stockton's good friend up at Utah State. Raychel is also in student government with Jorja. Jorja likes her a lot.

Raychel and her friend

 And Jorja was worried no one would show up . . .

Lots of jumping

The end. Look how many people made it to the bitter end.

I wish I had started this next video a bit earlier. The student government all gets in a circle while everyone else stands around the edges. They start a chant and soon everyone piles in the middle chanting ALTA, ALTA. You can't see Jorja in the video, but she said she got demolished.

Okay, now it's really the end.

I found Jorja after this to give her her keys. Mike and I were taking off. Mr. Packer had already taken our chairs away. I tried to get Jorja to play with me on the chairs, but she wouldn't. I'm sure she will regret that someday. Jorja asked if she could go hang out with her Chick-Fil-A friends. I did not feel good about this. Her friends go to a different school, but they got work off and came here to support her. They have been so nice to her, I just felt anxious. Jorja and I negotiated a time. Then I told her she could go if she didn't kiss anyone, or even pair off with anyone. Again, I just had a feeling that she was super vulnerable today and she would let her guard down.

Once Jorja got home we had so much fun. We played Jackbox games together as a family. While she was gone, Isaac dropped a box off on our doorstep. We knew he was going to drop off something. We were trying to guess what it was. Jorja thought it would be notes that she wrote him. She was right. He wasn't mean about it. He wanted her to read the notes so she could remember how she felt about him. Jorja said she was really glad to have the notes back. She wanted them back, but didn't want to ask for them. She threw them all in the trash without reading them. I am sooooo glad she is over him. Isaac asked if they could go on a hike sometime and talk. Jorja told me that she felt she should meet with him. Not on a hike, but something smaller. She said the nicest thing he did was three months after he broke up with her he came over and talked to her. He listened and let her tell him how hurt she was. Now that I think about it, that was exactly a year ago. Anyway, she said she didn't want to be a roadblock for him, or a bad memory. If he needed to talk to her to move on, she wanted to let him do that. I love her. She is wise beyond her years.

Jorja

Stockton, Jorja and I stayed up for a looooong time. We laughed so hard. It was awesome. I asked Jorja if she wanted to talk to me about the dance while she was taking her makeup off or in her bed. She wanted to talk in bed. I went up to the guest room where Jorja has been sleeping lately. I had my phone that I was excited to show her pictures on. I was giddy with excitement to talk with her. She had worked so hard, and things had gone so well. I wanted to hear all about it. She crawled into bed and said she just wanted to write in her journal real quick. I said, "Sure. As long as you aren't writing about any kissing." She looked at me and my heart just dropped. I was so hurt. I know she is 16 and this is what 16 year olds do, but I felt so strongly that she should not kiss anyone today. It is hard to explain why I felt that way, but I did. I was also hurt because I felt lied to. We made a contract. I agreed to let her go with her Chick-Fil-A friends, and she agreed to not kiss them. She kissed a boy named Mitchell. I know she kind of likes him, but I feel not good about this at all. I don't know how I can trust Jorja. I was very clear about what I expected. I have many reasons for asking this of her, which I'm not going to go into detail about here. I just felt disregarded and disrespected. Needless to say, the end of the day didn't turn out how I hoped it would.

Dead Jorja

Okay, so this picture was from yesterday. Still, it makes me laugh. This was from our Jackbox game yesterday. Hahahaha. Poor Porge.

Jorja had a busy day. She had a hard time getting up again. I forced her. I knew she would be so upset if she missed first period today. That is student government and she has MORP tomorrow. She needed to be there. She had asked the student government kids if they would wear jerseys today to promote the dance. Most of them did, which made her very happy. Jorja made it through the entire day. She stayed after school to decorate. She was happy with the decorations when she came home, but was super tired.

Marshall, Jorja, Shafer, Bode, Carson

Jorja had a few minutes to rest before she headed out to work. She had a long work shift ahead of her. Too bad she thought she had to be there at 5:00, when she really needed to be there at 5:30. She had to close, so she got home really late. Especially since she talked with her friends for awhile after. I gave her permission to stay for a bit, but she stayed longer than I said she could. She is going to be exhausted tomorrow.

