Lizzy: What's the name of this movie (holding up a black VHS with no cover)?
Me: The Wiggles Magical Adventure
Her: Just like on our venture!
Me: Huh?  What do the Wiggles have to do with our mini-van?
Her: We have a Venture too!
Me: Oh, yeah! A Chevy Venture!

Lizzy is such a joy in our lives. She has such a sweet, tender personality which was evidenced to me again recently....

Last week she was watching a movie with Sariah ("Love Comes Softly" where a woman gives birth to a baby - NOT graphic at all) and came running out of the bedroom crying. She said, "Mom, I want a baby too! Why can't I have a baby?!" We had a grand conversation about how she would totally get to have her own babies when she grows up and gets married and that's Heavenly Father's plan for her. But she wanted a baby RIGHT THEN! So I explained to her that the baby would need someone to feed her and bathe her and take her to the doctor, and right now, Lizzy still needed HER own mama to do that for her. So she would just have to wait till she can do all that for a baby of her own. Well that seemed to do the trick for that concern.

But then she was worried that she wasn't growing at all. So I got her old baby clothes out and showed her the old clothes - how they were so small and told her she's gotten so big they won't fit her anymore. We ended up taking a onesie and some socks out for her baby doll. She finally seemed to be consoled and now talks often about getting married and having her own baby. She also is the sweetest little "mother" with her dolls! Such a sweet, sweet girl!

As a child, Aaron was happy and cheerful almost ALL the time! Steve even nicknamed him “Happy.”  Aaron seemed to be amidst chaos a lot with our family dynamics - being between two fairly intense siblings, yet he most always has been able to flow with whatever and remain calm and mellow no matter how crazy things have gotten. 

There was this one time, however, that this poor child was NOT happy…. He was just a little guy – 4 years old. Steve and I were up late in the living room and saw him get out of bed to go to the bathroom. A few minutes later we saw this.....

...a very sad, confused and frustrated Aaron. Check out that bottom lip!! Can you see the source of his frustration? While in the bathroom, he had somehow exchanged his own pants for Ryan's and could not figure out why they wouldn't button! I don't remember anymore if we were ever able to console him or if we even got his own pants on him; but from these pictures, you can see he was pretty distraught.

I do remember that Steve and I had uncontrollable laughing fits before it was all over as we sang, "Fat guy in a little coat." (Hopefully, that's not the reason Aaron was so traumatized about the whole thing!)

By the way, Ryan or maybe Ammon is in that first picture asleep on the floor in the hallway. All three boys were in the same bedroom and they had trouble settling down almost every night (ummm, still a problem today), so we'd warn them that somebody was about to get pulled out. Then we'd send the talker to the bathroom floor until one of them was asleep. We had many nights with one boy on the bathroom floor and one on the kitchen floor too.

Now we have four boys in one room, and the only way I can get them to stop talking is to ensure them that any talkers will be coming out to do chores - usually dishes or laundry. That usually shuts them up really fast! :) 

[This event occurred on April 24, 2003.]

A New Day

So several little things have culminated to give me the desire to do this thing I thought I would never do. I don't like the world looking into my world. But I want my kids to know my heart better. And I want to remember the good times and share those with them. My record-keeping attempts have been severely lacking, and I want to change that! So here's my practice run of a post to see how this works and my start of a new day in record-keeping and a new day to achieve more optimism in my life!