Trouble

Let me introduce you to my little friend Trouble aka Landon. :) It just hit me the other day that at 20 months old he is now closer to two years old than one year old. I alternate between gratitude and worry that he is not talking a lot yet. Here is a list of his current vocabulary:

COOKIE

THANK YOU

NO

MINE

MAMA

DADDY

NITNEY

WOO-WOO (TRAIN)

RUFF-RUFF (DOG)

QUACK-QUACK (DUCK)

SLUG BUG

BALL

FOOTBALL

NIGHT-NIGHT

BYE

HI/HELLO

OH NO!

DANG IT!

UH-OH!
CAR

ICKLE-ICKLE (TICKLE)

This little guy is not a snuggler. Something he does that I love though is that he will run up and bear hug your legs for two seconds then run off.

All ready for church in his cute little man suit.

Landon turns anything and everything into a step stool. All kids this age love buttons but he is really obsessed with them! Two of his favorite past times lately are spraying water and ice from the fridge and adjusting our thermostats. He keeps turning on the emergency heat setting. Can't wait to get our power bill.


One day I could not find him then I heard strange clinking noises coming from the closet. He was having a grand time playing with some ammo.


I find myself often being surprised by his knowledge of random household items. One day he got a hold of the can opener and immediately ran over to the pantry to get a can. He tried and tried to open that can without success.

Here he is using Chris's nose hair trimmer! Those pesky nose hairs are a real pain.

I live for Trouble's naps. :D Normally I would never take a photo of him sleeping for fear of waking him but on this particular day I had to wake him up to go pick up one of the kids.

Fort Lowell Shootout

Whitney is lucky #13 again.

Chris presenting Whitney with her medal.

2010 AYSO Region 206 U12G Travel Team - Almost Angels

Back row, left to right: Coach Todd, Whitney, Natalie, Darby, Hannah, Cierra, Patience, Emilie, Maggie, Coach Brice

Front row, left to right: Reilly, Piper, Tori, Kayla

Whitney has been playing soccer on the military bases where we lived since she was 3 years old. These teams are always coed and pretty low key. This year Whitney played in an AYSO girls league (they don't have any coed leagues). At the end of the year they select the twelve best girls from the league to play on a team and Whitney was asked to be on the region's spring select team. This past weekend they played their first tournament here in Tucson called the Ft. Lowell Shootout. They have teams come from all over Arizona and the rest of the western United States. A lot of the teams are club teams which play together year round giving them a big advantage against the AYSO teams which haven't played together before.

They played two games on Saturday and did really well. They tied their first game 1-1 against a club team. The second game they won 1-0 and after the game we found out that they would be playing in the semi-finals the following morning. Whitney has been asked to play defense and she did incredible. During the semi-final they didn't allow the other team a single shot and won 5-0. For the championship game they played a club team. At the end of the championship it was tied 1-1 so it went to penalty kicks. Each team was given 5 penalty kicks. Talk about nerve racking but our Almost Angels ended up winning the Championship! Chris was a little hoarse after all his cheering.

I am also learning more about soccer. I did not realize it was considered a contact sport. Coach Todd has been encouraging Whitney to be aggressive and brutal. They scrimmaged the boys U12 team and Whitney knocked one of their players down so hard he rolled across the ground. Chris and her coaches were really very pleased with this development. In the second game of the tournament Whitney unfairly received a yellow card when the ref called a bad call. She was pretty upset and fighting tears. That is all part of playing the game though.

Whitney is 12!!!

Our Whitney Michele is now 12 years old! I have thought that this past year has been like the first year all over again because she has grown and matured so dramatically. Childhood was left behind this year and she turned into a young lady. This was the first year where she did not ask for any toys for Christmas. She said goodbye to Primary and hello to Young Womens. Developed her first case of puppy love. It is all a little bittersweet for me. There is a part of me that would like to keep her a child forever. I know that is not the natural order of things though. Watching her grow and develop has been one of my life's greatest pleasures. She never ceases to amaze me with her talents, abilities and outlook on life.

The birthday girl and her guests. Front row, left to right: Katelynn, Alexis, Whitney and Jayden
Back row: Shannan, Ayla, Tori and Czarina

Chris and I kept asking her what she wanted to do for her birthday this year and she kept saying "I don't know". Very unWhitneylike to say the least! It was driving me crazy. Finally a sleepover party was decided upon. This was the most poorly planned party she has ever had which was hard for me. Her birthday fell on a Saturday this year so Friday night her friends came over. They started out with pizza followed by the opening of gifts.


Then they made smores in the backyard fire pit.

One of her birthday requests was that she wanted giant bows on her presents. Monkey see, monkey do! Landon had to have a bow on his head too.

Next up was make over time. They took turns making each other over. I wish I had some gotten some photos of the girls with their new looks. Though I did get a picture of best/most dramatic make over of the night ...

Chris! Doesn't he look beautiful? Cake time was next. Then they watched a couple movies and finally went to sleep around 2 a.m. and woke up about 7:30. Much more sleep than I expected from them. That morning they breakfasted on chocolate chip waffles topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Sausage and of course BACON were also served. Once her guests had gone home Chris and I took just her out to lunch at Olive Garden. She also wanted to see the latest Harry Potter movie so I took them to see that while Chris stayed home with Ashlyn and Landon.

Whitney, Ashlyn, Alexis, Shannan and Tori waiting for the rest of the guests to arrive.

Curls For Ashlyn!

Ashlyn and Whitney have exactly the same hair. I love their hair but it does not hold curl. This is the complete opposite of my hair. I have spent forever curling every piece of hair only to have it look untouched 30 minutes later. I have tried all sorts of products without much success. I finally bought some of those old fashioned pink foam rollers at the dollar store and ...

SUCCESS!!! Curls galore! When I first took them out her hair was almost too curly. It gradually calmed down over time but was still curly at the end of the day! The only problem now is that she did not love sleeping on the rollers. Though she did not rip out the rollers which was a major victory. Ashlyn wants what she calls "free mermaid hair" all the time. She can't stand to have things in her hair and will rip them out.


She was loving her curls though! That blue ribbon tied around her waist was her finishing touch to her outfit. She has also taken to tipping her head up whenever I take her picture which makes it hard to get a shot where you are not looking up her nostrils.

My Old Man

I have always found it extremely fitting that the life of the party was born on the biggest party day of the year - New Year's Eve! Chris has reached a point in life where he no longer enjoys his birthday. He wants to pretend that it is not his birthday. Back in November I mentioned turning 35 soon and he flipped out. He had fooled himself into believing that he was only 33. I had to make him do the math. It was a sad moment for him. He spent the first half of his day working out and running. Then he went to see Tron at the IMAX theater with our two oldest kids and the Neely boys.

I had asked him what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he informed me that he would be making himself a carrot cake without raisins. Since he knew our picky eaters would not eat carrot cake and he really did not want to share his carrot cake he got them a chocolate cake. I thought it might make him feel better if I put 32 numeral candles and then added three normal candles to equal 35. ;) We ended the night at our friends New Year's Eve party.

Crazy faces!


This is the carrot cake he made for himself from scratch. It was really good!!! It just needed some raisins and it would have been the best carrot cake I have ever had.