Kathryn came with me to the church youth group ice skating activity.  The smile on her face shows exactly how she felt.  She skated the entire time, didn’t even want a break for a cookie or hot chocolate.  After awhile she was going by herself without holding on to anything.  I was so impressed!

Daniel and Amelia on a New Year’s Day walk after church.  They are best buddies right now.  Daniel loves playing with someone big, and Amelia loves being the boss for once.

Daniel turned 3!  He is really into Charlie Brown right now.  All the kids are.

Michael is everywhere.  Quite the climber, cruising a lot, and starting to stand by himself.  And trying to mimic the sounds we all make.  Super cute!

 Богородица

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This is as close as he would get.

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Blogging has helped me realize (again) that I am not a very good writer.  I just don’t know how to describe very well what I feel.  That’s why I have been sticking to mostly pictures lately.  But Daniel is in such a cute phase, and his birthday is coming up next month, so I wanted to post about him.  His first Christmas we visited Grandma and Grandpa Harrison and my mom nicknamed him Mr. Enthusiastic.  He has remained true to that name!  He gets so excited about everything, and really wants to help.  If the girls are doing a job, he wants a job, too.

When he is with me, he doesn’t stop talking.  He asks questions about everything.  All the time.  He always wants to know what we are doing next, what’s after lunch, what’s after nap, what’s after snack, what’s tomorrow and next week.  I think with my first child if they said something incorrectly, I would correct them or wish they said it correctly.  But I don’t want Daniel to ever change!  I love that I still can’t understand some things he says.  I love that he has his own accent.  Like saying “five” more like “foh-aive”.

I love that he loves Charlie Brown lately.  We have a Thanksgiving Charlie Brown show that the kids watched last month.  Now they watched the Christmas one and Daniel just loves Charlie Brown and Snoopy.

And, a product of having two older sisters and a mom, he loves to put on lotion and put mousse in his hair.  He saw me put a towel on my head this way, so he had to do it, too.

He has had way too much experience in the kitchen, but I kind of almost trust him now to not touch hot things now.  He just has to be there to help cook and see what is going on, and how we are doing it.  

I remember when Daniel was born the first time I saw him I just thought he was perfect.  It was a very special bond, different from my daughters.  Now when I see the pictures of him those first few minutes, he looks terrible!  I remember it so differently that it always surprises me to see the pictures.  He came about 51 weeks early.  A year before we had planned, but a week after the due date!

We realized today that he is the third Daniel – his grandfather and great-grandfather on my side are Daniels.  He is the third Clayton (his middle name) – his dad and grandfather have Clayton.  And he is our third child!  And he will turn three two weeks after Christmas.  His present to me will be getting potty trained – I hope!

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Each of the kids has a small Christmas tree to decorate.  It amazes me how much they can fit on one very small Christmas tree!

Here is Kathryn’s:

Amelia’s:

And Daniel’s:

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I think I have mentioned before that Amelia loves playing with Little People.  We got out our Thanksgiving set and she and Kathryn made a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the people.  You can see various birds on each table for the turkeys.

While I was trying to get a picture Michael crawled in threatening to destroy their work.

The next day Amelia made Helaman’s army of 2000 warriors which she affectionately called “The 10,000 warriors” (it took me a couple minutes to figure out what she was talking about when I heard the 10,000).

Then she lined up the Lamanites and they had a battle, with a celebration turkey dinner at the end!

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Kathryn was a rainbow butterfly.  She loved her costume and figured most of it out herself.

She was very serious about her wings.  Thanks to the Perry’s for lending the wings.

Amelia was Cinderella for the third year in a row.  Thanks to cousin Hannah (Perry) for lending the dress because Amelia had outgrown the dress she wore the previous two years.

Possibly my new favorite picture of Amelia.  It is so her.

Daniel the dog.

A cute close up by Darryl.  His makeup usually only stayed on for about 5 minutes.

And Michael was another Puppy. I wore a hat that said “Dog Catcher” since I run around chasing both boys all the time.   Thanks again to the Perry’s for lending this costume.  (Did you catch the Perry theme?)

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Pumpkin carving.  In the past it has sometimes seemed like a chore to me, but it was really fun this year.  I even carved my own pumpkin, but I just realized I didn’t take a picture.

