Baby It's Cold Outside

A large section of the country is stuck in the grasp of a cold snap, and our little corner is no exception. I left the house today (really left the house, not just going out for a few minutes to check the mail) for the first time since Sunday. As bundled up as I was, it was still almost painful to be outside.

The kids enjoyed the first few days of break spent watching movies and playing games, but they started to get a little stir crazy today. Bryan suggested, in all seriousness, that we find some balaclavas for them and take them to the park to run off some energy.

Of course, that would mean one of us adults has to go too, and, as much as I'd like the kids to get fresh air and exercise, I don't think that sounds appealing at all.

Do It Right

I've been pondering the needs of our little family and possible goals for the coming year. I keep coming back to this scripture from Moroni 7:45, the last book of the Book of Mormon:

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

I think we need to display this prominently somewhere in our house.

The other quote that keeps coming to me is from Spencer W. Kimball:

Do it. Do it right. Do it right now.

I'm thinking these should be our new family scripture and family motto.

Expressionism

We had a little photo shoot today in an attempt to replace the out-dated picture of six-month-old Sophie on our wall with something more current. Bryan took many pictures and captured some classic Sophie expressions. Here are a few.

Christmas Pajamas

Our school district only gives us a week off for Christmas break, so we've been resting as much as we can the last few days. In fact, we all stayed in our pajamas yesterday and today. Last night at bedtime Sophie told me, with a bit of concern in her voice, that she hadn't gotten dressed all day. I told her that was fine on Christmas.

Then she looked at me and said, "It's okay, we just pretended our jammies were daytime clothes."

Yes we did, and we may just do the same tomorrow.

Fa La La La Llama

Merry Christmas from this authentic bunch of characters!

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

For many years Christmas Eve was a night without sleep. I'm not talking about the sleepless anticipation of a child, I mean the exhausted rush of a mom with too much to do at the last minute. The year that Sophie was born, that changed. Since she was due shortly before Christmas, I knew that I simply would not have the luxury of pulling an all nighter, at least not for wrapping gifts. And, with some planning, I pulled it off. It was lovely to be done with all of our Christmas morning preparations early.

I've worked to duplicate this each year since. I do not miss the frenzy of running out to the store on Christmas Eve or the zombie-like state I experience after staying up crazy late to wrap presents. I love seeing the presents wrapped and under the tree for several days. I love sitting peacefully in the evenings leading up to the big day without that stress.

I placed the last gift (for which I am responsible) under the tree today. The boys have two items to wrap tomorrow for the girls, then we're done. I've even divided the stocking contents into separate grocery sacks for easier distribution on Christmas Eve.

I love that now I can focus even more attention on much more important things. I can spend my time in contemplation about the birth of the Savior and the gift of His life and atonement. I can sit with my family and enjoy a Christmas movie, rather than put one on for them while I hide away wrapping gifts.

Now, if only I could achieve this level of calm preparedness in all aspects of my life...

Love Your Neighbor

Today our sweet next door neighbor brought us a Christmas gift of chocolates and a beautiful card. The best part? He and his family are Muslim and don't celebrate Christmas, but he knows that we do. He sets a wonderful example of kindness, I wish more people could be like him.

The Best Ever Christmas Wish

Sometimes Cooper writes poems and song lyrics. Here's a song he wrote about Christmas:

The Best Ever Christmas Wish

I've been thinking through the past five years

Thinking 'bout the Christmas holiday cheers.

The candles, the presents, and 10 foot pine trees

Feasting on dinner of turkey and peas.

Thinking of joy on cold winter nights.

It's a very big Christmas for me-

Chorus:

I think about the candy canes we give with love, 

and receiving is not what this is all about,

a good friend, it is the best ever Christmas wish.

Drawing and Photo by Sophie

The Third Strike, I'm Out

The cold now has me fully in its clutches. I stayed home from church yesterday and slept due to the germ assault on my sinuses. I think it's my sick state that led to a vivid and odd dream last night.

