Lauren's Favorites

What is it about kids and Elmo. I think Lauren watched Elmo once when she was home sick and I was trying to get some work done and now everytime we step foot in the house from being gone, or enter her room to get her out of bed, she is asking for Elmo. And she keeps asking until we can distract her with something else or she gets to watch Elmo.

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Lauren is a good helper. She likes to help whenever she can. More then once, I have caught her singing the clean-up song to herself while picking something up (even without being asked). If she sees someone drop something on the floor, she is likely to point it out and demand that it be picked up. Anyway, so her morning routine goes something like this: Wake up, get out of bed, change diaper, get dressed, brush teeth and hair while looking at book, go downstairs to get ready to leave. As we head downstairs I turn all the lights off. However, this is no longer my job. She insists on doing it. She even reminds me that she wants to do it before I have a chance to get to light switch. Anyway, so she turns off my bathroom light, my bedroom light, the boys bathroom light, the hallway light, and then opens the garage for me every morning. She also likes to close the garage whenever we get home. I love that she is such a good little helper.

Wipes

Lauren loves wipes and her dolls. When the wipes get left within her reach, she takes it upon herself to try and empty the package. The other day when we were getting ready to leave for Portland she got her hands on a package of wipes and started to fill her new shopping cart. Then she had to clean her baby and cover her up. By the time we found her, she only had a few wipes left in the shopping cart, her baby was covered in at least 1 inch of wipes and she and was ready to get more.

Lauren Loads the Dishwasher

Lauren has become very helpful. She loves to sing the cleanup song whenever it is time to cleanup and whenever she notices I am doing dishes, (whether it is emptying the dishwasher or filling it up), she comes to help. She loves doing the silverware, but tries to help in every way she can. She even climbs up on the dishwasher door to reach the top shelf. After helping me one day, this is how the dishwasher looked. She has her own way of loading it and it must be done her way. If I want to load the dishwasher quickly, it can no longer be done when she is near since nothing stays where I initially put it and if I try to put it back, she gets upset.

Visit with Great Grandma

Great Grandma peeled mandarin oranges for the kids until she ran out. They were definitely eating them faster then she could peel them.

Jordan showing grandma how a simple switch circuit can be used to make a motor spin. When a propellor is on the motor and the switch is opened, it spins. Then when the switch is closed and the motor stops, then the propeller spins off the motor into the air.

Family Pictures

We finally had our family pictures done today. Thank you Pam for taking them for us. The kids were cold and cranky. It was about 45 degrees outside and even sprinkled on us a little. (At least it didn't rain.) Lauren didn't want the camera anywhere near her and everytime we asked her to smile she would say "No" and turn her head away. She also did not want to be put down so pictures of her with only her brothers was nearly impossible. Colin's hands got so cold and red that he had a hard time even moving them. Overall, the cold didn't bother Jordan and I think he just mostly had fun except when we told him to stop making faces at the camera. With all that, I think we still got some great photos.

Here is a sampling of the best photos we got (before editing).

You're too Young for Boys

This morning, Lauren was laying in bed with me and so I started to have a conversation with her. It went something like this...

Mom: Did you sleep good last night?
Lauren: Yes
Mom: Did you have good dreams?
Lauren: Yes
Mom: What did you dream about?
Lauren: Boys
Mom: Did you dream about boys (since I wasn't really sure that is what she said)?
Lauren: Yes

I sure do hope the boys she was dreaming about were her brothers because she is too young to dream about any other boys. ;-)

My New Camera

Just before Halloween, my camera disappeared. I have looked all over for the past couple of weeks to find it and it is nowhere to be found. I don't think I had realized how much I had come to like my camera because I have truly missed it the past 2 1/2 weeks. I finally told Tim I needed to buy a new camera today, so he said, "Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy your early Christmas present." Of course once I got home with my new camera, I had to try it out. The camera is a Canon Powershot SD980 IS 12MP digital camera with 5x ultra wide angle optical image stabilized zoom and 3 inch LCD touch screen. So far I am happy with this little camera and it is easy to operate. (My past two cameras have also been Canon Powershots so that might help a little.) Here are a few of the pictures I took with it while learning what it could do this afternoon.

No, that is not facial hair around his mouth. I think it was leftovers from breakfast or lunch.