On Your Mark, Get Set......

McKay turned 8 just in time to participate in the pine wood derby! Rik had to brush off his "mad derby-car making skills".... it's been a quick 5 years since we had to make the last one with Kayden. McKay's car placed third out of 15 cars, but if you ask him what his favorite part of the whole night was, he'd tell you it was carrying and posting the flag, and saluting cub scout-style.

Did You Check a Wrong Box?!

Kayden has been receiving all sorts of college mail over the last little bit, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. Last week though we got a letter that said:

Dear Parent,

Your daughter, Kayden has just been nominated to attend the National Youth Leadership Forum...

The whole letter was all in "her" and "she." We thought that was a little weird, but then the next day we got this letter:

Bahahaha!!

Easter weekend was busy, but nice. On Saturday both girls had volleyball at different schools in Sugar City, McKay had wrestling in Rexburg, and Kayden had a two-day track meet (I just keep telling myself, "Almost done.... almost done.....") Sunday the kids woke up to a one-word treasure hunt to find their Easter stuff. They each had 5- one word clues, like "window, cupboard, mirror, picture, etc. and they just had to wander around and check them all until they found their next clue. Easy for me, time consuming for them!

I took all the kids shopping for their Easter clothes this year, and was surprised that they all wanted COLOR. And not pastels.... BRIGHT COLORS and lots of them! I guess I don't blame them with the drab, gray winter we've had!

Kayden was mooching food at.... I mean "supporting" a friends mission farewell, so I had to snap a picture of him later than everyone else... and really he wanted me to take a picture of him doing a yo-yo trick (his yo-yo is in his left hand). He makes a handsome BOY...



McKay had his baptism interview Sunday morning before church. He gets baptized April 30th at 10:00. He's SO excited!!

Birthday Boys

McKay turned 8 on Friday!! He was so excited for his birthday this year. We did a little friend birthday party Friday after school. He was also the "Star Student" in his class last week. He had to fill out the "Star Student" paper and fill a box with things that he likes. I loved that on the paper he said that his wish was to go to Hogwarts (incidentally, this is also Malia's wish!) He also wrote down that his real name is Amitai McKay Finlayson, but he wanted to make sure that everyone knew he didn't like to be called Amitai.... only McKay.

For his birthday dinner he wanted tacos, and he wanted dirt again for dessert. We got him a ukulele for his birthday. We've been listening to him strum away all day. McKay gets baptized April 30th. He can hardly wait!


Kayden turned 17 today!! Holy smokes those years have gone fast! He wanted to go to Billman's for dinner tonight, and he asked if I would make chicken enchiladas and strawberry shortcake for tomorrow. Here's a picture of Kayden and Kristen at Billman's. Yummy!! Rik got him the bone carving, and Kayden picked out the shirt when we were birthday shopping last week.

Piano Recital

Malia had her Spring piano recital last night and by some miracle I remembered the camera (that's not 100% true..... I initially forgot, and ran back home to get it.) She played three pieces, but I couldn't remember how to record on the camera (that's what you get with lack of use), so I missed the first song.

(Sorry for the poor picture quality.... I downgraded the quality so it wouldn't take 3 days to upload!)

Spring break was absolutely heavenly! We didn't go anywhere, but tried to do something fun as a family everyday. We fed the ducks down at the river, went bowling, swimming, roller skating, out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, and shopped. But most of all we relaxed. I think Tangled may have been on some type of repeating loop on the TV... I watched that show so many times in a row! We also slept and caught up on some household projects (I'm so THRILLED with what we got done on the house!) Less than seven weeks of school left (not that I'm counting....)

All Sorts of Illegal.....

Kayden came home the other day and told me he had signed himself up to run for student body secretary. So the night before he was supposed to hang up posters, we decided we better start brainstorming on some campaign ideas. Since we were short on time, we decided that there are many, many creative people out there... let's just use their ideas!! Kayden's slogan was "Vote Kayden Finlayson. Insurance for a Great Year!" And then we used lots of insurance ads and slogans: "15 minutes of voting for Kayden could save you 15%," "There's no discount for agreeing with me" (picture of Flo, the Progressive girl), "Vote for Kayden! It's so easy a caveman could do it," "Mayhem is coming!! Vote for Kayden," "This is the money you could be saving if you voted for Kayden".... you get the idea. 50 fliers, 5 posters, 400 handouts with candy, 1 banner, and a video speech later.... Kayden won!! Here's the stars of his video speech:

I'm sure this campaign didn't have any copyright issues.... We found all the images free on the internet, and no, I did not photocopy dollar bills because I couldn't find any fake ones that worked..... nothing illegal going on here....

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A group of us went down to Salt Lake last weekend for the Young Woman's Conference. This is our third year going down there, and Taisha's first. We did a little shopping, ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory, and then headed over to the Conference Center. We love this tradition!

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Today was the last day of school before Spring Break!!! I'm beyond happy!! I even made dinner and hour and a half later than normal AND I'm watching TV even as we speak... and I remembered how to turn it on! (I run a pretty tight ship lately, with not much wiggle room.) Yippee!!

