Happy New Year?

So sometimes we get our poem out on time. Sometimes we don't. We had this written by New Years, which isn't really on time, but better than say....the end of January! In any event....here's our "Christmas Card" for 2011...

An example and witness of Christ

Last week was my cousin, Lauren's Missionary Homecoming talk. She had prepared her talk based on a quote from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. Imagine her surprise when he walked in, 5 minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. I was out in the foyer with the baby and heard them announce Elder Holland, but I wasn't 100% sure I'd heard right until I made it in a few minutes later. During the meeting I watched him off and on and was so impressed by his example. He remained focused and intent. He didn't pan the crowd. He didn't flip through books or check notes. He watched the speakers. He listened to and cried during the musical number. As I watched him, I was reminded that perhaps I should do more as I saw him doing. And so I tried to do that. And it was amazing the spirit that I felt. I couldn't help but think over and over of that quote by Brigham Young that most of us live "far beneath our privileges" with respect to the Holy Ghost and his guiding power in our lives. I try to do the things I should, but even when I'm sitting in church like I'm supposed to, it's so easy to get caught up in things that don't matter. So I was grateful for simple example of one of the Lord's special witnesses to me.

After Sacrament meeting I asked Kelley if she'd like to go up and meet him. She and I went up and he talked to her so kindly for just a minute. I got to shake his hand also, which was cool and gave me something to Facebook about for the day ;). But really in all seriousness I am so grateful for living prophets and apostles on the earth today. I am grateful for their words and counsel from God. I am grateful that I have such easy access to it. One of my favorite "apps" on my iPhone is my Mormon Channel App. I can open it up and pull up several years worth of General Conferences. I've been systematically going through these and listening to the most recent, and then older General Conference talks every chance I get. I listen to them when I'm doing housework or cooking. As I listen to these I am changed. I am improved. It's interesting because lately I have been seeking help in some specific areas of my life and so I've been listening to more and more talks. And when I'm in the car I find I don't want to turn on music or NPR like I normally do. I want to either listen to more talks, or to nothing at all and leave room for the still small voice. For me, this symbolizes a change of heart. I'm becoming less concerned and content with the things of the world I hope and more concerned with seeking out the things of a better. And this change makes me hopeful and happy.

Living Life on Purpose

I'm sitting here at 8 AM. I've been up for a while. Baby TJ was awake early. He didn't sleep very well last night. The AMAZING thing is that my house is actually still quiet. Almost always all kids are up and things are bustling by now. And I'm relishing just a little this few minutes of quiet time I have to myself. So I'm blogging. I know. It's been a while.

I've been thinking a lot lately about living life on purpose. I follow Money Saving Mom's blog and she did a post this week on how she sets her yearly goals. One thing that stuck with me is that in order to lead the life you want, it has to be intentional. On purpose. I know that might sound silly, of course we lead life on purpose. But do we? Do I? Sometimes, but all too often I think I just get caught in the current of whatever tide or wave is washing through my life and home at the moment. As I'm sure you all well know, there's always a crisis or life is always a mess. There's always something urgent to take us away from the long term goals and priorities.

I want to lead life on purpose. I have a lot left to do in the time I have left, however long that may be. But if I continue to live day to day without a written, well thought out plan, it's hard to say if I will accomplish the things I really want to. So I've started on my list of priorities. And even though it's cliche, I'm going to write down my goals for the year. And we'll see how it goes. Read on quote on Pinterest this morning: I would rather live a life full of "oh-wells" than "what ifs". Even though it's lofty, I might as well try right? Shoot for the stars :)

How did I EVER have time to post as much as I did?

That's all for now. Back to my Workman's Comp Audit. Bet ya all are jealous.

Oh, it's time for an update isn't it :S

I shall title this one the "Kid/Family Version". Might get to posting some info about the new house, since we've been here for a good 8 months, but that will be a different post. I HAVE actually updated the daycare blog if you have any interest in the goings on there...

Alrighty...on to the monster task of filling you all in on our fabulous lives. And they are fabulous! Life is always busy and stressful. There's never enough time or money, but I have moment after moment where I just fall in love with life over and over again. We are really happy with where we are at right now.

This was taken at our latest Anderson Family Reunion over Memorial Day Weekend. We got some more family pictures of the whole clan and maybe will post those another time, but this is one of my favorite shots we've captured in a while. Not sure why I love it so much, but there ya go!

