Chris: 4 Years Old

 Chris is 4!

These two photos definitely capture the essence of Chris at 4: the cutest little angel with a rascal inside (and a popsicle face) 

Chris at 4:

• Favorite foods: chocolate peanut butter smoothies, yogurt, pickles, chicken noodle soup, hamburgers, french fries
• Favorite TV shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Baby Einstein, Thomas, Angry Birds
• Chris loves that we live 1 block from Grandma & Grandpa. He would live there if he could. 
• Board games of all kinds are his favorite. He wants us to play games with him all day. Some of his favorites are Suspend and Sequence for kids. 
• He is very attached to his morning routine. He is almost always the first one up, and he crawls in bed for snuggles with Mommy. Then he relaxes in Mommy's bed to watch his show, drink his chocolate peanut butter smoothie, and eat some dry cereal (usually raisin bran). Life is always better if we don't have to interrupt Chris's morning.
• He is the sweetest little snuggly angel who can also throw some fantastically epic tantrums. Hoping that the terrible 3's are going to be a thing of the past soon!
• He loves to build: Legos, trains, puzzles, blocks. They are all great. He builds some very impressive things all by himself, but he loves it if Mom or Dad will build with him. He doesn't really like to play with his creations after he builds them. The joy is in the building. Once it is built, we crash it and build it again.
• Mommy's little shadow. He is a great helper, especially with shopping. Chris loves going to the store. Wal Mart and Costco are his favorites. 
• Started his first year of Preschool. He hates getting dressed in the morning but loves school once he gets there.
• Chris is a tender little soul, and we love him so much!

Chris's birthday started as most Chris days do: dry raisin cereal and a chocolate peanut butter smoothie in Mommy's bed. Then he went to school. He chose sugar cookies with pink frosting and sprinkles for his birthday treat to take to his class.

After school, Chris helped me make his birthday cake, and we went to the grocery store (one of Chris's favorite activities). His requests for birthday activities were to go to the park and eat dinner at Grandma's house. We started with the joy of rolling down a hill at the park. 

Since Daddy had class that evening, we switched things up and did cake and presents before dinner. Grandma met us at the park for his little birthday party. 

Chris has some amazing facial expressions lately. 

For his birthday, Chris got Magformers, a bath time boat, a wipe-off book (another current obsession) and some awesome dominoes. 

We had hamburgers with Grandma and Grandpa and played with Chris's new toys. I thought about having cousins over for a party, but Chris really didn't care. He was just happy to spend the night at Grandma's. Happy birthday, Chris!

Trains....

Trains became a prominent member of our household when we made a second-hand purchase of a fairly large train set in 2018. Then stuff started happening.

 October 13, 2018

 October 26, 2018

Notice that there are some loose ends and unfinished parts. They soon learned that unfinished tracks were unacceptable, and that maximum linkage and finishing all loose ends at all costs were the hallmarks of professionalism in train building.

 November 15, 2018

 November 25, 2018

 December 30, 2018

January 6, 2019

As far as track beauty, this is one of my favorites.

The trains were purchased for Chris, though all the children (but mostly Daddy) like to play with them. Chris has gotten more and more creative with his track combinations. And we have added a few more pieces to open up more possibilities. The track below has something like 34 possible permutations. It's all about the Y pieces.

May 3, 2020

Sometimes their creativity goes unchecked and this sort of thing happens.

June 9, 2020

It is a huge spiral approachable from two different directions, and it terminates in a very steep, 3-level bridge series.

Then we moved, and the fun didn't stop.

 July 16, 2020

It is two inter-locked, non-overlapping loops. The mountain ties the loops together.

And a side view.

And this train stuff keeps happening.

July 28, 2020

August 4, 2020

Mommy said the track can't block the path to her sewing room, so we had to relocate and re-engineer half of it. Challenge accepted.

August 5, 2020

Challenge conquered.

Family Home Evening lesson: The Covenant of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies

An excerpt from the record of Alma, chapter 24, from The Book of Mormon:

6 Now there was not one soul among all the people who had been converted unto the Lord that would take up arms against their brethren; nay, they would not even make any preparations for war; yea, and also their king commanded them that they should not.

7 Now, these are the words which he said unto the people concerning the matter: I thank my God, my beloved people, that our great God has in goodness sent these our brethren, the Nephites, unto us to preach unto us, and to convince us of the traditions of our wicked fathers.

