Happy Birthday, Beanie!

Lillee bean turned 5 today, WOW! That was a hard oen for me...well, not hard, but interesting. Yet another reminder that the days are passing faster and I'm getting older.

Lillee had a great birthday, she was patient all day as she waited for me to bake and decorate her cake and for Grandma and Grampy to get home to open presents. She was awesome! I love 5 year olds....this was a great age for Connor, as well.

I do have some great pictures but haven't uploaded them yet. I'll post them as soon as I can.

We decided it was a good day to put up a Christmas tree, too. It was a very busy night at our house, but lots of fun!

Why is it....

that a child can find a pair of safety scissors and find a way to cut their hair with the dullest blades around, but when you're a parent wanting to cut your child's hair you can't find a pair of scissors that will do the job?

Isabel recently butchered her hair with safety scissors and this picture doesn't show it so well, but she has some really short patches there on the left.



Yesterday I tried cutting Chase's hair with a large pair of the sharpest scissors we own and I couldn't get them to cut his super-fine, soft locks. Eventually I gave him a decent cut that could still use some shaping, but he would not sit still any longer and I've not felt the need to try again. He looks older now.

Here are some pictures of Chase and Connor

Happy birthday, Chase!

Today our baby is one year old...man, that was a fast year! We did not actually celebrate today, we celebrated with my parents last weekend. The kids enjoyed a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party and here are some of the pictures from our big little guy.
(I don't know why this is underlined and I can't figure out how to undo it)

Service with a smile, Part II

(OK our cookies weren't this cute, but I needed a visual!)

Our 1st day of service went well. We actually delivered sugar cookies to two people!

Connor was actually listening in sacrament a few weeks ago when one of the young men gave a talk. I don't know what struck Connor, but since that talk he's been very impressed with the boy. Connor sort of follows him around at church. Fortunately, the kid is really nice and tolerates the adoration well. When I asked Connor who he wanted to do a service for his first response was, "Anthony." So we packaged up some cookies and drove out to Anthony's house to deliver them.

Connor was so stinkin' cute! In complete Tigger style, he bounced to the front door with cookies and a handmade card and rang the doorbell. I could see his face beaming from excitement. Anthony answered the door and Connor presented his gift. He chatted with Anthony for a minute and then said goodbye. He nearly ran into the bushes when he bolted back to the car with the biggest grin!

I think Connor gets it! He felt the true joy in doing something nice for someone else without having a reason for doing. Our scripture study last night was about the Good Samaritan and how we should be good to our neighbors, even when we feel busy or feel we have nothing to offer.

Today we're baking cinnamon rolls!

Service with a smile

I'm trying to teach the kids about service. Especially serving one another in our own home to try to cut back on some of the arguing. I feel like I spend the entire day stopping arguments, yelling for them to stop bickering and just getting frustrated and arguing myself. Everyone being sick for so long hasn't helped...I have less patience and understanding when I'm not feeling well and tired all the time. So anyway, we decided that December would be a month of service.

We have a warm fuzzy jar that the kids try to fill each day. This is to get them thinking of ways to help and be kind to others. They did great job the first couple of weeks. Then my sister-in-law and her family moved in for 2 weeks and her 1 year old loved to eat the warm fuzzies so we put them away, then we were out of town for Thanksgiving and we've just had a hard time getting back on track. So basically, each kid has a certain color of warm fuzzy and when you they do something nice (share a toy, say 'yes' instead of 'no' to a sibling's request, let the dog out, play with the baby, put away laundry) then they can put a warm fuzzy in the jar. At the end of the day if the jar is full then they get to do something they all can agree on (so far, they've requested to go to 7-11 to get candy nearly every night). We tally the daily warm fuzzies and whoever has the most at the end of the week gets a special prize (one week it was a really cool Lego flat bed truck and trailer).

Another thing we're doing is a service for someone outside of our house each day. Today was our planning day. We made a list of people we want to do things for and some special little decorations to add to a plate of cookies or a loaf of bread. We had to have this preparation day because I can usually only handle one project a day. So if we make a loaf of bread then there is no cutesie decoration going with it, just plain bread. We cut Christmas shapes out of felt and added jewels and furry stuff to dress them up a bit.

Today we're going to make sugar cookies for a person on our list.