December in Pictures

Mostly pictures because I'm on Christmas break now and thoroughly enjoying some down time! December was a whirlwind on dance recitals, 3 piano recitals, concerts, parties, family activities, Taisha's birthday, shopping, cooking, eating, and all the other things that make December December! Christmas was a huge success except for the whole "Santa got McKay and Taisha a DS, but somehow forgot to get one for Anaya... and that was a big mistake.... especially because she seemed to be suffering from holiday bipolar syndrome (that's when you are super hyper/happy OR on the floor have a tantrum.... no in between) and had her heart set on a DS, blah blah blah..."

(Christmas dance recital)

(Taisha turned 11!)

(McKay as "Joseph")

(Joseph and Mary, and yes, I am aware that baby Jesus was a roll of paper towels with a face drawn on.... we kind of forgot about a baby, and had to improvise!)

(Angels-they were playing "rock, paper, scissors" through the nativity story!)

(Copper pipe chimes on Christmas Eve)

(The pinata was a pink flamingo!)

(Malia broke it open this year!)

November 2009

Thanksgiving break was the perfect amount of:

food (perfect = LOTS), and family.....

shopping (here's the coolest Salvation Army bell ringers EVER.... at least according to Rik!)



and family projects...

(Try to guess where Rik's last business trip was to!)

And now we are all ready and excited for Christmas!!

(Notice that Anaya got her way after months of Naya-nagging, and now has bangs! And I love that the headband makes her ears stick out!)

Kayden's Eagle Court of Honor

So we finally got around to doing Kayden's Eagle Court of Honor. He's officially had his Eagle since July, and got his project done the summer before, so we decided maybe we should finish it off.


Do you see this nice picture of me? Thanks to everyone that came and helped!

The other day McKay came home from school and I asked him if he was good that day, and he was so excited and said yes, no one told on him all day!! Somehow I think we have different definitions of "good!" We've started the second quarter of school now, and the first went really well! I can't believe how fast the year is going!

Kawiti and Teryn had their baby!

Zedekiah Emmanuel Finlayson
November 9th at 2:30pm 7 lbs 9 oz and 20 inches

My Poor Disappearing Imagination!

Last weekend me and a few of my friends went to Salt Lake to see the So You Think You Can Dance Tour. It was so much fun! That is one of my two favorite shows, and that season had some outstanding dancers, interesting choreography, and fun personalities. Project Runway is my other favorite show to watch. I think I like these shows so much because of the creativity and imagination that is shown. I am awed by the beauty that can be created in such a short amount of time, and that just somehow came out of some one's imagination.

I think my imagination might be disappearing, or maybe I just need to work a little harder. I went to my kid's school for the book fair, and noticed that books 2 and 3 of the May Bird series were there. I hadn't read the first one, so I took a quick break from the Percy Jackson books (LOVE them by the way), to read the first May Bird book, so I could decide if I needed to buy the 2nd and 3rd books. I thought the book was pretty good, but as soon as it got to the part where May is in the Ever After, I just couldn't imagine what it looked like. My imagination struggled with the imagery. I did end up getting the other two books because Malia said she read the first one and she loved it... and she said she had no problems imagining the Ever After. *sigh*

McKay decided to sit down and write a story and wanted me to read it when he got it all done. I asked him what it was about (because this is child #4... I have learned to get a topic before trying to decipher phonetically written words that have no spaces between them...) He told me it was a story about how he likes camping. So I started sounding out the page, and a few minutes later he came back and asked me if I got to the part about the skeleton dogs. What?! Skeleton dogs? I'm pretty sure with my imagination, there would be no skeleton dogs in my story about camping. I think I read the first couple words ("my nem is dan") and the last line ("and I lic to camp")... not so sure where the skeleton dogs came in, but I love that he dated the bottom of the page.

BOO!!

Happy Halloween!!

Let's see now....

So I just got back from my blog vacation! It was very nice and restful. Here's a few things that happened while I was on blogcation:


Cross country ended.... with Kayden not feeling 100%. His goal was to get his time under 20 minutes, and he got really close at 20:07. He may have been able to beat that time, but at that meet, his shoe fell off right when the race started, and he just kept on running, with one shoe on and one shoe off (check out the pictures that Debi took of him running with one shoe!) He's really missing cross country now that's it over though! He doesn't quite know what to do with all his extra time. This has been a good year for him so far. His Eagle Court of Honor is going to be November 8th at 7:00. (I should really get planning that... anyone know what I'm supposed to do??)