Perfect Dress

Jorja was so sick today. I could not get her up. This morning when I tried to wake her up she was moaning, "I can't feel my body." I let her sleep a little longer and came back in thirty minutes. No luck. One hour later, no luck. An hour after that, no luck. Finally she mumbled, "Can you just let me sleep until I wake up?" I tried that. She slept until 1:00. I finally made her get up. She didn't want to, but I really didn't want her to miss chemistry again. She has a D right now. The quarter ends next week.

Jorja making breakfast at 1:30 in the afternoon

I took her to school. She said the office ladies were watching her MORP video when she walked in. She got to chemistry and they had a sub there. Oh well. Jorja stayed after school to work with two other girls on her theater scene. They are auditioning for Region and State next week. The girls asked Jorja to be with them clear back before Jorja got sick. Jorja regrets it so much right now. She is so overwhelmed. This is one thing she doesn't want to worry about. But, she isn't going to back out on the girls right now. I picked her up when she was finished. We dropped off one of her Alta basketball jerseys she got last year at Mia's house, then we headed down to Provo. (We dropped one off at Hailey's house on the way home.) Jorja wanted to go to this dress rental place to look for dresses. They have very weird hours and this was the first time we could make it.

Jorja

 This one was Jorja's second favorite.

Jorja fell in love with the very first dress she tried on. When I zipped her up it just felt perfect. Her dream dress for this dance was lacy, short and one that could twirl. She wanted either light pink or sea foam green. This dress was exactly what she wanted, although she said she wishes it was a bit shorter. I do not. I think it is a perfect length.

Jorja

We had brought her dress we bought on New Years with us. It was in the car, so I ran back to get it. Jorja wanted to try on both together to see which one she liked best. She liked the pink one a lot more. I think the pink one looks more like her too. We are going to take the white one back. Even renting the pink one is expensive though. It is more to rent this pink one than it was to buy the white one. Jorja's going to pay for half and I will pay for half. Then it isn't so bad. Here are two pictures she sent to her friends. Almost all of them picked the white one. Haha.

In person I think the pink one is much better. She was very happy with it. As we were leaving I asked if it was okay if we went home. We were planning on going to the Dillards up there and seeing if they had the white dress in a size zero. I figured she had picked the pink, so we didn't need to do that any more. For some reason she got really grumpy. This annoyed me to no end. I had been wanting to have a serious discussion about a few things with her on this trip. I didn't want to do it before we tried on dresses in case it made her cry. I needed to have this discussion and she had shut down the second we left the dress shop. I told her that I would do anything she wanted. She was antsy and short. It was so out of character. We ended up going to the mall across the street so she could look in a store she wanted to. We then went to Village Inn. I was hoping to talk to her here. I didn't have the chance. We were seated next to an obnoxious loud guy. I couldn't even hear myself think. I thought that it would be okay because we had a long drive home. The second we got in the car Jorja asked if it would be okay if she slept on the way home. I was pretty disappointed. I kind of talked to her a bit, but I didn't get to have the conversation I felt I needed. I have been feeling so anxious about this.

When we got home we watched a Goldbergs and played Jackbox as a family. Jorja worked on her English project while we were doing this. She had to make a soundtrack for the Secret Life of Bees. She had to pick songs that fit the story and write a paragraph about why that song would be included in the soundtrack. She finished, but it looked miserable. Although she probably enjoyed that project. At least she enjoyed it more than any of my other kids would.

Jorja had told us that her favorite hug is when she is hugging someone and they put their head on her head. Here is Stockton trying to give her her favorite hug. I'm pretty sure she regrets telling him that. Ha! The kids would not sit still for me to get a picture, so this is the best I have.

Jorja, Stockton, Preston

He's Not Stockton

Jorja had to work all day today. Well, straight from when she got home from school until closing. She is getting tired and overwhelmed. These next two weeks are going to be rough. I hope she can get her grades up. Mono has been horrible. She posted this while she was at work. Super cute. She has definitely done her best to advertise this dance. I hope she is happy with the result. She did stay after school today to talk with Packer. The DJ hadn't emailed him the invoice, so they were worried that he pulled out. Jorja was able to confirm with him that he was still planning on doing it. She asked that he send his invoice. It takes three days to process the check and they can't get it started without the invoice. Plus, she would feel better once that is done. She only asked him to send it a month ago. She is feeling so much better about the DJ situation now.

