Levi

Levi is next! This kid is getting old on me. We just talked about him having his 8 1/2 birthday! He is a busy boy lately, but somehow he still wants to do it all. It is hard to keep up sometimes! He is the best to have as the oldest. He is such a sweet helper to his little brothers and sister. I couldn't function without him. He is so in tune to the needs of others and always willing to help. He has been loving his comp soccer team, Rampage. He has a good coach and a couple of great friends on the team. He has improved a ton this year and it is fun to watch. He has been doing indoor lately and having so much fun. He also has started basketball. We wanted to give him another year or two to try and see what he really likes. He is an athletic little guy and has such potential! He is loving basketball as well and is adjusting to them actually being able to steal. It is so much more entertaining and competitive to watch now. Dad sure is having fun with their training sessions at the church. He is also learning piano so fast. He really is a hard worker at everything he tries, even though he needs some constant reminding of needing to do his homework and practicing! He is excelling at school. His teacher reported: Levi has excellent math skills and has made 96 points growth in reading comprehension (Lexile score of 593 in August, and 689 in January). He is a responsible student and a kind friend to others. He got a little Valentine note in his folder today. Some girl in his class keeps telling him she is his secret admirer. Ha! He had a rough week last week, and so did mom! After school one day I opened the van door and he said, "Mom, I fainted at school today." WHAT???????!!!!!! He proceeded to tell me that some boys wanted to play the 'Red Face Game' and the teacher agreed. Again WHAT?????? So, she let anyone who wanted to play, play. They stood in front of her and held their breaths trying to see who could make themselves have the reddest face. Well, he said he got dizzy and couldn't see and the next thing he saw was his teachers face helping him up. I got a phone call right after he told me from his teacher. I was LIVID. I held my tongue trying to formulate an actual response and could only ask her when this happened. She told me 2 hours ago and that he has a goose bump on his head. She felt so bad and it traumatized her watching him fall like a board, head hitting the TILE floor. I went home fuming. I tried and tried to make sense of it all. I ended up sending the principle an email telling her about this stupid game (in more mature words), and how the teacher should have contacted me WAY sooner (in not as mature of words). As a parent I had nightmares about the possibilities of him hitting desks on his way down, a concussion, and much more. Her to not even call me and me hearing from him first was the worst of it all. With head injuries, and sure enough he had a bruise by his eye and a good goose egg on top of his head, is super scary. There is no way with a class of 27 she could watch him enough to tell if something was wrong. And to top it off, she didn't even give him ice. A hug and back to his seat. AHHHHHHH! Anyways, what is done is done, but it was a little rough on us both. We love that school and have seen the difference in the 4 years we have gone there with Levi academically. Otherwise I may have been swayed to move I was so mad. Levi is such a tender hearted kid, who gets along with everyone. He is so patient at scouts with the autistic boy in his primary class and scouts. The kid came up and demanded Levi's seat at scouts and he just got up and moved. I had parents telling me he is such a good kid. I have had others telling me how good he is at church and smart and another that he is a great reader. We know all these things and more about our Levi. He really is a good buddy to all of us and we love his guts!!!!!

Zack Attack

Zack man. 

(Im going to put Zack's 7 year old stats here):

Height: 3'10'' 16%

Weight:43lb 14oz 10%

Zack is growing up too fast. He was sick a bit last week and it was hard to see him that way. Zack is an amazing little guy! He is constantly surprising us! He can say the funniest off the wall things that gets us laughing so hard. He is super competitive with himself and others. He has been LOVING trying basketball out this winter. He plays with 1-2nd graders and does very well. He is counting down the days till soccer starts again. He is also doing very well at piano. His teacher had to skip a few pages of his book since his little fingers couldn't stretch that far. It is cute seeing him stand up to use the pedal:) He is doing super well at school. 

We just ended another semester and he got great reviews from his teacher. She said: Zack is such a sweet and intelligent little boy. He is above level in both reading and math. His current guided reading level is L. He is in our highest reading group. He reads well independently and I am working with him on fine tuning his reading comprehension. He is the math rock star of my first grade classroom. He has successfully completed all of his addition math fact fluency quizzes and will begin with subtraction. He is the first and currently, only, student to reach that goal. Way to go, Zack. 

He is a huge fan of Pokemon and Nintendo games. He is our easily distracted guy that keeps us constantly creative on how to help him hurry! He is super independent and we sometimes have to encourage him to ask mom and dad for help! He loves his siblings and looks up to Levi so much. The other day Dan had his little Sunday interview with Dan. After talking about some things that were hard for him, Dan switched and asked Zack what really made him happy. He started to tear up a little and answered, "Family." It was a sweet experience with our Zack. It is amazing to see the spirit working with your kids and there definitely has been some moments with my kids where it was there and so strong. He is almost 7 and is such a sweet boy. We love our hardworking, sponge of a learner (I can swear he has a photographic memory), determined, shy, active, biggest hugs, huge expressions, loving, and I could go on and on. 

