a girl and her bike

Yesterday Jess learned to ride a two wheeler. We've been trying to get her on it for awhile now and she has always been to afraid to try. Finally she did yesterday. At first she was getting nervous and fell over a few times, then had some tears, then refused to get back on. After awhile she got back on herself when no one was looking and she just started riding like crazy. She rode all day. It was such a nice day out. She even rode to the park with Shawn, Meri, and Ri. When they got back she rode some more. All today(Sunday) she has been talking about going out to ride first thing in the morning. I love that all our kids have learned to ride on this bike that was a hand-me-down from a friend in New York. We'll keep it forever. Hooray for Jessi!

A Deacon

Brayton passed the sacrament for the first time today. I was sad to miss it - Zac was home sick. But Shawn said he did a great job and I'll get to see him next week. It's amazing how fast he is growing up.

The 12 Year Old

Yes, it's true. We now have a 12 year old. Bring on the teenage years! He celebrated by eating soupapillas and cold cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and no that's not a laptop, but it's close. It relaly does have an important purpose in his life! I also had dentist appointments scheduled and he was SUPER annoyed with me about that. I tried to tell him that I thought he'd like getting out of school early, but he said he'd rather be in school! Anyway, once that was over we got to do the fun stuff and I think it turned out to be a fun day for him. Anyway, I better run. So much for a peaceful afternoon. The rain has turned to snow and there was just a giant boom of thunder and Shawn just called and I guess they have dismissed school so I better run! Happy Birthday Brayton!

Having a little one around again is a lot of fun...and a lot of work

Our little Zac is such a blessing and such a little monster! I feel like the last few years watching our kids grow into big kids has been kind of liberating for me. Actually very liberating. When I think back on those years when we had our kids so close together and I'm sure everyone thought we were completely nuts. But we were actually kind of nuts and also very happy to have so many healthy kids. It's so interesting to look back on your life and wonder how things would be different if you had chosen to do things differently. And I honestly wouldn't change how close in age our kids are. Even with the sibling rivalry and annoying each other they really are good friends and Zac is like the cherry on top of our big sundae - that's what the kids call him. They say his hair just HAS to stay red so he can be the cherry.

With everything Zac gets into now I wonder how on earth we made it through those years when the other 5 were so little. But we did and here we are. And we survived. Now that Zac is on the go constantly and hurting himself almost constantly I feel like I'm going back in time. He is napping right now and all the others are at school and I am LOVING the peace in the house. oh sacred naptime. Just hearing the rain outside and myself breathing. so peaceful. Lately I feel like I just can't keep up with life, but it's quiet moments like these that allow me time to ponder and realize that it all is worth it and that it really is so much fun to raise a family despite all the messes and noise and challenges that kids come with.

Science Man

We had the annual science fair at school this week and Ethan earned a 2nd place for 5th grade. His project was pretty quick (we did it in one day - he really didn't want to do one and it wasn't required for 5th grade, but we "made" him do one anyway) And it turned out really cool. My idea for the project won out. I have always loved rainbows and thought it would be fun to learn about how they work. Shawn wanted to see if video games make you dumber or smarter or no effect. I convinced him that you can't get accurate results about that in one day. AND everyone knows that video games make you dumber anyway -lol. I love writing lol. It makes me lol! I feel very computer savvy when I write that. Anyway, Ethan did great. Got some pretty pictures too! Love the rainbows Ethan!

Orion, with a chance of being 9 years old

Orion is 9!

Welcome the New Year with a hole in the head

No New Years Eve is complete without a trip to the emergency room. Or at least the urgent care office. In this case, Jessi took a face-first dive off of a stool on to the tile floor before 8:45 PM when the Kaiser urgent care office was closed for the day. It's not entirely clear what exactly happened as nobody nearby saw it happen. Jessi was sitting on a stool facing away from the counter. We suspect she had her feet wrapped around the stool and she lost her balance and SMACK - head first onto the tile. There actually was a sickening SMACK sound. Ylfelynn got to her first and picked her up. As soon as I saw her head, I knew we were making a trip to the doctor. Sometimes there is some question about whether stitches may be required but there was no doubt this time. We did not take a picture of the injury but that is probably just as well since posting it would mean this blog would no longer be family-rated. Just picture that slit on her head a wide, gaping hole. For some reason, the wound did not bleed as much as a head wound like that tends to - I think it may have been the blunt-force trauma of the injury that precluded much blood.

When I took a close look at it, I started to get woozy and had to sit down (something that affects me when I have an empty stomach. I stopped watching the needle when I give blood due to a similar incident when giving blood on my mission). Due to my wooziness, Ylfelynn took her to the urgent care (as members of Kaiser we get to drive 45 minutes to Lancaster for service). Now Jessi can compare notes with her cousin Jaidyn on the relative merits of use of the papoose - a curiously-named child restraint device.