Jorja

Jorja's poor cactus is dying. She has tried so hard to save it. The one Conner gave her is the shriveled skinny one. A couple of weeks ago it had fallen over. She was wondering if she clipped the top if it would grow again. She pointed to it and said something like how the cactus represented her birthday. That is the day everything got ruined between her and Conner. I'm not explaining it right, but how she said it was so funny I burst out laughing. I love her. She cracks me up all the time. It will be so nice when she is back to her regular Jorja self. She is always so sick and tired right now.

Preston had young mens tonight. They were playing dodgeball. He did not want to go. I said, "Stockton always loved it when they played dodgeball." He looked at me with such an annoyed expression and said, "Well, I'm not Stockton am I?" Something about older kids hurling balls towards his face did not appeal to him. Mike had Preston help him work on fixing our sink that has been broken for a month. They didn't get it fixed, but they had fun together.

Stockton went to diving today. He brought Gavin home afterwards. We played more Jackbox games. Too bad Jorja wasn't here. We kept laughing about her invention of cutting of her nose. We didn't play the invention game today though. We did play rap battle and the drawing game. It was fun. 

Making a Video

Today was our first Sunday with two hour church. I loved it! It was also Kelsee's mission farewell. She did such a great job. She talked about her thought process as she decided to serve a mission. When she knew she wanted to go, when she doubted, when she knew again, how she is scared and excited. I thought she did a great job. I had my first Sunday school class with my new class. They were great. My lesson went really well too. Sometimes everything just clicks and today was one of those days. I hope it stays like that for the rest of the year. The weird thing is, I won't be with these kids again until March. Now that we only have Sunday school on the first and third Sundays. I will be gone the next three times we are supposed to meet. Too bad that it wasn't the other way around so I didn't miss anything.

When we came out of church it was snowing so hard! Not a flake when we arrived. Mike drove Jorja's bug home for her. It was very slippery. Mike took Preston and Jackson around to do fast offerings. This was Preston's first time. In a blizzard. They don't have to go to many houses though, so they were done quick. We all went to Kelsee's house when they got back. It is so weird that my beehives are all growing up! I remember when Kelsee moved in. She would wear the highest heels and could barely walk in them. She wasn't shy at all and would always contribute to our lessons. She had a lot of great stories, especially about her dad following promptings. I'm going to miss her.

Jorja has been super stressed about MORP. The dance is on Saturday and she is the chair. The thing she is worried the most about is also something she can't control. She is worried no one will show up because MORP is dumb. The problem is it is also Jorja's biggest assignment of the year. I think she has the hardest dance. Prom would be stressful, but everyone wants to go to it. The stress would be all things you can control. Jorja is worried no one will show up to this one. Anyway, she and a few of the other sophomore officers got together at a park to make a MORP video. Packer said he would show it if she had one done by Monday. The video was too big to put on here, maybe I will split it up on another day. Carson, Joe and Bode showed up. Marshall was sick, so he couldn't come. Marshall is the historian, so he is supposed to do filming stuff. Jorja took my phone down and they took turns filming. The problem was, when Jorja got home she realized some of the scenes were filmed in portrait mode and some in landscape. She spent HOURS on this video. She even figured out how to edit the portrait/landscape videos together. It turned out so well! She was happy with it. Now she just hopes that Packer will approve it so it can be shown.

Carson

 Joe

 Jorja

 Bode

As soon as Jorja got home we went to Steve and Shannon's house for games. Jorja edited the video there. We played a lot of fun games. The kids especially loved the Jackbox games. I love how well Jorja and Weston get along. They have always been such good friends, it's nice to see them having just as much fun as teenagers.

