My Girls

It wasn't very nice of me to post for the first time in a month and not include a single picture.

So here are a few! My girls are getting so big...

Abigail's trying to help Anne grab onto the little bug.

So happy to see DaddyAbigail almost always joins Anne for "tummy time"--at least for a few minutes. I have about twenty pictures like this. But it's just cute every time!

A little background before you watch the video: Abigail and I (and Erik on his days off) have a little devotional each morning when we sing a few songs and read scriptures. Abigail loves it and often requests a second devotional at some point during the day. She always wants to read "just one more" chapter.

Recently we finished reading the New Testament stories. (By the way, these are abbreviated versions of the scriptures, with pictures accompanying the stories. They are published by the Church and designed to help young children transition easily to the full text. I loved reading them with my mom and later on my own when I was young. They are a wonderful resource to have when your kids are young. You can order them online here.)

Not surprisingly, we've started hearing more New Testament language from Abigail. She really cracked us up one evening when she put on my shoes and informed us she was going to the Sea of Galilee...

"Let no one shirk"

I had an interesting conversation with Abigail at dinner tonight.

She wanted to sing a song from our hymnbook called "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel." The message of the song is essentially that there's plenty of work to do in the world and in the Lord's Church, and we should all be a part of it. Abigail enjoys the hymn mainly because it contains the word "shirk" in the chorus, which she thinks is a very funny word for some reason. It sends her into a fit of giggles every time she hears it.

So tonight at dinner she requested that we sing it. So we sang the chorus several times. It is as follows:

Put your shoulder to the wheel; push along!
Do your duty with a heart full of song.
We all have work; let no one shirk.
Put your shoulder to the wheel.

At one point, I paused the song to ask, "Abigail, do you know what 'duty' means?"

She shook her head.

"Our duty is our job--the things we're supposed to do. Heavenly Father has given all of us a special duty. My duty is to take good care of my sweet girls and Daddy. Daddy's duty is to--"

"--love us!" she interjected.

"Yes...and to work hard so he can help take care of our family. What do you think your duty is?"

She named several things--pick up her toys, obey mommy and daddy, be a good big sister--which were accurate, even if not always perfectly observed...

I then explained what it means to "shirk" one's duty. Abigail apparently didn't follow my logic (I sometimes forget that three-year-olds can't always follow adult logic...because most of the time she seems so capable of reasoning!) because she kept asking what shirk means. So I tried to give a more concrete example.

"If I said one day, 'I don't want to fix dinner for my family tonight. I don't want to take care of Abigail. I don't want to feed baby Anne'--that would be shirking my duty. And my family and Heavenly Father would be very sad."

Abigail was listening intently as I spoke. When I finished, she said, "Mommy, if you do that and forget your duty, I will remind you!"

I nodded solemnly. "Please do."

She raised her eyebrows. "And will you obey me?"