A Post About Lynnsey

It's hard to believe our first daughter just celebrated her 8th birthday. I still remember the day she was born like it just happened. We had only been living in Michigan for a few months. Our little Marshall Branch had just been formed and I had been called to serve in the Primary presidency. In many places you get released from your church calling when you are about to give birth. Never here. It was a bitter cold winter and I wasn't actually due to have Lynnsey until the 16th but because of my history of fast labors and the icy roads that we would have to travel to the hospital, my doctor graciously offered to induce me on the 10th. After an uneventful induction and my first epidural, our longed-for baby girl entered the world. She was a princess from day one. She always loved frilly girly clothes and the pinker the better. As soon as her hair was long enough, she loved having it styled, especially when we put it in curlers. She soon learned to dress herself and began changing outfits around 8 or 9 times a day. (Laundry was a nightmare!) For a period of a couple of weeks she wouldn't answer to any name except "Miss Princess Lynnsey Lulu Christina Oswald". But even though she was as girly as they come, she had no trouble keeping up with her two older brothers and could often be found in a princess dress out in the dirt digging for worms. She loves her brothers but the happiest day of her life was when her baby sister Kaya was born. Kaya of course, follows Lynnsey like a little shadow and Lynnsey loves having a little sidekick that she can dress up in her old princess clothes and ballet tutu's. Lynnsey is in 2nd grade now and is an excellent reader. She has such a silly side and the cutest giggle. She LOVES playing with her friends and was so excited that she would be able to have a friend party this year for her birthday.

We first celebrated on her actual birthday with just our family. She got her traditional "Baptism Journal". We give one to each of our kids when they turn 8 and we have people write messages in it on their baptism day.

Webkins have become a big deal in our family ever since we got high speed internet. (Just the other day I heard Kaya playing and she said "Oh, look I won some Kinz Cash!")

Kendall ,with the help of Kalen, built Lynnsey her very own balance beam. Now she stays off the back of the couch!

A few days later we had a visit from the Bramhall's who brought with them Lynnsey's major birthday present: Her very first American Girl doll. She has wanted one for awhile and was leaning toward Felicity when we found out that one of the past girl of the year doll's was named Lindsey. So, naturally, she'd want that one even though it was discontinued and teriffically overpriced in most cases. But Alison went on a Craigslist hunt for us and found one in great shape and at a great price. (Thank you!) Lynnsey has been thrilled with her new doll and spends hours changing her outfits and doing her hair. And she is looking forward to our summertime trip to Chicago with her cousins to the American Girl store. (She did tell me just yesterday that if I felt like buying her the Felicity doll too, that I would be more than welcome to do so...)

On Saturday, January 15th we celebrated Lynnsey's baptism day. (More pictures to come!) It was a beautiful program. Her cousin Isabel sang "Faith". Kendall spoke on baptism. Our friends, the Peterson's sang "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus" accompanied by their daughter on violin. Taylor spoke on the Holy Ghost. But of course the best part was the actual baptism and confirmation by Kalen.

Lynnsey was thrilled to wear the same dress that Isabel wore for her baptism. She wasn't too keen on those jumpsuits!

We had a great turnout too, including some of our nonmember friends from town. It was a really nice day and actually way less stressful than I had anticipated it being.

After the baptism we went to dinner that night at La Casa Mexicana, our favorite local restaurant. Yummy food at great prices. And they do a fun tradition for birthday guests. Lynnsey got to wear a big sombrero and they brought out a big dessert with lots of whipped cream which they smeared on her face before singing to her and snapping her picture for their birthday wall. Lynnsey is already asking to go back again so we can see her picture on the wall.

And finally, this last weekend, she was able to have her friend party. She invited 7 little girls for a party and sleepover. Six were able to come. We had pizza.

And made crafts. (The girls were amazed at how easy it is to make hair clips.)

Opened presents.

And had cake and ice cream.

Afterward we watched Ramona and Beezus. (Such a cute movie that has made me want to re-read all those books I loved as a kid). Then we spent the next hour or so trying to get the girls to settle down enough to go to sleep. Finally, after much giggling and whispering, they finally drifted off only to wake up bright and early the next morning with triple the energy of the night before! But Lynsey had a great time and we figure she's only 8 once! Happy birthday Lynnsey Lulu!

