Knight cousins

Since Rachel turned 8, she is now old enough to get baptized. In our stake they do stake baptisms the 4th Saturday of the month, which, lucky for us, meant her baptism would fall on Thanksgiving weekend. It was nice because almost all of our families would be able to come. Only one aunt had to work the day before and after Thanksgiving, so she was the only one who couldn't make it. (We missed you, Lisa!) 

The Seattle Knights were able to come a week early, and we let Rachel and Annie miss a half day of school and a full day of school of their choosing to spend time with cousins while they were here. Rachel got to go on a hike with them. Annie went to the Children's Museum. We got in many visits to various parks. We went to Chuck E Cheese. We had a picnic/bike riding adventure at a park and celebrated B's and Rachel's birthdays.

At the park Megan assumes the position.

 Her hair is her comfort blanket. Whenever she drinks milk or water or juice she'll hold her cup with one hand, her hair with the other. This is also how she falls asleep.

Annie was not into the idea of going bike riding. She was happy to play on the playground the whole time. She has gotten really good at doing the monkey bars.

 Digging for worms in our garden is a favorite pastime.

 Megan was fascinated with baby Sammy.

 She did NOT like to share her toys with him, but as long as her favorite toys weren't involved she thought he was pretty cool.

 We're so glad they could come visit for a couple weeks and spend Thanksgiving and Rachel's baptism with us. We've got a couple more days to cram in a little more cousin fun before they head back to Washington.

Rachel's 8th Birthday

Rachel turned 8 a little over a week ago. It's a big one and she was excited about it. Since her birthday fell on a Friday she wanted to do her party on her actual birthday. Knowing we probably wouldn't get to most of the family gifts until the next day because of the party, we let her open one gift that morning when she was all ready for school nice and early. She opened a new lego set and it kept her (and her siblings) busy all afternoon so they didn't keep asking me if it was time for the party yet. Rachel built all the things in the idea booklet that came with it: an alligator, train, jeep, and flower.

 For her party we decided on a movie night, since we usually do those Friday evenings anyway. We had pizza, did gifts then the cake, then headed in for the movie.

 Since Rachel had been diagnosed with pneumonia the day before, we took her candle off the cake when she blew it out so she wouldn't spray germs all over the cake. (Her doctor did say that she could go right back to school that same day as far as contagiousness went, so we figured we didn't have to postpone the party.)

 Saturday morning she got to open the rest of her presents.

Her favorite was her special quilt that I made for her.

She picked out the fabric toward the beginning of the year, and I put it together mostly since school started back in July. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, as it's the first quilt I made all by myself. Except that Grandma Knight tied it for us.

As Rachel turns 8, she is an excellent student. She excels in reading, writing, math, and pretty much everything in school. She is happy to get to participate in the 2nd grade enrichment club at her school, which is by invitation only. Her school also recently hired a reading enrichment specialist, so while Rachel's class does reading, Rachel goes to this other teacher's classroom and gets to do some higher level stuff. She and I are both happy that they're finally doing enrichment for her. Though her teacher, Mrs. Curtin, really does a good job and making her work at her level.
Rachel is an excellent piano player. She has gotten over the hump of moving hands while playing (previously she was playing in only C or G positions). She was really frustrated for a week or two, but has really caught on well and is really enjoying her ability to sight read Christmas songs and play not just what she is assigned in her piano lessons, but songs that she wants to play.
She is caring and a good big sister. She really does set a good example most of the time for her siblings, and I know she sets a good example for her friends and is a good missionary. Some of her favorite things include reading (Geronimo Stilton is a new favorite), gymnastics, reading, Rescue Bots, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, reading, piano, riding her bike, and books. We're glad to have Rachel in our family and see her grow and learn.

Rachel's field trip

Wednesday, the day before Rachel got diagnosed with pneumonia, she had a field trip to the Desert Museum. I got to go along as a chaperon and we had a good time. One time Rachel got kind of weak and pale, so we stopped for a little while and she felt better after a little snack. I was glad I was along.

Her little friend was quite a talker. "Mrs. Campbell did you know...?" "Mrs. Campbell come look at this!" "Mrs. Campbell can I tell you something?" The other girl in our group was much more subdued.

 Mountain goats:

 Black bear:

 The girls and the black bear:

 Bat ears!

 And the cave is always the favorite part.

Pecan festival

A few weeks ago my mom ran an 8 mile race to celebrate her last 5 years of life, since she's coming up on 5 years since getting hit by a car while training for a race that was supposed to happen 2 days later. We're glad she's still around. I can't imagine the last 5 years without her. We tried to get there to see her finish, but didn't get there in time. However, there was lots of fun to be had besides after the race. Megan was very ready for a nap, so I stayed home with her, but the other kids and Jacob had fun.

