The temple, silly faces, a little girl, and some other things

Hooray for Junie! She gets all the benefits of being twelve…without being twelve. I guess that's how it goes these days! Is there anything exciting left about actually turning twelve? I guess you don't need anything else, because you just get to keep doing all the fun things: going to Young Women's, going to the temple, going to Girls' Camp! And if you get to do it all with your best friend and "twin" sister, so much the better. Lucky girls.

For Junie's first temple visit, Sam and Malachi and Daisy and I all went with her too. It was wonderful. We had just had a big snowstorm and it made everything so pretty!

Here Junie is on her first day of Young Women's.

And on a couple other temple visits since! We are so blessed to be close enough to be able to pop over for a quick visit almost anytime, and these two girls love to go together!

Daisy helped Junie find some family names to take to the temple for proxy baptism. But in this picture they have gotten sidetracked and are using the Family Search tool where you can superimpose your face over pictures of your ancestors'. They thought it was hilarious.

And here Daisy and Junie are at the temple on another, sunnier day (though no less cold! Brrr!)

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Sweetie Clementine is getting so big! She goes to nursery now (a little early…she won't be 18 months old for a few more weeks, but the nursery is very small right now and the leaders like her :)). She has a little bit of hair…not much, it is true, but at least it isn't just fuzz anymore! Each of her older sisters takes a turn getting her ready on Sunday mornings, because that task is too fun not to be shared. Oh how they love picking out her dresses and finding the perfect shoes and headband to match! And never has a baby girl been so cooed at and squealed over! I am sorry to admit that I am just as bad as the rest of them. We can't STAND how cute she looks in every single item of clothing she owns!

It must be confessed that in spite of (or because of?) our total adoration of her, she is not unfailingly…well-behaved. She opens cupboards and drawers. She watches, with great interest, where people put things, and then she gets them and runs off with them! She moves stools and climbs up on them, the better to pick crumbs out of the brownie pan or nibble bites out of every cookie. 

One of her favorite pastimes is to reach waaaay up above her head onto the counter, and then grab whatever she feels up there and pull it down on herself! Here are two of the recent results of her doing so:

A whole sheet of homemade marshmallows, bitten along one end before it could be cut into squares…

And a cooling hard-boiled egg, ripped in half and partially devoured before being thrown on the floor. Such naughtiness! I suppose it's helping us be more vigilant about putting things in the very middle of the counter!

A duet

Malachi says Clementine is his favorite sister. She, in turn, toddles in to the library whenever he's working on the computer, holds her hands up beseechingly, and says "Ky?" Then he puts her on his lap and lets her type things (and point at the bunny picture I have as my profile picture) until she gets tired of it.

She's reached the "ghost" stage of childhood, wherein she carries her blankie around, drapes it over her head, and walks around with the complete and utter confidence of someone who can see everything. Naturally she crashes full-force into a wall or a door or a couch every few minutes. But when we try to gently persuade her NOT to walk with her eyes covered, she protests mightily!

She calls her blankie "bee-dee." It's awfully cute.

She's starting to do so many funny, thoughtful, little-girl-ish things. Almost as if she is a real person! (Which she isn't, of course.) We went to a museum the other week and there were lots of children playing in the play area. Clementine clasped her hands behind her back and strolled around and around, back and forth, watching everything with the utmost interest. She stared at the other children with total absorption, as if she were making mental notes about their actions and activities. She wasn't entirely pleased with what she saw, either, from what I could tell. She had the air of someone who would be giving a pret-ty thorough report about it to her superiors later.

Wearing the sweater I made for…was it Abe? Or Seb? Back when I had time for such things!

Here is Clementine at another museum (we have been using our two memberships to good advantage during this cold weather!). I love the children's museum in Salt Lake for little kids. They always love the ball area and the pretend city so much!