The girls hard at work.

The lighting of the jack-o-lanterns.  Daniel’s is there as well.  He wanted his to have eyes closed and that’s what I came up with (far right).

Darryl’s pumpkin.  I could never do this (not the patience or skill).  He won the grand prize at our ward Harvest Festival!

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Michael is showing off the grassy area just behind our building.  Its a nice place for running around and its shady in the afternoon.

The kids love playing on the bars of these stairs.  There are two sets of them close to our front door.

Showing off their tricks.

This looks scarier than it is.  He wasn’t in motion, he just poses with one leg up.

We also like the sidewalk path that makes a circle around our building.

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Sometimes I forget that it is Fall, since it is still so warm and sunny.  We recently took a trip to Apple Hill (a place with fond memories from my childhood).   Kathryn has since told me she would like more apples from Apple Hill – we got some small ones and she would eat the whole apple.  Daniel said he wants to go back for more apple donuts.

I was able to take the boys and go with Amelia’s preschool to the pumpkin farm.  I think Daniel had a better time than anyone in the preschool!  He was so excited about the animals, climbing bales of hay, going down some big slides, and we even went in a haunted barn.  Lots of fun!

This is with Amelia’s best friend at preschool.

  

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General Conference for us started out like this:

By the end it was a little more like this:

Kathryn made President Monson.  Notice the podium with microphone and flowers.

Then she added President Eyring and President Uchtdorf to complete the First Presidency.

By the end she added the choir and TV screen outline.

Unfortunately I was sick on Sunday.  Fever and chills rotating.  Here are the kids snuggling with me when I was cold.

All in all, I’d say it was the best General Conference in recent years based on children behavior.  Michael pretty much napped for all of all sessions!  The kids were busy with stickers, drawing, Conference Bingo, and watching.

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I wasn’t going to blog about Kathryn’s birthday because it didn’t seem that exciting.  But I changed my mind.

Kathryn turned 6 after her first week of kindergarten.  For her present Darryl took her on a special outing to Home Depot to pick her very own plant.  Kathryn loves plants and gardens and we thought she would love having something of her own.  She chose a rose bush!  No surprise there, Kathryn loves flowers, especially roses.

We put it in a large pot and she waters it everyday.  We will plant it in the yard when we move into a house.

She also got a doll pack-n-play, which she was extremely thrilled about.

And some fake flowers (she always asks for these whenever we see them from a store).

Kathryn wanted a castle cake and I unwittingly was excited to try making one.  After some toil and tears, a cake emerged.

I thought since we didn’t have a friend party and not a whole lot of family party, that she could take a treat to her kindergarten class.  We decided on homemade mints, and wrapped them in plastic wrap with some ribbon.  I sent them with Kathryn to school, and when we picked her up I asked how it went.  Unfortunately the kids could not get the ribbon off, so the teacher had to cut everyone’s open!  I felt so terrible.  I was the mom who sent something so annoying!  Oh well, it was my first try at taking birthday treats to a class.

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I am excited to announce I recently joined the 21st century and got a cell phone.  Not just a phone, an iphone, and I am loving it.  My camera battery ran out and I have yet to locate the charger since we have about half the boxes still in the garage, so I have turned to my phone for picture taking.  Here are some recent ones:

This is the first day I got the phone, Darryl took it.  We are at the apartment pool.

Kids with cousins making cards for other cousins.  (We love you Courtney, Elizabeth, Sarah, and Camille!)  Daniel was actually have a great time, he just doesn’t like to smile for the camera.

Darryl was out of town and the kids wanted me to take pictures of our fish stick dinner.

Kathryn’s plate.

Amelia showing a baby fist stick.

Daniel’s fish sticks.

For some reason wearing a bib is now cool.  I could never get these kids to wear bibs when they were younger, but now they frequently request a bib.

And the Mikester discovering the joy of cantaloupe rinds.

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We are loving living close to cousins.  Especially cousins the same ages.  Kathryn and Hannah are in the same kindergarten class and the same class at church.  Amelia and Joshua are in the same class at church.  And David and Daniel go to nursery together at church.