Secret Code

Jorja had a rough day. She was so tired this morning. It probably doesn't have anything to do with staying up super late to talk to Stockton. She checked in during Chinese. I didn't call the office because I thought they told me not to if she checked in during 1st or 5th. I was wrong. Luckily the office called me and we were able to get it straightened out. Jorja felt awful all day though. This mono is sure annoying. I was taking Maysen and Stockton out to lunch, so we checked Jorja out of school and had her come too. We went to OHOP. Maysen's favorite. Jorja came home to sleep after lunch and Stockton took her to school in time for chemistry. She has missed seminary so many times. It's hard because she is behind in all of her classes, when she is struggling, that is the best class to miss. My dad would not be proud of me. Anyway, Jorja texted me during chemistry and said that she was one of the only people that understood what was going on and she has been gone for a week! She even helped other people. That made her feel good. Jorja doesn't realize how smart she is. It's hard for her sandwiched between Stockton and Preston. Those two are crazy smart, so it makes Jorja feel inadequate. She says Maysen has her writing, but there is nothing she excels at. If only she realized how smart she was across the board. Right now it is hard though when she is so behind. I hope she can pull up her grades. This quarter has been rough.

Maysen and I went to the temple today. We got there at 12:30 and hoped to do a 1:00 session. Nope. It was booked. The earliest we could get in was 2:00. We decided to do initiatories instead. Maysen hasn't done those before. That worked out perfectly. This is also the reason why Stockton took Jorja to school. I'm glad she was able to go back in time for chemistry. Jorja stayed after school today to make posters for MORP next week. Jorja is the chair for that dance and it is stressing her out. The theme for MORP is Jerseys. I think it will be a lot of fun. Carson, Joe, Marshall and Traven stayed after to work on the posters. Look how adorable they turned out!

Jorja

Jorja had a date today with Collin. He works with her at Chick-Fil-A. She was pretty excited to go on a non-dance date. She likes Collin a lot as a friend. I am so glad she isn't interested in him as a boyfriend though. He would not be good for her. I think if she liked him he would be too controlling. He uses guilt a lot in my opinion. He is really nice to her though. Madison helped him plan the date. First they went ice skating....except it was closed. So, they ended up going to Zupas and then to a movie. They saw whatever was playing, which turned out to be Homes and Watson. Jorja said it was the worst movie she has ever seen. She knew it would be bad going in though, because we had talked about it at home. Anyway, Jorja has been on two non dance dates. They were identical dates in reverse. One was movie and Zupas, the other was Zupas and a movie. Same movie theater, same Zupas. Jorja texted me at 9:40 and said, "We're at a movie, is it okay if I come home after it finishes or do you want me home by 10:30?" I told Stockton that I thought Jorja wanted me to say she needed to come home. I told her that I wanted her to get some sleep because she is working nine hours tomorrow. I guessed right. Jorja wanted to come home. I didn't realize that this would have been the second movie they would be seeing. Jorja and I have now come up with a secret code that she can use when she wants to come home. Jorja does not like to use periods at the end of sentences when she texts. She says it makes the sentence too aggressive. So, if she is out with friends and she uses a period, I know that is the signal that she needs to come home. I will text her a message with two periods.. Like that. That way she is knowing I'm asking her if she meant to use the code. If she writes back and uses a period again, I know she wants to come home. Anyway, that is our plan. It would have been helpful today.

I did have every intention of having Jorja go to sleep when she got home....except the kids all wanted to play a game. (It did make me happy that Jorja came home from a date and wanted to spend time with her family. I love how much my family loves being together.) We played another escape room game. Maysen is going back to school tomorrow, so this was our last chance. This game was HARD! And so much fun. The puzzles were crazy, but pretty awesome. I fell asleep for the last bit though. I did wake up about five minutes before the puzzle was solved. I am not a night person.

Mike, Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 I finally got a family gingerbread picture!

Maysen, Preston, Mike, Stockton, Jorja

I didn't decorate one this year. I was burnt out just making them. I can't believe Christmas break is over. I'm going to miss having all of my family together. These few weeks went way too fast. I have loved every second of it though.

MORP

Today was MORP, which is the reason why we didn't go to the cabin with the boys yesterday. This is the one dance Jorja can go to all year, the only non-date dance. Jorja has been looking forward to this for months. The theme for the dance is camouflage. She had to post something on social media about it, this is what she posted.

