Double Digits!

Kennedy, my first born is 10 TODAY! Happy Birthday, Ken!

Excuse me, but I just need to go off on how incredibly wonderful my daughter is! She has become such a JOY to have around the house and she makes me so happy! She is the most thoughtful and sweet girl!
I was having a cranky mommy day a couple of weeks ago, trying to get the boys to a soccer game, Ken to drama class, fed and homeworked before hand, and feeling very frustrated with the whole process, so I was complaining and WAY ORNERY and Ken says, "Mom, I know it's really frustrating having to do this all the time, but I want you to know that I really appreciate you being willing to take me to drama class. I know it's a pain, but thanks for doing it anyway." Ouch. Punch. to. gut.
Every day when I'm making dinner, Ken will come into the kitchen and ask, "What can I do to help?" Seriously! How did I get such a wonderful daughter?! I was certainly never that nice to my mama.
I was taking her to a birthday party last week and on the way, Ken strikes up a conversation about how thankful she is for all the blessings in her life. "We are so blessed. We have so much to be thankful for." Then she listed all the things we have been given by Heavenly Father. She is perceptive to see even the little things that we have been blessed with and I was totally crying when I dropped her off, stunned at my little girl.
Ken is super unique and is so comfortable in her own skin that I sometimes wonder what her secret is. She doesn't mind thinking differently from everyone else and has always thought Hannah Montana is over-rated. How would it be to be that self-assured in only 4th grade?
She is great at Drama and is amazingly talented.
She is a sponge for knowledge and her memory is Wicked, Crazy, Good. She is the Shammy WOW of soaking up things. She remembers EVERYTHING (except to bring home her homework ?)!
She is such a great big sister. I wondered how it would be with a sister so much younger. She wanted a sister soooooo badly and Soph came 7 years later. But, she has always been so sweet to Sophie. She never sends her away when playing with her friends. She reads her stories at night and takes such good care of her. For awhile Soph called her "MyKenny" instead of Kennedy.
I am so proud of Ken and what a lovely person she is. Happy Birthday, kiddo!

Halloween 09 and the over-purchase of Candy

Ty's cousin, Emily, is a make-up artist and kindly agreed to do make-up for Ken and Jake this year! They looked so great! Ken was a zombie dancer,

Jake wanted to be a skeleton,

Eli was a ninja,

and Sophie was a ballerina. Soph had been going back and forth between a butterfly and Snow White for a month, then became crazy addicted to ballerinas and all things ballet in the last week, watching every dancing movie several times a day, so a ballerina it was. Or "bal reen." as she calls it. Her signature move is the backwards kick out while holding onto something, and she is just dang cute!


I have slowly been purchasing candy in preparation for the Halloween holiday over the past month or so. Well, apparently I wasn't paying attention, and bought a bazillion pieces of candy! Ty mentioned that one night while getting a snack, he thought there was quite a bit. It would've been helpful if that had been mentioned BEFORE I purchased two more bags! People, you need to tell me when I'm crazy. We didn't even end up passing any out, because we stayed out trick or treating and then went to a friends' house and got back too late. So, yeah. I have tons o' junk. It is grotesque. If you live near here, please come trick or treating and get some of this candy off my hands! Not kidding!

MoTab Phase III

I am soooo proud of Ty! He tried out for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir this year and has made it to the third phase of the beastly auditions!!! He is super nervous about this final audition in front of the Choir Director, but I know he'll do great! And he lost 55 lbs. too! He is awesome! :)

In other news: If anyone is in the Salt Lake area on Halloween, come see us at Smith's Market Place 455 S. 500 E from 11-3. We are going to be selling Alex's Lemonade and Hot Chocolate and all the proceeds benefit research for childhood cancer. Just over a year ago, our good friends' 2 year old daughter, Brinnley, was diagnosed with cancer. We just love her and her family and we're super excited to go help out! Come get a drink!

Hooray! No More Poop!

The Soph is potty trained! WAHOO! :) After 10 years of changing diapers, I am D-O-N-E, DONE!

Drama Queen!

Kennedy tried out for the school play/musical of "The Christmas Carol" and got the part of....

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

The director of the play told us yesterday that she did an awesome audition and that they usually don't cast 4th graders in speaking parts, but she was sooooo great! :) She also told us not to tell her, so she could be surprised today with all the others. It has been horrible keeping this a secret; we're so excited she got the part she wanted, and she's so excited to find out (she's been excited for Monday all weekend)!

CONGRATS, KENNEDY!!!

The kids have been doing so well in school and have loved it so much, that it has made Ty and I decide to stay in the neighborhood. We don't really live in OUR dream area of the world, but when the kids are happy, I'm really happy too!

Sophie Lou!

I guess I'm a bit behind! Sophie had her 3rd Birthday last week!
Little Lou at 3:
She loves her mama (finally! I got one!)
She is insanely addicted to candy and chocolate. No cookies or cake or even ice cream for this girl. It's all about the CANDY!
She likes to dress up and loves to buy shoes
She likes to be silly and thinks burping is super funny
Still not potty trained (GRRR! What is it with my kids!!???)
Loves babies
Loves pink and purple, but mostly pink
Likes to catch grasshoppers in the backyard
She changes her mind about what she wants the second after you give her something. (The frustration!)
Has the sweetest smile you've ever seen and will pose beautifully for every picture



We celebrated her birthday with the family on the 30th of August. She calmly opened each of her presents with barely a smile

until... she noticed chocolate bars at the bottom of one of the gift bags... then we got Huge Smiles! She does like the other stuff too; the girl just loves her chocolate! She put it in her "secret drawer" as soon as we got home.

Please excuse the cake. We had technical difficulties with the frosting. Since Eli can't have any dyes and Sophster wanted a pink cake, we tried to dye the frosting with pomegranate juice, which made the frosting runny, which then wouldn't stay on the doll. We were having major wardrobe malfunctions and the doll was exposing herself in quite a way, but Soph told me it was "boo T full" so that's all that matters, right? ;)
Happy Birthday, Soph!

The End. Of Summer.

The kiddies (minus Soph) went back to school yesterday. I'm really sad about this happening. We had such a fun summer, I don't want it to be over! :(
They all said they had a great day and requested that I not walk them to or from school today. I'm okay with this since we live across the street from school, and I still spy on them from the porch.
4th Grader (yes, 4th!)


The 2nd Grader:


1st Grader:


And the littlest Hill anxiously waiting (3 more years) to join the sibs:


Sophie had a bit of a rough day yesterday. I'm not sure if it's because she missed the other kids or because she's headed for that dreaded (tantrums!) age of 3. This morning I made her a sack lunch since she kept stealing Ken's out of her backpack and putting in "treasures" like bouncy balls and taking out the food and stashing it in her "lunch box". She seems a lot happier now, so maybe she just needed to feel a part of the school experience.

Yesterday was also the boys' first soccer game in E.M. They did pretty well! Jake is actually getting fairly good at soccer and Eli is Eli. :)


There are no "winners" in this league, but FYI, their team won. :)