Young Party of Four

Today Kenzie is EIGHT! It's so crazy. We have an 8 year old. Only two years away from double digits. A third grader. A girl that is quickly becoming a preteen. There is only a year left (technically) until that is officially the stage we are in. Though I have to say... she acts more and more like an actual preteen every day of her life. She's too much. We often joke that she is 8 going on 28, but in all honesty, she is an old soul and often acts much older than her years. At 8-years-old, Kenzie... - Is still the friendliest kid I know. She loves with her whole heart. She hates to hurt anyone's feelings. The downside is that her feelings get hit hard when someone isn't nice to her. We have had to deal with that on occasion, especially in the last year when we had a run in with a girl that Kenzie thought was her friend but she ended up being not really nice to Kenzie in the long run. We learned as parents that the "mean girl" stage starts early. Kenzie...

Today is Kenzie's half birthday! We kind of have a thing about half birthdays around here. We don't do anything major, but we like to mark their appearance because it is fun for the kids to know that they are officially halfway to their next birthday. It's a bit bittersweet for me though. As is the usual, here is a brief update on all things Kenzie. - She is still really tall. She is somewhere around 53.5 inches or so. I honestly don't know for sure. They are so hard to measure on my own. It's about 2.5 inches taller than 6 months ago so I think that could be about right. Either way, most of her height remains in her legs. - She is so amazing at math. Seriously, this kid got all her Daddy's math brains. Thankfully. Her teacher made the comment at parent teacher conference that she was so excited to see her best math student this year is a girl. She just figures out math problems super easily. She also loves it. She asks us to play math games with her o...

It's official! We have a 7-year-old! Kenzie turns seven today and it is crazy to think that this amazing girly has been earthside with our family for seven whole years now. As I always say... I still remember the moment I held her for the first time. Her and her crazy breech legs that popped up the moment you pushed them down. Still makes me giggle thinking about it. In lieu of the typical birthday letter that I have written to the kiddos in the past... this year we are doing 7 things about Kenzie!! =) Without further ado... Kenzie in a (sort of) nutshell. 1. Kenzie still has the world's greatest outlook on life. Her positive nature is contagious. She loves everything about life and always has an encouraging word when we need it. If you are feeling down, hang out with Kenzie. Life is (almost always) sunshine and rainbows. That doesn't mean she doesn't have her moments and lately we are seeing flashes of the pre-teen/teenager she is likely to become with random...

It's the moment we have anxiously waited for since we found out Will was going to join our family. A kiddo that may want to play baseball. Now, there is no saying that Kenzie couldn't, of course... but she has always been more into things like dance and the like so although she has talked about playing softball since Will started t-ball, we know she would rather dance and do Girl Scouts. Also, our rule at this point is two activities that take up time after school for right now. We have to learn how to say no sometimes. All that being said, we finally got to the baseball point in our lives. In Apopka, baseball is sort of king. The team sports Apopka offers are great. We know plenty of people that play a lot of them but there is something about baseball in this area. The Apopka Little League is well known enough that Steven had someone at work mention it when he said something about Will playing t-ball this season. So, that's what we were walking into. Will officially...

Dear Kenzie, I can't believe it! You are six-years-old now! That is crazy. If someone asks you to show you how old you are (which doesn't happen really at 6 but let's pretend for a moment), it would take you two hands. TWO! You continue to grow and grow... and grow. It isn't uncommon for people to still think you are somewhat older than you are. At this point you are 47 inches tall (81st percentile) and you weigh 48.6 pounds (55th percentile in weight for height). You are still tall and thin. Nothing new there. The doc noticed a slight assymetry in your back this year so we are going to be monitoring that. Scoliosis runs in the family so you are at a  higher risk. You may require an x-ray next year. You wear a size 7-8 in most shorts and pants. Every now and then you can fit into a 6 but it's rare nowadays. In shirts you are usually wearing a 7-8 or medium as well. Dresses are more of the same. You wear a 12 to 13  in shoes... but your school shoes that we ju...

In lieu of our normally scheduled Friday Favorites Bucket List Update... today we bring you a Monday Funday version. But I'm still calling it Friday Favorites so I can tag it correctly. =) But enough of that... onto a recap of Week 6 (plus a couple of days) of our Bucket List. We checked a couple more things off the list this week. Friday we packed up and headed off to stay with Nana and Papa (an item on the list). The kids and I left in the afternoon with Jack and Steven came when he got off work. He was working in Cocoa for the day so it made more sense for him to go straight from there rather than home first. Plus, with Jack we were limited on space in my car so we almost needed him to drive his truck just for the added space. The trip up was uneventful except for some heavy patched of rain. Steven got a lot more rain on his trip but both of us made it within about 30 minutes of each other. We all went to dinner at La Hacienda, a super yummy Mexican restaurant in Palatka. Pa...