I dreamt that we were having a reunion for Bryan's family, when suddenly Lin-Manuel Miranda (the guy who wrote Hamilton and the music for Moana) showed up to hang out with us. He was happy to take pictures with everyone, but I couldn't get my camera to work. Then the reunion changed venues to a large mall and Bryan's sister told me that she and her family had decided yes, they would star in a reality TV show.

It was weird.

Semi Formal

This is what happens when two little girls discover their mom's old formal dresses.

Pritalee

Cooper decide to create his own handwriting font. He calls it Pritalee and wrote up a sample before bed a few nights ago. It looks fancy and fairly time-consuming.

The Second Strike

Well, round two of whatever this weird virus is hit on Saturday. I went to a fun morning of painting with friends, got home around lunch, and crashed on the couch. Bryan could tell I was down for the count and took care of pretty much everything for the rest of the day, which I greatly appreciated. He had been afflicted by the same thing a few days before, so I think he had extra helpings of pity for me.

After resting for a few hours I decided I had enough energy to look for something in the library. The walk from the great room to the library, which are within sight of each other, took all the strength I had. I was worried I would need to cancel singing in church the next day, that's how terrible I felt. I finally made myself go to bed and hoped for the best.

On Sunday I woke up feeling surprisingly good. I had energy and a voice and I carried on with the day as planned thinking the sickness had run its course. After church, as I was climbing into the van, I could almost feel the get up and go drain out of me. We made it to bedtime (after a super dinner of breakfast cereal) and, while Bryan stayed up to help Cooper finish a big project for school, I curled up in bed feeling lousy.

The biggest symptom appears to be exhaustion, though I now also have the sniffles, itchy ears, and a slightly sore throat. This is a strange bug. I'm hoping that my excessive napping (which Sophie loves because it means she gets screen time) drives the illness away. Or at least that I get another reprieve on Thursday so I can sing again...

Under the Umbrella

If At First You Don't Succeed

I had the opportunity to sing in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. It was a song I'd sung a few times before, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, arranged by Sally DeFord. My friend/accompanist and I met a few times to rehearse and I felt fine about it until Sunday morning. That's when a nervousness I couldn't quite explain crept into my thoughts.

The talk before I sang was a beautiful message about humility. While she was speaking, I had the thought, "Oh dear, I hope I'm not about to have a personal lesson in humility while I'm singing." I even prayed that I would let go of any pride that I might be feeling before I sang.

When it was my turn, I walked to the pulpit and began. The first three verses went well. I hit the key change on the fourth verse with strength and clarity, I remembered to slow down where the accompanist had requested because of a difficult key change. Then I hit the first note of the fifth and final verse.

And it was wrong.

I tried to recover, not quite sure what had gone wrong. I sang the next phrase and it was clear that I was not singing what the pianist was playing.

For the first time in nearly thirty years of solo singing in church settings, I stopped the song. Yes, I've made mistakes (like the time I forgot where I was and dropped a phrase from a song), but I'd never stopped mid-song before. I took a step back from the microphone, asked the pianist (who was laughing out of nervousness) to take it back to where the mistake had happened, then stepped back to the mic. We finished the song strong.

I walked back to the bench near the front of the chapel where my family was sitting. Bryan, sitting on the far end with all the children between us, mouthed the words, "Are you okay?" I shrugged. The next speaker, a member of the Bishopric, thanked me for the song, but the words felt empty. I spent the duration of the last talk making myself stay in the chapel because all I really wanted to do was crawl into a hole.

As we sang the closing hymn, the feeling of disappointment threatened to overwhelm my emotions. I wondered how I was going to make it through the next two hours of church.