Cutting off the Curls

After two and a half years, I finally decided that the time had come to give Kaya a haircut. I waited so long because I loved her little curls, but it had become SO time consuming and such a battle every day to comb through her mess of tangles, that I decided I'd take my chances on having her hair go straight.

Initially Kaya was pretty excited about the whole production: That didn't last long.

When one of the kids came in to check on the progress and exclaimed that her curls were gone, she was especially unhappy.

But once the cut was finished, with a little scrunching, we found that some of her curls had bounced back.

It's definitely more wavy now than curly except for right after a bath it goes pretty curly again, but it's so much easier to comb through now--5 minutes vs. 30 makes our mornings a bit easier!

Christmas Vacation

We had a lovely nice and quiet Christmas this year with just our family and no monster stomach viruses like the one that visited last year. Once the busy-ness of the first half of the month settled down, the last part was really nice.

We had our 3rd annual homemade chicken noodle soup on Christmas Eve. The noodles came out wonderfully:
And the soup was so yummy that we barely had any leftovers from this huge pot.

This photo is out of order. The kids actually did this on Christmas Day in the afternoon. They put on a Christmas talent show where they dressed up and performed their version of the nativity and then sang us some Christmas songs.

And this too, is out of order. This was Kaya's reaction after she opened her Unicorn Pillow Pet. She's had her eye on them for months now and always made me stop at the display in the store so she could hold them. Lynnsey was thrilled with her Ladybug Pillow Pet too.

Christmas morning, before the whirlwind began:

Santa brought Taylor a Native American flute, Kendall a pottery wheel, Lynnsey a pink digital camera, Spencer Moon Dough, and Kaya got Baby All Gone.

The kids drew names among themselves this year which worked out really well. Kaya loved her bubbles from Taylor.

And here is Spencer holding the one casualty of Christmas so far. None of us had seen Toy Story 3 yet but I managed to snag a copy for Spencer at Rite Aid using my +Up Rewards and coupons for around $5. We watched it in Christmas evening, (and loved it!) the kids watched it again a couple of days later , and the day after that we discovered it sitting loosely in it's case with a giant crack running right down the middle. Kaya was quick to volunteer herself as the culprit. Big surprise. She is one of the most distructive kids I've ever seen. (Just broke my little collectible teapot this morning!) Sigh. All those wasted +Up Rewards... (You couponers will understand.)

And our little crafter girl was ecstatic with her giant scrapbooking kit.

And here's our kid with the great reactions. I believe this was over his ELO CD. He watched a concert on TV a few months ago and has been asking for their music ever since. We had a fun little dance party that afternoon.

We spent the following week enjoying our gifts (and trying to find a place to put them all), eating lots of chocolate, watching movies that we'd received, sleeping in late every day, and enjoying finally having time together.

For New Year's Eve we joined some friends from church at their house where we ate lots of snacks and played some super fun games. The kids all made it to midnight and probably could have gone longer if we hadn't dragged them home to their beds. Kaya has been begging every day to go back to their house to play. (It actually is pretty amazing; they have 8 kids and their last 5 match up perfectly in age to our five.)

On New Years Day, we played some of our new games that we got for Christmas: Blokus, Apples to Apples, and Uno.

Sunday the kids all moved up in Primary. Sort of. Spencer's class still doesn't have a primary teacher but he was pretty excited that he got to move to the second row. And Lynnsey is a bit disappointed that because her birthday isn't until January, she has to stay in my class for a whole year and be separated from her best friend who is only two months older than she is. I also still have my one little challenging boy again. He was looking so expectant and excited as they were calling out the new classes and when they told him to come with me, his shoulders dropped and he said: "Again?!" But then he laughed and came and gave me a hug, so I guess he'll deal with it okay. Gotta love a branch with combined classes and a shortage of teachers. Oh, and Sunday was Testimony meeting and after Kendall and I had both gotten up, Kaya decided it was her turn. So Kalen took her up and she sang "I am a Child of God" for her testimony. Cutest thing ever!

And now the kids are all back in school and we're trying to get back into a routine and I'm just trying to keep up with it all again while I'm just wishing for a couple more weeks. Can't wait for summer vacation...