"Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead"

Last week Lucy's class got to go on a field trip to see The Wizard of Oz. I was lucky enough to be able to go with them. We had a great time!Here she is as they got off the bus. She's embarrassed that I'm taking pictures.
Less embarrassed, more goofy.

Waiting for the show to start with her cute friend, Catherine.

The cast at the end of the show. Lucy said her favorite part was when the Wicked Witch of the West came out and there was smoke everywhere. My favorite part was, "The Witch is Dead" song. It cracks me up every time.

I'm just so proud of this little girl of mine. She really is such a sweetheart. Lucy is becoming a fabulous big sister who helps me with her crazy brothers all the time. I love hearing about her day as we walk home from school. She fills me in on the high and low points of the day. I look forward to hearing her interpretation of things. I feel so lucky to be her mom!

Graham's Buddy

Graham was supposed to start preschool at the beginning of October, but his teacher is on medical leave for some surgery (lame), so his start time is indefinite. So, in the meantime, we've been doing babysitting swaps with our friends, the Jarvis family. Little Grant comes over once or twice a week and Graham spends time at their house, too. Here's a few pics of the boys at the park down the street.

Isn't he cute!

Love the faces this guy pulls.

These boys have quite the love/hate relationship. One minute they will be playing and lovin' life and then moments later one have them has hit the other one and they're screamin' at each other. Grant is quite a tease and Graham is an amazing reactor. Although, Graham is getting to be quite the little irritator, too. Even with the occasional wrestling matches, it's so nice for Graham to have someone to play with other than yours truly. I can only play dinosaurs or army guys for so long.

Side note: The other day, he and I were playing with all of his little animals. He wanted me to be three or four of his dinosaurs. After a little while, I had to get up and get the dishes done before we left to run errands (OCD, I know) and Graham still wanted me to play. He was completely content with me doing the voices from the sink while he played across the room on the coffee table. I thought it was so funny. He doesn't care so much about jumping around and doing stuff with the animals, he just wants them to have conversations.

Workin' the Waterfront Runway

Aug. 2010

We love to go for walks around this little waterfront community by our house. On this particular Sunday, Graham and Lucy were having a blast dancing and posing on this little pier and I was able to catch some funny pictures.
I love this last picture of Lucy singing into the sun with her arms out wide. This is a typical Lucy pose when she's putting on a show.

Royalty

We had a great Family Home Evening this week. I told the kids the story of Queen Esther and how brave she was to stand up for what was right even when she may have been killed. Jason and I shared some experiences we have had in our lives where we had to stand up for what we believe in, even if others didn't agree or would think badly of us. Lucy loved the story and I felt like she really understood what we were teaching. Graham is grasping more of the spiritual side of things, but usually just answers our questions with, "Because Jesus loves us!" or something of that nature. Good thought Graham, but not really what we're looking for right now. We ended the evening making our own crowns. I thought they turned out pretty cute.

The kids under the crowns are even more cute, though.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a talk that one of our apostles, Elder Bednar, gave a few conferences ago. He talked about the importance of having regular family scripture study, family prayer, and family home evenings. He gave the analogy of a tapestry that we are weaving. In a tapestry, each strand on its own is not anything special. But, when all the strands are put together, a beautiful masterpiece is made. Our daily habits of scripture study, prayer and weekly FHE at times seem pointless. Graham is climbing all over the couches, Ben is doing his best screech, and Lucy keeps asking if I have faith in mermaids. Yes, there are times (way more than I'd care to admit) that I feel like the lesson I planned was a complete failure or that I'm just too tired to do scripture study with the kids and they don't pay attention or "get it" anyways. But, almost every time I have those thoughts, I remember that talk and think of the beautiful tapestry that is being weaved as Jason and I stick with it and try to be consistent. They may not remember the exact lessons or all of the scripture stories, but they will remember the feeling we have in our home. Maybe the spirit they feel during those times will counterbalance the screaming they heard from me as we struggled through homework, dinner, and bath time. I wonder what THAT tapestry looks like.....yikes.

Just Because

August 2010

Ben had his first sucker this summer while we were in Utah.I think he liked it.