Speaking of Normal....

My computer is seriously having issues. Time to either have someone fix it or find/purchase a great program to find and fix all the yucky stuff slowing our computer down and not allowing me to upload pictures or video AT ALL anymore. Boo!

In awesome news, did I mention our car's transmission went kablooey? And after much deliberation, we decided to fix it and keep it around for at least another year and then sell it. In the meantime, it's time to make the fateful decision: minivan or SUV.  Our lives for the next 5 years could be affected by this one decision. *ominous music*
     Also, my niece and her husband have earned sainthood for 1) following me slowly in their car when they noticed my car acting wonky  2) helping me push my car full of 1 crying baby, 1 loud toddler, and a 5 year old while listening to me sing "Pioneer Children sang as they walked and walked and walked" 3) Picking me up the next morning to drive me to the car so it could be towed to a mechanic AND watching my children for me while I did that (They're magic, what can I say?).
Seriously, they are complete angels in my book!

 Our little MirrenPantsMagoo turns 1 in 4 days. I'm going to be in denial until then. She seriously may surprise us all by walking by then. In the meantime, her army crawl has become so fast that she's more like a snake. She has a fast side lean/swing/side lean combo that gets her places pretty quick! She does it at bathtime and she's like a fish because she gets through the water so fast. LOL She is also finally calling me "mama" as a name and not a sound. She's had "dada" down for a while.

Bronwyn continues to make us all smile with her "you remember what happened laaaaaast time".... My new favorite pasttime is taking naps with her, in my bed of course. She always obliges me by telling me a story before sleep, and she is always HAPPY to take a nap with me! Score!! We've definitely started a new tradition with her and I on Sundays.

Aftyn had her primary program today. She whispered to the primary president, who was helping all the little kids with their parts, that she knew her part and so the president sat down and Aftyn stood at the podium by herself and said her part perfectly! Woot! Go Aftyn! I was so proud of her and I knew she was proud of herself. Aftyn has been in preschool a little over a month now and this last week her homework had her practicing reading sentences! Wow!! To go from hesitant to sounding out words to reading sentences by sight, this girl has made some huge progress! I am so grateful for her teacher and for Aftyn's eagerness to try new things and learn. She has seemed to be a whole lot more confident and happy with herself over the past month as well.

Normal

Over the last almost 3 years, my life has been at best topsy turvy. 

It felt like there was always something changing, something to lament. 

But tonight, for the first time in a really long time I'd say I'm pretty good. 

That things are settling and that everything in my life feels normal. 

And you know what, I will take normal.

Sure there are things not going the way I'd like.

My life is far from perfect.

But I've finally figured out that life is that way.

I've learned to deal with it that way.

It's how it's supposed to be.

If something weren't going the opposite direction of what I'd hoped,

I'd think there were something wrong!

So here's to my normal, imperfect, and lovely life.

Halloween Pumpkins!

Mirren Video

You should definitely CLICK HERE.

Updates on the girls

Bronwyn has been going through a particularly rough patch lately but I think we're getting through it. She wants to be treated like a 2 year old with no accountability but the reality is she's nearly 3 and a half. She's starting to wrap her brain around it.

Bronwyn is certainly keeping busy lately. Sadly, it's not always a good kind of busy. She has been spending a lot of time enjoying consequences but seems to be figuring out how not to have them. She loves earning marbles and helping Mom and Dad and her sisters. She and Aftyn love to play together most of the time with fairly minimal hitting. Her latest thing is "movies". She loves to go in the backyard and basically act out a play that she comes up with right on the spot. Her imagination is incredible.

Here is a recent MagnaDoodle drawing of hers. She's currently grounded from crayons. So her drawings look like this.

 She loves to play with Mirren and Mirren loves to pull her hair. Bronwyn gets the biggest laughs and easiest smiles from Mirren. 

    We were so blessed to find Aftyn a preschool that is small and taught by a lady who used to live in our ward and has a son Aftyn's age who is in the preschool. She is doing really well and goes 3 days a week and is FINALLY learning how to sound out words and other fun things. She is still really focused on animals and learning about them. This kid wouldn't surprise me if she grew up to be a zoologist. She has recently become aware of how to charm Mirren into smiling and she loves it! It totally surprises me because Aftyn has seemed to be pretty hands off so far with babies but she loves to get Mirren smiling. She also loves to feel like she's helping to keep Mirren safe and away from harm. She is a big help around our house most of the time. 

She's always on the floor like this.

Mid army crawl

Mirren is 11 months old. 11 months old!!! I can't believe it. It makes me sad and yet we just love this girl. She was a missing part of our puzzle. She helps unify our family more and generally brings us all together for love of her. She has the sweetest and most winning smiles. She gives the best hugs, to me only Reed says. She has started to pull up to things in earnest but on the whole is taking a very relaxed route to walking. She can manage to get up on her knees to get on her bum after crawling, but she never crawls on her hands and knees. She only ever army crawls. She's pretty fast at it!  She is showing interest in standing and we try to encourage that from her but most of the time we just follow her lead. She's hitting all of her milestones so we're not worried.
  She loves food. She makes happy sounds while she chews. She loves oatmeal, fruit, bananas, applesauce, scrambled eggs and pancakes, graham crackers, cheerios, cheese, yogurt, etc. The list could go on and on. She loves to eat and cries whenever I try to eat something in front of her. Evidently she feels that she should be eating if I am eating. She has gained nearly 2 pounds according to our scale since starting food. Her thighs have gotten so chunky! She has also grown a lot too. She is still toothless! That is some kind of record. We've never had a baby wait until 11 months to get teeth. Here in a couple of days she will be 11.5 months. Crazy. I don't mind but I just want to feel like her random crankiness has some kind of purpose.
   She sleeps through the night well, most of the time unless she's teething or cold, and her hair is definitely growing. She sort of looks like a clown with her hair being so curly and all hitting right around her ears. Oh well. It's that awkward stage of growing hair and she's just hitting it a little later than our first two. She has enough hair on top to easily get two little pigtails on top and she looks so adorable when I do it.

                                              

My Kitchen girls

My girls got this awesome kitchen set last Christmas. It was a hand me down from their aunt whose own kids are much too big for it now.  Mirren is getting to that fun age where she wants to do everything her big sisters do. Hence, this photo.

This was the first time Mirren had ever stood up and held on to furniture. She was excited and nervous about falling. She was so funny and cute.

And determined to be just like Bronwyn

Then I noticed that the kitchen set had a little seat for babies to sit in and be fed. Mirren decided she wanted to try it out.

She loved it! What's better than your sister feeding you invisible food with a play fork?!?

Look at how happy she was!! Ha ha ha!!! Her smile tells you just how much she loved being included and even being fed nothing. LOL

  The best part is Mirren still loves to go in the girls room and play with the kitchen. She makes a beeline for the girls room anytime I put her on the floor upstairs and you can find her happily playing in there whether her sisters are in there or not. There's always something interesting to play with in there!

Bronwyn created a mural in our house

Here is what happens when your child finds JUST THE BROKEN OFF TIP of a big fat crayon. Her coloring was literally on almost every wall of our stairwell.

No complaining whatsoever. 4 hours later she had managed to scrub most of it and I think I worked the desire to make murals on our walls out of her. She was a good worker.

 So the majority of the morning, with no breakfast until her work was done, she scrubbed her way down the crayoned walls. Evidently she had lunch and then the pictures below happened.
Your guess about why is as good as mine because my memory fails me. But the pictures are amusing!

                                         Clearly the work brought out the sparkle in her eyes. :)