Kenedy turns 13

Kenedy Michelle Carey, our first-born child, was born on July 7, 1996 weighing in at 8 lbs 12 oz. She was born just a month before Jim graduated from BYU. She was a very sweet baby and always had a great smile for us. She is most famous in her infancy for how much she loved to jump in the jumper we would hang from any door jam we could find. We spent a good amount of time just watching her jump. As she got a little bigger and we added another child to our family, she became quite a challenge for awhile. She didn't like having my attention taken away from her and given to someone else and spent a lot of time being naughty because she knew I was busy and sometimes couldn't do anything about it at the time. It's a good thing she's grown out of that-at least most of the time. She has grown into a beautiful, smart, and talented young woman. She has a beautiful singing voice, plays the piano well, draws very well and loves to play volleyball. I'm so grateful she was sent to our family. She is a treasure.

Posing at one of our favorite parks in Portland, just before we moved to Richland. Kenedy was almost 5.

She has a little bit of a devious look on her face. I wish I could remember how Hallie was reacting to Kenedy holding her shirt like that.

We had a wonderful time on Kenedy's birthday this year. She chose to go out to Nothin' but Noodles for dinner. We enjoyed a yummy dinner as a family, then went to Sweet Treats to get some frozen yogurt. When we got home, she was able to open her present-a camera. The next day, she and Hallie were able to fly to Los Angeles to spend a week with their cousins Mckay and Maddie. Happy Birthday, Kenedy. Can't believe you are 13 already.

Check out Haden in the background. He's eating cotton candy with chopsticks. We didn't really mean to capture that moment, but it's pretty funny that we did.

Orange flavored frozen yogurt from Sweet Treats.

I don't think we've ever had a frozen yogurt birthday cake before. Needless to say, we sang really fast before the candles melted the yogurt.

That's a big box for such a little present. We were trying to be a little bit sneaky.

Just what she wanted. Spoiled!

Just thought I would end with a cute picture of Calvin that just happens to have Kenedy in it. He is a cute little boy who is growing way too fast.

Haden's birthday party and baptism plus Calvin's blessing

Haden turned 8 on June 5, but I decided to wait until we had his party to post pictures of the event. It's hard to believe that Haden is actually 8 years old!

Brand new baby Haden

Just a couple weeks old with big sister, Kenedy.

I had Haden in Portland, OR just 3 days prior to Jim graduating from Dental School. He was a very calm baby and it's a good thing because the first couple months of his life were a whirlwind for our family. Jim graduated from Dental School(June 8, 2001), we moved to Richland 4 weeks later into a rental house which actually sold the day we moved in which meant we had to move out 13 days after that. Then, we couldn't find an apartment, so we moved our family to Bend to live with Jim's parents. Jim lived in Motel 6 in Richland during the week so he could work and came to Bend on the weekends to be with us. Jim found us an apartment which we could move into the 2nd week of August, but we still had a couple weeks until that time, so I drove with the kids down to Idaho to stay with my parents and attend my cousin's wedding. When we finally got settled into our apartment in Richland, it was Haden's 5th home and he was just over 2 months old.

He has grown into a handsome young man and we love his sense of humor. You never know what he's going to say and that keeps us laughing all the time. Love you Haden!

Haden chose to eat at the mongolian grill for dinner and really enjoyed his food. :)

Haden loves Legos and playing on the playstation. He was very excited about the Indiana Jones Lego set we got him. I found the shirt below at Target-"just one more level..."- and since that's what I always hear from him, it was perfect.

We had his birthday party on July 2 at the church pavilion. We played a couple games, built things with legos, ate birthday cake and broke a pinata. What more could an 8-year-old ask for?

I was very impressed with how the cake Jim made Haden turned out. They really look like lego bricks.

Opening presents

Swinging at the pinata. I think Jaret actually broke it.

A mad dash for the candy!

On July 4, Haden was baptized. He was able to be baptized with his friend, Kirby Robertson whose birthday is just 3 days after Haden's on June 8. Grandma and Grandpa Carey were able to come and also Grandma and Grandpa House and Uncle Rob. It was a very nice baptism that I hope he will remember always. We're proud of him for making the choice to be baptized.

Smile for the camera. :)

My three beautiful girls.

Kenedy, Hallie, Lexie, Tiffani, Mikayla, Amy and Lilly sang "When I am Baptized" for the baptism. It was beautiful.

The next day, July 5, we blessed Calvin in sacrament meeting. He has been such a wonderful addition to our family and his blessing capped off a wonderful weekend. He's growing so fast and I'm loving every minute I have with him. He's smiling a lot now and I think my favorite part of the day is when I talk to him and he smiles and coos at me. There's nothing better than that.

