Two little girls

"You are right, I think you do have something in your eye."

9 months old!

Rebecca celebrated her 9 month birthday on Sunday, the day of her great-grandma Adams's birthday as well. To celebrate the big day I arranged for a flight to be cancelled so she and I could hang out at O'Hare for the day...more on that later. On to the pictures!

Here she is with her sheepy-sheep, showing off her amazing growing skills. Captions underneath photos.

Caught her in the middle of practicing some "buh bah bah" sounds.

Loving her boots!

No joke, this was the first picture I took.

I love this shirt. This is the first time she's worn it. So fancy with the ruffles and bow!

Size? 18 months. I did mention she's been growing, right?

"Looking at the Christmas tree is way more exciting than looking at Mom being silly."

Things I am doing at nine months:

rolling

sitting

going in circles while laying on my belly or while sitting

providing a home for 8 teeth

eating so many good foods

laughing and playing with my brother

clapping

playing peek-a-boo in various ways

throwing things

dancing to music

eating my hearing aids much less than before

Sing, Sing, Sing, I Like to Sing!

Some of you may know that I work with the kids in our ward as the Primary chorister. I've had this calling since June, and really love it. On many occasions while singing with the children I have felt the Spirit testify to me that what we were singing was true. I have been thinking of what a blessing this calling has been for me, not only in how it's allowed me to stretch myself and do things and exercise my creativity in ways I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, but for how it has put me in a position to teach others (and thus remind myself!) about the basic principles of the gospel through song. Just recently I felt prompted to have the kids sing "Jesus Said Love Everyone," a tiny little half-page of a song, but the words and simple melody communicated truths I needed to hear that day as I was struggling with something.

I'm sure you've seen the poster before that has this on it, but I thought I'd paste these words here to drive my point home a bit more. What do you remember from Primary songs?

All I Need To Know I Learned in Primary

I am a Child of God

Believe in Christ

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Choose the right

Where love is, there God is also

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

Forgive & Forget

Give oh Give

Listen to the still small voice

Count your many blessings

Do the things the Lord Commands

Honor your father & mother

Dare to be true

Kindness begins with me

Families are Forever

Search, Ponder & Pray

Listen to the prophets voice

Jesus said love everyone

When you are helping you are happy

Heavenly Father hears & answers prayers

There is beauty all around

Reverently & quietly pray

Sunday is special

Do your duties with a heart full of song

My body is a temple

HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES ME

Gaffield Children's Garden

"Oh piggy!"

He looks like he's carrying quite the load of blocks here, it's cute. I think it's just one, but I love that I got the action shot of him leaning a little.

On November 14th it hit 67 degrees, perfect for enjoying something fun outdoors, so I packed the kids up and we went to the newish children's garden at the UM Botanical Gardens.  We'd been once before when it was open but not fully completed, so it was fun to go back to the "kid's garden" as we called it. Jacob met a pig statue in the middle of a moving gate maze, colored on some slate with chalk and cleaned up for the other kids to come play after him, and built with some blocks inside a little cabin.  Rebecca played in a nest, sat in a chair, chewed on some leaves, and generally looked cute as always.  We took the short hike a couple of times, and romped and played for a while. We had a superb time and look forward to going again in the spring and summer when there will be vegetables for picking.  You can see everything there is to do here at this link.  And, like many things I do with the children, the Gaffield Children's Garden is FREE.  All the more reason to go!  

"I saved you a seat."

"Good thing I'm not too far off the ground. My mom never taught me how to fly."

Toledo Zoo

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to the Toledo Zoo. On our way there, we saw this:

It was kind of like a ghost town zoo, not highly attended on game day as one might imagine. Perfect for us, and perfect for a two year old who liked running around as we saw all the animals.

Here is what we saw while we were there (slightly more exciting than what we saw on the freeway!):

Ready to go play with the elephant, Jacob put his foot on the fence right as I took the picture.

Jeff and the kids showing the proper way to ride a tiger:

Find one that's a statue.

Jacob still talks about how we saw some "ates" at the zoo.

He really liked the elephants.

Coming down the slide!

Jacob the puppy!

Weird color setting by mistake, but a cute picture nonetheless

Jacob Bakes! (And Mom helps!)

The other day Jacob helped me make some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  He was pretty excited to wear an apron that matched mine and he carried around his oven mitt and hot pad in between taking his turn to add ingredients to the bowl.  We got this cute set for Christmas last year and it's been fun to have it out this week!  You'll notice he enlisted the help of some Christmas friends by attempting to stuff them into his apron pocket, and you'll see that he loves pointing out the "COOKIE!!!" on each piece of the set.  He pulled the can of pumpkin off the counter and posed with it in his helper chair. You probably also noticed all the Cheerios on the floor.  Jacob also helped with that; he may have eaten some "O's" too, but judging by how many I swept up a little bit later while he ate dinner I'd say most of them got thrown or spilled on the floor.  

The muffins turned out great, by the way, as did the loaves of pumpkin cranberry bread I made right after we put the muffins in the oven.