The Girl Can Dance

Here's a video I shot of Katie at her dance class. She goes to a ballet class, and a tap/jazz class. This video is of the tap/jazz class, and really captures Katie's free spirit. She takes some lessons from her Uncle Shawn and isn't afraid to change up her dance moves. The video is a little long, but since I don't know how to edit videos I just have to post the whole three minutes.

It's funny to watch Katie anytime she's supposed to sit still, like in Primary. When I taught her class one week, she raised her hand so she could say something. I called on her, and while fighting back the tears she said, "I just don't know if I can sit still--there are so many wiggles in me!!" We weren't even close to the topic of sitting still, so it must have been weighing heavily on her little mind. So when I get tired of trying to fight her wiggles, I realize I need to just laugh at them.

Happy Birthday Abram!

Here are ten of our top reasons for why we love Abram:

1. He's really good at winning. It's one thing to win at strategy games like Settlers, but when he killed us at BINGO--that was too much.
2. He'll acknowledge a good argument even if he thinks the other person is insane.
3. He truly commits when it comes to a dance competition (two words: the worm)
4. Because of Abram, Katie can spot a Dunkin Donuts from a mile away.
5. His wife is strong, he's good looking, and his children are both above average (and then some!)
6. He spent his whole last year of law school playing video games and earned honors by choosing a large font size for his final paper. The guy is a genius!
7. His cooking is fantastic.
8. He's very honest about his feeling when it comes to the outdoors ("I mean, have you ever BEEN outside?!")
9. He's Ypsilanti's biggest fan, and future mayor.
10. He liked Anchorman enough to encourage the entire Quinn family to watch it together.

There many things we admire about Abram, perhaps the most being that he regularly amazes us with how generous he is.

Not only that, he'll actually laugh at this list we wrote. We love you!

Keeping it Real

After Mason and Katie had gotten into bed and turned out the lights, Ryan sat there and read the scriptures to them. When he was done, I went to tuck them in and say goodnight. Katie was looking pretty zoned out, so I asked her what she was doing. She said, "Just laying here drooling". Well...don't let me interrupt you.

She had a great dinosaur birthday on Saturday, and will be officially five years old tomorrow. And then she can start planning her next year's birthday party.

The Gift of Self

Mason and Katie both have birthdays coming up, which results in a lot of birthday present discussions. They were talking about it the other day and decided that they should make each other presents (in other words, "I don't want to spend my hard-earned money on you, so lets find an alternative").

Fast-forward to yesterday when Mason came in to me holding scissors to his hair, ready to cut a big chunk out from the top of his head. After I grabbed the scissors (making sure to thank him for asking first), I asked him if he wanted a haircut. He kept trying to get me to just cut just the very front really short, but I explained why that would look really stupid.

It eventually came out that he wanted to cut a big chunk of his hair out so that he could use it to make a paintbrush for Katie for her birthday. Nothing says "I love you" like a paintbrush made of human hair.

Yuck, yuck, yuck!!

I stayed up a little late the other night, and became aware of a noise that I couldn't quite place. I got up and finally located the sound: a scratch, scratch scratch coming from my basement door. Really, really not the think I want to hear after Ryan has already gone to bed and the house is dark. I finally figured out (after opening the basement door while standing on a chair holding a broom) that the sound was coming from inside the wall. A mouse had found it's way up through the unfinished part under our stairs and was either stuck or curious.

I had noticed signs of mice (aka mouse poop) in our garage, and once in our basement where some popcorn had been spilled. This little midnight incident lit a little fire under me to finally do something about it. I buy the traps and set the traps, but I leave it to Ryan to deal with the dead mouse bodies (we are now up to four). As I said before, yuck, yuck, yuck!

A Great Conference Weekend

I'm not sure what it is about conference weekent that makes me feel like I have to get together with people. But that's how it is, and I like it that way. We went up on Friday to Abram and Kristin's so we could meet Aviva, and it was definitely worth the trip. She is so beautiful and snuggly. We had a great time going to an art fair on Saturday where the kids hopped from one advertisement booth to the next. We came home with brochures and balloons from every preschool in a 10 mile radius of the fair, but Mason and Katie loved it. The added bonus is that they didn't break anything while we were there. Not only were there lots of crafts to do, there were lots of dogs. Since I won't get them a dog, they have to borrow those of other people.

We spent this morning hiking with some friends at a great little nature trail nearby. After getting the kids worn out, we got in the first session of conference, and then headed over to some other friends for the second session and dinner. It made for a wonderful day.

I'll admit that I do love the traditions of conference weekend that involve getting together with friends, but watching conference really is the best part. I am so grateful for that added push to do better in my life.