Joey and I met ten years ago last month. Our 10th anniversary is coming up in September. Oh we had big plans for a cruise, or all inclusive resort or something, but then there was the money issue (we had the unexpected opportunity come up with the house :), and I wasn't super excited about hanging out on a beach at 6 plus months pregnant. So the big trip went by the wayside for now. BUT, we did have a little hotel stay we had purchased last year to Vegas. So we took our trip early and spent a few days in the "big city". This shot was taken at Red Rock National Conservation Area. We went biking there, spent some time window shopping, went disc golfing and slept a lot more than we normally are allowed too! It was nice to get away.
The above photo was also taken with my Instagram App on my iPhone. If you are a friend on facebook, you'll know I'm only a little obsessed with it. "Fun and Quirky" I think is the description in the app store...

Also this month was Joe's 35th birthday. We had a get together with all the family that is here in town. It's really fun to have everyone so close.

Another shot from our Vegas trip. He was really excited about our trip to Hot Dog on a Stick. Sometimes I wonder where Tyler gets his goofiness from....but I don't have to look far for the answer. :D
OK, so Maren is now 18 months old. I think I blogged that she finally started walking between 15 and 16 months I think. She is still a super cute sweetie. She talks like crazy and will repeat almost anything you say. She loves to go outside (oust or owside), spend time with Kelsha (shasha), eat snacks (cra cra), look at pictures of family (bampa and Ty-Ty are her favorites), see the kitty (di de), and play with/love/smother babies (real or dollies). She is kind of obsessed with good hygiene: she loves to wash her hands, take baths (3 times a day if we would let her), brush her teeth, and throw her diaper in the "shrash". She is also very good about closing the closet doors when she gets something out. She is very hard to say no to a lot of the time because she is so dang sweet about asking for stuff. Although when she doesn't get her way she has this scream that has been labeled "the pterodactyl". She still does sign quite a bit. And she's in nursery now....wahoo!
Maren also has a little sweet tooth. But she is the only baby I know that will eat hummus by the bowlful and asks for more salad at dinner. Go figure. She also has some of the funniest facial expressions. This is kind of a glimpse of the mischievous face. You know...the one that says "I'm makin a mess and I know it and I like it....he he he...."
Alright, on to Kells Bells....Tyler calls her Kell more than anything else, which I think is cute. She will be going into 3rd grade this fall. She loved 2nd grade and made a LOT of progress throughout the year, especially on her reading. She really enjoys reading to her little brother and sometimes we have to get after her when she does it after we've sent her to bed ;) She likes computer games and has found some friends across the street that she can't hardly pull herself away from lately. She is so much fun to talk to and spend time with. She is still a great little helper and listens well most of the time. She is attending the Shakepeare Festival Playmakers camp next week and I think will do great! She has a little bit of a "flair for the dramatic" and I think could really have fun with this type of thing.
Tyler is still Tyler. He goes goes goes all the time. Occasionally if he we can get him to relax this happens:
I have another picture of him sitting behind Kelley in the same chair. He had sat down to watch her play computer games, but it was just all too much. Oh and funny story about those jeans. I got them out for some family pictures. All of his other jeans are really faded and have holes in the knees. He was quite skeptical when I showed them to him, saying they were "girl pants". I had to convince him they weren't because they didn't have any hearts on the pockets....

Tyler graduated preschool in April and will be starting Kindergarten in the fall. He is really excited. I hope he likes it. He really liked preschool, but would throw a fit a lot of the time because he didn't like "circle time". I don't know if he realizes that they have circle time in Kindergarten too. Not sure if I should break it to him ahead of time or not....

He loves to ride his bike and LOVES to play with friends. He is working so hard on appropriate expressing his feelings and will tell me sometimes things like "I'm just frustrated mom. Frustrated isn't mad. I still love you even when I'm frustrated or mad."
Definetly all boy....The above picture was taken at our family reunion. We found a point in the road where it was more like a lake and so let the kiddos get out and play. They had a blast and of course it was Tyler's idea to do "mud angels"
Another picture of Tyler and Kelley with their cousin at the dunes west of Fillmore.

OK so have you all heard of "Wordless Wednesday"? There's a lot of bloggers out there that do it. I don't really, but it's kind of fun. I thought that this series of pictures might be appropriate for such a thing, except that the conversations that were going along with them was too funny not to share. You'll note my use of the Instagram App again....they have all sorts of finishes you can use with the photos, which is why they all look different....

At daddy's softball game: "Let's cheer for daddy: say 'Go, Daddy, Go!'"
"Hopefully he can hear us".... he's clear out in the outfield here....


