What to do at night, instead of sleeping...

Last night I was checking on the kids and I found this:

Hmm, a secret message, I thought. I wonder if Gracie was reading a story about codes? So I looked through the book she'd been reading. Nope, no secret codes. So I asked her about it the next morning.

"Oh. You found that?" she replied, a bit uneasily. No doubt worried she was going to get in trouble for not going to sleep.

"Yeah, what is it?"
"It's a secret message. Hippo taught it to me." Hippo is her beloved stuffed animal.

"What?" This was getting more and more interesting.
"Hippo taught me how to write in her language, and I wrote her a note."

So last night, instead of going to sleep, Gracie created her very own cipher (and quite a good one, I might add), and then used it to write an entire letter.

Ross made a quick attempt to decode the letter. "Ah, I can see that that is a T!" Without even looking at her key, she says "Daddy! That's not a T! That's an N!" So not only did she create the code, she memorized it - in one night.

She never ceases to amaze us...

PS - If you want to figure it out, you may find this helpful. Hint: there are some misspellings, which, if you think about it, are just clever ways to make your code even more encrypted!

Little Love Notes

Yesterday Wahwoo was making a birthday card for her uncle. After she was done, she showed me this. She said it was for Little Man. It's approximately 1.5" x 3".

They may not have hands, but Little Man's got PANTS!

"Ah, sweet, that's nice. Is that you two playing?"
"No, we're hugging."

And I died of the adorableness of her five-year-old self. And then I turned it over.

I "like" you, too, my sweet-sweet.

And my heart sighed...