Life is Crazy with 6

I know I'm terrible about blogging - so for those of you who didn't get a Holiday Letter from us this year - here you go:

December 17, 2011

So, here I am a week a before Christmas, and time is running short while my list seems to keep growing.  Life here in the Richmond house is ever changing, yet still seems to be the same. 

Morgan turned 17 last month, and is a junior at Central Kitsap High. She is extra busy with 4 AP classes – but for the most part she seems to enjoy the challenge. She has been very glad that Dad was a math and physics major in college, as there have been several tutoring sessions – especially in physics, which has been quite challenging for her.  She is in her second year of Sports Med classes, and loves it. She often stays after school to tape athletes before their practice. This fall she could be found on the sidelines of the football field, doing anything from passing out water bottles to donning rubber gloves to treat “blood” injuries.  She is now traveling quite a bit with the girls’ basketball team and actually got to treat her first couple of bloody noses last week (which was exciting – for her). Our mail is also full of college flyers these days, which is a little daunting to mom and dad. She has been doing a lot of research and is looking for a school with a good Sports Med program, although scholarship opportunities will play into her decision too.

Kaylee turned 15 in September, and just finished up driver’s ed. She took it early as we had to fit it in between all her sports and other activities. She played on the Central Kitsap Junior High JV basketball team last winter, and is hoping to make it on the team again next month. Since she is now just over 6’1”, she has a pretty good shot. She just finished her last year of rec soccer, as she wants to join the marching band next year. She is still really enjoying her music – although I was laughing at her because in one 24 hour period she preformed Carol of the Bells on the piccolo, flute and guitar. This summer she also played around with learning the clarinet, and has mentioned that it would be nice to know at least a little piano.  I told her there isn’t enough time in the day for her to learn another instrument.  She is also doing really well in her classes at school – math being her favorite subject and English her least favorite.  The only thing she doesn’t like about school is that she doesn’t have lunch with her best friends.

Lyndsey, now 12, is a 7^th grader and moved up to the Junior High this year. And, although she was a little nervous about it, is enjoying her classes and teachers (except keyboarding – but nobody ever likes that class). She is playing the violin in the orchestra, but she is already talking about dropping that next year so she can return to singing, and join the choir. She just finished up rec soccer as well – her team won the district championship.  She just started her last year of peewee basketball.  She is thinking about trying out for the junior high team next month. It is pretty funny to see her with her teams as she is as tall or taller than most of her coaches. She passed the 6’ mark a couple of months ago and is closing in on Kaylee. Since she is still only 12, and has a couple more years of growing to do, she will have no problem passing Kaylee up. She got her braces off at the beginning of December and is excited to be able to eat popcorn and sticky things again.

Tyler is now 9 and in the 4^th grade. He loves math (he is at the top of his 5^th grade math class) but really, really dislikes writing, especially narratives.  His class will be switching to expository writing soon, and he should enjoy that a little better. He is just such a literal-everything-is-black-and-white kind of kid that he has a hard time making up stories to go with prompts like “You wake up in the morning and you are only 10 inches tall. What happens next?”  In September he earned his Bear badge in Cub Scouts (in our church program, the dens are by age, not grade). He will receive his Religious Knot this week. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was his Bear Den leader, and although I didn’t particularly enjoy working in the Scouting program, I did enjoy spending time with Tyler at our weekly meetings.  He also played soccer this fall, and it was fun to see how much growth and improvement he has had. He is getting fast, and is handling the ball very well. He started basketball a couple of weeks ago and his coach (Dad) says the new found speed is helping on the court and that his dribbling and ball control has improved.