Volleyball also ended... and Malia had some pretty good post-volleyball blues, until she realized that she has lots of extra time to read. And I have reminded her that she now has lots and lots of extra time to practice organ and piano (she's been playing the organ on Sunday's at church.) Somehow she wasn't as excited about that. We have got a really tiny Young Women group in our ward: 5 active. They are some of the neatest girls I have ever met though. Every Tuesday morning one of the older girls has been picking up the other girls and taking them to the temple to do baptisms. (One morning I forgot they were doing that though, and thought Malia was a robber.... nothing like waking up scared... luckily I decided against throwing my pillow at her (the only weapon I could think of at the time!)


Taisha is going strong at gymnastics and piano. She works really hard for her gymnastics coaches (she comes home exhausted and sweaty!) She's started on Christmas piano music and has Carol of the Bells memorized all ready and plays it every time she walks past the piano..... cause we just don't hear that song enough! Glad she's excited about playing though! She's looking forward to club volleyball starting up (so are Rik and Malia... me, not so much...)


McKay has got a perfect teacher for him. I was driving him to gymnastics a couple weeks ago, and asked him if he liked his teacher this year, and he said, "Mom, she has told me a million of times that she is proud of me." That's exactly what he needs. Just a small warning though... don't start up, participate in, or join any "karate chopping posse." Especially if you are a first grade boy, as the first grade girls have got ZERO appreciation for the lost art of karate chop flirting.... and I mean ZERO...

Anaya insisted on picture retakes, because she really hated her hair, her smile, and her eyes in the first picture. *sigh* I should get her pictures back in a couple weeks. I've had all the kids in the dentist getting teeth cleanings and cavities filled. When it was Anaya's turn she got to pick out a new tooth brush. She didn't want the princess or Sponge Bob brushes, she just wanted the biggest toothbrush she could get. So she ended up with blue plain toothbrush. When I asked her about her toothbrush selection, she said she just wanted a bigger tooth brush than everyone else. I guess when you are the youngest and everyone seems to be doing everything first (even though she is doing the same things that they were doing when they were her age....) you get your wins when you can! When she got home from the dentist she lined up every one's brushes so she could see that hers was indeed the biggest. I don't' know if I'll ever understand her "last child" personality!

I've been helping her learn her letters and sounds.... and by "helping" I mean "totally confusing" her. This is conversation we had about the letter "u:"

Me: What letter is this?
Anaya: "u"
Me: What does it say?
Anaya: yuh
Me: No, "y" says yuh. "U" says uh. What does "u" say?
Anaya: yuh
Me: No, "y" says yuh, like the word "you"... oh wait... that's a bad example... I mean "y" says yuh like (looking around trying to find something she can visualize), like ukulele. Oh duh... no, ukulele starts with a "u," but it's not an uh-kulele, it starts with a... you know what? We should just stop for today....

When I went to help in her class, I turned to the "u" page in her skill book (a book that is made by the devil I think....) and she immediately told me she was done for the day and went back in her class to get the next kid for me to torture. When she got home from school I thought of a new way to remember "u" says "uh." I said "u uh-uh ugly!" Which worked!! My only concern is that some mom volunteer is going to call her out to pass off things in her skill book, and Anaya's going to say "You ugly," and I really don't need any other trouble at the school, especially after the whole karate chopping posse incident.

I haven't been doing very good at my goal of napping for the entire school year now that everyone is in school, but know that I have been totally enjoying my 2 1/2 hours of me time. This year seems about right for the first time in a long time. There were some years that were out of control crazy, and this year doesn't feel that way. My days just seem to run so good right now, and I am happy and energetic (which is why the napping goal isn't working.) With the first quarter of school already over, I have high hopes for the year!

Good News! Esther (Rik's little sister) and Jesse had their baby!

Ayden Ezekiel Smitheram
Born 5:25 pm on Oct. 21st
7lbs. 12 oz.

Lots O' Pictures and FOOD!!

Over Labor Day weekend we went to Island Park and stayed in a cabin for 3 nights. I think there were 28 Finlaysons down there over the weekend. We had so much fun and ate and ate and ate!

Here's a little run down of what we did:

1. Leave Idaho Falls with van packed with enough treats, candy, snacks, and food to feed a small army. There is barely room for the kids with all the food packed in the van. Stop off at Jack in the Box for burgers to eat on the way.

2. Get to the cabin, unpack the food, and immediately start eating.

3. Stay up really late eating nachos and candy and laughing.

4. Wake up the next morning and make a yummy huge breakfast... I'm not even going to say how many eggs and how many pounds of bacon we went through...

5. Pack up vehicles with lots of food and snacks so that we might not starve when we go into Yellowstone for the day. Start snacking the second we get into the cars and take off to the park.

6. Drive, eat, oooh and ahhh through a small portion of the park.

7. Stop for lunch at Old Faithful.

8. Drive and eat some more.

9. Go back to cabin (eating all the way back) for dinner. You had your choice of turkey, ham, and pulled pork... nope, I'm not kidding. The kids roasted hot dogs and marshmallows too.

