The Year in Review!

I finally got our Christmas cards sent out, better late than never.  Thanks to all of you who sent pictures or cards or whatever sort of update on your lives.  We LOVE getting Christmas cards.  I put all of them up on our wall and the girls ask about who everyone is and how we know them and "Who is my age?"  It's so fun to tell them about all of our wonderful friends we have collected over the years in the various places we have lived.  You continue to bless our lives even though we don't see you very often.  I put our blog address our little picture Christmas card, so for those of you just tuning in, I thought I'd give a brief summary of the year and the girls.  

We have our first teenager in the house-Christa turned 13 in May.  She has been busy, busy, busy with school (Treasure Valley Math and Science Center, and Riverglen Junior High), violin, piano, volleyball, and Young Women activities.  She loves being involved. She got braces a few weeks ago.  She is still a bookworm, though reading usually comes out of her sleep.  She is in choir this year and loves making up harmonies to songs.  

Alexis is super excited to be turning 12 in February.  She also started at the Math and Science Center, and goes to Hidden Springs Charter school for the other 1/2 of the day.  She is playing cello and piano and school basketball. She started babysitting and loves earning her own money.  Paisley loves Lexi as her second Mom!

Emma turned 10 in October.  She is also taking piano lessons and is doing well in school.  She loves working with Ryan on wood projects in the garage and is looking forward to finishing her kayak in the next year.

Sierra turned 8 in October and was baptized a member of our church.  We are so proud of her for making this decision.  Her school teacher is incredibly energetic and really brings out the best in Sierra.  Her class was involved in a Food drive in November and Sierra could hardly leave for school without taking 3 or 4 cans from our food storage.  She played soccer in the spring, and was the fastest girl on the field!

Anya loves preschool and is our little drama queen.  She started violin lessons and loves to think about and talk about playing the violin, though she doesn't always love actually practicing.  Christa is working with her on this and it's fun to see them work together. She loves the American Girls doll Kit, and had her hair cut so that she could look just like Kit.  (Until she decided to cut it herself last week.  See previous post.)  She is also taking ballet and loves dancing around the house when one of the girls is playing piano.  

The highlight of our year was the addition of Paisley to our family.  She was born February 2, on a cold and snowy morning.  She is a generally happy baby and we all adore her.  Even with our 6th, I am constantly amazed at how she grows and changes daily. She is saying her first words and taking her first steps.  

Ryan's practice continues to grow and he is enjoying his work.  He was able to take a few days off to go to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota this fall, with several friends, for some much needed guy time.  He also spent a couple of weeks in Portland learning how to build a guitar and always has several woodworking projects at various stages of completion.  He also enjoyed experiencing Alaska with the rest of the family this year.  

I'm just trying to keep everyone where they need to be and keep the household, and Ryan's practice, running smoothly.  

We had two kittens and a new puppy join our family and they keep Ryan company in the garage.  We had to put our old cat, Mouser, to sleep this summer and we miss her.  

A few of our adventures include our family reunion in Eastern Idaho, a week in Alaska, a quick trip to Disneyland, a conference in Victoria, BC, as well as camping and canoeing around Boise.

We are grateful for the many blessings which we have enjoyed this year, especially for our relationships with each other, with you, and with our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We hope this year has been a good one for you and yours as well.  Keep in touch! 

Merry Christmas!

This has been a great week.  We got enough of a break in the weather to go over to Pocatello for my Mom's 60th birthday.  All of my siblings and spouses were there except for my sister Teri and her family, who came at Thanksgiving time, and my brother-in-law Will who is serving a 6 month tour of duty in Baghdad.  We went out to dinner, just the grown-ups, which was great.  Of course we were true to form and 1/2 an hour late because it took longer than we planned to get all of Ryan's work done so that we could get on the road, but it was fun just the same.  (Punctuality has got to be one of my New Year's resolutions).  We came back on Wednesday in time for the girls to finish up their gifts for each other.  We have a tradition of the kids making gifts for each of their sisters.  It's so fun to watch them get excited about giving something they really put a lot of effort into.  Then we had our Christmas Eve program, with the reading of the Nativity Story, and then sent everyone to bed.  Christmas day the girls are great about not waking Mom and Dad up too early, so we got to sleep in until about 8:00 am.  Then we opened stockings, had a nice breakfast, and opened our other gifts.  We kept things pretty simple this year, but all of the girls were happy with their gifts, and excited to give the things they had made.  We got more snow on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, mixed with some rain and ice. It was great to have a white Christmas.   The girls are having fun sledding.  We went out today and found a couple of new sleds, since the dog ate our sled from last year. Hopefully we'll get up to the ski resort pretty soon to enjoy their new snow.   

Playing Catch-up

The last few weeks have been insanely crazy.  I'm sure many of you have felt the same.  At 1:00 am it becomes a question of blogging or sleeping.  I have chosen sleep.   So, I'm finally getting to some posts I've had on my mind for a few weeks.   Enjoy.

Haircut

I guess it was inevitable.   Anya has been telling me she wanted "vangs" in her hair for weeks.  She got a bit impatient waiting for me to take her to our friend that usually cuts the girls' hair for me, and took matters into her own hands. Hands with scissors that is.   She now has very short "vangs" right in front, as well as some nice side layers.  She wasn't looking in the mirror when she did it and I gave her a bath and then she combed her own hair after.  That's when she realized this was not how she planned it.  "It's not beautiful!" she cried.  Well, she's right about that.  She asked me to fix it  and I tried to explain that cutting it shorter would not actually fix it, but that we have to wait for it to grow.   At least she likes wearing headbands, because she will be wearing a very wide one on the front of her head every day for the next several months, I guess.  

House update

We have a roof on most of 

the house. It's good to have 

it protected from at least 

some of the snow, though 

it still blows in the windows.

Look who is Walking!

This little miss is on the move.  She took her first few steps about 10 days ago and gets a bit more brave every day.  The girls love to play the walk back and forth game.  She can stand herself up and will transfer between chairs or other things that are close together, but if it's more than a few steps away, she still prefers her speedy crawling.  She gets up and down the stairs without any trouble at all, and has even tried to walk down the stairs while holding onto the bannister.  That makes me a bit nervous.   She'll be running in no time.  

Braces

After many consult visits and much procrastination by Mom, Christa finally got braces a couple of weeks ago.  She has adjusted well and hardly complained about the achy mouth and shredded lips that go along with new braces--thank you, ibuprofen.  For me, this was one of those strange parenting moments that has reminded me that somehow I have the responsibility for 6 growing girls.  How did I get here?  I still feel like I could be the one in braces. 

Our new family member

We have a new little girl in the family.   Ryan took a quick trip in to Cabela's, and a family was sitting outside selling yellow lab puppies.   The plan was to wait until we moved to get a new puppy--he's been puppy hungry for awhile now.  But this was love at first sight.  We named her Jill (so we can sing the nursery rhyme when she plays with Jack, our 2 1/2 year old lab)  and she is very cute.  It's just a good thing Ryan works from home and can take care of her during the day.