Snow, Princesses and Giants... oh my!

Well we got our first snow of the season this week. The older kids loved it - Evelyn - not so much. Her first experience with it was walking in it while we went to pick up Eileen - so nearly half an hour in the snow was miserable for her - she was getting wet and cold and there was nothing I could do about it :( The kids spent as much time as they could outside playing in it. And while it looks like it's night time in these pictures - it was actually like 5pm and still pretty light out - but my camera make the pics very dark for some reason.... :P I tried turning off the flash, but it just made them blurry. So after snowing a couple inches on us (and that's rounding up) it didn't last long - however, now it feels like we have officially landed in Winter.

My cousin Frankie was in a production of Beauty and the Beast done by the Christian Youth Theater, so I decided to take the kids - hoping that it would be a fun and good experience for the kids - A good way to introduce them to theater with something I already know they like. They had a blast - Evie wasn't crazy about sitting on mommy's lap for over 2 hours, but she did amazingly well - she didn't get fussy until the last 20 minutes. Eileen, Anna and Aaron were enthralled - they hardly wiggled or squirmed the whole show - just a little clinging to mommy during scary parts. :) It was really pretty good for a group of 8-18 year olds. Some very nice performances by Belle, Gaston, and Mrs. Potts in the singing department and some good acting all around! As much as the kids liked the show, and as excited as they got seeing their cousin every time he was on stage ("mommy - their's Frankie!!!!!") the highlight of the day was getting to meet Belle after the show. The girl was very sweet and wonderfully patient with the swarms of little girls all wanting to talk to her and meet her and just be near her. She must have crouched down to talk to them all for over half an hour - LOL - I don't care how young you are - that gets uncomfortable!
And all of us with Frankie the fish monger after the show - yes this kid is just 10 years old - and he is about to pass me up.... Anna wouldn't get in the picture, and Dan is out of town, but hey- here's the rest of us!
Evie managed to do a face plant on the floor earlier today and ended up with a bleeding mouth and a seriously fat lip... my poor baby!!! Funny - sometimes her eyes look totally brown - but here they look green.... and ohh so sad :(

Eileen was asked to give the scripture in Primary next week - so when we got home she began a full fledged talk on her topic of service.... Her premier example of service? David and Goliath - David served Israel by killing Goliath. She was busy writing down what she wanted to say in her notebook. Such a sweet, smart and hard working little girl!! I was just brought to tears by the idea that she may have gotten the desire to write her talk and use scriptures and her notebook from watching me do my lessons.... What a humbling thought about the influence we can have in our kids lives for good when we try and magnify our callings.

On Thursday night (before Dan left) we had Parent/Teacher conferences with Eileen's teacher. Her teacher recommended some areas that we could work with Eileen and then praised her up and down. We asked her for a recommendation for Eileen for a Gifted and Talented school in the area, and she commented that Eileen should have no problem getting in.

Anna and I had a cute talk this evening while i was making dinner. They talked about service today in Primary and it really stuck with her. She was helping me by holding the garbage lid open while I peeled potatoes and she was so excited to be 'serving' mommy. She then proceeded to serve me by helping sweep the floor and set the table. I asked her what service was and she told me that it was doing something to help someone. So I asked her how we serve people, and she told me that she could serve by doing things for them and being nice. She is growing so fast.

Eileen recently got a package in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Jones with this cute nightgown in it to go with the one they had gotten for Anna while they were visiting. Eileen was so excited at the cute nightgown made by Grandma Jones and Anna got hers out and got very excited that they could both wear them and so we took this picture to say

THANK YOU GRANDMA AND GRANDPA JONES!