Made Me Smile

Jenna trying to help Bella unload the dishwasher. She actually loves to stand in the dishwasher and gets REALLY upset when we don’t let her.

Lazy summer days – swimming and eating otter pops.

Bella has turned into a little fish. She was showing me how she could “dance” in the water, which got me thinking about synchronized swimming. I always found this Olympic sport fascinating so we watched a few great YouTube videos of the US Olympic Synchronized Swimming Team. Bella was captivated and exclaimed, “Oh mommy they look like mermaids!” She LOVES mermaids so she was excited to try out her new moves in the pool. So cute!

We made pinwheels out of a balloons, straws, and pencils. I just loved seeing Bella’s cute little cheeks as she tried really hard to inflate her balloon. It reminded me of her giant baby cheeks.

The kids were SUPER excited about experiment day. We usually try to do our experiments while Jenna is napping because it’s just easier that way, but this week she was awake and ready to join in the fun. She actually was really good and sat and watched with the kids. She really wants to be big like everyone else.

Unfortunately my scientific skills were lacking this week. On our trip to the library I found another great experiment book and was really excited to try a few simple ones. Well, I’m not sure what my problem was, but both of our experiments failed miserably. After trying really hard to create a cloud in the pop bottle 4 different times, Samuel finally exclaimed, “Well, that wasn’t very fun!” I read and reread the directions, but it just wasn’t working for us so we moved on.

The next experiment looked really fun. The idea was to cover the toaster in cardboard, put a plastic bag over the cardboard and the heat rising from the toaster was supposed to have a hot air balloon effect causing the plastic bag to rise 6 to 10 feet. Yeah, it sounded amazing! But all I got was a melted bag and one that flew about 6 inches max. I’m going to figure this one out eventually! The cute thing was that Isaac in his prayers that night was telling Heavenly Father all about the toaster experiment and how mommy melted the bag. I guess my efforts weren’t a total failure! 

Took these 3 kids to their Well Child Checks last week. Two of them are in the 6% growth rate and One of them is in the 45% for height and 80% for weight. Yes, one of them is built like their daddy for sure! I really enjoyed taking Isaac by himself to the doctor’s appointment. It was fun to watch him jump from square to square in the doctor’s office pretending to escape from crocodiles in the river. I sat and watched him with a big smile on my face thinking what an AMAZING transformation has occurred in this little guy over the past several months. Isaac being 2 was really difficult for all of us! But now he is such a delight.   

And Bella girl gave a talk in Primary last Sunday on temples. We made her a goal chart and she memorized and practiced her talk every day. She is super sweet and has a tendency to be shy, but we have been working really hard on goals and this has helped a lot. When she started her talk she wasn’t speaking very loud in the microphone, so I bent down and gently reminded her that to pass off the last square of her goal she needed to speak so everyone could hear her. She started again and did such a good job. I was really proud of her because I know how hard this was for her. After church, while we were eating dinner she told us she was scared when she started her talk. We talked about how it was okay to feel scared, but the important thing was that she gave her talk and was brave even though she was a little scared at first. I really want my kids to internalize the principle that in our family we can do hard things.

I also loved spending one on one time with Bella every day last week as we practiced. One day we had such an innocent and sweet discussion as she asked when she would get to see Jesus again. At one point I told her Jesus and Heavenly Father loved her very much and she said, “How do you know mommy?'”. Tears sprang to my eyes as I looked at her and thought I’ve always know Their love, but it wasn’t until I became a mom that I could understand that kind of love and even then I know what we feel as earthly parents pales in comparison to what our Heavenly Father feels for each of us. How I love this sweet Bella girl!