For Auntie Freida

While she still doesn't have a name, this week "Horsie", as Morgan refers to her, became Morgan's most cherished playmate.

Brian coerced Morgan in to a nap yesterday--on the condition that Horsie could nap, too. (Hey, she slept for about 2 1/2 hours, so that's fine by me!)
The couch is no longer comfortable when watching movies. Horsie seems to be just the thing, though.

Morgan keeps telling us, "I really like my Horsie from Aunt Freida."

Morgan's Bedtime Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank thee for this day. Please bless the food we forgot to bless at Carl's Jr. Please help me sleep well.

Name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

Now that you all know what we had for dinner...

Princess Party and New Bike

Here she is, just before her party, in her new princess dress she picked out with her birthday money from grandparents. (What you see under her nose is a HUGE scab from when she crashed running at the park last week. It's just now starting to clear up.)

Sadie picked out a princess dress with her birthday money, too.

All the princesses who attended the party decorated cupcakes. My original intention was to let them decorate a few and take them home. Let's just say all the guests went home empty-handed.

Amidst the chaos of 11 princesses decorating cupcakes, Sadie somehow got hold of the tub of chocolate frosting.


Here's Morgan's "cake". I let each of the girls pick a cupcake to put on the platter so she could blow out her candles. They loved that they got to "decorate" her cake!

Morgan's facial expression explains it all: (Do you think she was excited???)


Morgan's been in this outfit since about 2:00 yesterday. She asked if she could wear it to church. We compromised on another new birthday dress instead.

Call us cheap parents, but Morgan was so excited about her party, we weren't planning on doing much more than that (parties can be expensive!). But, Thursday, on Craigslist, I found a princess bike that was too good to pass up! So, she ended up with a new (to her) bike!

Numbers

Sadie's started saying her words much clearer and one of my favorite things she's doing right now is counting. The only thing is, she doesn't know her numbers in order...we're working on that.

We have a F-O-U-R year old!

June 18, 2006:

June 2007:

June 2008:

June 2009:

June 18, 2010:

Here are some of Morgan's favorites. I put her answer first, but the real answer in (parentheses).

Song: Jesus Once Was A Little Child

Food: fruit (PB & J sandwich)

Color: red, pink, purple, white (it changes daily)

Number: 4 (I wonder why??)

Book: Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton (anything Dr. Seuss)

Toy: dress up (plus blocks and trains)

Movie: Shrek, Cinderella

Person: "Sadie, mine sister" (When she talks about Sadie, she can't just say, "Sadie." It's always, "Sadie, mine sister" when she's referring to her.)

Breakfast: cereal (oatmeal and pancakes)

Dinner: spaghetti

Show: Little Einsteins and SuperWhy

Morgan would also like to mention that she loves bathtime, her whole family, the park, brushing her teeth, and swimming lessons. Her favorite dress is her "5T dress" because it's long and twirly. She's glad that froggy gets the monsters out of her bedroom at bedtime.

Notable things about Morgan right now: she LOVES learning to read and she has taught herself simple addition (anything that's 10 or less because she can use her fingers).

We love having Morgan in our family! Her happy, smiling face is always fun to see. She's learning so many new things and trying so hard to be a good example to her sister. We love you, Morgan Rae!

Happy Father's Day!

Brian,

You are the world's greatest dad to Morgan and Sadie and a fabulous husband! We love you so much and are so grateful for all you do!

Playing Together

It seems like I'm always trying to get the girls to play together, without me. This seems to be accomplished only if I'm in the same room with them (which means I get ample scripture, magazine, and book reading time these days).

This afternoon was a little different. The girls actually stayed downstairs, playing, while I went upstairs. I talked to my mom on the phone for about 15 minutes. During the conversation, she commented that it seems like the girls were playing nicely together and leaving me alone for a change. "Yeah, that is kind of nice," I thought.

