My "Pretty, Pretty Princess"

This is some more great 1-1 time with Maggie. We got to play one of her favorites - Pretty, Pretty, Princess. You go around the board picking up earings, bracelet, necklace, ring, and then for your crowning victory, yep, the crown. Maggie won this time. She wins a lot in our games. I don't try to let her win, but I am not as tough to beat as when I play against an adult. She does seem to have a fair amount of luck on these games.

It is fun to dress up with her, although I can never do the bracelet on my own.

I do enjoy this wonderful little girl and in many ways she has been my oasis in the desert of "mommyhood". Maggie will often come up to me and kindly tell me she loves me. She is very gentle, kind, and thoughtful. I enjoy her so much, and to top it all off, she is so cute!

You can still be manly and hang out in the kitchen

I love this little guy! He is so much fun. In the 6 months he has struggled so much with speech and movement, but he is doing great. We are finding that he has quite the mischievous streak now that he has found his voice. While this picture is not showing a portion of that personality trait, it is showing off some of William's other interests...like his sister's shoes. I found him playing in the kitchen wearing his sister's white sandals. I went to grab the camera and all I can figure is that he figured out that at some point in the future he would be embarrassed by this and pulled them off. If you look close, you can see he had just finished pulling off his right sandal. We just giggle at these things. We know that he is surrounded by a lot of girls and we just love that he is getting so much more social and is having fun dressing himself.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Top of Maggie's cake. Very yummy!

Line of Choristers

A few years ago during church, and mostly out of frustration, I started helping whichever whiny child it was on my lap to "lead" the music much the way a chorister would. They quieted down and life was a little easier. Since then I have used it on numerous children and evidently the others were watching because now all of my children enjoy "leading the music".

This is "Family Home Evening". A tradition in our family that every Monday evening we turn off the TV, close our front door, and spend it with just our family. We usually incorporate a few songs, a lesson, activity, and hopefully a dessert. We have various success with this attempt. Some nights I want to run and hide, others like this one I want to...take a picture! I love all my kids, but even for me sometimes it is a lot to deal with. Savoring these sweet moments is wonderful (and necessary-not every melt down is solved by a little music lesson).

PS A special shout out to my friend Becky who taught me in our college years how to lead music by asking me to substitute every Sunday for Sacrament meeting.

My kind, um I mean Maggie's kind of birthday party!

I asked Maggie what she wanted to do for her birthday this year. We have never had a friend party for her and she asked if she could invite some friends and dip chocolate. Maybe I should not have asked her so soon after we did this as a friend "playdate" for my older kids during the summer time. So we invited a few cousins and friends (Maggie is no respecter of persons or age, all in this picture were invited with the exception of me). We were just getting done dipping gummy bears and were starting in on the pretzels. All enjoyed the activity. We ended up not doing any other activities as the kids were happy doing some playing in the other room and my game activity did not work out as expected, so we cancelled it. All in all, it was a lot of fun and very low stress (again, my type of party). Happy birthday big girl!

Hungry, Hungry, Hippos

This was probably the first day of school. I, like almost all people, make resolutions to spend more time with my kids. Little brother was sleeping, which makes this an unusual selection, but the girls wanted to play it. Hungry, Hungry, Hippos is a game I remember from my childhood, although I don't remember it being so obnoxiously loud as I feel it is now. We had fun each playing our own versions. Maggie was playing what most would call the "traditional method". Rosi was having a kick loading up the "loading trays". These are where the marbles go to wait until they are released into the furry of the game. Rosi had no qualms reaching into your "captured pool" of marbles to re-stock her fun. And mom, I got to try to balance the two players and keep everyone happy. Oh, it is fun to spend a good 20 minutes playing with the girls, however I definitely needed some "mommy quiet time" afterward. It is good for them to watch movies every once in a while, right?