Kate Turns 13!

Happy 13th to this sweet little lady!  She happily survived her birthday on a Fast Sunday!  She shared her testimony in sacrament meeting.  She requested pulled pork sandwiches for dinner.  She's beautiful inside and out, a great big sister, amazing breadmaker and the best daughter ever.  

 Kate made her own Texas sheet cake - her specialty.

I posted a birthday picture of Kate on instagram and she got tons of sweet birthday wishes and compliments.

Favorites:

• food - pizza, pulled pork sandwiches, salsa, funeral potatoes, ham
• friends - Kaylee Memmott, Claire Z, Claire C., Ivy, Brianna, Abby, Whitney, Jaynie, Ellyce, Keira, Hope, Audrey, Emily, Sophi, Anni, Nina, Ada
• things to do - read, run, swim, bake bread and sweets

Things Kate did this last year:

• Went to girls camp
• Went to the temple for the first time and have gone seven or eight times to do baptisms
• ran cross country
• played 7th grade basketball
• took piano lessons at 7 am every Thursday
• first piano adjudication
• first 7th grade band adjudication (playing flute)
• made bread every weekend during the school year (about 15 loaves each week) and bread multiple times a week during the summer
• made "Kate's Bread" famous
• took a six hour babysitting course and have had many babysitting jobs
• first youth dance (Pixie Dance in February)
• went to Camp Zarahemla with ward youth (and mom) for overnight sledding activity
• got glasses
• 8.5 mile walk with Stake Young Womenq

I interviewed Kate and this is what she said:

1.  Who is your favorite person in the whole world? mom and dad (someone besides your family --> Sophi

2.  What is your favorite color? blue...and purple

3.  What's your favorite television show?  Great British Baking Show

4.  What's your favorite outfit?  GAP sweatshirt, jeans, random shirt

5.  What sport do you like best?  cross country

6.  What song do you love?  It's Going to Be OK (by Piano Guys)

7.  What's your favorite cereal?  cinnamon LIFE

8.  Who is your best friend?  ...in which place?  Sophi.  Claire & Kaylee.

9.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  a baker (bake bread and sweets)

10.   What is your favorite book?  Land of Stories the Wishing Well

11.  What are you really good at? making bread

12.  Where do you wish you could go on vacation?  Hawaii and Los Alamos

13.  What is a memory from this past year? girls camp

14.  What would you buy if you had $1000? put it in the bank

15.  What vegetable do you hate the most? squash

16.  If you could have a wish, what would it be?  go to Los Alamos

17.  What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? chocolate moose tracks

18.  Who is your biggest hero? mom 

19.  What do you like to do best with your friends?  play games (like Egyptian Slap Jack)

20.  What do you hope you'll get to do before your next birthday? ...besides see Sophi?  go to Los Alamos

Kate had a friend party on April 15th.  

She invited a bunch of girls over (Keira, Abby, Claire, Aleah, Whitney, Janie, Brianna, Kaylee, Emily, Bethany, Ivy, and Ellyce).  They did a "favorite things" exchange instead of everyone giving Kate a present and played some games in the basement.  Then they roasted hot dogs and ate a big green salad for dinner and a smores bar for dessert.  

March 2017

Desert Hills Basketball

Kate played 7th grade basketball.  They practiced after school and sometimes at 6:15 am.  Their team won all of their games.

Nick had preschool for three weeks at Gabe Wolfey's house.

Gabe Wolfey, Nick, Micah Taff, Isaac Mohlman

We went to the old Desert Hills Middle School (that Kate attended last year) to see if there was anything we wanted to buy before they demolished it.  We bought these cupboards ($20) and put them in our garage.  We also took some big signs (7th grade Hall, 8th Grade Hall, boys, girls, electrical, security, etc.) off of the walls and doorways.  We got those for free.  We also bought a chalkboard, but gave it away.

