Emalyn's Family Home Evening lesson-Armour of God

You might not recognize these pictures of our sweet Emalyn.  They show a "different" side of her personality.

A few weeks ago, when it was her turn for the lesson, we decided to do it on the Armour of God.  It was a lot of fun to make and here she is, all decked-out in armor. I asked her to have a "warlike" face and I was amazed at the face you see below. Beware, all kinds of foes!

It was a good lesson.  We discussed all the things that can cause us to remove part of all of our armor against Satan.  The kids did really well with this discussion.  Emalyn did a good job of doing this lesson.

Tyler's first Pinewood Derby-January 2011

Tyler got the idea for his car by looking online and picking out which design he liked best. He and Scott both spent a lot of time on it. This is Tyler sanding the car.

Here's Tyler's car, before the wheels were put on.  We didn't get a picture of it after the wheels were put on. Hopefully I can get one soon and add it.

This is the first race his car was in.  He did pretty good, Scott says it would have done better if they 'd put more weight in the front.

This next picture is of Tyler earning his Bobcat and pinning the pin on my coat.  Yay Tyler!

Scott's night job and Christmas 2010

Doesn't he make a handsome Santa?  We bought this for a lip sync we did at my parents' house right after Christmas.  He really wore it!  The kids especially loved it.

I love the looks on everyone's faces.  So funny and memorable.  I believe Krysta has this look on her face due to the instructions to not open presents until after the pictures were taken.

Or she's just happier with her mama....

ha ha.

Can I open another one, please Daddy? Please Daddy? Now please? Is it my turn yet?

Tyler got a paper airplane book for Christmas.  He really loved it.  He made all of the paper airplanes in the book (at least a hundred) by the end of February.
We had a great Christmas.  There are no pictures of Russell because he slept right through it all.  But those of us who were awake enjoyed watching eachother open presents.

Tyler the Musician in December

Tyler's 2nd grade did a reading in December of "The Brementown Musicians". It was fun to go and hear him read together with the class. However, they had him in the back, so even though I tried, I didn't get any good pics of him. But right after the reading, they had each child demonstrate rhythm and counting. Tyler got to do the maracas.

Tyler also had his first piano recital in December. He played Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He did such a good job! We are so proud of him.

Tyler's 8th birthday party and an awesome garden-produced carrot

These first couple of pictures were the closest I could get to see Tyler open his presents. I wanted the boys to sit down and have Tyler open one present at a time....ha ha ha. There were NINE boys at this party and the present-opening segment of the party took about 60 seconds. I never even got to mention my original instructions. But the yelling of "Wow!", "AWESOME!", "I so totally want one of those!" was so fun to hear. And the energy in our house was a thing to behold and to feel. Wow. Now I know why we only have two boys in our family and they're 8 years apart...

The party was a Pajama, Pizza, and Bakugan party. Very confusing as you can see from the variety of attire worn to the party. I am proud of this cake though. That huge blue triangle is a Bakugan (for those of you without boys ages 5-12 at home) and so are the balls. I used sour patch kids for bakugan battle people (which I have since learned don't actually exist!)

And below is featured a carrot from our garden last year!

Fishing trip in August

Scott took the kids fishing in August. They had lots of fun, but didn't catch ANY fish.

KFR 2010

We had our Ketcheson Family Reunion 2010 (KFR 2010) July 29-31 last year. Cheryl and Blake hosted it and it was so much fun. We got to stay in their home in Lincoln NE and have fun with the family. We missed Meg, Weston, and Wyatt who were not able to make it. cutest picture of Elena, Emalyn, Natalie, and Kayli taken at a fountain (that YES you can wear your bathing suit and run around in it) somewhere near Lincoln, Nebraska.

We celebrated Emalyn's birthday while at the KFR, but again, no pictures were taken. But here she is, riding her first pony ever.

Sooo...that's a lotta kids in one wagon you say? Well, I sure hope the pioneers wagons were bigger, or they had fewer kids, or more wagons...

Apparently the journey got long and exhausting for Emalyn. And it wasn't even a mobile wagon!

Some of our awesome cousins: Jared, Kylie, Natalie, and Josh. Taken when we visited Liberty Jail.

Krysta, in front of the display at Liberty Jail.
As you can see, in the photo before and after, our camera coul not get the lighting correct to see both Krysta and the display behind her. So I put both in. This was such a neat part of the reunion. I learned a lot about the Liberty Jail experiences that I did not know before.

As you can tell, we did not use our camera a lot on that trip. I wish we'd used it more because there were so many amazing, fun things we did on that trip. But we have lots of memories-really good ones. Thanks Cheryl and Blake for a great reunion!

Emalyn's lost tooth and her birthday cake

I'm sooo not a cake decorator, but this was so much fun for me to do. If you can't tell, it's Rosetta (one of Tinker Bell's friends) and the cake is her dress. I made this cake for Emalyn's 6th birthday party (the party was so fun, but so busy that I forgot to take any pictures of it. It was me and about 8 girls).

Emalyn lost a tooth right before her birthday and miraculously, we got a picture of it!

July 24, 2010 Blue Angels Air Show

Yes this was a while ago. I"m trying to catch up. Just so you can get somewhat of an idea of how close we live to one of the airport's runways. our camera really doesn't have that much zoom, and this was taken from the soccerfield about a block from our house.

This is a VERY small fraction of the photos (and movies) we took of the air show. It was pretty awesome. And we didn't have to pay to see any of it, since most of the planes (as shown in the photo above) flew right over our house. It was AWESOME.

Russell-Four Months already?

Yup, he's already four and a half months old actually. So this week he had his four month check up and shots (which were really sad of course!) and he's 14 1/2 pounds and 24 in long. And still a very happy baby.

His new abilities include: smiling alot, laughing at his brothers and sisters and mommy and daddy, talking to anyone who looks at him long enough, FALLING ASLEEP IN CHURCH, sleeping in a swingless swing, rolling over one time to his back and one time to his tummy, playing with toys, reaching for things with his fingers, loving to be held, loving listening to music (especially when Tyler or mommy play the piano), eating five bites of rice cereal, and regularly sleeping through the night.

He is such a gift of a baby to me. He is the first baby of ours to fall asleep while I am holding him (when I'm not nursing him). He even slept through Relief Society yesterday-the first baby of ours to sleep anytime during church after 3 months. It's so fun to hold a sleeping baby. I wouldn't have agreed with that statement with my first or second baby, but maybe I know better how to appreciate it now.