As soon as the closing prayer was offered, a friend in the ward rushed over to me. She hugged me and whispered in my ear, "Thank you, thank you so much for messing up." I let out a surprised chuckle and she pulled back far enough so that I could see tears in her eyes. She quickly explained about her teenage daughter, a talented violinist who suffers from a great fear of failure during performances. It's almost to the point that she doesn't want to play anymore. My friend continued, "She saw that you messed up and it was okay and you were able to finish the song. You may not realize it, but that was for my daughter. Thank you."

I was surprised by this reaction, but touched. Over the next two hours I had several people, including a few talented musicians, comment on how much they enjoyed the song and that they were impressed I kept a smile on my face. I joked that I was glad I could provide an example of humility in action, that I was just trying to drive home the lesson of the talk. And then another mom said something similar to what my friend had said, she was so glad her girls had seen me stop and start again, that it would help them in their piano performing.

I apologized to the pianist and she hugged me and laughed and claimed all responsibility for the error. "I really have to work extra hard to pay attention to the music when you sing because I just want to listen." Her words were kind, but of course I couldn't let her take all the blame. Maybe we both hit the wrong notes at just the right time? I don't know, but I do know what counts is that we finished, despite stopping and going back a few lines.

I'm singing again on Thursday at a Relief Society activity. Let's hope whoever goes before me doesn't talk about humility this time...

Fire

I have spent lots of time the past two days checking evacuation reports and reading fire updates. One of the many fires burning in Southern California right now is in my hometown. My parents still live there and two of my siblings and their families are currently staying with them. The good news is that my parents house is outside the evacuation zone, on the other side of town from the fire. But they're only a few miles away from the boundary. Many of my childhood friends have been evacuated.

The physical distance between us and my family often doesn't seem like it's that great, thanks to technology. But on days like today, I feel very far away. Where I live now it is 29 degrees outside and we're expecting a few inches of snow tomorrow. Where more than half my family is they have powerful, hot winds pushing fire erratically around town. It almost feels like we're on two different worlds.

I will continue to check for updates and pray for their safety, as well as the safety of those fleeing and fighting the fires.

Ho Ho Ho

Bryan is on the ball about gifts. He likes to have his Christmas shopping completed months in advance. Once he has them, he usually tucks them away and doesn't wrap them until a few days before they need to be opened. But this year, he's already wrapped most of my gifts and they're waiting under the tree.

One morning last week the kids came downstairs to see presents under the tree. Now, we don't really do the Santa thing other than as a game, so I was surprised to hear Phoebe exclaim in excitement, "Santa was here! Guys! Santa was here!"

Sophie, with a look of pained patience and wise understanding, looked at Phoebe and said, "Phoebe, Daddy is Santa."

Not to be deterred, that day after school Phoebe showed us an email she had received from Santa after writing to him with the rest of her class. She read it to Sophie and said, "See, he even mentions Mrs. Claus. He's real."

I was in the driver's seat and Sophie was strapped into her car seat behind me, so I couldn't see her face. However, I recognized the same tone she had used that morning when she told her big sister, "Phoebe, Mommy is Mrs. Claus."

Sophie's name does mean wisdom, I just didn't expect her to be imparting it already.

Through New Eyes

After I took the pictures of the tree, Cooper asked if he could use my camera to take some of his own. I said sure. I was so surprised by the different perspectives he took! Not only did he choose to photograph the tree with the colored lights turned on, he went for totally different angles.

 

O Christmas Tree

Last week, the kids helped me set the Christmas tree up and fluff the branches. I put on the ribbon, then they did pretty much everything else. These particular ribbons are new this holiday season. They came from Costco Christmas clearance sales last year. I wasn't going for any particular theme when I chose them, I just thought the red and gold would be pretty together. When all the ornaments were on and the tree was lit, the red and gold seemed to tie everything together.

I always love looking at the Christmas tree, but I really love the way it looks this year.

The Candid Mom

Sophie likes to grab my phone and take pictures while I'm busy doing other things. Last night, after church but before dinner, she took this picture of me and Phoebe. I had no idea it was being taken. This photo illustrates a major part of my role as a mom.

