Feet

I don't know why, but for some reason, this girl loves putting her feet on the table when she's eating. I remember Ashlyn having the same problem. I just don't get it because it doesn't look comfortable at all.

Inspiration Winners

Kali's and Sadie's school participates in what they call the Inspirations Program. It's the equivalent of the Reflections contest, but it's for charter schools instead. Well, this year Kali wanted to enter every category. After a couple of week of working on it, I informed her that she could only pick four categories (it was turning out to be a lot of work for me too). Sadie also wanted to participate, but she complained about doing it every day. I kept telling her that she didn't have to, but she kept telling me that she wanted to write a book but just couldn't think of what to write. Eventually the ideas came and after a lot of hard work, we got their projects turned in. Sadie entered the literature category and wrote a book on birds. Kali also entered the literature category with a poem entitled Nightingale. She also wrote a song for the piano called Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue. Then she submitted a picture of an outdoor scene that she colored with chalk and a photograph that she had taken of a nativity scene. The theme was "Beautiful Is...". Well, they both won medals. Kali and Sadie were actually entered in the same literature division because it runs K-2 and Kali won 1st place and Sadie won 3rd. Kali also won 1st place in the music category with her piano song and won 2nd place in the visual arts with her chalk picture. Sadie was so excited that she had won a medal that she could hardly wait to show it to me. When I asked her what it was for she said, "I don't know". I had to laugh. Only 1st and 2nd place winners move on to the regional level, so we'll have to see how Kali's projects do.

Chores

The girls have chores they do every day and ever since last fall, Ashlyn's has been to unload the silverware. Well, she has decided she's big enough to do the same chores as Kali and Sadie and this is where we found her...in the bathroom cleaning the sink and the toilet. Man have I got my kids trained well! I'm looking forward to a chore free life in the next couple of years.

But my favorite is that Josh told her to open her eyes as big as she could for the picture and this is what we got.

Makeup

This is what you get when you let three little girls loose with play makeup. Kali and Sadie didn't do too bad, but Ashlyn was a completely different story. Not only was she a mess, but it was scary looking. Poor girl. And she thought she looked beautiful. At least she had fun.

Princesses

The girls somehow managed to get a hold of my phone (which is practically impossible since it's almost always in my pocket) and took some pictures of their playroom. I'm kind of glad because you can see Kali's lovely artwork. Several months ago, she decided to make life-sized princesses and wanted to keep them all. After having them all over the floor for several weeks, I finally had the brilliant idea of hanging them up and they've stayed on the walls ever since. In this picture you can see Rapunzel, Snow White and Ariel. I think she made 9 or 10 of them.

Kali's Baptism

Today was a very special day for our family. Kali got baptized. I am so proud of her and her decision. She is such a good person and did so much to prepare. She studied scriptures about baptism, she she bore a heart-felt testimony twice in sacrament meeting over the last few months, she has practiced fasting a handful of times, and most importantly, she knows and understands the covenant.

Despite all the stress I felt during the day in trying to make everything turn out perfect, Kali was very excited and happy. Before her baptism, all she could talk about was how excited she was. She said she was only nervous that her feet would come out of the water and that she'd have to be baptized again. She thought that would be embarrassing. We told her that it wouldn't be that big of a deal but she was determined not to let it happen. So she asked Josh to stand on her feet in the water, which he did, and she was baptized only once without any problems. She said the water wasn't as warm as she thought it would be, but she still felt the spirit and I did too. I felt it very strong during Hannah's talk. She talked about Christ's baptisms and shared what happened afterward. She explained that Heavenly Father said, "This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased..." and then talked about how Heavenly Father was pleased with Christ and with Kali for her decision to be baptized. I felt the same way. I was pleased with her decision and I knew that Heavenly Father was too.

Our house isn't big enough to have all the family over, so we reserved our church for after the baptism and had fun visiting and eating snacky foods.

We decorated with pink flowers (Kali's favorite) and pictures of Kali that Danielle had taken at the Salt Lake Temple. It almost looked like a wedding reception. At first I felt a little dumb that it may have been over the top, but as long as it made it memorable and made her more excited to one day get married in the temple, then it was all worth it.

Shoes & Socks

This girl will not keep her shoes and socks on. Without fail, the first thing she does when I put them on her feet is pull them off. It doesn't matter if they're tight, or boots or even Robeez brand, she manages to get them off. I just feel bad that the majority of the time, my child is shoe and sockless when it is freezing cold outside.

Dodgeball

Cindy's family invited everyone over to their church on New Year's Day for a game of dodgeball with their new soft frisbees. It was so much fun, especially because it was such a family friendly game. Don't get me wrong, Tony, Brett and Steven can really throw those frisbees. So we did have a few games with just the adults, but they were able to tone it down when everyone was playing. Kali and Sadie had a blast.