Graduation

Jill Lau is an amazing friend. She is the one that put Caden's little preschool together. She also did a little graduation all by herself. Here are a couple of pictures from the special day...

The graduating class.

Andrew, Caden, Ellie, Matthew, Sam

The graduate.

Yummy!

The End

Caden, Sam, Matthew, Andrew, Ellie

This year 5 little friends got together to go to preschool every Monday morning. Every week was a new adventure at a new friend's house. Look to the left to see a little boy who loved going to preschool every week, wishing every day was preschool day and counting down until the next day of school. Thank you so much everyone for making preschool so much fun!

Part 2 of Great Wolf Lodge Trip

On the final day of the trip we were able to see some of the fun spots in Cleveland. We started out by going to the NASA space museum.

Dad and Caden

Kailyn doing an interactive program on space.

Kailyn, a future astronaut.

Chase

Jordan

Caden

Dad and Chase looking through the window at part of a spaceship.

We ate lunch at a fun little cafe. Jenessa and Kailyn playing with the trains until our food came.

We also went to the Children's Science Museum. Holy cow it was BUSY!! It was Martin Luther King, Jr. day, so all kids were out of school and the museum had free admission. It was crazy!! There were SO many people there.

Jordan making electricity.

Playing with goo (corn starch and water). When the goo was warm and slowly manipulated, it was flexible. But if it was cool or forced, it was hard.

Chase and his tongue.

Caden

Ken and Heber helping the kids make an arch.

Caden building a tower out of wood blocks.

Liora and I looking on the internet for things to do.

Great Wolf Lodge

This winter we decided we needed to escape from the cold and go and have a little fun. We were able to drag along our friends the Phillips. I am really glad we went with them because our kids had so much more fun. How fun is it to go sleep at a hotel and go swimming with friends?!

We went to a place called Great Wolf Lodge it had a great indoor water park. We spent one night there and were able to get in 2 good days of swimming.

Ready to swim (Jordan, Caden, Kailyn, Chase)

(Caden and Me)

They had some great slides. The kids loved the big ones. You could either go down in a single tube or a double.

(Mom and Jordan)

Family picture minus Kailyn, who we hardly saw cause she was off having too much fun with Jenessa.

Chase had fun in the little kid wading pool. It had a little play thing and water squirting features.

Caden having fun.

That night they had an animated bedtime story.

Kailyn amazed at the fake snow that came down at the end of the story.

Mom and Caden getting covered in fake snow.

DAY 2

By the second day Jordan was going down the big slides all by herself.

Jordan

Kailyn trying out some of the smaller slides.

Kailyn

Playing in the water.

Chase couldn't keep up and finally just gave up.

The next day with just stayed in a regular hotel (cheaper) and checked out some stuff in the area.

Of course Chase found the Kleenex.

Warming up by the fire at Cracker Park.

Kailyn, Jenessa, Caden, Jordan, Taiya, Chase

(Kailyn and Jenessa)

These two had so much fun together.

I like this version of the Mona Lisa.

Caden

10 Years!!!!

I can not believe I have been married to this wonderful guy for 10 years. He makes me insanely happy. How'd I get so lucky? I am so thankful everyday that he asked me to marry him and that we were married in the temple so we can be together forever. I love ya!

Kailyn

I can't believe how big Kailyn is getting. I think this move is going to be hard on her. One day after school Kailyn told me that at recess she had hid behind the garbage can and cried. I asked her why she was crying. She told me it was because she was sad because she was leaving all of her friends.

She reminds me so much of Ken. She is Ken in so many ways. We told her we're going to start calling her "Kenjr" for Ken, Jr. She likes the same types of food, she hates being told what to do but is much more willing if she has warning that she needs to do something, and she even has a very similar walk. The major difference is that Kailyn loves to talk, probably because she is a girl.

Kailyn continues to LOVE to read. I think she would rather read than do almost anything else. We have to make sure she actually goes to bed at night cause will stay up reading until very late at night. Her class is keeping track of how many books the kids have read. Kailyn leads the class at reading somewhere over 500 books (closer to 600) in the past 4-5 months. The books she reads are "chapter books" with an average of 60-70 pages (The Magic Treehouse series, Rainbow Magic series, and The Bailey School Kids series.) She is excited to start the Illustrated Classics series (Peter Pan, Tom Sawyer, etc).

Kailyn loves being a big sister. She loves being the one to show her brothers and sister how to do things that she has already learned.

I love that Kailyn can read and that she loves to read. Her brother and sister love when she reads to them.
She is a very loving person and loves everyone. Especially if she knows someone is related to her, she is so open to them. She is also very affectionate. She loves to tell secrets like "Dad, don't tell Mom, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE you VERY VERY Much." Then she gives a sweet hug and kiss and goes to her Mom to tell her the same thing. She says that she and her teacher often get in "fights" about who loves whom more.

She has the memory of an elephant. She remembers things that I had forgotten about. Like we recently got a flat and she said "Remember when I was like 3 mom and we got a flat on our other van. We had to take it to a place in Montana to get it fixed." I'm not sure she was 3 but she was young and we did get a flat. I'm amazed at the memories she pulls.

Jordan

Jordan is a great kid. She is so helpful with Chase. I don't know what I would have done these last couple of months without her. She was amazing at entertaining Chase so I could paint and work on the house. She is great with Chase but unfortunately not so great with Caden right now. She and Caden seem to be butting heads a lot lately. She often disagrees with Caden and this starts a big disagreement. I think her favorite food right now is apples. She always wants one with lunch.

Jordan has also started to stick out her tongue at her brother and sister when she gets really frustrated with them (I have no idea where she picked this up). She loves to look at books. Whenever we go to the library she picks out a huge stack of books and as soon as we get home she sits down and looks at them.

I love this girl. She is so full of life and energy. She is always making us laugh with her silliness. On Fast Sunday, she skips up to the podium, bears her testimony, then skips back down to her seat.

This is a blanket Jordan has had since she was a very little baby. She does not have to have it to fall asleep but she does like it. Jordan seems to want it a lot more when things are crazy in her life. These last couple of months she has been more clingy to the blanket. For some reason she loves to chew on it.

Jordan kept begging me to let her help paint. So I decided she could help me paint the closet in one of the bedrooms. She was so excited.

Caden

Caden is almost 3 1/2. He was very excited for his half birthday...I think he thought it was like a normal birthday with presents, ice cream, etc. Lately, he has been telling us that when he grows up he is going to be an 'Army guy and fight bad guys.' I love the facial expressions that Caden makes and the cute things he says (I really need to write them down so that I can remember them). Not a fan of when he gets tired and becomes a broken record asking the same quesion over and over and over again, he also becomes totally irrational. I love how he says "Mom, I'm still hungry" even when it has been 3 hours since the last time he ate. He is really starting to look like a little boy instead of a toddler.

With our house on the market we are trying to make our house look as big as possible. This means we got rid of Caden's toddler bed and now he just sleeps on the mattress and then pushes it under Kailyn's bed during the day. Unfortunately, with the sides missing, he often falls off his bed.

Caden recently went to his first friend birthday party. Having older sisters he knew what parties were all about so he was REALLY excited about going. It was a superhero theme, so he decided to wear his cape. I was told that he spent the first part of the party just walking around with his hands on his hips and his chest thrust out.

What is a superhero that can't fly?

Caden was so excited when I let him help me a little with painting.