November

For the most part we had quite a mild fall (and winter too, so far). And it was beautiful, though to me it seemed like there wasn't quite the stunning variety of color this year as in years past. Except for the tree in Mom's yard. Every year it turns the most breathtaking shade of crimson. Cars driving by will actually slow down to admire it. We decided to get a picture in front of it, though it was late in the day so the lighting was poor and the photos don't even do it justice. And also, it seems to be impossible to get everyone to look at and/or smile for the camera at the same time.

And one of them is my big teenage son.

We celebrated Thanksgiving this month by going to New Jersey for my niece Cecily's baptism. It was, of course, a very rushed trip but so much fun.

Lynnsey has wanted to get her ears pierced since she was eight and had our permission to make that choice (Kalen claims he never said such a thing but there were too many witnesses). But she kept putting it off because she was a teeny bit scared of what it would be like and how much it was going to hurt. And then she had the idea that maybe she and Cecily could go and have it done together. So we planned a little excursion to Claire's while we were in town.

After I got over the sticker shock (seriously didn't it only used to cost like 5 bucks to do this?), the girls each got to pick a set of earrings. Lynnsey chose a rainbow flower and Cecily chose a purple flower.

Cecily went first at Lynnsey's insistence.

At first you could tell Lynnsey was terrified (see her gripping the armrest for dear life) but she was smiling too.

After the first one went in, the smile was gone and I think she was pretty sure she'd made a mistake.

She recovered though, and once she saw the finished result, she was pretty happy.

Both girls were so cute for the rest of our visit, making sure that they were keeping their ears clean and turning the earrings just like they were shown.

On our way out of the mall, we passed one of those hurricane simulators which all the kids crammed into and tried out.

Mild weather in NJ made it perfect for lots of playground visits. Having Uncle Jonathan around was a big bonus for the kids!

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with Mike's family--they are always so warm and welcoming to us that we sometimes forget they aren't our real family too!

Baptism day arrived and Cecily was pretty excited. We gathered for a few photos before the event. She had lots of cousins from both sides there.

Bentley was given some duplicate hand-me-downs of this shirt, so he gave one to Spencer who was more than happy to dress alike with his favorite cousin. He calls it his "Bentley Shirt" now whenever he wants to wear it.

The baptism was beautiful. After the program we had a delicious luncheon in the gym. And then we took advantage of another gorgeous day and went to another playground for the afternoon.

Some of the "boys" played King of the Hill on top of this big hill next to the playground. Taylor ended up being thrown down the side by his loving father who got a tiny bit carried away. It was too bad that I didn't get a video of it--we might be ten thousand dollars richer right now.

We did lots of visiting and playing and eating yummy food (I just got Alison's Stromboli recipe to try out for dinner this week!) It was such a fun visit. Hopefully next time we can stay longer:)

Fall School Pictures

There's just something about school pictures every year that keeps me buying them. I don't know what it is. It's definitely not the photography skills. Most of them are sort of awkward looking or off-center or capture the kids right as they're saying "fuzzy pickles" through a fake smile. (At least one of my kids usually has to have retakes for an expression that I just can't commit to displaying on my family room wall for the next year.) It's not the price--I could probably get way better pictures elsewhere for the same price I pay for the school ones.

I guess the only thing I can think of is that year after similar year, pose after similar pose, I see my kids grow up in these photos.

The only thing sadder than forking over forty bucks for a picture that I probably could have done a better job taking, is the day when I won't have to anymore.

October

It's a bit sad to me to be doing these catch-up posts since I'm basically only posting about the few pictures I managed to take each month, yet I'm sure I had lots of other blog-worthy things I could have posted about but now don't actually remember. I guess this is better than nothing.

As I mentioned in the last post, soccer started up in Sept. and went all the way through Oct. and into the first week in Nov. I don't love fall soccer as much as the spring kind, mostly because in the fall every game just gets colder and colder until by the end we have to defrost for hours after we get home just to feel semi-normal again! However, the kids enjoy it regardless of the weather.

Spencer is getting better and better. Still a bit goofy at times and I think he'd prefer that they have 3 minute quarters instead of the 8-10 min. ones they've been doing. But he actually got into it a bit and scored a few goals this season!

