Remembering President Hinckley

One year ago today.....
......We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet....

Storytime with Lydie...

This is why we love Lydie:

with a capital T

That's right my friends, we've got trouble! At our house trouble is also known as Lydie Jo (don't be fooled by the sweet, innocent picture!). In the last 24 hours she has been found giving her stuffed animals a bath in the sink, coloring with marker on the magna doodle and the wall, filling all the toothbrushes with hairspray, "painting" the walls with an old paint brush and some water, climbing on the counter, shaving a bar of soap with her finger-nails...the list could go on. Where, you may ask, was her mother? It only takes this child 3.5 seconds to get herself into a mess so I was probably cleaning up her last catastrophe! If she weren't so darn cute, affectionate and good at saying "I am sorry, Mommy!" , she might really be in Trouble!

crazy cravings....

what is up with all the weirdo things I have been

DYING to eat lately?!
I hope this craving thing is over soon...I want myself back!
(I know, smoothies are okay, but that's the only good thing I've wanted!)

read to me Daddy...

I am always amazed at how well the kids will sit through a book when Daddy reads to them in French. They only understand 2 or 3 of the words he reads, but they don't care. Maybe it's the one-on-one time with Daddy or maybe it's the way French sounds, but they love it and most of the time, if they want him to read to them it has to be a French book. Who knows...maybe it's helping them learn?!

Je suis toujours étonné de la façon dont les enfants restent assis quand leur papa leur lit un livre en français. Ils ne comprennent que 2 ou 3 des mots qu'il lit, mais cela ne les soucient pas. C’est peut-être le fait d’être seul avec leur papa ou peut-être que c'est la façon dont sont les sons en français, mais ils aiment cela et la plupart du temps, si ils veulent qu’il lise pour eux, ce doit être un livre français. Qui sait ... peut-être que cela les aident à apprendre le Français ?!

Merci Mamy et Papou ! Thank you Mamy and Papou!

Every year at Christmas time we look forward to our own "brown paper package" to arrive from France from "Mamy and Papou" (Roland's parents). This year it was a little late, which was great because it made the season last longer! The kids loved their new sweats and Music/books! We love you Mamy and Papou!

Chaque annee pour noel, nous recevons notre paquet venant de france de Mamy et Papou. Cette annee, le paquet viens juste d'arriver et c'est super car cela permet de faire continuer la saison de noel plus longtemps ! Les enfants ont aimes leurs nouveaux pijamas et livre de musique. Nous vous aimons Mamy et Papou !

what to do if... Que faire si ...

...your mommy is pregnant and "resting". Play with flour! It's so fun to draw in and if you step in it you can make footprints on the rug!

Another fun thing to do is play dress-up with your brother's clothes!

... votre maman est enceinte et essaie de se "reposer". Jouer avec de la farine ! C'est tellement amusant de dessiner avec, et si vous marchez dedans vous pouvez faire des empreintes sur le tapis! Une autre chose amusante à faire est de jouer a porter les vêtements de votre frère!

I'm totally going to brag here...

I can't resist! I feel so lucky to have such a great husband. Tonight after getting home from his meetings he immediately went out to shovel our driveway (he won't let me do it for him) and I am amazed at how he has stayed on top of this monumental task over the past few weeks! Once he finished (it took about a half hour) he came in for a kiss and to tell me he would be back in a little bit. I didn't have to ask where he was going. He home teaches two of the widows in our ward and he can't sleep at night if he thinks there is snow on their walkways and driveways. That's where he is now, even though I know he still has a lot of business to catch up on when he gets home. What a guy!

p.s. he'll be so embarassed when he sees this and might even try to remove it, but I just had to shout it out! I love you sweetheart!

He survived...

Just in case any of you have been worried about our little Eric and how he fared the other night, I am happy to report that he is alive and well! His punishment was to "sell" one of his toys to pay for Daddy's new contacts with the knowledge that he would have lots of opportunities to earn enough to "buy" a replacement (it's actually in our closet and I'm sure he'll earn it back soon). He was pretty upset about that, but we have really struggled with his lack of respect for our things and our home. He loves to take things apart (which would be fine if he knew how to put them back together), and usually ends up breaking and ruining things in the process (sometimes deliberately). We had a good talk about being careful with the things in our home and trying not to destroy everything he finds :)! Anyway, I think the whole "episode" was really a blessing because it gave us a chance to teach him something that we've been trying to teach him for months. I'm sure it's not over and he'll need to re-learn this one a few times, but I know we made great progress! It makes the $50 we spent on new contacts a little easier to swallow!

"Are you kidding?!"

That's what I was thinking last night when we discovered (thanks to Emilie) that Eric had opened every single last package of contacts that Roland had (at least 2 months worth!). He watched Roland open one the other day and put them in and I'm sure he was curious to see how they felt. He even tried putting them in his sister's eyes! Lucky for him, it was almost bedtime and he was sent straight to bed before either one of his parents could completely loose it ($50 worth of contacts is hard to get over)! This morning he was told that we would talk about it tonight...I can tell he's a little nervous. At least we had time to sleep on it so that we won't be so mad when we talk to him, they're just little contacts after all. :)

"Sliding"

Over the Christmas break, we were fortunate enough to borrow some sleds from our great friends, the Shawcrofts (thanks, friends!). We took an afternoon and had a great time "sliding" as the kids called it. We started on the "bunny hill" at the elementary school, but that wasn't good enough for Roland and Eric so we drove up to Traverse Mountain and found a totally awesome park with tons of huge "runs". It was a great day (until the end when Lydie was completely exhausted and broke down! ).

Au cours des vacances de Noël, nous avons eu la chance d'emprunter les traîneaux de nos bons amis, les Shawcrofts (merci, les amis!). Nous avons pris un après-midi et avons eu beaucoup de plaisir à « glisser » comme l'appelaient les enfants. Nous avons commencé sur la colline à l'école primaire, mais ce n'était pas assez bien pour Roland et Eric alors nous sommes allés sur la montagne et avons trouvé un super parc immense avec des tonnes de « pentes ». C’était une superbe journée (jusqu'à la fin lorsque Lydie était complètement épuisée !).

TAKE ME HOME!
IL EST TEMPS DE RENTRER !