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...

Kendall's New Blog

Kendall has decided to join the blogging world but I may not have everyone's address to invite them to read it. If you are interested, let me know by leaving your e-mail address as a comment and we'll send you an invitation.

Kendall is Eleven

On December 7th Kendall celebrated his eleventh birthday, in spite of my protests that my children are not allowed to get any older. He was SO excited all day long. Since he had a friend party last year, this year was just our family which was really nice and a lot less stressful.

Kendall is the best person to give gifts to because he is so gracious about everything and makes the giver feel like they picked the best possible gift. For example, he was ecstatic about new earpods for his MP3 Player: He got books 3 and 4 in the Percy Jackson series (thanks Nana for #4!):

He recieved several other gifts including a nice pen from Taylor and a couple of dvd's including Napoleon Dynamite. The biggest gift of the night was something he has had on his list for awhile now but didn't think we'd ever get for him. Here he is peeking into the bag.

And here is is reacting:

And here is one happy boy with is very own pet beta fish. Just imagine what he'd have done if we'd have gotten the puppy he's been asking for. Baby steps....

Kendall also decorated his own cake:

It was a fun day with a fun kid. Kendall is just such a blessing to us. He is so easy going and so willing to help with anything. He is a peacemaker with his brothers and sisters and so patient with them. He's a spiritual giant and amazes us with his knowledge of the gospel and his testimony of Jesus Christ. And he has the most funny sense of humor and makes us laugh constantly. It's hard to believe that we've had him for 11 years already, but it's been such a joy. We love you Kendalito!

Random November/December

Well, this is the absolute worst that I have ever done at keeping up on blogging. Not only have I been horrible at blogging but I've been pretty lousy at taking pictures too so I can't even remember a lot of the stuff I may have wanted to document.

Things really have been SO busy lately between all the kids activities and school stuff and church callings and hat-making and sometimes babysitting and my mom's group and Christmas preparations... Anyway, it's just been crazy. But pretty good too.

I'll try a brief update with a few pictures sprinkled in.

Kaya and Lynnsey both love their nighties that were made by Grandma Oswald. Kaya was thrilled when Lynnsey outgrew the green one so she got to have it. These two sisters are so cute together. Kaya just adores Lynnsey and gets so excited when she comes home from school everyday. And Lynnsey will do anything for Kaya. They've recently been having lots of fun dressing up and doing each other's hair and all those girly things that Lynnsey always hoped she'd have a sister to share in.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We had Jonathan and Timothy come out for a visit for a couple of weeks. It was great to see them both and Jonathan was an amazing help to us on some of our home-improvement projects. We also got to play lots of games together which we haven't done in quite awhile and the kids loved having their fun uncles to play with.

This photo of Kendall cracked me up. He put on Jonathan's coat, hat, and boots and came tromping into the room with a tough "Jonathan" face on.

So Jonathan put on his "Kendall" face and actually had to smile really big for the camera!

Kaya's sugar addiction hasn't let up much. And now that she can climb it's gotten really interesting. We found her in the kitchen hiding with the sugar bowl having a snack.

And speaking of Kaya, she has been so excited lately to go to school! I signed her up for a little Time for Tots class at the kid's museum. They meet once a week for just an hour and a half. There are only 4 other little girls in the class with her and she absolutely loves it.

On the first day she got her little backpack and had me take her picture just like I did when the other kids started school. She loves feeling like such a big kid. I just struggle to let her become one.

This was just a silly shot of the kids when we were retiring our autum wreath to replace it with the Christmas one.

And another silly moment. I always find some interesting photos on my camera that the kids take when I'm not around. It makes for some entertainment and a few surprises.

We also celebrated Kendall's birthday which I will save for it's own post. It's hard to believe he's already eleven!

Taylor just performed in his winter band concert. They were amazing! Of course I didn't even have the camera, but it was really spectacular. For such a small band they can do some really difficult pieces. It'll be interesting to see how they do in their spring competition this year.

The kids just finished up school for the Christmas break. They are all so excited about this coming Saturday and are anxiously counting down.

Hopefully Santa will bring them everything they're asking for but Lynnsey's messy room might just prevent that happening! She's promised that tomorrow she'll clean it for sure...for about 3 weeks now.

One Of These Days...

...I might actually keep up on my blog posts so that I don't have to do these major catching up and glossing over ones. One of these days is not today.



Anyway the month of October was crazy busy, as usual. And because I didn't take a whole lot of pictures last month, I can't really remember everything we had going on. I know we had A LOT of soccer practices and games. The kids ended up all having a great season. Kendall and Lynnsey improved even more and were really fun to watch. Kendall had a few injuries because he got right in there after the ball and then would end up getting mauled by the larger, even more aggressive players. But he always recovered quickly and got right back in the game. Spencer even had fun after the first few games. He mostly just ran around after the other clump of kids on the field but he'd get very excited if the ball happened to bounce off his shoe and we would cheer excitedly as if he'd just had the most amazing kick of his life. He claims he wants to play again in the spring, so hopefully he'll love it.



I directed a cute little talent show for our Faith in God group last month too. We only had three kids participating and an hour to fill, so we really had to work to stretch out the time. We performed a couple of fun readers theater pieces one of which we were asked to re-perform at our Branch Halloween party. And then each of the boys performed two or three talents. Kendall brought some artwork to share, and then he performed a cute magic show and read an original poem. And do you think I had my camera there to take pictures? Of course not.

