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.