New family pictures

I've always wanted to have a professional photo shoot with my family. Our next door neighbor is a photographer, so my wish finally came true last Sunday. Here are a couple of her masterpieces:

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Priya and Auralee are taking ballet/tap classes on Monday afternoons. A couple of weeks ago, one of our neighbors gave us two pairs of tap shoes that her girls had outgrown. The smaller size fit Auralee perfectly, and I thought Priya's fit well until she said her prayers that night and asked Heavenly Father to bless her tap shoes to get bigger so they did not pinch her toes anymore. After she finished, I asked her if her shoes were too small. When she said yes, I suggested we buy her new tap shoes that fit better. "But mom," she said, "don't you want to see if my prayer worked?" Well...yes, of course I do. Uh, now what?

Whenever I put Auralee in her bed without the other kids around, she asks me to draw animals on her back. I describe the animal as I'm drawing it, and she guesses what it is. Usually, she's pretty sharp. But a couple of nights ago, I drew a zebra on her back. I was careful to leave the telling detail--the black and white stripes--to the end. This is the conversation that ensued:
Me: Can you guess what it is?
Auralee: A llama?
Me: Do llamas have black and white stripes?
Auralee: Um, they have pink and white stripes.
Me: Well, this animal has black and white stripes.
Auralee: Well, llamas are pink.
Me: What animal has black and white stripes?
Auralee: Llamas are white.
Me: What animal has black and white stripes?
Auralee: Some llamas are brown.
Me: You're right, it's a llama!
I guess it's better to check with her and find out what animal she's fixating on before trying to draw the wrong animal on her back.

In other news, I'm writing this post at 2:30 a.m. as I listen to Elijah cry himself back to sleep. I know it's a long shot, but I wouldn't mind some advice in the comments section about this kid. All the books say that the key to good baby sleep is making sure he falls asleep on his own in his crib. Well, he has been doing that for almost his entire life, and it's not making any difference at all. Most of his naps are crappy catnaps that last less than an hour. He's pretty cranky most of the day because of it. And at night, he still wakes at least once, sometimes twice, even though he weighs twenty pounds and eats like a horse during the day. Sometimes I let him cry, but on many occasions, he can scream in his crib for an hour before going to sleep, and then he wakes up again in a couple of hours anyway. Other times, like tonight, for instance, he wakes up, I nurse him, and he still screams his way back to sleep. I don't get it. What am I doing wrong? My sleep deprived brain is out of ideas, but I sure would like to get a good night's sleep before the year's out.

Visit to North Bend, OR

I don't like to post a travel log--I don't usually go anywhere worth blogging about. But last weekend, John, Elijah, and I had an all-expense paid trip to southwestern Oregon, and I just had to post some pictures. My family lived in Oregon for three years when I was a teenager, and John happens to be looking at a practice just outside the town where we lived. It's been twenty years since we left, and it's even more beautiful than I remember. We stayed at a vacation rental owned by one of the doctors in the practice. Here's a picture of it.


This is the view you can seen through the front windows:


And here's the lake down the hill where you can boat, fish, camp, play volleyball, swim, and roast marshmallows:

Here's a picture of the docks with fog:

Of course, most of the pictures were taken through the car window as we drove, and they do not do justice to how lush and green it is. But if you're jealous that we might be moving there, just remember: we LOVE visitors. So go ahead and pencil in a visit to Oregon sometime next fall. We'll leave the lights on for ya.

Random Pictures taken during Grandma's visit