this morning

This morning while I was helping Weston get ready for school, Sophie saw her moment and jumped into his bed to cuddle with his "Ray puppet." The Ray puppet is a highly coveted item, but it is actually not a puppet at all. It is one of those stuffed characters you can get with the claw machine at grocery stores. Ray Stance is Weston's favorite ghostbuster, which makes the "Ray puppet" extra special! So, like I mentioned, Sophie saw her opportunity and pounced. She was rather content snuggled up with Ray and her sock monkey...until Weston came along!

Fortunately, Weston is a sweet boy (most days), so he took the opportunity to snuggle with both the Ray puppet and Sophie.

As a side note, those ghostbuster toys that are available only through claw machines are so popular with Weston that he is currently working on memorizing the 10 commandments so that he can earn a Slimer "puppet!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

While Weston was at school, I was completely focused on reading something. Suddenly I realized that Sophie was singing the alphabet song by herself! The tune wasn't all there, but she said every single letter perfectly. I am so impressed with her! She's not even two and a half yet. Here is her glorious singing debut:

That's my girl! (In case you're wondering, I do usually do something with her hair... it's not usually quite this crazy!)

Cooking and Modeling

Weston was extremely excited to get to help cook dinner last night...he wanted his own apron (because I was wearing one), so he borrowed Sophie's. Maybe if his interest in cooking persists we'll have to get him something that looks a little more manly, but for the time being I really don't think he cares too much!
Oh, and please disregard the pile of dirty dishes in the background...
Sophie's hair is finally long enough to put up...kind of!!

I think she quite enjoys modeling her new look, don't you?

Today at church

Weston was giving a talk in primary today (his second one ever), so grandma and great-grandma came to hear him! They got to our church building a few minutes early, so when I went into the hall to take Sophie pottie near the end of sacrament meeting, there they were waiting on the couch in the foyer! Mom snapped this precious little picture of Sophie with great-grandma Van Buren (who we have been so blessed to spend time with these past 3 months)! I love these blue-eyed beauties!Here is Weston, anticipating his talk with great excitement... or possibly trepidation. I'm not really sure. But he did a pretty great job! He talked about how agency is a gift that we need to use wisely. I was proud of my little man.

the last day of 2011

I quite accidentally happened upon these pictures this evening and thought they were worth posting! They were taken on New Year's Eve. Shae-Leigh was of course with me while Jason was working in Arizona, and we decided to go to the park. We went about half an hour before dusk, which gave us just enough time to kick around the soccer ball for awhile and play until it was too dark to see. It was an especially fun evening, probably because there was that exciting "holiday" feeling in the air, or perhaps because we were on the precipice of a new year... or because we knew we were going to be drinking sparkling juice later that evening (you just never know what scandalous things we might do next)!
The sky looked amazing, but I had a difficult time capturing it with Shae-Leigh's phone camera, which is all I had to work with that evening.

Looking at these pictures and remembering how much fun we had makes me want to go back to the park! I'm pretty sure my kids could use more park in their life!

a lesson from my son

Since becoming a mom, I think my dad has mentioned the following observation, oh, I don't know, at least several hundred times: "Everything about our relationship with our children is designed to teach us about our own relationship with God."

As many of you already know, Weston has an extraordinary love for Ghostbusters. He was a Ghostbuster for Halloween (along with Jason). But that was really only the beginning. Weston is a ghostbuster pretty much wherever he goes! When his proton pack needs repair (or when his flight suit has been temporarily confiscated as a result of misbehavior), he does turn into his alter-ego, Spiderman, for awhile. But to Weston, nothing is as great as busting ghosts!

For the past week or two Weston has been on a real Spiderman kick, so I haven't given much thought to Ghostbusters lately (a welcome break, I assure you)! When Weston asked where his flight suit was a couple of days ago, I was confident it was hanging up in a closet, or maybe stuffed in the bottom of a hamper. It didn't seem to be in any of the usual places so yesterday we decided to make a point of finding it. First Jason looked. Then I looked. Then we all looked... for over an hour we searched in every nook and cranny of our house, to no avail. We thought maybe it had accidently ended up in one of the bags of old clothes that recently got dropped off at the DI. Every few minutes during the intense search, Weston would go to his room, drop to his knees, and say another prayer that we would find his ghostbuster uniform.

Finally, I was getting kind of worried. I actually felt a little sick to my stomach at the thought of some kid paying $3 for a flight suit that meant the world to my son (I also didn't like the idea of some random kid sporting a costume with the name GLASS on it)! So, I said a prayer. After the prayer I looked up in the closet where Sophie's backpack was hanging. It looked a little full so I decided to open it up and...voilà! There is was!

Today while Sophie was napping I had a rare uninterrupted moment with Weston. I cuddled him on my lap (which is getting increasingly difficult to do), and told him how much I love him and am proud of him. We then had the following brief exchange:

Weston: "Mommy, why did you pray for me to find my flight suit?"

Me: "Because it was important to you, and I LOVE YOU!"

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the thought came to my mind: If it is important to me, it is important to God, because he loves me! I already know this in my brain, but it seemed to sink more deeply into my heart. I love my kids so intensely and so deeply. How is it possibly that God loves me just as much, and in fact, more? I don't know, but I am grateful that he does.

True glamour, Sophie style

When I saw Sophie slathering globs of lipgloss on her lips, I was a little bugged...is there any personal item of mine that she doesn't get into!?
But I had to laugh out loud when I saw her face! I love how she didn't wipe her mouth before applying all that goop!

Finally, a school visit!

Weston's preschool at Duncan has a bunch of rules that I wasn't used to, because they didn't exist in his preschool last year (at Tartan). At the beginning of the year I asked Mrs. Solem about possibly visiting or helping out in the class sometime, to which she responded that she would have to look into it because they are supposed to have some kind of special forms for that, yada, yada, yada. Apparently parents haven't even been let in the classroom to bring treats on their kid's birthday! At our parent/teacher conference before Christmas break I brought it up again, and this time (obviously exasperated by all the red tape) Mrs. Solem said that she has tried for months to get permission the proper way, and that she was just going to start allowing it. So, Sophie and I got to spend the entire two and a half hours of preschool with Weston's class today! It was so much fun, and both kids were rather excited this morning (as you can imagine)!
Sophie had a blast... and even though she is only 2, she fit right in with the other kids! She got to sit next to Weston during circle time, and he was so sweet to her. I would have loved to snap some shots there at school, but I guess that would have been a *little* distracting to the other students (understatement)! Here is a video of the two of them before we left in the morning:


As we were driving home I asked Weston the usual question, "how was school!?" He told me that it was good, but he just wishes that I could have stayed with him in his class today (he often says he wishes that I could be one of his teachers in his class). Then he burst out into laughter! Silly boy. I'm just glad he is still young enough to want his mom around! :)