Clementine was utterly delighted with the balls. Her favorite thing was pushing them into the air tubes and watching them go voooop!, up and away. She worked so hard, painstakingly picking up a ball (or, with particular effort and using her neck and chin for support, two) from the bin, carrying it up the stairs, balancing it in her tiny hand as she pushed the flap out of the way and maneuvered it into place, and then standing on her tip-tip-tippy toes to give it that last little push into the air current. Then giving a little stomping dance of satisfaction before starting the whole process over again. It was enthralling just to watch her! Such hard work. Such concentration. Such delight—not a garish, demonstrative delight, it is true, but satisfied joy all the same.

She was not as impressed with the little play house, but she did sit dutifully on the tiny chair by the tiny fireplace for a picture…

…and allow herself to be kissed by Gussie on the tiny couch.

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Speaking of Gussie, he is a delight to watch at museums and playgrounds too. Sam and I were discussing whether he is less squishy, or squishier, than he was last Spring at these same places. We decided he was equally as squishy (or maybe sliiiightly less so).

Ziggy and Teddy had a grand time being "men" (yes, Ziggy is still constantly a "man," and Gus often is too. Nearly every day I hear them playing. "Gus, how 'bout we're mans?" Teddy will play too, if he's in a humoring mood).

Gus's favorite spot was the cookie shop, where he took cookies in and out, in and out of the big oven.

Gus had it make some very…un-oven-like…vvvv-ing and grrr-ing noises as it worked, much like a backhoe or a front-end loader.

Working in the little kitchen

Emergency helicopter

Two Caws in the gift shop!

And perhaps the best part…the escalators. Gus was terrified when we arrived at the museum and tried to get on these. It made me wonder if he's never ridden an escalator before?? That seems impossible. But anyway, he screamed like a banshee and pedaled his little legs, climbing up me and away from the escalator in terror as I held him. We were all so baffled, as our only prior experience is with little boys loving escalators! I held him tight and he cried as we rode up, while I said encouraging things like "Whee! I love the escalator! It's even better than stairs!" By the time we got to the top he'd stopped crying, and when we came back out after going to the museum, he was sufficiently interested to step onto it himself, holding Junie's hand. It being a quiet day at the mall, I let the children ride up and down about 10 times, and Gus bravely joined them. He was laughing with joy by the end! Exposure therapy in two hours. :)

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And a few other miscellaneous things. Everyone working together in the kitchen getting our New Year's Eve Feast ready…

…and some of the fruits of our labors!

All the girls working busily at the table together

Gus wearing Seb's hat and jacket

Gus wearing the Harvard shirt my dad got for my brothers when they were little (my dad got his PhD at Harvard). I don't know how I ended up with it. Maybe I wore it too?

Junie and me sort-of-matching

Teddy giving shoulder rides

MORE silly faces! This time Junie and Gus watching themselves stretch and squash in the mixer bowl.

Seb doing some sort of Superman trick on his bike

Ziggy shoveling snow

Daisy after curling her own hair

Zig being Daisy's special cocoa shop helper

A foggy night

Ziggy getting into a bag, in various configurations

Gus doing various weird things (he is talking in his "Bunny Voice" in this last picture)

Zig, in a moment of generosity, letting Gus wear his policeman costume

Gus made his "taggie" out of magnatiles

Malachi and his friends playing some weird game. "Are you taking a picture? You better not be taking a picture," Malachi said, but I say, if you're going to play a game blindfolded right out in the open like that, you deserve what you get. Anyway, I'm pretty sure all children have to sign off on a "this mortal life may be recorded for quality control purposes" disclaimer before they're born.

Double babies

Daisy and Junie playing a duet for their piano teacher

The girls with the tiny cakes they decorated (For Christmas, Daisy gave Marigold some pretty sprinkles and a coupon for a cake decorating activity, so this was that)

Maple Mountain at sunset

The Copper Mine after some snow

Boys waving goodbye as I drove away somewhere (brr!)

A cozy night reading together in the library (those are my feet under the yellow blanket)

And lastly, some beautiful sunsets!