The Supers

Introducing Superman and Superella......

Mandy came up with the "superella" name all by herself. I thought it was very clever. And yes if you are wondering, I do let my kids jump off the couch sometimes. And yes I know they might hurt themselves. But most fun things that you do as a child involve just a little bit of risk. That is what makes it exciting. And since I spend most of my time tell my kids "stop it", "don't do that", "no means NO", "please be QUIET", "be careful you might fall", "if you don't stop it I'll...", etc., I figure I need to let them have a little fun every once in a while.

Just a little conceited...

Mandy came to me with a dress in her hand and said:

"Mommy, I'm already cute, but can I put this dress on so I can be more cute?"

No self esteem issues here.

Speaking of thievery.....

Dallin was eating an apple and then sat it down on the piano bench because he needed to take a moment and play. Layton spied the lonesome apple sitting there and before we knew it, was holding it in his hands getting ready to chow down. Dallin saw the theft and then ran over to reclaim his apple. When Dallin took it back, Layton got so mad that he forgot to hold onto the piano bench and toppled over and bumped his head. He of course began screaming, so we let him have the apple back to mollify him. If you look closely at a couple of the pictures you can see the big knot to the right of his eye and the remnants of tears. I know that makes it seem like we were giving in to him by letting him have the apple, and in a way we were, but it also served as a punishment for Dallin. We have told him over and over and over and over and over and over and over again not to leave things where Latyon can reach them. So hopefully now Dallin has learned his lesson. Probably not though. I just picked up his favorite "Herbie" car off the floor and it is wet with Layton's slobber. Oh well.

Burglarized

Saturday, Nathan decided to go out and buy some new shoes for playing basketball. I stayed at home with the kids and innocently left the garage door open. Remember, I come from a super duper small town where when we park our cars at home, we never lock them and most of the time just leave the keys in the car. And lock our house doors? Well that is just craziness. If we locked our doors, how would our second cousins 15 times removed be able to drop by and walk right in when we yell, "Doors open, y'all come on in"?

Now I am not so innocent anymore. Someone was brazen enough to walk into our open garage, while I was inside the house, and walk right out with Nathan's rather nice (and not exactly cheap) bike. Nathan came home from his shopping trip and then I go out to the garage to grab my bike to take a primary lesson to a member that lives just down the street. As I'm grabbing my bike, I realize that Nathan's bike is not sitting right next to mine like it always is. So I go ask Nathan about it and then he calls the police to file a report.

The deputy arrives (extremely promptly, which was nice) and we stand outside and begin to tell him about the bike. As we were talking this truck comes tearing down our road at way way way over the 15 mph speed limit. The deputy says excuse me and steps out into the road to wave the guy down. The guy in the truck slaps it into reverse, fishtails it backwards about 200 yards and then pulls a stunt I've only ever seen on TV and whips the truck around. The deputy jumps into his car and tears off after him. Come to find out, the guy was drunk and didn't want to get a DUI. Of course the deputy catches him and so now instead of getting a misdemeanor for driving drunk, the guy goes to jail on a felony count of evading an officer. I tell ya, these are wild and crazy times!! I know we'll probably never see Nathan's bike again, but at least us calling in the report meant that there was a deputy there at just the right time to catch a drunk driver on a street where kids play all the time. Something good always comes out of something bad right?

Aren't these pictures of Layton cute, slobber and all? I took them while we were waiting outside for the officer to return, which actually didn't happen until the following day because obviously he had to take the guy into the jail and book him. We're still in shock over the theft and the Hollywood style police chase that we witnessed firsthand.

The Truth

Earlier today, Layton was playing on the floor and I asked him the obviously retorhorical question,

"Layton, why are you so cute?"

Boy was I surprised when I heard Dallin pipe up with,

"It's because he looks like me."

By golly, I think he might be on to something.

Sir Layton: Our Knight in Shining Armor

He'll taunt your enemies with his tongue....

He'll defend your honor with his sword....

