Catching Up!

In my life as a mom, it is always interesting when life brings changes to our house because it is never on a small scale we usually do things much larger and this summer and fall has brought us many changes.

Nicole has wanted to come live with me for some time now and this fall she’s gotten her chance. She’s now attending Royal Middle School as an 8th grader, playing volleyball, and generally being a teenage girl. For those of you who know Dewayne and Carolyn Winder, their daughter and her family moved in next door in August and have a daughter Nicole’s age. McKenna and Nicole have become attached at the hip along with their friend Brea and a few others from school, so my house is now full of teenage girls and all the fun that brings.


Andrew loves the 4th grade but is finding it much harder than he thought it would be because he has to be RESPONSIBLE for his homework now. For a kid whose brains would get lost if they weren’t inside his head this has been a rude awakening but for mom it’s been wonderful. He’s enjoying playing football, well after he quit complaining that his head hurting from hitting people. He’s also finding he’s one of the biggest guys on the team. Cub Scouts and the Bear den are also joys in his life, but he’s a little concerned because I’m not his leader this year.


Lyra is our kindergartner and I’m so glad that she’s finally in school. The most important thing in her life right now is that she is learning to read. Every night she comes home and finds homework to do, even if she doesn’t have any, because she’s convinced that if she doesn’t do homework she’s going to fail kindergarten. She told me the other day that she was going to practice her alphabet until she got it perfect. Hopefully we can keep that attitude up until she graduates from high school! Our other big news is a missing tooth, which Lyra is very proud of.



Dawniella started at the first “real” daycare she’s attended since she was born. Up until now, I’ve had her with a friend of the family so she was only with one or two other kids at a time and usually one of those was her sister. She’s loving the daycare and when we get there, I have to be careful where I park because as soon as I get her out of her car seat she runs to the door of the daycare. Her favorite new words are go, now, play, and truck (which sounds a lot like duck). She’s figured out that daddy is driving a truck and every semi we see she asks about daddy. We’ve also sort of started potty training, which mommy is thrilled about, Dawniella not so much.



Brandt is still driving potato truck, while it isn’t a job he wants long term because of the dirt and long hours, he is enjoying the change of being out of the house. He has been stuck a few times and has decided if he’s going to be driving as a career it is going to be on pavement instead of in the fields. I’m spending my time dealing with kids, being the webelos leader, homework, genealogy, and a whole lot of substitute teaching. Life all round is good and we’re keeping busy. Both Brandt and I are praying that he’ll find a full time job soon, but the Lord has blessed us and we appreciate all he’s done for us these past few months.

In my life as a mom, I know that when you have kids you learn what busy really means and the more kids you have the busier you become. So I don’t know why it seems that this year is the busiest that I have had in a long time. Well it couldn’t be because of…







Cub Scout Pinewood Derby…




(the one in yellow is Andrew)







Chaperoning 3rd grade fieldtrips…












Gardening projects…







Or maybe it was preschool graduation (March & Jack Jelmberg with Lyra). Okay so maybe it was…











The cub Scout fishing pack meeting…




Or the frog in the pond at preschool graduation…




Or finally earning my master’s degree…
Well then the only explanation is chasing the 1 year old…





Through the sand box or the sprinklers whichever she happens to find first (sometimes it’s both!) …




As she unloads my desk drawers (sorry for the blurry picture it was a quick shot). Of course it’s not any of those things, it just life which is what happens when you are making other plans. Thought I’d just give you a quick update on our spring.

Sisters

In my life as a mom, one of my least favorite things had to deal with my siblings. As the oldest, I was usually the babysitter and no child wants to take orders from their older sibling. Today I count my sisters as some of my best friends and I enjoy spending time with them. I thought about all this because over a recent weekend, I watched my two little girls playing together and I remembered some of the games I played with my sisters and with some of my best girlfriends as a young girl, especially playing Barbie under Kendall’s willow tree. Anyway, just to give you an idea of how my munchkin’s day went here is a play by play.
Lyra: Lailers (Dawniella’s nickname) do you want to play baby dolls with me.
Lyra: Okay let’s go get the box.
Here they come with Lyra pulling her box of doll clothes and Dawniella pushing it (or at least trying)
Mom: Lyra you can’t play baby dolls in the middle of the walkway, move into the other room where your toys are okay?
Lyra: Mom we need lots of room to play baby dolls.
Mom: Lyra, either mind or put them away.
Lyra: Mom you’re grumpy. Come on Lailers lets move.
Lyra: Lailers you get to be the baby and I’ll be the mommy.
Dawniella: Mama?
It gets very quiet for several minutes and I look over to see this.