Lynnsey continues to improve too and really is getting to love the sport. She is so graceful and fun to watch out there. (She's number 3 and yes, this was the best shot I took of her the entire season...)

As it turned out, Kendall would have been allowed to play another season at this level because they didn't get enough sign-ups on the older kids team and ended up either giving their money back or allowing them to play on the younger team again. But by the time we realized that, Kendall had managed to break his collarbone on the playground at recess one day (that made two kids with broken collarbones within just a few months of each other, in case you are counting.) So he opted to be Kalen's assistant coach instead. He said it was fun, but he would have much preferred to play--I could tell by the way he watched the other kids out there that he was just dying to join them. Oh well. We'll have to see what happens in the spring. Maybe he'll get one more chance yet...

This Halloween we had a couple of different "themes" going on. No one could agree on one theme so we just let the kids do what they wanted.

Lynnsey went as Little Bo Peep and Kaya was one of her sheep. They made SUCH a cute pair.

Kendall and Spencer, the soccer fanatics, both went as their favorite soccer players. Kendall was Leo Messi from Argentina and Spencer was Landon Donovan from the U.S. team.

The group.

Taylor made a pretty impressive Albert Einstein. Every year we think he may give up the dressing up idea, but this year he wanted to participate in the costume contest at the math and science center so he went ahead and wore it to the Trunk or Treat too.

Our city opted to do trick-or-treating on Saturday this year which I thought was fine until we realized that the branch Trunk or Treat was the same day. The kids were pretty bummed but still managed to get quite a haul of junk from just the branch activity. I just felt bad to have missed our neighbors who love to have the kids come and show off their costumes every year.

Kendall made this cute kitty cat pumpkin for the jack-o-lantern contest.

Here's some of the competition. Kendall's didn't win, but was definitely one of my favorites. The kid who won actually confessed that his mom had carved his for him. Oh well.

Spencer thought the mummy wrapping race was great fun.

Kaya did pretty well with the pumkin bowling too. Spencer actually won first place in his age category, but I didn't get a picture of him for some reason. I took first place in the crock pot cook-off with my delicious Crock Pot Chili (I couldn't find your recipe Susannah--you'll have to send it again) and Kendall and Spencer both won awards in the coloring contest.

It was a really fun time for everyone! The kids are already discussing options for costumes next year...

September

One of my biggest goals for this coming year is to first, get caught up on the past few months and second, to keep caught up! So travel back in time with me for a bit--all the way back to September of 2011:

It was a crazy month with school starting up again and I also started babysitting again after a year off. This time it is for a two year old little boy and his brand new baby sister. She started coming when she was only three weeks old! It has been so much fun having a baby in the house again. The kids all adjusted well to school and soccer started up as well.

This photo totally cracked me up. Kaya and Kendall were playing together when Kendall decided to play dead. Kaya yelled: "It okay Kendall. I will do ABC!" and she proceded to push on his tummy in her version of CPR. Not sure where she got that... We had a fun time at the Festival of the Forks again this year. As usual our kids were in the parade again. Taylor marched with the band. You can sort of see him if you look close. He's on the far side so it didn't make for a very good photo op.

Spencer walked with his school--and Kalen got to escort him this year since it was my turn last year.

Lynnsey and Kendall walked with the Albion Youth Theatre. (They are carrying the 2nd sign).

And here's Kaya enjoying her role as "big sister"!

School

Okay, I know that Halloween is a week away, I'm counting down the days till our trip to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, and I've begun (to think about) Christmas shopping but I still have my first day of school pictures that I haven't posted yet, so here's a little trip down memory lane.

Once again, Taylor gets the crummy indoor shot because he has to leave for school at 6:15 in the morning when the sun isn't even thinking about waking up yet... He's having a good year so far. Very, very busy. He's a sophomore this year and still spends half of his day at the math and science center in Battle Creek and half of his day at Albion High School. He's excelling in both places and especially loves his chemistry teacher, his biology class, and band. He has kept busy this fall with all of his school work plus his daily online seminary class, plus scouting, plus playing with the band at all the football games.

