The Birthday Girl

4 Year Old Lila

5 Year Old Lila

6 Year Old Lila

7 Year Old Lila

7 Year Old Lila

 Her new easel from Mimi

Yummy Oreo cake, and mostly importantly...her roller skates.

I found this on her easel.  

1. I am nice

2. I help others

3.  My favorite color is pink and blue

4. I take art classes

5.  I like to stay up late

6.  I am fun to play with

7.  I am happy with my life

8. I love my family

9. I like to do math at school

10. One time I drew Elsa

11. I like to paint

12.  I have 7 people in my family

13.  I am awesome

14.  I like to write

15. ???

16.  I am kind

17.  I have a radio

18.  ???

19. ???

20.  ???

Glad she has such good self-esteem :)

Her birthday card and crown from Mok and Pok

When you have a birthday in Lila's class at school, each child write you a notes and the teacher has them bound into a book.  This was my favorite letter she got.  It is from Dillon (who she says is bad and she doesn't like)

Dear Lila,

You are pretty and beautiful and you are kind.  What's your favorite food?  Whats your favorite movie?  You are a good ???.  What's your favorite letter in the alphabet? 

Then there was the part that cut off that said, "Will you be my friend and play with me at recess."

Seriously, I die over these notes.  They are so funny!

Basketball 2015

Jackson had an amazing basketball season this year.  His team was 4-4, which was not awesome, but he was the leading scorer on his team, by quite a bit. He had several 20 point games and his lowest scoring game was 8 points.  

He really improved so much from last year.  He thinks that getting contact lenses made all the difference.  He was able to see well and not worry about glasses flying off of his face.

Jack was one of the smaller kids in the league, and he was our point guard.

He really became the leader of the team on the court.  He could often be heard directing players and setting up plays.  It was so fun to watch him develop that ability this year.

All of these boys live within a mile of us and they are great kids.  We joke that Jack and his best friend Chance (#5) are going to play in the NBA one day and be like Stockton and Malone!

My favorite game of the year was one that we won 32-30. We only had 5 players there that day so they all had to play the entire game, while the other team had 9 players.  Our boys played so hard.  Jackson scored 20 of our points and assisted in several others.  The weight of the game really rested on him in that last quarter and he was so amazing.  He shot from the outside, he laid the ball up and he made some excellent passes.  

Lila is SEVEN!

Lots of pictures to come, but for now...this sweetheart is SEVEN!  She is such a joy to our family.  She is sweet, funny, bossy, a good artist, smart, sassy, and gorgeous.  How did we get so lucky.  Happy 7th Birthday to my little Lulu.

Sunny's New Hair

Sweet Sunny is obsessed with all things hair and fashion.  She spends lots of time on the internet looking at pictures and following trends. It is so funny to watch because I am not that way at all.  I couldn't care less about any of those things.  So, not sure where she gets it from, but she is definitely into all things girly.

About a week ago she came to me with about 50 pictures to show me and was ready to plead her case about why she wanted a hair cut.  She looked shocked when I replied, "Sure, it's your hair."  I told her we would do it soon, but first she needed to email her teacher that is in charge of the play and ask if it was okay with her if she cut it. She did that, and the answer was yes, so off we went.

Sunny said as they were cutting it she was nervous and thought it might be a mistake, but once it was done, she was in love.  She has had long hair for 4 years of so, so this is a big change.  I think she looks older, which is hard for me because she is only 10 and already dresses and acts like a teenager...a super sweet awesome teenager though :)

2015 Word For The Year

Take Action

Okay, so that was two words...but you get the idea.

I absolutely love this quote!  

Last year we focused as a family on kindness.  We spent a lot of time helping the kids recognize opportunities to show kindness.  In doing that we saw a lot of sad things.  The kids were exposed to sad situations and the unfairness that exists in the world.  Particularly with the way we live, versus the homeless, and the orphan, and those that are weak, or sick, or discriminated against live.  We learned we could show kindness to everyone in simple ways.

While we focused on kindness, Ryan and I noticed a problem with our word.  While we were teaching the kids to recognize an issue we realized we wanted to spend a year teaching them how to act on what they saw.  What good is recognizing and issue if you don't take action on it.  It is great to have sympathy for others, or to pray for others, but we want more.  We want children who become the "doers" in the world.  As a family we want to make a difference in the lives of others human beings all around us.

From that thought came the words for the year, Take Action!

On Sunny's Les Miserables DVD, there is a preview for Schindler's List.  The kids asked what that was about and I very briefly gave them an overview.  It became such an amazing conversation.  We talked about how sitting by and watching evil happen is wrong and it is never okay.  We have to be brave, and willing to speak up and take risks.  The world need more people who are willing to risk it all in defending other people and in defending what is right.  I want my family to be those people!

It is pretty easy to look around the world and see sorrow and suffering and hatred, and a number of other sad things.  Our goal this year is to do our part to shine a light into the life of others.  To be kind, to be loving, to be helpful, and to be an example of Christ to all those we come across.

I don't know where this will take us, but I have some great idea.  We are going to work hard in all that we do this year and I know we will grow from the challenge.

2014 Word of the Year Wrap-Up

Last year, as a family, we chose the word, "kindness" to focus on for the whole year. I blogged about it here:

Kindness

I have to say, we did a great job this year...if I do say so myself.  Thoughts of this blog and the quotes that I had found were never far from my mind, and greatly influenced me throughout the year.  I found I was able to be more understanding of people and their situations.  I also found I was able to love others more easily.  

One of my favorite parts of the year was watching my children focus on being kind to others.  Sunny has had a couple of situations this year where she was really frustrated with a few different people and we were able to talk about what she should do.  How she should treat them, even though she was upset, and how she could help them, despite the issues that were going on.  Watching her rise about her own frustrations and show love and kindness to others was amazing.

We have also focused a lot on kindness to those that are in much less fortunate circumstances than we are around the world.  We continued our tradition of donating money to Reece's Rainbows, which helps with the adoptions of special needs children in Eastern Europe and China.  We spent hours pouring over the pictures on the website and talking about the children as we picked the ones we wanted to help.

2014 was a great year and I am excited to continue in the New Year to teach my children (and myself) about what really matters in life and how to recognize that while all the distractions in life would have us focus on ourselves.

Lots More Les Mis

Sorry for the Les Mis overload, but I want to get everything for the year done by tomorrow. So, you get to enjoy more of this.

This first video up above is my favorite of all the ones she has done.  She really loves this song and I just think it is beautiful.

These two duets were pretty funny to do.  She loves the songs and usually I play the piano and sing the boy part, but I didn't want to sing on the blog, so we looked online until we found versions of the songs with the male only part.  She felt a little weird singing with some random guy, and we giggled and giggled.  The two duets were also filmed the first time she tried to sing along with the recording.  So there are lots of mistakes, but we don't care.  I think they are great.