Play Dough

Mom, let's make a tomb. Can you help me fix this tomb?

Mom, I need a guy to be Jesus.

William, I can't get you a guy right now, I'm sorry. 

OK, this auger drill will be Jesus and these monster trucks will be his friends. Mom, watch this, Jesus is in the tomb and all his friends are coming. Look! He's alive!

 

 

 

In the meantime, Neva is intently exploring an empty play dough container that has been dropped on the floor. Several minutes later she crawls up to me with a triumphant, mischievous expression. Apparently she has been slobbering all over the blue-play-dough-covered lid and her mouth is surrounded by blue. She really gets a kick out of herself in the mirror; I think she knows she has made a mess of herself and is very pleased with her results.

 

 

Speaking of Neva, here's a really cute Neva story that I will in no way be able to accurately convey but at least I'll try. I had just finished reading the kids a bedtime story on the hallway floor when Brian came upstairs (after cleaning up the basement he is refinishing) so that we could pray with the kids together and tell them good night. We bowed our heads to pray right there, all of us sitting in the hallway, the boys both leaning on my lap from two different sides and Neva, standing, clinging to my right shoulder. She was doing all sorts of clawing and squirming, trying to maneuver around me and hold on to me (she's still not walking yet). When I felt her hands leave my shoulder, I peeked over at her and I saw her, standing precariously on her own, folding her hands in prayer, diligently focused on folding her two hands and balancing herself upright. Her eyes were trained on her hands; all that squirming had been an effort to get to a position where she could finally "pray with the family" as she's used to doing at dinner. This was one of the cutest things I've seen in my whole life.