 Rachel and Ryan tried out the climbing wall.

 They had free pony rides.

 In fact almost everything there was free.

They loved their balloon art for as long as it lasted before they popped. A fun morning all around. It ended when Rachel got really pale and nauseous and they had to come home. She was fine most of the day, but occasionally had a fever return and she'd feel sick for a half hour or so before feeling fine again. She stayed home from church Sunday, from school Monday, went back Tuesday with just a cough, then Thursday she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She recovered very quickly, thankfully.

Annie's 5th Birthday

Annie turned 5 on October 29th. We had her birthday party the Saturday before her actual birthday. She was a bit vague about what she wanted for her birthday, so it evolved into an animal theme.

Here's the crazies after helping clean up the back yard for the party:

 They made themselves some animal masks, then we did a circus obstacle course a la Madagascar 3. We played a variation of Sharks and Minnows.

 Hello Kitty piñata. This was the only thing she really had her heart set on.

 We got all the activities done and presents open and still had almost an hour to go and only cupcakes left to do, so we turned on Penguins of Madagascar (the TV show, not the movie) since there were plenty of animals there.

 Then we moved on to cupcakes. Yum!

 We saved Annie's presents from us for her actual birthday. Rachel was a bit jealous over this stationary set.

 The most popular present by far was this Polly Pocket set. I found it on Craigslist for something like $5 and it has several dolls and tons of clothes, plus a car.

The girls have been playing with it non-stop since Annie opened it.

As for Annie, we are blessed to have her in our family. She has a fun sense of humor, even if she hasn't quite grasped the nuances of knock knock jokes yet. She is enjoying school and has lots of friends there. She is a great student, doing well academically, as well as always having outstanding behavior. Her school has a behavior tracking system where they get BTS points for good behavior or positive contribution in class, and negative points for not listening to the teacher, or disobeying rules. Annie has never gotten negative points, and gets positive points several times a week. 

In our home she is good at helping in the kitchen--she loves cooking. She does not love chores, however. She and Ryan fight a lot less than they used to, but still have their moments. Rachel and Annie are pretty much best friends and get along really well most of the time (until one of them punches the other a little too hard). 

Annie is getting really good at reading and most of the time can read her verse for family scripture study with very little help. She tries to avoid reading books out loud and prefers us to read to her, but on those rare occasions when we get her to read I am impressed with how well she is doing. She's a smartie pants and a good friend. Happy birthday, Annie!

Halloween 2015

Halloween was a success. The kids raked in mounds of candy and are happily on a sugar high today.

We started our Halloween festivities a week early with a Halloween party at our friends, the Allens' house. The Reimanns came, too and it was a blast. Dinner and running around playing, topped off with a donut eating contest and Make Daddy a Mummy game.

 Luckily we weren't on top of things enough to carve pumpkins at FHE on Monday like we had planned. Instead we did it on Wednesday.

 By Saturday (Halloween) our pumpkins were looking extra spooky thanks to mold growing inside.

 One more day and they would have turned to mush.

In fact, by the time we threw them away Saturday night they were getting pretty squishy.

Spooky Annie:

 Annie's school had a storybook parade. Annie's costume was a bunny, so she brought along the book Little Rabbit Foo Foo.

 Ryan wanted to be Heat Wave for Halloween from the Rescue Bots (Transformers). We went to Walmart to look for a costume and he saw an Iron Man costume (he is not at all familiar with Iron Man) and was so happy. "Look! It's Heat Wave!"

 So Ryan was Heat Wave/Iron Man. He was all excited about the mask, but come Halloween night it had lost its appeal and he didn't want to wear it anymore.

 Annie the Fox Bunny:

 (She got the fox shirt for her birthday and declared that it was perfect for her costume because it was white and had long sleeves so she wouldn't be cold.)

 Rachel, the black cat:

 Megan was NOT pleased with the Minnie Mouse dress Annie wore a few years ago that was supposed to be her costume. So she ended up in her pajamas and was a pink giraffe instead.

 Peyton and McKenzie joined us as cupcakes for trick or treating.

 Megan lasted half way around the block before I brought her home to hang with Dad passing out candy. Ryan was tired of walking by then, too, so I came back with a stroller for him. Annie was done about 3/4 of the way around the block and didn't even care about more candy, just wanted to be home. So while I had told Rachel we could go around 2 blocks this year, everyone was very done after 1. I did take Rachel out for 10 minutes longer after we dropped everyone else off, so she hit maybe 5-10 more houses before she was ready to head home, too.