It's an Old, Old Language

Matthew, after reading a scripture passage, "Mom, I don't understand those words. I don't speak Heavenly."

The Candy Monster

Me: "Maggie, you need to come eat your lunch."

Maggie: "Mom, I don't like lunch. I like candy better."

Happy 7th, Matt

With a foot of snow on the ground, we planned a sledding party for Matthew's 7th birthday party. We made these creative invitations with snowflake punch-outs and told everyone to come dressed in their winter gear toting their sled for some winter outdoor fun.

The day of Matthew's party...it rained. So we came up with some winter activities we could do indoors. The kids cut paper snowflakes, played pin-the-nose-on-the-snowman, and took turns hiding and searching for a little stuffed snowman toy. And we had a yummy snowman cake and hot chocolate, of course. It turned out to be a pretty fun party after all. For favors, we sent each kid home with a (new) white pair of magic gloves full of skittles.

Snack Time

I teach self-sufficiency to my children at an early age.

When Maggie opened the fridge to get herself some yogurt, Becca found some pizza crust and had herself a tasty little snack.

Shabby Apple Model Contest

Maggie is a Picture Princess because a) she loves to have her picture taken--sometimes it's the only way to get her dressed, b) she thinks she's a princess, a royal one with vassals that do her every bidding (that would be her parents and her grandparents and her brothers and her brothers' friends and her parents' friends...pretty much everyone in her world falls victim to her sparkly eyes), and c) her subjects think she's beautiful...because she is.

Maggie loves this Shabby Apple dress because "Kambria would so see that dress." Kambria is her little friend at church who always wears darling dresses. Yeah, it starts at three--we're not looking forward to highschool.

The Plug

I pulled out a zwieback toast for Becca today and she got so excited to eat it that she was bouncing in her highchair and her eager hands were vibrating they were so anxious to grab that toast. But she ran into problems when she tried to put the toast in her mouth. It kept bumping up against the binky that was already in there.

It was so funny to watch her struggling to figure out what was wrong. She kept bumping her face with her toast and then sucking on her binky with this puzzled expression like, "I know there's something in my mouth but it sure doesn't taste like baby toast."

It wasn't very long before I leaned over and pulled her binky out with a POP. I just felt so bad for her, she'd been so excited to eat that toast and here she was foiled from the start. Once the obstacle was removed, Becca enjoyed her toast very much.

Wii Play Too Much

The boys were complaining that they only got to play their new Wii for ten minutes today. So, Nathan pulled up the screen which keeps track of how much time you spend playing each day. And it said:

9:46

Yes, that's nine hours and forty-six minutes! Would you agree they spent longer than ten minutes playing Wii?

We figured out that it was counting time spent on pause when they were eating dinner and doing a few other things, but still, that's almost ten hours not ten minutes! I think it's time for Mom to start monitoring a little better how much time they actually play that thing...

Maggie the Chimney

Maggie, expecting to see her breath on a cold day: [breath] [breath] "Huh...?" [breath] "Mom...my smoke isn't coming out!"

Look Who's Crawling!

After working at it for weeks, Becca finally figured out how to crawl while we were at the cabin in McCall. While she discovered toilet paper and toiletries in the cabin, I managed to keep a pretty close eye on her because I didn't really have anything else to do--plus there were a lot of other adults around to amke sure she didn't get into trouble. But now that we're back home, she's made many more discoveries and I'm just not ready to defend the house against this new invader. The first day we were home, I pulled three rubber doorknob tips, two pretzel pieces, and a bouncy ball from her little clamped jaws. And she fell down the stairs. ON THE FIRST DAY! Luckily, our stairs have a turn half-way so it was a shortish fall onto carpet and she was more shaken and scared than hurt, but we cannot remember to keep that basement door shut. Hopefully, Becca learned her stair lesson and will avoid them from now on because I'm already feeling harried from yelling, "Shut the door!" fifty times a day.

She reminds me of a little pink doggie crawling around the house, showing up in odd corners, tasting everything she comes across, and occasionally looking up at you with big, round dark-gray eyes that say, "Look at me, I can CRAWL!"

More Photos From That Vacation

The lake behind our cabin.

Clockwise: Matthew playing Wii, Nathan on skiis, Matthew and Satoshi's super long straw, some crazy boys cooling off from the hot tub.

Maggie, singing her songs (you should've seen her little foot tapping to the beat).

Becca and Me, Grandma Camper and the One-Eyed Binky Pirate ("Argh, mateys"), and the babies who played on the floor all day long: Becca and Owen.

On the right, Maggie is holding the paper doll that Matthew made for her, "Thank you, Matthew! I love it so much! Oh, it's so cute..."

P.S. A great big thank-you to the people who took all these photos, especially my brother Jacob who can turn a snow-covered dock into art.

Winter Vacation

Last week, the kids and I traveled up to McCall, Idaho to spend a week with my family at our favorite little cabin in the snow.

This is the view from the deck in back. Even though there wasn't as much snow as last year, it was beautiful.


The boys went skiing all day, every day while the girls enjoyed their books, cozy (if temperamental) fire, and watching babies in turns. (This is a picture of Matthew, Uncle Ryan, Uncle Jacob, Nathan, and our friend Satoshi at Brundage.)

Also, we had some snow adventures including a walk through the snow in the rain and a drive in which we tested out the four-wheel drive and new snow tires on my Explorer. We survived, much to our own amazement.

In the evenings, I somehow became the impromptu activities chairman and there was Wii gaming (my mom, in green, kept throwing an imaginary tennis ball up with her left hand as she served with her remote--it was hilarious)...

...karaoke (which in our family means belting out the 80's oldies in chorus and slightly flat)...

...and a few games including a loud and vehemently argued round of Categories in which I got pencils stuck in my hair and my brother Jacob tried to convince us all that Mickey Mouse reproduces.

Then there was the book we made for my parents which would snowball into a near-disaster in spite of my sister Tori's (it was her brain child) persistence. But after the general procrastination, writer's block, and a broken printer's machine, it came out pretty awesome in the end.

We capped the whole experience off with a delicious, greasy meal at a local pancake house. Matthew declared his corn dog and french fries were the best food he'd ever had.

Thanks, everyone, for a great trip!

(Clockwise, from left: Me, Satoshi, Grandma Camper, Grandpa Camper, Uncle Jacob, Aunt Cami, Maggie, Matthew--gotta love that face, Aunt Tori, Uncle Ryan, Owen, Becca, and Nathan)