"OK, get off, I have to pull up my pants!" And we'll leave it at that for now :)

I hate it when they leave ya hanging....

I have a friend on my blog roll that is making a big life change and announced it, but not the reason and I'm intrigued. She did promise the reasons would be coming soon. But they haven't. And for some reason I am so curious and I wish she'd blog about it more. But I can't blame her. Maybe no one cares, but I bet there's one or two of ya who have been hoping to see some pics of the new digs, or know how the pregnancy is going, or get an update on any one of my adorable kids. Perhaps you just can't get enough of my fabulous wit or writing...ha ha!

I wish I could make myself blog more. But I am SO behind. My house is in constant chaos. I am always putting out fires and never getting anything on my to do list done. Even though some of those things are really important. I get to this point in the day and I usually don't have dinner done (um...yeah...), I have no energy to do anything and still a million things to do. But despite that my life is really great. When I fall into bed every night I am grateful for my blessings, immensely so. And then I pray to find some balance.

Not much of an update I know. {{{{Sigh}}}}}

Why does it smell like the Turkey is still in the Oven?

So when I was a kid we used to have fire drills all the time. We'd get everyone together, all go out to the mailbox, talk about what we would do in the middle of the night, etc. etc. So when I was in 6th or 7th grade we had a little incident. My mom would put turkey bones on to boil after we had a turkey to make soup with. Well this particular time she forgot about the turkey bones and just went to bed. I remember waking up in the middle of the night because the fire alarm was going off and something was STINKY! I went into the kitchen and there were the turkey bones...flaming on the stove. So what do I do? I turned off the oven, went downstairs to the family room and went back to sleep with a pillow over my head so I couldn't hear the alarm or smell the smoke. Brilliant I know.

My mom got up later and couldn't figure out why the turkey was black, but still sparking, the oven was off and I wasn't in my bed.

Anyway, I've always caught a lot of flack for that. Well, last night we had a turkey dinner. I put the bones on to boil after we carved the turkey so we could make soup. We had friends over and of course the story was retold again. Funny funny. We cleaned up, they left and I was exhausted. Off to bed with me before 10 pm. I woke up a little after 1 am as usual. (Being pregnant I can't sleep more than 3 or 4 hours at a time right now. Blah.) Anyway, I got up, went to the bathroom and tried to go back to sleep. But Joey was snoring and the house still really smelled like turkey. I don't love sleeping with food smell in the first place, but it's way worse when I'm pregnant. I couldn't figure out why it smelled like we were still cooking when we'd pulled it out of the oven 9 hours earlier. Maybe 45 minutes later I finally decided I was going to try the couch. I walked out, peeked in the kitchen and a lightbulb went off. I had almost burned down the house with the turkey bones. There was still water it in, but barely!

I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. At least I'm pretty confident now that I wouldn't have taken more precautions than simply turning off the oven.

It was a very BIG year...

2001 was a very big year for me. I started out as a Senior at SUU. I had great roommates and had finally decided on a major. I got my heart really broken for the first time. I graduated with Honors from SUU in Psychology. I met a really cute guy that drove a 99 Mustang and liked to waterski. I had a fabulously fun summer dating and falling in love. I got engaged and then married. September 11 happened 10 days before our wedding, but it still went off without a hitch. I worked three jobs putting my darling new husband through school. And I spent New Years Eve on Maui. It was the first time I actually had someone to give me a New Year's Eve kiss and we fell asleep early. Ha ha!

And the last ten years have flown by. We've moved to SLC, Logan and back to Cedar City. I worked for the Child and Family Services, Adrianna's, Applebee's and started my own business. Joey sold the mustang and graduated from USU. We went through a Mazda 626, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and now we own a really cool MiniVan and a beat up Prism. We've had three darling babies. We bought and sold our first house and bought another one.

And now it's 2011. I haven't even really blogged this year. Not because our lives haven't been interesting. They HAVE! Things are going fabulously!!! I think I haven't wanted to jinx it. But I do love blogging and having someplace to document our crazy little lives. 2011 is shaping up to be better than any before. We started it in a NEW HOME! We made kind of a crazy bet when we moved in 5 months ago. It was a short sale and so we put in an offer and rented it on hopes it would actually go through. We closed on it last week and are now the proud owners of TWO mortgages! Don't tell the kids, but we are planning a big Disneyland trip to celebrate. Unfortunately the big anniversary trip is not going to happen this year :( Not enough time and funds. But even so, we'll celebrate 10 fabulous years together in September. Baby number four will make his/her appearance about the same time. And after that....who knows! Our lives will probably be too insane at that point to count on anything!

