Anna gave a Family Night lesson while licking half of a lemon. I can't remember what the lesson had to do with it, but in between licks she named off what she would do to help each person in our family. For Mom and Sarah: "Help [them]." For Nate: "Clean up his room." For Julia: "Help her say her prayers." For Rebecca: "Help her put her glasses on everyday." For Eliza: "Help her clean up her room." For Peter: "Help him pick out his clothes." For Lane: "Help him teach a lesson."

Eliza's sacrament meeting note to Sarah: "You are the best bigger sister on the earth."

We were talking about summer coming. Sarah said, "Will you just ship me off to boarding school in summer and bring me home for family vacation?" This sounded kind of unusual to me for her to ask, so I questioned why. She explained, "I just don't want to do yardwork!"

Nate was telling me how his friend has a certain kind of gun, which he thought was an AK47 (but isn't). [Remember, Lane was born in Cody and his mom is as good of a huntress as anyone you know, with the exception of Lane's oldest brother, so talk about guns is nothing radical here.] "C. [a friend] has an AK47. If you were cool like that, you'd buy me one."

"I hate practicing! It is the bane of my existence, the death of me!" Nate, waxing eloquent on his great love of practicing.

"I want to make a quote: Someday I want a yarn doll. " (Anna, when I sat down to blog.)

"I'm so thankful you got married so you could have me!" Anna said out of the blue, embracing me in a bear hug.

I have learned that the great part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.
Martha Washington

It was Sunday morning. Lane and I were away for a weekend together. Peter called us on my cell phone for the 42nd time. This time he was crying. "Anna got to pick the sugar cereal," he lamented. (The first person awake on Sundays gets to choose it.) "But I woke up at 7:90-something!" he protested.

After dinner, Peter got out a pen and a scrap of paper and started to write. "Mommy, how you do spell 'sorry'?" he asked. Lane wondered aloud, "Did you make a mess?" "No," Peter told. He brought me the paper a few minutes later. It was a note to his teacher: "Dear Mrs. R., Sorry I am sick. Love, Peter."

I was helping Anna button up her sweater. "I can do this button," she informed me. "I'm a little bit of a good buttoner."

Anna walked into our room after waking up, her hair disheveled. She plopped herself on my lap. Rebecca sat close by and reached up to touch her hair. "Don't mess up my hair!" Anna chided.

Lane had just taken a look at the dishwasher drawer that had rolled out on to the floor and the inside of a kitchen cupboard that had been gauged by the drawer runner because of a missing rubber cover. "Who knew that children would be such maintenance items, both to themselves and to the things they touch?" he observed.

Anna had just finished drawing with chalk. "Mom, I have to paint everyday." She is such an painter at heart!

"It just breaks my heart to see this," Peter (6) commented when he saw a photo of a mother returning from war, embracing her little daughter in the airport.

"Mom, someday I want a typewriter," wished Anna after watching a video version of "Click Clack MOO."

"I said to him, 'That is really RUDE!' but I said it in a nice way...kinda." Peter, recounting at lunch about his day and his negotiating a sticky situation.

The definition of a good teacher: "Sister H. is SUCH a good teacher," Sarah observed. "She gave us each 3 homemade Oreo cookies!...AND lemonade!"