Super Soccer Player!

Jefferson played his first season of soccer this fall and LOVED it. Some of his favorite parts of playing were scoring goals, giving his coach high five, and finding his best buddy Tommy with whom he now spends three days a week playing (the blond behind Jefferson in the third picture).

Jefferson's coach, who apparently has been around soccer in this area forever, was impressed that Jefferson could tell where the ball was going to go, and played accordingly. On one play, Jefferson flanked the kid with the ball and when someone came to challenge that kid, he passed it in to Jefferson who turned and put it in the goal. It was like real soccer! Way to go Jefferson!

Happy Birthday McKinley!!

So this is two months later, but September 14, 2010 McKinley turned 3!! We had a little Princess lunch with some 3 year-olds in the neighborhood - Sophie, Anna, Saphirah and Kayla. They all dressed as princesses, ate lunch, danced and played. McKinley wanted a castle cake, but after a debacle involving the use of baking mix instead of cake flour, the cake was an crown, in case you cannot tell.

McKinley is still a pretty happy girl, but she is getting old enough to instigate little arguments with Jefferson, so some days she is just not her sunny self. I can't complain, though - she skipped any sort of terrible twos or 18 month craziness and is already 3! At 3 she grudgingly gave up the binky, and now spends most nights sleeping on the boys' room floor since her comfort crutch has disappeared. McKinley is a great big sister, always including Reagan and helping her have fun being a princess, a mom, a puppy, or whatever the pretend game of the day is.

Some things McKinley loves these days include:

- Jefferson's friend Tommy

- Jewelry, shoes, purses, phones, gowns, lip gloss

- Reagan joining her in nursery

- Spaghetti and macaroni and cheese

- Running fast and showing off her muscles

- Helping Mom make dinner or dessert

- Going to Church - "Why isn't it time for Church yet!"

- Talking about who she will marry - "Since you are married to Daddy, maybe I can marry Grandpa. That would be a good idea."

Kids on the deck

These pictures have been up a while, but they capture two important events of the year, so I will add commentary. Earlier this summer Jefferson broke his radial bone about an inch down from his wrist falling off a chair onto some tile. In September on a Saturday after Brian and I had run 20 miles, Truman went to the park and fell off the monkey bars. His left arm broke in the same way, in the same place that jefferson's did.

At the doctor I forgot to tell them he was left handed so they casted him so he could no longer grip a pencil with his thumb and finger. He spent four week writing with the pencil straight up in his four fingers, moving his arm to shape the letters. Truman is veryroud of his handwriting, so that was rough. Even rougher was the first night of his Jr. Jazz season when he had to play with his cast on. Fortunately we had it off by he next week.

You may notice his cast is orange. Jefferson chose blue for BYU, then glow in the dark. Truman wanted red. Because he knows red is controversial this time of year. I told the doctor he could have any color but red. He finally went for orange cause it was almost Halloween. This kid will either be die hard Cougar or Ute when he gets older. I can't wait to see whether we will be paying for his college or not :)

The second big event was Brian building us an awesome deck on the back of our house with a shed underneath. It is gorgeous and adds to our view big time. Thanks Brian for yet another awesome project at the house!