the best talk ever

M gave a talk in Primary at church yesterday. He "read" a scripture and gave a talk a couple of times last year, but I actually did all the talking, so I was absolutely amazed when he came out with "the best talk ever" yesterday, according to another little tike in our Primary. M wanted to tell the story from the Book of Mormon about Nephi getting the brass plates. The Friend magazine this month had some pictures that go along with the story, so that was serendipitous. We made puppets by mounting the pictures on cardstock and taping them to toilet paper rolls. M told the whole story himself with no prompting and made all his cute faces and voices. Isn't it great when our kids are so adorable! (I'm glad I got to feel all happy and proud during church, since M followed up his performance by having potty training issues all afternoon. Where did this come from?!?)

We went to the Freiberg, Germany temple on Saturday and made the trip there in a record 2 hours. Super-fast travel time partly due to the early hours (we were aiming to be in Freiberg at 7:30) and helped not a little by no border control. CZ is in Schengen now, although passport control at the airport won't go away until March, I think. The EU thing is very nice as a traveler, but we still have at least 10 currencies in our change bin. Better than 20.

V is making longer sentences now. "I want some of that apple on the table, please." N and I both did a double take when she came out with that one at dinner the other night. V is also busily practicing jumping. She makes it off the ground about 40% of the time. She even brought her stepstool into the living room to practice jumping off the stool. This desire was prompted by M's propensity to jump off of all the furniture.

M, jumping off the arm of the couch: Oo infinity and beyond!

V, jumping off the stool: To infiny and bewond!

No injuries yet.

V was singing her version of The Wheels on the Bus tonight. She likes to go through lots of different things, but doesn't have the patience to finish each verse. So it's quite abbreviated -- each item gets 2 or three repetitions and "all through the town" is usually left off, too. I asked her what the Mommies on the bus say and she said, "shh, shh". I asked her what the Daddies on the bus say and she said, "No. No Daddies on the bus. Daddies are in Portugal." Poor Daddy is so far away, he doesn't even get to be in the bus song.