Kayden-isms

I don't know how other teenagers are, so I don't know if this is normal or not, but here's some Kayden-isms for you:

Kayden has no problem helping out around the house and is an excellent organizer and cleaner. I can always tell when he's worked on the kitchen though, because he always loads the dishes backwards and puts all the pot and pans, and dishes in the wrong places in the dishwasher, and he hides things, like the salt and pepper. It took me almost a whole week to find the salt last time (and that was only because I finally asked Kristen... and she told me where it was....)

Kayden loves to sit and chat with me.... but only when I'm trying to have a nice Sunday nap. Every Sunday, for as long as I can remember, I lay down, and a few minutes later Kayden comes in and sits down and yacks on and on and on..... He thinks this is so funny. I think he has a warped sense of humor.

Everyone has been busy getting their rooms ready for the new school year by cleaning out and reorganizing. I could hear Kayden downstairs working on his room.... but when I went downstairs he had moved his entire room into the family room, and all the family room furniture AND DECORATIONS into his room. His bed was neatly made sitting in the middle of the family room, and all his pictures and art work were tastefully decorating the walls. I mean he had to take his door off his room to get the couch in there.


So maybe this gives you a little bit of an idea why I'm so sad when I think about him growing up and leaving soon. I've had a whole summer being just a little sad and melancholy realizing what point we are at in our lives, and how quickly this point got here. *sigh*

Mountain River and Mud Run

This summer has been so busy and we've had a hard time coordinating schedules so that we can do things as a family, but we were all able to go to Mountain River Ranch for dinner, wagon rides and a live show. The mosquitoes were also there enjoying all the warm bodies, but the food was great, the show was fun, and I was so grateful to have everyone there.

(This is Taisha giving "Frank," the goofball/silly character of the show, some attention. Our little group seemed to attract "Frank," and he sat by us a lot!)

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This year Malia was able to run in the Mud Run. She absolutely LOVED it. The girls had a spaghetti dinner the night before the mud run, and they decorated t-shirts to wear for the race. The boys, on the other hand, decided they should wear daisy dukes and suspenders.... such a scary look!

(Sorry for the poor quality... I stole it off of Kayden's phone!)

(Kayden's on the bottom, left, giving all he's got....)

High Adventure 2011

Kayden and Rik went camping and hiking for high adventure near Jenny's Lake this year. It wasn't as rugged as some of the other high adventures they have been on, but they still hiked a lot, and enjoyed some beautiful country. My favorite pictures are the ones of Kayden looking at the snow melting into the water that he was going to jump into. That's a cold bath! They got home from high adventure, had one night in their beds, then camped at Downata with the boys, while all the girls went shopping in Utah (SO FUN!!) The following weekend was the ward camp out, so Rik and the three youngest camped again! Good thing Rik is such a good sport!

(This is the rock Kayden smuggled into one of his leader's packs. Kayden thought it was HILARIOUS... the leader, not so much!)

Happy Birthday Anaya!!!

Anaya turned 7 a couple of weeks ago. She had been asking for a hair cut, so we did that and her nails, went to lunch, came home and had a water party, she wanted tacos for dinner, and then when Rik and Kayden got home from high adventure, we had dirt. I think she had a GREAT day.

Yay!! Christmas Pictures in August!

Just in case you were wondering... I finally got around to going through all the old pictures and added missing Christmas tree pictures to this post.... and I put them in order (and yes, I know, it took me over 8 months to get that done....)