Happy Birthday Emily! (And the rest of us!)

For Emily's birthday this year (October 16), my parents rented our favorite cabin in Sundance. We have even been there with Brian's family. We went up and stayed the weekend, enjoying the gorgeous weather and great company. We rode the lift at Sundance and hiked around for a few hours and then went to Provo where we got to eat Blue Bell ice cream from a shop at the Riverwoods!! The XBox 360 was a big hit and we had time for some games as well. It was a great weekend, so thanks to Mom and Dad and Emily for having a birthday!

While we hiked Brian and the boys jumped out of the bushes to scare us and Lincoln got covered in hundreds of burrs. All the kids had a good time helping him clean off. I am just glad it was not McKinley's hair that ended up in that bush!

Introducing Libbi Page Halsey

August 19, 2011 we got up at 5:30 and headed to Manti with brand new baby Pierce to attend Libbi's wedding. It was a gorgeous day and a very special sealing in the tower sealing room up a flight of spiral stairs. Rachel and Emily watched Pierce, the Baldwin kids and a couple others while we attended the sealing. Then we took tons of pictures on the hill behind the temple with Mary Kim (my aunt). I felt surprisingly good for having had a baby less than five days before the wedding.

By the time we got home I needed a nap, but there was not much time for that! We picked up the kids from Brian's mom and got them all dressed up (against their will of course) for pictures before the reception. We were very late because Brian was finishing his awesome wedding video for the happy couple.

The reception was lovely and it was great to see so many old friends. McKinley and Reagan basked in Libbi's bridal glory the whole time. Pierce did what all good newborns do and slept practically the whole time. Brian hosted a dance party for the cousins in the basement after the reception. We are so excited for Libbi and the kids are ecstatic to have a new uncle around.

Princess Ballerina McKinley

For a year McKinley has been looking forward to her 4th birthday so she can go to "ballerina class". Well, the day finally arrived two days before her birthday! She goes to gym-dance every Monday for an hour and it costs $22/month (this is for my reference in the future). She comes home and teaches everyone (including Jefferson, Truman and Lincoln) her moves. Reagan is the most attentive student, but the boys are not far behind!

For her birthday she wanted a castle cake so I built her a castle out of treats. The cake was delicious and beautiful. Mmmmm, birthday cake... Anyway, she got ballerina clothes, a queen dress and crown, a princess blanket, lip gloss and a bike for her birthday. She and Reagan are a pair of princesses/ballerinas/mommies all day every day.

McKinley is a very attentive daughter, watching and learning everything I do as a mom. If you don't know where something is at our house, she knows where to find it. She helps me cook dinner every night and can hang up laundry without any help from me. The boys can't do this yet! She also knows how to really clean up. She sees clutter and tidies it up when she is in the cleaning mood. All of that plus her sunny attitude makes her a pretty fun four-year-old to have around.

March Madness 2011

Jefferson turned 5 in March and we celebrated by going to the Rec Center with his best friend Tommy and his family (his birthday is a few days later). We had pizza, cake and went swimming. It was Brian's first trip to the pool at the Rec Center so of course Lincoln split his chin open on a pole and Jefferson had stomach problems that Brian dealt with in the men's locker room. Thankfully Rachel had joined us and was a big help. The kids overall had a blast and we adults survived, so it was all worth it, right?

Spring Flowers

Emily is a blossoming floral arranger. She even did the flowers for Libbi's wedding. In February we used her arrangement to take pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses.

The girls like to be called Flower like Rapunzel is in Tangled. When I brush their hair they ask, "Why can't I go outside Mommy?" and I have to respond with "The world is a dangerous place... do you understand Flower?" and they answer, "Yes, Mommy". (If you are confused, watch the first 5 minutes of Tangled).

Pierce

If you have been wondering why there have been no blog posts from our house for the last year or so, it is because I have been working on this instead. Now that Pierce is here and healthy and I feel sooooooo much better, I will try to be better at posting.