We were all pitching in to get ready for dinner. Kids had (mostly) hung up their church clothes, done some light tidying, and were about to gather items for today's school lunch. Cooper had a headache and therefore a pass at helping, but Peter and Phoebe each had tasks. Peter was making the scrambled eggs for our breakfast-for-dinner while I prepared the oatmeal and the bacon. Phoebe was asked to thoroughly wipe off the table.

Now, you can only see the back of Phoebe's head in this picture. That means you can't tell how she felt about her job. Several phrases came out of her mouth such as, "This is impossible!" and "I can't do this!" and "I'm not perfect you know!" This is her regular approach to chores, so I wasn't overly phased. What I did do, and this drove her totally crazy, was ask her to keep coming back into the kitchen, after she believed she was done, until the job was completed to my satisfaction.

I understand that she's seven and hasn't mastered all the jobs we ask her to perform. I don't expect perfection, but I do expect effort. I also know that if we accept unfinished or sloppy work, then we're not teaching our kids how to do the best job they can. I wasn't unkind, but I was consistent. Granted, she thought I was being terrible for calling her back repeatedly. I walked around the table over and over with her to show her the spots that were still there. This picture shows me indicating something that wasn't all the way clean. She huffed and grumped and complained loudly, but she did the job. And each time a spot disappeared thanks to her effort, I pointed it out.

I wonder what she'll remember, the suffering of having to do chores? Or the satisfaction of getting the job done and doing it well?

Active Sleeper

A Study in Sleep Deprivation

For the last few weeks, we've had trouble getting Sophie to wind down to sleep. We suspected that it was because she was so tired that she couldn't settle. The more sleep deprived she is, the harder it is for her to sleep, that's been the way of it since she was tiny. But with early rising for school and sporadic quiet times due to holiday school schedules, we were unsure how to help her.

Last night was Pack Meeting. It always begins at 7pm, which is also the girls' bedtime. By the time we were home, it was after 9pm. Sophie was flying, almost literally. She was zooming around the house on a riding toy, totally oblivious to our calls to put on pajamas and brush teeth. After much wrastling and pleading and commanding, she finally knocked out, but it was late.

Today, well, it was rough. Peter didn't tantrum, but it was tricky business keeping him on-track with homework. The other three? There were several meltdowns that took place, some motivated by refusals to do homework, some because I asked for a chore to be performed, at least one because I watched a child swing (and miss) at another sibling and get called out for it. Sophie was hysterical throughout the day, including first-thing in the morning when I told her she couldn't go outside in freezing temperatures in her thin nightgown and bare feet to take the kids to the bus.

Bryan and I agreed that bedtime needed to come early.

We were reasonable, no one went to sleep before the sun went down. But the girls were both tucked into their beds by 6:45. There was fussing and complaining and a small but active fit took place because I'd asked Sophie to lie in her bed the regular way instead of "like a nest" as she wanted.

But guess what? The girls were solidly asleep by 7pm. It's the first time that's happened in ages. They were so tired from the late night cub scouting and the many nights of troubled sleep, they needed it.

Now we just have to wait and see if they wake up at 5am...

Disaster Avoidance

Tonight, during her very long personal prayers, Sophie included this gem:

"Please help that I'll be a mom. And that I'll have a husband. And that Christmas won't be a disaster."

Yes, those are all good things to ask for.

The First Strike

I think it must have started on Sunday night. We had our monthly family book club meeting that evening; it's when most of the women in my family gather at their computers and we talk about our chosen book, as well as anything else that needs discussing. When asked how we were, three of us reported that we were tired. But I'd had a very full Sunday (leading choir practice, teaching Sunbeams last minute, feeding the missionaries dinner), so I assumed that's why I was dragging.

