FOURTEEN

Happy birthday to a very camera shy Taylor! We are having his party today so I don't have any pictures of that to post yet and because we are leaving on vacation, I won't be able to post them for quite awhile. No problem, I thought. I'll just use a previous picture of him. Well, that was nearly impossible because the kid avoids cameras like the plague. So this was the best I could come up with. (He is the handome larger one on the right.) Crazy, crazy, crazy to think that it has been fourteen years since Taylor was born. Time really does go by so fast. And here we are with Taylor getting set to go to high school next year and he's already looking at colleges and talking about his mission and sometimes I just want to scream, "STOP!" I'm not ready for my very first baby to even be thinking of leaving home, much less approaching that time with the speed of a bullet train!

Anway, whether I like it or not, Taylor is growing up. He is becoming so much more responsible in so many areas of his life. His voice is getting deeper every day and he has grown another 4 or 5 inches this past year. In fact, he is nearly as tall as Kalen now. As always, he amazes us with the knowlege that he retains and his love for all things scientific. He is really excited to attend the math and science center for part of his school day this year. I saw the calculator that he has to buy and that alone would scare me away for good!!! Taylor is a great helper and I don't know what I would do without him some days. He just attended his very first youth conference (which is why we have to celebrate his birthday today instead of yesterday) and he loved it. They went on a three day pioneer trek and he says it was "the best experience of his life that he never wants to repeat again!" It was pretty hard from what I hear but really gave the kids a feel for what the handcart pioneers had to go through. We are so glad he took the opportunity albeit reluctantly at first. He'll be advancing to a Teacher in the priesthood as soon as we get back from our trip and he is getting set to go to another scout camp upon our return as well. We are so proud of him and all the wonderful things he is doing to become a successful individual.

Happy birthday Taylor. We love you so much even though you keep talking about things like leaving home in a few years!

TWO

This is two years that has absolutely flown by! I can't believe it's already been two years since I looked at this tiny little face and cradled her little self in my arms. Now it's all I can do to keep up with her at all!

We celebrated Kaya's second birthday with a family party. Whenever we would ask her how old she was she gave us numbers ranging from foi (four) to hebempeen (seventeen), but never two.

Our little wild child has grown up so much lately. She is talking up a storm and is so much fun to have a conversation with. Her favorite phrase is "Oh, yeah!" which she responds to nearly any question with. ("Kaya, do you want to go to the store?" or "Kaya, do you need a diaper change?"

--always the answer is "Oh, yeah!") She loves to be outside more than any other place and especially loves the swing set and anything involving water play. She also enjoys feeding the fish in the pond and helping me weed the flower beds. (I've lost more than a few flowers with her help). She is beginning to like cute clothes, including dresses and will often announce to everyone, "I look cute!" She still hates having her hair done and I feel successful if I can get a hair clip in it. We love her little curls though so I am reluctant to cut her hair short. Kaya loves her nursery class at church these days and after every speaker in sacrament she'll ask, "I go class now?" She is very expressive and often melodramatic. In fact, Taylor asked her today if she was melodramatic and she held her hand up to his face and exclaimed (melodramatically), "No. I NOT megagamatic!" She has also discovered that please really is a magic word. Especially when it is said in a sweet way with her head tilted and a few eyelash flutters thrown in. She generally gets whatever it is she wants that way. She is just such a cute little social child with a lot of spunk and often a temper to match; we just adore her so much and are so glad she is a part of our family!

Turkeyville

Turkeyville hosted a kids day last weekend. We never did make it out there last year so we decided this would be the perfect opportunity. We were sure they'd run the trains on a kids day so we were disappointed to find out that they weren't going that day. But we still had a lot of fun and we picked up a train schedule so we can make sure to go on the right day next time.

Kendall and Lynnsey participated in the three-legged race. They took second place! (Out of three pairs, so they didn't think it was all that great.)

But they got to pick out a prize for playing.

Kaya loved her pink balloon. And the purple one she got a few minutes later after she pulled the pink one off of her wrist and let it go.

Four of our kids participated in the water balloon toss. Taylor and Spencer won one of the rounds.

And then Kendall decided he wanted to do the pie eating contest. When they were announcing it, they called for all the kids who wanted to eat a chocolate pie to come on up. Kaya was over in another area and heard the word chocolate. "Chocolate!" she squealed and ran right up. So we decided to let her try it. It was the absolute cutest thing ever!

She waited at first and watched the other kids and what they were doing and then she put her hands behind her back and dug right in!

The funny thing is, that when she went to eat her birthday cake the other day, she ate it the same way with her hands behind her back.

The gift shop is always a big hit for the kids. But they hear "no" a lot. For example, when Lynnsey sweetly asked for this giant stuffed frog, the answer was a big "NO".

But they usually manage to convince us to buy candy and other treats, so it works out just fine.

Come visit us and we'll take you to Turkeyville!

A Zoo-Over

My brothers Jonathan and Nathan came for a short visit to Michigan a couple of weeks ago. Jonathan had mentioned awhile back that he hadn't been to a zoo since he was a kid. So we took him. Even though I had just been there a week before with Spencer and Kaya, it was still a ton of fun. And the kids LOVED having their uncles along. I had to include this photo even though Kendall and Kaya aren't looking at the camera because it is so rare that Jonathan will look at a camera much less smile for it!

Prairie dogs again.

And another stop to fee the giraffes.

Having uncles along also encourages our children to do things like get off the authorized walking path and climb into the exhibits that may have been just for show.

We stopped for a little exercise.

And tree climbing.

And African drumming.

We fed and played with the goats.

Went on a little cow ride.

And after all that walking, a foot massage was the perfect ending of a great trip to the zoo.

