Rylee's 6!

Rylee turned 6 on Friday. We had her birthday party with friends on Thursday. She had a cooking party. It was all girls this time. She did feel a little bad because she has several boys that are her friends, but the numbers are climbing rapidly and therefore, we limited it to only girls. I love throwing parties for my girls. I say girls, because up till now that’s all the parties we’ve had. Jack is expecting a party this October when he turns 4 so I’ll have to start figuring out what to do at a boys party. I made each of the girls an apron with their name on it. I’m pretty sure they all liked them. The party lasted 2 hours and I’m sad to say that we ran out of time and didn’t get to everything I had planned. They did get to paint plates, decorate cupcakes, make pizzas, play games, and make brownie sundaes. The build up is always so great and then in a short time it’s all over, but it’s definitely worth it.










Out of all my children, Rylee is the most like I was when I was a child. I’m not happy to admit it, but that is not a positive thing. She is very stubborn and quite a bit defiant. No one can tell her what to do. She does what she wants, when she wants. The reason that I have hope is because I was the same way, and look at me now. (What else is there to say!)

Rylee is very smart. Kennedy was always so easy to teach and advanced very quickly with everything. I was quietly a little worried that Rylee was not progressing in quite the same manner. Kennedy was reading to her class in Preschool and Rylee didn’t start reading until the end of Preschool. Kind of a silly way to judge it right! However, Kennedy was almost an entire year older than Rylee was when she went into Kindergarten, because of their birthdays. Anyway my point is, is that Rylee is just as far along. I have very smart children and of that I am very proud.

Rylee is left handed and we think she’s extra special for it. I’m sure it has a little bit to do with her creativity. She is, of all my kids the most creative. She loves doing crafts and is very much a perfectionist. She is also good at figuring things out and is the most patient at things like that. The largest puzzle our family has is 750 pieces. Rylee would sit at the table for hours working on the puzzle, day after day until it was finished and this was over a year ago. (She wasn’t quite 5 yet!)

Rylee is an amazing girl. She will go very far in her life. I am positive she will achieve great things. With all the hardship she gives me, there are way too many positive things about her that I would be very ungrateful if I didn’t tell everyone how blessed I am to have her as my daughter. I wouldn’t want her any other way.

Happy Birthday Rylee! I love you with all my heart.

Friday Rylee picked Chili's for her birthday dinner.






Friday my mom arrived from Connecticut for a weekend visit. Saturday we went to Kanab to visit cousins.

Picture in The Paper

Saturday was a cold and windy day, a good day to stay inside, however that's not always possible, especially when there is a kite flying compitition. It was the fifth annual Kite Flight for Sight contest sponsored by the Cedar City Lions Club. There weren't that many people there but the ones who went had a little bit of fun I think. Kennedy got her picture in the Sunday edition of the Spectrum. That was the best part about the activity.

Christopher Onstott / The Spectrum & Daily News Genna Gillette, age 9, helps Kennedy Knell, also age 9, launch her kite, Saturday, at the Cedar City Kite Festival. (Christopher Onstott/The Spectrum)

Zion 10K

Here's me and my first two roommates my first year of college. We were pretty silly. We liked to hang out at the boys apartment upstairs. One day we snuck into their closets and took their pants and hats. We were so COOL!


We finally, all three reconnected after about 12 years.
Shanna lives in Delta and Jamie lives in Clearfield.


Saturday morning (at 5:30am) we drove to Zion for their Centennial 10K run.


It was the first 10K for all of us. We all made it through the finish line, without needing emergency care.


Afterwards Jamie and I headed to Vegas for our reward. Here's 1/2 of the second piece of cheesecake I brought home. None of them lasted long enough for me to get a good picture. We drove all the way to Vegas to eat at the Cheesecake Factory. I love it that much. I think I've converted Jamie into loving it as well. (it was her first time there)


Besides not being able to walk very well today I'm happy we were able to get together and have a good time.

Spring Break

Steve took the girls skiing last Thursday. They had a blast. They both love to ski.





