Little Stevie Wonder

Sadly, Alvin's Aunt Louise is moving away from us this week. But, there is one positive thing that came out of this horrible tragedy. She gave us her piano! Alvin and I are so excited to be able to play and refresh our dwindling talents. I can't wait to start giving Miriam lessons (maybe in the fall). And Henry, of course, loves it too. I've heard him play the piano before, but today he was singing, too, so I couldn't help but take a video. My favorite part is how he turns the pages for about 30 seconds, as if searching for just the right song, and what does he finally decide to play??? The "Preface", a page full of words!

If you only have 1 second to watch, fast forward to the very end. This boy knows a camera when he sees one!

Super Slide = Super Fun

A mother in our new ward invited us to go with them to a park with a "really big slide". Grateful for the opportunity to make new friends, we tagged along and had a fabulous time. Grown-ups and kids alike loved the super slide. There were also swings and a fun merry-go-round. So, if you come to visit, we now know one place to show you a good time.

In this video, Miriam is on the right. The other two kids are part of the family that invited us.

Bad Parenting Example 156

Because we've been working late at the new house (we were there till 2 AM last night), we've been putting our kids to bed there, and then waking them up, driving them home, and putting them back to sleep in their normal beds. Henry's temporary accommadation is a Pack-n-Play. Henry, who will turn 2 in July, found out very quickly that this new bed couldn't contain him, and he was out knocking on the door soon after we tucked him in.

Unfortunately, his success in escaping the Pack-n-Play made him realize that he could also escape from his crib. Given his size, we were surprised when he got out of his crib for the first time, so instead of telling him not to do it again, we put him back in the crib and we encouraged him to demonstrate his sneaky skills. And as long as we were having a talent show, we thought we might as well video tape it. Well, one of the problems with video taping is that it slows down your reaction time.

Are you sensing a theme in our video posts?

Wipe Out

At the end of March, we were able to go on a Royal Caribbean cruise to celebrate our 5th anniversary (sans kids)! We had a marvelous time. This video will give you a glimpse of one of the many fun things we were able to do onboard our ship. It's called the Waverider, and as you can tell from the video, we've never done anything like this before. It was a lot of fun, even though our turns were pretty short-lived. (note: falling doesn't hurt a bit)

Happy Birthday, Reta!

If you're not Reta, you can skip this post. Or, if you love seeing our kids sing and dance and you have a birthday sometime in the next year, just substitute your own name in the appropriate places and enjoy the video!

From the Mouth of Babes

Miriam taught her very first Family Home Evening lesson this week. She chose to teach about the life of Christ. We are very proud of all that she knows and understands at a young age. Listen closely for one of our favorite lines when Miriam calls Henry a "silly goose", rather than getting upset with him for messing with her pictures. (note: parts of her lesson have been cut in order to make this video shorter)

The real treat of this video comes at the end when Henry decided he had a few things to teach us about The Fall.

Winter Wonderland

Sunday morning, Miriam and Henry pulled our cookie sheets out of the cupboard and pretended to go sledding around our kitchen. (sorry for the grainy picture and video, but you get the idea)

Little did they know that it would actually snow 7 inches Sunday night and we'd be able to go sledding for real on Monday. Miriam was thrilled!