Eight Kids for a Couple Days (and a necessary P.S.)

It's such a beautiful day. I'm sitting here by an open window and there's a soft sweetly cool breeze. I can hear the kids and some neighbors playing happily in the backyard. Life is good.

I guess everything seems extra peaceful given that we're back to just our five kids and the occasional neighbor around here. For the past couple days, Jared and I had the chance to see what it would be like if we'd had three more kids after the twins. My brother Noah and his wife Kristi are on a trip and my parents have been taking care of their three very cute kids for the past week. But we wanted in on the action (my kids love love love their little kids and we figured that my parents could use a little break). So we've had Cubby (2), Lyla (3) and McKay (6) with us for the past little while. And it's really been so fun!

Eliza and Lyla delighted in the chance to hang out together - as the only girls in each of their families, they need all the pseudo-sister time they can get. They were so excited to find matching outfits and matching hair ribbons to wear and had SO much fun together.

Oliver and Silas and McKay make a wonderful threesome. Oliver and Silas got their somewhat cautious cousin up in their favorite tree (but totally respected that he didn't want to go up as high as they like to go up), got him climbing over most every railing we encountered (but respected that he wanted to go around some of them), and were totally impressed with the sound effects he made while playing computer games. They set up three chairs right smack up against each other so they could be right together, McKay in the middle, at each meal. And they were delighted when McKay loved all their toys so much.

Ashton and Isaac couldn't get enough of little Cubby. I heard one of them say "I love you Cubby" to the little guy about every 2 minutes and they were constantly telling me the cute things he said (he's quite an amazing talker  for a 2-year-old!).

It was more work to feed everyone and get everyone to bed, but for the most part, my big kids were delighted to keep their little cousins very happily occupied and it really wasn't much more work for me or Jared at all. I now understand a bit better how my parents were able to effectively raise and care for 9 children. They've always said effective use of "middle management" (the older kids) is a real key for large families and I totally see how that can work now. But I think we'll stick with five kids. No matter how helpful middle management might be, the buck still stops with the executive management - the parents! And I'm finally feeling like I can manage my five kids quite well (most days). * but see my P.S. below...

Yesterday we played in the backyard and ate banana chocolate pops that we made (pretty darn tasty - just dip bananas in melted chocolate chips and put them in the freezer for a while).

  

We went to the library down the street to do puppet shows (they have lots of puppets there) and learn about whatever the kids were interested in - frogs, monsters, and kittens were the favorite topics to research. Then we went on a nice walk on a deliciously cool evening and I was sad I didn't have my camera because the light was gorgeous. But sometimes I guess it's good to enjoy the moment w/o worrying about trying to capture it on film.... We finished off the day with three slumber party groups - Lyla in with Liza, McKay in with the twins, and Cubby in our old port-a-crib we unearthed from the basement in with Ashton and Isaac. No one got a whole lot of sleep. But they seemed none the worse for the wear today.

Breakfast for 8 (the twins and McKay HAD to sit together at the head of the table at each meal)

Then today we went on an excursion downtown (it totally took me back to pack up diapers and wipes in my purse...). We got tasty slices of bread at Great Harvest. We played at the park. The kids put on little shows at the empty amphitheater downtown. We visited the invisible man who lives at the invisible house down the road (there are some old steps that go up to an empty lot). We found a friendly lion and some huge firefighters plus lots of gorgeous flowers. The kids played in the fountain and found a new secret fort under a tree. Watching my little nephews and niece brought back such great memories of when my kids were little. But while excursions with my own small kids were always pretty stressful and very hands-on, today I was able to mostly just observe and enjoy. It was heavenly to have big kids around to help hold little kids' hands and chase after them when they decided to run. We wandered. We didn't hurry. We noticed lots of new things. We laughed. We had a really great day.

We talked about what "fallen firefighters" are and talked about what it means to be brave

We met a friendly lion who gave everyone a ride

Liza and Cubby put on a little dance at the amphitheater (and everyone else performed as well)

After our wandering and some more fun back at our house, we met up with grandfather at the train station and he took Cubby, Lyla and McKay on the train back to Salt Lake to meet up with their parents who'll be home tonight. The conductor let us get on the cool double decker train with them to get them settled (plus threw in a little tour of the train for the heck of it - the kids thought that was awesome). There were lots of long hugs and sweet good-byes as the train got ready to pull out. Good thing we get to see our little buddies again at Bear Lake in just a few weeks!