Pierce was born August 14, 2011, a few weeks after Sarah came home from her mission and 5 days before Libbi married Ryan Halsey in the Manti Temple. We had a very eventful summer! Pierce's middle name is Michael after Brian's Dad and brother. He has a dimple and a sweet temperament. He is currently full of smiles and is growing out of his clothes faster than any other baby so far. Maybe we will actually have a boy break 6 feet some day! Reagan is his biggest fan and I often have to clean yogurt, cookies, spaghetti sauce, etc. off his head from her kisses. I hope he survives her love!

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!

June 2010

I am not organized enough to have pictures ready, but I thought I would document pieces of summer this year. June was busy with the boys attending baseball camp and swimming lessons. Jefferson was moved up into the big boys' class because he spent most of his time in the pool under water while the other kids his age nervously stayed on the steps. Diving boards and starbursts at the bottom of the pool were not much of a challenge for his no fear love of the water.

The older boys enjoyed swimming, but also had fun at baseball camp. When they finished their first season of machine pitch ball, they tried out for the all-star team. Truman, who was playing two levels up on Lincoln's team, made it into the top fielding group even though he was 5 and other kids were 8 and 9. Lincoln was the only kid we saw hit every ball he was pitched. They are both way smaller then most kids out there, and this was their first experience playing, so we had a great time watching and can't wait for next year.

Baseball camp was their dream come true - three hours of ball a day with people who have to play with them! When I went to pick them up, they were always the last kids on the field still pitching to each other, hitting it and running the bases. The coaches were amazed that they would be out there all day, rain or shine or oppressive heat. Truman also became a celebrity for his uncanny talents as a 6-year-old. On pitching day, the coaches could not get over him throwing strikes consistently from the pitcher's mound, just out of kindergarten.

His surprising athletic ability has made him older friends at school, and the first day of baseball camp the boys came home bragging that some fourth grader had shared gatorade with them. Brian wondered what fourth grader would share with a random kindergartner and first grader, so the boys explained that this kid knew Truman from before school pick-up football games.

After that I would watch Truman be surrounded by kids of all ages as he arrived at practice, "Truman! Hey, Truman!". He got so much attention that one day Lincoln came home saying he didn't like baseball that much because Truman had so many friends and he had none. "They all like him because he is better than me at baseball." Fortunately the last day Lincoln impressed them all with his hitting skills and he came home saying, "Now I have the same friends Truman does!" Many more years of this ahead!

McKinley had no swimming or baseball so we sent her to Princess Camp with her friend Sophie and cousin Ashlynn. She has not stopped talking about it all summer, and even sat with the Princess who put on the camp (Nicole Sedlacek in our ward) on Sunday and fell fast asleep. McKinley is 100% princess/fairy with her tiny frame, gigantic smile and flowing golden hair.

Reagan follows suit as well, but she is more of a stout little princess. As soon as I put her tutu on she begins spinning around and singing "So This is Love" from Cinderella. You would never be able to guess she was "singing" without having seen McKinley perform this song over and over in the past few months, but we can tell.

She is adorable and has loved having Libbi and Emily around to dote on her. All the kids love their aunts, but no one gets the attention that Reagan does - we all want to eat her up.

"Jesus Gave Me These"

The other day McKinley, Reagan, Emily and I went to the grocery store. I put Reagan into the driver's seat of the race car basket and bumped into McKinley as I backed up. She fell down hard, hurt her hip and started to cry. As she stood up some dice fell to the ground rolled around. She grabbed them, looked up, laughed through her tears and declared, "Jesus gave me these!" She was overjoyed for the rest of the shopping trip, sure that Jesus had rained dice from Heaven for her to hold in her pocket forever. From everything Emily and I could gather about where we were and how the dice appeared, her assessment was correct - it was a miracle, and Jesus gave her those.

Happy Mother's Day!

We just got back from a weekend at the Sundance cabin with Brian's family. Unfortunately I was the only Page there, so I had no choice but to be sick for two days, but everyone else had a great time checking out Bridal Veil Falls, Squaw Peak, the Bean Museum of Natural History and Brick Oven.