I had a fair amount of energy yesterday (though I did take a mid-morning nap) until bedtime. That's when I crashed. Bryan got home towards the end of the bedtime routine. About that time of the night I'm usually wrapped in a blanket (pesky low blood pressure) to stay warm, but last night I was still shivering from the perceived cold inside our house. Bryan commented on how warm our room was, which sent up a red flag for me. Then the aching and coughing started. I finally realized I had a fever.

So I slept. First I drifted in and out of sleep while I tried to read. I finally gave up and called it a night. Then, after getting the kids to school this morning, I snuggled with Sophie on the couch and slept some more. I feel much better tonight, so maybe whatever germs hit me decided not to stay? Or maybe they're just lying dormant waiting for a really inopportune time to strike...

Christmas Trees Are Magical

A Day of Thanks With Family

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had a solid breakfast to fuel us up, watched the parade while we cooked and played, then had a late morning snack of fresh veggies, grapes, and cheese and crackers. I stayed home and made a few quick pies while Aunt Melinda, Uncle Jake, and Uncle Paul took Phoebe, Sophie, Sam, Nathan, and Emma to the park. Bryan, Peter, and Cooper joined them a short time later.

No, it wasn't windy, this is the static electricity Sophie gathered while going down the slide. 

Then we gathered back inside for our feast. We enjoyed turkey (courtesy of Bryan and Paul), mashed potatoes and rolls and cottage cheese strawberry Jell-o salad (prepared by Melinda), candied yams (a joint effort by me and Bryan), Martinelli's (provided by Paul), cranberry sauce, stuffing, and steamed mixed vegetables.

We set up folding tables in our entryway and playroom. The kids did an amazing job being tidy, I didn't find any food on the floor after the meal was over. Peter was pretty happy that his seat was at the adult table, not the kids'. Everything was scrumptious. Some of the kids ate just a few bites, then declared they were full and were ready for pie.

We insisted that they wait a few hours before eating dessert. After we ate, some people took naps and some watched Moana. Then we called everyone together for pie.

Cooper helped me make a whopping six pumpkin pies (not pictured here, but some are on the ledge in the above picture of the meal), Peter made his traditional apple pie (this year with a fun star topping), the grocery store provided a lemon meringue and a razzleberry, and we finished off the selection with a banana cream and a chocolate pie. I cut tiny slices and let the kids try as many as they wished.

It was such a lovely day. After the stress of Bryan's injury the night before, I think we were all glad to have such a calm, relaxing Thanksgiving.

Thumbs Up

On this Thanksgiving morning, I am thankful for hands that work. I am also thankful for family visiting for the holiday.

I am especially thankful for fingers. It's been a rough week at our house for hands. After my finger cut on Monday (which is healing but will definitely leave a gnarly mark), Bryan joined me in the land of the injured. Last night he was helping Peter make his traditional apple pie by slicing the apples. Bryan was demonstrating proper knife safety when his hand slipped. Instead of going through the apple, the knife went through the pad of his thumb and cut it clean off.

He no longer has a thumbprint on that hand.

I was upstairs doing bedtime with the girls when this happened. Bryan came into the room and said in an urgent voice that he needed to talk to me right away. I was shocked and prepared to drive him to an ER or urgent care. The only reason this was an option was that Bryan's brother Paul and their sister Melinda and her family are all visiting us for Thanksgiving. In other words, there were people at our house to stay with our children.

Paul offered to do the driving while I got the boys to sleep. Melinda (who found the severed thumb tip!) took over helping Peter with the pie. I was able to get kids to sleep and Bryan got the medical care he needed.

No, they didn't sew the tip back on. They couldn't even stitch up the wound. Bryan has some special bandages to dress it with and instructions to keep it dry. We're not sure if he'll have a divot in his thumb from now on or how it will heal.

Bryan told me that if he had been holding the knife differently, he might have sliced off his thumb completely. So losing the tip of his thumb sounds like a much better alternative to totally being without a thumb.

