Pictures of the girls

I thought both of these captured their personalities almost exactly:

Wherein I reveal that I am truly a geek. But at least my kids are cute.

Angela, at her friend Rusty's birthday party:

Angela: "Happy birthday!"
Rusty: "Happy birthday!
Angela: "Actually, it's not my birthday, but thank you."


Conversation at church:

Angela: "Smell my breath!"
Me, teasing: "Eww!"
Angela: "Now smell me."
I smell her neck and she giggles.
Angela: "Now smell something not on my body."
I pick up her hand and sniff it and she laughs.
Angela: "Nooo! Not on my body! Smell the church."
I breathe in deeply (smelling nothing) and say "Ahh."
Angela: "It smells YUCKY! because I tooted!"

What I've been doing:

• Getting ready for next week! We have family coming in to town for two weeks over the holidays. That means Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations this week. Whew!

• Reading! I've been devouring books lately. And I achieved my goal of finally, finally, finishing Pride and Prejudice.

• Teaching! I have had the opportunity to see fear turned into confidence as women learn about childbirth. In discussions and classes, those who worried about what would happen during birth, avoided learning about it out of fear, and then found out that their fears were exaggerated...it is thrilling. It reminds me that though we often avoid the things we're scared of, we might find, through facing our fears, that they're not nearly as bad as we'd thought. We shouldn't let fear keep us from the truth.

• Feeding my 70's sci-fi appetite! Rob and I have been watching as much of Solaris as we can stand, and I have to say that watching a creepy movie before bedtime helps with the nighttime cuddling.

So, if there was ever a week beyond July 2007 to geek out, this is definitely it.

Halloween parade

Elizabeth's school Halloween parade:

A lone Yoda:


Here she comes!



Getting closer...



...And then she lost a shoe, found it, and then RAN to catch up with her class, missing the photo op and not seeing her mother in the sidelines but finding her classmates:



Walking back to class:



Here is the Mary Poppins costume (I didn't get a great picture of it, but as you can see, it was awesome):





"Look! I can touch the ceiling!"

A sneak peek...

The girls could not decide between angels and princesses, so they're both. Here they are just before the ward Halloween party:





I have Elizabeth's hair in rag curlers for tomorrow, since she gets to wear her costume to school. I thought she looked lovely with her hair in 'curlers':



We'll see tomorrow if it turns out. :)

Beautiful girls:

A new smile

Here she is!



The family at the pumpkin patch:



On the swings...



Lovely girl:



I love this picture:



Oh, alright. I know what you all want to see:

Angela...

...can READ.

She is sounding out every word she sees and reading the books her sister brings home from kindergarten.

I don't know how we're going to fill the next TWO YEARS before she starts school. She will have no use for it when her turn finally comes.

But I love it. I can't wait for her to start reading chapter books (like her sister is doing already). I know she will get lost in the worlds open to her then.

So far, this is my favorite part of parenthood. The abundant love of literacy is wonderful.

And what does "amazing" begin with?

Here is a series of pictures of Elizabeth's ABC project. She took Angela's preschool book and thought of one word for each letter, wrote the word, and then drew a picture of it. I thought it was fantastic and took a picture of each page.

Click below to go to the album with all the pictures. Oh, Elizabeth commandeered the camera and took the pictures of Angela near the end, and the last N page is Angela's own work. She spelled NO, drew an egg, and then wrote EGG.

ABCs

Daddy's girls

Mount Nebo in autumn

Last week we went on a spontaneous trip up to Mount Nebo to see the fall colors.

This is what we saw:





A random zoom on some of the leaves:



Very steep hillside:


At a scenic overlook:




Running into the woods:


Elizabeth and Angela hugging in the woods:


Exploring:


Elizabeth, with a storm coming:


Some of the trees looked like they were on fire:


Overlook:


Blurry, but you get the idea: