Lasts

Whenever you celebrate "firsts" sooner or later you have to face the "lasts".  Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a reality check.  Our baby girl just turned 8.  She is our last to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Just like she was my last to have a first tooth fall out, my last to start kindergarten, now she is my last to be baptized.  Reality has started to hit me... I'm not getting any younger... my kids are going to grow up and move away sooner than I want.  It's a bitter sweet situation.  I loved having my babies, and yes even the terrific two's.  But, I also love watching my girls grow up into the beautiful young women that they are becoming. 

 

 

FHE last week was spent up on the mountain with the main goal to get pictures of Miki in her baptism dress to get her announcements ready.  I had so much fun taking these pictures.  She is so full of life, and so excited to be baptized. 

 

 

 

I'm so proud of her and her desire and excitement to be baptized.  I'm also happy that she has two older sisters who set such a great example for her to look up to.  I hope she knows how priceless that is.

 

 

Being the archery deer hunt and all Kay took along his bow "just in case".  As luck would have it we spotted this two point on our way home.  And as even greater luck  skill would have it Kay hit the deer.  This is one of those happy "lasts"... the last deer tag in the Walker household to be filled this year.

 

Strangeness

When our kittens were born there was a runt.  Maybe it's because she's the runt of our family, but Mackayla seriously bonded with this kitty.  She gave him the fitting name of "Tiny".  When she's holding him, if you take him away, he will meow until you give him back to Miki.  She carried him around like he was a little baby, which explains why he sleeps like he does.

 

Tiny asleep on Miki's lap

 Tiny and Manny (Tiny's brother) aren't allowed  in the house, but somehow they keep making it in.  Tiny likes to crawl into the smallest spaces.  It's a good thing his tail was hanging out enough that we could see him.  Jill thought he was pretty funny.

 

 

He's strange I tell ya.

 

Firsts

We've had an exciting week at our house full of "firsts".  This week all the girls had their first day back to school.  I didn't get any pictures of Sam before school because my eyes are barely open when we leave.  She leaves the house at 5:30 to make it to drill practice, and by the time drill is over she has about 20 minutes to get ready for school.  Then right after school she has tennis.  So, getting a picture of her in her "first day outfit" didn't happen.  When I asked her what her favorite part of the day was she said it was when "Coach Lee told his story about when the classroom flooded with pee". 

Jill loved her first day of school.  Her favorite part was "all of it".  She loved every bit of school.

Miki's favorite part of school was "recess and reviewing subtraction".

Both girls were sad to leave their kittens behind for the day.  I think the kittens missed them too.

The second first for the week was the first home football game, which means the first drill performance of the season.

Sam finished her week well with the opening of the deer hunt.  On the first morning of the hunt Sam shot her first deer.  She text me this picture from the mountain.

Her sisters aren't too sure about it all.

Kay and Sam

Can't Forget the Friends

Turning the big 08 Miki had a birthday party with her friends this year (her friend list included her sisters and Skylor).  She and her friends are crafty little souls, and that is what she wanted to do at her party, craft things.  They all seemed to have fun making lip gloss, stringing a candy necklace, and designing their own little paper purses.

crafty girls making their purses

Sam, Halli, Miki, and Skylor

Livy, Aysia, Miki, Halli, and Elli

 Her friends know her very well.  She loves candy!

Maggie made us laugh when she hopped on Sam's lap and sat with her in the chair.

Instead of cake we had cookie bowls with ice cream inside.

Maggie, Miki, Aysia, Maycee, Halli, Elli, Amanda, and Livy

One Year Older and Wiser Too...

....Happy Birthday, to you!  Mik was so excited for her birthday.  She could hardly wait to see what she got.  She was very excited to see the ladybug night light thing that projects the constellations onto her ceiling at night.  (Marlee was just as anxious to see what was in the present)

As she opened the next present her excitement grew more and more as she realized she was getting the dolphin necklace that she'd been wanting for awhile.

Love to see that smile!  I promise there really is a necklace in that box, we just can't see it in the picture.

Jill knew just the perfect gift as well.  Miki was happy to see new dollhouse people for her dollhouse, something she's been wanting for quite awhile.

Sam was at a tennis camp the day of Miki's birthday, so we waited to have Miki's cake and birthday dinner until the next day when Sam could be there.  Miki requested a "pink" cake and clouds for her dinner.  Love this little girl so much!  So happy to have her in my life!

Blowing out the candles...

 ...and taking a second shot at it

And, they're out!  Happy Birthday sweet baby girl!  Love You!!

Almost there....

I'm almost there...  I'm almost finally caught up.  If you haven't already guessed, Jill is a bird lover.  You can imagine her excitement when she discovered that pigeons can get into our chicken coop, but they can't get out.  She took on the responsibility of helping them out everyday, but before setting it free she liked to bring them in to show us all just how "beautiful" the are.  I guess if you can get past the red eyes they are pretty birds.

Switching gears, Miki finished up her summer with one more level in swimming lessons.  For some reason she is really scared to go down the slides.  She told me to make sure I brought my camera on her last day of lessons, because she was going to go down a slide.  It took some courage building.  Here she is looking down into the pool, a distance that seems far when you're at the top of the slide.

Here she sits contemplating, still courage building...

...here she goes!

She made it all the way down to the safety of her swimming teacher.

Yay for another summer of swimming lessons!  She learned so much this year.  I'm so proud of all three girls.  They've all advanced in their swimming this year, and over come some of their fears when it comes to water.

This and That

This is going to be one of those posts.  The kind with never ending pictures and not a whole lot of story behind them with lots of randomness.  But, in the interest of our blog book, aka the "family journal" and catching up in one quick post, here it goes:

It doesn't seem to matter when Grace is here the carnival comes to town.  She's been here in the Spring, and the carnival comes.  Summer and the carnival comes.  We are always happy regardless of when it comes because it gives the kids something to do.

Grace and Miki

Jill and Grace on the "swingy ride"

Miki testing her muscle

Grace showing her strength

 All three girls with their prizes

After the carnival we headed to Patio for a large ice cream cone.

Sweet little Georgia in her bouncy thing

July has been a pretty wet month.  Grace and Miki love playing in the rain, and I looked out to see what they were up to.  They had our gardening tote filling it up with rain water so that they could dump the rain on each other.

They took turns standing above the other and dumping the water.

Jill caught on to what they were doing and had to join the fun.

Grace and Miki

 The girls spent a lot of time at the pool this summer, so they were always putting on sunscreen.  They developed a more efficient way of putting it on, very smart girls.

We have a bird watcher in our house.  She loves them.  So, when our cat had one her mouth and went under the deck and down a window well to get away our bird watcher wasn't having any of it.  She went down to the library, opened the window, and in came our cat.  With a cup of water the bird was set free.  Listening to it all from upstairs it sounded like a war zone!  With mission accomplished, the pretty yellow bird was set free.

July was the month for giving our kittens away.  The girls were of course sad about it, even though we let them keep two.  Before giving them up they wanted their pictures taken with them.

Sam was fond of these two

Mik and Jill loved them all

 When summer comes the girls spend a lot of evenings on the tramp.

Tennis tournaments are always a sign of summer coming to an end.  Miki and Jill both played this summer, Sam plays in high school.  It's always very hot making an umbrella and water a must.

Sam and Miki in the shade of our umbrella

waiting for Miki's match

Miki



 Miki won her first match

Jill getting ready for her match.  Such a concentrated look on her face.

Jill

Both girls did very well in their matches and had a lot of fun during the summer.  It was Miki's first year, and Jill's third year.  Now we're getting ready for school to start.