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving! And please, be careful with sharp objects.

Baking Party

We plan to do some baking today, how about you?

It Cuts Like Glass

A note of caution: be very careful when sliding your finger along the spout of your glass measuring cup. You may realize, with a shocking jolt of pain, that the glass is broken. This may lead to you canceling your plans for dinner, telling your kids they now get to serve themselves cereal for their evening meal, then sitting with finger wrapped tightly and held above your heart in a slow and frustrating attempt to stop the bleeding.

On the bright side, this may give your oldest child a chance to serve by fetching you bandages and alcohol swabs.

Yes, this is my actual blood. No, the 3/4 inch long diagonal cut along the inside/back of my pinky finger is not visible. The jagged glass can be seen in the background. Peter wrapped the broken edge in electrical tape (totally something Bryan would have done had he been home from work but something that never would have occurred to me), and threw it away.

This is going to leave a funky scar.

Teaching Our Friends

I got a text yesterday morning saying that the talk for Junior Primary had fallen through and asking if Sophie would like to give a talk instead. She happily accepted. I rephrased the assigned topic in the form of a question and asked her, "How can we tell our friends about Jesus?" The talk below holds most of the things she said. She also composed a song on the spot about Jesus being our brother and friend, but I wasn't quick enough to transcribe it. Hopefully she'll sing it again later for me, more slowly.

We Can Teach Our Friends About Jesus and His Church

Sophie’s Primary Talk 11/19/17

We can teach our friends about Jesus by sharing how much we love Him. We can teach that we lived with Jesus in Heaven before we came to earth. We can show them that Jesus loves them too by caring about them and being kind and being loving. We can teach our friends about Jesus and His church by being faithful to His commandments. We can teach our friends about Jesus by singing Primary songs while we play together, because the songs we sing here teach about Jesus. If we live by the words of this Primary song, we can teach our friends about what we believe in our church.

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I know who I am.

I know God’s plan.

I’ll follow him in faith.

I believe in the Savior, Jesus Christ.

I’ll honor his name.

I’ll do what is right;

I’ll follow his light.

His truth I will proclaim.

I know this is true. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Signature Move

What you see here is an original work by Miss Sophie that she created for Uncle Jordan and soon-to-be Aunt Leah. That's thoughtful and sweet, but it's not the reason I'm sharing this picture. The other important aspect? This is the first time Sophie has seriously tried to write her name.

She wrote the first three letters without much instruction. I said the letters and she worked from her memory of what each one should look like. I modeled h, then i (which took a few tries), and finally e. She was so pleased with herself. I was pretty pleased too.

Juvenile Engineering

On Saturday morning the kids woke up early and wanted to watch a movie. I said no and asked them to find something quiet to do instead. When I came downstairs I discovered what they had done in place of the screen time. Cooper was so pleased with his creation that he asked me to take a picture.

Service Minded

As I prepared lunch today, Sophie began demanding certain items for her meal. That's when the following conversation took place:

Me: You have to change the way you're talking to me. You're treating me like I'm a naughty servant.

Sophie: You're not a naughty servant. You're a good servant.

That's when we had a discussion about what the word servant means and when it should and should not be used.

Restoration

On Saturday we had a family adventure to visit the Priesthood Restoration site near the Pennsylvania/New York border. It was quite a chilly day, so we all bundled in several layers. A sweet pair of Sister missionaries gave us a tour of Issac Hale's home, followed by a tour of Joseph and Emma Smith's early home. 

This statue depicts John the Baptist restoring the Aaronic Priesthood.

And this one shows Peter, James, and John restoring the Melchizedek Priesthood.

The kids stayed warm by running every time we were outside.

It was so fun seeing inside the homes. We did have to repeatedly remind the kids to look with their eyes and not with their hands, but otherwise they were well behaved. And the kids did a great job in answering the gospel questions the missionaries asked them.

