Seminary Graduation

This was yet another reminder that we have a child who will be leaving us soon.  For someone who has a rough time watching her kids grow up, all these experiences of Taylor's are just killing me.  Seriously, where has the time gone???  Not only do I remember all too well those days and nights of pacing the floor with Taylor as a colicky newborn, I also remember my OWN seminary graduation like it happened just a few years ago.  What in the world am I doing with a kid of my own being this old?  

We are so proud of Taylor though.  Getting through four years of seminary in Michigan is a lot different than the four years I went through in Utah.  Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot and grew from my seminary experience, but there it was built right into my school day.  There was no sacrificing sleep or extra time to complete it.  For Taylor, three of his seminary years were done in the new online program.  It was convenient in that he could pretty much log on anytime he wanted to get his assignments done (with the exception of the "live" class where the teacher would have a set time that everyone had to be on at the same time--usually at about 5:30 in the morning).  But it was not convenient in that the classes involved a lot of time--usually more than an hour long class and Taylor often had to let something else slide to get his seminary done.  Then when Albion High School merged with Marshall High School before Taylor's senior year, he was able to finally take the early morning seminary class at the church.  That, of course, meant getting up very early in the morning.  But he loved it.  He loved Sister Montross, the world's most amazing seminary teacher and he loved being able to have the extra fellowship with the youth in our branch.  It was a big challenge for us as well since it meant that Kalen had to make that drive over there every morning to get Taylor there every day--his sleep and our budget has suffered greatly.  But we know that it has been worth it for Taylor to participate in the program.  (And now we are trekking Kendall over every day who will be followed by the rest of the kids until Kaya graduates...)

Taylor, Sister Montross and the other Marshall Branch Seminary graduates.

During the Stake President's talk, he had Taylor and Ken (also from our branch) come up for an object lesson with this sword.  Which now, Taylor really wants to have.

Spring Soccer

Spring soccer is by far more enjoyable to be than fall soccer.  Mostly because of the weather.  Instead of getting colder and colder by the week, it tends to get warmer and warmer.  The kids seem more anxious to get in there and play hard, maybe because they have lots of energy after being cooped up all winter or maybe also because the weather is more enjoyable for them too.  Whatever the reason, spring soccer is fun.  The kids all had a great season and improved so much.

Spencer has probably shown the most improvement.  He really got in there and played hard this season and I may be biased but I think the kid is developing some serious soccer skills.  

Kaya had a great time on her U-6 team and loved having Kalen as her coach.

Kendall played his last season of soccer.  For real this time.  We are so glad he was able to participate again after thinking he was done for good a few years ago.  He played great in the goal and on offense and midfield.

Sometimes Kaya had more fun just goofing around with her friends.

But she played hard too!

Lynnsey  is amazing on the field too.  Her best positions are midfield and defense and she helped her team tremendously this season.  

I'm so glad that all of our children enjoy playing.  I'm so not athletically coordinated (they definitely all take after their dad when it comes to anything sports related) but I love watching my kids get out there and have so much fun while doing amazing things.

Our Girl On the Run

Lynnsey was able to participate in  a program called Girls on the Run this past year.  Beginning in January, 4th and 5th grade girls from her school started training to run a 5K race in the spring.  With the crazy winter we had they did most of their running through the halls and the gym of the school until it warmed up enough for them to head outside.  

The race was held at Binder Park Zoo which and was set up to go through the zoo and around the trails surrounding the zoo.  Girls from schools all over the county came  and there were hundreds of them participating plus some had families joining them so it was quite a crowd.

Partway through the race, Lynnsey found Hannah, her good friend from church and they ran together.

I'm not sure what her time ended up being but it was somewhere around the 30 minute mark--not bad at all for an 11 year old in her first 5K ever.

She wound up really enjoying it and is hoping to be able to participate in other cross country events in the future.

American Legion Citizenship Award

Every year the American Legion in our community chooses a few 4th and 5th grade students to honor for outstanding citizenship.  The students have to have demonstrated quite a list of criteria and be nominated by a teacher.  This year, Lynnsey was among the group of 5th graders who were selected.  We are so proud of her and the the well-rounded young lady she is becoming.

Kalamazoo River Adventure

One day in the spring, Kendall and Spencer decided to walk over to the nature center to see if they could find some snails or tadpoles or other cool critters in the water that they could observe and possibly bring home to put in our pond.  Apparently while Kendall was leaning over the walkway by the river to examine the water, he lost his balance and fell right into the river.  According to the boys, there was about a foot of water and about three feet of mud and slime.  It took some doing for Kendall to pull himself out and poor Spencer was near panic thinking that Kendall had fallen into quick sand and would soon be sucked into the muck forever.  Luckily he made it out alive and they were able to walk home.  Our poor washer had to work overtime to get his clothes clean.  And the layer of mud and junk left in the tub after Kendall showered was truly something to behold.

I Just Turned my Back for Two Minutes...

