Birthdays and update

I can't believe my kid the guy is 5! Liam is a silly kid. He likes to tell jokes and play silly games. One of his favorite things is eating. He LOVES grilled cheese sandwiches and would eat them for every meal if we let him. In fact, I over heard him telling Jane this gem the other day:
"When I was a baby, I loved cheese sandwiches and boobs."
He says hilarious stuff all the time. If I'm listening, I get lots of good laughs during the day. Liam does not like having his hair washed or taking naps. But, he LOVES taking baths and sometimes will stay in for about an hour by himself.
I think Liam had a pretty good birthday. He spends most of his days playing trains with his friend Thomas, so we fixed all of the GeoTrax (they had once been taken swimming), put batteries in everything and got some new additions to the GeoTrax airport for him. He spent all morning in the basement setting things up and trying them out.
He then got to take his friend Thomas miniature golfing and eat lunch at "The Pirate restaurant." He rounded the day off going shopping for presents from his grandmas. What a fun day!!

Natalie is still a monster but now she's 2 and we can blame it on her age! She likes to follow her older siblings around and mimic what they are doing. She sings lots of primary songs and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES nursery. She is potty training herself. (I earned it.) She loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which she calls "Bouse") and Little Eisteins. She shouts "MOMMY!" and hands me the remote, says "Bouse," and gets what she wants. She's a good little sleeper and cuddler when she wants to be. Her favorite thing to do is get into new stuff and make a mess with it. She still loves makeup and lotion. In fact, the other day she painted the carpet on the stairs with lotion. Nice. She picks her own clothes out in the morning. I love to listen to her sweet voice singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and watching her grin spread across her face when she's done something that she's proud of. (I love this picture, they're all watching the cake.)

Other happenings:
"Lige" is crawling all over and putting anything he can get his little grabby hands on into his mouth. He likes to wrestle and is keeping me up all night long most nights. We're tired but he's so sweet during the day, I forget to be mad at him. He is at the age where he gets bonks on his head as he tries to stand on his own, crawl under things that are too low, and walk along furniture.
The older kids love their school. I like that they walk home. My mom has been driving them to school in the morning so I went from 5 carpools/day last year to pretty much no carpools this year. Ben's teacher came to visit us last week and Ben proudly played her some songs on the piano and violin and then showed her the garden where she took his picture. I think it was one of the highlights of his life. Billy Bob and Janey are busy setting up their social agendas and learning how to do math and spelling. I'm going to miss their little notes spelled with the "sound spelling" technique. The other day, I found they had written notes to each other in sidewalk chalk: "Janey, you have chok on your fase." "I love Lizzy" (backward z's.) They are silly.

As a family, we have been memorizing "The Living Christ". I've been surprised at how quickly the kids, even Liam, are doing it. I seem to be the one slowing us up in that department. I have loved watching their testimonies and love for the Savior grow as we've talked about the meaning of what each line means. When they argue in the car, it has become my habit to start quoting and by the time I get to the last line, they are saying it along with me and the argument has ended. (Usually. ;)

Our condo has had some "maybe" offers. Meaning that people want it, but they're going REALLY SLOW or not sure if they can get financed. Hopefully, by the end of October it will be gone. Pray pray pray pray pray....infinity.