After seeing the historic homes, we took a walk through the woods where the Heavenly visitors appeared.

Then we retired to the Visitors Center to warm up and enjoy a short film about the translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the Priesthood.

This has been on my bucket list since it opened last year. I'm glad we finally made time to visit.

Pecan Problems

"I don't like pecans. They're bland. They taste like cardboard, but not in a good way."

-Peter, during a discussion about Thanksgiving dinner.

Phoebe 7.0

A few months ago Miss Phoebe turned 7. She asked that we use as much gold colored fanciness as possible, so I scoured nearby stores for gold wrapping and decor. Thankfully, gold is popular these days.

Phoebe's birthday fell on a weekday, so we didn't do much in the way of celebrating on her actual birthday. She chose to wear a shirt with gold on it and gobbled down her birthday breakfast of Pop-Tarts. She took a box full of gold-filled goody bags (gold colored items, we did not actually include any gold) to school to hand out to her classmates. And we enjoyed a birthday dinner of her choice and a gold papered, gold candled cupcake cake.

The real birthday fun came a few days later. We took the kids to a local drive-in theater, their first experience with such a venue. There were two screens, one showing two horror films, the other showing two family-friendly movies, so there was a diverse group milling about while we waited for the sun to set.

There was a playground setup between the two screens. It was chilly that evening and I was amused to see so many kids playing in their warm pajamas. My kids took advantage of the bounce house obstacle courses.

After we played, we sat in front of our van and ate our fancy dinner of sandwiches.

We met some minions that were hanging out near the playground.

Then we danced to get out wiggles. The first movie of the double feature started an hour after the girls' bedtime, so at this point in the evening they were getting more than a little antsy.

Because it was cold, we lowered the back bench of the van into the floor and the kids and I snuggled under blankets as we watched Despicable Me 3 and Cars 3. Bryan spent much of the night sitting on a cooler just outside the van, but he did climb in to get warm later in the night. The first movie was fun and the second movie was really good, arguably the best of the Cars movies. The only person that didn't stay awake till the end was the birthday girl herself. She slept through the last twenty minutes of Cars 3 and when we woke her up to drive home she was not happy about slumbering for the conclusion of her birthday celebration.

In all, it was a fun birthday for our girl. 

As is our tradition, here is her annual birthday interview. I added a new question this year, based on a conversation I had with Phoebe. I'll give a hint about what it is: Phoebe has some big goals for her life.

FAVORITE FOOD: Lemon Meringue Pie

FAVORITE ANIMALS: Tigers and deer and horses

FAVORITE CANDIES: Bounty and giant Hershey bars

FAVORITE BOOKS: The Harry Potter books, all of them

FAVORITE COLOR: Sea shell green

FAVORITE SHOWS: The Flash and Kong King of the Apes

FAVORITE MOVIES: Some Like It Hot and Harry Potter 1, 2, and 3 (She hasn't seen any of the others yet.)
FAVORITE SONG: Hedwig's Theme
FAVORITE BOARD GAMES: Clue and The Game of Life and Candyland

FAVORITE CARD GAMES: Go Fish and Old Maid and Uno
FAVORITE VIDEO GAMES: Super Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and the Disney Princess Game
FAVORITE THINGS TO DO: Read, read, and read
FAVORITE MEMORIES FROM BEING 6: The first day of kindergarten and the last day of kindergarten
FAVORITE PLACES: Paris and the Temple and school and home and the park and Utah
FAVORITE SUBJECTS IN SCHOOL: All of them

FRIENDS: Layla, Claire F., Claire H., Cecilia, Eva, Miranda, Ashlyn, Nadia, Phoebe (she's laughing about this), Jolin, Grayson, Eliza, Cat, Amelia, Camilla, Ava, Evva, Peter, Cooper, Daddy, Mommy, ("Best for last.") SOPHIE!

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: A mother, a fashion designer, a doctor, a scientist, and President of the United States of America