Photo Update

They grow so fast! Here are the kids just before bed the other night.

Nathan with a flying Lincoln Log (the reason for the buck teeth).


Leah with some kind of food on her face (a normal thing for this family...so hygienic). Her hair is getting long!

Daniel before he could think to make a crazy face (or so he thought).

Butterball Rebekah. She's 6 months old this week! Her hair isn't red, but her scalp is. This is a very good baby...only cries when she really needs to (currently laughing at my typing...aren't we all?). And Chad...he hasn't changed much. ;)

What? No pictures of Arlyn? You'll live.

Genius or Smarty Pants?

We played a game for FHE last week where the kids performed an action written on a heart. The kids were reusing the hearts last week during breakfast time and acting silly. They asked Chad to read it to them and then did what it said. Leah picked up a heart and held it up to me: "This say?" "Count to ten," I answered. Happily, Leah went on her merry way and by the time she got to the end of the hallway, she was to 11 (yes, she counted them in order...she was 2 last month). I looked to Chad, who also had a look of surprise, and said, "She isn't very good at following directions. It said count to ten." Today at the church (while I was walking), she got to 12 while they played "hide and seek." So is she a genius or just too smart for her own good? Daniel didn't do that (wouldn't is probably more accurate) until well into the school year.

I would just like to mention that Nathan is a little stubborn. Have I said this before (rhetorical question, I know)? Most kids whine and cry, then throw a tantrum when they're told to do something they don't want to. Nathan doesn't bother with such a waste of energy. He just completely ignores you and does what he wants anyway. He is so focused on the goal, that he'll keep trying to accomplish it while being physically restrained. Today, after losing a privilege that would reduce Daniel to tears, Nathan only said, "I don't care." And I believe him! (But what do I DO with him?) :S

Mud and worse

I came home from taking the 3 youngest kids to the doctor on Wednesday and saw that Daniel was entertaining 2 girl friends. (Go Daniel!) ;) Shortly after I got home, the phone rang and I tried to answer it. The phone wasn't working properly and I couldn't get it to answer the call. (It only turned on the back light and "talk" flashed.) Chad answered the call downstairs and the whole time I was still trying to get the phone to work. Upon investigating, I discovered that the phone was wet - mostly in cracks. I thought maybe Chad used it with wet hands. After getting off the phone, Chad came upstairs (I'm still stubbornly trying to get the phone to respond). He denied getting the phone wet, so I called to Daniel and asked him why the phone was wet. "Oh. Hailey had to call her mom and her dropped it in the mud." I of course questioned the fact that they didn't use the phone inside (with less chance of finding mud). Then it came to me. "Did you wash it?" "Yeah." So miraculously, a cordless phone can be dropped in the mud, be washed and live to work again.

And part two of my story gets a little dirtier.

Wednesday night I was at the church when the kids went to bed. Later, I stumbled into the girls' bedroom to feed Rebekah (somewhere around 1 AM). I sat down in the rocking chair to feed her and started clearing a space around my feet. I ended up pushing away something cold and clammy and solid. I can usually recognize what I'm stepping on because I've seen it on the floor sometime during the day. I couldn't think what I had kicked, so I picked it up. Even holding it, I couldn't identify it. Of course, I began to have some ideas. I thought the kids probably brought some food in and left it on the floor. I even wondered if it was a drying up slice of tomato (if only).

Oh, did I mention that Leah is getting VERY interested in sitting on the potty? She took her diaper off twice during the day and did a flash dance for us all.

And now that I've mentioned that, you may know what I was about to discover in the middle of the night. Since I couldn't figure out what I was holding, I smelled it. Wouldn't you? Of course you would. UGH!!! I threw it back to the floor and used my one remaining clean hand to return Rebekah to her bed (she'd only been nursing for about 30 seconds and was not happy at the neglect). I grabbed a wipe and wiped off my fingers and toes, turned on a light and found a ball of poop that had rolled out of Leah's last discarded diaper and sometime since had been smashed to resemble an oblong hockey puck. YUCK!!! After putting it BACK into the diaper, I cleaned up the floor (as best I could in the middle of the night) and then washed my hands and used another wipe on my toes.

The mystery of it all is I still don't know who smashed it. I certainly know I didn't do it. I'm sure I would have noticed that!

Tribute to a 4 year old!

Nathan is four years old! (He still has some 2T pants that fit fine.) Nathan just started really talking this time last year. Now, he's full of stories and very lengthy sentences. He leaves some beginning sounds off his words and struggles with his "r"s, but that pretty normal. I keep trying to figure out what accent he sounds like he has. He says, "fowa" for "four." Maybe Southern? My favorite thing about Nathan (well, OK, I can't just pin it down to one thing, but this is a big one) is that his face really lights up and his eyebrows disappear into his hairline when he's explaining something to Leah. His eyes get huge. His skin is quite fair and almost seems paper-thin at times. It makes the area around his eyes look purple-ish pink. He'll probably burn easily like his mom. :) When he pouts, a very red lip juts out so far, you consider protective eyewear! Nathan can write his first name by himself and can usually write a word if it's spelled out for him. His favorite song is, "I Love To See the Temple." Maybe someday he'll actually participate in singing long enough to learn it! Nathan doesn't do ANYTHING he doesn't want to. He'll lose TV and computer privileges before he bends his will to another's. I hope this determination serves him well without getting him into too much trouble. Sometimes a little humility can be more powerful than the most determined mind! He has the perfect "partner in crime" and they spend hours dreaming up things to drive mommy crazy with. Leah is learning quickly and it will soon be quite a zoo around here!