Welcome Fall 2015

We had our Primary Program in Sacrament Meeting a couple of weeks ago.  The highlight for Abe and I was hearing Faith sing a solo of a very sweet song called, "I Believe in Jesus".  We recorded her that morning before church.  She was so brave and sang in her beautiful, childlike voice.  I will treasure this video.

Here's a picture of the three Littles the morning of.  They said their parts beautifully and we enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa Cannon at church with us and then over for dinner afterwards.  It was a good, good day.
Little George sat up on the stand with his arms folded the whole time.  He looked a little uncomfortable, but he wouldn't unfold his arms.  I asked Abe if he had told George to fold his arms and he proudly said he had.  I reminded Abe that we have to be careful in what we tell George to do.  He's a little like Ella Enchanted, in that he is extremely obedient.  He probably didn't need to fold his arms the whole time.

We treated ourselves to pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream.  That is the way to kick off fall!

Now, Cannon on the other hand, was told in no uncertain terms, that he had better not be too silly up on the stand.  No making faces at Clark or other friends of the older kids out in the congregation.  Cannon does so love to perform.  Here are a couple videos of him lately.
This first one is his audition piece for the part of Michael Banks for the local high school's production of Mary Poppins.  He didn't get the part, partly because he was younger than what they were looking for, but we had a grand time preparing, and auditioning is always a good experience.  I particularly enjoy his British accent.


This next one I can't really say I'm proud of, but he does keep us laughing and I enjoy him immensely.  I am proud that he is accompanying himself on the piano.

Elinor and I enjoyed a fun date the other night to a book launch party for the fifth Michael Vey book. She is quite the fan, along with a couple thousand other of the most wonderful, geeky, smarty-pants boys and girls around these parts.  She stayed up late and finished the book by the next morning.

She was a little embarrassed that I insisted on this picture, but that was the price of my company:)

Fun girl.  Unfortunately, she has been doing an awful lot of fun reading lately.  She thinks I'm crazy and that I'm the only mom in the world who would limit how much time she can read.  I've told her that for a little while she needs to lay off the "fun reading" and increase her substantive reading.  Too much reading about magic powers and the world misunderstanding you, can affect your levels of life satisfaction.

We recently had a lovely evening with friends, entertaining each other with "traumatic pet stories".  Everyone had some sort of story to share. I told the story of the death of my brother's school pet, Stinky the rat.  Jeff told about Jo Jo the guinea pig's unfortunate demise.  Clark told of losing Tito the tortoise at the park when he was 4.  Abe told about the mysterious disappearance of The Black Cat.  Did she just wander off or was she translated?  It was pretty funny.

Clark created an interesting exhibit in his room.  It's an open terrarium built on his window.  I appreciated the note on the whiteboard.  Do you see the Green Anole near the top of the foliage?

This was a few weeks back, but the little kids loved going on a bike ride with Abe.  Now that George is so good on his bike, it was time for the traditional ride to Peterson's, the local grocery store.

I think I would like to be one of these little people.  They have a pretty good time together.

It makes me so very happy to see them making up their own games, their own rules.  The older kids were a little more volatile, but they too had a world all their own, that I could observe, but I wasn't in charge of.

One of our favorite things about Peter is his teeth.  You can't see it so much in this picture, but he has a big space between his two front teeth that we just love!

Cannon and his buddies having a dance party at a friend late night a couple weeks back.  I love how uninhibited they are.

I hope they can still cut loose at Stake dances in seven years!