Derek's Pre-Birthday Bash

Since Derek's birthday landed on a Sunday this year, we decided to celebrate on Saturday and Sunday. So on Saturday, Dave, Taylor, and Derek went to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars in the theater and then out to lunch at McDonald's to get the Clone Wars toy. Later we celebrated with some of his extended family. We invited his grandparents and the Utah County crowd. If you know Derek, then you know that he is obsessed with the color blue. If given a choice he will always choose the blue crayon, marker, plate, popsicle, shirt, candy, yogurt...anything! He's even begging us to buy a blue house. So I thought it would be fun to throw a "blue party". We went to South Fork Park up Provo Canyon. Here he is with his blue cake before the party just in case it was destroyed on the drive.


We asked everyone to wear blue. (We forgave Lindsay and Bryce since they came straight from the pool.) We ate on blue plates, used blue forks, drank from blue cups, drank blue juice, and covered the table in blue. I thought for sure Derek would be all "blued out" by the end of the day, but no so...the blue obsession continues. He even chose a blue light saber as his gift from Grandma and Grandpa when they took him out shopping. Apparently it has been his "dream" to have one.We roasted hot dogs and s'mores, opened presents, and ate cake. The kids all had fun throwing leaves and rocks into the river and running around the grass.Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks for driving down to visit!McKenna was entertained with this plate for quiet some time.Yes, the cake was even blue inside. It took a lot of food coloring to pull that one off.
A group shot with the cousins!
Derek was spoiled with gifts from family! Thank you to everyone that sent and brought presents on his birthday. I pointed out to him how much he is loved by his family. He is so blessed to have such a great support group.

Here's a little spotlight on the birthday boy:

Favorite Movie: Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Favorite Thing To Do: Play soccer

Favorite Food: Doughnuts

Favorite Place to Go: Seven Peaks

Favorite Color: Blue (duh!)

Favorite Toy: Light saber and Batman dude

Some Interesting Things about Derek: 1) He loves to be the leader. (Afterall, his name does mean "ruler of people". Oops...our bad.) 2) He has a very large imagination. He has always put together random articles of clothing to "become" something. Like when he was 2 and 3 he'd put on green goggles, a football helmet, snow boots, a "soft" (aka blanket) tied around his neck, and carried a sword to pretend he was a knight. 3) Derek loves to make others happy. For example, he always gets a chair for the primary teacher and sets it up each week. Even though it means that he misses out on getting the big chair for himself and is left sitting on a little one. Once in a while he'll leave a quarter under our pillow as a fun surprise for us. He's the best at entertaining McKenna when I need a few extra minutes. He compliments me on my hair or shoes. He says "thank you" without a prompting from me. And he loves to give big hugs to his family.

We love you, Derek! Happy Birthday!

Derek is a First Grader!

Derek started first grade last week. What a big boy! I thought I would cry for hours like I did last year when I dropped him off. But just as I was about to, another mom started chatting with me. He went right in and seemed like he knew just what to do. Our house was so quiet for those six hours. Taylor told me that he missed his brother, but wouldn't admit it to Derek later. Derek's favorite parts were recess and lunch...of course. He still says that school is boring, but hopefully that will change by the end of the year...yeah, right. He's growing so fast and he seemed so grown up going off to full-day school. Here he is on his first day.

"Y"...oh why?

It was the makings of a perfect storm. We didn't feed the boys lunch, we forgot McKenna's pacifier, it was 85 degrees, and we had to complete our hike to the "Y" in less than 2 hours to make it back for a primary party. Yes, you can only imagine how the hike went. We heard a lot of "I'm hungry", "My legs hurt" (That was from me.), "This is no fun", "I want to go home", "I can't do it", "Waaahhh", etc, etc.

Happy shots before the hike began.
If you remember from a previous post, the boys and Dave have done this hike before and they loved it. So we figured this would be a walk in the park. Well, I think the difference was that they went in the cool of the Fall last time and Taylor was wearing shoes that fit him. We got home and found that Taylor had a blister the size of a quarter on his heel. He had every reason to complain.
We went with my sister and her family. Look at all the boys and poor McKenna!
They did make it! Once they got to the top it was all better. I did have to bribe them on the way down to make them stop complaining. Hey, whatever works!
This is proof that I did it too!

McKenna's New Trick

My little missy is officially crawling. I think it's too soon. I'm not ready! I took these pictures and video last week when she had been crawling for about two weeks. So I guess she started at 6 months old. It was such a cute crawl. She crawled with her knee on one side and her foot on the other. (See position below.) Just in the past couple days she has started to crawl on both knees and gets around everywhere. Oh, and about a week ago I found her standing up in her crib. So apparently she can pull herself up too. My goodness.
(I am embarassed that she's in her jammies in these pictures, but I really wanted to capture the moment anyway.)
This was the longest distance she had crawled to date. She started at the big blue ball in the background.