The thing that I really enjoy about babysitting is that it allows me to still be at home during the day.  The thing that I really don't enjoy about babysitting is that I have kids destroying my home during the day.  Anyway, some days are better than others.  This was an other kind of day.  Last spring I was watching a 5 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 1/2 year old and a 2 year old.  That's a lot of little kids.  And even though I try, I can't always watch every kid every second.  This particular day I changed a diaper of one kid, took the diaper to the trash and washed my hands.  The phone rang and I talked to Kalen for just a couple of minutes.  When I came out of the kitchen, this had happened:

In case the pictures don't do it justice, because, really the pictures don't do it justice, there were puzzle pieces mixed with dominoes, mixed with blocks mixed with bouncy balls, mixed with cars, mixed with toy animals, mixed with train tracks mixed with dress up jewelry.

What took them two minutes to create, took me two hours to clean up.

At least they are cute. That counts for a lot on days like this.

Eagle Scout

Taylor's may be quite possibly the LONGEST start to finish Eagle Scout experience ever!  Actually I don't know.  I'm not the world's best scout mom so I don't have a lot of knowledge about these things.  But it sure seemed like it was a never-ending ordeal at times.

Taylor decided on his project last fall (of 2013) and had his meeting with the scouting board who approved his idea of making 50 snowboards to distribute to emergency managers in the state or even just people who were interested in having such a device.  Basically it's a measuring device that can measure snowfall.   He even built a prototype but because of one thing or another, was never able to schedule the actual building of the snowboards.  He wound up putting it on hold till spring (too bad he couldn't have done it in the fall so they could have used them over that awful winter!).  Finally he was able to contact area stores (Lowe's was very valuable in donating many of the supplies) and set up a day to get them put together.  It wound up taking a few  different days to get them completely done and weather sealed.

Then one rainy morning, I had to take Taylor and load all the snowboards into our van.  Did I mention it was raining?  I had to run into the garage where they were stored, pick up two snowboards at time and run them to the van where Taylor was inside playing Tetris to get them all to fit in the back.  Then I would run back through the rain and get two more.  That's a lot of trips in case you were wondering.  And it was raining.Then we drove them to the police station in Battle Creek where the guy who would be distributing them works.  The police chief happened to be walking by when we were talking so Taylor explained what his project was  and got a photo with him.  Then we unloaded the snowboards into a trailer where they would be stored until they could be distributed.

Then it came time for the fun stuff.  Apparently there is a great deal of paperwork involved in scouting.  A great, GREAT deal.  And the scouting board didn't think that Taylor had documented things well enough so they sent him away after that meeting to do more work on it.  But of course then summer was upon us and we went to Utah for 3 weeks then came home where the boys took off for youth conference.  Then we had the Bramhall's come for a visit... Anyway, somehow that paperwork sat for awhile.  Finally though, Taylor got it done and went for the final board of review where they said he'd done enough and would be awarded his Eagle. Good thing.  That was his very last chance.  If he had waited till the next board meeting, it would have been too late!

We finally were able to schedule his Court of Honor in October--over a year after he decided on the project!  

 It was a long time in coming, but we are really proud of all Taylor's hard work and very excited for him that he has achieved such a great accomplishment.

Saving the Wildlife

One day in the spring we were all out enjoying a beautiful day.  (Seriously, one thing that last winter has done is made me just so thankful for warm spring days and green grass and trees!)  Spencer was swinging on the swing set when he notice something stuck in the screen of the patio.  From far away it looking like a big bumblebee but when we got up close we realized it was a sweet little hummingbird.  Somehow it had wedged its beak right through one of the tiny holes of the screen and it was stuck!  He had completely worn himself out.  I didn't want to scare it to death but we figured he was going to die if we left him there for much longer, so I held my hand out and lifted him gently to loosen his beak.  When he came free he was still way too weak to fly.  I sat there with this little bird in my hand and marveled that I was actually holding a bird that is normally almost impossible to get a good close up view of.  

The kids made him a little nest in an old flower basket and we made him some sugar water to see if he could drink any and regain his strength.

We watched him for awhile but had to leave for the school book fair.  We decided that if he was still there when we came home that we would take him to the nature center where they might have a better idea how to take care of a hummingbird.  But when we came home he was gone.  We sure hope he got his wings going and flew away.  There was no sign of him anywhere on the ground so we opted to believe in the happy ending!

BCAMSC Senior Recognition

Taylor has been able to spend the last four years attending part of his high school day at the Battle Creek Area Math and Science Center.  He has loved many of his experiences there and has formed some strong bonds with several teachers and students.  There were many times as his parents, that we thought maybe he would be better off just doing classes at his local high school because this was such a challenging program and he struggled to get decent grades at times.  But I guess the point is that Taylor was happy with his experience, and I did appreciate that he got to attend such a state of the art building and be with kids who had more in common with him.  In April, the school held a Senior Recognition ceremony, which was basically a graduation from the program.  Talk about making things seem real.  If he's graduating from this program, that means his high school graduation is right around the corner, which means we'll being saying goodbye to our first born son before we know it.  I know I sound like a broken record sometimes but I really can't figure out how time seems to go so fast!  I cannot believe that my oldest baby is already old enough to leave home! We're proud of you Taylor!