Unfortunately he forgot to get their goggles out of the car for them to wear. Men seem to forget a lot. This is the result. Their eyes ended up getting severely burned. Kennedy got the worst of it.





We got a surprise a week ago; three ducks and three chicks. They are cute but what do we do with the cute little things? (more work for me)(yeah)





Saturday we started off the day with the town's Easter egg hunt at the park. We've never missed a year and every year it's been freezing. However it's tradition, we have to go.



Sunday we spend concentrating on Jesus and his sacrifice. We seem to get too caught in the Commercialism. I'm grateful Easter is always on Sunday. It makes it easier to cut the world out and concentrate on the true meaning and reason we celebrate Easter.

I love holidays, they give you an excuse to spend more time with family.

Megan's Song

Megan is an amazing singer. She recently recorded a song for the New Era. It's a beautiful song.

Tender Mercies of The Lord

If the link doesn't work here is where to find it.

1. Go to lds.org
2. Click on Prepare a lesson
3. Click on Magazines
4. Click on New Era
5. Click on Music
6. Click on Tender Mercies of The Lord (Piano and Vocals)

We all are so proud of her. She does so many things that I cannot even imagine one person doing and staying sane. She is always going from here to there and always does it with a smile. We all love you Megan.

SO MUCH!

JACK AS A PRINCE



Jack went to his first Birthday party. He felt very important. It was a Princess party for his good friend Brooke. It took me until the day before the party to convince him to dress up as a Prince. Up until then he was determined to be Cinderella. He dresses up all the time. It is part of having two older sisters. However all we have are girl dress ups. After he finally was talked into being a prince and we made his crown and cape/robe he couldn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror. His exact words were “I can’t believe I’m a Prince”. He lets me know, just about every day, that he wishes he could be a real prince now.

SOCCER





I love coaching Kennedy’s soccer team. I was her coach last year, and I don’t “really” want to brag but yes we were undefeated. Kennedy is an amazing player. She gives it everything she has. She loves the competition, as do I. There are girls on our team this year who love the sport and there are those who I believe, do it because their mom and dad wants them to do it. It’s a little hard for me when they don’t love it and don’t put in 100%. I know that at this age it is still mainly suppose to be about fun but it’s no fun when you don’t want to be there. It’s also really hard for those who love it and give 120% and work their butt off. Because unfortunately as hard as they work and as good as they are they can’t win the game alone. It is a team sport. I’m really hoping to get some of the girls who are not giving their all at this point to step it up. We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks.

Rylee also loves soccer. I feel really bad that we didn’t sign her up for spring soccer. She played in the fall and was a natural. We let her join us at every practice. She truly plays harder than a few of the girls on our team who are 4 years older than her. She is so dang CUTE.




JOSEPH SMITH FIRESIDE



Saturday night we were honored to have the crew and members of the “Tribute to Joseph Smith” come to Cedar City. If you have not listened to the music you have to go buy the CD. I believe most LDS members own the CD. It is wonderful music to listen to. One of the creators of the project, Dan Truman, is a good friend of Steve’s, so we were just excited to see him. Steve offered rooms to the crew at our Hotel and most took him up on the offer, all except Dan of course who stayed with us. Steve had told me that Sunday he would be gone before we came home from church so not to plan dinner for him. When we came home he was not gone which we were all happy about however now I had to come up with dinner. Talerine was on the menu for our family, however not a very special dinner for a guest. Then I was also informed that Jason Deare would be coming over to join us. Again I was happy, I had never met Jason and was excited. Again however, no food planned. Luckily we had carne asada meat leftover from the night before and therefore I made them tacos. The most delicious tacos, in my opinion, however just tacos. No sides, no salads, nothing except tacos on their plates. A little embarrassing, but what could I do. I hope they know I didn’t plan it that way. I didn’t dare say anything about it for fear I would make them feel as though I didn’t want them there. So I sucked it up and feed our “famous” guests tacos. Dan is a wonderful man. I have always been grateful for his friendship to Steve as well as me and our family. Jason was a great man to meet. He was so good with our children who were bugging him left and right. They both were big kids and even played tag around the house with our children. I am thankful for wonderful men and women who use their talents and time to spread the gospel.

