Things I Want to Remember...

Sometimes being a stay-at-home-mom is a very challenging job...well, okay...more than sometimes! ;-) But it's moments like these that keep me going and I want to remember them forever. #1. A couple weeks ago, Justin was at his meeting before church, so I enlisted Hannah's help in getting the kids ready. She's a very good helper! Ava wasn't wanting to get her dress on, so Hannah managed to try and force her and was in the "bossy, oldest sibling" mode. She came to me frustrated and complaining that she couldn't get Ava to put her dress on. I told her, "Maybe if you take a different approach to it she would be more willing to get dressed." Then I gave her an example, "Ava I know you don't want to get your dress on. I didn't want to either. But sometimes we just have to do things we don't want to do", etc., etc. talking in a nice calm tone of voice. Hannah said she couldn't remember what I said, but she still managed to come up with her own way of getting Ava to put her dress on. Let's just say it completely blew me away that she came up with this all on her own! She took Ava into their closet and then shut the door and said, "How do you feel right now, Ava?" Ava responded, "Scared and sad." Hannah replied, "That's just like when you don't listen to mommy it makes you sad." Then she brought Ava out of the closet and asked her how she felt now. Ava said, "Happy." Hannah said, "That's just like when you listen to mommy by getting your dress on...it makes you happy." Ava's response was, "Oh. Okay." And off she went and immediately got her dress on. Wow! Kids are so simple sometimes. Go Hannah! I was so proud of her! #2. That same Sunday when we got home from church and were eating dinner, I was asking the kids what they learned about in their classes. Ava and Landon have pretty typical 3 and 4 year old responses most of the time, "We had a snack and colored a picture", etc. But today Landon had a much different response. He told us, "I learned about Jesus when he was on the boat with his disciples. Jesus was sleeping and there was a storm, so the disciples had to wake Jesus up. Then he woke up and put his hand up and stopped the storm." Justin and I looked at eachother in shock and wondered who he was and what he had done with our little 4 year old, Landon. We quickly regained our composure and praised Landon for remembering the story with such great detail. I was so excited to know that he is actually starting to learn and get some gospel knowledge. #3. One recent Sunday the kids decided they wanted to play "Nativity", like you would play "house". I thought that was a creative idea, and Justin and I gladly joined in. Landon was a wiseman, so he excitedly exclaimed, "I'm a wiseman, and the wiseman built his house on a rock, so my house is on a rock!" OH MY GOSH!!! HILARIOUS!!! I thought that was so adorable, and I definitely got a good laugh out of it! What a little thinker he is! #4. This morning Ava came up to me and randomely said, "Girls are pretty, and boys are cool. I'm a girl, so I'm pretty." Thank you for that profound information! Oh how my kids make me smile! :-)