We laughed so hard we cried

Last night we were conducting our evening scripture study followed by family prayer. Steven and the kids were taking turns reading, and I was nursing the over-tired baby to sleep. We were doing our best to maintain crowd control and keep things reverent. Corben sat quietly in the rocking chair. Lauren was reading along. Logen was quietly listening.

.........then there was Hayden. Such a clown. Was she relaxing on the bed and being proper? Was she picking at her brother? No,......she was standing on a chair beside the bed conducting a silent opera....waving arms and opera singer faces and all.

We pleaded with her to get herself in check and just go along with us. We begged her to be reverent. We resorted to threats. She knew they were empty threats because we didn't want to ruin the sliver of peace we were trying to have at the moment. We were all doing our best to keep our composure, but let's face it....it was funny. I suspect Heavenly Father was laughing too.

We tried our hardest to keep it together, but then in the middle of her silent opera she burped, and it was all over. Steven promptly threw in the towel. He knew he wasn't going to win this one. Hayden had us all on her side. He closed the scriptures as nicely as he could. He set them aside trying not to show his complete utter frustration. He folded his arms and started to pray. The kids still were trying their hardest not to laugh(me too!). The harder we tried to stay quiet the harder it was not to laugh. In his prayer Steven prayed for us all to be reverent during scripture study and prayer. His pleas fell on deaf ears. I reached up to pat his back in quiet commiseration of his plight.....then Hayden patted his back too. His prayer stopped. We waited. We waited some more. He quickly closed his prayer and turned to me with tears streaming down his face and busted out laughing. Hayden had won him over. We all finished up the evening with a good hard laugh till you cry.

Too much fun!

Those cute things they do

Time has been slipping away so quickly lately. It's amazing how fast it goes. I can remember as a teenager making little calendars and counting down the days to important events like graduation. It seemed like time would drag on forever. Now that I have a house full of kids it seems that nothing I can do will slow down the passage of time. The weeks and days just fly by, and I can hardly remember the things that have happened.

I never realized how quickly time would slip away when Lauren was born. She is sitting next to me right now...a bright ten year old working on her math. I have been warned by my friends to hold on tight because the next few years will be a blur as she charges through the teenage years.

It pulls at my heart to see how quickly Reagan has grown. Just three days after she was born I sat in bed snuggling her as tightly as I could and quietly crying knowing just how fast it all would go. As hard as I have tried I have not been able to slow down the hands of time. I wish I could turn back the clock and relive all of their babyhoods again....this time relishing all of those sleepless nights and fussy babies.

I want to remember everything about all of my children....all of those cute little things they did as babies an toddlers. I find myself trying to search the past for distant memories of my children as babies. I can remember how Lauren used to dance in her carseat when her favorite songs came on the radio in the car and get mad if you changed the station during her favorites. Steven and I wore out a rocking chair rocking her to sleep for naps and bedtime. I remember how Corben used to grunt like a caveman and point to the things he wanted. He would get so frustrated trying to tell us what he wanted. Hayden fussed a lot as a baby, and spent hours and hours in the sling while I walked the halls with her. Logen was always a sweetheart. He didn't make any trouble. He was my baby for so long. He has stopped now, but when he would get hurt he would drag himself too me like he was mortally wounded, then I would kiss it to make it better and he would be instantly healed.

Reagan has this cute thing she does with her thumbs that I do not want to forget. She presses buttons with her thumbs....her little piano, her ball popper....if it has a button she uses her thumbs. Steven and I joke that she will grow up to be a great text messager....if we ever let her have a cell phone. We gave her some whole peas at dinner a few nights ago, and none of them made it to her mouth, but they were all promptly squished by her sweet little thumbs.

Now Reagan is crawling, and before long she will be walking and talking. I'm just going to strap myself in as we fly at mach one through time and continue to pray that at some point it slows down.