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.

Home at last!

From Class to Class:
After two weeks of training in Athens, GA I am finally home. Usually, when I get home from traveling Anna won't have anything to do with me. When I got home this time she was happy to see me. I think I was gone so long she got over being mad at me and she missed me. Unfortunately, I am now enrolled in a tax course through H&R Block. I have class three nights a week from 6 until 9. I sleep in my bed but I still don't get to see my kids much. In fact, Andrew has had to wait a couple of days to tune his new guitar, play with his new X Trek race course, and make rocks because I haven't been home enough to help him.

Where will we be?:
Prior to going to Athens I had two options for opening an accounting practice--Kaysville, UT or Fort Collins, CO. Now there is a good chance we could end up in Colorado Springs. I should have more details about Colorado Springs in the near future.

Andrew's Birthday:
The celebration of Andrew's birthday started as soon as he woke up. Melanie and I put 20 or so balloons in Andrews room to surprise him and then Melanie made him two huge pancakes, put candles in them and sang him happy birthday. I was at work but Andrew called me so I could sing Happy Birthday over the phone. After breakfast he opened presents and Melanie took him to Krispy Kreme so he could have his favorite treat.

I left work early so Melanie and I could take Andrew to the IMAX to see Deep Sea 3D. He loved it! Several times he tried to touch the fish and other sea creatures. After the movie we perused the planetarium toy store for about an hour. Andrew enjoyed looking at the science toys so much that we wouldn't even go to the bathroom. I eventually had to drag him to the restroom.

Andrew's favorite food is pizza so after we had our fill of science toys we headed to California Pizza Kitchen. Andrew was tempted by the noodles on the menu but his love for pizza won and he settled on a cheese pizza. He was so hungry he ate all but one slice of a medium pizza.

After dinner we took Andrew to Toys R Us. He got a coupon in the mail so we thought it would be fun to let him pick out a toy. I tried to pursuade him to get a Star Wars lego kit, but once he saw a magic rock making kit I didn't stand a chance. In fact, Melanie and I took him to see scooters and other really cool things but he wasn't interested. He had his rock kit and we couldn't distract him from it.

Finally, we went to Melanie's parents house and had the formal celebration with his grandparents and cousins. We sang happy birthday and then his cousins gave him gifts--all of which were science related. The most intriguing of which, was a pair of noise magnents. You throw them in the air and they bounce against each other very rapidly. Andrew played with them all evening.

Fall Festival:

Today we went to a "Fall Festival" near our home. It was a lot of fun! We rode in a wagon to a pumpkin patch and the kids got to pick out their own pumpkins. Andrew picked the biggest one in the patch and then gave it to me. It was a little too big for him to carry. Then all three of the kids rode on a horse. Each of them had the biggest smiles! I was nervous about Anna because of her arm but when it was her turn she walked right to the horse, let a stranger put her on the horse and then rode around. After the horse ride we played some games including a sack race. Andrew is so proud of himself because he beat Elizabeth and I. Afterwards we got to ride in a hot air balloon. It was a very short ride but really cool! Tonight the kids cleaned out their pumpkins and designed the faces for the Jack-O-Lanterns.