P.S. When I wrote this post earlier today, things were quite lovely. Since then, we've had several major kid melt-downs about usually non-major issues (this seems to be the price we pretty much always have to pay for action-packed days and late nights with cousins - but the cousin-bonding that results from those late nights and busy days is worth the price). My brief thought that 8 kids might actually be a manageable thing was doused by the craziness of this evening with just my 5 kids. 


The dinner I worked hard to make turned out to NOT to be tasty to Silas and he was in tears about having to eat a few spoonfuls. Oliver was totally lost it when I asked him to finish a job I asked him to do earlier in the day then let him leave for a while to play with McKay. Eliza kept getting her feelings hurt by EVERYONE. Isaac randomly decided he didn't want to go to scouts and really doesn't like scouts (He let me know about this via Silas - Isaac wouldn't respond when I was calling up to him after dinner to get his scout shirt on because it was time to go - so I sent Silas up there to get him while I searched for his scout book and Isaac sent Silas down with the message that he didn't like scouts and didn't want to go to scouts anymore. That lead to a little yelling on my part, I'll admit, and some tears on Isaac's part. But we had a good talk about the importance of scouts on the way to the scout meeting and things ended well.) . Then when I went into the bathroom to grab something later on, I found that there was a thin coating of powdered bathroom cleaner all over the walls, mirror, sink and floor (I'd asked Ashton to just clean the toilet in there earlier today and was pretty perplexed about how the toilet cleaning powder could permeate so many areas of the bathroom - especially when the toilet itself is in a separate little room...). I called Ashton down and asked what happened. He said the powder just spilled. I pointed out that spilling usually means things go DOWN - not up and all over the place. He didn't really have an answer. I didn't really care. I just told him to get that stuff cleaned up really well and get to bed. 


So no, it's not all sweetness and light around here. But I'll keep the bad stuff since I can't really have the good stuff without some bad I guess...

Impressive Camp Leaders

After all the fun we've been having with our Loosli Learning Adventures Camp, Ashton, Isaac and Eliza decided to set up their own "Adventure Camp" for all the neighborhood kids.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned to my my big kids that they could probably run a fun little day-camp for the little kids in the neighborhood for a few mornings and make some extra money. I told the kids that if they wanted to do a camp, I'd be happy to give them ideas and help a little when they asked but it would have to be entirely up to them.

They took the idea and ran with it.They made fliers (and asked me to look it over - I just had a couple format and content ideas), took them to families in the neighborhood with little kids (they came up with some ideas and asked me who else I'd recommend), managed registrations, had serious meetings to plan out how they'd divide the kids into groups and work the rotations and schedule activities (with a few suggestions from me about how long they might want to allot for different activities - they thought some things would take a lot longer than I knew they really would - but I let them learn some things through trial and error...), planned out a snack menu, put together a supply list of what they'd need and set up a time when I could take them to the store to get supplies and promptly reimbursed me.


Here's a screenshot of the spreadsheet they made with the schedule and activities and names and ages of the kids who registered. I don't know what some of those initials are for in the outside games - but they do - so it's all good. I do know that "MTH" stands for "Magic Tree House" books. It was so fun to see them discuss and plan games, books, and activities - and see that apparently a lot of the stuff I've done with them over the years was meaningful and fun enough that they remembered it and wanted to replicate it.

So for three mornings this week, we've had 14 little kids ages 3-7 at our house doing crafts (Eliza's specialty), outdoor games (Isaac's specialty) and magic and science (Ashton's specialty), snacks, story time, and free play time. And listening to my big kids present great activities to the little kids in cute sing-songy voices and throw out lots of encouragement and shower love and attention on their little charges and help them work through the little issues that arose has been priceless!

Here's their first meeting when they went over the schedule and rules of the camp with all the kids. The big kids had each group come up with a fun name for their group. They ended up with the "butterflies" (the youngest kids), the "panda bears" (the 5 year olds), and the "cheetah's" (the 6-7 year olds).

I caught some good moments on film but wish I'd been ready with the video at some of the greatest moments when my big kids were explaining and helping the little kids in such a cute way and when the little kids were looking so adoringly at my big kids.