Smoothie Face

I'm not sure how else to add :)

Giveaway

Did I tell you I tend to get obsessive about things and then fizzle out? It's not that I don't WANT to blog, I do, but other things are just more important...or pressing anyway. (((Sigh)))

In any event, my friend Brooke at All Things Thrifty is doing a giveaway...a Silhouette Machine! Go check it out...

Christmas Poem 2010

Well another decade is behind us now
And time flies faster every year somehow
It seems that when we get a handle on things
We stir up the pot and with that brings
Plenty of challenges and opportunities through the years
But we wouldn’t have it any other way, so here’s
To the next decade and though it will appear a mess
May it bring more joy, inspiration and a lot less stress.

Our jobs are the same, Joey is still at SUU
And Kristy with her day care, always has much to do

We added to our family, with a puppy in the spring,
At 10 months old we wonder if she will ever stop growing!
Kala’s a yellow lab, which gives us three pets in the home,
Every time we get one, Kristy rolls her eyes and groans.

Maren our youngest is growing and she is learning fast.
She is a momma’s girl, I wonder how long that will last.

Tyler has just turned 5 and he says he is a big boy now,
Just got to figure a way to get him out of our bed somehow.

Kelley is half way through second grade and doing lots of things,
She has tried piano, soccer, ballet, and she even sings!

Well once again we wish you all well,
Hope everything is going swell.

From our family in southern Utah where the rocks are always red,
To where ever your family may call home and rest your weary head,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
We hope magic filled your home and you could spread a little Cheer.

Love,

The DeGraafs

Lately

Family Pictures, taken in June 2010. We're blowing this one up to put above the fireplace.

Lately...

I've been very busy. Like normal. I've been often overwhelmed. Like normal. But I have felt so blessed. :) We've moved into this house and we love it. It feels so much like home it's crazy. Prospects are looking very good. But we're waiting patiently to see how it will all work out eventually.

I'm so excited for Christmas. Kind of getting close to being ready. But it's less than a week away and I'm probably less ready than I think I am...oh my!

I've been spending less time on the computer, most days. I obviously have not been blogging much, unfortunately. I like blogging a lot. I like hearing comments from people and catching up on your lives through your blogs. I really like having some type of record written down. My blog has taken a lot of the place of a personal journal and scrapbook. But alas, it's just been one of those things I've had to let slide. Anyway, here's a quick recap of the last little bit.

Tyler's taken to taking pictures of anything everything...including himself and his goofy faces. I have about a million more of these pics sitting on my computer. He's especially fond of taking pictures of his eye up close. Go figure.

He's also taken to putting stickers on everything but paper. And writing with markers on everything buy paper. It's a rather frustrating habit that I'm not quite sure how to address. I know he's thinking about it before he does it because he always puts in in places I won't see immediately....like on the couch BEHIND where the pillow sits. Or on the side of the table, under the top lip. What's the worst part of it is that he's taken to permanent markers. Barring anything that will get me throw in jail for abuse...I'm open to your suggestions.

Taken during one of his daily fits. He can be one grumpy boy sometimes!

Speaking of my little sunshine...he turned 5 in November. He was super excited and had a big pizza party with all his friends. I tried to make a "pizza cake" putting frosting all over a big cookie and decorating it with toppings. But unfortunately when you mix red dye with white frosting it just turns pink. He didn't care.

Maren turned 1 on the 14th. She is crawling everywhere. Her favorite is to go up and down the stairs and it's really funny to watch her do her three point turn to get turned backwards so she can go down. She's not really close to walking, but will finally take steps when we stand her up and help her, which is a big improvement. She continues to sign and is really verbal, probably more so than even Kelley was.

She's a ham and loves the camera. She will say "cheese" and give you a big old grin as long as she gets a peek at the picture afterward.

Kelley was in a Christmas Carol through the Shakespeare Festival's Playmakers program. She was just a little choir girl, but it was a fabulous experience for her. She got to work with an excellent group of directors, stage managers and musicians. I think it really helped her singing and she of course had a fabulous time! They are doing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the Spring and we are all really excited. She will probably just be in the choir again, but it's better for us that way anyway. It's a lot cheaper and not as time intensive.

Oh, so this picture is funny to me. She poses for pictures while she's on stage and supposed to be performing. We have to work on that still I guess!

