Car sickness

Kailyn has not been feeling well in the car, lately, getting car sick a time or two. Today, after a short trip (about 20 minutes) in town, she complained of feeling carsick. Shelly told her that she would have to not look down and color anymore while we are driving. We went into the store enjoying the crowds of Black Friday. After about 20 minutes in the store, Kailyn said, "Mom, I'm getting store sick."

An evening with Polar Bears

So, we decided to hit the zoo this evening after picking up Kailyn from school. What a blast. See the video to see how the polar bears interacted with our kids--it was great! No wonder our zoo is ranked in the top 10 in the nation (on whatever list that is).

I can't hear you

Last night we put all the kids down to bed a little early after a typical Sunday (kids miss naps, everyone's a little tired). They're all in bed at 7:10, Shelly and I are chillin' in front of a movie at 7:15 when all of a sudden we hear screaming/yelling upstairs in the kids' bedroom. I pause the movie and walk upstairs to figure out what the commotion was. I find Jordan sitting up in bed. I ask her what the deal is (the other 2 are motionless in their beds). Jordan says, "I'm talking really loud to Kailyn, but she won't wake up."

Columbus Trip

We were SO spoiled this last weekend. Ken had Friday and Saturday off and Kailyn had Friday off due to Parent/Teacher conferences. We took the opportunity to go to Columbus and stay with my cousin Lisa and her husband Cory. They housed us, fed us delicious food, took us to COSI, and best of all Lisa watched our kids so that Ken and I could go to the temple. We can't thank them enough for their hospitality. We had so much fun! Here are some pictures from our fun at COSI.

Like father, like son. (the matching shirts were totally unplanned)

Kailyn playing with a water gun.

Kailyn in the yellow submarine.

Jordan in a yellow submarine.

Painting the house.

Caden in the yellow submarine.

Caden loved the water area.

Ethan just started holding Caden's hand.

Caden loved hammering in the play house.

Caden playing with balls as they float on streams of air.

Ethan, Me, Caden, Jordan, Ken, Briggs, Kailyn

Family picture.

Little Helper

Caden is at that age where he just loves to help me. Unfortunately, sometimes his help is a little less than helpful.

Raking Leaves

Earlier this month I was raking leaves, Jordan and Caden decided to play in my massive piles. Jordan had fun burying herself in the leaves and Caden was just laughing uncontrollably. It was so cute, I couldn't help but laugh and take pictures.

Halloween

Wow, this month has flown by! I can't believe I never got a post up of Halloween. So here it is. Wednesday we had play group at the church. We had a potluck lunch and then the kids decorated cookies.

All the kids at play group.

Jordan and Caden eating lunch.

Can you tell Jordan loves frosting and sprinkles?

Halloween day a group of us went to Perrysburg (a town right next to Toledo) and went treat or treating at all the little shops in downtown.

Jordan, Zeb Miller, Sam Dockter, Caden, Hailey Ericksen, Matthew Lau

Halloween night I took the kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood (Ken of course was working). I love trick-or-treating here. The weather was so beautiful, and I love how everyone sits in their driveways and hands out candy. We had some really amazing decorated houses. There was one house that even did a magic treat. It involved 'magic potion,' fire, and the treat magically appearing. The kids of course wanted to go back and see this one again.

Fairy butterfly, Angel, Superman

They got so much candy!

Kailyn

Jordan

Caden

"You're pretty tricky, Dad"

Kailyn informed me yesterday--out of the blue, totally unrelated to anything else we were talking about. "You're pretty tricky, Dad." "How's that, Kailyn?" "I never see you give Mommy the money you make at work. You're pretty tricky when you give it to her."

And now, a little bragging about Kailyn. Yes, it's full out bragging. If you're one of those people who just despises listening to others talk about how good their kid is, skip the rest of the post. It's okay. We don't mind. I brag about Kailyn here because this blog has become our family journal/scrapbook, so when something like this comes up, I've got to post it.

Kailyn was spot-lighted in her class last week. We got to select 30 pictures of her growing up and turn them in, along with some of her favorite toys. When Shelly went in to help drop off the pictures and stuff, the teacher pulled Shelly aside and told her what a joy it is to have Kailyn in her class and said that Kailyn is "such a sweetheart." Our neighbors' children had the same teacher a few years back. On mentioning to him that we were excited for parent-teacher's conference so we could see how Kailyn was doing, he asked if we had heard anything yet. I said we had not. He said that was a good thing, because he knew from experience that the teacher was not bashful at all about telling parents if their kids were misbehaving.