10. Snack the rest of the night on Hello Dollys, rice crispy squares, sticky Chex mix and brownies.

11. Get up the next morning and have breakfast... just cereal though.

12. Hang out at the cabin doing puzzles and talking and playing games and sleeping and eating some more.

13. Fry up 100 scones for Navajo tacos with all the fixings for lunch. Make a note that next time make an additional 25 scones, and we would be just about right.

14. Hang out and snack the rest of the afternoon.

15. Rik and a group go back into the park to hike some more, and then call on their way home wondering if they need to stop in West Yellowstone and pick up something for dinner, cause he doesn't know if there is enough food at the cabin. Try to laugh hysterically, but can't because I'm just SO full from having Italian chicken, tons of fruit and vegetables, and salad for dinner. Ask Rik if he is new to the Finlayson family, and tell him to just come back to the cabin and eat... sheesh.

16. Taisha starts not feeling so good... stomach just isn't handling this much food.... she opts for no dinner that night.

17. Wake up to Kayden's favorite meal of the whole weekend: all the left over food fried up together, with toast and juice. Clean up the cabin and head back home. We decide to skip Big Judds mondo hamburgers on the way home.

18. About 1/2 hour into the drive home Taisha says she thinks she's going to be sick... 15 minutes later Malia complains of a stomach ache... we get home, and Kayden says his stomach hurts... and it took me two days to feel like myself! But holy cow it was worth it!!! It was so fun and so yummy and we loved every minute of the weekend!


Here's Malia and Kayden's school pictures from this year... they are both looking so old to me this year! Volleyball and cross country are in full swing at this point.

Hmm.... Maybe this is the year for a calendar...

School started last week, and I was a really good mom with the three youngest kids, and remembered to take their pictures, but totally forgot to get pictures of Kayden and Malia on their first days. Oops. (Maybe a bad mom moment, but really, I only forgot when I was home, I totally remembered when we got to the schools, but I didn't go running after them in my pajamas to get a picture... so you might think bad mom, but Malia and Kayden both think WAY good mom!)

So here's a picture of Kayden on the 6th day of school.


And here's a picture of Malia on here 7th day of school, and first volleyball game day (which is why she has yellow ribbon weaved into her hair that doesn't match anything she's wearing except her bright yellow nail polish, but WILL match her jersey perfectly!)


Kayden participated in the mud run last Saturday. It's Hillcrest's tradition to come in dead last, and completely covered in mud. He loved every second of it. His first real meet is next Saturday in Soda Springs.

So I just might need a calendar this year, but I'm really fighting it! Here's why I'm thinking I just might need one:

First, I took Anaya to the dentist a whole month to the day early last week. (Why in the world did the dentist office send me a reminder post card TWO months before the appointment! I mean really, how is THAT going to help me remember!)

Second, I signed Anaya up for dance, and she has been really looking forward to going, so I got her up, dressed in her leotard, and sent her over to the neighbors house (we're carpooling), and Anaya came back a few minutes later totally devastated because it actually starts NEXT week. Bummer. My sweet neighbor came right over and invited Anaya to come "play" dance with Addison for that hour. Whew. So here's a picture of Anaya all ready for dancing next door.

Third, the kids seem pretty involved again this year. McKay and Taisha start gymnastics this week (at least I think it's this week, maybe I should check). Taisha started piano lessons, Malia is taking piano/organ lessons, and is singing in choir. She also made the volleyball team again. Kayden is running cross country again this year, and we still have lawn jobs to do as long as the weather is good.

Fourth, good grief I almost forgot Anaya's birthday. I don't know if the calendar would have helped that though, because on August 19th my cell phone reminder went off and reminded me that Anaya's birthday was the next day. Only her birthday is the 10th, not the 20th. Duh. So a calendar only helps if you know the right date to begin with.

So everyone keeps asking me how I'm doing with Anaya in school now. Even my kids ask me what I do when they are all gone. Apparently they don't notice all the clean cupboards, blinds, back corners of closets, shower curtains, etc... maybe that's just for me. But I love it! The house stays clean and quiet and it does wonders for my mood. I do lots of cleaning, very efficient errand running, and sometimes even splurge and do nothing!! I did finish the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians book (loved it!), and started the second, but it is on hold for right now because the second Hunger Games (Catching Fire) came out today, and it's sitting here tempting me to not do anything else.

The first week of school went pretty good. I was a little worried about McKay (am I ever not worried about how he's going to do?), but he has done way better than I thought he would, and his only complaint was that it was kind of boring. Whew. Every Sunday night after the kids go to bed Rik and I watch America's Best Dance Crew, and I decided maybe Rik has been watching too much of this show, because I send the kids off to school by saying "Love you! Have a good day!" and Rik says "Represent!" in his best "from the hood" voice. And they have no idea what he's talking about.