Our "little Miss Independent"s

Firstly, I feel that I should acknowledge Jason for his role in keeping this blog updated. It's thanks to his technical abilities, knowledge of various apps to do photo collages and his help particularly with chornoloicising the photos that I can keep track of our lives. He's so good at uploading the many photos we take and storing and saving them, I couldn't do this without his input so thank you, it has saved me from the many hours I used to spend scrap booking and journaling for each of our three children.

So this week, I want to celebrate the fact that our girls are becoming increasingly independent. Let's look at Mia first:

Mia loves to draw and I have been pleasantly surprised to see her branch out from her usual fairy/princess tableaux.

Mia collected a dead butterfly she found on the floor and used a variety of medium to create a really pretty canvas. She also attended her first "Women's conference", and had the confidence to go by herself with the Primary President. (Jason was working away, it broke my heart to not be able to take her myself). Still, I was proud of her choice to go alone and even more impressed that she could tell me the names of some of the apostles who spoke.

She also had a go at baking on her own having done some at school. We were very impressed by her desire to try something new - normally she prefers to spend her time drawing.

She is also becoming better at doing her homework, though it still requires a collossal effort on our part to encourage her.  We are nonetheless proud of the steps our "big" girl is making in becoming an independent learner.

Now to Ismay, well as anyone who knows her can testify to, she is and was born an autonomous little spirit. She has always forged ahead by herself, doing what she wants to do.

She has been studying the Stone Age at school and one day decided to create some kind of volcanic landscape which she promptly turned into a science experiment, mimicking an activity she had done at school. (Jason and I just watched dumb founded as she bossed us around getting us to fetch the various "ingredients").

Then one day she came home saying she had baked "sponge henge" at school and asked if she could make cakes. She recalled the recipe (including measurements) from memory and produced a very edible if somewhat rustic ally decorated cake totally independently (with the exception of putting it in and out of the oven!)

Ismay is always reading and in one of those free supermarket magazines I had picked up,  she happened upon an experiment to do with how clouds are formed. She asked me for the equipment and then carried out and recorded her experiment. She even "up-levelled" the orginal instructions!

She is constantly doing things. This Saturday morning for example was filled with craft after craft after craft. Her thirst for knowledge and hunger to make and do is insatiable!

I love this last picture, and I know that it will really make you smile Mummy. One day, the girls decided to make a breakfast for us. They must have used every single random ingredient in the kitchen and it looked and tasted somewhat "different"; however I love and appreciate the sentiment behind it.....wanting to do something nice for mummy and daddy. Remind you of a certain incident in Oakengates Mummy?