so cute

Today we had some homeschool friends over for the day while their mom and dad went to the Temple.  The two older boys are almost exactly the same age as the twins and Mosey and their little sister is I think 3 1/2.  The two older boys of course fit into our household like natives, but the little girl probably felt a bit like a fish out of water.  Or maybe she's used to it, having 2 older brothers.  Anyway, it was first of all fun to see how DIFFERENT little girls are from little boys.  She is so quiet and cute and shy.  I tried to find things for her to do as the boys went gallivanting around the house with swords and lego spaceships.  She found our stuffed animals and carried Joseph's black and white cat around so sweetly for most of the day.  I showed her some of our books for younger kids and she sat down quietly to look at them for a while.  A bit later I went into the living room to see this:

Mosey was sitting down next to her, reading her this story!  It was so, so cute.  He went on to read her a couple more books, saying, "I'm going to read you this book.  You try to memorize the words, and then you'll be able to read it!"  Then he got out a white board and marker and wrote down the alphabet and started to teach her about the different sounds the letters make and how to put them together to make words.  He got a little ambitious and launched into an explanation of how different letters can "transform" (his word) the sounds of other letters.  He wrote down "us" and "use" as an example.  Then he started telling her about silent letters and wrote down "why."  It was quite the lecture!  And cute Millie sat there, the most quiet and polite little student as ever I've seen.  They were so adorable.
I wish Mosey did have a little sister-- I don't often get to see him in the role of big brother.  He was so kind and solicitous!  I know it wouldn't always be that way with a permanent sibling, but I think it would do him good.  The after-effects lasted clear through to this evening when, after stopping for groceries at HEB on the way home from violin lessons, he told me, "I'm going to bring the groceries in from the car and put them away, and you don't even have to pay me!  I'll do it for free all summer."  Now that is a big, big thing for my mercenary little boy, trust me.  :-)