Thank-nouncement

Although our hearts have been bursting with gratitude these past few months, we are just now getting around to sending out our thank you cards...and, um, also Benjamin's birth announcement. He's only like 4 months old so it's not like we're slow or anything. In our defense he took us by surprise.

We still have some personal messages to send out, but here is our general thank you to the world:

The doctors, nurses, and staff at both hospitals were phenomenal.

Our ward and neighours were wonderful.

Our families were amazing.

We feel incredibly blessed to know the kind people we know, that we live in a world with modern medicine, and that we are under our loving Heavenly Father's constant care.

Thank you!

Miriam's recent artwork

We burn through scrap paper at our house. Not literally, of course, but my girls could (and do) spend hours colouring every day! They found some hand turkeys they made last year and having been drawing dozens of hand turkeys since. Here's one of Miriam's, with a sun in each corner:

Visiting Rachel's school

I'm not sure why I'm doing this post the day before Rachel comes home from school on the last day of school in September since it includes several projects that she's worked on at school. Chances are she'll bring home some spectacular project and then I'll have to do a new blog post (which you all know will be a real burden (kidding)). I have some time and both my arms right now, though, so I'm going to write anyway.

Last night we went to "Literacy Night" at Rachel's school. They had someone there promoting our regional branch of Durham's public library—little did they know we had gone to the library earlier that day to get library cards and check out some books. Our regional library is small...but awesome.

We got to meet Rachel's new principal, who is very nice, and have a little dinner with her in the cafeteria. The school supplied Subway sandwiches and were evidently planning on more people attending because there were a ton of leftovers. Our school struggles for support, evidently—they can't even get people to come out for a free meal. We are still in grad school, though, so we never say no to free food (it's free, people)!

EC, take 3

I've had several people ask me if/when I was going to begin elimination communication with Benjamin.   The answer to that is...yes, now.

Pancake Day

Rachel was gorgeous this morning—as in, stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately she banged her knee into the bench on her way to stand by the wall for a picture so instead of a smile she gave me a grimace. Imagine the smile; she's got a beautiful smile. Somehow we've broken into the world of regular pants—this particular pair are cords—and it makes her seem a whole lot more grown up.

Thanks, Pavlov

Last night I went out with some neighbour friends for "coffee." Not unlike owning a "coffee table," going out for "coffee" doesn't mean that you actually have to have coffee. I don't drink coffee but it wasn't awkward at all because my neighbour across the street doesn't drink coffee either—and she's the wife of an evangelical pastor. She and I got the Caramel Apple Spice drink...from the kids' menu. It was divine!

But I digress...

Besides Relief Society meetings I've never had a "girl's night out" before (because I've always gone out with friends, all our children in tow, during the day) but I think it's a fabulous idea. Benjamin tagged along, of course, but he's cute and doesn't interrupt conversations (too badly). We were able to sympathize with each other about the difficult day we'd had with our children while simultaneously giggling that we'd left our husbands in charge of them while we were out having grown up conversations. Of course, our conversations had the same subject matter that they do when we visit on the porch steps while our children play in the front yard, but we were at least able to visit with each other without interjecting commands ("If you found that on the ground don't eat it!") and reprimands ("Next time you pull hair we're going home!") or answering random questions ("No, you can't have any gummy bears. We don't even have gummy bears!").

Because I was planning on going out this evening—after Andrew got home from school but before bedtime—I moved our bedtime routine back a bit so that I could do story time and the whole shebang before I left so that the girls would go to bed nicely for Andrew. He's taking a killer stats class this semester and has been so stressed out about homework that I didn't want him to have to fight them to bed.

While Rachel's at school

Rachel's been in school for about a month now and for some reason I have a hard time leaving the house without her. It's like I feel the need to sit around and wait for her to come home, which is ridiculous since she's gone for eight hours. That's plenty of time for Miriam and Benjamin and I to get out of the house and go on some adventures so today we did just that.

One, two! Wake up the crew!

First we had to get everybody up and ready for the day. Daddy got up first and he woke up Rachel and got her moving. He only woke me up before he left so that I could take Rachel to the bus stop (it was a long night and our longstanding agreement is that since I get up with the kids at night he can get up with them in the morning).

Three, four! Get 'em out the door!

It's kind of cold now that it's fall, but only cold enough for dew—not frost—and it warms up in the afternoon. Still, it's cold while we're waiting for the bus so we all put on sweaters, except for Benjamin. I just slapped a cap on his head and picked him up from bed, blanket and all.

Our weekend

This is how our weekend began:

Rachel came home from school exhausted. All three of us girls are sick but Rachel's still been going to school because I don't think you can stay home with a cough...for a week...so off to school she goes. Friday afternoon was filled with cartoons while Daddy painted the trimming on the shed and I made dinner. Our traditional Friday pizza night was cancelled in favour of soup and crackers. I made crackers for dinner—like, from scratch.

Little House

We're currently reading aloud the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Both girls love—and demand—to be whisked away nightly on a literary journey through Laura's life. They both eat up every detail and are always hungry for more. I enjoy using the parables Laura has sprinkled throughout her stories to try to get my girls to behave.

"What?! Are you complaining? Laura doesn't complain. Carrie doesn't complain. It isn't ladylike."

Now that we're reading By the Shores of Silver Lake and the girls have learned that *spoiler alert* poor Mary goes blind and gets her hair cut short Miriam no longer wants to play the part of Mary (mostly because of the hair, I think (and that's mostly because Rachel said that if she wanted to be Mary she would have to cut her hair as short as Daddy's)) and has instead claimed the role of Carrie. Rachel clings to the role of Laura, which is rather apt for her personality, I think.

I sent them outside with a broom a couple of days ago because they were bickering so terribly inside.

"Here," I said, handing Rachel the broom. "Be Laura and Carrie. Go fix up your homestead."

The principle of work

We've been studying The Family: A Proclamation to the World for our FHE, which we're now holding on Thursdays because Andrew's not usually home on Monday evenings (this really bothers Rachel because Monday is Family Night; she can be quite letter-of-the-law at times). I meant to go through it paragraph by paragraph but skipped a couple so that we could talk about the principles our family is founded upon. And kind of so that I could foist chore charts upon our children because I'm going straight crazy trying to keep our house in order by myself.

So today we focused on this one sentence:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained of principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

After saying that a few times we focused specifically on this one word—work—and how that one word   can help us become closer as a family unit.

Fortunately we'd just done a family project this weekend—we primed the shed—and Rachel was super pumped about that and provided textbook answers for the questions I asked her (but only after I set up the context because before I did she had no answers for me at all).

We decided that painting the shed was hard work but it was fun to be working alongside each other and we feel a sense of ownership of our work. When we look out the window and see it we remember how much fun we had spending time together and how much effort we put in to make it look nice. We think, "Wow, we painted that! And it was hard! But it sure looks amazing!"

(Not that we're vain or anything.)

I said that the same thing applies to housework. And my kids definitely looked at me like I was crazy.

(And perhaps I am.)