And the winner is . . .

AUSTIN!

Today Austin's class had a Spelling Bee.

We've known it was coming for a couple of weeks and Austin was very excited about it. He loves reading and spelling, so it was right up his alley. There are lots of bright kids in his class and I knew there were plenty of them who were up to the challenge. Yesterday they had a trial run and Austin was the runner up. He said he got really nervous and missed a word that he knew. He got over his jitters today and was able to spell his way to the end. They went into their tie breaker list and

I-N-T-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-O-N

was the winning word.

It was fun to get his phone call in the middle of the day announcing the good news that he had won. Hooray!

Good job Austin!

As I was tucking him in to bed tonight, Austin told me that he wants to be a world class spelling bee champion so that he can win trillions of dollars. That would be great.

I hope he'll share his winnings.

So sweeet!

This morning John and I were laying in bed, 1/2 awake, waiting for the snooze on our alarm clock to go off again when we heard Brooke coughing. She has been getting over a bit of a cough this week and was having a coughing spell in her bed. We could hear her from our room down stairs and John had just commented to me that he felt bad for her.

Then we heard something else that immediately brought smiles to our faces. We heard Cameron, on the baby monitor. From his room down the hall from hers, he heard his sister coughing too and it must have woken him up.

He didn't cry though.

He just said, in his barely mature enough to pronounce words, sweet little concerned voice . . .

"sissy ?. . . sissy?" pause . . . "o-tay ??" (in an obvious question form.)

Then more of the same . . .

"sissy? awww, sissy. o-tay?" . . . "oh sissy, otay baby?"

Then he repeated his concerns for her until Daddy went upstairs to get him. Of course he wanted to go straight in to see his sissy for a snuggle. :-)

It was soooooo very sweet to hear him that John and I both woke right up and asked each other if we had heard it correctly. I guess if our toddler who can barely even put words together is showing such sweet compassion for his sister, we're doing something right around here. It was a happy parenting moment. I'm so glad they love each other!

really???

So . . . we walked in the other night from our very long road trip and the kids were happy to get out, relax and be home.

The house was picked up, since we hadn't been home to mess it up, of course. Brooke sat down on the living room floor and sighed happily. Then she said,

"Finally, for the first time ever in our life, the house is so clean!"

"What? For the first time ever??" I questioned her. (shocked, of course!! It was not the first time EVER! We've cleaned it for visitors lots of times before! )

"Well, yeah, our house is always so messy." she replied.

Umm, I guess according to my 6 year old, I've been slacking in that department. Awesome.

Welcome home, now I guess I'd better get to work!

cooking skills

I had an interesting converstaion with my kids on Sunday. It was late afternoon and everyone had come home from church hungry, of course. They had a little snack and went off to change clothes and entertain themselves in various ways while I figured out dinner.

Cooking is not my strength. I am not real creative with meals and don't have a lot of interest in spending much time in the kitchen. I quickly got some chicken breasts into the oven and prepared some frozen broccoli and minute rice. I threw some bagged salad into the mix and ta-da, dinner. It was about as basic as it gets.

My poor hungry kids sure seemed to think otherwise. The smell of food drew them into kitchen where they excitedly looked into the various pots and pans. I was setting the table when one of them asked,

"Who are we taking dinner to?"

I answered that we weren't taking dinner to anyone, that it was for us to eat.

"Aren't you hungry?" I asked them.

They both responded that indeed they were hungry, but that usually when I make things "like that" it was for someone else. :-0 What?? As opposed to the frozen pizza or macaroni & cheese I usually make for them. So true, and so sad.

The whole family scarfed down the healthiest meal they've had all month. They were so easily impressed, and complimentary that I actually cooked dinner again on Monday. Well, ok, we had the missionaries from church over, so I kind of had to. Thus, proving their point, that I only cook decent food when it's for someone else. Today it's leftovers, we made extra on purpose. I can't cook 3 days in a row! I have laundry to do.

Speaking of food and cute things kids say...

Our favorite cute baby words that Cameron is using this week are:

"cookoo" - meaning cookie, or cracker. It's very cute and he'd like to have them all the time, so he uses it a lot.

"nanna" - meaning banana, of course, also very cute. He says this a lot too, because they are sitting out on the counter and he usually points and talks about them when he's in the kitchen.

Cameron and I have the greatest conversations these days and he's great company. I sure love, love, love my kiddos.

Happy Singing Baby

Cameron loves to sing. He sings a few recognizable songs, but his favorite is "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." He sings, ok, hums, it randomly throughout the day every day. He sings it in the car, at the table, walking around the house. I grabbed a phone and recorded him in the car today. It's not the best quality, but I sure LOVE to listen to my baby sing to me!

Kids say the cutest things

Undoubtedly, anyone who is a parent has enjoyed an adorable, off the wall or hilarious comment from their kids a time or two. Simple, special interactions with our kids are countless. Sometimes we enjoy them for a moment and then they pass so quickly, but they never fail to bring cheer to our faces and souls. Today my kids said a couple of things that made me instantly smile.

The first one came from Brooke, with her Shirley Temple curls bouncing all over her head. (we did foam rollers last night!) We were at a local park having a picnic this evening and all of the kids were having great time, thrilled to be together as a family. The weather was beautiful and we were all enjoying each others company. It was a simple, yet memorable evening, to be sure. Anyway, Brooke was in a particularly cute mood all afternoon. I think it had something to do with the happy curls, they seemed to make her feel bubbly all over. Anyway, she kept commenting on things that were nice as we played and walked around. She had nothing but good things to say, adorned with her giggles. As the sun was setting and we were walking up a hill back toward our car, we had to climb over a few big rocks. Some of them were bumpy and rough, but there was one at the top that was flat like a ledge, smooth and lined with other rocks around the edges. When Brooke got to that one, she stood up tall, looked out toward the horizon and sighed. With a smile she said, "This one is soo pretty, like a balcony. All it needs is a nice pot of pink flowers and it would be perfect, just like home."
She was so happy to have found perfection in a rock, with the addition of pink flowers, of course. :-) What thing is not made more wonderful by pink flowers???
It was a simple comment, but it was so Brookie. It made me want to scoop her up and keep her little forever. Do they have to grow up?

Later on in the evening, I was putting Austin to bed. He was getting ready to say his prayers and we were discussing a friend that he was including in his prayer. The friend is going to have surgery, to have something removed from inside her body. Austin was wondering what it was and why. In an attempt to simplify, I explained that sometimes things grow inside our body that we don't need and so the doctor takes them out if they hurt. Austin nodded his head in understanding and maturely said,
"Oh, right, like if you swallow a seed of like a fruit or something and then it starts to grow in there, and it bothers you." :-)

Although he was confident with his answer, he was very relieved to hear me say that it was not the case. He smiled a large smile and said, "oh good."
It really caught me off guard to hear that from him. I enjoyed the young childhood innocence that seems to be drifting away from Austin as he grows and matures. Can't we keep them young and innocent forever? They sure are wonderful that way.