Jorja

Isaac came over around 11:00. He stayed all day. I'm serious. I was getting a little bored because I had to hover all day long. There was no way I was leaving these two alone, even if they aren't together anymore. I did get lots of work done on Eve's stocking though. I guess they ran out of things to do because Jorja convinced him to let her curl his hair. Why? I have no idea. Maybe so Jorja could 'accidentally' burn him? Just kidding! She would never hurt someone on purpose. That was just a happy bonus.

Isaac & Jorja

 Jorja

 Jorja & Isaac with weird kind of curled hair

Jorja and Isaac spent a lot of time at the piano. Isaac wanted Jorja to play the song she wrote for him. (She didn't write the song for him, he just wanted her to play it for him.) He had been begging her to send a video of it to him for a long time. She finally did a few days ago. He wanted her to play it again, which is weird because the song is about him and how much she was hurt. It is really beautiful though. They spent a lot of time playing and singing random songs. Isaac plays the piano quite well. I do love listening to Jorja sing.

Isaac & Jorja

Matt and Anne stopped by for a while. Matt was getting something out from the shed out back. They have some of their stuff stored there. Anne hung out with Jorja while he was doing that.

Jorja & Anne

Isaac had asked Jorja for help putting together his PSA. It took him forever! I was getting anxious because the dance had started over an hour ago and this is why we didn't go to the cabin. In this picture I am telling Isaac to hurry. Maybe I had been doing drumroll on the table telling him time was up. Maybe I was being a bit obnoxious.

I am glad these two are able to be friends again. I kept telling both of them that they can not be anything more than friends. They both know that is true. Jorja is the most forgiving person I know. Anyway, I finally got Jorja and Isaac in the car. The dance was half over, so I took Jorja and Hailey there first. (We stopped and picked up Hailey on the way.) I then took Isaac home. We talked on the way back. We were in the middle of a conversation when I got to his house, so we talked at the side of his house. The conversation ended up lasting a long time. I could see Isaac's dad looking out the window. For the record, I am not mean and I wasn't mean to Isaac. I do talk about things that can be uncomfortable. One time Isaac started sliding down in his seat with his hands over his face saying, "Stop, stop" or something like that. He was laughing though. Before I knew it, Jorja called. Isaac answered so she thought she called the wrong number. We had talked through the entire dance. Isaac wanted to come pick her up so he could scare her. I asked if his parents would be okay with that. He said his curfew was 11:00 so he was fine. I was anxious to get her so I hurried away. We were driving past Hailey's house when his parents called him. He said, "I'm on my way home." I laughed at him. I pointed out that they knew he had been in front of his house for an hour and a half. He then explained that he wanted to scare Jorja. His parents must think I'm really weird. Anyway, Jorja and Hailey came out. Jorja laughed when she opened the door. She wasn't completely scared because she had figured out Isaac was still with me. As Jorja was getting in the car she said, "I apologize for my mother."

Jorja had texted Hailey right before the dance and asked if she wanted to go to Idaho with us. She said yes! Jorja couldn't believe her parents let her. They even let her sleep at our house so we could go early tomorrow. After Jorja spending a week at their house they have just added her to their family. Pretty awesome that they trust us to let Hailey be with us too. I think Hailey has only been allowed to have 'sleepovers' with Jorja. This will be Hailey's third time at the cabin too. Jorja was so happy! We dropped Hailey off at her house to pack and then went and got gas and snacks. Jorja was hyper. Especially hyper after the dance. Apparently Jorja and Hailey had a great time. Also, she is a night person. Her personality changes to crazy at night. We went back and picked up Hailey, dropped Isaac off and made it home. Jorja and Hailey probably spent all night talking. I just went to sleep.

Meanwhile, at Parrydise, this is what was going on. Jumps were being built. Forts were being built.  Bowling alleys were created and movie theaters were made. The snow was wet, so great for building things, not great for going super fast.

Gavin

Stockton

Preston

Stockton

Mike hung a projector in the basement, they watched the movie Clue.