Recently Hailey was reading her journal pages in her scrapbooks that I had kept when she was younger.  I handed the journal writing off to her when she was about 8 years old.  She was following me around the house as children do telling me the stories that were in her journal pages.  What surprised me was how many of them I had forgotten. Following are a few things I don't want to forget.

First, Hailey announced that she was going to try out for honor choir, I was skeptical since she had never been in regular choir.  She practiced and signed up for an audition.  The big day arrived and although she was nervous she had to sing three solos.  She had to wait 4 days to find out she made it into the choir.  She was so excited.  Because of her example Nate joined choir for his age group and our home is full of singing.   Singing in the shower, singing at bedtime, singing while  playing, singing at breakfast, we just love all the singing.

Second,  Nate inherited a terrific sense of humor from his dad and probably a smidge from his grandpa as well.  I am slow witted and often think of what I could have said three days later.   Not Nate, he is quick.  He used his quick wit lately to cure me of a terrible habit. 

He has a bad habit of doing a little dance or squat when he does not want to use the restroom because he is having so much fun.  As his mother I am well aware what this little dance means.  I'll pop open a window or a door and yell out "Nate, do you need to use the restroom?".  He'll run inside and do what needs to be done.  I did this to him recently when he was headed to a friends house after school.  He wasn't stopping at home just going directly to the friends house.  Unfortunately for him I spotted him walking down the street and stopping occasionally to the potty dance.  I yelled out the window for all the school kids walking down the street to hear "NATE, DO YOU NEED TO USE THE RESTROOM?".  I know I should have been embarrassed but it didn't even cross my mind, until later.

Fast forward a few days and our family is doing a food drive.  I had given blood and in my hurry to get our food drive route done, I jumped off the bed, ran to my car, and drove home.  We started the route but I started feeling sick after walking up stairs a few times.   When we finished our route I asked Eric to drop me off at the house so I could eat and rest while he and the kids took the food to the pantry.  While I was walking up our driveway I leaned forward and lowered my head, then squatted to keep from passing out.  It was then that Nate chose to roll down his window and yell "HEY MOM, DO YOU NEED TO USE THE RESTROOM?"  Lesson learned. 

We recently got our pictures taken hoping to get something good for a Christmas card. Several times  the photographer asked us to pick up leaves and throw them into the air.  The third time we tried, we heard an "OH", one of the photographers had accidently hit Hailey in the face with her clump of leaves.  Hailey was a good sport about it and we all had a good laugh.  When we received a disk with the pictures there was actually one of Hailey getting a face full of leaves.  It won't make our Christmas card  cut but we'll probably always remember the time Hailey got hit in the face with leaves.