Ellen's birthday

Ellen turned four on Valentine's Day!! She was so excited to have her birthday come. I told her the night before her birthday, that the sooner she fell asleep, the sooner her birthday would come. I don't remember having to ask her to be quiet, so I think she worked on falling asleep fast.

Ellen is quite the character. She has a very outgoing, happy personality. She loves to laugh and make other laugh, and she's quite the tease. She loves learning and knows all the sounds of her letters. We love having her as part of our family.

This is a picture that Calista drew Ellen for her birthday.Ellen got a Tote and Go Laptop too. This was probably her favorite present, and she actually does a great job sharing it with her brother and sisters. It works on letters and numbers, and she plays with it every day.

For her birthday, Ellen asked for a computer and her own scriptures. I was surprised that she asked for scriptures, but she was really excited when she opened them. She also got dry erase crayons, which are really pretty neat, and a coloring book, but somehow I forgot to take a picture of the coloring book.

This is Ellen's carousel cake. It was a rushed job, but she excited because it had the frosted animal cookies, which are some of her favorites, and it had heart marshmallows. I let her color the umbrella top and put some of the marshmallows and cookies on.

These are pictures that Ellen took of her cake:

A girl after mine own heart.

The other day, while we were sitting at breakfast, Jacque told me something that really impressed me. She said,"I know how to say my ABC's backward!" I was a little skeptical at first, but then she rattled them off. I brought the timer over and timed her, 7 seconds. She can do the ABC's forward in 4 seconds. Tonya and I learned the "ZYX's" when we were little, but probably more like in the 5th grade, and Jacque is in the 2nd grade.

It's always been something fun to for me to do, and I've thought about teaching the kids, but I was afraid that it would confuse them. Even I get a little confused on whether it goes JKL or LKJ now and again. I can remember being in college and there was a guy on TV that rattled off the ZYX's really fast and the host of the show doubted that anyone could confirm whether or not he had said them all. But Tonya and I COULD tell!!

I asked Jacque how she learned her ZYX's and she said that she was at school one day and just wanted to learn them! Talk about a proud mama!! So do you know your ZYX's? How fast are you? Just out of curiosity, I timed myself doing the ZYX's and the ABC's and it was 3 seconds both times.

Random pictures

Jacque and Calista made this nice bed for Sarah, and she was thrilled. Of course, it was only a play bed and not night-night. The smile might not have been so big had it been bed time.
As Samuel and I were out chopping wood one afternoon, Samuel said, "Mom we should take a picture of that." I agreed, so he ran in and grabbed the camera.

Samuel's new thing

Samuel discovered that I had some gel in the house, and that gel can make your hair spiky! I figure that if the girls can dress up in dresses, why can't he do something wild and crazy with his hair. I told him it's fine with me as long as it isn't for school or church. He had one of his little friends come over and helped him do his hair too!

I've given him a hair cut since these pictures and he hasn't tried it yet, so I'm not sure if it will still work. But at least he got to enjoy it for a little while, and his hair will grow fast.

Ellen the photographer

This is the result of Ellen's photo shoot with Sarah!

Calista is 6!

Our Calista is 6 years old!! Aaron tried to talk her into only turning 5 again, telling her that if she turned 6 this year, then next year she'd be 7. So she might as well just turn 5 again. But she didn't like that idea. For some reason it is fun to get older every year. Here are a few pictures of her morning:
Calista wanted a toy kitten for her birthday. I really like this one. It is a FurReal pet. It has soft fur, but it is mechanical so as you rub the top of its back it can meow, purr, stretch and wiggle. It really is cute.

The other thing she wanted was another coloring book. She got a big book of coloring and puzzles last year and just finished all the pages. We found one with princesses and stickers!

And of course she also got the necessities!

She wanted a snowman cake:

More on Sarah

Aaron left today for his second trip to Vermont. He will be gone until Thursday night if all goes well weather wise. To start our week off right, we got pizza and rootbeer for dinner. This is not a very common event, especially the pop part. The kids were thrilled. I dished everyone up, gave them their pop, said the prayer and started eating. At one point Sarah got thirsty and reached for her cup. I don't know if she's ever had pop before, and watched her to see her reaction. He grabbed the cup, brought it up to her mouth, tilted it just a little, and then as the carbonation tickled her nose (before she could get a taste of it), her eyes got big, and she kind of shuddered as she put the cup back down! She didn't say a thing this whole time, and never reached for the cup again! I don't think she was very impressed with her rootbeer.