I know it's totally lame that this video is sideways and I forget to keep it side to side every time I use my camera to take video, but this was a HUGE milestone in our family so I decided to post it anyway. Elijah has decided to not be nasty about taking piano lessons. He's going to be starting soon, but this weekend we were working with him on getting his musical ear in tune. You know like listening for which pitches are higher/lower, etc. and just having a general feel for the keyboard. He stuck with it until he could play 2 songs by ear: Twinkle, Twinkle and Mary Had a Little Lamb. He has trouble getting over that initial hurdle of getting started with a new thing. He always expects to try something new and know how to do it like an expert.

New Pictures!

I know I just posted about growth, but now everyone seems to think the monkey bars are easy. This is new.

Emily has discovered the word yucky. Lots of things are "Ewww, yucky." Like the inside of this pumpkin. I swear I didn't prompt her.

Football was an interesting experience. Brian was the coach and now that it's over he says he'll do it again, but it seemed a little trying at times. Elijah definitely is more willing to listen to someone other than a family member giving him instruction. I actually rarely went to games and never went to a practice which was also a new experience for us. It just never seemed to work out.

There are definitely some pros to being a 2 teacher family: we'll call those things June, July, and August. But. There are also some cons: we'll call those things first day of school (there isn't anyone to take our own children to their first day of school) and report card and parent teacher conference time. Ugh. Sigh. Zzzzzzz.

Sometimes I am baffled when my children make big leaps in development. I feel like I just turned around and--hey, weren't you just crawling and eating baby food last week? All of a sudden Emily is like a little person. She sings songs. Well enough that you can discriminate what it is. Her favorites are Baa Baa Black Sheep, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song (Conveniently they are all the same tune!) She remembers things. For a long time. Like tonight when she was going to bed. She said, "Cup. Cup outside momma." And sure enough I went and looked and she had left her water outside by the playset. She also has this thing about coloring right now. She says, "Look momma, I color E." I don't know why she is always coloring E. Maybe her sitter says that since it's the first letter of her name. When our friends the Fishes came into church on Sunday she exclaimed, "Caroline! Lucy! Annie!" and would not be content until they came over by us. Of course she also tried to gouge Lucy's eyes out when she tried to sit on my lap. She doesn't want anyone coming near her mom. She did the same thing to her cousin last week, so no hard feelings Lucy. Along with the good is certainly the bad. Emily has also decided that everything is "mine." Even if she hasn't played with it in the last hour but has played with it before. It's "mine." Man, I forgot about how fun toddlers can be. The best though is that she has learned to say, "I wuv you." and she says it to all of us at home. She loves her brother and sister so much. She will initiate, "I wuv you Jijah. Wuv you Mee (Mary)." It is neat to see her being able to play with them more. She certainly isn't a baby anymore.

I am quite sure that I can't articulate how I have been feeling lately as I finish reading (and listening--I love audio books) the Little House on the Prairie series. There is a part of me that thinks of the Dakota prairie every day and longs for it like something I've never had before. Maybe everyone connects with these stories--that's why they are so wildly popular. Anyhow, I have now plunged ahead to read more writings by Laura and her daughter, Rose. I just have to know more!! I found several books at the library today and started on A Little House Sampler, writings from mother and daughter. Here is an amazing quote from Rose as she writes about herself as a writer:

"I love life because it is always, always interesting. Pessimists say that life is bitter and cruel and hard to bear; optimists say that it is bright and joyful and full of hope. I think they are both right. Pain and joy, happiness and suffering, as they enter an individual life, are alike in the one quality of being always a new experience, and therefore interesting. The value of life, to me, is that it is so big, and we are so small, that we can never get hold of all of it: there is forever something more, still unknown."


By the way, my new header photo is one of the cottonwood trees that Pa Ingalls planted at their Dakota claim. Still standing. We've seen it and touched it.

If anyone still reads this blog : )

Here are the pictures of the girls at the Feast of the Hunter's Moon last weekend. My mom spent the better part of last week putting Mary's dress together and it turned out splendidly! Just beautiful. Emily got a bonnet as well, after seeing how much she enjoyed her sister's. Unfortunately the weekend didn't pan out quite like we'd hoped--the rain made the Feast a mud hole and to make a long story short I ended up taking the girls on the shuttle bus to get there and upon arrival didn't have a way to transport our 'wants to run away' toddler, so I ended up carrying her most of the day. I started feeling sick and didn't even get to play my fife with the corps like I was planning to, and it was a good thing I decided I just wasn't up for it. I ended up sick in bed Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday with the worst strep throat I've ever had. Elijah was also down sick with a sinus infection for 2 days. His school closed today for the next two days because they have so many out with the flu.