Going Green

St. Patrick's Day started out with a challenge to everyone to use the phrase "is magically delicious!" somewhere in their conversations that day. Which then lead to a lengthy conversation (mostly with McKay) on whether "Link" from Zelda is an elf or a leprechaun... which is why I love boys! We ended the day with a GIANT pot of broccoli cheddar soup (which was magically delicious... except for the broccoli.... why are all the green foods so yucky???), green jello, green salad, shamrock-shaped bread sticks and mint Fat Boys.

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Check out this awesome picture of Malia that I took last night:


Hillcrest had their National Honor's Society inductions last night. Freshman can't be inducted (because of the national rules), but they let the freshman apply and chose 5 to participate for this year, and Malia was one of the freshman chosen. That super fuzzy picture is Malia getting her award.

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Today Malia was playing volleyball in Malad, Taisha was playing volleyball in Sugar City, and McKay had a wrestling match in Idaho Falls. McKay has been working hard on his wrestling, but he is not allowed to wrestle with Anaya..... unless Rik is trying to show him a move, and needs Anaya to demonstrate... only Anaya is REALLY ticklish, and then the whole demonstration takes a turn for the crazy with Anaya laughing uncontrollably, Rik trying to get her to cooperate, and McKay deciding to do flips instead. Awesome times at my house...

March Madness!!!

The snow is almost melted, the trampoline is set up and bikes are back in use, and all sorts of craziness is in full swing.... must be MARCH!!! Here's what we've been up to.....

Track has started, and Kayden is THRILLED... and starving. He has his first school meet on Wednesday. He is also playing on a brawleyball team (at their school it's the junior boys against the senior boys playing volleyball.) Rik is coaching their team. They are practicing at 6:00 in the morning a couple times a week. As soon as brawleyball is over, I am signing Rik and Kayden up for ninja classes.... because those two could use some lessons on getting out of the house in the morning a little more quietly. I finally got his Sweethearts Ball picture scanned in:

Kayden and Mariah

And here's a picture of Kayden and Kristen right after she won Junior Miss for Bonneville County. He likes Kristen A LOT. And I do too (even if I do get a little nervous around any of the girls and don't know what to say... how weird is that?!)

Malia is constantly on the run. Her schedule consists of volleyball, piano, organ, more volleyball, friends, church responsibilities, honors classes, babysitting, and helping me out. She is up at 5:30 or earlier every day except Fridays. She just got finished with piano festival, and I have never seen her work so hard on two pieces of music. She was determined to get them memorized, and they were such hard songs this year. On the night of festival, Rik and I were couch shopping (SO FUN!!!) and we rushed home to pick her up with just enough time to get her there. We pull into the church parking lot, and she says that we are at the wrong church. Turns out I went to the place where Taisha had festival the last few years.... and I could not remember which church we were supposed to be at for Malia, and neither could she. Nothing like driving around for 25 minutes trying to figure out where you are supposed to be to calm your nerves right before a big performance. We finally found it, and she played her best, under the circumstances, but was disappointed with how it went. That being said, she got 100%, and the judge used words like "your playing was yummy deliciousness!!"

Malia has volleyball tournaments every weekend except one from now until the end of May.

Whenever she get a free evening, she spends if with her goofy friends.


Taisha's volleyball just started and goes until the end of May. She decided she didn't want to do piano festival this year (but maybe she should have so I could keep my locations straight!) The Young Women in our ward got to run the primary last week, she taught the sunbeams, and told me she wants that calling when she gets older... she loved it! She's getting ready for her first talk in sacrament meeting, and is really looking forward to going to Salt Lake with the Young Women and their mom's for the Young Woman's broadcast in a couple weeks.

McKay finished his basketball season, and moved right into wrestling. He had his first wrestling tournament last weekend. On his very first match he pinned the other boy in 16 seconds. Which was great except, he was so confused because it was so fast, the ref kept telling him he won, and he just didn't get it. And then Rik had to tell him over and over again that he won... McKay ended up getting 3rd place. We got the trampoline set up, and he was a little worried that he would forget how to do all his fancy flips, but it all came right back to him.

Anaya is just busy being Anaya. A few weekends ago, Malia was just getting home from a two-day tournament in Utah. She walked through the door, and Anaya, who was sitting at the table coloring said, "Oh, great... I hope you don't smell stink again!" Nice. Malia and Taisha were downstairs and Anaya was being annoying, so they kept telling her to go upstairs. She finally stomped up the stairs, but not without telling them that they were like evil step moms. And then the other day, Anaya was trying to tell something to Malia, but for whatever reason, Malia couldn't hear her. After repeating herself several times, Anaya finally just told Malia, "Geez!! It's like you have no ears!!" She spends hours and hours drawing, coloring, tracing, and painting. Here's one of her latest:


And I guess you can probably figure out what Rik and I have been up to... lots and lots of running (um, not the good, healthy kind of running though.) The other day at work I announced over the intercom that we were having "Chest Club" in the library through lunch, instead of "Chess Club." Awesome!