If Talent Were Pizza, You'd Be a Supreme

Okay, so first I will explain this picture. We had a couple overflowing shoe baskets in the garage that were driving me nuts, mainly because no one could ever find their Sunday shoes when we were heading out the door to church. We had tried limiting the number of shoes each person could have out at a time, but in Florida you really need to have flip flops available year round. I finally remembered that we had some unused shelves above the garage that just needed to be put together. Aly and Kate helped me assemble the shelves and - hooray for organization - it turned out fabulous. I know it will not stay looking this beautimous . . . that's why I took the picture to remember it. :) Here's a picture of the girls playing frisbee at Aly's soccer practice. After all my fretting it really hasn't turned out to be too bad. Everyone's had a good time and a good attitude (so far), which I am so grateful for. We've stayed in the car watching a movie or finishing homework when it's cold, or let the kids run around in the grass when it's warm. The other main concern was how to pull off home cooked meals when practice runs from 5-6pm. But I had a couple of friends give me some great tips - so the crock pot, soups, and stouffers are our new best friends. So far, so good.

So, how did you spend the extra day of the year (aka Leap Day)?!? The title of this blog is the title of a book I read when I was around 12 about discovering talents. It encourages you to try out different talents to discover your interests and to also write a list of goals of things you'd like to achieve during your lifetime. I actually found my list this past week and was amazed at how many things I had achieved on my list (finish college, get married in the temple, learn to type, be in a play, see Yellowstone, etc.) along with a few things that I still haven't (visit Mexico and Europe, learn to play an instrument, write a book, etc.) So anyhoo, on February 29th I talked to the kids about setting goals and developing their talents and we had a mini "talent show" after dinner. (See the videos below). We talked about Aly learning to play soccer, Lise taking piano lessons, and Kate taught us all how to make pyramids and cubes out of toothpicks and fruit snacks (we didn't have the mini marshmallows they used at school).

I figured the fruit snacks were a good way to end February as well, since the family decided to go on a sugar fast starting March 1 and ending at Easter. (I guess we "gave it up for Lent", even though we aren't Catholic and we didn't celebrate Mardi Gras.) Chris and I are the only ones going full out, but Aly and Lise have committed to only one sweet per day, which is better than nothing. And I'm working on curbing down Kate and Kylie, now that the Valentine's stash has dwindled.

Here's Kate's funny-ism of the week:

Me - Kate, you should marry somebody named Nate so that you and your hubby can have rhyming names.

Kate - Yeah. I'm going to have everybody in my family's names rhyme with me. So my husband will be named Nate and my son will be named Plate.
(I'm going to have a grandson named "Plate"?!?)

Here is Kylie with the mohawk the girls gave her when she was in the bath the other day. The look says it all. Right now I love how Kylie is trying to hard to communicate and make herself heard. If you don't understand her or aren't paying attention, she will grab your pants and start pushing/pulling you to take you to what she needs. My favorite words to hear her say right now are "cucumber", "stroller", and "color".

Kylie loves keeping up with her sisters, but after all this running around craziness, it's no wonder she's exhausted . . .

And now for the videos. This first one is of Aly at a soccer practice. She's very assertive and LOVES playing!

Next we have Lise playing a song she learned at piano lessons. She chose to take these all on her own. I hope she continues to enjoy it and that it will be a real confidence booster for her.

And finally we have Lise's other talent that she's started doing on the fly - gymnastics. She wants to get into gymnastics classes as well, but I told her "one thing at a time".