He'll protect you with his mighty shield....

And he'll conquer your foes with his winning smile....

With 22 you get Sushi Roll

Last Friday night we went to an awesome Sushi party at the Thompson's house. There were 9 families there, with a grand total of 22 children. Wild, I know. For those of us interested, Ilene taught us how to make sushi rolls. For those not really into sushi, they each just brought their own thing to eat.

I will have to admit that until recently I was not really a fan of sushi. Number 1 - raw fish. I just can't do it. Number 2 - while I like the ingredients in the cooked ones, I couldn't handle the taste of the seaweed. Now Ilene has solved my problem for me. She taught me how to make a shrimp/crab sushi roll WITHOUT the seaweed. Now I'm totally in love with it and am so glad that I can make it for myself anytime that I'm in the mood for it.

After eating, we played a game that has us all laughing and enjoying the evening. I had never played this particular game before. I'm not sure what the official name of it is, but we'll just call it the animal sound game. You have to have an even number of people and a little slip of paper for each person. On two slips of the paper you write the name of an animal, like lion, and then on the next two slips of paper you write the name of another animal, like horse, and so on. Then all of the papers are placed face down in the middle of the room. Someone yells go and then each person grabs a slip of paper and starts making the sound of the animal written there. Then you have to find the other person in the room that is making the same sound, lock arms and then drop to the floor. The two people that are last to lock arms and sit, are out. Then repeat until you have a winning pair. It was so much fun. We had people doing full on tackles and diving across the room to get to their animal match. So funny.

Then we added in some dancing, hide and go seek, and a few out of this world delicious desserts and the evening was perfect! We can't wait for the next party! (or camping trip????)

I need to take a computer language course....

Mandy made a card for Nana to cheer her up and make her feel better after she had minor surgery. It was such an interesting card that I asked Mandy to make me a card the following day. She made an almost identical card for me. However, I need some help decoding it.

Any of you know binary code?

So what do you think it means when your three year old's first attempts at expressing herself through writing is in a computer programming language? Genius or just freakishly odd??

Thoughtful

Dallin is our little whiny child. He whines about everything. But sometimes in between all that whining he can be very sweet and very thoughtful. In one of his prayers (I know I talk about his prayers all the time, but he puts so much thought into them and is so sincere, it is hard to resist not writing down all the cute sweet things that he says), he prayed for me. He prayed, "We thank Thee that we can be good so that Mommy won't get a headache." When I said "Amen" at the end of that prayer, I meant it with all my heart.

He recently did a writing project for school. He was asked what he would do if he had 100 dollars. He wrote that he would let people borrow it and he would give it to me if I needed it. So sweet. I think he believes I really need the money because every time we go to the store I tell him, "I'm sorry sweetie, but I don't have enough money to buy that toy for you." I know there might be a few ulterior motives to him giving me money, but I'm just going to pretend that he wanted to share with me simply because he loves me.

The Music Maker

I have always loved the piano. Well, maybe I should quantify that. I have always loved the sound of a piano played well and I love the feel of the keys under my fingers when they know exactly where to go to make the notes come together to play a song perfectly. I can't however say that I really and truly enjoy the hours and hours of practice required to make a song sound perfect. Perhaps that's why I am only mediocre at the piano. But I really do love to listen to piano music and I think that Mandy has inherited that trait. At only three years old, she knows how to turn the piano on ( I have a digital piano), press the correct buttons (which is a three step process) to play the demo music programmed on the piano. Usually she will then try to play along with the music or sometimes she will dance to it. Most of what is programmed in the piano is classical, with a little jazz, and modern pieces thrown in there too. I am hoping this means that when she is old enough to start taking piano lessons that she will really get into it and learn to love it. And I am really hoping that she won't hate the practicing part of it as much as I do and will learn to play much more beautifully and proficiently than me. But isn't that every parent's wish? That your child will do more and be more and be better than you are. It is certainly my wish for my children.