We've been cleaning our friends, the Hernandez's office while they're on their mission to Peru for over a year now.  We clean it every weekend  Sometimes the kids draw on the white board in the conference room.  nick drew a person with red marker.  We couldn't get it off.  I tried every trick and cleaning product we had at the office, but it was still there.  You can see it faintly in the picture.

in singing time, Sister Curnutt taught the kids the verses to Nephi's Courage.  Nick got to be Laban and Ty and Weston Farris got to be Laman and Lemuel. Nick got a little braver with his sword the longer that they stood there and poked the wicked brothers a little bit.

I got to babysit my friend, Gina Davenport's brand new baby girl, Madeline, while she took the other twin baby (boy) to the doctor.  Kate wanted to see her so I took a few pictures and videos of her.  Nick was not impressed with the smell of her poop but was pretty interested in her.  

 Kate participated in her first piano adjudication.  She did great!

Nick loves playing games, especially memory.  He found the "stunk" skunk match.

March 14th - Pi(e) Day - we had chicken pot pie for dinner.

Jack helped make and decorate a cake for the Blue and Gold Banquet.  The theme was "In the Wild".

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with Lucky Charms.  That's about as festive as we got.

We had a day where is wasn't raining or super windy, so we headed to the park a mile from our house.  Nick smiled the whole time as he went down the slide and threw his little C3P0 lego that he named "Chewy" off of the side and down the slide.  

Ty had football games two Saturdays in March.  It's two hand touch and is a high school development program.  They practice 25 minutes away (at Eastgate Park) twice a week.  We carpool with Ty's friend, Nathan Thomas.

Things are finally greening up.  It's one of the few weeks of the year that the hill behind our house is green.

We planted eight fruit trees in the field.  Four apple and four peach.

We spent a few days cleaning up the yard and mowing the lawn.  

We finished trimming the big window in the living room.  We were finally able to hang up the blinds that we ordered months ago that have been sitting on the floor in the living room.  Unfortunately they're not exactly the same blinds as the other ones we ordered for the smaller windows in our house.  

After months of not letting anyone comb his hair, Nick told me one day that he wanted a mohawk like Jack's.  So he got one!  He wanted one the next day and has let us comb his hair almost every day since.  He is very particular about it not getting messed up as he plays.  This is huge progress from the boy who would rub his hair on the carpet or a towel after I combed it because he didn't like how I combed it.

Kate and I went to the General Women's broadcast at the stake center.  We took a quick picture together but it didn't turn out very well, but we snapped this picture of the temple too.  The broadcast was wonderful and very short (less than an hour and a half).  After munching on a cookie, we went to dinner with Ellyce and Jessica Gowdy at Frost Me Sweet in Richland.  Kate and Ellyce each had Italian panini's.  Jessica and I split a greek salad and butternut squash macaroni and cheese.  The girls got a cupcake afterwards too.  Then Kate and I cleaned the office and hit Fred Meyer for milk on the way home.

Temple Visits:
I went to the temple two Wednesday mornings and did endowment sessions.  The temple was closed the first two weeks of March.  Kate and Dave went with the youth from our ward to do baptisms for the dead.  The next night, Dave and I went to ward temple night (the 7:30 session).

5th Grade Choral Festival (March 26th):
All the fifth graders in the school district learned the same songs.  Five or six of the schools performed them together.  They got to go to Kennewick High School the morning of the performance and practiced.

Nick helped me clean out our neighbor's raspberry patch (the Mailloux's).  The previous owners hadn't cleared the dead canes before he sold the house last year.  The new owners are a bit overwhelmed with all the yard work that their yard requires with fruit trees, etc.

Nick made this snack at preschool and told Sister Mohlman that it was a baby carriage.  Their unit is about imagination.  When I asked Nick about it he told me that it was a baby "cage" not carriage.

Track season started.  It was very windy and cold at their first meet (March 28th). 

 She ran the 100, 200 and 400.  She hated the 400 and liked the 100 and 200 more.

Nick stole Jack's glasses and thought he was funny.  I called him "little Jack."

2nd Grade Music Performance (March 30th):

Ty was the dragonfly in the Bug Performance.  He had his lines memorized for weeks.  It was fun to watch him sing all the songs and say his lines.