Randomness

Sometimes my blog posts have a cohesive theme.  Sometimes they're just a collection of pictures and stories that we'd like to record and remember.  This is the latter:

* Thane and Graham are a great little team, and lately they've been cracking me up. In spelling, Thane has a "Silent E" book (to keep track of the different jobs of silent e). A few weeks ago, Thane helped Graham make a "Silent ME" book.

Inside, they drew pictures of all the times Graham is quiet... "me sleeping, me at the library, me at church, me drinking, me coloring baby me eating, and me watching Baby Signing Time with Nellie." So clever!

*When our kids turn seven, they join our Family Home Evening teaching rotation.  Thane has been anxiously awaiting his chance to teach (because he hates not being allowed to do things the older kids can do). He did a great job teaching us about the Army of Helaman.

* Waaaaaayyyyy back, when Aubree was Nellie's age and I was a cub scout den leader, I bought a bucket of plastic dinosaurs for 25 cents. Turns out, that was one of the best quarters I ever spent. I keep the dinosaurs in my closet, and that's what my littles play with while I shower and get ready in the morning.  Ten years later, they're still one of our most used toys.

And when they get bored with the dinosaurs, they have just as much fun with the bin. Graham calls this, "double head."

*One recent night, Nellie had an uncharacteristically hard time going to sleep.  Aubree offered to let Nell cuddle with her.  A few hours later, I found them both conked out and I had to capture the moment. Sisters are the best!

Speaking of sisters, seeing Aubree and Nellie sleeping together reminded me of how I grew up sharing a king-sized bed with FOUR of my sisters!

* Nellie did not love nursery when she first started.  There were lots of tears, sobs, and wails. Since then, she's decided nursery is a pretty great place to be. She runs straight from the chapel to the nursery room without waiting for me to guide her. 

She gets excited to play with her friends and loves to talk about them during the week.  It's such a relief that she's enjoying nursery now!

*I've mentioned Bryce's collecting and organizing of advertisements before, but I thought I'd show that his boards continue to grow.

*We are huge library fans. Nellie is a huge Clifford fan. Clifford is a huge dog. Nellie + library + Clifford = huge win.

* Our little city has a parade every June. This year we met up with friends and had a wonderful time enjoying the simple entries. The kids were well prepared with their candy bags.

*Aubree, Bryce, Thane, and Graham recently completed a round of swimming lessons.  We don't get many opportunities for them to get in the water, but I think it's important for them to be competent swimmers (we have a ways to go!). Aubree passed level 3. Bryce and Thane will need to repeat level 2 (Thane wiggles his body side to side when he tries to swim). 

This was Graham's first time in swimming lessons and he loved every second. He passed Preschool Level 1.

*After the parade, I took the four older kids to the park for the Maple Valley Days festival. When we came upon a booth selling robotic lawnmowers, I had to get a picture of Bryce with one of them, because he loves all things robotic and has been telling us all about these lawnmowers.

The kids also had a chance to visit a firefighter booth and learn about how to safely exit a home during a fire.

*For the last year, we've been swapping monthly babysitting nights with our good friends.  It's such a brilliant situation! Last month, while Mark and I were out, Ashley sent me pictures of Aubree helping with all the younger kids.

She's going to be a great babysitter!

*My sister, Colleen, will appreciate this spaghetti-face picture.

*We recently tried out an Orienteering race. We just did the beginner course, but we had a lot of fun and hopefully will get to try more races in the future.

*We were looking through Mark's childhood photos, and found a picture of him at the same age as Bryce. Interesting to compare.

*Aubree has wonderful friends.  One of their favorite things to do when they get together is to cook. Sometimes it's simple things, like jello. Sometimes it's more advanced items, like these apple roses. Yum!

*Our Relief Society hosts an annual retreat to a cabin in the mountains.  We went later in the year than typical this time around, but we still managed to find ourselves a pile of dirty snow. 

*Aubree is almost finished with her years in Activity Days. For her last annual Stake Activity, they had a mother/daughter painting event. Aubree's old enough that she didn't need much help from me, but she was super pleased with her finished canvas that says," If Plan A doesn't work, Remember, the alphabet has 25 more letters."