Fast forward to the end of the phone conversation, when it dawns on me that they have been unusually quiet. Any parent of small children only knows what this means. So, I go back down to the basement. On my way down, I asked Morgan if they were cooking something special for me (in their play kitchen). She replied, "Yes. But we got hungry, so we used real food." (Think about how you would respond. It's probably how I did.) What kind of disaster was awaiting me at the bottom of the stairs???

With only a few more steps to the bottom of the stairs, I can see their collection. I enter the basement and find that they have removed EVERYTHING they could reach from the shelves of our food storage AND shelf reliance. Sadie jumped and immediately dropped the bag of crackers she had just opened.
(Note: this an OLD picture from when we first moved our food storage into the basement. The shelves and the shelf reliance are completely loaded now!) So, I clearly expressed my feelings, and disapproval, then supervised only as they put EVERY refried bean can, peanut butter jar, spaghetti sauce can, cracker box, noddle package, raisin bag, etc. back in its rightful place. Then, I sent them both upstairs to time out until Daddy came home.

Lucky for them, he walked through the door a few minutes later.

We're Gonna Get Wet!

With temperatures well into the 90's today (94 to be exact), the girls were so excited to play in the water this evening. (It was still 92 degrees at 6:00!!!) Their dresses (and they) were so wet when they were done, there was water dripping from them! (think wringing out a wet rag)


Morgan "invented" her own water slide. She drags this slide anywhere in the yard when the water is on!

Sadie loves the water slide, too! (I don't think she was expecting it to be that fast!)

A Magazine Article Well Worth Reading!!!

I never have time to read magazines. I'm notorious for still trying to get through last month's issue of Real Simple when this month issue shows up in the mail. However, a flat tire last week gave me an opportunity to read an entire TIME magazine. (Who would have thought it would take over an hour to fix a flat???)

Note: I don't subscribe to TIME, and rarely do I even glance at it in the grocery store checkout. I'm usually making sure that my two little "helpers" are being careful with the eggs. Or, in the case of Sadie, not eating yogurt. But, that's for another time. I'm digressing.

In retrospect, I'm glad it took so long to fix that flat. Here's the cover of last week's issue:

Most of the issue focused on the how the internet is "redefining privacy," specifically facebook. As written in the article, Facebook has changed our social DNA, making us more accustomed to openness.

The author, Dan Fletcher, couldn't have stated my thoughts and feelings more perfectly. He wrote: There's something unsettling about granting the world a front-row seat to all of our interests.

Take the time to read it. It's very informative and I'm curious to hear what other people think about it.

Either click on the picture above or the link below for the article:

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1990582,00.html

Bedtime Walks and Going to Sleep

After their bath tonight, we put the girls in the stroller and went for a short walk. It's summertime in Colorado, so not unusual to get an afternoon thunderstorm (which, tonight, meant a light drizzle).

As the rain started to fall, Morgan informed us that she learned in preschool how to make the rain stop. So, Brian and I inquired on how to do so.

She said, "You sing: Rain, Rain, go away. Come again another day. Tiny Tots want to play, Rain, Rain go away."

Not wanting to discourage her noble efforts (which, after a few minutes turned into screaming the song in desperation), we encouraged her to see if it would work. About 5 minutes into the light drizzle (the drops were practically dry hitting the sidewalk), I asked Morgan if she thought the rain would listen to her screaming at it.

She replied, "Mom, I'm not screaming. I'm loudly talking at it." Umm...maybe I should be a better example here.

Going to Sleep

Morgan and Sadie are supposed to be going to sleep. But, tonight, they are determined to everything but sleep!

About 10 minutes after we put them to bed, we heard their door open. From the couch, we could see them tiptoeing out of their bedroom, holding hands, ready to get into mischief. They saw us get up and start toward them and hurried their little buns right back into bed, hoping to avoid a spanking. Needless to say, it's been over 45 mintues and they are still in their room, as lively as can be!

And, Morgan is now trying to appeal to her dad's softer side by singing, "Daddy, Daddy. My daddy is so nice!"