I have to start with this picture, just because it speaks volumes. Caption should read, "Who's drivin' this flying umbrella?" (What movie is that from?) You know, I was a little worried about how Kate and Kylie's relationship was going to turn out, what with Kate having such a dominant personality and all. But Kylie's got plenty of spunk herself, so they actually play together really well so far, with neither one letting the other one run the show. It's a good balance. I also love how Kate always wants to match people when she gets dressed, so this is her attempt at both she and Kylie wearing pink shirts and tan pants. Can't you tell they're matching? :) Matching hairdos too, I think. So anyhoo, lets just starat out with Kate's quote of the week right off the bat, shall we? We were in sharing time at church and they were telling the story of when Nephi broke his bow and the family started to murmur because there was no food. So the Sister sharing the story says, "Now remember, they didn't have a Wal-Mart, so how are they going to get more food?" Kate yells out, "Run to the Tree of Life!" I loved it. Loved how she made the connection that there was really yummy fruit at the Tree of Life, even if she did get her stories mixed up. I just hope she was holding to the rod while she was running to the tree. :)

Here's a great picture of how Kylie's personality is exploding more and more each day. She loves to "accessorize" - here with a headband, and lots of times she's got beads around her neck. She also has started playing with her Little People a lot and likes to line them up. She also loves using her stroller to transport whatever she's playing with at the time. Another favorite pastime since Dad's come home has been to beg him to throw her up in the air. She LOVES it!

Hmm, so what else has been going on . . . Oh yeah, Valentine's Day! I got to go help out in Analise's Class with their pancake breakfast/pajama day - good times, good times. Aly and Kate's classes did something a little less extravagant but still did the traditional valentine exchange with their classmates. Aly and Lise did discover that they each had an admirer or two, which caused a few giggles. I told them that as long as they were just nice to everybody, but made it clear they were too young to have a boyfriend, they were good to go.

That night when we got home is when the fun really began. Lise spent her own money and got everybody in the family a present - how sweet is that?!? She made Kylie a bead necklace, bought Kate a mini Molly American Girl Doll, gave Aly $5 towards her Kindle she's saving for, gave me a smiley face eraser she got from the prize box at school, and gave Chris a note saying she'd make him some brownies. (She and I ended up making him Peach Cobbler - 5 days late, but it's the thought that counts, right?)

I made cards for everybody listing 10 things I loved about them, gave the girls each a book, and
gave everybody the standard mini chocolate boxes - mainly because I like them and it wouldn't be polite to eat in front of everybody else. (I knew I could eat some of Kylie's.)

Chris' Valentine's present to the family was coming home from work early and then getting everybody Blizzards/smoothies from Dairy Queen after dinner. Chris and I had also gone out the previous weekend to our ward's Valentine's dance. Chris was super nice to dance and act silly with me and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

And the shout out for the most creative Valentine goes to the one Kylie got from the daycare at the gym. If you can't read it, it says, "Have a Happy Valentine's Day for 'crayon' out loud!" It came with a heart shaped crayon, formed from a bunch of melted crayons put into a heart mold. Super cute. And another successful Valentine's day goes down in history.

Back on Track

Okay, so I've got to fill in more of the gaps on January - things that I don't want to forget. Let's just go person by person and see what happens . . .

Me - The first week Chris was gone I went on a huge "rearranging furniture spree". You know how by the end of Christmas everything is just starting to seem a little "cluttered"? Well, I was feeling claustrophobic for some reason, so we rearranged all the living room furniture. It really opened up the room and I love it. But did I stop there? No Way! Next it was on to Analise's room. I had decided that having the art table in the bedroom with my least organized child was not really working. So we moved the art table to the play room (aka Kate's room), moved a few things around and oila! Beautiful. Lise has been having a much easier time keeping her room clean without that huge surface just tempting her to throw all her stuff onto it, which has been great.

In January I also did a very cliche thing and joined a gym. I had wanted to earlier, but was holding back because of the expense and not wanting to put Kylie in the day care place when she was so little. But, try as I might, I don't do so well working out at my house - what with the dishes, floors, laundry, and children all screaming at me for attention - so I bit the bullet and did it. It's been fun trying out all their different classes (and being sore in a different spot every week!) It's helping with the stress somewhat and boy, do I need those endorphins!

