We have a teenager in the house!

Hard to believe, but Annaliese is 13! She is growing into such a lovely young lady. She is an excellent student, works hard, and likes to do things well. Her teachers always have wonderful things to say about her and tell me that 'it's a joy to have her in class.' 

I can count on her to get things done when she's asked (unless she's in the middle of a good book) and we often leave her in charge for short periods of time. 

Annaliese loves basketball and soccer and has improved at both sports over the past year. She spends her free time reading, building legos, and playing the piano. She likes spending time at Auntie Kim's house, where she and Elias like baking and playing soccer together! Most of the time, she's pretty easy-going and generally, a happy person to be around! 

She has two close friends, Esme and Emma, and they have such a great time whenever they are together. 

For her birthday, we had Esme and Emma spend the night. Kyle took them all to The Eureka Room, a local escape room. They made it out with less than a minute to spare!

They filled the rest of their time with hide-and-seek in the dark, Twister, 'keep the balloon off the floor with your head' and other silly games. There was so much laughter!

Favorite Teacher: Auntie Kim or Mr. Kaemingk

Favorite Subject: Math

Sports: Basketball and Soccer

Instruments: Piano and Saxophone

Shoe Size: 8.5 

Favorite Dinner: Hamburgers

Favorite Restaurant: Infusion Cuisine

Favorite Bible Verse: Joshua 1:9

Favorite Color: Turquoise

Favorite Pastime: Reading (fantasy books)

Kyle was teaching all the girls how to use these power tools!

And just for fun, here's a few pictures from 13 years ago...

7th Grade Basketball

 For the first time, we entered the world of school sports. 7th grade basketball meant having practice or a game after school every day for 6 weeks. It was a bit of a whirlwind, but also so fun! She was on the 'C' team, which meant they had a few 7th graders and a few 8th graders. She played almost all of every game, which was really fun to watch!

It's amazing how much better Annaliese got by playing every single day. Her coach was great and she had her first undefeated season in sports! Really, only one game was even close. The rest of the games they won by at least 30 points. 

I got a lot of really terrible pictures and a few okay shots. She's number 20. She improved a lot on her free throws, is really good at defense, and worked a lot on being more aggressive overall. 

 

Time Marches On

 In 5th grade, the kids do something called "The Penny Book Project." They have to reflect back on each year since they were born, writing about events that happened, ways that God has blessed their family, and the activities that they liked. Haleigh has started working on it, and flipping back through this blog has helped us remember all the fun things we've done, the trips we've taken, and the friends we've visited. 

She finished looking through the 2015 book and said, "Okay, I need 3 ways God has blessed our family." I told her that every single post was evidence of how God blesses us, whether it's through a big trip or the small everyday things that we're doing. 

And that is one of the reason's why I keep writing these posts. It's easy to forget the things we do each day, each week, and each month. We are midway through November already. Soccer is over. Annaliese is playing basketball through school. Haleigh is doing gymnastics. Annaliese and Lydia play piano. Annaliese plays the saxophone and Haleigh is learning the trumpet. All these things fill up our days and are both tiring and fun. 

Haleigh made a cell for science class.

Kyle and I went to Semiahmoo for a marriage retreat...we fit in a short run on a drizzly, cloudy morning.

Haleigh made this poster for Geography.

We got a real piano!

Halloween

Trick-or-treating

More trick-or-treating...they are space astronauts. Kyle is the earth and I'm the rest of the galaxy.

Playing kickball with Kim, Thane, Elias, and Malachi at Bender Fields

Lydia's project

Annaliese's Bible Project

I should tell the story of how we came to have a real piano. We've had a full-sized keyboard for years. And every once in awhile, Annaliese's piano teacher will talk to her about the benefits of having a piano instead of a keyboard. 

Several weeks ago, Lynden hosted the Lynden Music Festival. They bring in musicians from all over and have different events. (We went and listened to a man who played the saxophone and the trumpet.) They also give away a piano to someone who needs it to 'further their music education.' Any one who enters must right a brief explanation of why they think they should get the piano. Annaliese entered and she was selected for the piano! The best part is that the piano belonged to one of our relatives and they decided they didn't need it anymore, so they donated it to the Music Festival to give away! All the girls have enjoyed playing it and their piano teacher was very excited. 

Another Season of Fall Soccer

 As every season of soccer comes to an end, I'm always extremely grateful that the weather was 'mostly good.' And this year was no exception. We had a lot of beautiful Saturday mornings at Bender Fields...and one really terrible wet, windy day. 

Kyle coached Lydia's team, which was made up of six very cute, enthusiastic 2nd and 3rd graders. They called themselves the Pink Panthers and were a lot of fun to watch. They all took a turn at being goalie, with some liking it more than others. There were two other teams in their age bracket, so each week they were supposed to play each team once and then have a final game where they mixed up all the girls and scrimmaged against each other. It sounds like a lot, but each game was only 12 minutes long. 

Lydia and her teammate Mina

Stephanie, Karmen, Lydia, Mina, Erlean, Ava

Annaliese's team were the Blue Royals and it was a middle school girls team. They had three teams in their age group so they played both teams each week. The teams were evenly matched so they had to work hard each game! Annaliese scored a few goals and played either forward or midfield. They were hoping to win the championship, but they were down a few girls during the tournament for various reasons, so they didn't pull off the win but they played really well!

There were 11 girls on her team, but they were very rarely all there!

Some day I'll have a camera that takes good action shots. Until then, we're stuck with these! It was a fun season. Both the girls improved and had a good time. Now that the weather is getting colder and wetter, we are all glad soccer season is over and are ready to move to indoor sports!

A few fun activities

 I've sat down several times recently to write an update, but then realized that I haven't taken many pictures. However, this past weekend we did several fun things, and while I didn't take that many photos, at least there is something fun to write about!

On Friday, I went along with Lydia's class (and the rest of the second graders) to Stoney Ridge Farm. I find field trips to be very interesting and learn so many fun facts! This time, we learned about bees and how they pollinate apples. Did you know that an apple blossom needs to be pollinated 20 different times?!? We also learned that honey bees sting as a mechanism of defense, and if you're afraid of bees, you emit an odor that the bee identifies as dangerous. And then it will sting you. Fascinating!

Owen was in my group...he wouldn't look at me for any pictures though.

Learning about how to pick apples

Kennedy, Lydia, Owen, Orion- on the wagon ride around the farm

Lydia and Kennedy

Lydia's Class

Friday evening we went to the library in Everson for 'The Great Tamale Showdown.' The library has been hosting all kinds of events lately, and they are so much fun! For this one, anyone could make tamales and they would be judged and pick the best one. We actually never sampled any of them and never found out the winner...but we did get to eat tamales from the New Mexico Tamale Company and they were delicious. Plus, they had fun activities for the kids and the majority of the people there were speaking Spanish. 

After spending Saturday morning at soccer games, we went downtown to hear some music. The Lynden Music Festival was happening and there was a musician, Folkert-Hans Tolsma, who plays both the trumpet and the saxophone. We thought it would be fun to hear him play! He also sang and accompanied a few of the other musicians who stopped by! My pictures are pretty terrible, but it was so good.

And that wrapped up our fun weekend. The rest of the time we hung out at home, doing yardwork, working on projects around the house, and reading books. It was a great combination of fun and relaxing, as every weekend should be!