EMBROIDERY LESSONS

For Valentine’s Day Steve SURPRISED me with an embroidery machine. I had no idea. I have been making aprons for Rylee’s Birthday party and told him it would make it more special to embroider the children’s names on their apron. I did mention it first; however he took it and ran with it. I didn’t literally mean to buy the machine, however it is something I have “WANTED” for a long time, but “NEVER” expected to get right now. Steve becomes obsessed with things like that. When he has something on his mind, it is impossible for him to let go. Therefore, I now have an AMAZING embroidery machine. Let me just say that again, an AMAZING embroidery machine. Unfortunately I had no clue what to do with it. I went to Granny’s quilts and had Karen show me where to get started. It is so much fun. Steve also purchased an AMAZING software program that I am still waiting on. When that arrives, watch out. However, Steve did inform me that I have to start making the money to pay for it now. And that means taking custom orders. So after I am up and running on this thing come see me and what I can create for you. I’M SO EXCITED!!! I'm still just playing at the moment.

SIENA'S PLAYMAKERS



Thursday night we went to support my niece Siena in her performance with playmakers. She loves to perform. She’s getting a lot better. In the past it was a little hard for her to concentrate. She’s only 8. But this performance was really cute. Our favorite part was when the other children had to push her back when she kept inching her way forward to be seen. We had a good laugh.

OREM

"ALL SHOOK UP"



This past weekend we spent in Orem. Mimi was performing in the musical “All Shook Up” at the Hale Theater. It was a lot of fun. I had never been to the “Hale Theater” and thoroughly enjoyed it. I actually think it was the best play we’ve been to that Mimi has performed in to date.

The kids’ favorite part of going out of town is swimming.



We treated them to Chuck E Cheese AGAIN.



We were also up there for the blessing of Lucy, Steve’s niece Emilie’s 2nd baby girl.



Kennedy, Rylee, and Jack love seeing all their cousins.






LIFE IS SO BUSY, BUT SO MUCH FUN!

Beautiful day at Brian Head

We spent the first half of the day at Brian Head. We haven’t been up there once this year. We decided it was time to try the tubing hill. The kids really had a lot of fun. As you can see from all the pictures, even Jack enjoyed it. We weren’t quite sure he would go since they don’t let you ride double. We got him to go once and couldn’t stop him after that. His head barely pokes out of the tube so it couldn’t have been too scary. They let you ride in two hour increments. We figured it was going to be very busy because of the junior races this weekend, so we headed up early for the first session at 10:00am. To our surprise it actually wasn’t all that crowded, even the ski hills didn’t look too bad. After tubing we went up to the Lodge for lunch and watched the skiers for a bit. It only made Kennedy feel real bad. She wanted so badly to get out there and ski. I really think it is something she will always love so we need to get her up there more. That is our goal, even though I’m not sure when it is going to happen. Soccer has begun and the next two Saturdays we will be out of town. But we promised to make it happen before the end of the season. (She may be missing school) I think we picked the best day to go. The sun was shinning and there wasn’t any wind. I really don’t think it could have gotten any better.

Just the beginning of "Big Talks"!

The big talk wasn’t as big as I thought it would be. Not nearly as scary either. I didn’t go into detail about the actual sex and actually from the questions she had I didn’t feel I needed to discuss intercourse at all. She is still my innocent little girl. She is mainly concerned about boys. Not in a sexual way but in a like way. We talked about all the changes she is going through and also puberty for boys a little. She mainly said ooh to most of it. I am so happy she knows that she can talk to me about anything. There will be many more of these kind of talks in the future and both of us will be ready for them. We had so much fun just being girls. Having one on one dates are definitely important for children. They need to know that alone they are special as well as in the family. Thanks for all the advice from my friends. I took it all to heart and it helped me so much.