This made me cry last year, too.

From the introduction to "September" in Mrs. Sharp's Traditions:

"This month, as Mrs. Sharp takes a walk outside and the dry leaves rustle pleasantly beneath her feet, she pauses to reflect on how quickly the time has flown and how quickly her children have grown up. As you take your walks this month, dear Reader, imagine each gold and brown leaf lying on the ground as a day from your children's lives that's already past. Can you really afford to wait even one more day to begin sowing the seeds of loving memories into their young lives?"

I love my kids.

I worked last night until one, stayed late charting until a little after two, had a small snack when I got home and was in bed at about a quarter to three, and then got up with Kristen at six thirty. I changed her diaper and set her up with some Little People play sets on the living room floor, then got cozy on the couch with a pillow and blanket and dozed happily while she played. The rest of my kids joined us a short while later, raiding the sack of snack cookies my dad dropped by last night, watching cartoons, drawing, and playing while I continued to rest. I must have been sleeping better than I realized, though, because shortly before nine, I was awakened by Kristen asking to climb up in my lap. As I reached for her, I noticed a sheet of paper lying across my chest. It was a message from my sweet Caitlyn:

Stop sleeping! LOL, didn't I feel like a horrible mother! I called Caitlyn to me and playfully asked, "Did you leave this message for Mommy?"

"I wanted you to fix me some breakfast," she sheepishly replied.

"But baby, why didn't you just ask me?"

"I didn't want to wake you up!"

Oh, my sweet, sweet girl. :)

Our girls' (finally!) finished room

We started rearranging the children's rooms months ago! They had decided they didn't want to share anymore, after all, but the only way we could fit all the girls together was to put them in Dylan's old room, and move Dylan into the formerly pink and green girls' room. (It's now a darling blue and green...I'll try to have pictures of that soon, too!) But I was lazy and never really did much beyond the basic moving and rearranging of all their furniture, and then early pregnancy exhaustion set in, followed by illness that I never thought would end (we're all finally better!). So, at long last, I've finally finished their room! I really love the pale blue of their walls and didn't really want to change it, so we just touched up a few places and accented with bright, girlie colors! I changed out the bright pink monkey bedding they had been using in the room they shared with Dylan for the softer, pastel comforter from their old room. I like it much more! Of course, we might change it all over again once the baby's born (I'm already planning possible designs in my mind!) but for now we're really loving it!

Dancing Dragon

My children astound me. Dylan recently discovered that he can create super cute movies by using our Paint program to draw characters, which he then uploads into Microsoft Movie Maker. He arranges them in the storyboard, alters the speed of each clip, chooses music, adds titles and credits, and the end results are just amazing! Here is one of my absolute favorites, based on Dav Pilkey's Dragon books, which he and Caitlyn have really been enjoying lately. So cute!