Here's a little video of the teachers getting everyone organized on the first day:

Here's Eliza with an arts and crafts group (they did bendaroos, pipe cleaners, paper airplanes, moon sand, sketching, painting, origami, you name it).

Here's Isaac getting the kids going on outdoor games:

Here's Ashton doing magic and science (he taught them simple magic tricks - he's SO into magic - and he did fun science like making goo and doing fun stuff with vinegar and baking soda.

Here are the kids enjoying their snacks out on the lawn - one of the leaders prepped the snacks each day while the other two supervised free-play time. (Yes, we need a new fence. We're working on it...)

And here's their final water party:

Here are all the kids just before pickup today, the final day of the camp. The top row are the "camp counselors" - Ashton, Isaac and Eliza plus some friends who wanted to help out with the extra-special activities on the last day (water play, mini-pizzas, making "goo," painting - things that could use the help of extra counselors).

You see, one of my big goals as a mom is to prepare my kids to be great moms and dads one day (maybe they won't get the chance - I know that's not in the cards for everyone - but I'd like them to really "get" little kids one way or another). So seeing my kids doing such a great job with these little kids gives me the sense that my goal is coming along pretty nicely. You don't get a ton of opportunities as a mom to see in a concrete way that you're meeting your goals as a mom, so you've got to cherish those you get!

Are you a Sparky Parent?

My sister's living in London right now with her four little kids. We've loved "visiting" a lot of great places in England and France vicariously through her blog (and some day we WILL make it over there to visit all my favorite places from the years I spent in the London area growing up). We've loved seeing the castles, the museums, the green green green that covers even the tree trunks (and our cute little nieces and nephews and cousins growing up so big). But one of my favorite things I've seen on Saydi's blog lately is this "spark-o-meter" they stumbled across.

I asked my kids if I was "stodgy" or "sparky." They very honestly told me it depends on the day. I think I've been a lot more sparky this summer with our adventure camp stuff and they totally agreed with that. I think I'm going to ask my kids weekly how I'm doing on the "sparky to stodgy" spectrum and hopefully that'll bring out some more of that fun mom I always meant to be. One thing I'm really working on is saying "yes" as much as I can to our kids. It makes everyone so happy when I say yes and I've realized I say "no" when I really don't have to much too often...

Update on the Loosli Learning Adventures Camp

I have to say I'm quite pleased with our Learning Adventures Camp this year. We've been going for a couple weeks now and the kids are really getting into the summer routine nicely.

Here's our summer camp binder. Inside, there's a chart where the kids check off their "must-do's" for each day (they're supposed to do six things a day - reading, writing, working on a goal, physical activity, household jobs and doing one "extra" activity they can choose from a list of learning/growing activities). There's also a list of everything the things they can choose from to accomplish each of those six things. 

It did take a few days to get everyone into the routine, but since they helped form the program, they were pretty bought-in and they seem to really like this whole "camp" routine. They can do their "must-do's" in the order they choose but they have to do them right after breakfast and their "must-do's" need to be done before they can do anything else for the day (well, sometimes we switch things around because we've got a field trip or a special activity in the morning and the kids do their must-do's in the afternoon...)

A week or so ago, we went on a trip to St George for a week (to enjoy a Power of Moms planning weekend with April and her family, see old friends, and get our house ready for the renters - yeah! we finally found some great renters!). I was really happy to see that all the "must-do's" were pretty darn portable. The kids each brought a book and the composition book where they're doing all their summer writing. I brought the binder. We did lots of swimming and biking and tennis on our trip which helped the kids towards some of their summer goals so it was easy for them to accomplish their goal-work point each day as well as their physical activity point each day.

Most days, the kids just get up and get going on their must-do's without me reminding them much which is heavenly. And I'm getting Power of Moms work done while they get useful stuff of their own done. Plus  we're also having SO much fun with our "weekly adventures" (explained below).

We've promised the kids a trip to Lagoon (an amusement park near us) when they reach a collective total of 440 points (they can each get 30 a week so if they get a perfect score, in one week, the 5 kids can get 150 points. In three weeks they can earn 450 but there's some wiggle room there by setting the goal at 440 so a few points can be missed here and there). I'm loving seeing the kids encourage each other along so that they can reach their much-anticipated goal together.

Here's Liza helping Oliver with his writing. Eliza's the best at her must-do's, I've got to say. She's so into this.

