Kayla's Garden

The pattern.

Tyler got up early before school one morning and drew a picture. He showed it to me and I thought it looked nice. Then he told me it was a pattern for a quilt. (A few days later he drew another one that was a variation of an American flag, in case the baby was a boy.) Tyler was more excited for the ultrasound then he was for Christmas. He found out Kayla was a girl on Christmas Eve. Christmas day was a Sunday. Monday morning we were at the fabric store looking at material. We made a few changes (like we used fabric that had flowers printed on it, so some of the flowers are different than he originally planned) but the finished product looks pretty close to the pattern. Tyler picked what part of the big flowers we would cut down to make them look different, he helped cut the fabric, and he arranged everything and then pinned it down. His Grandma Gibby sewed the flowers on applique style, bound it and did all the the quilting in the pictures. I've since quilted the stems and leaves. He calls it "Kayla's Garden." Now I just need to convince Tyler to let me enter the quilt in the Cache County Fair.

Kayla's Garden

Flowers, butterflies, and the back.

The lady bug and caterpillar.

The cocoon and sun.

Introducing...

At the doctor's appointment on Monday morning, her due date, the doctor scheduled an induction for Wednesday.

Tuesday night Lee and I finished up the shirt project.

Big brother, big sister, and little sister shirts.

Wednesday morning the kids got ready for school and we got ready to go to the hospital.

Almost ready for school. Ready to meet Kayla.

Jessica and Clay were in town for her brother's mission farewell. We lucked out and got to use them as babysitters for the day! I gave Jess a copy of the kids schedule for the day and left her to get the girls ready for the bus.

We checked in at the hospital at 7:20am.

We were ready to meet Kayla too.

They started the pitocin at 8:30am. Then broke my water about 10:30am. My doctor had a meeting to go to, so she came and checked on me before she headed to her meeting, to see how it was going. The nurse told her not to leave. Kayla was born at 12:08pm.

Kayla Mae Crookston

May 16, 2012

8 pounds 10 ounces

20.5 inches long

Kayla's here!

Mommy and Kayla

Daddy and Kayla

All five kids!

Headed home from the hospital.

4 days old

One week old

Andrew caught her smiling.

Her eyes are open!

It's cute now, but don't make this be a habit.

We love having Kayla as part of our family!!

Scout-O-Rama

Lee camped at the Scout-O-Rama with his Boy Scouts. Lee has stories about the camp out (that include scouts calling home at 11pm to get picked up).  But, this post is about the next day when the rest of the family came over to explore. We started at our Troop's area, but I didn't even take any pictures of their Blacksmithing and Firestarting booths.

Tyler and Andrew stood in line for an hour and a half to do the zip line. Andrew said when he got to the top it was a little bit scary, but he wasn't going to go down the ladder because then the wait would have been for nothing!

Andrew and Tyler with the safety harnesses on.

Climbing up!

Tyler on the zip line.

Andrew on the zip line.

Emma, Lee, and Laura waiting for the boys.

After the long wait, we quickly saw a few of the other stations. The first one we headed to was Archery.

Tyler

Andrew

Emma

Then we went to the BB Guns.

Ready, aim, fire.

Cocking the guns.

The last area I took pictures at was the Wrist Rockets.

Sling shots vs. pop cans.

We saw lots of other booths too. It was a lot of fun.

PRISM Concert

Tyler has learned the violin this year. It is a class he stays after school for twice a week. He had his last concert last week. They combined with the other elementary school orchestra classes, the middle school, and the high school orchestras. They took turns, rotating which class was playing, until the very last song when they all played the same song together. The elementary students had actually left the stage and when it was time for them to play, they walked up the aisles repeating the same few measures of the song until everyone was back in their seats, and then they finished the song. It turned out really cool.

Tyler's favorite song, at the end they all yelled "Hey!"

Tyler is in the middle, very back row. This was probably a third of the students they had on the stage.

A little blurry, but a close up of Tyler.

Spare Me

Last week we went bowling.
I will spare you the details of how bad of a game I had. (Being 38 weeks pregnant throws off ones balance and does not make one graceful by any means.)
I think it might have been Tyler's first time without using the bumpers. He had big improvements to his game as the frames progressed.
Lee broke his ribs a few weeks ago playing Dodge Ball with the Elders Quorum, so he had an interesting game too.
We all had fun!

Hot Enough for Snow!

We had a Saturday a few weeks ago that got pretty hot. Lots of kids were playing outside and Lee decided it was hot enough to make snow cones! Yummy!! I can tell this will happen a lot this summer.

Who said life isn't FAIR?

We had our last Book Fair for the school year in April. Which means I'm officially done being in charge of the Book Fairs. (I'll help next year, but I'll pass on the main responsibility!) We were pretty steady all week, so it seemed to go fast. (The picture was taken while the fair wasn't open.)

The Buy One, Get One Free Book Fair always keeps us busy.

Drop, Cover, and Hold On! We participated in the Great Utah ShakeOut! It was a state-wide earthquake drill. (I got the school to sign up too.) We were at the school during the drill, so we got under the table for one minute, and then evacuated like a fire drill.

Under the table at the Book Fair.

That same week was the Science Fair. Woodruff had 181 participants! That's a lot of projects. Andrew choose to feed 12 different ingredients to some flowers. We took pictures of the plants each day to monitor the progress. The first plant (that was fed vinegar) died overnight, so we had results to document immediately. Along with some other things, he learned that feeding a plant milk makes it stink, that power aid survived for quite awhile, bleach and window cleaner died pretty quickly, and that water is the best for plants.

Andrew showing off his display.

Tyler was assigned a partner in class and worked on his project both at school and after school. Toby and Tyler decided to see what brand of bubble gum could make the biggest bubble. Tyler got the job of measuring Toby's bubbles, since he can't chew gum with his braces. They found out that when Toby has one piece of all the brands of gum in his mouth at the same time, he could make the biggest bubble. (Isn't that funny?)

Toby and Tyler showing off their display.

Next year's PTA Board had a Convention at the end of April too. (Yes, I threw things off by having my due date fall the same time as the Utah PTA Convention in Provo. So we made our own training and retreat.) We had a great turn out and had a lot of fun as well as setting up the calendar for next school year's PTA events. I'm excited to work with my new board next year, I think we will have a great year! We have some fun stuff planned and a lot of willing volunteers! I just need my boys to stop quoting the book Diary of a Wimpy Kid. "My mom is the President of the PTA, and she can ruin your life!"

"The sky is falling down, It hit her on the crown"

Woodruff Elementary's Annual Theatrical Production this year was Chicken Little. The volunteer director and her assistants held eleven practices after school during the month of March. Tyler was cast as a Foxy Loxy. Andrew was a Henny Penny Chick. They loved it and had so much fun! They performed four times last Friday, twice as assemblies for the school and two evening performances. Thanks to everyone that came to watch them.

Look at those cute feet!

Scared Chicks! "The sky is falling down, and we must spread the word around."

Silly pose!

Tricky Foxys! "We're putting our trust in the fox."

Silly pose!

Tyler

Andrew

The cast of 73 students! "This is our barnyard home, We live here as a group."

A photographer from the Herald Journal also took some pictures for Sunday's newspaper!

"The sky is falling down. It hit her on the crown."

"We're Foxys who love to scheme and plot to get our way. No cunning plan is too extreme when we're on the hunt for prey. Foxy Loxy is our name, and huntin' prey is our game. Somewhere near we smell a treat, we are Foxy Loxys, ready to eat."

"We count on one another to save us all from trouble."

"The world's a scary place, if you go it alone."

"Two heads are better than one (than one), and three are better yet (you bet)."

"We'll never be undone, when we work together as one."

"We try to get along, though different as can be."

"It's here we all belong, on that we do agree."