Mr & Mrs Kennedy...#5

I will post some more later, I have reception speeches taped and more, but I wanted to get something out there right away for everyone curious:-) It was a wonderful day, and so pretty. Danielle has a wonderful sense of style and everything came together very well. I'll post more still pics of the day later, but here is a video of the main event.

1977 - 2012 = 35 years!

 June 25th, 1977

"Whereever thou go I will go." 

"As for me and my house we will serve the Lord!" 

 Going away outfits!

 

"May you have the patience of Job,
the wisdom of Solomon and the children of Israel"

...said in a speech by the Master of Ceremonies.

2002 = 25 years!

All because two people fell in love!

Brent and Lauryn - June 2002

 2012 = 35 years!
Looking at all the pictures on the header of this blog it sure looks like that joke was a bit of a prophetic statement! ;)

Davis and Janessa
May 2012

Happy Birthday Jillaine!

#9! By now we were receiving a lot of teasing that our family was so big that we could have our own sports team. We decided to go with that theme for the baby's birth announcement. Brent drew the little puppy, Lauryn did the caligraphy on the front, I typed my wording on the computer and printed multiple copies on the printer. A family workbee folded the 8.5x11" papers and then we hand coloured in every announcement.

Jillaine is now the Sweet 16!  Not only sweet 16, but this girl keeps us all laughing with her sense of humour and her randomness. She is very artistic and loves crafts. She is always making something while she watches TV/movie because she gets bored. Her musical talents delight the audiences. Jillaine is very organized and loves to clean, make beauty out of chaos and to boss around her siblings to get things done. Becca Laine, Lainie, Jane, Jillainey Delaney...lots of fun names over the years for this girl! What a blessing this young lady has been to our family!

Happy Belated Birthday Davis!

My how life has changed. When the babies were born I had the birth announcements ready other than the final details of their gender and weight etc. and they were out in the mail within a few days. Now all I have to do is scan and post and I am late. Davis was #5 and he was an absolute delight to us and his 4 siblings.

Davis is a family surname on Dave's side of the family, as well as meaning "son of David". The perfect choice. Allan is in honour of his maternal grandfather, and Matthew was chosen because of its meaning, "gift from God". We truly knew this to be true even though he got into a lot of mischief as a toddler! I do believe he wins the prize on this one. Perhaps it had something to do with him taking steps at 7.5 months and walking everywhere by 8 months old.

Best wishes to you Davis. You continue to bless us with your presence. There is no greater joy than knowing your son is following God with his whole heart.

PS A friend received the birth announcement in the mail and when her husband came home from work she handed it to him, "Look at this!" He saw the seal and went into a full confession, "Oh no, I forgot to pay that ticket!" Head in his hands he continued his lament. She said laughing hysterically, "Read it! Just read it!"

Mattea and Kayla Update (Feb-May)

Okay, I am VERY overdue in posting some pictures of the girls! So here are a bunch taken in the last few months along with some updates on the girls. You can see the time progression as Kayla gradually gets more hair;-)

Sister Shot (Mattea 2.5 and Kayla 10 months)

 Kayla at 11 months about to get on a little battery operated quad that we were given. We got it a few months ago and right away she knew what to do with it and put her little foot on the gas peddle and away she went. Now the gas was no problem....steering is a completely different story!

Kayla at 11 months - enjoying a nice spring day and determined to try eating every leaf she can find! This has recently progressed to her sampling dandelions and also sand from her new sandbox. She held up a sand toy the other day, and I said "don't you dare put that in your mouth!"...while watching me in the eye, she slowly stuck out her tongue and took a great big lick off that sand shovel. She is one of "those" kids!

 Mattea LOVES to be outside! She wants to play soccer badly like her cousins and loves days spent in the backyard. I'm not sure if it has something to do with the summertime freezies and popsicles though:-P

Kayla's 1st birthday - this was how she looked before she dug into her cupcake. She is a Dora fanatic, so although Mattea had a Dora party for her 2nd birthday, we had to do a repeat for little Miss Kayla as she is truly obsessed. Its the only show she will actually sit still to watch!

As a size update...at her 1 year old checkup she was 33 inches tall and weighed 24 lbs and 7 oz. In comparison to Mattea...they are exactly the same height at a year but Mattea was 3 lbs heavier. So Kayla is going to be another tall girl but is a little less chunky than her big sister was.

And this is how she looked post-cupcake! In contrast to Mattea who is an absolute neat freak (will literally get a napkin to clean a drop of milk), Kayla is a super messy eater....we laugh and say that even if you feed her dry toast, she will end up with grease in her hair! We seem to find a trail of crumbs and food wherever she has been and more often than not, a cheerio or raisin finds its way into her diaper! She is now wanting to feed herself with a spoon, and although she does a pretty good job, she still ends up wearing quite a bit of her meal!