Brian's favorite part was the two hour game of hide and go squeeze. Truman and Lincoln enjoyed plenty of Wii football and pool with their cousin Dallin, and Jefferson watched as much Star Wars as he could. McKinley enjoyed Aunt Jessica doing her hair everyday and playing with Allie, Jenna and Kaitlyn. Reagan can only go up stairs at this point, so all too often she ended up on the top balcony level chucking billiard balls onto unsuspecting victims below. Fortunately she does not have Truman's aim, so no one sustained injuries.

I enjoyed family time and lots of sitting around watching chick flicks while everyone was out. We are keeping track of calorie burns on our go wear fit arm bands (like a body bug), and I had my lowest burn ever on Saturday when I was sick - 1875 calories in a day! I am usually close to 3000. That is what I call evidence of what a great family I have (immediate and in-law) to take such good care of all the kids when I was down and out. The other good new is I did eventually feel well enough to enjoy some oreos, m&ms and roasted marshmallows. I guess I should have burned more calories :)

It was really fun to read our old entries in the cabin journal! We are excited to go back when the Duryeas come back from Japan and Katie and Braum live here again.

PS - Natalie, I will definitely see you at WC in 2012 - you have a spot in my hotel room, ok?

Women's Conference

Brian alerted me to the fact that I had not responded to the comments...so camp is August 4-7, and I like the bags idea - you know me and bags.

I took the opportunity to attend Women's Conference Thursday and Friday last week with my sister-in-law Jessica and had a GREAT time. I enjoyed the company, the venue (BYU - ah, those were the days), the classes, the Temple, and the rejuvenating "rest" that Elder Oaks said I was "entitled to" when he spoke Friday night - yes, he used the word entitled! I am ready to work harder at my job of raising children in Zion.

Here are a few pearls of wisdom:
1. It is not fair to judge past choices with present knowledge
2. "God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are, and with His help, where you are willing to go. Faith is for the future." Jeffery R. Holland in his talk "Remember Lots Wife"
3. We are all as pivotal to our generation as Rebekah of the Old Testament was to hers. (Sister Beck)
4. "The surest way to make it hard for our children, is to make it easy for them. One way to do more for them is to do less." Eleanor Roosevelt

So, I am off to do less for my children! More pearls of wisdom to come :)

It's me!

Brian has made a new set up for our blog where he can post pictures without captions and I can post captions without pictures and they don't have to be connected. So here is my caption to my current situation...
1. ALL of my kids are roaming around and it is after 10:00pm - what are they doing??
2. We are hooked on watching Psych, so watch it if you haven't!
3. I was just called as Camp Director, the theme of our Stake Camp is Journeys and I would love your ideas...GO!
4. Favorite things about Monday mornings: aerobics!
5. I can't make a list of 4 things and not have a fifth.

Family Picture Time

Brian let me go to Old Navy and pick out matching shirts for our family picture! I assure you the shopping was much more fun then the taking of these pictures. We took about 150 and just a few caught everyone with the fingers out of their nose and their eyes opened. ...Oh the memories.

Just the 5 of them

We tried to get a really good picture of all the kids but McKinley was a complete basket case--which is actually quite unusual for her. In the end, we have a great picture of Reagan and her siblings happen to be around her.

Hansel and Gretel

Jefferson looks a lot like Brian when he was younger and McKinley looks a lot like me. So, we thought, this might of been a good follow up to our wedding invitation. Are these kids just photogenic or am I biased?

out for a walk

When the weather is even remotely 'springish' we take to the sidewalk. The kids love to push Reagan in her stroller and McKinley loves this little red bike almost as much as she loves her sunglasses.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff

When Reagan had no idea what to do with a burning candle her big sister had to step in and help blow it out. As you can tell from the photo, little MC's two previous candle-blowing-out experiences have not made her an expert either.

It's Your Birthday.

These pictures are in order of how it all unfolded. She was the first one of our children to eat her cupcake with any sort of prowess.

These are Dark Chocolate Cup Cakes with Chocolate Butter Cream Icing from America's Test Kitchen and therefore the best cupcakes I have ever had in my life. Much better than the PacMan cake we made for Jefferson's 2nd year birthday which you can see by clicking here.