Bringing You Up-to-Date

First of all, I'd like to extend my apologies to our regular weekly reader(s) about missing last week. We were up having a great time visiting our friends the Selden's in Delaware, so we took the week off.

I feel a little bad since the last several posts have focused on Alison and Kaitlyn, and Max hasn't gotten much air time. However, in my defense, he's kind of at an age where he doesn't do too much, other than smile, eat, sleep, get mauled by his sisters, etc. and that doesn't change drastically from week to week.

This week, though, is different. I've determined that Max is very advanced for his age. You could say he's gifted. Although he'll be 4 months old in a couple of days, he's already blowing out of diapers at at least a 6-to-7 month old level. What's more he's drooling like a 4th grader who just got both sides of his mouth numbed at the dentist--and Max doesn't even have any teeth yet. Gifted.

He also looks quite handsome in his first (clip-on) tie:


Alison is really coming into her own. This afternoon for some "just me and Mom" time, Alison and Megan worked on a sudoku together. Ali loved spending time with Megan doing something that Megan loves to do. Well, later in the day Ali and Kaitlyn were chasing each other around the house while I made dinner (another Sunday tradition) while Max was in the swing. Every 3 laps, or so, I would ask one of them to give Max a push in his swing (we really should go buy some new batteries for that thing!). Soon I noticed that the chasing had stopped. I stopped stirring my chicken and rice, and went to check on the kids.

I found Ali, laying in front of the swing, pushing Max with her foot while working on a sudoku all by herself!


It's clear that Alison loves to learn. On Saturday--her day off of school--she made Kaitlyn and I sit in front of her art easel so that she could play teacher.

She even gave me homework (which I had to finish before Friday):

I'm happy to report that I got my homework done early and earned a "Gecko Buck" (a.k.a. "gold star") from Ms. Call; I drew a picture of our family and I guess the "teacher" liked it.

However, Ali's scholastic enthusiasm does have its downside. We find drawing and writings all over any and all papers that we've left out around the house. Ali found an envelope full of receipts we were keeping for tax purposes and took a Sharpie to it. She also took the liberty of inscribing the blame in permanent ink:

Before our Delaware trip, we got about 3-inches of snow in 4 hours. Ali's school was cancelled on both Thursday and Friday, and she immediately wanted to come home and make a snowman. Sadly, Mr. Snowman melted most of the way before the end of the day.

Kaitlyn is a perpetual smiling machine. Today at church one of the Primary teachers asked, "Does she ever stop smiling?" The answer is "no." Even when she cries, you can see a hidden smile. She is also quite funny.

This week during one of her dinner prayers she said, "Please beless us that we can eat our dinner safely." I thought dinner was great that night!

Another time she was riding her scooter around and purposefully stopped right in front of the fridge. I must have looked at her with a puzzled look on my face because she said, "Oh man, there's too much traffic!"

Another night we were doing our family scripture study. We were reading 2 Ne. 15:17 which starts, "Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places..." Suddenly, Kaitlyn interrupted us and announced loudly, "Hey! Just like I waste my food at dinner!" I'm glad that she's already "likening the scriptures to herself", sort of.