Some Father's Day thoughts...

This is late, but Blogger was giving me issues.

This year, I sat the kids down to ask them about their Daddy (I took the liberty of answering for Daylon). Here's what they said:

My Dad is someone who...


"... loves me."- Keira


"...cooks yummy pancakes so Mommy can sleep for like 2 years! " -Violet (so we're clear, 2 years is 9 am on Saturdays!)


"...covers me when I go to bed." -Caleb


"...makes me burst into a smile and start flapping around when I see him" -Daylon

"...is special." -Sadie

I love to...


" cuddle with my Dad"- Keira


"race Daddy and play catch with him! Oh! I also love to be Daddy's helper!" -Caleb


"go with  him to the store and it's just me and him!"- Violet


"play soccer ball with him and when he flies me in the air." -Sadie


"get WAY TOO many M&Ms from Daddy every night during scripture time."- Daylon


We love you, Daddy!!

Okay, so if you'll allow me, I'm going to be the obnoxious blogger for a second. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful husband, who is also a great Daddy. Our life has not been at all like I expected. Brian was such an amazing Dad (seriously, I was impressed) to Keira and Caleb. He worked long hours, went to school and still had time to run them around the house and read stories during the 30 minutes he was home in between the two .  When Caleb was 13 months old and the twins were born, I wasn't sure how I would make it through the insanity and LONG. NIGHTS. but I knew I could because Brian and I were a team. I would take one baby and he would have the other, and we lived like zombies together. :) He would find ways to entertain our 4 kids (3 and younger) so I could cook dinner, or vacuum. Almost 2 years ago our life was kicked up a notch when Daylon was born.  Since then he has dealt with assisting me in bandage changes that have made him sick, the heavy guilt of injuring our son by touching him and yet he still continues to be willing to help, a wife who cried almost every night for months (pathetic but true), and four young children who require the same, if not more attention than typical kids. In this last year he took on the role of Mr Mom staying home with them most days at the Ronald McDonald house while I was at the hospital with Daylon. We would go days with only seeing each other for a minute or two when we met at the front of the hospital as he dropped off my dinner. He cleaned, cooked, dressed the kids, mastered the ponytail (without lumps), entertained them and taught them. All I know is that I struggled to do that when we were at home and could only make it through the day knowing that Brian would be home by 6pm and would help me out with the kids, not to mention provide adult conversation. He didn't have that. On top of all of that I would run into the other families or RMH staff and they would tell me how well behaved our kids were and how impressed they were with Brian's ability to keep them under control. I have NO CLUE how he did it! He provides for there material well being, but he also contributes to our children's physical and emotional well being more than I've ever seen another dad do. I know that it's only because of the way he's handled the various trials we've been given throughout the years that we're such a close knit family today.
 Brian, I love and admire you so much! You're such a wonderful Dad. Thank you for being my husband, my best friend and my comedic relief. Happy Father's Day!

  I have also been blessed with a great Dad, myself. Brian and I both appreciate his council and fun sense of humor. The older I get the more I realize how great my dad is. He brought the church to our family and raised us to want to be good people. I love my dad so much! Not to mention he's one fun Grandpa!

I will always be grateful to my father-in-law for showing Brian how to be the man he is today. He is Brian's hero and it shows. We love and miss him everyday.

To the dad's in all our lives, Happy Father's Day!!

Graduation!!

Keira graduated from Kindergarten (it's been like 2 weeks, but lets pretend I'm not that horrible at posting!) ! I can't believe the year is over already! It flew by! Keira is such a sweet little girl and it's so fun to watch her grow into a young lady. She made honor roll every quarter and never had to move her clip down once for bad behavior. Actually, she even got to move it to the very elite top row several times (her teacher said that they can go weeks without anyone moving up)! We're so proud of her!

Before school on the day of her graduation, we drove to Grandma's and Papa's so they could watch the kids and we could take Keira out for breakfast. She chose Del Taco. Go figure.

Her graduation...

She spotted her family!

She not unimpressed, she's bored. Every few line the would switch from English to Spanish and the whole thing became LONG. Next to her his her best school friend Alexa



Our whole family, Grandma and Papa, Grandma Edling, Aunt Jenn and her three younger kids all came to watch Keira on her big day!

The next day was a school assembly where Keira received two awards. One for academics and one for following the "Vicentia Values" (whatever those are). =)

Now that Summer Vacation has started she's loving that too!!

Two wheelers!

Anyone who knows Caleb knows that he was born an athlete. Any physical task and he takes it on, head first. He was my only kid to crawl by 5 months, walk along furniture at 5 1/2 months and walk at 7 month. He could use the handles to scale to the top of the fridge (for the Costco tub of licorice) the Summer after his first birthday. He'll jump off things high enough to make his mother's heart stop, he'll run all day without tiring (this is not a talent, but a curse. TRUST ME.) and has impressive hand eye coordination.

Anyone who knows Keira knows that she's 6 going on 26, will make you laugh with her grown up sentence structure and sayings, can stump her parents intelligence fairly regularly (embarrassing, but true. Her latest...Do you know how long it takes for a rock to become a mineral? Or if all minerals are elements? I do now. Thank you, Google.) and loves being the oldest (in other words, first) kid in the family. One thing that she does struggle with? Adventure. She's so, so, SO cautious of anything that may possibly hurt her, it's silly. I mean, she wouldn't climb on a dining room chair until she was about 3 because she was certain it would fall over on her. This fear can limit her when it comes to some things.
For instance, ditching her training wheels.

Caleb has been ready to leave his training wheels for months now, but I've kept them on because I didn't want Keira to feel bad about still having some on her bike. Her argument to not remove her training wheels was apparently pretty convincing because Caleb would burst into tears at talk of removing his. I was told he didn't want to hit his head and die. Not dramatic at all.

Last week I told the kids that Saturday the training wheels were being thrown out, so they better brace themselves. On Saturday afternoon Brian took the kids outside to have them remove their own training wheels and make sure their bike tires had enough air. It was a big event in our house. The little girls, Daylon and I lined up chairs on the grass and clapped and cheered. It was actually pretty fun!

 Caleb went first...

 He did great!! Two or so times across the patio with Brian holding on and he was ready to take off on his own! We're so proud of him!!

Keira went next. Another tid bit about Keira? She must have been a model in another life because the camera comes out and so do her poses. She was cracking us up.

As I was saying: Keira went next. For your enjoyment, keep an eye on her face.

Brian walked her up and down 30 plus times but she would always yell, "Not ready!! Not ready!!"!
He let her go once...

I can not tell you how much I was laughing by the end. Oh, well. We're trying again after FHE tonight. Maybe she'll have better luck then!

A Bobby in the Family

Caleb loves to dress up like Superheros, characters from movies and books, Superheros, animals, did I mention Superheros? Yesterday, he found one of the twins old Christmas hats and started to ham it up. I know he our son, but he's so stinkin' cute! Brian and I decided that he wasn't cross-dressing, but in fact, dressing up as a Bobby or Copper (being American, I'm not sure what they go by these days). We're just going to ignore the velvet stripe. =D