Odds and Ends

Here are a couple of recent sweet (and sappy) things:

-Yesterday, I was washing dishes and feeling a bit blue about something.  I even got a bit teary.  After a minute, Maggie came up from behind me and said, "Mom, could I hold you for a minute?"  I was so touched that the Lord would be enough aware of me to send Maggie to cheer me up.  (I don't remember her using that phrase before.)  It just seemed so directly set up to help - does that make sense?  After she hugged me, she said she wanted to dance with me to the music that was on.  Then Jonah came and saw us and said, "Mom, I love you."  (Jonah often says that.  It's kind of like he's making a quick, needed connection.)  It was a sweet moment.

-Last Monday, the kids wanted to go outside for FHE, because the weather was nice.  It was that perfect cool spring temperature.  We sat on the front porch, and Eli sat in a chair facing us, since he was teaching the lesson.  He held up a picture of Alma the younger as he told and read the story.  It was just one of those picture-perfect moments: the beautiful scenery behind him, the cool breeze, the kids sitting still- for a while, and Eli seeming so grown up.  I felt the Spirit so strongly for many reasons.

And a few kid things:

-A while ago, before our stuff got here, I got the kids Lego sets in a weak moment.  Tori got one of the new girl Lego "Friend" sets.  As she was building it, Eli said, "Welcome to the family business."  It made me laugh.  (Since that day or the next, I don't think Tori has played with it.  I guess it didn't take.)  Tori loves art and crafts.  Whenever she makes a craft at school, she'll come home and replicate it here.  She is always writing sweet notes for me and drawing pictures of the two of us (at home and at school).  When she's a teenager, I need to remind her of this!

-I took Jonah for his kindergarten check up and shots.  He was very brave.  For the hearing check, they took him into a room and put big headphones on him.  She told him to give a little wave each time he heard a beep.  He was kind of hunched over in the chair with his eyes closed, and when he heard it, he would raise both his hands up and do a little frantic sort of wave.  The nurse and I had to stifle laughs the first time.

-Jonah tells me I'm gorgeous when I dress up.  And occasionally when I look sloppy.

-When Maggie has dolls or animals interact with each other, they say, "Hi to meet you!"  (She does such cute dialogues and stories with them.) 

-Just a minute ago, I made a deal with Jonah, and said, "Will that make you happy?"  Maggie yelled from across the room, "No, I not want Jonah to be happy!"  She says cute things all of the time. Sometimes it's just her tone of voice or the fact that the things she says often sound so grown up for a toddler.

-We got the new Winnie the Pooh movie the other day, and the kids have loved it.  They keep watching some of the scenes they think are funny over and over.  This morning, Eli dressed up like the "Backsun"(?) and was chasing the others around.  They all thought he was hysterical.  It made me think of some worries we've had for Eli lately.  He keeps asking or telling me about inappropriate things that he hears at school.  He's getting exposed to so much.  His antics were such a contrast to his schoolmates' humor.  I wish that I could keep him from the world somehow, so that he could just spend more of his later-childhood laughing about Winnie the Pooh humor.

-Almost every time we watch a show that Eli likes, he will either replicate a character or vehicle from it out of Legos, or he'll dress up like a character.  He is very imaginative.

-Tori was reading a book to Maggie and me that told the qualities of a princess.  We've talked about how she is a princess because she is Heavenly Father's daughter, and she's really taken it to heart.  After each one, Tori would excitedly say, "A princess is kind - and I'm kind!"  "A princess is polite - and I'm polite!.... I like to dress up!.... I'm caring!"  I had to chuckle as she experienced one positive affirmation after another.  (I may have to erase this before she reads it, though.  She gets embarrassed SO easily.)