Aly got her first babysitting job this past month! She was so excited. A mom in our ward was on semi-bed rest after losing a lot of blood during her delivery, so she asked Aly to come over and play with/take care of her toddler while she and the baby rested. It sounded like Aly did a great job playing with him and getting him lunch and everything. But when I picked her up she said, "that was the longest four hours of my life!" But she was very happy for the money to help save up for her Kindle she wants to buy.

Aly also learned how to do a power point presentation at school. Chris was gone and I've never done a power point presentation, so she was on her own. I was amazed at what she put together - color, added pictures, fade ins, etc. It was awesome!

And finally for Aly, I finally let her sign up for Spring Soccer. I had been holding back with just moving here and having a baby and Chris gone and on and on. I decided we were finally in a position to do it and Aly is SOOOO excited. I'll try to get some pictures for upcoming posts.

Lise has set a goal for herself to read the Book of Mormon before she turns 9 (giving herself a year and a half to finish it). She is so excited to get baptized this summer - she has a little journal she writes in about it during sacrament meeting every week. I love watching her sweet testimony grow. She has also started asking me if she can be in charge of family home evenings, which I love. My favorite was when she did one on Testimonies. We talked about what a testimony was and what it wasn't, then Lise told the story about how your testimony starts as a seed and grows, but even once it's a huge redwood, you still need to nourish it or it will die. Then she planned this game with balloons where the person that was it would throw three balloons in the air and everyone would catch one. Whoever caught the balloon that the person had decided was "the testimony balloon" would bear their testimony. It was a great, simple game and I loved hearing my daughters' sweet testimonies. One of our better family home evenings, I must say.

I also love to hear about what Lise is thinking and the way she sees the world. One day she came up to me and said, "I kind of want to live during the millenium and kind of not. I would like to because then you get to see the Savior. But kind of not because then we can't eat chicken anymore." (We had just got done reading in the scriptures the night before about how during the Millenium the Lamb and the Lion would lie down together and everyone would live in peace and the meat eaters would eat straw like the ox. I guess Lise kind of likes being a carnivore!)

And the other thing Lise has been up to is writing songs. She's come up with at least 10, and is always asking me for rhymes. I love hearing her make her own music.

Kate is just a laugh a minute (in retrospect. Sometimes in the moment, I just want to duct tape her mouth shut and strap her in a chair.) She is also the queen of randomness. I'll be talking to her about something and then she'll come up with off the wall stuff completely out of the blue. Like I was talking to her about a playdate she had with her friend when she suddenly says, "Mom, talk to me about hippos. I don't know about them." I don't know if I'm a boring conversationalist or if her mind is just like a pinball machine or what. Here are some of her funnier moments:

Kate (snorting) - I'm not pretending to be a pig; I'm pretending to be a shark.

(Thanks for that clarification.)

Kate - Mom, do you know how to make coffee?

Me - No. Do you know how to make coffee?

Kate - You cough on a vitamin and then put an "E" in it.

(Cough on a Vitamin E . . . that's pretty good.)

Kate - Mom, do you know what "butt talks" are?

Me - What?!?

Kate - your bum.

Me - Oh. You mean buttocks. (But she said it as if it were two words, I swear!)

Kylie is becoming more and more one of the crew. Even with her limited vocabulary (which is growing by the day), she managed to tattletale on Kate. I guess Kate had pushed Kylie out of the way when Kate was watching a show and Kylie was standing in front of her. So Kylie comes up to me with a scowl on her face, says "Kate", and then hits herself in the stomach. I couldn't believe it! Oh my, here we go . . .

Kylie has also discovered that she loves her bike. She and Kate are always wanting me to leave the car in the driveway so that they can ride their bikes in the garage. She is just a goer and wants to be running and climbing and jumping all the time. She is also finding new words to express herself and now knows how to say "hot, cold, drink, sockies, shoes, button, jacket, car, bike, etc." Like I said, she's just another part of the gang now, no longer the baby.