Inside the head of this sweet girl

It's fun to watch your kids develop their own personalities and see what traits they inherited from each parent. Alysee has always had a very strong personality. Many would say that as a middle child that she might become unnoticed...this certainly does not seem to be the case in our family. Alysee is a social bug. She loves going to school so she can see her friends and soak up all her teacher shares each day. Alysee LOVES animals and tells me often that I "would be the best mom ever if I would get her a dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She loves to come home from school or church and instruct her other siblings in intricate lesson plans.

Alysee also LOVES to make lists...mostly day plans of what she will create. If she has a friend over to play she has already planned every second of their time together. For several weeks now when she goes to bed she has been writing up a "day plan" that she carefully checks off the following day.
New to her list the past few days have been a "question of the day." Birch and I totally got a kick of our her question this past Monday "What does FAG stand for?" When I read that I immediately questioned where she had heard such a vulgar word. Then Birch realized what she was actually questioning. "What does FHE stand for?" When you say FHE fast it sounds just like FAG. After all these years of saying Monday night is FHE (family home evening) she thought we were having FAG night. Love it!

Alysee also lost her top tooth this week. It was literally hanging by one little string. I promised her that if she turned that tooth around backwards it would pop right out. Wouldn't you know...she turned that tooth around and around and it wouldn't fall out. I finally offered to pay HER money if she would just let me pull that thing because it was driving us all crazy having it hang in there. She soon became one dollar richer.

Sure do love this girl!!

Lover's Day

The kids sure make each holiday so fun. They relish in every little decoration and fun activity planned. We carried on our tradition of filling up our ice cream sundae cup with beads when we had each done kind things for others. It was a bit of a challenge this year because Chloe was obsessed with dumping out the beads and carrying them around in her purse.

Birch treated me to some beautiful roses which sure made our Valentine's dinner table look beautiful.
We had chicken cordon bleu, orzo, homemade chocolate dipped strawberries, corn, and sparkling cider.
After a delicious dinner we were all treated to homemade ice cream sundaes since we had filled up our LOVE JAR.
Alysee has had her own little love life drama. There is this boy in her grade that has a big crush on my EIGHT YEAR OLD. The whole saga has been quite entertaining and a little scary that we are even dealing with this so early on.

Here is a letter that the little boy wrote Alysee:
Alysee was at a loss about what she should do. After talking about her options Alysee wrote this note to the boy:

You'd think he would get the idea that she is just not interested but then Valentine's Day rolls around and this is what he gave Alysee:
Chloe totally scored since Alysee would have NOTHING to do with the lollipop.
Finally when we got all the kids tucked in bed Birch and I went into our room to be reminded that we had six loads of laundry to fold before we got any snuggling in ourselves. Happy Valentine's Day to us!

Go BLACK ICE!!!

Several years ago Birch and I decided that we were going to try our best to have the kids rotate what sports they did each year so as a family we could all be that siblings cheerleaders AND not be crazy parents driving six kids to different practices and each week. This theory has gotten harder to live by as the kids have gotten older and really want to be involved in various sports. We've been pretty good at sticking to our guns, though. So for our winter sport it was Tyler's turn to play basketball.

Tyler has really enjoyed the whole basketball season.
He loves any chance he gets to shoot the ball.
Birch LOVES to coach the kids. He is so kind but also is great at directing the kids. Tyler has loved having his dad as a coach!

Camp Z Fun

Several months ago we made plans to go to Camp Zarahelma (aka Camp Z) for some winter fun. We were planning on the kids sledding until their hearts were content and lots of fun with family and friends. The weather was kind of nasty when we got up there--think crusty old snow with a thick sheet of ice on top, and then a thin layer of slippery rain.

Despite the conditions, it turned out to be a super fun and muddy weekend with good family friends!

When we got up to Camp Z Friday night the Cardons and our family provided soup and bread for dinner. After we split all 23 kids up into age groups and had three cabins for them to rotate doing games for the evening. Our cabin was "Minute to Win It." It really is just such a fun game and so easy to adapt for all ages.
The next morning Emily and her family and the Kreutz cooked up a yummy pancake breakfast for everyone. Then the kids were out the cabin door in search of secret hiding places, icey sledding hills, and frozen fish in the lake.
Nate loves to be outside!
Nate and Coop -- such handsome brothers!
Alex and Tyler had so much fun spending the weekend with their friends.
Chloe was not a little angel when our WHOLE family was trying to sleep in a one room cabin but some how by morning we all loved her again.

I think this is going to be a new family tradition!

Pinewood Derby Action

Tyler just completed his last pinewood derby for his cub scout years. Each year he amazes us with these speedo designs.

Tyler went for the simple but awesome paint job this year.

Other cool cars in the pack
Tyler ended up placing second and will go on to districts in March. Way to go TJ!
Nate was totally into the derby action this year too. Since Tyler's design was so sleek Nate was able to use the other half of his wood that was cut off to build his own car. Give Nate another year and he'll be an official scout too!