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!"

A Great Idea That I Had

In the past week our menu has consisted of the following:

Tamale Soup

Enchilada Pie

Chicken n' Stuffing bake

Pizza Cups

German Pancakes

Roasted hot dogs and Dutch Oven Potatoes

The greatest part of all is that I only made two of the dinners.

I had an idea a while back and finally decided I wanted to put it into action. My idea was this: everyone over the age of ten will be responsible for one dinner per week. Pretty simple, but so nice for me not having to figure out what to cook 6 nights a week (one day is for leftovers). Taylor and Kendall (especially Kendall) are really excited about the idea too. Kendall because he is an aspiring chef and loves every chance he can get to play around with ingredients and Taylor because for at least one night a week he will get a dinner that doesn't make him want to puke. This was our first week and I thought it was fantastic. Mom made her yummy tamale soup, Kalen did the hot dogs and dutch oven potatoes in our fire pit, Taylor made German pancakes, and Kendall made pizza cups. They are already figuring out what they will make for this week and all I have to do is make sure we have all the ingredients and then let them have at it. I do step in to help if needed but this week I didn't really have to do much except help Kendall speed things up a bit. He learned that cooking can be a little more time consuming than he thought and that what he thought would be a 6:30 dinner time became a 7:30 dinner time as he tried to assemble the pizza cups at the same time that he was trying to get his vegetables cooked and the fruit washed and ready and the juice mixed up.

I really think that this will be a valuable learning experience for the kids, especially Taylor who will be leaving home in just a few short years. And it will be a very valuable experience for me not having to worry about getting dinner on the table every night in the middle of the craziest part of the day where I'm also helping with homework, cleaning the house and babysitting my afterschool charge. I can almost feel a bit of sanity creeping back into my life!

The Latest

Once again I have let time lapse and have major catching up to do. Life has gotten a little crazy with so many things to keep up with and also stressful with some unforseen financial emergencies (like the needing a new roof immediately or we might have a disaster this winter kind of emergency) that have been occupying our time and energy as of late. So anyway, my apologies. Here are just a few of the better things going on lately:

*Taylor has been so busy this school year with his advanced classes at the math and science center as well as his other classes, two of which are honors level at the regular high school. He averages probably 2-3 hours of homework per night. Add on to that marching band which is required to play at all the home football games, scouts, mowing our elderly neighbor's lawn and his online seminary class, and the poor kid hardly has a minute to himself. We've had to do a major paring down of his chore list because he just doesn't have time. So I thought it was great when I saw him sitting at the table one day doing some artwork (on a paper plate of all things) that was completely unrelated to school. He said he was inspired by some Native American pottery designs he had seen when we were in Utah. The scenery is representative of places all over the the world and in different time periods. I just thought it looked cool. *We recently had our annual Festival of the Forks here in Albion. It was a chilly rainy day so we weren't sure how the turnout would be. But people braved the weather anyway and the street was packed with people and vendors as usual. The only thing that was really affected was the music. With the rain a lot of them weren't able to plug in their equipment to perform. Toward the later part of the afternoon the sun came out and we saw a couple of performances.

This lady raises alpacas and then spins yarn from their coats.

It wouldn't be the Festival without Elephant Ears! Kendall enjoying the sugary remains.

Me, Lynnsey and Spencer marching with the schools in the morning parade.

Taylor marching with the high school band.

Kendall marching with the Youth Theater group. Sadly only 3 members showed up and no adults, so they ended up walking with the Strander for Probate Judge group.

*After the parade we took a short break to head over to Marshall for the Relief Society craft day. The kids were invited so I took Kendall, Lynnsey and Spencer to make some fun crafts.

Kendall working on his loom hat. He also made some refridgerator magnets.

Lynnsey wearing her cute button headband that she sewed on her own. She did some magnets too.

Spencer with his 5 magnets that he painted.

Me with my fabric covered magnet board. I also made a button headband for Kaya.


*I mentioned Taylor's advanced math and science courses. I thought I'd just share what his "calculator" looks like (compared to my tiny little purple one that does all the math I need):

*Soccer season is in full swing again. We have three kids playing now. Spencer was so excited to give it a try, but now that he's had a couple of games he wants to be done with it. He could be really good because he's super fast and has really great balance and ball control. But he is hating having to be on the field with so many other kids. The first two games he would start out okay but as soon as someone bumped him or if he couldn't get anywhere near the ball, he'd get mad and sulky. The last game he ended up stomping off the field and wouldn't go back out. And that was after the time he just sat down right in the middle of the action and refused to budge until he saw me heading for him. It's been such a pain and the only thing that gives me hope is remembering that Taylor was that way when he first played too and he ended up loving it. So I guess we'll see.

Lynnsey is playing on the team that Kalen is coaching and she is having a great season again. She gets right in there as midfielder and plays her heart out. She's really fun to watch too because she is such a graceful, athletic runner. She did not get that from me.

Kendall is also playing another season on Kalen's team. They gave him special permission because if he played on the older team on that full size field, he wouldn't last very long before he'd be worn out. Eventually, he'll either have to quit soccer or move up and stick to playing goalie but for now we're glad he gets to be on this team still. He is getting to be a phenomenal goalie and usually spends half the game in that position and the other half playing forward. He scored their team's only goal in the last game!

Spencer in a more goofy moment--before stomping of the field and proclaiming that he was never playing soccer again.

Nothing gets past this goalie.

Nice kick Lynnsey!

*Without my babysitting jobs this year and with nothing promising on the horizon so far, I have taken to trying out other means of generating even a tiny bit of income. I've been coupon shopping like mad, selling some of our unwanted items on eBay, taking a few paid online surveys, and just recently I opened my online Etsy shop to sell some of my crochet items and hair clips. I'm still getting going right now so I only have a few things listed and I'm trying not to compare my work to the other amazing things that people are selling. I totally get overwhelmed and want to back out when I look at other peoples work, but I've decided to go ahead with it and see what happend. At any rate, Kaya has been having fun being my model. I thought I'd share some of her cute-ness.

The hats aren't nearly as cute without her in them, but if you're interested in some gift ideas or for your own kiddos check them out at www.etsy.com/shop/kayalucreations. I'll be adding more stuff every day or you can ask me about a custom order too and I'll see what I can do.

*Spencer is still saying hilarious things. Here's one of our latest conversations:

Spencer: Mommy, did you know that there are a lot, lot, LOT of soldiers in Michigan?

Mommy: Oh really? How do you know that?

Spencer: Because they drove by my school today and we got to stand outside and wave flags at them and stuff and there were so many soldiers. They were on their way to I think do a battle or something like that but I'm not sure where they were going except I do know that it is not Canada. Yeah, not Canada.

*Kalen, Taylor, and Kendall are going to be in an upcoming roadshow for our stake. It should be interesting. Taylor had to be coerced into it with the rest of the branch youth, but I think he's really having a great time even though it involves some dancing and singing and holding hands with a girl. Kendall's having a great time, of course, since he loves performance stuff like that. And don't tell anyone, but I have major hopes that someday he'll marry his little dancing partner. (You can see her in one of the above pictures with Lynnsey).