Sierra turned 8 last month, and we are very happy that she decided to be baptized. She is such a sweet, loving girl. She is also doing really well in school, and loves her teacher. She is really good at being a friend, and I have seen her be extra nice to a couple of “new” girls at school and church – making sure that they are included and have someone to sit with.  Sierra continues to love sports. Her favorite sport is whichever one she happens to be playing at the time – softball, soccer, or basketball.  She just finished soccer, and had an awesome year. This was the first year her team has played with goalies, and she spent a lot of time in the goal. I always get a little nervous when one of my kids is playing goalie – it is so much pressure. But Sierra was a natural. There was one game that I lost count of how many balls she stopped, not letting one past her. Then her coach subbed her out, and let her go play on the field for the last few minutes of the game. She scored twice.  Yeah, she is that kid. I had a dad from the other team stop me as we were leaving. We knew him from Scouts, but he didn’t realize we had a daughter that age. He said the whole team was questioning Sierra’s age because of her size and skill. He said their team was used to scoring several times a game, and couldn’t believe an 8 year-old, first year goalie could make even half of the stops she did. Another game she took a hard ball to the face. When I asked her on the way back to the car if she would want to play goalie again, she looked at me like I was crazy and said “yeah- getting hurt is just part of the game. It is still way fun.” She is just so much fun to watch, and I hope she keeps such a great attitude in sports and life.

That brings us to Mackenzie. She turned 5 this summer and started kindergarten this fall. She is really enjoying being one of the “big” kids – riding the bus to school and having homework. But I think she also still enjoys that she gets to come home for lunch and spend the afternoon with just mom. She is doing really good in school – her teacher telling me at conferences “she has passed all the kindergarten benchmarks, but I think I’ll keep her for the rest of the year anyway.”  I help out in the classroom every Wednesday, having kids read their “take home” book to me. If they can read it fluently, they get a new one. The kids move up through the levels to harder and harder books. Kenzie has made it all the way from “A” to the “G” books, and got to move up to “blue dot” books this past week.  That means she gets to go to the library and pick out an extra book as her “take home” practice reading book. She was pretty excited, and has read the book about 7 times each to Dad and I. She had her first soccer season this fall, and got to have Dad as her coach. She really loved it, although at this age it is a lot of chasing whoever has the ball from one end of the field to another. She also enjoyed swim lessons this summer and is asking when she gets to go back to those. Since they are included with our Y membership, I will probably look at putting her back in them after the first of the year.

So what have I been doing with my “extra” couple of hours with no children? I try to get to the Y to work out, catch up on things around the house, and run errands. Although my “extra” hours seem to disappear a lot when kids stay home sick, have appointments, or I help out at the school. Besides helping in the kindergarten class, I’m also the chairperson over the PTSA ice cream/popcorn sales every Friday during lunch. Although I don’t have to sell every week since I have volunteers I schedule to work, it still seems like I’m at the school a lot. As I mentioned before, up until a couple of weeks ago, I was working as the Bear Den leader, but now I’m working as the 1^st counselor in the primary – helping run and oversee the Sunday School classes and church programs for children from 18 months to 12 years old. So far, I really love it. I also enjoy sewing and reading - when I have time between all the practices, games, performances, lessons, and appointments that go with being mom to these six kids.

Kevin is still working at the Shipyard – and I think for the most part he enjoys it. There have certainly been some frustrations to deal with – but all jobs have those.  He is an amazing help around the house, pitching in a lot (although I sometimes feel like he does the lion’s share and I’m the one pitching into help). He loves to be involved with his kids’ sports whether he is the team coach, a spectator, a referee, or a post game analyst. He played church ball last spring, and although he wasn’t sure he’d go back this year after being told by a ref “I have to make up something to call you on – you are just so tall it isn’t fair for all the normal guys.”  Now that the new season is approaching, he is reconsidering - I think he’d miss it too much. He has also become the main homework helper for the older girls – and I laugh as he and Kaylee have conversations that go something like this:

 “I don’t know how to do this problem.” After reading the problem he says “have you tried-” which she interrupts with “yeah, but-” to which he says “how about-” and she goes “oh, I know, I need to-“ and he says “yeah, that should work” and she says “thanks for the help.”

I’m always thinking “Wait. What help? Neither of you even finished a sentence!”

Although the ages and heights of our kids have changed, and the activities change depending on the time of the year, things are pretty much the same around here – a lot of coordinating to get everyone where they need to be, a lot of helping each other out, lots of laughs and giggles, a few tears, and a lot of just enjoying the time we get to spend together.

We hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season and a blessed New Year.


Love,

And, like normal around here, it is onto the next adventure – the big Wells Family Reunion in Orlando! We fly out on Christmas Eve, and will be spending a little over a week playing with family, visiting parks, and having way too much fun!