8 And behold, I thank my great God that he has given us a portion of his Spirit to soften our hearts, that we have opened a correspondence with these brethren, the Nephites.

9 And behold, I also thank my God, that by opening this correspondence we have been convinced of our sins, and of the many murders which we have committed.

10 And I also thank my God, yea, my great God, that he hath granted unto us that we might repent of these things, and also that he hath forgiven us of those our many sins and murders which we have committed, and taken away the guilt from our hearts, through the merits of his Son.

11 And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain—

12 Now, my best beloved brethren, since God hath taken away our stains, and our swords have become bright, then let us stain our swords no more with the blood of our brethren.

13 Behold, I say unto you, Nay, let us retain our swords that they be not stained with the blood of our brethren; for perhaps, if we should stain our swords again they can no more be washed bright through the blood of the Son of our great God, which shall be shed for the atonement of our sins.

14 And the great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us beforehand, because he loveth our souls as well as he loveth our children; therefore, in his mercy he doth visit us by his angels, that the plan of salvation might be made known unto us as well as unto future generations.

15 Oh, how merciful is our God! And now behold, since it has been as much as we could do to get our stains taken away from us, and our swords are made bright, let us hide them away that they may be kept bright, as a testimony to our God at the last day, or at the day that we shall be brought to stand before him to be judged, that we have not stained our swords in the blood of our brethren since he imparted his word unto us and has made us clean thereby.

 16 And now, my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold, we will hide away our swords, yea, even we will bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright, as a testimony that we have never used them, at the last day; and if our brethren destroy us, behold, we shall go to our God and shall be saved.

17 And now it came to pass that when the king had made an end of these sayings, and all the people were assembled together, they took their swords, and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man’s blood, and they did bury them up deep in the earth.

 18 And this they did, it being in their view a testimony to God, and also to men, that they never would use weapons again for the shedding of man’s blood; and this they did, vouching and covenanting with God, that rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.

19 And thus we see that, when these Lamanites were brought to believe and to know the truth, they were firm, and would suffer even unto death rather than commit sin; and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war, for peace.

Kate: 18 Months

 This adorable little girl has grown up so much in the last 6 months! Baby Kate is officially gone, and toddler Kate has arrived. Here's a little about Kate at 6 months:

• Talking like crazy! About 3 months ago, her speech took off, starting with her love for animal sounds. Now she says tons of words and even some short sentences. 
• Her favorite animal sound is the kitty. One of her favorite things to do is to wrap a blanket around her shoulders and pretend to be a cat. Her little meow is adorable.
• HATES having her diaper or her clothes changed. It is a crazy wrestling match every time.
• Finally sleeping through the night. I weaned her at about 14 months, hoping that once she stopped nursing, she would stop wanting to be awake for 3 hours stretches every night. No such luck. We finally managed to get her sleeping through the night in the last couple of months, and it has been amazing.
• Our craziest toddler! She is into everything all the time. She loves to push chairs around and see what she can get into up on the counters, especially if it involves splashing in the sink or pouring water on the floor. She keeps me on my toes.
• Wants to be involved in everything the big kids are doing, much to their dismay. 
• She may be crazy, but she gives amazing hugs and snuggles, especially if you will read books with her, which is her favorite thing ever. Some favorites right now include Tails, Hug, the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Where's Spot?. She will sit by herself and look at books for an hour sometimes.
• No sense of fear. She climbs up the ladder on the play structure and goes down by herself all the time. She also insists on walking down stairs like a grown-up. This baby makes her mommy crazy.
• She still only has two top and two bottom teeth in the front, which makes her look like an adorable little mouse. Her little grin is adorable, but watch out for those teeth! If you get your fingers too close when feeding her something, she bites, and it hurts!
• She loves to watch kid songs videos on the tv, and her favorite is The Happy Song. She requests it by name at least 50 times a day. It is just so hard to turn down that little face when she looks at you and says "happy song?". It has parts with high voices and low voices, and she loves to imitate it. It is adorable. She even wants Happy for her bedtime song. 
• Favorite foods include chicken nuggets (she is very enthusiastic about her nuggets!), frozen blueberries, and chocolate peanut butter banana smoothies (her first word almost every morning is smoothie (or, as she would say, "frootie")). 
• Loves Mommy, but is starting to discover that Daddy is the fun one (the popular opinion around our house). 
• She is so happy that we are done quarantining from Grandma and Grandpa!

