Kid Report!

Life in the Sagen household is life in the high stress zone lately. We've (and that means James) been working very hard at trying to find a new job and very likely relocating. This has meant lots of phone calls and traveling and preparing for interviews and late nights raking through the job boards on the internet. And lots of stress dealing with a bad existing job environment. But kids keep growing and learning in spite of it all, so I'm going to try to document what they're up to so that it doesn't get buried in my memory under "I hope we never go though that again!"

Kelsie:
My Kelsie is now in the first grade! Moving to an all day schedule was a breeze for her. She was so excited to get back to school! About a week before school started her new teacher sent out a letter with a supply list and an outline of her discipline policy. Kelsie started having nightmares that night about having to draw "opps" cards. She told me to make sure I told Mrs. Smith that she ''was the bestest behaved kid in my whole class last year!" Of course there haven't been any problems. In fact it sounds like she's quite the teacher's helper. A few weeks ago, she was teaching the whole class "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and "Once There Was a Snowman". I haven't heard much about 'Kelsie's Singing Time' since she told me she taught the class "I am Like a Star". The "I know Heavenly Father loves me" line must have made the teacher a little nervous! Also, since she now has a pair of lace up shoes, she's been tying shoes for everyone in the class! Kelsie got 100% on her first spelling test, and is reading very well!

We signed Kelsie up for soccer, and James has volunteered to be her coach! They call themselves the Eagles (despite a fair sized contingent who were hoping for the Unicorns) and they are quite the high energy bunch! James has a hard time getting them to stop pretending to be different animals for long enough to learn how to play soccer!
I was excited for Kelsie to start soccer so that she could learn new skills develop her talents, but for some reason I totally overlooked how important it would be for her socially. She's made a lot of new friends who go to her school, but are in different classrooms. Even Griffin has been making new friends with the younger siblings of Kelsie's teammates. Besides one game she had which was in temperatures so cold I didn't dare go with the baby, it's been a lot of fun!

We got Kelsie's ears pierced this summer and it has been a bit of a nightmare! She winces and squeals and clings to me every time I have to clean them or change them! Lauren certainly will not be getting hers done before she's ten!

A popular phrase with Kelsie lately is "What would happen if..." What would happen if kids were in charge? What would happen if babies were grown ups? What would happen if we lived next door to Nanny's house? What would happen if candy was regular food?

She's a smart little chicken and a big helper and we're sure glad to have her around!

Griffin:
My sweet Griffin boy turned five years old this month! And all of the sudden it's like he's ready to be in school! His birthday was just a little too late to get him in this year, and I didn't really mind because I thought the extra time would be good for him, but now I'm worried that he'll be bored by the time he finally gets to school. He's writing words that I spell out for him and he's able to identify what letters words begin with. He's not perfect at these things, but he's still got a whole year to work on it!

(Griffin's Self Portrait)

I'm still glad that he's at home with me though because, for one, it will help him to have the extra year for his speech to improve further (the biggest thing that we're working on now are 's' sounds) and for another thing, we're having a lot of fun together. We've made playdough, we've played Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, we've played school (Lauren was the teacher which was great until the teacher started grabbing papers away from the students and hitting them), he's been making houses and forts, and we play lots of legos and transformers.

Griffin is lego maniac! The things he builds are unbelievable. There are always lots of moving parts and different ways for them to transform. And everything is always perfectly symmetrical. When he asks me to build with him he always ends up taking my projects out of my hands to fix them or make them better. He can spent hours raking through his lego box creating spaceship after transformer after speed boat. We put the lego box up on his bunk bed and he creates up there so that Lauren can't disturb him. She mostly likes to sit in the lego box and sift through the legos with her toes.

Griffin is in a play group with three of his little friends that meets once a week for an hour and a half. The moms take turns hosting the play group and sometimes the host will do an activity or lesson, and sometimes we just let them play, but it lets us have some kid free time, and it's been a lot of fun for the kids. They've done tons of neat projects like potato bugs (made out of potatoes!) and monsters and fingerpainting and gone on adventures hunting for bears and worms!

I our ward the primary program is next week and along with their speaking parts Kelsie ad Grifin will be singing 'Called to Serve' in a small group. Last year Kelsie sang a duet with another little girl, so she ready to sing loud and strong, but I knew it would be a little more of a stretch for Griffin! We've been singing the song as a family everynight before prayers for the last few weeks and he's got the words down really well now. We're still working on the loud and strong part! I'm so proud of him for trying this and I can't wait to see them sing it in the program! Although, come to think of it, I'll only get to watch the backs of their heads because I'll be sitting up in the chior seats with my primary class. :( Maybe I can get James to sit in the back row with a video camera?

Lauren:
Oh Lauren, Lauren, Lauren! She is such a handful it's hard for me to put it into words! On the other hand she's one of the happiest babies I've ever seen! Her absolute favorite thing in the world is to play in the toilet. We do our best to drill it into the kids' heads that they have to keep the bathroom door shut tight, but everyonce in a while they forget, and Lauren sees it every time! It's absolutely horrifying!

In other horrifying news, she's aparently decided that she enjoys pooping in the bathtub! If I don't pull her out as soon as I get her scrubbed... let's just say we're in trouble. My bathtub has never been so clean for all the bleach I'm going through!

She loves climbing in to the dryer, or leaving presents for me in there like apple cores. She loves trying to stand on the door of the dishwasher and looking for knives that she can pull out. Table dancing is one of her favorite activities, and when all the chairs are pushed in so she can't climb up, the next best thing is to pull everything off the table that her stretchy little arms can reach! This has included many soda bottles (two litter and otherwise) mashed potatoes, cereal bowls with milk left in the bottom, and many other assorted drinks. I really, really wish we didn't have carpet under our dining table.

On the up side, she's sleeping really, really well. We've moved all the kids into one room and there haven't been any problems with putting them all to sleep together. She's still taking two naps, at ten and three, and she almost never fights nap time. At night she will still sometimes wake up, but I just give her a little bit of a bottle, and she's right back to sleep! It's wonderful!

A week or so ago she started giving kisses, and it's absolutely the sweetest thing in the whole world! And she thinks it's so funny! Despite all her crazyness she really is super sweet and cuddly, and will just snuggle and give hugs and kisses all the time! When she's in the mood, she'll actually sit still better than any of my other kids would.

For better or worse, last week I noticed that she was suddenly paying attention to the T.V. when the kids were watching a show.

And even though the weather has cooled down quite a bit, Lauren still loves being outside. Last week she brought me her coat and brought me my sweater and whined and whined till I took her out! It was so funny! She also really loves going to stores. She is so good in a shopping cart! It's really nice that she is because our shopping days in Missoula can be so exhausting!

She really isn't saying any words yet. Just MaMa and DaDa. She might have said ByeBye once. She knows a little bit of sign language, but I'm afraid she might have a little of Griffin's stubborn streak when it comes to performing in the language dept. We'll have to give her more time to know for sure though. She's just 14 months after all.

She also has tons of teeth! She has her back molars, top and bottom, and four each, top and bottom, in the front.

Lauren just loves drawing, which has unfortunatly manifested itself on our walls and on her clothes, and she loves accessories! Shoes, hats, and especialy necklaces make her so happy!

She absolutely loves music and dancing and any toys that have buttons to push and music are her absolute favorite! Well, right next to baby dolls! And Griffin's legos, as I mentioned earlier!


So that's what the kids are up to! They've all been healthy and happy concidering the stressed out parents that they've had to deal with this summer! They remind us of what's really important, and keep us from fom getting to caught up in ourselves and our 'big' problems. They're keepers!