Moments

So I realized that I never posted a picture of Maren's cast...it hasn't slowed her down one bit. In fact I am thinking she has some ambidextrous blood in her (thanks uncle Luke) with how well she writes left handed. The only problems we have had, are keeping the thing dry (which is hard when it is raining or very humid outside), and keeping her from smacking everyone else with it. We had a sweet moment together this week. All the kids had gone to bed, and I was finishing getting things ready for the morning, when Maren came down stairs. She had had the stomach flu that morning and was apparently ready to eat some real food. So we sat down with some crackers and she told me how much she was missing her dad. She then went on to tell me how we had missed saying family prayers that night (we had indeed) and that she said her own and it helped her feel better. How blessed I am to have this sweet girl.

One last thing...this picture was taken at the gardens we visited with Dave, she kept posing like a "plant" so the butterflies would land on her.

Unfortunately for Maren, Amanda was the only one who was lucky enough to get one to land. Look at that smile!

The whole time we were walking through the gardens Amanda kept posing for pictures.

She cracks me up. She was practicing her "American Girl smile" she tells me. On another note she is also taken up fashion consulting as she is recently putting together outfits for me in my closets, including jewelry and hair accessories. Should I take this as a hint?

And Spencer, sweet Spencer, is like a lost puppy dog without his dad. He went with me to the airport to drop Dave off. While we were playing outside on our way to car after saying goodbye, a plane took off and he immediately said "daddy, bye bye". Just in case I wondered if he understood what was happening. He really enjoyed the daddy races (around the living room of course), and wrestling matches, and has trouble figuring out why mom (with baby Jake in arms) doesn't want to play. So not surprising he is showing some jealousy with Jake lately...telling me to "put baby down" on a regular basis, hopefully they will be friends one day!

Jake, now two months old, is giggling this week, so cute! He started to take some significant naps, not in my arms, which is why I was able to actually blog.

As for me, at the end of each day I have to tell myself that if the kids are fed and have clean clothes and I am meeting at least some of their emotional needs that I have done fairly well. We had a rough sacrament meeting today at church, (diaper leaking, head bumping, baby wailing, Amanda sneezing, all in a three minute period). So we have our moments...but at least most of the time they are just moments.