Happy Birthday Maddy

Maddy's birthday was on April 9th, and she turned "THREE"!!! (that's "3" for those of you who were wondering...) We had a little get-together and invited the cuzins over. Maddy had a grand old time!


She totally dug her ice cream cake...we actually just finished the last of it today. So that cake lasted 11 days! That cake was huge!











And you can't forget the cute princess, our nephew Huntressa!

Intelligent Conversation

So, this evening at dinner here is a conversation with us and Emma:

G: Emma, you are so intelligent.

E: No I'm not, what's intelligent?

R: It means your smart.

E: I AM NOT SMART?

R: (Starting to get a little frustrated) Well, are you dumb? No, you're not.

E: Yes I am. I'M DUMB!!!

R: You're not dumb, you're smart.

E: No I'm not. I'M DUMB!!!

Now you have a good taste as to how adamant Emma is to stick to her opinion, no matter what the consequences...we love the enthusiasm, now we just need to work on focusing it in the right direction.

Closing Prayer

The following is a transcription of Madison's prayer to close Family Home Evening:

Dear Heavenly Father.
Please bless the...um...pretend food.
Please bless the window where people will come and (high pitch voice) 'DING DONG.'
~the rest is a little vague because Gwen and I were laughing so hard~
Please bless the people who come in and then eat the pretend food, and then go away.
In the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen

The door was open...

Just a few seconds ago, I had the following conversation with Emma and Madison:

Upon finding the sliding glass door open, once again, for maybe the 5 bazillionth time, in complete and utter exasperation, I looked Emma in the eyes...

D: "Emma, you don't live in a barn, keep the door closed!"

E: "Dad, yes I do."

D: "No, Emma, you don't!"

E: "But Dad, I do. I take care of the animals."

D: "OH EMMA!"

M: "Dad, why are we in a barn?"

D: "WE'RE NOT!"

E: "We're in the barn because we're taking care of the animals Maddy."

Oh the joys of being a parent...to these girls.

Christmas

We'll start off with the PJ's the girls got on Christmas Eve, to set the mood for Christmas morning.
This was their cheese picture, where all three of the girls are saying cheese for the camera. Emma is giving an extra exuberant cheese.

Here, we told the girls to strike a pose...this is what we got.

Here they come, Christmas Morning!

Everyone just finished opening their stockings at the breakfast table.

Princess Lana

Princess Maddy

Princess Emma

Here's the Christmas Dresses

If that's not cute, I don't know what is.

Before Christmas...

SO, before we even got to Christmas, we were getting a whole lot of stuff. We had at least 5 secret Santas, and then someone decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for us...which was really fun trying to figure out who they were. We never did end up finding out who it was...that's fine. However, there were also those who decided they didn't want to go the anonymous route, and they decided to just come over and give us some treats, and then talk to us for a while. These next few pictures show a particular treat the girls thoroughly enjoyed. The candy (baby bottle pops) was from our friend Margene, whom the girls refer to as either Margene, or just Jeannie. They really weren't as sour as Emma is making the candy out to be. Anyway, all three of the girls ended up spilling out the sugar that is inside the bottles all over the table and licking it up. It was really cute.



If you take note here, Lana had grown discouraged with simply dipping the sucker into the bottle to get to the sugar, and has resorted to using her tongue instead.

Our Daily Testimony Meeting

This last Fast and Testimony meeting, both Emma and Maddy decided they wanted to bear their testimonies. So, I (Randall) got to help them out. They were both apparently very encouraged by the experience, and I have a pretty good guess that they will both want to do it again. You see, every day, at least once, the girls bear their testimonies. They climb up on our stairs, pretending it is the podium, and, one at a time, go into their testimonies, all the while Gwen and I sit down and listen.

Emma and Madison's testimonies are very similar, and they go something like this:

"I love to bear my testimony, I love my testimony, I love my mom and dad, I love to bear my testimony, I love my mommy, and my testimony. Jesus lives, and I love my testimony. I love my dad, and I love my testimony. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. (Joseph Smith's name gets put in occasionally, usually about how they love him.) Sometimes they even say...I know Joseph Smith is God. Yeah, I know what you anti-mormons are thinking...but we're working on that one."

Anyway, Lana wants to be involved as well. So she insists on getting her own turn. Her testimony takes about the same length to complete, but she only ever says two things. On her way up the stairs, she says " mony, mony, mony, mony...." you get the point. Then, after what seems like 2.57 minutes, she promptly says Amen. It's all very cute.

The whole ordeal happens on multiple occasions, each day. They always have to have their morning devotional. Sometimes we can't get them to do anything else.