Kendra

Kendra's Favorites as a 6 yr old!

Food- Mac and Cheese

Color- All the colors in the whole wide world

Toy- American Girl Doll, Barbie house, all the toys I have

Sport- Soccer with Jaxson cause I've never played real soccer

Fruitland-Being outside riding my bike don't like goat heads (really pokey weeds)

If I could do anything I would go on another cruise!

As Kendra's birthday came near, she made sure to tell me all of the plans for her birthday.  I explained to her that this year would be a simple birthday because last year she had a friends party.  She told me that she either wanted a surprise party or a princess party and at the store when she saw something that looked like would be fun for a birthday party she would suggest that we buy it.  I would again remind her that it would be a simple year (we don't know enough people to even have a party yet).  She would say, oh, I know mom.

A week before her birthday I decided that we would have a surprise party for her with all of her aunts, uncles and cousins at Erin's house!   I called ahead to let everyone at Erin's that we were coming and then Tanner, Kara and I ran in ahead of her and everyone yelled SURPRISE! She was surprised (almost startled)!  When they started singing "Happy Birthday" she figured out that it was her b-day party!  The following pictures are of everyone hiding!

Kendra was thrilled to have a store bought cake, because I usually make her a cake, so it was extra special for her.

I'm not quite sure why she had a hard time blowing out her candles, good thing she had help from her cousins!

Kendra had a really great day with everyone and loved the birthday wishes from other family and friends as well!  She is a loved girl!

On her actual birthday we made her eggs for breakfast, upon her request.  She didn't have to do any chores and she chose to go to Carl's Jr. for lunch!

Fruitland

When we decided to move to Fruitland, we knew we needed to look for a house.  We thought that we would rent for a few months before we committed to anything, but found out that rentals are difficult to come by.  We then decided that we would buy a house that would be a future rental because the market for rentals is so good here (not to mention it has been Barry's dream for years, it's one of the main reasons he wanted to become a doctor, so he could make investments and dabble in different business ideas).  We looked on the internet nonstop and there just weren't many houses for sale, when this one came on the market we decided to jump on it.  It's a 3 bedroom 2 1/2 bathroom home, which is smaller than we had in Wisconsin, but it is working for us...for now.  Lucky for us the neighborhood is great, lots of kids, a neighborhood pool, close to the park and walking distance to church!  The kids also get to ride the school bus, the school is only about two miles down the road.  We also love the weather!  While it's been snowing in Wisconsin, it is spring here!  I have already played tennis and the kids have been loving being outside so much!Barry (and maybe Kara) couldn't wait to replace the gerbils that we had to get rid of before the move, we just couldn't figure out how to keep them and transport them across the country while we were on vacation.  Before moving, Barry posted a craigslist ad and a gerbil lady gladly came and picked the gerbils up and literally put them in her purse and took them home, she told me that she takes her gerbils everywhere with her, so I guess they are lucky little gerbils.

Barry told me that he was going to buy two gerbils, but when he got home he had three.  The kids named them Penny, Brielle according to Kendra (or Ninja according to Tanner), and Flash.  After a couple of days Barry decided that the other gerbils were picking on poor Flash, so he decided to take her back.  We put her in a travel cage and tried to doorbell ditch her at my sisters house, but she was wise enough to wait for us to come back.  Barry then took Flash back to the pet store, and bought the remaining gerbils some special dust to try to potty train the remaining gerbils.  

I love that he and Kara love them, I still have not touched them nor do I intend to!

Walking to church!  

Barry started his job March 1st!  He had a week of training and has had a few days of clinic so far.  He likes the four day work week, so much better than residency!  His only complaint has been the electronic medical records program this hospital uses, he would much rather be in EPIC!

 Jaxson has been so helpful removing the toilet paper rolls.  I think he has at least removed 8 rolls and then shot them in the toilet shaped basket (he loves basketball).  Our toilet paper holders do not lock the toilet paper roll in place, so I have to watch Jax like a hawk to try to break him of this habit.

 One of the great things about being in Idaho is that we are close to family.  We have been able to be at some family events, that we otherwise would not have been able to attend.  We also got to be at a baptism and a blessing, which I have pictures, but couldn't find them.
My sister Lisa's little newborn was hospitalized with RSV for a few days and while I wasn't happy for that, I was glad to be able to visit her in the hospital.  It brought back memories from when Kendra had RSV, that was stressful.

We got to visit Idaho Falls so Barry could go fishing with his brother Brett, which he badly missed while we were away.  Tanner enjoyed shooting his bb gun at Grandma and Grandpa Acor's house, he even claims to have hit a bird, but it flew away unharmed.  We also enjoyed seeing a lot of Barry's family and we went to Leo's Pizza for the kids.

This is a sweet little note from Kendra to Jaxson.  She is really picking up on her reading and writing, so we all get notes now and then from her!

Mexico

In Cozumel we took a bus to a resort at the beach, which also had a small water park.

Barry was following Jaxson around on the little slides and he cut his toe on the edge of a slide, it wouldn't stop bleeding.  I went to get him a bandaid, but the guy I found didn't speak good English so I had to play a little charades and then he said, "I'll go get a bandaid."  He came back and said the parametric would be coming.  Then two paramedics came to bandage his toe.  He was not thrilled to see them coming, and thought that I had played a joke on him.

As you can see they took good care of Barry!

They all loved lounging in hammocks with a cold drink!

Kara and Kendra go bracelets of their name made for them.

Tanner chose a Miami Heat bracelet.

It's All About Meal Time!

For dinner we rotated around to three different restaurants, but kept the same serving staff.  All the food was wonderful and there was lots of it.  Sometime dinner got a little long for Jax as you will see in the pictures below.  

 

 Us waiting for the doors to open for dinner!

 We loved that our waiter cut our kids food. Who would have thought that was such a perk!

 "Mickey Mouse" ears for Kara, made by our waiter.

Our first night we noticed how messy Jax was on the white table cloth and felt bad that he made such a mess, but looking at other tables we saw he was not the only one making messes!

This is part of the reason we need to wait a few years to book another one!

 The waiter always made Mickey Mouse ketchup, one night Tanner asked for Donald Duck ketchup, the waiter said he only did Mickey!