Kendall is in 6th grade now. Yeah. I can't believe it either. He's in his last year at the elementary school before beginning junior high next year up at the high school. He's enjoying his teacher this year and loves that his two best friends are in with him. He broke his collarbone a couple of weeks into school, so that was a challenge, but luckily it is healing pretty well and he's out of the sling now. His favorite part about this year is that he gets to be in band. He was sure that he wanted to play percussion. That's what he's always wanted to play. But his teacher encouraged him to try another instrument instead while promising to teach him the percussion as well since beginning band percussion is pretty boring. So Kendall tried out several things and finally settled on the clarinet. The brass was too difficult to play for prolonged periods of time without making him lightheaded, so we thought that might not be a good choice. Some of the other wind instruments caused the same problem, and others just didn't interest him very much. So the clarinet it is. He loves it. And he's picking it up fairly quickly with only a few squeaks and squawks along the way.

Lynnsey is in third grade this year and got the teacher she was hoping for. She is really coming out of her shell more and made a deal with her teacher that she would do at least one thing to participate every morning in front of the class. Her teacher said she's been fine one on one or in small groups but just refused to answer questions or anything in front of the whole class. So now she is! Her favorite subject is still reading--which she seems to love to do until late into the night. And even though she doesn't enjoy it, she is really excelling at math this year.

Probably my biggest struggle this year was letting Spencer go to first grade. I was fine with kindergarten last year. It didn't bother me at all. Okay, maybe just a little bit. But this year has been so hard for me. We walked in on the first day and all those other first graders seemed so much bigger and older than my baby boy that I was ready to walk him right back out again. But he's been just fine. More than fine really. His reading has taken off! He is reading his first chapter book now and is flying through it. (We have a tradition of taking the the kids to a restaurant of their choice for dinner when they read their first chapter book). Looks like that will be very soon.

As hard as it is for me every year to send my kids out the door, and as much as I wish I could keep them small and at home forever; I am just so proud of them for doing their best and growing up to be such great individuals. And while I fight to slow time unsuccessfully, part of me is really anticipating seeing what the future holds for each of them.

The Rest of August

Before I forget, here is the picture I missed last time with Nana and all the girls with their new doll outfits. Rebecca loved her new Bitty Baby too. And poor Kaya who was sad not to be included in the picture because she doesn't have a doll yet (I told her when she's 5. We'll see if we make it that long. Lynnsey's obsession is contagious. Kaya told me the other day: "First I'm getting Kaya, then Molly, then Kit, then Julie...") So anyway, Nana had a little stuffed animal that she gave Kaya and we snapped their picture together.

The last day with our visitors we went to a concert in the park. It was a Beatles tribute band that was pretty great actually. The weather was totally weird and went from sunny one minute to a downpour the next. We were thinking we would have to go home when the rain stopped again and the concert continued. But then later the same thing happened and that time we actually did have to pack it in. Still it was a really fun time. Kaya danced most of the time and put on an additional show for the audience. It was really cute when they started playing "Yellow Submarine". She was dancing along, not quite recognizing the song until they began the chorus and she stopped, giggled and proclaimed "Yes!" and then started dancing and singing along.

After the visitors left, we sort of moped around for a few days with that "Day After Christmas" feeling. College started again and so Kalen went back to work full, FULL time. The boy who I babysit after school had to come full time for those two weeks too since his parents work at the college as well. But finally, we decided we had two whole weeks left until school started and so we took a few field trips to the zoo, the nature center and for the last movie in the summer movie series.

These rabbits at the zoo were seriously enormous. Probably twice the size of a housecat.

We love the red panda. He actually raised his head to smile for the picture this time!

We have SO many pictures of the kids on this silly ant statue but it's been fun to see how much they grow from year to year.

We spotted this tiny little turtle taking a break on a rock at the bottom of a little waterfall.

We have lots of pictures on this rock at the nature center too. Another fun way to measure growth. Taylor has grown so much that apparently he thinks he's too old to pose for pictures on these things anymore. Or any pictures at all, unfortunately.

It was a fun wrap-up to a fun but super-fast summer. More posts to come!