March 11

Cecily's first peek at Baby Taylor.


Cecily and Grandpa feed scraps to the chickens and cows.


The chickens need a drink afterwards.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I got to play with so many of my cousins this week. I played with Jonah (I call him Joad) on Monday while his mom got to read to Emma and Elliot's class, and then I went to play with him on Tuesday because Mommy had a PTA meeting. It has been a little warmer, with the snow melting. I still really like to go "crunch crunch crunch" in the snow. I also like to take a kitchen spoon out and scoop up snow to dump on the plants. Mommy told me that the plants like the snow and they think it's tasty. We went to the seed store and bought some baby pea seeds and some baby salad seeds. That's about all we will get to grow before we have to leave for Mexico. On Friday we went down to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I was asleep when we got there and I didn't want to go back to sleep. I just kept talking and talking to Mommy about the naughty fairy. I had a lot of things to say about her and about Sleeping Beauty. The next morning I got to go down and see Caroline and Anna. I played at their house. And then Harriet came and we played in the sandbox. Audrey took us for a few rides on Mary's bike. Then Emma and Grace and Joad came! We had so much fun playing. We were having a party for Nate because he was home for two weeks. Then Mommy took me home for my nap. Grandma can't rock me because she had surgery and she has an oucher on her belly. She needs to get better. So when Mommy put me down, a couple of rooms away from where Grandma was resting, I cried for a couple of minutes and then I cried out and said, "Grandma!" and Grandma said, "What, Cecily.." And I called out "I love you!" and Grandma said "I love you too." But I started crying again after a minute because it hadn't really worked- Grandma didn't come and rescue me. I eventually fell asleep. I got to feed the chickens and the cows with Grandpa. I did lots of running running running with Harriet. I even watched Sleeping Beauty once at Grandma's house. I went to nursery with Anna. Audrey and Grace came with me to nursery too because they were both too shy to go to their classes. I didn't have a nap today. I'm making Mommy very sleepy.

Cecily


Nate's Family and the Parnells celebrate his vacation from the war.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I"m almost done with _Dragonrider_. I only have 73 pages left in the book and there's 523 pages. It's a dragon named Firedrake trying to find this safe home in the rim of heaven and that's the purpose of the book. It's fun to read. We played, in the tournament, and we won Hawaii 73-70. It was fun and cool because Hawaii's a hard team and they're right under us but now they're out of the thing. And then we played Nevada and we won 79-77, the same score as last time and Spicer did it again with 2.5 seconds and it was tied because he was fouled and then Nevada airballed it going down the court. Then we played New Mexico State in the WAC championship and we lost 72-70. New Mexico was better than us. We played well and came back from 17 points down and that's really cool. WIth 1.6 seconds we had to throw the ball in and we threw it in then J.C. Carroll airballed it at the end and the crowd of NM came onto the court. I was lucky we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house because they actually had that channel and we don't. We gave Nate a present that it was a staple because he won an award in the Army. Because he was joking around that all he did was staple papers. But really he's getting a Bronze Star. We had a party for him. We slept out in the bunk house last night and it was fun and we watched a movie like "A Wish for Wings that Work". Like a cartoon movie. We saw Baby Taylor on the way back. He was very cute and handsome. I liked how he had black hair. It was cool. And he was really little. Love you. MIss you.

Love,

Elliot


Audrey towing Caroline on the bike.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I turned in my animal report for science. It's a super species and I took two animals, which was a cat and a tortoise, and I turned it into a perfect pet. It has leathery skin so it doesn't shed but so it's still cuddly, because I didn't want to use a shell. It eats mice and bugs for its food. It catches mice with its claws. It has eggs but if you let it sit it will have babies. Only then. It was an okay project. We're learning about genes and how they make characteristics. On my genetics test I got 62 out of 66. I'm trying to find a song for lyrics and we've narrowed it down to two which are called "Bangs" and "Where do they get Balloons?". I think I'll do Bangs. If she let us do two I'd do two. I'm supposed to bring a song that has catchy words and beats and just bring the words to school. Just one of your favorite songs. We went to Spring City to visit Nate and we had a party and we played around and I drove a four-wheeler- it was Nate's sister's. I made a friend that's one of Nate's nieces. Her name is Brie. Grandpa found an egg that didn't have a shell but it had that thin layer of skin on it. I kind of wanted to show it to my science teacher but I forgot it at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I don't know if it will last long enough for me to get it next time. You guys should save it still, Grandma and Grandpa. I went and saw Baby Taylor and he has very nice dark hair. He was a preemie like me. But not as early. Love you.

Audrey