(I won't mention my lost camera which caused about a half an hour of terrible stress, but luckily was turned in by some honest citizens, thank goodness!)

This and That

THIS is a photo of Lynnsey at Steak n Shake which is the restaurant that she chose to go to for her reading celebration. Whenever one of our children read their first chapter book, they get to pick a restaurant for our family to eat at. Her first choice turned out to have gone out of business so this was her second.

And THAT is a picture of Kendall and his friend on their 4th grade field trip to the Detroit Science Center. I was able to go along for the trip and it really was a lot of fun. We saw an incredible I-Max movie and a really fun planetarium show and then we enjoyed exploring the rest of the museum.

The Surprise

I like to think it was because I'm the world's best mom and that I love to do spontaneous things with my kids, but it was probably more that I really didn't want to pay the bills, do the laundry, or clean the house that I decided one morning to surprise Spencer and Kaya with a trip to the zoo. (The other kids were still in school). I didn't tell them where we were going and just said it was a surprise. Spencer kept trying to guess the whole way there but he didn't get it until we were pulling into the parking lot and he saw a big zoo banner hung across the road. They were both excited and we had a fun few hours exploring the place. It was really fun to watch Kaya take it all in. She's been there before of course, but this was the first time that she really got into seeing all the animals. We had baby prairie dogs at this zoo too. (And this expression on Kaya's face is her being annoyed that I want her to look at the camera while she wants to look at the animals.)

Both kids had fun feeding the giraffes. Spencer was a bit grossed out when the giraffe's tongue licked his hand. Kaya had no such qualms and couldn't seem to keep her hands out of the giraffe's mouth.

She also had fun feeding the goats. We used a lot of hand sanitizer that day.

It was really fun to spend some one on two time with my youngest kids doing something that we all enjoy. Of course, my not fun activities were still waiting for me when we got home, but it was a nice reprieve anyway.

Soccer Summary

I will be posting a lot over the next few days (hopefully) because I am so horribly behind and with a trip to Utah coming up, I won't be blogging for awhile.

Anyway, we had three of our kids playing soccer this spring. Lynnsey finally decided after a year off that she wanted to give it a try again. Luckily, she and Kendall could be on the same team with Kalen as coach so we didn't have too many scheduling conflicts. Kaya was nearly impossible to keep off the field. She kept telling me she wanted to go play with "yeeyee" (which is how she says Lynnsey).

Lynnsey has had a breakthrough in coming out of her shell this year. She took that earlier dance class and participated and loved it. And then with soccer, she played hard and had a great time. She was a great little midfielder and seemed to be unfazed by some of the bigger players on the field (she was one of the very youngest in the age category).

Kendall still lives for soccer. He just loves it so much and it is so much fun to watch him play. He knows that his days of playing on a team are limited though because the next age level plays on a full size field with much longer games and with his heart issues, he just can't compete at that level. We actually got special permission for him to stay on a younger team this season and they said he can do the same in the fall.

He's also been perfecting his skills as a goalie in hopes of getting some time on the older team. And he's gotten so good at blocking those balls. The last game of the season he played goalie the first half and was blocking and diving and catching so well that no one could score on him.

Notice the bigger players surrounding little Lynnsey? But she just got in there and played.

Taylor also played but we managed to never get there with a camera so I didn't get it documented. Which is really unfortunate because this was his last season. Now if he wants to keep playing he has to try out for the high school team. Which he is hoping to do if he can work it out with his math and science program and the marching band schedule. He too, loves to play midfield but he realized that he is also a great forward this season and in one of the games he scored 3 of their 5 goals.

It was a fun season. I always like spring soccer better because the weather is so much nicer. But the kids are already excited for the upcoming fall season. And in the fall, we will most likely add another player with Spencer ready to try his hand (or foot, as the case may be) at it.

I Can Do It Myself!

Kaya is definitely approaching that two year old stage of doing everything by herself. She has recently learned how to undress herself and then spends the next half hour or so trying to redress herself. It's pretty cute when we have no time constraints, and it frees up some time for me to get other things done while she is occupied. It's not so cute when we are ready to head out the door and realize that she has taken off all her clothing again. It's also not cute when she takes off her diaper every week at church in the middle of a meeting or in a busy hallway, but that's another story.

Ta-da!!!!

And here's just another photo of two cuties. (Who really need a bath!)

Pardon me while I brag about Taylor...

Sorry for the poor photo quality. The lighting in the auditorium at Taylor's middle school is really awful and this was the best we could do. But anyway, Taylor had his middle school awards night last week and we are so proud of him for all of his accomplishments. He has worked hard this year and done well, but we had no idea how many times he'd be called up to the stage. He ended up with eleven certificates in all.

He won outstanding achievement awards for math, language arts, science, history, and integrated academics. He received three band awards for outstanding participation, leadership, and diligence. He got an award for being on the high honor roll for all three years of middle school. And there was a certificate for being one of two students in the school who wrote and received an honorable mention for their history essays which were sent to a statewide competition put on by the State Bar of Michigan for Law Day. And he was one of only a few students who received the President's Education Award for outstanding academic excellence in honor of his 3.9 GPA over the three years of middle school. That one is a very big deal but all Taylor could say was that he should have been with the two other students who had a 4.0 overall GPA. He was cursing his typing class where he got the B+ that marred his otherwise perfect record. Oh well. Whether he is pleased with his accomplishments or not, we couldn't be prouder of him. He works so hard and we know that he'll do well in the coming years of high school and college.

Oh, and here is a short clip of one of the songs that he played in his recent band concert. This one was combined with the high school so you can't actually see him because he's one of the red shirts on the left hiding behind the white shirted high schoolers. But when you hear the brass playing, just imagine that you can see Taylor with his trumpet.