I did however capture a few random shots of the general cuteness/silliness of our kids. This one is Spencer being a rock star: (I love his pom-pom hair and flashlight microphone)


Kaya has become our little sneaky child these days. Every so often it will grow very quiet and we can generally find her hiding under a table or behind a curtain eating something that is off limits. The other day I spotted her under the kitchen table with a bowl of sugar. When she saw me coming her way she frantically tried to shove it behind her back. Little stinker. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago when she had already brushed her teeth and gotten ready for bed. We found her with a piece of watermelon hiding under the high chair.

Then she generally smiles sweetly at us and says something irresistable so she never gets in too much trouble for her antics:

Fall came with beautiful, brilliant colors. The kids had a ball playing in the leaves but none of us enjoyed all the raking. One crazy day we spent about 3 hours raking our own lawn and then went over to my mom's and did hers for another couple of hours. By the time we were done we could barely move, so we treated ourselves to a rare dinner out at Pizza Hut.

This tree in my mom's yard was absolutely breathtaking. We took pictures in the very late afternoon so the colors aren't even close to as brilliant crimson as it is in the full sun. It was absolutely gorgeous.

By the time we finished the raking, it had grown dark and cold so Taylor made his own earwarmers--out of his gloves. It doesn't show up very well with the dark picture, but it was pretty funny.

This one's a bit blurry but I wanted to show the giant piles of leaves we raked into the street for pick-up at my mom's house. It was insane and many of her trees hadn't even turned color yet so there were lots more to come.

And these pictures are from our own yard--when the idea of raking was still new and fun.

In other news, Kaya still hasn't kicked the binky habit. In fact, sometimes one just isn't enough anymore...

Halloween was lots of fun this year although it felt a bit rushed because we changed our theme late in the month so we had to scramble to put together all the costumes. We had planned on going with a Little Red Riding Hood theme but Lynnsey insisted that she wanted to be Red Riding Hood and Kaya could be the grandmother. But Kaya won't wear any sort of headcovering and so the little gray wig I was planning to buy would never have worked. So we finally ended up dropping that idea and going with a "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up" theme. And this way, even Taylor decided to dress up for another year.

Taylor was a paleontologist (modeled after famous movie archeologist Indiana Jones).

Kendall went as a budding chef.

Lynnsey the veterinarian.

Spencer made an adorable astronaut.

And Kaya was a precious little nurse (without a nurse hat of course...)

This year our branch trunk or treat was held at the same time as our city trick or treat so we missed out on going around our neighborhood and opted for the church activity. Literally five minutes before we left, Kalen decided we should dress up too. So I went as college professor and he went as a stay-at-home mom. (I think he really just didn't want to change out of his sweats). If we'd had more time, we could have made it work better. Oh well. Kalen thought his Old Navy t-shirt that had food spilled on it during the dinner was a nice touch. (Good to know what he thinks of my general appearance...)

The kids had fun at the various carnival games before the trunk or treating began.

And Kendall got to meet the Swedish Chef from the Muppet show:

And in still other news, I'm still making hats for my new Etsy shop. I've actually only sold one item to someone that I don't know. Everything else has been locally. But that's okay too. I've got orders for four more hats that I'm working on right now so I'm excited to be able to have some business. Just thought I'd share a few more cute pictures of my models.

Lynnsey cracks me up; she's such a little ham. She does this thing where she turns her head in this perfect little pose every time like she's an old pro at modeling. Kaya rarely cooperates anymore now that the novelty has worn off and she remembered that she hates wearing hats--unless it's the worn out purple one that she's had since she was a baby. That one she wants to wear everywhere!

She does however enjoy wearing skirts and dresses now and she picked this outfit all by herself which I thought was adorable.

And that's about it. We had a great stake conference this past weekend. We had Elder Oaks come to speak to us along with an area seventy, Elder Cook. They were both absolutely spectacular. I was able to go to the adult session on Saturday night which was wonderful. I've not been able to do that for many years. And Sunday, we were able to meet Elder Oaks and shake his hand which I think had a profound impact on our kids--especially Kendall who was just so thrilled at the opportunity.

We are also excited to have Jonathan and Timothy visiting for a couple of weeks. The kids just adore them both and have been having so much fun. I'll have to post some funny pictures of a role reversal that Kendall and Jonathan did last night when they were goofing around. And hopefully, I'll be keeping up on this thing a bit better from now on!

Naked Royalty and Other Kid Quotes

I am SO SO SO SO SO far behind in blogging these days. I am looking at another major post coming up once I get all the pictures uploaded from Halloween and all the other stuff we've been up to. Until then, I thought I'd share a couple of quotes from my oldest and youngest.

The other day Kaya stripped off all her clothes down to her diaper and announced: "I'm a naked princess!"

On Sunday Kaya was not feeling well and so we had decided that we'd better keep her home from church with Kalen who was also not feeling great. She was sitting up at the table and I was trying to get her to eat some breakfast but all she wanted was Halloween candy. Taylor asked her what she was going to do while the rest of us were at church. She responded (with her head hanging defeatedly and in her sad little hoarse voice): "I don't know! I say I want candy but Mommy won't yet me." Guess what she got to eat after two bites of cereal?

Yesterday Taylor was complaining that he had lost yet another weekend to busy stuff. He has been longing for an empty Saturday especially after the hours of school and homework he's had this year, but our weekends lately have been packed with other commitments. And he had just found out that the youth are doing a service project raking leaves on Saturday morning bright and early. He said: "Why do I have to do this stupid thing anyway?" I said: "Maybe so you can be like Jesus and show love for your fellowman by raking leaves." I thought the Jesus comment would get him but he said: "Well Jesus never had to go to high school!"