I figure that I would see the results soon and pretty soon, here they come.
Lyra: Mom isn’t my baby beautiful?
Mom: (Helplessly laughing) Yes, Lyra she’s beautiful. Let me get the camera.





Mom: Lyra don’t you think that outfit is a little small for Lailers?
Lyra: Of course, not mom, she’s the baby so it has to fit.
Mom: Okay, have fun.
They played this way for about ½ an hour then I walked into the family room, and found…



Well at least the living room was clean.

Memories

In my life as a mom, I have to admit that I totally love the Christmas season, most importantly I love to see the memories that children build around the Christmas season. Some of my childhood memories include, sleeping over at Grandma Gunter’s house with all of my cousins, driving to or from Grandma’s house in a freezing cold car because the heater had gone out, and eating dinner in the garage. This year was an interesting Christmas for us and I think my children will have some great memories.
Sweet girl with her presents from Grandma. My mom is an amazing quilter and this year she gave the little granddaughters dolls and homemade doll blankets. Dawniella decided that her baby doll doesn’t need a blanket but it sure came in handy Christmas afternoon when she crashed.
Lyra is my imp and loves Christmas. Kjerstin did a wonderful job catching her at her best, peeking in stockings and gifts then grinning when she is caught.
Sweet baby smiles can light up the world.

Lately, Kjerstin is becoming the family photographer and really enjoys making her brothers and sisters suffer through photo sessions. This is our latest family picture.
Keturah (18), Christmas 2008. I think she’s letting Kjerstin know what she thinks of the photo session.
Kjerstin (17), Christmas 2008

Meagan (15), Christmas 2008
Adara (16), Cristmas 2008
Adaon (14), Christmas 2008 Nicole (12), Christmas 2008
Taron (11), Christmas 2008
Andrew (8), Christmas 2008
Dawniella (1), Christmas 2008
Lyra (4), Christmas 2008
Sisters are good for something

The theme this Christmas has been Let it Snow because of the significant amounts of snow fall we’ve had and the kids have made the most of it. From pictures, to snow fights, to whatever else they can think of, including a discussion of why the snow was yellow (Lyra and Andrew).




It’s been a time of catching up with good friends. (L to R: Nicole, Meagan, and Bree).
Several years ago I started the tradition of a Christmas village and over the years it has grown. My isn’t on the same scale as my mom’s village, but I’m working on it. One of the fun parts of my village is the fiddler that I have who moves throughout my village during the season. No one ever sees him move but every day he’s in a different place, sometimes on roofs, sometimes in the middles of the sea, and this year he even moved to my little village. The kids love the village and love helping me set it up and take it down every year. Last year we decided to carry on a tradition from Brandt’s family and start a little village. This year we put it under our Christmas tree for the first time. If you look closely in the village you will see matchbox cars that we borrowed from Andrew’s collection and “Sockable” the Snowman in the background. Andrew made me the cutest little snowman made from a sock for Christmas and I added it to the village, but he was to cute to be the abonimable snowman so he became “sockable” the snowman. I do think though that the one that got the most enjoyment out of the village wasn’t any of the big kids. I found Dawniella time and time again visiting the village. For the most part she didn’t touch a thing just stared at it. Once in a great while I’d find things rearranged but she definitely loved the village.





Another tradition has been making gingerbread houses at Grandma’s. I’m not sure what we’re going to do for the next couple years, my kids are making noise about having it at our house, we’ll see.




Grandma’s house is also a place of wonder at Christmas time and a place for hanging out with cousins.

But I think our most memorable moment happened Christmas night. At 4 am the morning of December 26th Nicole and her friend Bree woke Brandt and I up to tell us that they had decided to take a joy ride in our van and gotten it stuck about 4 miles from our house. I don’t think Nicole is quite ready to face Grandpa yet, after it took him, Uncle Jeff, Steve, and Brandt about 4 hours to dig it out I can’t say I blame her. As of the moment she’s grounded and then will only have “supervised visitation” with Bree for sleepovers for a while, and she has to detail clean several people’s cars this spring. Her and Bree also got to visit with Bree’s uncle whose a state patrolman, which I hope put a scare into them so they won’t do this again! Thank goodness no one was hurt and the van is fine, other than some dirt on the hood. Thanks Dad, Jeff and Steve for help with the rescue.