A couple years ago my sister visited us in Pennsylvania and brought her crawling baby. She was so jealous of my "non baby-proofed house". She wanted her knick knacks and picture frames down low like mine. Well, Laurel, I guess I'm with you now. Time to pack up my porcelain temple. Sigh.

My mom thinks this is amazing to watch and wanted me to post a video of it on the blog. She loves how quickly McKenna can get to the sitting position all on her own. She stumbles a bit in this video, so I guess it's not the full effect, but you get the idea. Here you go, Mom!

Go Get 'Em, Dave!

Dave is playing city league softball with a group of guys from work. They've played two games so far and he is doing great! They lost the first and won the second game. Dave's been on fire though. Good luck, honey! Keep up the good work!

Goodbye summer! We'll miss you!!

How quickly the summer went by. We are going to miss the fun days we spent at the pool. The boys became a lot more confident in the water and on the water slides. Derek actually started going all the way under the water...face and all. We were very impressed. I think we'll try to squeak a couple more visits in. This was their favorite waterslide of all of them. They went down over and over and over, each time we came.

Derek really wasn't scared of the slide, but his face would say differently. So funny! (You can click on the picture to see a larger image.)

You've Got to Check it Out!

My very talented sister, Stephanie, has made a website where you can buy her handmade jewelry. She has earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and soon to come...necklaces and bracelets for boys and men. I love all of them and she'll even customize them just for you. So go check it out, make an order, and visit often for new creations! And most definitely spread word to your friends!!

http://www.slvjewelry.etsy.com/

Future Golf Pros?

Derek earned a free game of golf by reading at school. The coupon expired on July 31st and we couldn't let a coupon expire without using it. So at 7:30 pm on July 31st we cashed the coupon in. The boys had never been miniature golfing, so it was a fun new experience for them.

We obviously didn't work on form, but just let them see what fun it can be. We'd let them go first and send them holes ahead while Dave and I took our turns. (Dave won by two strokes...in case anyone really cares.)
Poor McKenna misses out on the fun stuff. Another shot of her waiting for us in the stroller.
Are there any budding golfers in the family?? I guess we'll wait and see. :)

Sunday Photo Shoot

So I wanted to take pictures of our little girl at 6 months old and it turned into a photo shoot. The boys were cooperating and looked nice, so why not?! Too bad I tried a new setting on my camera and the colors are weird. Oh well.

Sadly, by this time McKenna was done with the camera and this was the best shot I could get of them together.

By the way, McKenna had her 6 month check up today. She weighs 16.5 lbs (63 percentile), measures 26.5 inches long (78.7 percentile), and her head circumference is 17 inches (72.4 percentile). Basically, she's above average for everything and our PA says that she's advanced in her physical abilities. Good girl! She had 4 shots and an oral vaccine, so she's been pretty grumpy...poor thing.

Happy half birthday, McKenna!

"Mom, what on earth is that?"

She was almost 6 months old and started crying after every feeding, so we decided to start McKenna on solid foods. Here she is eating the oh-so-yummy rice cereal. She's getting so big!
She didn't reject the cereal like Taylor did. She just needs to figure out how to swallow it better.

Apparently the high chair tray tasted better. I believe it. Now on to carrots! Yum!

Listen Closely...You never know what they're going to say.

I've been recording Taylor's funny quotes on scraps of paper around the house. So I'm adding them to this post so that it will make it into our blog book and I won't worry about losing the receipt with writing on the back. I'm sure that some of these are only funny to us because we were there. Enjoy.

June 20, 2007 (Age 3)
Derek: Your birthday is coming up.
Taylor: Nu uh! It's coming down!

July 8, 2007
Taylor: If I buy a red shirt, then I'll have a red one. If I buy a green shirt, then I'll have a green one.

July 16, 2007
Taylor: Do you know why I like pancakes?
Mom: Why?
Taylor: Because I like them.
(He said this about everything for a while. Or he would say.."Because they're my favorite.")

August 2007
Taylor: Limos are for long people.

February 27, 2008 (Age 3 1/2)
Mommy: Why I ought-ta!
Taylor: I'm not a yotta, Mommy!

July 24, 2008 (Age 4)
Taylor: Daddy, this shirt is 4T and these shorts are 3T.
Daddy: Wow, that is a lot of T's!
Taylor: I know. They are all T's.
Daddy: How come?
Taylor: Cause that's how Jesus made them.

July 2008
Taylor: (playing on the floor with his Ninja Turtles set) Mommy, do you know why Shredder's guards are dying?
Mommy: Why?
Taylor: Because they don't have Jesus with them.

Here's one from Derek (Age 5):

Derek: Mom, why did Heavenly Father make cows?
Mom: So that we can drink milk, eat hamburgers, and have leather.
Derek: What's leather?
Mom: The stuff that we get from cows so they can make couches.
Derek: Cows can make couches?! That's so weird.
Mom: (laughing) No, no, no. Leather comes from their skin, but people make the couches.
Derek: Cows are couches?!!