Two weeks' worth.

This evening when we had Harriet here was so beautiful that Audrey read bedtime stories to the girls outside on the deck.














During their cultural exchange, Cec shared with Harriet her love of "ghost butter"- toast with butter. And Harriet shared her love of cutting paper up into little pieces.














If you look really carefully, you can see Harriet and Cecily playing "ring around the rosies" around the posts on the back patio of Raymond and Roselena's house.














James and Audrey picking apples.














The girls insisted on bringing the magnifying glass so that they could see things. But it was really funny and cute because they hold it right up to their eyes to look through it. THis was the best shot I had of them, all of the other pictures turned out even blurrier because they were soooo busy.














Audrey had two birthday cakes- Jacob and his family made her one and she made one for herself, an Oreo cake. So the Oreo cake has one candle, representing the tens, and the German Chocolate cake has four on it, representing the ones. Raymond, Roselena, and Emma are in the picture with Audrey. She requested stir-fry and fluff for her dinner menu.














And Cec and Grace and Elliot and Jacob and Jonah came.



















We can always count on Roselena to pick out something really classy for Audrey's birthday that she's going to want to wear immediately. In fact, Mom was looking pretty closely at the blouse and jacket that she got....














Cecily and Paige cutting zinnias.



















Paige, the careful meticulous one.



















Cecily, of the "more is better" camp.














I tried to get a shot of one of the flowers that Paige so carefully "trimmed".














And a shot of the bounty of zinnia heads that Cecily lopped off.

(We made the kids type their own emails instead of dictating them. They're a bit shorter.)

Dear grandma and Grandpa,


Tuesday was my birthday . Thank you so much for the gifts. Wed ,I had piano lessons and I got a new hanon exercise .
Fri, I went and watched Emma and Gracie with their friends. Sat, was the Aggie game. I didn't go. My brother had a soccer game.
We had a picnic afterword. We also went to the Aggie home coming parade. Today I had a lesson in Sunday school about prayer and why we do that. in young Womans we talked about the strength for youth pamphlet.


Love,

Audrey.


Dear Grandma and Grandpa.

Tuesday was Audrey's Birthday. She got a cell phone (which I don't think is fair, because I want one too), and she got clothes, and she got two cakes. Friday I had piano lessons. I did not do very good. I was practicing really hard during the week (because my dad made me), but my hands would not play good.

I am playing the bass, and I am getting really good....kind of, for my age. I think it's fun. The really good thing about that is that I don't have to empty the dishwasher every morning anymore. I play the bass instead, and the bass is fun.

I had two soccer practices, and one game. My team lost because it was against a really hard team. I had a fun time at school. On Friday we did not switch teachers, so we got to do art, and we had draw a picture of a flower.

Love,

Elliot

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

We didn't even get around to emailing you last week. Sorry. We've been so busy recovering from Mexico and getting into our new routines. Last week Harriet came and stayed with us. It was fun, but she was a little bossy. We really liked to cut up paper into little pieces. Harriet liked to glue them, but I just liked to cut. In fact, I liked to cut so much that I cut a little chunk of my hair. It's up on top of my hair so you really can't tell except that my bangs are a little thinner. We went to Raymond and Roselena's house to pick apples. Actually, Audrey and Dad picked apples and we ran around the yard. We brought the magnifying glass to make sure that we could see the fish. We also played with Paige. And it was a good thing that we played with Paige and that Harriet got to now Paige's mom, because when we went to church, Harriet was going potty and accidentally got her dress in the toilet so they couldn't find my mom and Paige's mom had to take Harriet back to her house and change her into one of Paige's dresses. I love playing with Paige. And with Jonah. Sometimes I wake up and just ask to go to their house all day. I'm doing a little tiny bit better on the toilet. We've just barely made it to the toilet a couple of times this week. We're at least trying to work our way up to pre-Mexico potty training. Last week when Paige was here Mommy gave us some scissors and we got to cut some flowers. I had a lot of fun just lopping heads off of as many zinnias as I could, but Paige carefully trimmed all of the petals off of one flower. We had about 6 strawberries come ripe this week and I ate them all. On Saturday we went to the USU Homecoming parade. I like the candy, but I really loved it whenever anyone came by singing "The Scotsman". I was a little disappointed because my mom said there would be horses, and there weren't. And I didn't like the fire engine very much. After that we went to a party for Elliot's soccer team and we had real Mexican taquitos because Mario's dad made them. We love you and I mention you all in my prayers, sometimes several times throughout each prayer, and I also mention Grandma's leg.

Love,
Cecily.