Prayers

I forgot to record this earlier, an experience while my mother was visiting. One night while I was giving the girls a bath (Soren already asleep), my mom came up to give me the phone and while we were chatting in there, Cora decided to go around and lock both sides of the bathroom doors (they open to a different bedroom on either side) and close them after coming in with us. On our other doors there is always a clever way to unlock it if someone inadvertently locks it and Cora has lately been fascinated by locking doors. At any rate, all four of us (me, my mom, Isabelle and Cora) were locked in the bathroom! I didn't have my trusty little screwdriver to meddle with the door, mostly at our disposable were tiny hairclips and toothbrushes. So we tried what we had and my mother had the brains to see what kind of hook we had a picture on, which turned out to be one of those long ones you insert into the wall and twist around. Yay! But it still wasn't quite working. We took turns jiggling and prodding. The girls pretended to help and were having a little adventure, although I wasn't too encouraging about their efforts ("no honey, the plastic barrette won't do anything") I didn't notice when they sequestered themselves in the room with the toilet and bath (has a door to separate from the rest of the bathroom). They soon came out and announced that they did something to help us. "What did you do?" They beamed, "we said a prayer!" I nearly fainted. My 6 and 4 year old on their own deciding there was indeed something they could do and prayed! And sure enough, five minutes later as I found a way to wrench my little picture wire into the side of the door handle, it popped open the lock and we were free! It's always good to remember those little answers to prayers and I wanted to be sure to write it down!

our family :-)

"Bring Him Home"

Soren is fond of music, as we all know, and lately enjoys watching music videos on youtube, but most recently we discovered that he is most entranced by watching Colm Wilkinson singing "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables. He will sit on Brad's lap and watch the whole thing completely still with a very serious look on his face. Then nearing the end of the piece he'll shout "again!! again!!" Here's his glorious little boy face watching it...

Nana!

My mother (Nana) is visiting and one day we decided to go for a walk. We tried to leave early in the morning, but alas it was already ROASTING outside, so everyone was was quite red-faced by the time we got home, but we managed to fit them all into this sturdy life-saver of a double-stroller. I know I'm completely biased, but my children are SO beautiful I can hardly stand it. It's been fantastic to have my mother visiting, we've been having a wonderful time.

Erin's Birthday

We had a little birthday party for Erin (my younger sister) and per tradition, I gave her a big chocolate bar with a little piece already sampled (to be sure it isn't poisoned. Many years ago Erin sent me some Toblerone in the mail as part of a birthday or Christmas package and couldn't let it go without a taste. She included a little note taped to it letting me know it was not poisoned and was okay for me to eat. Ever since then, if we ever choose to give chocolate in our gift, it's always got a piece missing :-) ) Cora REALLY wanted to give her a Barbie for her birthday, so I relented. It was too sweet.

Swimming

The girls took swimming lessons at the local Y and really enjoyed them. That's what you do in the summer here. POOL.

Carl's visit

So Carl visited for a week last week and it was great fun. It had almost been 5 years since I last saw him-- he had never met Cora or Soren! So it was wonderful. The kids loved having him here. We went to the beach at Galveston, visited NASA Space Center, saw the Huntsville Prison Museum (the "sample" jail cell was the most intriguing for the girls - "They have to go to the bathroom where everyone can see?" Yep.) Here are a couple of pics:


It takes a Duerichen to meddle with the broken stuff. Soren's been trying to work the DVD player...