Here's a page from Silas's summer writing book. We have all these writing prompts kids can choose from or they can just write about what they've been doing or write a descriptive paragraph about a family member or a place. I love having them just pour out their thoughts on paper, no worries about spelling or punctuation. We'll worry about that stuff later. This summer I just want them to learn to enjoy capturing their thoughts on paper.

The kids are all becoming such good readers (and it hasn't been an easy road for some of them). And I love how reading is so nice and portable. We did a lot of our reading by the pool when we were in St George. I love reading with my kids and having mini read-a-thons. I want them to see me reading as well as see me telling them to read.

For their "extra" point one day, Eliza and the twins put together a great rendition of a favorite song - Eliza on vocals, Oliver playing the "cymbals" (a metal chair) and Silas playing the "drums" a trash can. Love how creative they get...

The house is staying quite clean (and the kids are really liking the new system of everyone doing 2 5-minute cleaning tasks each day from my long list of bite-sized tasks instead of doing big jobs on Saturdays). I'm not sure if they always look THIS happy about cleaning. But this new method involves a lot of quick wins instead of long drawn-out 1/2 done jobs and lots of complaining.

While we were in St George, the kids accomplished their physical points with lots of swimming (along with lots of dear friends). We've done some good hikes in Ogden and in St George. Several days, the twins have done their "physical" point by going with me on my 3-mile runs (they ride their scooters and I have to keep up a pretty good clip!) and the big kids have gone running with their dad or have gone on bike rides. One rainy day, they ran up and down the stairs a bunch of times to loud music. I really want my kids to grow up thinking exercise is a wonderful, fun part of every day.

the wildflowers in the mountains 5 minutes from our house are so pretty right now

we hiked to this beautiful waterfall

In addition to their "must-do's" each day, we've got a weekly schedule of fun adventures that give a little shape to our brainstormed "bucket list" of activities we all want to do this summer. We've got "Make-it-Monday" where we do creative building and art projects, "Take-a-Trip Tuesday" where we go on field trips, "Wet Wednesday" where we do sprinklers or swimming or that sort of thing, "Thinking Thursday" where we learn about something new that we've been wondering about via YouTube or Wikipedia or a field trip, then we do "Friend Friday" where we get together with friends (and sometimes we have friends join us for other adventures...).

Here we are at Great Harvest learning all about how bread is made. The huge machines were fascinating and the big hunk of hot bread they gave us at the end wasn't half bad. Free.

Below - Here we are at the Sweets Factory in SLC with some good friends. Again, super interesting machines and tasty samples (the kids said they'd take the candy over the bread but I'd for sure take that bread over the candy...). You've heard "excited as a kid in a candy store"? Well, I found out that "excited as a kid in a candy FACTORY" is a whole new level of super excitement. Again - free. (For a great list factory tours in the USA, click HERE.)

The hair nets made us all look beautiful, huh?

We headed to the new City Creek Mall for one Take-A-Trip Tuesday and had a great time exploring downtown SLC. Free, fun, easy.

One very rainy Tuesday, we did our "take-a-trip Tuesday" we "traveled" to Thailand and to France. My friend had a great blog post all about her recent trip to Thailand and that combined with the Thai food we've been making so much lately (see recipe in my last post) made for a fun afternoon of finding answers to our questions about Thailand (and swimming with elephants is now on my kids' lifetime bucket list...). Then we "went" to France by reading my mom's post about her recent time in Paris with my dad and sister Saydi and family (they're living in London) and asking and finding answers to the questions that arose. We learned all about the way Notre Dame was built and explored the Pompidou Center's modern art and had a french crepes for dinner. Plus my brother send me a link to the trailer for the new movie of Les Miserables and that prompted me to tell the kids the whole classic story of the book to the kids as a bedtime story (a very long one that had to be broken up into two parts - they LOVED the story and I loved remembering it as I told it - what lessons about justice and mercy and goodness and second chances...).

I love teaching my kids and being with them. Sure, there are times they're excited about showing me something when I'm busy with something else and it's frustrating for both parties - and there are times I'd really like to have a little more quiet and personal space. Yes, there are surly, less-than-excited moments from a certain pre-teen (but actually, things are a lot better there lately...). Yep, there are times when plans don't turn out right and everyone's disappointed (but flexible plans sure minimize a lot of that). And sure, there are squabbles (today Silas came to me crying that Oliver had attacked him and jumped on his back. Oliver responded, "well, Silas attacked my FEELINGS and that's just as bad!"). But all in all, I'm loving this summer so much.

