We flunked church today...so awesome.

I say this with a laugh: my family flunked church today. It was so, so amazing. My kids are awesome. Let me thrill you with the highlights:

* A sweet friend gave a little Kit Kat bar to each of the kids before the meeting began. Everyone handled it well except Kai, who held onto his piece with a death grip, until it was a melted, gooey mess all over both his hands, his mouth, and select parts of his shirt. He then began crying because he had no chocolate left to eat.

* I left the chapel to go wash Kai's hands off, and in the process, saw a good friend who ran her first marathon yesterday. I got caught up talking to her about her run, and didn't realize our meeting had started. When I came back in the chapel, I saw our other three children sitting alone on the bench playing, and realized David had been asked to pass the sacrament to people, so was currently not sitting with or supervising our hooligans.

* I sat down next to the hooligans right as the song ended, only to remember that the bishop had asked me to say the opening prayer, which it was now time for. (Thank heavens I didn't talk out in the halls any longer than I did.)

* I get back to the bench to discover that the kids are apparently on speed. Kai cannot sit in one place for longer than 0.1 seconds. He is happiest when he is facing the row behind us, stretching his leg to the side, over and over, trying to hit Dane's face with it. Unfortunately, Dane is not as happy with this setup as Kai is, but refuses to move off my lap where Kai can't reach him, so instead tries to solve the problem by repeatedly elbowing Kai away and crying out, "Stop, Kai!! That's my face!" Kai is not deterred.

* Dane eventually moves. Kai realizes David is not sitting with us and cries until I pass him up two rows to where David is.

* Under the pretense of "needing to stretch", Elijah starts pushing his elbow into the side of Haven's head. They start bickering about this. As I am leaning over to squash the fight and separate them, David apparently lets Kai loose in the aisle to walk two rows back to me. Of course Kai misses our row and keeps wandering down the aisle, dragging his nasty brown footy PJ's that he loves so dearly, behind him. I don't realize he is wandering around until like three people start whispering my name and pointing to him. (David would like me to point out that he had no other choice, since it was time for him to stand up and start passing the sacrament.)

* At a very quiet point in the meeting, Dane spontaneously and loudly announces, "At our house, we know what the F-word is." This causes Elijah and four other individuals around us to start laughing so hard they are crying, all through the sacrament prayer. (For the record, Dane does NOT know what the F-word is. He knows there is such a thing as an F-word because Eli asked a question about it a couple months ago. But we most absolutely do not use that word in our house, and Dane has no idea what it is. But of course, no one around me in church knows any of that.)

* Because I am distracted trying to quiet Elijah down and explain yet again to Dane that it is not appropriate to talk about the F-word, Kai is able to take an entire fistful of sacrament bread. I barely stop him from grabbing another.

* I spill Dane's cup of sacrament water all over his pants. He is displeased and loudly lets me (and everybody around us) know.

* Kai starts eating an oyster cracker and decides halfway through it that he needs to give Elijah an open-mouthed kiss. He pursues him across the bench with me grabbing at him and Elijah leaning away in panic. He still manages to plant his slobbery, chewed-up-cracker mouth on the side of Elijah's head, prompting Elijah to yell out in what seemed like involuntary terror, "KAI!!! Nasty!! What did you do THAT for??!?" Against my will, I finally give in to the circus and start to laugh, as do the same four people that laughed at the F-word statement.

* Kai starts crying because I won't let him down to wander the aisles again. David is finally sitting with us (hooray!) again, but leaves to take Kai out. I am alone with the hooligans again.

* There are excessive amounts of whispering (the kind that is somehow louder than actually talking) coming from all three remaining hooligans. I alternate between lovingly reminding, threatening, rearranging children, praising, and giving the death-threat look to them to try to quiet them down.

* At another quiet point in the meeting, Dane looks over at me and very loudly whispers (at least he was whispering now), "Mom, yer AMAZING!!!" I don't care that he was too loud because I appreciate the nice feedback.

* Elijah leans excitedly over to me in the middle of the first speaker's talk to tell me that if I close my eyes, she sounds just like she could be the voice of Piglet. 

* The closing speaker closes by mentioning how our reverence is a manifestation of our testimony of the Savior. All I can think to do is lift my eyes to the ceiling, take a breath, and remember that one day this will probably be easier.

* The meeting ends and David brings me Kai so he can go teach his class. Kai is so beyond nap point that he is not fully sane. I watch him tearing around the chapel like a crazy baby, consider church a job well done considering what we had to work with, and leave two hours early to take Kai home to nap.

* When David brings the kids home after church, Haven comes upstairs to find me, puts one finger in the air, then says, "And Mom, I have one more thing to tell you:...." then toots loudly. I look at her laughing at her own toot and think, "Ahhh, yes. She is such a lady. We are doing so much right in the training of our children."

Mmmm-hmmmm. Just another Sabbath-day meeting here with the Servinos. If you ever feel that your children are a little too rowdy during church, sit by us next time and we can teach you all about the F-word. You're welcome.

This is obviously not taken at church., but...here are my hooligans. I do so love them.