Mattea was more excited for the cake than Kayla was! She is super excited for her own upcoming birthday and has a grand party all planned out in her mind anyway, complete with a princess cake, balloons with strings and apparently there will be goodie bags?? What are the kids at daycare teaching her??? Lol...

 Mattea in April - puzzle time in her room before bed. More often than not, these cheesy grins are the types of smiles we get these days! Most of the pics from the last few months are with the girls in pajamas too, as when I'm working the only time to catch some shots are before bed!

Mattea - (pics from end of May) She is still growing like a little weed....fully outgrown all size 4's now and into size 5. I had been hoping to reuse some summer clothes from last year, but the dresses were more like tops, the skirts were micro-minis and the shorts were definitely well...short!

Kayla - (pics from end of May, 14 months old) You can see that her hair is a longer and more full in comparison with some of the earlier pics! We can finally get two little pigtails in there, but it is certainly taking its time to grow! And believe it or not, it goes into ringlet curls when its wet, so she might end up being another little curly head, if only she had more of it!

Her newest achievement is counting....if we say one, she will say "do, dee, door". She is starting to become a little chatterbox, but we still can't decipher most of it! Her list of intelligible words though is definitely growing every day, as is her comprehension of instructions etc. We know she comprehends...but the question is...does she obey??? LOL  

She is definitely our little busy bee...and is full of mischief. This past weekend's new feat was climbing the stairs...the OUTSIDE of the stairs. She would scale the outside of the staircase and after going a few steps up would let go with one hand, and swing one leg while saying "git dow" . Get down is right!!! She may have to learn the consequences of that one the hard way! But she loves to climb and is often found playing at her little table, standing on a chair telling herself to "se dow" (sit down). She also has NO sense of fear and will try to jump off of anything and everything. Yesterday she jumped off our deck steps (2 steps), she landed in somewhat of a heap and simply got up and tried it again! (and again and again and again might I add! lol..)

These next few pics are Mattea's first identifiable works of art (done in April). According to her, the first picture is a smiley face (okay, so its a little more like a grimace...but not bad...lol)

This is a person....I can see it....head...arms....legs.....a single eye...a random line....and not sure if that is an ear...or a beak?? lol

This was most impressive to me...I drew her an A, then erased it...and asked her to draw one on her own and this was her first attempt! She loves to trace and do what she calls "JK work" - I guess that's what the big kids at daycare do. I'm looking forward to being off with her in the summer and seeing what I can teach her!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KADEN!

At this time in our lives, we had built an addition onto our house and were putting the finishing touches done. OK, well maybe not quite just the finishing touches, we didn't have the 2nd bathroom in the house done! ;)  Dave was working on the stair railing at that time. On the day that Kaden was born a new septic tank was being installed.  It was quite fitting to use this theme for the birth announcement of #7, Kaden Steven Gregory, named in honour of his Uncle Greg.

The house was drawn by Dave, written and typed by me and then photocopied on blue paper. Unfortunately the scanning didn't pick up the colour.

On Kaden's first Sunday to church (2 days old), Davis said to a lady , "And this is our new baby, Kaden Steven Kadery!" Kadery and Kade have been our nick names for this cheerful boy. Mischief and pestering his siblings were his trade mark. Oh, and eating lipstick. ;) From birth he could sleep in his cradle just a few feet away from the sound of a saw and hammering. Once he was toddling around, he loved to get a hold of Dave's "hammer" and he knew which one it was if we tried to give him another one to hold.  He is an accomplished musician on the guitar, piano and drums. Percussion is his love. And he builds houses for a living!

I have been delaying this post for a few days to also say how fitting this birth announcement is with the present timing in Kaden's life. He has bought a house! A house that needs TLC, but will be a great opportunity for him as he plans to live there and rent out some rooms. The future will make it a lovely home!

Kaden has brought joy to our lives with his always smiling face, living up to the meaning of his name "friend and companion".

A NASTY Contusion

So as most of you know Jillaine hates sports. Regardless of all her whining and begging,  Mom signed her up for soccer so that she gets some exercise. She and I are on the same team, and Jillaine really plays hard. She was on defense and wasn't letting anyone past her. A boy on the opposing team came up with the ball and she got in front of him and his knee slammed into the side of her knee. As Jillaine says she has a NASTY contusion. In my opinion she watches to much Castle!

She got the  'contusion' on May 2. These are the after shots.

It was a lot less purple and green the day after but it swelled so bad.When she stood up she had a camel knee. She couldn't even put her jeans on because it was so huge.

She was showing them to some of our friends at church they all thought it was AWESOME.

She is really quite proud of it!

The color is much worse in person.

Definition: Contusions occur when a direct blow or repeated blows from a blunt object strike part of the body, crushing underlying muscle fibers and connective tissue without breaking the skin. A contusion can result from falling or jamming the body against a hard surface.

Posted by: Janessa