Makayla

Our Miss Makayla. It is hard to believe this girl is closing in on 4! She adds a sweet tenderness to our family. She is mommy's little sidekick. She helps me all day long and rarely likes to play alone. She is very social and walks straight up to other girls and calls them her friends. She is a good big sister. She is so patient with Nate, since almost 2 year old brothers are hard to play with! She constantly tells me she loves me during the day. She is our hardest at night, especially with a nap. She hates having her own room, since Levi and Zack shares. She always wants someone to sleep in her room. She loves to color. She will ask for "really long hugs." She can be quite the little tease to her older brothers when they are ignoring her. She absolutely loves tumbling. She is so cute practicing her cartwheels and backbends. She loves dolls and is caught playing with her dollhouse and dolls frequently. She loves her daddy, and even this morning cried and cried when he left for work. She is feisty and determined. I had another mom tell me the other day, "You can tell she has big brothers!" She was definitely holding her own! She has been sick, but will start Sunbeams this week. She wants to stay in moms class (nursery), but I know she will absolutely love sharing and music time. She has found a best friend in Millie. It is funny to see how excited Millie gets to see her in the mornings. Makayla gets the best hugs, yes hugs, from Millie. They are so cute together, it makes the doggy stink so worth it! We tease that since she didn't get her sister, we got her a girl dog. She loves to play boardgames like Pass the Pig and Candyland. She also has an amazing memory when it comes to music. She sings and dances her heart out when music comes on. I love my sidekick and love the stories she tells me at nighttime. We are looking into what type of Preschool to do next year with her and it makes my heart hurt. I don't want her to leave during the day! She still seems so tiny and she is my right hand gal. We are so grateful for this little lady and all she adds to our family. She is truly the sweetest thing and cries whenever she hurts someone or gets in trouble. Sensitive to the core. We just love her so much!!!!

Nathan

With the start of the new year, and going through some old photos. I realized there were several months this past year that I did not use my good camera...at all. It has been awhile since I have done updates on the kiddos too. So, we will start with the runt. Well, the runt for a few more weeks! 

Nate has grown so much in the last few months. He talks a ton now and is starting to create sentences. He has the worlds biggest smiles and whenever you walk in the door he runs up to you and yells your name over and over making you feel like a million bucks. He loves to dance and is constantly grabbing my hand and pulling me over to turn on the music, "Dance dance dance!!!!" He also grabs my hand all day long saying, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" He then proceeds to pull me to the fridge to get him a gogurt. His all time favorite food at the moment. He call Makayla "Tay-ya" and Millie "Wall-e." When you put him to bed for naps and bed we sing him a song, and he will say, "Na-nigh, lub you" followed by blowing a kiss, "muah!" He is already extremely coordinated at dribbling a soccer ball and tries to shoot hoops in the basement with his brothers. He wrestles with the kids. He loves to try and ride Millie and give her big hugs. Thank heavens she is patient with this little boy! He loves to run around the house and is still a big mess maker. He climbs on top of the kitchen table, bathroom sinks, trash cans, computer desk, and just about everything. He loves to sing songs and suprisingly memorizes them pretty well. He sings, "Let it go" from Frozen at the top of his lungs! He loves his "banky" (blanket) and his "mok"(milk). He gives the best snuggles and he absolutely adores his daddy. He gets sooooo excited every time he sees him.  He is starting to talk about poo and will ask to get on the potty after Makayla goes. He is nowhere near ready and never actually goes, but we humor him. I am crossing my fingers that he will last longer than all of our kids and make is past 2 in his crib!  He is obsessed with cars and goes down in the basement and brings up at least 15 a day, that mom has to collect and bring back down so I stop stepping on them! He likes to play the "Pano" (piano), and dies to ride his bike and be outside. We will all be happier when it warms up. He loves the snow, mom just doesn't like dressing EVERYBODY to go outside! We love our little guy and I can't believe he will be 2 in less than 2 months!!!!

 "Nooooooooo" face.

Christmastime Is Here!!!

It started to snow, so we decided to get festive and make some snowflakes. It really is beginning to look like Christmas around here!!!!! We set up our Christmas trees at the beginning of December. One upstairs and one down this year. Give us more room for Christmas morning!

Thanksgiving Break 2016

We had a good Thanksgiving Break. I know some of our activities got clumped in to other posts, but here are a few more! We headed to the Burkholder side for the first half of Thanksgiving and then down to the Hegerhorst side for desert. It was a fun family filled day. I took no pictures, except for my kids in turkey hats! We attended Jett's baby blessing that next day and then headed on home. 

Levi has had a lot of fun at indoor this winter.

 Balloon hats at grandmas!

 The boys went to a Jazz game the Friday after Thanksgiving and we hit up a few stores!

 Baby Jett's blessing day

Happy New Years!

We headed down on New Years Eve for another family party. We had some fun playing games at the church, toasting at Grandma and Grandpa's, a countdown, poppers, and after kids went to bed we played some games!