Joey and I are doing well. We're busy all the time. But we're happy. We've got great kids and life is kind to us at the moment. If I'm lucky we'll get a Christmas Poem written and posted before the end of the year and I'll actually have two blog posts this month. Here's hoping!

Halloween 2010

I already posted these on Facebook, but since one day I hope to make a scrapbook of sorts out of my blog...I will post them here. Halloween turned out to be really fun. Normally it is a really big deal at our house. Our porch is decked out. We have all sorts of decorations for the house. And our costumes are REALLY cool and often coordinate with each other. But this year we were moving and doing flooring and just trying to stay sane. And so our idea to do a whole band of characters from Stars Wars went by the wayside, again. But I had seen a video on A Thrifty Mom about doing quick Tutus. My mom had a bunch of this material from Kember's dancing days and so we whipped two of these puppies out in less than an hour! And with a few accessories from our Halloween box we ended up with:

"The Best Halloween Costume I've ever had!" According to Kelley. She was a Ballerina/Witch thing. And Maren was her cute little twinner, although I'm sad to say we didn't really ever get a good picture of the baby's costume. But you can only do so much I suppose.

Tyler was a Dead Green Bat. And we had a lot of fun. We went around the neighborhood with cousins from both sides of the family, had dinner with grandma and grandpa, and had a great time, without a whole lot of fuss. It was a nice low key night.

Also, throwing this one in here because I thought it was really cool. Yes, that is real chain mail. My brother made it. It has taken him 4 years (I think) and it weighed either 45 or 70 pounds. Can't remember which off the top of my head.

Why I have not been blogging

Because we have been busy transforming this:

Into this:

And moving everything to a great new place that I still don't have good pictures of because my camera was lost in a box somewhere in plain sight. Now I have finally found the said camera, but the camera battery charger is now lost, probably in the ginormous mess that is our office. But now our old house is FINALLY ready to be rented out and we've already made a lot of progress putting away boxes and cleaning up the new house. And we love it and want to stay here forever! (Working on that right now...)

Oh, and please don't judge me because of the top picture. It really didn't look that way when we actually were living there or had kids there. Well most of the time...ha ha! That picture was taken in the middle of the weekend where we turned everything upside down so we could start putting in the floors. But can I tell you that's what I have felt my life has been like for the past 2 months since we started this process! A giant explosion, but in a good way...kind of like the big bang that started something amazing. I know we'll get there....if we survive in the meantime ;)

Squash as big as young children

This summer I seriously neglected blogging about my garden progress. Which is too bad, because it was a lot of fun this year. And who knows if I will actually HAVE a garden next year. We're still not sure what our situation will be in the spring/summer.

But in my garden this year I had a plant start coming up on it's own, presumably from my compost I had used to fertilize. I let it grow. And it grew at least four or five of the biggest butternut squashes I have ever seen in my life. Have you ever seen butternuts this big?

...Beep

I'm sorry, Kristy is really busy trying to set up her daycare and fix up her old house as a rental. When her life gets normal again she will post something.

....beep.

Scrumming...

I took the kids into get flu shots today. Didn't tell Tyler before hand what we were doing, but he didn't flip out. I got mine first and then Kelley and then Tyler. I had told them, as is par for the shot course, that they could have ice cream if they were brave. Neither one of them let out a peep at all. Later Tyler was telling me about it and he told me "I scrummed a little in my head, but it didn't come out". It took me a minute before I realized he was trying to put the word scream in past tense. I've been laughing about it all night.

Wow

OK, so it's been forever. The reason? For those of you haven't heard, we've moved. We moved to a beautiful house three miles from our old house. Oh, and it's almost three times the size...woot hoo! It is still in our ward and it is PERFECT in every other way, well perfect for us. It is "lived in" and has a few issues, but we still LOVE it! Unfortunately we are just renting it for now. We have put in an offer and are waiting to hear back from the bank. It is a short sale, so it will probably still be a while. We are hoping it's a while anyway. We have to wait at least until our 2010 taxes are done so we can show we make enough money at the home business. We're also trying to tuck away every penny we can. Because even though we've been talking about doing something like this for years, we just barely started saving for it...ha ha! But it's been a really neat experience for us. Joey and I both have felt strongly this is the thing for us to do. We're not sure how it will work out, just that it will work out for our good somehow. And that's all we need to know.

