Happy Birthday F.N.A.M!!

Her 4th birthday cake...made-to-order. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, rainbow sprinkles and princesses. She was, however, a little miffed that the cake-toppers were her own toys.



Make a wish!! (Didn't Clint do an AWESOME job with these pictures, by the way!? I think they're my all-time favorite b-day cake snapshots!!)


The good news? These dresses had a whole bunch of chocolate frosting underneath. Yummy!! (Didn't you just love licking the candles when you were little??)


And on to the present-opening frenzy. I nearly cried as I watched Autumn start ripping open gift after gift, with her brothers' helping by handing them over as soon as the wrapping came off one. I didn't cry, though...instead, I sat them down and strongly encouraged Autumn to take her time with each gift, as we all sat and politely watched. I hated having to be the one to enforce order, but it was so much nicer!! They've got to learn somehow, right??

2 Little Indians

Don't let their cheesy expressions fool you...



these are actually two FIERCE Indians


Nice face-painting, Micah!!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, little Indian princess/a.k.a. "Fancy Nancy Autumn Mae" (her self-proclaimed new name...she requests that her full name be used when you address her, people...just the F.N.A.M part, that is!) ;)

Alright, alright!

So I haven't blogged in a month. Trying to dispel the pangs of guilt, I'm sitting down to quickly blog before taking advantage of combined warm weather/triple naptime (dangit...was that Gabe crying??)...anyway, before going out to enjoy some yard work.

Autumn's birthday is in 2 days. To her, the word "birthday" means "cake"...literally. I'm sure she will eventually understand that it is actually an all-encompassing term. She certainly anticipates girly gifts, slightly more than her usual share of attention, and meals made to order by Mom (that's me!) . Anyhow, as she was discussing her birthday in the car, the subject of wishes was brought up. Suddenly, Micah tearfully expressed, "My wish will NEVER come true!" I asked what wish he'd made, to which he replied, "That my Playmobils would come alive." This is my most creative and imaginative child, and he equally divides his time between outside play and setting up his Playmobil guys in and around a wooden castle in our basement. If left to his own devices, he'll spend hours with them. That they could come alive had probably never even entered his mind until we took him to see "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" for his 5th birthday. All at once, a new concept entered his mind. But the wish didn't come true, poor guy.

What a sad lesson; one I've been retaught again and again, just as I'm sure my little Micah will be.

Slugs and Snails and Puppy dog tails

There are a lot of boys in this house. To give you a little sneak peak into everyday life around here, I offer the following conversation:

Me: "J, as soon as you put on your socks and shoes, you can go outside to play...I just folded clean socks and put them in the sock box."

(no one ever thinks to put socks on while in their bedrooms around here, so I've started stocking a box full of them in the laundry room, next to their shoes. Otherwise, they all go sock-less.) Anyhow, back to the conversation...

J: "I put a pair of socks in there too, only I didn't fold them." (pulls out the same pair of dirty socks CR asked him to place in the hamper about an hour earlier.)

Me: "J, that box is only for clean socks. Please don't put your dirty socks in with them."

J: "They're not that dirty. I didn't wear them for very long."

Me: (administered "the look" #45, communicating that I ain't buyin' it)

J: "What? I only wore them for, like, 2 days."

Niiiiiice!!

Have 7 months already gone by????

Happy seven months, sweet baby boy.



What a good baby you are!! On our trip to CA & AZ, you hardly made a fuss at all. You rarely ever fuss, for that matter (we won't talk about 3AM here.) You are amazing. You love laughing at your brothers & sister, crinkling paper, eating real food, reaching your arms out to Daddy when he gets home from work, snuggling & attacking Mommy with kisses. You really are a sweet little boy, and i love you!

Click here for more pics...thanks again Blue Lily!!

Conversing through Prayer

Our children often take their sibling problems to the Lord in prayer. Better stated, they like to lecture listening ears during family prayer. It's uninterruptible time, and they take full advantage. I hesitate to admit they may have learned this tactic from their parents; more specifically, me, their mother. I like to think I am at least more subtle about my prayer-lectures, and refuse to admit that they occur with the same frequency as do my children's.

Last night, the following sequence of prayer-lectures took place:

M: "...and please bless Autumn to stop talking and LISTEN to me when I'm trying to tell her something..."

(next was Autumn's rebuttal - er, prayer)

A: "...and please help Micah not to interrupt when I'm trying to tell Mommy something, but to wait until I'm all done to talk to me..."

If anyone else had giggled, it would have been all over for me. Micah may have even been more offended with me than he was a few minutes later, when I inadvertently bumped him. I was helping the boys tidy up their room when my "rebounding butt" (as my Dad used to call it) knocked him to the ground. He REALLY didn't appreciate my giggles then.

Oh, heaven help us!

p.s. Will be posting about our two-state trip soon!

Basketball

Well, Jonah just finished up his first season of basketball. He had an awesome coach...quite a looker, too! (If you can't tell in the picture, Clint got roped into coaching the team.)


They both had a lot of fun, despite the impression he may have given our home teacher on Sunday.


HT: I didn't know you were playing basketball, Jonah.
J: Ya. Dad was my coach.
HT: Oh, really? That's nice.
J: Ya...only one thing.
HT: What's that?
J: We didn't win a single game!*
HT: Well, that's all right. Did you have fun?
J: Ya. We lost our last game 30-2. We got whipped!

*Although no official score was kept, I think his team actually did win one or two of their eight games. They may have even tied another one.



Jonah loves throwing in the "only one thing" line...it's fast becoming a JR trademark around here. A month ago, his class went on an ice skating field trip. On our way out the door
I asked, "So Jonah, are you pretty excited about your field trip?"
His reply: "Ya. Only one thing."
Me: "What's that?"
J: "I don't know how to ice skate!"

He makes me laugh!