A spring-like day

We went outside this afternoon to do some work in the garden (mixing in some compost to the soil and such). Benjamin collected a entire "museum" of snails in a jar (he probably found a dozen or so) while I weeded and tilled. Zoë watched everything with interest from her rocking horse.

When we'd finished what we'd set out to do I let Zoë get down from her high horse and we played around. Benjamin practiced pumping his legs on the swing and both kids had a few turns sliding before Zoë decided what she wanted to do most was explore on her own and Benjamin decided he wanted to try to ride his bike.

Here's Zoë doing some exploring:

Cute kids

Benjamin picked out his own outfit on Sunday: red pants, blue striped shirt, suspenders, and, for a little pop, a bright yellow bow tie. He looked dapper (and managed to mangle one of his suspender clips (because everything this boy touches breaks (RIP suspenders))):

He sure does love those red pants!

Leap Year Olympics

Leap years are pretty busy, if you think about it, what with all the leaping, olympicking, and campaigning going on. I, for one, am sick of campaigning already, and so for our special leap year FHE we (I) decided to hold our own Leap Year Olympics.

We talked about the Olympic motto: CITIUS - ALTIUS - FORTIUS (and Andrew then pulled up the MoTab performing Call of the Champtions for background music) and discussed the significance of the -er suffix. Faster! Higher! Stronger!

Then I introduced the first Olympic value—excellence—and read some snippets from a talk that President Hinckley delivered in September of 1999, focusing on the part where he said, "Let us all try to stand a little taller, rise a little higher, be a little better. Make the extra effort. You will be happier."

Our first event was jumping on our new pogo stick thing:

This boy

The good news is...

• my kitchen floor is clean
• my front porch is clean
• a new pair of Crocs is on the way for Benjamin

The bad news is...

• Benjamin held the water button on the fridge down for a long time and flooded the kitchen
• Benjamin opened the front door and peed onto the porch
• We've been missing one of Benjamin's crocs for days now (they're size 7 and he's now size 9 and they both had holes on the bottom from being worn so much so I suppose it was about time but still...missing shoes...grumble)

I have a bit of a Benjamin-induced headache today. We'd get along great if I could keep my eye on him constantly but sometimes I have to do other things—like take the sheets off his bed so I can wash them or practice a dance for the stake musical—and then he gets into serious amounts of mischief.

He also peed in my friend Marian's front yard while I was buckling Zoë up. 

"Mom, I have to go pee," he said.

"Okay," I said, finishing up with her buckle. "Let's go ask..."

And there he was, pants down, watering her lawn.

"...Never mind. Let's just go home."

Today I'll just count my lucky stars that he didn't try to wipe his own bum...and end up smearing poop all over the bathroom. That was last week...

This boy.

Even dump trucks

On Monday we had (yet another) family night lesson about prayer, more particularly about how to behave properly during prayers. We had a short discussion about how we can pray to Heavenly Father anytime, anywhere, geared toward the girls and then for Benjamin's benefit we went over the ditty "we fold our arms and bow our head and listen while the prayer is said." I made up a little paper doll with moveable arms and head and Benjamin helped the doll get ready for the prayer.

Then I said, "Now we're going to get ready for prayer and see if we can sit quietly for one minute, okay? Everyone get ready. We fold our arms and bow our head and listen while the prayer is said. Good. Now everyone get ready to be so, so quiet and still...starting...right...now!"

Benjamin surprised us all by starting to pray. It was such a thoughtful prayer at first, but soon turned painfully hilarious. The seconds ticked by slowly as we listened (and tried not to laugh) while Benjamin went on and on about his dump truck, of all things.

"And thank you for my dump truck, even though I don't really like it," he said. "I do like the blue part on the back, but I don't like the yellow part on the front. I prayed for you to change it but it's still just the way it was. But I like it anyway, I guess."

The boy went on and on and on—for well over a minute—and when he was finally finished I tacked a post script to our FHE lesson.