So anyway, there's my report so far. We are having a really really great summer. Sure there are squabbles and hard moments. But really, things are turning out quite beautifully so far.

After putting all this "summer camp program" together for my own family, I figured I might as well "gussy it up" a bit more and offer it to the whole Power of Moms community (and YOU, my blog readers, of course). If you want all the materials you need to get your own Learning Adventures Camp set up, check out the info HERE.

Easy, Delicious Thai Curry

Lately, Thai curry has been a huge family favorite. I make some version pretty much every week (and the kids would like it more than once a week...). Sound fancy and complicated? Well, it's actually super easy and takes about a 1/2 hour. Here's the only stuff you might need to go out and buy (and you just need something similar - exact brands don't matter a bit). Everything else, you've probably got around your house.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of uncooked white rice (whatever kind you've got)
• 2 tsp canola oil or olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 tsp minced garlic (I buy the pre-minced bottled stuff but you can use fresh or substitute 1/2 tsp of granulated garlic if you like)
• 1-3 tsp curry paste (Start with 1 tsp if you're worried it might be too spicy and haven't tried a particular brand before and add more if you want more of a kick.There's red, green and yellow curry paste. They're all good, all a bit different. You can get curry paste at many grocery stores -Thai Kitchen is a common brand in the Asian section of most grocery stores- but every Asian grocery store has several varieties - generally all good.)
• 1 14-oz can coconut milk (lite or regular, any brand)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth (from can or make with bouillon)
• Vegetables (chopped carrots, frozen peas, chopped bell peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, chopped cabbage or bok choi, sweet potatoes chopped very small, regular potatoes chopped very small, whatever veggies you've got on hand work great - nice with at least 2-3 kinds of veggies. The version in the photo above has sliced baby carrots, peas, green peppers, and chopped cabbage in it. My family's favorite version has sweet potatoes, peas, cabbage and red peppers. The more veggies the better! )
• Chicken or shrimp (1-2 cups of frozen pre-cooked tail-off shrimp or 1-2 chicken breasts sliced in small bits works great. I usually use a can of cubed chicken breasts and crumble the chunks in at the end - so very quick and easy and tastes great)
• Fresh basil or cilantro (chopped) if you happen to have some on hand (find without)

Directions:

• Bring rice and 4 cups of water plus 2 tsp salt to a boil in a sauce pan, then partially cover and turn down to simmer for 20-25 minutes while you do the rest.
• Saute a chopped onion and minced garlic in oil until slightly browned
• Stir in curry paste
• Add hard veggies (carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes) and chicken (if you're using raw chicken). Saute until veggies get a bit soft and chicken isn't pink anymore
• Add a can of coconut milk and bring to a boil
• Turn down to simmer and add quick veggies (frozen peas, cabbage, pre-cooked veggies if you've got some) plus chicken broth. Keep simmering until it's slightly thickened (5-10 minutes)
• Stir in about a tsp of salt (start with 1/2 tsp and see if it needs more) 
• Cook until veggies are pretty soft
• Serve over rice (garnish with some fresh ground pepper and a little fresh basil or cilantro if you've got some)

Serves 4. (I usually double this for my family and it's GONE!)

Magical Eclipse of the Sun

Last week, we had a great time watching the eclipse. Ashton researched the exact time and how to best view it and he had us all out front looking through CDs so we could see the eclipse w/o hurting our eyes (I was doubtful when Ashton told me the idea but it works GREAT!). I guess we looked pretty odd looking through CD's. We soon had quite a crowd of people out there with us, looking through our pile of CD's at the eclipse together. It turned into a fun little neighborhood party.

The shadows on the house at the peak of the eclipse were really interesting and the light seemed oddly dim.



And our own shadows got fuzzy around the edges (this is me and Isaac - and a tree).

I love love love when God puts on a show for us. His shows are the best. I love lightning and thunder. I love bright bright stars. I love it when the moon is yellow and huge and low in the sky. I love the bursting of buds in the spring. I love awe-inspiring peaks. And I love savoring all this with my kids who are so prone to awe and excitement...