Treatment was successful and with six stitches, Jessi and Ylfelynn returned home in time for the silly string portion of our New Years Eve celebration. Jessi stayed awake until about 11 PM. Everyone else (except Zac, of course) was able to stay up until midnight and welcome the New Year (a first for the children of the family).

A Merry Christmas

I love Christmas Eve. All the anticipation of Christmas Day is more exciting than the actual Christmas Day. Here are a few pictures of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A few fun gifts were: Orion got footie pjs- he has been wanting these for awhile, Shawn got a DS-i, Ethan got a trash can for his desk - that is all he could think of every time I asked him what he wanted, the boys got a game table and a Knex track, Zac got a little barn and figured out that if he sucked on a wrapped candy cane that he could get the flavor out of it-yummy!, and the girls got American Girl dolls - Julie and Felicity. Jessi and Meri LOVE their stuffed animals. They have never really been into dolls all that much, especially Meri. But they LOVE these dolls. They dress them and fix their hair every day and put them to bed each night. I taught them how to put a ponytail in their hair and the other day Jessi said "mom, can you help me, I forgot how to ponytail". It was really cute. We did a tea party the other day with them and are enjoying the books they came with. I think I'm having just as much fun with them as they are. I love dolls. A friend let us borrow the Felicity movie to watch tomorrow so the girls are excited about that. We hear that Julie will be getting her own movie soon too! I'm so glad the girls like them! The only problem is, now I want more of these dolls!

We had a very relaxing Christmas Day. One plus of having no family close by is that you don't have anywhere to be for Christmas dinner, or make the rounds to everyone's houses. We just stay in our pjs all day and lounge around playing with our new stuff. I do miss our family during these times, but it is SO nice to be lazy! Merry Christmas to all!

Secret Santas

For the last several years we've had the kids draw names and play secret santa. Last year we made the gift instead of buying and it was so fun that we decided to do that every year. No one knows who each other has until Christmas Eve when they present the gifts to each other. Brayton made several bookmarks for Meri because she is our little book worm. Ethan made a big "B" for Brayton and painted and decorated it with stuff that Brayton likes - including honey nut cheerios :). Zachary put his hand and feet prints on a little apron for Orion - Orion loves to do any kind of project. On the apron we wrote "big brother, lead me, guide me, walk beside me" Orion loved it! Orion made a stuffed sqirrel for Jessi. For the last few weeks all Jessi has been talking about was how she wanted santa to bring her a plush squirrel - seriously, so random! So Orion and I worked on the squirrel together and Jessi was giggling like crazy when she opened it! She LOVED it. Jessi painted and decorated a pencil box for Ethan and made little alien pencil toppers for the pencils. She had a great time making the faces on the aliens. And Meri made a set of blocks for Zac - Shawn helped her cut and sand the blocks and then she did a couple coats of paint and then modge podge over them - it was a lot of work! But they turned out so great. Anyway, this has become my favorite part of Christmas because it's so fun to see the kids thinking about each other and wondering who has their name.

O Christmas Tree

Shawn and I have always been fans of the real tree for Christmas. In New York we'd always take the kids to the farm and cut the tree down and it was always such a special event. Since moving to California we have gone to just picking up our tree where ever it's cheapest - we tried a tree farm here one year and all the trees were like little bushes - so that year we had "the christmas bush". Anyway, we got our tree at Home Depot this year. We were all so excited to decorate it and get it set up. And the smell- yummy! Well we couldn't get it to stand straight. It kept leaning this way and that. I tried to fix it with Orion when Shawn was at the robotics tournament. I got under the tree and was messing with the screws and man that thing is heavy! Well we still couldn't get it straight. So Shawn tried again to fix it several days later - still leaning. A couple days later I came home and Jessi shouted "mom the tree!" And this fallen tree is what she saw! We tried to get it to stand - tried and tried. It kept falling over. Finally I decided to just forget it. I took Jess to school and Zac and I undecorated our tree and I dragged it to the side of the house where it still lays. Then we headed to Kmart and bought...a fake tree. And I have to admit - I LOVE IT! There are no needles to clean up and we don't have to water it and you can bend the branches to how you want them to look with the ornament on it. And you can get the ornaments all looking spaced about the same apart easily. I am now converted to the artificial tree. And it looks really pretty! I just need to get a pine scented candle and we'll be set! Orion kept trying to get us to buy a fake tree saying it "would save us money in the long run" and I guess he was right. Now we can just pull this one out each year and not have to pay anything, just fluff the branches and we are good to go. Who knew I could write so much about a tree! More to come about Christmas.