Charlie

The kids all fight over who gets to sleep with Charlie, though the decision is always made by Charlie. He usually chooses to sleep with us, which gets him put in his kennel. His second choice is Elizabeth and we always find him wrapped up in her blankets, sleeping on a pillow. She has very motherly instincts. Occassionally Charlie will come walking into our room after Elizabeth has fallen to sleep with one of her blankets balancing on his back. It makes us laugh.

Beautiful Anna

" Look mom, I beautiful." This is how I found Anna right before church. I should have assumed she was getting into trouble because she shut herself in Elizabeth's room and was very quiet. She loves makeup and she loves the word beautiful. Anna's arms match now too, which is very exciting--no more cast or brace--she loves to hold up her arms and say, "look mom, they match." Anna has been getting into trouble lately and she is getting sneaky. She asked me if she could have gum before bed and I told her no. She went into her room, shut the door, and told me I couldn't go in. When I finally did go in, of course she was chewing gum. It is hard for me to get upset at her because she is a ridiculously cute 2 1/2 year old. And I was so appalled at her sneaky act that I didn't know how to respond.

Scriptures

Andrew's obsession with the scriptures is as strong as ever. Jeff found his Preach My Gospel manual and Andrew reads a section and looks up the scriptures. I feel some guilt with this obsession--"stop reading your scriptures and go to bed," and "no, I don't know any good scriptures about that topic..." are some things I have actually had to say to Andrew. He likes to quiz me and ask me to tell him "good scriptures" to look up in the Acts, for example. He loves the scriptures and could easily beat me in a scripture chase. He has all the books in the Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price memorized in order. His primary teacher loves him. I try to tell him that all of the scriptures are good, but he doesn't buy it. He likes the ones about prophets and asks me about every name he reads. I love when he asks me because he sounds out the names phonetically--who is Moseees? Andrew was so excited because he found a movie at the library about Esther. He watched it intently when we got home and then sat in the van in the garage and read Esther for over an hour. And then last week he taught me about fasting. Needless to say, he has been a good influence in our home.

Piano

Piano practicing has taken over. But it is always worth it when I see Andrew and Elizabeth enjoying the piano so much. Since Elizabeth has started taking lessons, I've had to use the same reminder I had with Andrew--Self-esteem is more important than playing the piano. I don't want to forget that.
Andrew loves playing his songs all staccato or with his hands crossed over so his right hand is playing the left hand part, and vice versa. He also improvises and makes up songs all the time. Elizabeth is learning her songs really fast and loves showing off to anyone who will listen. It has been a little trickier teaching her because her hands aren't big enough to reach some simple chords.
Anna just loves playing with the metronome and Charlie has learned to sleep under the piano bench. We are hoping we can find a good piano teacher when/if? we move.