Prophets

In honor of General Conference coming up, here's a video of Will singing a recent favorite, and showing off his amazing memory skills. Sorry it's so dark.

Six months already?!

Technically Kayla is almost 7 months old, but I'm a little behind. These first set of pictures are from a fun little 6-month birthday party that we threw for a group of kids who were all born within a few days of each other. Kayla is the oldest of the group, born on March 7. Then there's Allison, born on March 10, and both Jason and Daniel were born on March 11. It was fun to get together with friends and have yummy food.


To me, Kayla is saying "Where did everyone go?"


Everyone brought a dessert to this little gathering. Yummy!



The four guests of honor

He passed!!

First of all, I apologize to family members who are reading this news more than once. I'm just so excited that I had to blog about it as well. As you all know, Bill is currently doing a PhD in physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One of the requirements for his department is a qualifying exam, covering 4 different subjects in physics. You get 3 chances to pass the qualifying exam (a free trial that doesn't count against you, then two more chances), and if you don't, you are essentially asked to leave the university. Bill took the exam last week, and it was his final chance. Needless to say, it's been a crazy and stressful few months for our family. Well, tonight we found out that he passed!! As soon as he called me to tell me the news, I felt a huge burden lifted. And I'm not even the one who took the test! We are both so glad that this is finally over, and he can focus on his research and classes, and getting done with this PhD as soon as possible. I'm so proud of you, honey! :-)

A Child's Imagination

This picture illustrates a tiny bit of Will's imagination lately. In this particular picture he is supposed to be Mickey Mouse from "Fantasia", which is one of his favorite movies these days (I had to call him Mickey for at least an hour tonight). He takes his toys and his stuffed animals and acts things out that he reads and watches. He has an amazing memory, so sometimes this goes on for quite some time. It's really fun to listen in on his conversations while he's in his room playing. He's even gotten me and Bill involved in his imaginary playing. For example, if he does something wrong using one of his stuffed animals, we usually say things like "Kitty, don't hit Kayla," or "Clifford, we don't bang things on the table," and those animals have to go to time-out (i.e. the closet) for a while. What a fun (and sometimes trying) stage this is!

We love care packages!

Yesterday we got a package in the mail from my grandma Phyllis that was full of stuff for Will and Kayla. They immediately started playing with their toys, and I had to grab the camera and take pictures of them with their "loot."



Kayla's toys included a bunch of fun little balls for her to chew on, as well as a toy that spins around kinda like a ferris wheel, and a stack of rings that makes music when you push on the star on top.


Will has really gotten into letters and the sounds they make lately. So he immediately took his new alphabet flashcards and started putting them in order. It's really cute, because he sings the ABC's to himself while he's doing it, to make sure he has them in the right order.


The whole package, minus the alphabet cards and the balls. There was also a cute photo album of our family, a magnetic Finding Nemo puzzle, and a great workbook that helps with writing and things. I can't wait to use it! Thanks Grandma!

Random cuteness

This post doesn't have much of a point to it, other than to show off some cute pictures and a video. These first pictures are of Kayla and her friend Allison. Allison's mom, Lisa, was due the day before me, but I ended up having my baby first, 6 days early. She followed about 3 days later, so I was still in the hospital when she had Allison. When you see them together you can definitely see the similarities in their development. I wish I could've gotten better pictures, but you do the best you can when you're taking pictures of wiggly 5-month-olds.




And here's a video of Kayla "crawling" and "talking." She is so close to actually crawling right now. It's more of an army crawl at the moment, but there is movement. And her baby babbling is adorable. I can't wait till she can actually talk.