Snapshot of the kids' personalities

May 2018

These kids are at such a fun age and it's only getting better each day!

Biking buddies

Abi found a "secret tunnel" where she discovered an echo. So of course, she had to sing the secret tunnel song from Avatar: The Last Airbender. It made my heart happy - like one of those moments that you realize you are, in fact, succeeding as a parent.

"Secret tunnel!"

Audrianne coloring

Hyrum finding animals

Doing home school activities

Reading before bedtime

Audri's new hat

FAVORITE MEMORY right here! One afternoon, I came downstairs to check on the kids because there was not enough noise - silence is scary these days - and after the initial sweep of the room didn't produce Abigail, I called out for her. I heard a happy, "I here! I eating something!" I followed her voice to the cardboard castle and opened the door to find her like this:

Can you blame her?

How do you get mad at that? Haha! Earlier, James and Abi had been shopping and Abi found an ice cream flavor that spoke to her and rightly so - I think she was in the board room when they commissioned this flavor. It is M&M's brand chocolate ice cream with Minis milk chocolate candies, chocolatey swirl and sprinkles. Does that not scream "Abigail??" So, we bought it for her to be her special flavor. And she couldn't resist the temptation to sneak it into her castle and eat it right out of the container. HAHA I love her!

Now on a serious note though, I think of this now when I read in the scriptures that we are to be childlike or without guile. This moment adds definition to these concepts because clearly she knew she wasn't supposed to eat her ice cream or she would not have hidden in the castle, but when asked where she was, she immediately volunteered that she was eating something. She had no concept of deceit and was simply doing what kids do. We are undoubtedly going to make mistakes and I think we can do better at admitting our failures and weakness before God as guilelessly as Abi admitted her failure. Then He can work with us and help us truly be better. But as long as we are hiding our errors or denying them, they can't be fixed. Just a thought for your day.

"I'm eating something!"

Here are a few important milestones for our kids:

Hyrum has learned how to transfer energy from hot food to the environment through a process called "blowing."

Blowing on his hot food

Audrianne has learned to organize and lead large crowds of inanimate objects and is beginning to establish territory laws.

Pulling her "parade"

Abigail has learned the art of maintaining a healthy environment through the use of "chores."

Abi helping mop the floor

This is how we spend quality time together.

Clearly, we're all about reading here

Reading again - it's all we do apparently

RAWWWRRR

Because pictures of kids and food are two popular things people blog about, I thought I'd cover both in this photo.

This is lunch!