"Heavenly Father always answers our prayers," I said, "That's true. But sometimes the answer is 'no' or 'you need to be content with what you have.' We should approach Heavenly Father with our righteous desires, not a checklist of things we want. What I'm saying, Benjamin, is that it might feel like Heavenly Father isn't answering your prayer about your dump truck when really he's saying, 'I recognize that you aren't happy about the situation you're in but you still have to go through it.' Or maybe he'll just let things stay the same because He knows they're not that big of a deal in the long run. I'm just not sure Heavenly Father cares that much about toy dump trucks."

And I knew for sure that I wasn't going to get him a new dump truck just because he didn't like the one he had!

Before, During, and After

Before the storm we spent the morning cleaning the bathroom and closet in the master bedroom so that we would have a place to shelter. When we were finished with that we put away the dishes and played with LEGO and had lunch. Here's Zoë helping with the dishes:

NOT a snow day

The kids had an early-release day scheduled for today already, but now they're coming home even earlier. This time we're not expecting snow. We're expecting this:

Scattered thunderstorms in the morning, strong thunderstorms in the afternoon with damaging winds, large hail, and possibly a tornado.

Toot Sweets! Toot Sweets!

We've been doing a lot of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang around here lately—singing, dancing, listening, reading, living. And we only have minor roles (I can only imagine what the leads are going through).

Zoë passed some gas during our couple prayer this evening.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. She smiled big and looked mighty proud of herself.

I won't speculate what that says about the environment she's being raised in.

Instead I will tell you that after the prayer Andrew quipped, "Those were some pretty sweet toots, Zoë."

And then I died laughing. 

Zoë at nine months

Zoë had her 9 month well-baby visit today. Considering she's nine months old today I'd like to take this time to pat myself on the back for being right on top of things (for once). The visit took forever!

They called us back at 11:00 and the nurse weighed and measured Zoë and then said that our doctor was "a few minutes behind" but that she was working on getting caught up. I didn't see the doctor until after 12:00! It was a long wait. I was so glad that it was a rainy day because that meant Andrew decided to stay home with Benjamin this morning rather than getting soaking wet riding his scooter to school. He took the van in to campus when Zoë and I (finally) made it home.

Zoë's doing well. She's going for the title of heavy weight—at 19 lbs. 7.5 ounces and 28 inches she's certainly my largest baby at this age. She's bigger than either Benjamin or Miriam were at 12 months and is only 4.5 ounces lighter than Rachel was at 12 months. And she's only nine months old!

More likely than not she's trying to get caught up to Benjamin so that she can take him by surprise one day by beating him in a wrestling match. He's always picking on her—putting a choke hold on her and throwing her on the ground, pulling her down whenever she stands up, twisting her arm behind her back—and she hates it, but whenever she sees him lying on the floor she crawls over as fast as she can and starts wrestling with him (so she must not hate it too much).

She's doing just fine, meeting all her milestones, and growing well (obviously).

I'd list her most recent milestones, but I feel like I've already talked about a lot of them recently. She's doing regular baby things, zooming around the house, destroying anything in her path, shunning anything that is actually food, and consuming everything questionable without a second thought...like this diaper box. She literally ate a corner of this box—had cardboard in her diaper the next day and everything. But will she eat applesauce, peas, Cheerios, or rice? Not a chance (at least not so willingly).

But she's a cutie and we love her, even if she's hopeless at mealtime. Clearly she's getting enough calories with the amount of milk and cardboard she's consuming.

3rd grade musical

Rachel had her 3rd grade musical this evening called Choices Count! They sang songs about six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. They also each had a speaking part (and evidently they've also all reached that mumbly age where they could use lesson on diction (I have no clue what 98% of them said)).

Here's Rachel delivering her line:

Rachel got to say: "It’s really easy because there are only ten words and each word only has two letters in it!"