The Friend, and our weekend

In our house right now there are 4 bedrooms upstairs. Abby and Kate share a room and Ethan and Gavin share a room. Emma has her own room, which she is surprisingly not happy about.  Out of all our kids, Emma is the most sensitive to lack of sleep. She cannot function and gets so emotional. Kate and Abby are very much alike in that they don't need as much sleep. They stay up chatting, rubbing each others backs and reading. On the weekend we try to let Emma sleep with the other kids so it kind of works out.

Emma came to me the other night expressing that she was a little scared in her room all alone. Sometimes she would hear scratching sounds outside her window and imagine that it was a really tall man with long fingernails (scary, right?) I tried to explain to her that she needed to say a little prayer and then pick her favorite primary song to sing. Gavin overheard me telling her this and quickly assured her that Heavenly Father would help her if she prayed. I explained how our brains are like a stage and only one thought can be on the stage at a time. When those bad/scary thoughts come, we have to quickly replace them with a better thought. We practiced trying to think 2 thoughts at a time, it was impossible. She seemed satisfied.

A few nights later Lance and I were laying on our bed chatting when we heard a little tap on our door. "Mom & Dad, can I show you something?" I was laying there slightly uncomfortable and nauseous. I started to say "Show us in the morning..." but thankfully Lance jumped up and opened the door.

Emma was standing there with a huge grin holding "The Friend" (a monthly magazine with inspirational stories from other kids her age).  She was so excited to tell us that she started to have some bad thoughts so she picked up the "The Friend" to read and get her mind off of it. She came across an article that was written about another little girl who was having trouble with bad thoughts. The girl in the article told how she was able to overcome these thoughts by thinking happy thoughts. The kicker for Emma was that this little girls name was also Emma M.
"Can you believe it?" Same name and going through the same thing!" she shouted. It was an answer to her prayers. I was grateful that she was able to feel like Heavenly Father was aware of her fears and willing to help her.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend. Kate was still a little sick so we stayed close to home. We did get out for breakfast on Saturday morning. That was about the excitement of our weekend.

That bowl was Kate's best friend all weekend. 

Abby is saving up to get herself a nice camera. She is almost there.

Ethan asked if he could start alternating babysitting on the weekends with Abby. He wants a chance to be in charge and prove that he can hold the fort down. Abby was more than happy to share the responsibility with him.  Saturday night we left Ethan in charge (Abby babysat for another family and was gone) and he did a great job. The kids always love when he watches them. They always have a lot of fun playing games and eating yummy treats. The house was even picked up and kids were bathed. Impressive. 

When we got home we found the kids asleep in the basement inside of a tent. Talk about a fun night. Ethan, you are hired.