September Antics

I'm starting to get more nervous about something that I've been nervous about since June. Andrew's been making fun of me about that long, too, because he doesn't think preparing an hour-long lecture is a big deal. I'm teaching a class at our stake women's day this coming Saturday and I'm petrified. So I've been spending a lot of my blogging time working on that instead of writing about my children. But I've hit a stopping point again so now I guess I'll blog about my children again for a little while.

Miriam is still happily obsessing about being Mary Poppins. This is a picture Rachel took of her when they did a little photo shoot in the yard (and by little I mean they took two pictures and then left the camera on the front porch while they ran off to play):

And this is a picture I snapped of Benjamin napping atop of a giant penguin:

He drools a lot, evidently. I've entertained the idea of dressing him up as a penguin for Halloween again this year since it would be an excellent companion to Miriam's costume. Rachel's still pretty sold on the idea of him being Dobby though. We'll see.

We've gone on a couple of family walks this week (after a long comprehensive-exam hiatus). Benjamin loves to ride in his "strolly."

Miriam clipped a laughably gigantic flower on the top of her head and then "hid" in the zinnias by the mailbox (you can hardly tell she's there). She unfortunately got so flustered (somehow) that she ran right into the pole behind her, smack in the eye.

Fortunately she has lightning fast reflexes and she nailed the post with her eyes shut (either that or she ran into the post because her eyes were shut), giving herself a little bit of a black eye:



There was quite a bit of ugly crying but she's over it now:



Here's beautiful Miss Rachel. We were talking about nicknames yesterday and I was thinking how my mom once mentioned that one of her nicknames as a child (she didn't have many) was Myrn-girl. I thought that was a fairly lousy nickname, probably because I had so many wonderful nicknames. Well, guess what one of Rachel's nicknames is? Rachel-girl. So I guess Myrn-girl wasn't too bad of a nickname after all.

Anyway, Rachel had her first soccer game of the season on Saturday and even though they don't keep score her team managed to win 5 to 4. She scored the first goal of the game and the first goal of her soccer career! She was quite happy when she came home!

And then the kids (mostly just the girls—Benjamin was in and out, in and out) spent the entire day playing outside (from 10 AM until 6 PM).

For dessert on Saturday we had a mooncake that some of his students had given to him to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival. Andrew was too afraid to try it but the rest of us did. My friend Daphne wanted me to capture the children's reactions. She might be a little disappointed that they liked it...I think she was expecting them to be repulsed. It really wasn't bad, though. The texture of the filling was a bit different but the taste was fine—very peanuty.

Here is Benjamin pounding his fists on the table and begging for more "Moon! Cake! Moon! Cake! Moon! Cake!" He probably ate the most of it (PS we also had banana bread).

Here's Rachel taking a tentative nibble. She wasn't terribly impressed but wasn't disgusted, either.

And here's Miriam being pleasantly surprised:

Once Andrew gets through tomorrow and I get through Saturday I think the stress level of our house will dramatically decrease.