Dear Avery,
I wanted to write this down for you so you would always be able to remember. You have been asking lots of questions about Jesus. You ask all the time how you can know if Jesus is real. We have had a lot of good talks about it. I have tried to help you understand what faith and testimonies are, and how you can develop one. Ever since summer started, you have been reading your scriptures just about every night. Even if it is really late when you go to bed, you will always say, "We still need to do our personal scriptures!" There are many times where you will use all of your nightly reading time to read scriptures. Sometimes you read out of the Book of Mormon, and sometimes you will read the children's version that has pictures and explains what happens. I have been impressed to see that even if you don't understand everything you read, you feel the spirit bearing testimony of the truthfulness and that gives you a desire to read. Back to your questions about Jesus. I mentioned that maybe we should get the children's version of the New Testament because those scriptures tell a lot about Jesus. You were excited and frequently asked me throughout the next few weeks if I had bought it yet. I finally gave it to you 3 days before Christmas at night when we were driving to a party. You read all the way in the car, all that night, and lots during the next day. That night in the middle of reading time, you came out to tell me that you had finished the book. You read the whole entire book in one day. It has 170 pages. You are five. You might not feel like you can say that you know Jesus is real yet, but I wanted you to know that I can see your testimony developing as you study the scriptures. You are such a precious daughter of God. I know that you have been blessed with special talents and that God has plans for you in this life. I am so grateful that I get to be your mother, that I get to be a witness to your life. I love you.
Love Mom

Moo Moo

Macy was one tired girl Christmas Evening. That meant that she wanted everything that wasn't hers and didn't want anything she actually owned. We were driving home and she (referring to her stuffed puppy) says, "Seriously, this is not mine! I'm not lying! (definite indicator that she is)" At this point she gets the talk from me about being grateful for what we have. "Seriously Mom! This is NOT mine," she responds. At this point I tell her that if she doesn't like it I will take it away and give it to someone else who will be so happy to have it. Her response to this, "I...AM...NE...VER...GON...NA...let.you.take.it.away.from.me!!!!!"

Tonight when she got out of bed for about the tenth time wanting a drink of water, I told her she was going to be in trouble. I refused to let her get one. "If you don't let me get a drink of water.....I'll never see you again!" It's nice to know that she's got lesson one of manipulation down.

Just to make sure a balanced picture of her is presented, I also need to say that she finds me several times a day to say "I love you Mom" sometimes while holding my face in her hands and stroking my cheeks, that this morning she stopped playing to say "Aves, I love you," that she was so helpful to get Kate some food, that if you remind her to use her nice words she will generally stop yelling and speak kindly, and that she is the cutest little dancer and "hand-talker" ever.

PS-She also knows some very important things. Out of nowhere, she informed her Grandma Mary that babies pop out of your privates.

Kate Escapes...and Feels Awful

A week ago, little Miss Kate crawled out of her crib. She isn't even two for crying out loud (which is what I sometimes find myself doing in response now :) She walked down the hall, I saw her, and I exclaimed in disapproval, "KATE!" Poor little girl. She felt so bad, she ran back into her room, shut the door, laid down on the floor, and started to sob. It was kind of adorable :) The next night, I put her to bed and came out with John. He turned on the blender, and afterwords I heard Kate crying. I thought maybe the sound had scared her so I went in to comfort her. Oh no, it wasn't the noise that was making her cry. She had crawled out of her crib again (she can't get back in), and she was sobbing just like the day before because she knew she'd done something wrong in the eyes of her mother and she didn't have a way to fix it. Again, kind of cute. But now, we have a 1 year old who crawls out of her bed for naps and bedtime, and that is extremely unadorable. I find her almost every night curled up with her blanket right in front of the door. I took the front rail off of her crib (hoping she'd crawl back in-no) and we will be pulling out the toddler bed as soon as John can go to the warehouse. Needless to say, I've been struggling with the unpredictability of my "naptime freedom." I have a half-finished project calling my name in the garage that dying to work on, but if I start staining only to be interrupted and ruin all my work...well, let's just say that no one wants to be around for that mommy. Then we'd all be crying out loud :)

Caution: Dangerous Animals Lurking About

I walked into the kitchen and found Avery adding more bandaids to the 5 or so that were already on her finger. When I asked her what happened she said, "Let's just say it feels like an alligator bite!"

I think she could definitely give Carston some good examples of the similies he is studying in school :)

2 Firsts

We had two firsts in our family the last few weeks:

1. Kate came into the bathroom saying, "Nose! Nose!" My mother instinct kicked in and I knew she needed her nose wiped, so I did it. It was not what she needed. "Nose! Nose!" she said again as she rubbed it. Hmm....maybe there is a yucky ball of snot stuck of there, I thought. So I tilted her head back to get a better view. As soon as I did, panic started to kick in. It looked like there was a big blood clot up her nostril. I looked more closely at her face and realized that her nose was distorted, the shape was all wrong. The panic was growing as I was reaching the conclusion that she must have broken her nose somehow. To test my theory, I decided to push gently on her nose and see it that hurt. I gently put my finger on it and pushed a little. A black bead popped out! She is my first child who has ever stuck something up their nose! I laughed even harder when she was insistent that I give the bead back to her. I told the other kids that she must have had designs for sticking it up the other nostril and they laughed for probably five minutes. All day long they kept asking me to tell the story again about how Kate stuck a bead up her nose :)

2. We were all sitting in church a couple Sundays ago. Things were proceeding as usual and I found myself constantly on the alert between Macy and Kate to prevent any tantrums, loud noises, thrown objects, screaming, fighting, etc. (Does anyone else leave church feeling like they just had a 3 hour workout?) Anyway, I was distracted when Carston started tugging on my arm. "I want to do it Mom." I had no idea what he was talking about. He just kept saying that, "I want to do it Mom, I want to do it." I finally followed his gaze up to the pulpit. "You want to go up there?" I asked. He said yes, and as soon as the hesitant "okay" was out of my mouth, he bolted right up there and bore a simple, sweet testimony. I had the strangest feeling in my heart as I watched and listened to him. We have never pushed our kids or coached them on bearing their testimonies. I've always wanted it to be something that comes from them. So it was really amazing to watch the spirit work in him and to see him act on that. He was so insistent about going up and he wasn't going to rest until he did it.