 She loves Peek-a-boo!

She is getting the cutest curls as her hair grows out!

We just love our Kate! This is my favorite age for my babies, as you see them developing and learning so fast and becoming such individual little people. I love getting to be Kate's mom!

Little People Scripture Stories

Our kids' favorite way to learn scripture stories is acting them out with the Little People. Daddy may have had a little too much fun with our Sunday lesson today.

DANIEL AND THE LIONS' DEN

 Daniel was a good man and a prophet of God. When some conniving courtesans convinced the king to make a law against praying to God, Daniel refused to stop praying. The penalty was death. The king was forced to enforce the law, so he had to send Daniel to the lions' den.

 The king was very sad, because Daniel was his friend. The next morning, the king went to the lions' den to see if Daniel was still alive. Miraculously, the Lord caused the lions to be nice, and they didn't eat Daniel. He was alive! The king was so happy for Daniel. He was angry at those courtesans for changing the law, and he sent them to the lions' den instead.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

 Jesus preached to many people and taught them all about his mission on the earth and the purpose of life. He taught the people that they should be nice and loving to all people, to be patient and meek, and to love God and their neighbors.

JESUS AND HIS APOSTLES AFTER HIS RESURRECTION

After Jesus was resurrected, he came to visit his apostles many times. He spent time on the shores of there Sea of Galilee with Peter, James, and John. There, he ate fish and bread with them, and he taught them how to be missionaries to all the world.

NOAH'S ARK

 Noah was a prophet of God. During his life, the people became very wicked, forgot the Lord, and stopped keeping the commandments. They were so bad that God commanded Noah to build a ship, called an "ark," to save his family and as many animals as possible. God would make it rain so much that it would flood the earth and wash away all of the wicked people so that Noah could start things over again.

 The Lord showed Noah exactly how to build the ark. Noah's wife, as well as his sons, helped to build it. It was very big.

 When they were done building the ark, the Lord commanded the animals to go into the ark, two by two, one male and one female of every kind of animal. Then it rained for 40 days and nights, and Noah and his family were protected.

MOSES AND HIS PEOPLE CROSS THE RED SEA

 When Moses led his people to the edge of the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army were coming after them. Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea, and his people crossed through on dry ground to escape Pharaoh's army. It was a miracle.

 Pharaoh's army followed the people of Moses into the Red Sea, and the waters crashed down on them and drowned the army.

NEPHI AND THE BRASS PLATES

 While Lehi's family journeyed in the desert, the Lord commanded him in a dream to send his sons back to Jerusalem to get the brass plates - the record of the Jews - from Laban. When he awoke in the morning, Lehi told his sons to go back. Laman and Lemuel, the older brothers, thought this was too hard. Nephi was excited to do the Lord's will, because he knew that the Lord would provide a way.

 So, Lehi's sons journeyed through the desert back to Jerusalem.

The other brothers hid outside the city while Laman went to Laban's house and asked to have the brass plates. Laban was a ruler of Jerusalem, and he was not a good man.

 Laban was angry when Laman asked him for the brass plates.

 Laban chased Laman away and sent his guards to kill him. Laman escaped out of the city. He was not happy that Laban tried to kill him, and he didn't want to try and get the brass plates anymore.

 Nephi told his brothers that they shouldn't go back to the tent of their father without doing what the Lord commanded. He volunteered to go into Jerusalem at night. While he was walking in the city that night, he found Laban drunk and lying on the ground. The Lord told him to take Laban's sword and kill him. Nephi was afraid, but he did what the Lord told him to do. Then he dressed in Laban's clothes so no one would recognize him.

 Nephi went to Laban's house, and he asked Laban's servant to give him the brass plates. 

 The servant, whose name was Zoram, followed Nephi outside of the city. Nephi was still disguised as Laban, so the servant didn't know that Nephi was going to see his brothers. His brothers saw a man dressed as Laban, so they were scared and were about to run away.

 Nephi called to them so they would know it was him. Then Zoram became scared, but Nephi tackled him and invited him to come with them back to live in the desert. Zoram agreed to come with them.

When they arrived back at their home in the desert, Lehi and Sariah were so happy to see them. They had been scared that their sons had been gone so long. Now they were back together again, and they had the brass plates so that they and their children and grandchildren would have the gospel.