Something every baby must learn

It seems to me that "Patty-cake, Patty-cake" is one of those tricks that all babies must learn. Like a prerequisite to childhood. McKenna's version of "toss it in the oven" is a little unorthodox, but she's got the idea. Enjoy!

It's Official...

...I am a mom! You would think that childbirth would do it, but no, there are some little milestones that make you feel more and more like a true, full-on mom. Your first mini-van, first day of school, and now we've reached...soccer! I am now a soccer mom. I feel like I need a bumper sticker. Derek started soccer the end of August and he loves it, which makes all the driving to and from practice and games worth it. I can't imagine having more than one child in a sport, like my sister! Four days a week involve soccer and one day a week with Dave's softball. It doesn't last forever, so I really don't mind.

Derek is just dying to kick his first goal. He's had plenty of opportunities, but he's just not aggressive enough. He just likes to run with the pack of kids. He gets a few good kicks in each game and we try to praise those. This age group is very entertaining to watch. They get confused which direction to kick it and the coach has a hard time keeping their attention. It gives the kids great experience though. Derek loves feeling like a "real soccer dude".

Derek's New Favorite Number is 6

Now that Derek is six, his new favorite number has changed from 5 to 6. Derek's actual birthday was on Sunday and was pretty low-key. He woke up to the traditional streamers hanging in his doorway and sign on the door. We went to church where they sang to him and gave him a crown. We came home and ate our usual nachos, but by calling them "birthday nachos" it made it a little more special. We also let him choose the chip with the most cheese. :) He chose taquitos for dinner which was more than okay with me. Super easy, since they are the frozen variety. :) After dinner we had cake and presents.
Derek has a funny thing with his feet. We think they are just super, ultra-sensitive. He freaks out when we try to clip his nails and don't even think about giving him a foot rub. Because of this sensitivity, he LOVES getting new socks. I think we all do though. But I just think it's cute that a 6 year old is already in love with it. So we bought him a pack for his birthday.
Yes, that is cake number 2! Lucky kid. He had asked for a chocolate Batman cake months ago and no one wants to disappoint their child on their birthday. :) When I showed him the cake with just the Batman symbol he said "it's perfect". Then I showed him the cake with the border and he said "oh, now it's more perfect!".

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!