Parent-teacher's conference went well. Shelly went. She said that the teacher had only glowing/good things to say about Kailyn. Before the school year started, the teacher gave all of the kids a 30 question quiz to see how prepared they were for school. Kailyn scored 28/30, apparently the 2nd highest in the class. The teacher reports that Kailyn is very polite and attentive (we told Kailyn her teacher had said this, Kailyn said, "That's because I like to learn!")--for those of you who know Kailyn, you know how much she likes to talk. The teacher said this hasn't been an issue in school or class--Kailyn always gives the teacher the respect she needs. Kailyn continues to do well academically--she can read all but a handful of words from her "Fun with Dick and Jane" book. The book is a collection of "Dick and Jane" stories and is 150 pages. Here's a video of her reading.



Kailyn interacts well with other students. She makes friends easily. Her teacher points out that Kailyn is even sweet to those who are not nice to her. "Kailyn has such a cheery disposition. She always has such a great smile and always seems so happy. I've been teaching children for 30 years--Kailyn is a very special girl. Whatever you're doing at home, you're doing it right," were some of the greatest words to hear from Kailyn's teacher. Wish we could take all the credit (actually, Shelly, since I'm never home anyway), but for everyone out there who knows Kailyn, she really is a very special girl. The teacher said Kailyn is in a group of students who are in the "ready to read" group. The teacher asked Shelly if she could spend an hour each week coming in to help the students in this group. Shelly would like to do it. Shelly mentioned that Kailyn really likes reading the "Dick and Jane" books but sometimes gets frustrated about sounding out words. The teacher suggested that Kailyn start working on some of the words that the kindergartners are supposed to know by the end of the year. Kailyn already knows about 3/4 of them just from reading her "Dick and Jane" books. Now that we think about it, we think we may have misled the teacher a bit--that whole comment about how she doesn't always like to sound out words seems to undertell how Kailyn has already developed a pretty extensive reading vocabulary. Oh, well.

At any rate, you know how it is--you get a little praise about your child, you feel so proud, you know that she is absolutely the best student this school has ever seen--all the while, the next parent enters the room and hears similar things. But, hey, for us, it's a wonderful thing to hear. Kailyn has her moments (like whispering all through a primary program practice session), but overall, we're pretty proud to have her in our family. We're sure proud of all of our children. Of course, Jordan and Caden are also very special--we just don't have parent-teacher conferences for them, yet.

Random Pictures

So I was looking through our photos and I found these gems that never got posted.

The first one is the kids eating at a "Family Fun" event we went to back in September. It was so much fun! They had inflatable toys, games, snakes, free food, rock wall (which Kailyn attempted to scale), animals like goats to pet, horses to ride, and much more. The best part...it was all FREE (even the food). Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of pictures cause my camera battery died. Thank you so much to Cynthia who took a picture of the girls on the horses.

Caden skipping the hot dog and going straight for the cookie. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Jordan rode a pony.

Kailyn got on her horse grabbed the reins and started kicking the horse (how you kick to get the horse to go). The lady in charge came over and gave me her card telling me they normally don't let kids ride on trails as young as her but Kailyn was a natural (not sure if she was really impressed or just trying to drum up business).

CADEN

For some reason Caden has adopted this Frisbee as his new hat. He loves to wear it.

Caden helping Daddy mow the lawn back in September.

JORDAN

We went to an open house thing awhile back and as we were leaving Jordan asked if she could have one more treat. I told she could grab one more. She came back holding 2 and told me that she wanted to take one home to Daddy who wasn't able to come cause he was working. I thought it was sweet and told her that would be fine. When we got home she handed me this and wanted me to put it on the table for Dad when he got home. When I looked at it I was a bit surprised and asked her what happened to the rest. She told me she wanted to try a little. The next morning she excitedly asked if Ken had gotten the treat she saved for him.

Jordan 'reading' a story to Caden

We often find that Jordan has fallen asleep in weird places. Here she fell asleep while sitting in her chair.


KAILYN

The second day of school (while I was taking a shower) Ken decided to take some pictures of Kailyn, just in case I had forgotten the first day. This is what Kailyn gave him. I have not idea where she came up with some of her poses.







I guess the other two wanted to get in on the fun.