Pictures of the kids

Just sort of a random post with pictures of the kids. I hope to be able to post pictures of Calvin at least pretty often to share how much he is changing. It's amazing how fast he is growing and how different he looks every day. I thought I'd throw in some cute pictures of the other kids as well.

Calvin with his twin. I have actually had quite a few people tell me that he reminds them of Hallie. He actually has kind of strawberry blond hair. We wouldn't mind another red-head in our family.

Calvin wasn't extremely happy here, but Cooper was thrilled to be able to hold his baby brother.

I love looking at him when he is sleeping. There isn't anything more precious.

Kenedy picked one of my orange lillies and had a good time posing for a picture.

Kenedy loves to hold Calvin and is pretty good at keeping him happy when I need her to.

Hallie at her 5th grade graduation ceremony. She passed and will be permitted to move on to the 6th grade at Carmichael Middle School. Yikes!

Calvin James Carey

After the hardest pregnancy I've ever had and much anticipation this last month, our sweet little Calvin is finally here. He was due on May 24, but decided to be a little bit late. I went into the hospital at 1 pm on the 27th to be induced, something I've never had to do before, so it was a little bit strange. Much to my surprise, the labor was not terribly intense and pretty short. At 5:37 pm, our sweet little boy was born. While holding him for that first minute or two, I could tell he was going to at least equal and probably surpass Haden's birth weight and be our biggest baby. I did not expect, however, that he would weigh 9 lbs 12 oz, smashing the record by 11 oz. What the heck were you waiting for Calvin?

When he was born, his face was pretty swollen and purple. He looked like he was going to be pretty bruised. Jim and I were trying to figure out which of the other kids he might look like, but it was hard to tell in the beginning. By the next day, his face wasn't so swollen and he lost the bruised look and he reminds me quite a bit of Lexie with the round shape of his face and also Cooper. His hair, the more times I wash it, also seems to be getting lighter and might be a little bit red. We may have another red head on our hands and I think Hallie would love that. Let's hope he sleeps a lot better than Hallie did when she was a baby. She didn't sleep a full night until she was 2 1/2 years old. He's actually already doing much better than she did and slept 6 hours straight his first night home.

Cooper, who I was worried would not react kindly to having a baby around, has been pretty sweet to him. He met us at the car when we pulled into the garage and kept saying "He's so cute!" We had a funny conversation about Calvin a few days after we had been home from the hospital. I said something about how Calvin was Cooper's brother and he is my son. Cooper said, "Calvin is not a son. I am a son." I said, "Both you and Calvin are my sons and I am your mother." Cooper said, "You are not Calvin's mother, you are my mother." I said, "Well, then who is Calvin's mother?" He said, "Some lady far, far away." The conversation went on a little longer with me trying to convince Cooper that he and Calvin are brothers and both my sons and I am the mother of both of them. He finally said, "Fine, you are his mother." It was a very fun conversation and at least he didn't tell me I needed to go find that mother "far, far away" and take Calvin back to her. :-)

I am so incredibly grateful that our family has been blessed with another precious little boy and I'm so excited to be his mother and watch him grow.

Anxiously awaiting the labor to begin.

It seems incredible, but it really is true--9 lbs 12 oz.

I couldn't believe how purple and swollen his face was in the beginning.

He found his thumb right away and sucked on it for quite awhile.

The kids were very excited to come visit their new little brother in the hospital.

Finally he opens his eyes for a picture.

This is the wonderful sign that the kids made for our return home from the hospital. So sweet!

Funny volleyball pictures

This post is going back in time a bit. Last fall, in October, myself, Rebecca Ritchie, Karen Madsen and Sarah Burrup challenged our husbands to a volleyball match. This came about because the said husbands(mostly Jim) were talking lots of smack about how they would totally kill us in volleyball even though 3 of them had never really played. If that isn't a reason for a challenge, then I don't know what is.

Sarah, decided that we should have uniforms and a name for our team. She thought of the Black Widows and made us white t-shirts complete with numbers on the back and the cutest little black widow spiders on the sleeve. They were awesome. So, before the match started, we all changed and came out in our awesome uniforms. The boys were very impressed.

Much to my surprise, Jim decided he needed to change as well. I had no idea he had brought anything to change into. He came back into the gym and we all burst out laughing. Here is what he wore.

Well, we played the match, 5 games, and lost 3 games to 2. Here they are with the trophies that Sarah bought them from the dollar store because that's all their "just by the hair of their chinny chin chins" win was worth.

We were a little upset that they squeaked out a win, so we challenged them to a re-match for the next month. Sadly, we lost again--3 games to 2. We realized, they are stronger than us, taller than us and caught on a little quicker than we had expected. Next time boys, the story will be different.