The beauty of having one daughter

So I was pretty sad when I realized that I was only going to have one daughter and that Eliza would be sister-less. I mean my sisters mean SO much to me! (Read a whole post about my sisters HERE if you want.). But I'm super grateful I did get one sweet, wonderful little girl who's so very much fun and who shares so many of the things I love. We read books together, we love watching and participating in music and dance and art, we love being "tough girls" and running and biking and hiking with the boys, we appreciate tea parties and fancy stuff but we're good at roughing it as well. And you know what? I'm loving that I have just one daughter. There are so many things it would be tricky or expensive to do with a 2 or more daughters that are easy to do with just one. Plus I think Eliza and I are building a unique and special bond thanks to Liza's "one and only" status.

Lately, Eliza and I have had a lot of great and beautiful opportunities to really enjoy stuff together.

A few weeks ago, my parents treated Eliza and I to the symphony. It brought back beautiful memories to sit in beautiful Symphony Hall in Salt Lake City and enjoy gorgeous music. My mom used to take me to the symphony as a special treat once in a while when I was growing up (she was so great about sharing her passion for music with all of us in a variety of ways). As is his custom, my dad looked around for better seats during the first half and found a better seat for himself and Eliza for the second half ("There are always great seats up front that are empty - pitty to waste them"). As soon as Liza and Dad took off for their new seats, a nice lady came along and offered me and mom some seats smack dab in the middle of the 5th row (her friends hadn't shown up) so Mom and I had the chance to see every move of every member of the orchestra and had a great view of Eliza and Dad. I loved watching my dad and my daughter enjoy some special time together as much as I enjoyed watching the orchestra. Dad is so good at explaining things and making things extra exciting.  

 

Another thing Eliza and I share is a love for dance. Eliza has LOVED the Virginia Tanner dance program that meets in the Eccles Art Center 3 doors down from our house. It's brought back beautiful memories to see Eliza's creativity and beautiful movements unfurl thanks to her dance lessons. I love how Virginia Tanner focuses on the joy of movement rather than the perfection of specific steps done specific ways. 

Eliza had just three girls in her class this year which was wonderful. At their big dance recital, she and her two friends performed a really beautiful piece and it was wonderful for each of the girls to really shine without a crowd of dancers on stage. I don't know if Eliza would be a great dancer in a traditional dance program. She's impatient with doing things certain ways and she's tall and has grown quickly this year - when her teacher has had her do specific steps or movements, she hasn't really looked as graceful as one might hope. But when you give her general directions and ideas and let Eliza loose on the dance floor, wow, she's quite an amazing little dancer!

She was SO excited about her dance recital and when we found out it was the same date as our date for the Park City Power of Moms Retreat, we had to rearrange things a bit. We put the full-day Retreat on Friday instead of Saturday and did our morning session on Saturday instead of Friday and everything worked out great for our whole family including my parents to be there for the big dance performance at the University of Utah's beautiful Kingsbury Hall. 

This is the only photo I got of Eliza in her costume before she had to scurry on stage.

My pictures of Eliza's dance didn't come out well at all, sadly. But here's the grand finale - beautiful stuff.

I was so proud of my beautiful girl and her beautiful dancing abilities!

Then after the dance performance, Eliza and I and my parents went to see a fabulous performance of the musical, The Secret Garden at the Hale Center Theater. It was truly impressive. Eliza had just finished reading the book - one of my very favorites - so it was perfect timing. Here's Liza with the two stars of the show (sorry so blurry - but it's what I've got...).



Another thing Eliza has been really into lately is making up plays. Here she is with her dear friend Savannah putting on a play about two women who live in a log cabin and make dolls. It was a lovely play. She often gets her little brothers involved as well.

And one last thing I've loved lately with Eliza - she's reading all my favorite books from when I was her age - A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables. When she finishes each book, we go out on a special dinner date and discuss the book - it's our own little mother-daughter book club. At the first meeting of our little book club, I was surprised and impressed to see that not only had Eliza finished the book, she had written down a message to her own future daughter in the front of the book about what she loved about the book and had bunch of great discussion questions written in the back of her book for us to talk about together - "What was your favorite part of the book?" "What was the saddest part of the book to you?" "What didn't you like in the book?" - really good questions like that. I had told her that she would get to lead the discussion and I guess she took it very seriously!

So anyway, I guess I'm realizing once again that sometimes the very things we're sad about - like only having one daughter - can become things we're glad about, things that we realize turned out just right.