Katie’s 7th Birthday

Thought it was about time for a birthday update for my firstborn. I can’t believe she’s SEVEN. How can she be seven? She’s grown into such a nice girl. Here’s Katie’s birthday interview: My favorite food is: homemade pudding (This was a surprise!) My favorite movie is: Annie The coolest person on Earth is: Mom and Dad (bonus points for that one!) My favorite thing to learn about is: science The thing I’m great at is: reading and art If I could go anywhere, it would be: Hawaii My favorite color is: pink My favorite superhero or princess is: Jubilee for superhero and Belle for princess When I grow up, I’m going to be a: fashion designer My favorite song is: Alouette (she played this for her first piano recital) A book I love is: McKenna—Ready to Fly When I was little, I used to: sing the ABCs a lot My favorite time of year is: summer—for my birthday! The snack I like best is: oranges One food that I really don’t like is: spicy foods My best friend is: Makenna Frost (The Frosts moved to Washington earlier this year, and Katie misses her like crazy. Some day we’ll all go for a visit to see them!) If I had one wish, it would be: to have a horse My favorite phrase is: I love you (Paul put this one down last year. We have very loving kids!) My favorite treat is: homemade baklava My favorite toy is: Kanani Katie started second grade this year, and she LOVES school. We just had parent/teacher conference, and her teacher said that Katie is an excellent student. She loves to read and has loved the Illustrated Classics series. She makes friends easily and is very confident. She’s a wonderful big sister and is a HUGE help with Bridget. She’s learning to vacuum and loves the new vacuum we just got. She can be very emotional and is just starting to sulk and scowl when she doesn’t get her way. I have a feeling she’s going to be your stereotypical emotional teenage girl. She loves dressing up and is very excited when she wears a cute outfit, although she does put together the oddest combination of clothes sometimes. She’s lost three teeth in the past year and has another loose one up top. She’s been doing gymnastics for just under a year now and is working at advancing to level three. She goes to the gym twice a week and practices at home most days. She’s very flexible and graceful, but she’s a bit of a ‘fraidy cat, which makes vault practice tricky. She’s working on it though, and we really like the gym she goes to.   Aunt Ashley came to stay with us so we all celebrated Katie's birthday together, even if it was a week late. We’re not sticklers for the calendar over here.   I don’t want to brag, but I make the best carrot cake. Chunky, moist, and supremely delicious.

Still woefully behind…

I feel like when I’m writing in a journal. I never know if I should just skip the last two years of my life entirely (which is usually how long it’s been since I’ve written in a journal), or if I should madly try to catch up and mention the million important things that have happened since I last wrote. So, to share pictures from summer in November, or write about the most recent happenings? Oh, and speaking of journals, I got this journal last year, and I’ve been better about writing regularly than I ever have been. I highly recommend it. Since I really do want to document somewhere what happened this summer, I’m going to do a fly-by. Our cute friends the Worthens had an Olympic Opening Ceremony party. The kids loved dressing up in their patriotic finery and playing fun Olympic Games. We enjoyed the beautiful, but slightly odd, Opening Ceremonies. This worked out well for us, since we don’t have a working television and had a lot of difficulty watching the Olympics because viewing access was so restricted. We eventually figured out a work around, but I definitely wasn’t impressed with how it was covered this year. But go Team USA! Our kids especially loved the gymnastics, swimming, and diving, and Aaron and I found out that the rowing was a lot cooler than you’d think it would be. The middle of August found the kids and me in Utah. We drove up to celebrate my Grandma Davis’s 90th birthday. We held a surprise party and had people from all over the country show up. It was really an amazing feeling to be part of such a huge extended family. We’re so grateful for my grandma and her decision to raise her family in the Church. It truly has blessed hundreds of lives. Our time in Utah was filled with Slip ‘N Slides…   and zoos… and swimming… and lots of eating… and Parade of Homes viewing…   (Unfortunately I didn’t have a wider angle lens on my camera, so this doesn’t even come close to how big it actually was.) and celebrating!   We had a photographer at the event, so these were the only photos I took there. But we have so many wonderful family photos that were taken. The only sad thing is that Aaron couldn’t be there. Darn work! I’m so glad that he encouraged me to go, even if it was a LONG drive by myself with the four kids. Fortunately, Ashley drove back with me and hung out for a week here in Albuquerque. I love being with my family!

An Ode to Summer: Swimming Lessons

We’ll break up the birthday extravaganza with some swimming lesson photos. I may have mentioned this a few—or a few hundred—times, but I love summer. This summer didn’t start out great, but it ended up very nicely. Part of the reason that is wasn’t going so well at the beginning was that I just needed to be around water more. I am a water girl to the core. I planned many trips to Hawaii and Mexico this summer, imagining all the time I would spend on the beach and under the sea. I knew that we were not going to be taking these trips any time soon, but it was therapeutic to plan them nonetheless. It was a welcome change to our routine to begin swimming lessons. Katie and Paul made a lot of progress this year. Not as much as I would have liked, but at least they can be in the water without me holding them. It won’t be too long before I have two competent swimmers. And Averi…well, we’ll just say that she doesn’t have any interest in any water activity that involves her head going below the surface. It will happen eventually. Look! There she goes. She will go underwater if she feels like it. Stinker.   Katie makes the most hilarious faces while she’s swimming. I love it. She definitely got that trait from her father. He makes the most awesome faces ever.        This girl and I got to hang out a lot during swimming lessons. She’s such a fun baby that I didn’t mind at all.   I’m so mad that I didn’t find this little play area until the last day of swimming lessons. It would have saved a lot of stress over the four weeks of swimming lessons. One of our traditions was eating lunch at the park after swimming lessons. Here is Bridget trying to eat a pear that is half the size of her face. A pear that large is hard to hang on to… …and there it goes. Wonderful mother that I am, I let her keep eating it after it got a good roll on the ground. Immune system! Arrr, matey. As soon as I saw this picture I was reminded of this picture of Katie from years ago: And this one of Paul: Apparently I get a kick out of feeding my babies fruit that is too large for them to eat and taking pictures of them trying. Who knew? But it’s ridiculously adorable, so that would explain it.