not your fault

a few years ago i read "glimpses" - a collection of talks by, and stories about, sister hinckley. there is one talk that has stayed with me more than the others. she spoke of gratitude.

" A grateful heart will give you a touch of refinement that can come in no other way . . .I know some of you think you are on a tight budget, and you are, I am glad if you are. But it is a tight budget because you have nothing else to compare with it. It isn't your fault that you have had three square meals a day, most every day of your life. It isn't your fault that you have never been hungry in you life. It isn't your fault that somehow or other you have always been able to get a new pair of shoes, whether you needed them or not. It isn't your fault that you have at least five or six changes of clothing in your crowded closets. But all of this makes it doubly hard for you to be truly grateful . . .When you finally develop a little gratitude in your heart, make up you mind to express it. 'Appreciation unexpressed is not appreciation.' If you can't find someone to say thank you to for something, just take a look at your toothbrush and say, 'thank you for being. You are a wonderful little gadget.' 'Thank you' is a wonderful phrase. Use it. It will add stature to your soul. Never let a day go by without saying thank you to someone for something - and especially to your Heavenly Father."

indoor snowman

this morning maria and hudson built an indoor snowman. it really made me smile and was what i needed to get out of my semi-grumpy mood.

very fun. i love when kids get creative.

climbing already

so i walked into the living room yesterday and saw this:

what? no! she can't be climbing the stairs yet!

but here she is. climbing the stairs.

what a rascal. she certainly keeps me on my toes. i never had to worry about these kinds of things when my other kids were this young. she keeps trying to climb the chairs in the dinning room also.

the snow is cold

it snowed all day. not a lot of accumulation but just lightly snowed all day. tonight, while going from the store to the car, maria stated with a shiver, "ooooh, the snow is a lot colder than i expected."

libby - 9 months old

i just can't believe how big she is getting. time goes by so fast. she is turing out to be quite a wild girl. she's gonna be trouble. only 9 months old and she's already trying to climb the baby gate. none of my other kids tried that even remotely close to that age. she loves to wrestle dad and her siblings, but mostly dad. she really goes for it, too - growling and everything. she stands in her crib and bangs her stomach against the rungs and shakes her crib so much i worry she's going to shake a screw loose. she loves to dance and will bounce along to any music she hears. she's still really happy . . . except when hudson tries to sit on her, but, hey, can't blame her for that. she seems really bright and very interested in things around her. she's really just quite a character. raising her may be interesting. i used to be so glad i didn't have another boy after hudson because boys are crazy but libby seems to be a female version of him, so there goes that security.

hudson

check out this handsome boy!

my goodness, doesn't he look so old in this picture? it's a little sad how fast they grow-up.

but he still is very much my little boy.

playing in the leaves

i have such a small front yard. why do i have to rake so many leaves? the backyard is eleventy times bigger than the front yard, yet in the back i hardly have to rake any leaves at all. well, at least the kids love all the leaves.

this was quite common. i don't know why she kept trying to eat the leaves. every time she put one in her mouth she didn't like it and spit it out. so why, then, did she try to eat leaves, like, thirty times?

maria was pretending to be a dog. i'd throw the stick and she'd fetch it. i dunno. whatever. she was having a lot of fun. and check out all those leaves in the background. that's only half of it.

three beautiful kids. and one on the way? how blessed am i?

libby in leaves

yesterday i let maria and hudson play in the leaves. libby was very upset that she was stuck in the stroller so i let her out. she actually really enjoyed playing in the leaves. i couldn't believe she even crawled through them!

create

libby speaks

libby jabbers quite a bit. her little voice is so cute. she says daa-daa really well. i've tried to get her to say ma-ma but she just laughs and says daa-daa more. i've tried so hard to capture all this talking on video but every time i get the camera out she only becomes interested in trying to grab it. these clips don't show how noisy she really is but i've got a couple cute daa-daas.

libby loves to watch these videos. she'll talk back to herself.

family home evening chair

hudson has a special family home evening chair that he makes for every family home evening and only for family home evening. and yes, this is a recent picture although from his outfit one would think it is summer. i just took this picture yesterday. as you can see, he makes his chair out of two pillows. no family home evening has occurred without this chair.

here's a funny buddy story but only read it if potty humor is not offensive to you - but it really is funny so maybe you should just try it.

boys really are different. a couple of weeks ago the kids and i were taking a half-hour drive. hudson is at the age where he talks nonstop and asks eleventy-billion questions (half of them are the exact same question, i.e. "mom, where's dad?" "he's at work, hudson." "but mom, where's dad?" "he's at work, hudson." "but mom, where's dad?" argh!). during this half-hour drive hudson discovered he could make himself burp. this was very funny to him and he did it over and over again. however, he didn't know the word for burp so he said:

hudson: (chuckle, chuckle) i toot in my mouth.

mom: hmmm. i don't really need to know about that.

hudson: (chuckle, chuckle) i toot in my mouth again.

mom: hudson, it's bad manners to tell people when you burp. you don't need to tell me.

hudson: (chuckle, chuckle) i just toot in my mouth.

i tried to explain to him that i didn't want to know about it (yes, i thought it was funny, but i didn't want HIM to know that), but he just kept talking and laughing, so i figured maybe he'd stop if i just ignored him.

hudson: (chuckle, chuckle) i toot in my mouth again.

mom: (nothing)

hudson: (chuckle, chuckle) i toot in my bum.

this was my whole half-hour drive - listening to hudson and his joy of bodily discoveries. maria would have been done with this in two seconds. boys really are different.