Everyone keeps asking us what we are doing with our old house. We do "own" it. (And by own I mean we owe more to the bank than it's worth...by a long shot! Ha ha!) Anyway, we'll be renting it out. We actually have a family member moving in November or December. So we've been able to take our time moving out. Which is mostly a good thing. Both houses have so much to do and so much goes undone. We are also in the process of moving my child care license. Can I tell you it's a PAIN in the butt? When I say process, I mean it's a long process. But that's all the complaining I'll do here. At this point, I'm hopeful my new license will be in place by the time my old license expires in November. And then the FUN begins here. I'm so excited about having space dedicated just to the daycare. One of these days I'll post pictures and give you the visual tour. Maybe. But probably not until my life slows down. So maybe never. Or if you live close come by and I'll give you the real tour!

Maren's 10 months old now. She can sign milk (that's her favorite), more and all done. She says mama, kitty, ty ty, kelsha, daddy and hi. She loves to dance and she can wash her hands. It's just about the cutest thing you've seen. She's seen the daycare kids do it so much she knows just what to do. Oh and I almost forgot. She can do peekabo. It started as the one handed type, but now she'll cover her face with both her tiny hands when you ask "where's maren?" Then she moves her hands and says "de da do!" It's adorable.

Tyler is loving preschool. It seems to be helping his behavior. But there are still many days when I just want to lock him in a closet....the one in the downstairs basement so I won't be able to hear him yelling at me. On the other hand he's also very free to tell me I'm the best mom ever and he loves me so much when he's getting something he wants. It's a learning process for both of us every day. I think we'll both survive.

Kelley loves school and can't seem to live without her friends. I am not kidding when I say the instant that her little friends leave and daycare is over, she's begging to go play or invite someone over. It just about kills her when kids her age don't come at all to daycare. She lives a deprived life. Latest news...she will be singing in the Christmas Choir for the Shakespearean Festival Playmakers version of the Christmas Carol. It's a much less expensive way to let her be involved in the arts than they ballet we did last year. Don't get me wrong, the ballet was awesome and if it weren't for this house, we'd probably let her do it again, but this is better for now. Besides, I think she'll really enjoy this also.

In any event, I promised Joe I'd finally try to get my clothes put away. They've been sitting in laundry baskets and open dresser drawers in our room since we moved in three weeks ago. With that...good night!

Kelley the Lionhearted

I have a darling girl at my house. Her name is Kelley and she is a sweetheart. She has always been a lovey girl. Maybe it's that she's now 7 and entering the "drama" phase, but sometimes she's more kindhearted and thoughtful than words can describe. She is always careful to think about how others feel and reminding me to be more loving and gentle. She truly is an example to me and I am grateful every day to have her in my life.

Two years ago, when she was still toothless in front, she donated her hair after I cut mine. We talked about how it would help women with cancer.

Since then she's talked about doing it again, because of her librarian who has cancer. She hasn't done it yet, I think she's fallen in love with her long hair and decided it's worth fixing every day.

Kelley is 08 with short hair, no teeth and a mouthful of food...ha ha!
So last week we were driving home from somewhere with her cousin and she bursts out into tears. Her librarian was apparently leaving the very next day and they might not ever see her again. She had to go home and get cancer treatments. She was truly upset. I suggested she write her a note to tell her how much she's enjoyed knowing her and this is what she came up with:

Yeah, I know it's sideways. Tried to fix that, didn't work. But here's what it said "I am sorry that yor sick. I am really sad that you have to go away. I love that you add so much detail to the stories you read to us and you've been so kind to us and our teacher. But I ges it's betr if you stay at hom. I'll mis you so muche.

PS Please visit back. Kelley"

Then she wrote this "You whll find a ltl somtheing on the back"

She also recently got some bath crayons from her auntie. This was her creation using said crayons:
It says: Kelley Tyler {heart} Mommy and Kelsha. Ilastrated by Kelley.

I {heart} you too dolly!!!!!

9 months old

Maren had her check up last week. She is 28 inches long and 17 pounds, 11 ounces. That puts her in the 27th percentile for weight and 67th for height. That is about where's she's been for a while. Looks like she might be tall! She is such a joy! Did I mention she's crawling everywhere? She's finally starting to practice standing more. And she is a talker. Today she said Kitty. OK, so it was Didi...but I was not the only one to hear it. This morning I brought her in the living room while a mom was dropping her kids off. Maren saw Princess and said "didi". Before I said anything Breanne said "she just said kitty!" And she's been saying it all day long, very excitedly when she sees the cat. Even though she's number 3 I am STILL blown away by how smart they seem even when they are so little. That happens all the time with the daycare kiddos too. Finally can I just say that this little outfit I have her in here is one of my favorites and has been since I got it with Kelley....