I can't forget

Since my blog is a form of journal for our family, please excuse me while I reflect a little bit on the past year...

Our baby is now 16 months old! What happened to the time? She is such a joy to have in our family. It's amazing that in a year, she has learned to sit up, crawl, walk and talk. She is starting to communicate more now and her vocabulary is growing everyday. She says:
Ma Ma, Da Da, Ba Ba, Bye Bye, Uh-oh, Wassat and quite a bit more! She loves her bottle a little too much and I'm afraid that may be a bit of a challenge to break her away from! She also loves animals. She was such a hoot at the zoo yesterday. She kept trying to mimic the animal noises. She likes to try to do a lot of the things the older kids do and she never is able to keep up!

Ren has grown up a lot over the last year. He is now in preschool part time and is gearing up for Kindergarten next year. I was a little worried that he wouldn't be ready, but he is doing really well and I think he will do just fine. He still loves trains and cars, but is starting to enjoy drawing and playing outside more. He hates when you kiss him on the cheek because it's "gross" but is my snuggle buddy and loves to cuddle up with me on the couch. His latest thing is that when I won't do something for him, he'll say, "PLEASE, I'll buy you something." Maybe I should be looking more closely at my parenting approach.

Sarah will be 7 in a couple months and she is changing and growing everyday. She is a happy girl and is very loving, but just don't ask her to do her homework! She HATES doing homework and outside of that challenge, she is a pretty easy kid. She is very athletic and played tee-ball last year and is looking forward to starting softball this year. She loves to sing and is getting quite good at it.

Kennedy doesn't usually stop talking from the time she wakes up in the morning to the time she goes to bed, but we love it! She keeps us on our toes more than any of the other kids. She is always busy doing or wanting to do something. You can almost always find her with a big smile on her face. She loves computer games and would stay on the computer for hours if we'd let her. She has made some new friends over the last year and they are inseparable. She loves activity days at our church and looks forward to those twice a month. She will be 9 in a couple weeks, but you'd swear she was going on 13.

What would we do without Caleb? He is such a great kid and we feel so blessed to have him in our family. I feel bad because a lot of times he gets stuck helping me out when he really would rather go hang out with his friends, but he never complains. He had a great year of baseball last season even though they didn't win a single game. He learned a lot about attitude and being a good sport. He is doing great in Middle School. He has maintained straight 'A's and is a favorite among the teachers and staff. Middle School in general hasn't been the greatest experience for him so-far, but he takes it in stride and does his best. He has a big group of good friends and they stick together and watch each other's backs. We love Caleb and are so proud of him!

I am looking forward to another great year and many more memories in 2008!