"I had this good idea..."

Well, last night Lauren came in due to a nightmare so I let her curl up next to me on the edge of our queen size bed that I already share with Dale and Julia. Dale woke up at one point (about an hour later) because he was falling off the bed. We were pushing him off apparently. So, I sent Lauren back to her bed. When Lauren went back to her room, Olivia woke up and I heard a big ruckus going on and then Olivia comes in crying that there was paper in her bed and she couldn't sleep and she proceeded into the bathroom. I had no idea what she was talking about...paper? I went into their room and almost peed my pants with laughter. I had to go back to Olivia in the bathroom to see what actually caused the fiasco that was her bed. This was her response: "I couldn't get the my covers and I needed to get covered because I was cold. I don't know where my covers went but then I had this good idea. I had paper in my bed (image the continuous feed printer paper --size of two pages wide--scrap paper for drawing) and I thought, "oh, that could cover me" I tried to cover me, but then it wasn't a good cover so I tried to get it off, but it kept getting bigger and bigger and I couldn't see anything. I wanted to cut it, but didn't know where is started to cut. I need your help."

OK, now I'll tell you what I saw. I walked into the room and being that Olivia is on the bottom bunk...imagine: continuous feed paper still attached to each other strewn all over the bed from the mattress all the way to the bottom of the top bunk and filling the entire underside area of her bed. It was so funny I didn't mind being up at 4am folding the paper back into a stack. I then had to come back to bed to tell Dale, but I was laughing so hard and crying tears of laughter, he didn't end up hearing the entire story until this evening. He did get the gist of it though that he did laugh. What a good idea she had..ha!

...oh, and the children's voices

Well, Sunday was our ward's Primary Program. For those of you that are unfamiliar with terms from my church, Primary is the program in charge of children up to age 11. I am a leader in that organization. We work hard with the children all year long to learn songs and topics to go along with our yearly theme to present to the entire congregation. This year's theme: I Am a Child of God.

Well, due to the fact that I have a small baby, I did not go up on the stand to be with the children and instead got to watch the beautiful kids sing and say their little parts. Too cute! Lauren even gave a talk that was fabulous. I was so proud of her. She wrote it all by herself and delivered it beautifully. Olivia is in the youngest of the classes presenting and her part was "I love to paint and draw with my family." She was so excited because she thought of it by herself and she had said it in the microphone nice and loud at each of our three practices. Well, her turn comes and she looks at the congregation and just starts breathing into the microphone (think Darth Vader). She finally turned around and sat down without saying anything.

I was a little dissapointed until she got up to sing. Throughout the program the children sing songs that they have practiced throughout the year and Olivia has worked terribly hard to learn all of the songs. The little old lady in the very back row could probably hear Olivia without problem. Olivia sang so vibrantly and confidently, I couldn't help but smile and be proud. She was so excited that she knew all of the words that she kept getting louder and louder. It was so cute. The hardest to witness was the last song the the entire congregation joined in on. We sany "I Am a Child of God" and Olivia noticed that everyone else knew it too so she kept getting louder and louder and realized that she needed to stand out. (this is my interpretation). She says, "hmmm, how can I stand out...oh, I'll let everyone know that I REALLY know all the words" so she sang them ALL, except for the fact that she kept singing ahead of everyone and was the loudest in the building. It brought tears of laughter to my face. It seemed that by the end of the song Olivia didn't have to use as much power to be the loudest because as I looked around many (and I mean MANY) of the people around me were laughing so hard they couldn't sing. Although I was red with a touch of embarrassment and wet with tears of laughter, I will never tell her to hush because she was singing to OUR Heavenly Father who loves and appreciates her dedication and power in voice.