Before we moved I knew Kathryn and Hannah were already friends, but Amelia and Joshua really hadn’t seen each other that many times.   One of the first times we got together A and J discovered they both love to pretend, and the rest is history.  Amelia and Joshua LOVE to play together.  They talk about each other, they just can’t wait to see each other.

We’ve captured a few pictures of them together.

 

Swimming at our apartment pool.  Joshua was a little stuck so Amelia came and pushed him to the other side of the pool.

At kindergarten pick up getting Kathryn and Hannah.

Saying goodbye.

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Here are way too many pictures of Michael, at 5 1/2 months.  I tried to only pick the cutest ones…  He is sitting and got two teeth on the bottom recently.  Oh, and he is getting close to crawling!  Up on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth.  He can kind of scoot backwards and turn, and loves to roll over.  Lots of fun!

Doesn’t that just melt your heart?

At the apartment pool.

His first bath sitting up by himself.

Photo shoot with Daddy.

иконописikoni

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Starting with packing.  We packed up quite a bit of stuff and stored it in a POD while our house was for sale.  It was really nice to have so much packing already done when we went to pack up the rest of our house and move.

Here is the POD looking very full with lots of things still to be packed.  Will we make it?

Somehow Darryl did it!  There were a few things we didn’t think would fit and we’d have to give away.  But Darryl got them all in that POD!

Welcome to Sacramento!

Checking out Darryl’s new office.

Fun with cousins and the furniture in our new apartment.

View from our apartment.  Lots of palm trees around here.

All the moving and swimming (subject of another post) have made us pretty tired.  Darryl found Amelia and Daniel like this one night.

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Yesterday was Kathryn’s first day of kindergarten!   I have been waiting for this day for awhile.  Partly because she turns 6 in a few days and in many places she could have gone to kindergarten last year.  Partly because school here actually started 2 weeks ago but we were not moved in yet.  Partly because I love school and I am so excited for her.

Somehow the morning kindergarten class that teaches Spanish wasn’t full.  So we snatched that class up.  Kathryn’s cousin Hannah is also in the class!

Here she is with each sibling before leaving for school.

Amelia looks like a kindergartener herself!  The teacher once thought she was Kathryn.  I am really excited for next year when Amelia goes to kindergarten because then I will only have 2 kids at home!!!  For the morning at least…

With Michael above, and with Daniel below (staged).

And here she is with Hannah coming out of the classroom on her first day.

Walking home together.

It was a great first day.  Darryl was home, so at lunch he and I both got to hear all about what happened.  I felt like I had accomplished a lot, until I realized that we had to go again the very next day!  Everyone up, dressed, out the door at 8:00 again?!  Everyday?!  Good thing I like mornings…

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Here are some things we did this summer – besides getting ready to move and taking a 2 week trip to Canada (about which I am hoping to post someday).

Wading pools.

Seattle Center fountain.

Pajama story time at the library.

Got a new centerpiece for the table.

Saw “Kit Kittredge” at the summer dollar movies with our neighbors.  Super cute “American Girl” movie.  Highly recommended!  This was in the van because I forgot to take a picture at the theater.

Walks after dinner.

Art.

Carkeek park and beach.

икони на светци

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I guess we thought everyone already knew, but we were recently informed that Melanblog has been silent on the issue of our move.  So in case you didn’t know, we are moving to Sacramento, California! It was a very long decision process, and ultimately we really felt that is where God wants us to be. We put our townhouse up for sale and it sold in 3 weeks. A small miracle!

Amelia using the packing supplies for some fun.

Okay, she wasn’t the only one!

We’ll be gone in a few days to start a new chapter in our lives.

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The view from Alki Beach looks sooo much better in person than these pictures.  I thought it would be a really great place for a family picture for a Seattle memory.  But alas, this was the best we got.

These fun girls and their parents and baby sister have been staying with us for a few days while they visit Seattle.  We have had a blast together!

икониПравославни икони

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I know what you’re thinking:  What?!  Michael is 4 months?!  I know what else you’re thinking:  Is that red hair?  The pictures make it look much redder than it really is.

Michael recently discovered his feet/toes.

He is also grabbing at things all the time.

Here he is in a Bumbo seat.

I have never owned one of these (didn’t want to fork over the money), but on our recent trip we used one with Michael.  And today I am buying one on Craigslist.

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