Gotta love it!!

Every night Riley and Hailey have to read for their homework. I have been telling Riley for a few years now, basically since he could read, that when this time came it would be his job to read to his sister. Now please understand that I am not trying to get out of one of my motherly responsibilities. I love to read to my kids and most nights end up reading to them myself. There is a mission in this madness. I was hoping that (1) this would improve Riley's reading. Riley loves to read and is already a great reader, however when you hear how the words sound and how you say thing while you are reading you improve even more. (2) That Riley and Hailey would find something that they could do together without fighting. I am excited to say that so far it has worked. I think because Riley is a great influence on his sister. He has a great desire to get his homework done each night so he can play 20 min of video games. If homework is done with no fighting this happens. If there is fighting it is a no go. Riley will find Hailey have her pick out a few books and sit down to read. Pretty soon the other girls climb up to listen too. I love that they are doing this together. It is one of those moments that makes you stop and be grateful for the beautiful little blessings they are.

Carley, Carley, Carley

The other day we were working on a chain to count down the days until we move. Each of the kids had a few strips of paper they were to color. Carley was sitting on my lap coloring, or so I thought, while I was stapling the strips together. Ryan looked up from his strip and said "Look at your daughter!!" I looked down at Carley and saw that she had gotten a black marker and thought it would be better to eat it than to color with it. Good thing it is supposedly non-toxic. As usual she thought she was pretty funny. Our chain turned out pretty cute and now I don't have to continually tell the kids how long it will be until we move.

Bargains Revealed

Okay Leslie you are officially a bargain shopper!! Your guesses were right on. The Butterflies were .50 each, and the puppets were 1.00 each. I was totally stoked about both. The kids have been having a great time having puppet shows. Hailey and Riley did the story of Queen Esther last night for FHE using the puppets. It was awesome, worth every penny I paid for them. They have created a lot of great entertainment on Sunday afternoons. The butterflies have not been put to use yet, but I know that the girls will love them when they are finished.

This is Riley and Hailey one Sunday afternoon. Riley is the one behind the towel. Sydney loves to play with them too, she just happened to be asleep when I took these pictures.

Bargain Hunting Round 2

Okay all you smart shoppers lets see who can guess the prices of these items. I was WAY excited, they were great deals. Good luck!!

#1. Cute unfinished butterfly pegs for the girls room.

#2. Adorable hand puppets.

What comes out must go in?

We thought Carley had finished her new tricks for a while, but she is always full of surprises. The other night we finished scripture reading and were getting ready for family prayers when we realized we were missing one child. Ryan started back to her room to look for her when we heard, "WHEEE!" Ryan called us all back to see. Carley had decided she wanted in her crib and started climbing. She would get up on the mattress and start bouncing. Where did this girl learn to climb??? I don't remember any of my other kids trying to climb into their cribs. She is going to keep me on my toes.

Wasn't it nice of her to reenact the whole thing for us. Carley is all about attention.

I finally figured it out...

....fall is my favorite time of the year. Yes, I have lived 29 years and I just figured this out. Last week I was feeling especially happy and cheerful. When I stopped and thought about why I realized that the weather had cooled down a little and the breeze felt fresh and cool. I love it when the weather is like that. I really hate being hot, so when fall comes along and things cool down I am in heaven. I always tell people you can always put on more clothes, but you can only take off so many. I love the soggy (as my kids call them) ,also known as foggy, mornings when it takes until 10 or 11 for the marine layer to burn off and it stays in the mid to low 70's the whole day. Okay we are talking about fall in So. Cal. There are no frozen nose hairs or scraping of windshields here. I love the excitement in the air in anticipation of the upcoming holidays. The changing leaves. I love it all! Unfortunately since it is So. Cal it has warmed up this week. I am looking forward to more of those soggy mornings!!

Carley's New Trick

I have known for a while that if Carley tried she would be able to crawl out of her crib onto the dresser. Knowing this I intended to move her mattress down to the lowest notch. Every morning when I got her out of her crib I would think, "I need to do that today", and every night when I would put her back to bed I would think, "I need to do that tomorrow."

Well on Friday my procrastination caught up with me. I was in my room doing something with the other girls when we heard these funny plopping noises in the girls room. I asked Hailey to quietly go and see what the noise was. Quietly because Carley was supposed to be sleeping. Next thing I know Hailey is screaming that I need to come quick. Thinking something was really wrong I rushed to the room. When I walked in and saw Carley all I could do was shake my head and laugh. Oh, and tell Hailey to run and get the camera. What else was there to do but document Carley's new trick. She was sitting on the dresser looking at books and dropping them on the floor. She was quite pleased with herself too. You would think I would immediately fix the problem and adjust the mattress so she could no longer climb out. If you did, thank you for giving me undeserved credit. It is still where it was. Maybe I'll get to it on Monday. Hee Hee!!

1. "Hi Mommy, Look What I can do!!"
2. "I am SO proud of myself!"



That pretty much says it all.