Documenting life...: Jaren is 9

What do you want for your birthday? "A leatherman and football gloves"

What do you want to be when you grow up? "A football player"

(click on the images to see them larger)

What are you excited about doing while you're 9? "I don't know, because we pretty much do the same thing every year".

What's your favorite thing to do? "play football

What are you good at? "piano, football on the xbox, football are you sensing a theme??

What are you doing for your birthday? "going to Mayan Adventure"

What's your favorite subject? "math, I love math"

What is one thing you want the world to know about you? "That I'm weird"

What girl do you like? "I knew you were going to ask that!!! NONE!!"

Anything else you want to say? "no."

Do you love me? "ya" (laughing)

He is an absolute joy to have in our home. From the day he was born I knew his spirit was special. He's sensitive to others, obedient, quiet, funny, a know it all, and a protector. I heart him. Happy ninth jay bay.

Out of the mouths of babes

5/11 Tae: "My dad is bigger than my mom and my mom is mini-er than my dad"
5/11 Tae: "Don't coffee me!!!" she and paige seem to think the word for copy is actually coffee.
05/11 Tae: After going in the front yard after me telling her not to.. " oh mom, I accidentally thought the front was the back"
03/09: Maddie: " Why do we have to pay taxes? Why do they have to have laws...like pay your taxes? Or don't stand on swivel chairs?" Ha ha!!
12/08: Tanner: "mom, don't pick your nose and throw it on the ground or you will slip on it like a banana peel. So you have to put it on a picture, or a high shelf"
Tae 3/09: Today she was looking for little scab on her hand and noticed it was gone. So she said "Mom, my owie went home!"
2/09 Maddie: Kimi is eating a burger, Mad hates red meat. "Mmmm, that looks good" Me: "But you don't even like hamburgers!" Maddie: "But if it were the only food left on earth, I'd pound it."
12/08 Tanner: "Mom, when can we get out our bean stocks?" I realized he was talking about Christmas Stockings. :)
11/08 I'm in the bathroom, alone. But never really alone. Maddie comes to the door and says "mom what was your best moment?" Uh, can we talk about this later?
11/08 Tanner: "Mom, is my bones warm or hot?" later that day..."I wish our house was made of nachos." Ya, me too.
10/08 Me" Well Maddie when I was little I only got a quarter or 50 cents for a tooth" Maddie" Ya, well that was in the OLDEN DAYS mom! The tooth fairy hardly had any money then."
9/08 Tan:" Mom, when you have the new baby, will we sell Taelyn?"
01/08 Maddie: "Guess what Mom, when I lose my front tooth the tooth fairy brings me $20" What?? Who said that? "A girl in my class! I'm so excited to get my very own $20!"
10/07 Madeline: "Mom I remember what it was like to live with Jesus before I was born" Oh really? "Ya, it looked just like it does here, but it was on clouds."
09/07 Tanner: "Mom sometimes your mean to me, but Sister Castleberry (nursery teacher) is always nice to me...like this many times ( he holds up his little 5 fingers right in my face)" How cute is he??
Just the other day Madeline came to me after practicing some intricate dance moves with Jaren and said "Mom, I just wish I could marry Jaren because he dances with me, he does whatever I say, and he's such a gooood guy. Why can't I marry my brother? " I then explained just why we don't marry our siblings. Hopefully she'll have no problem finding a guy just like Jaren in 20 years.
"Shake your bootie, shake your bootie..." This goes along with a mooning of sorts by the 3 yr. old Tanner
“Do you wish you were Dad so you wouldn’t have to change Taelyn’s diaper or do all the work, and you could be at church on time?” -Maddie
"I'm the last number strong" -Jaren

Deep Thoughts...

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.

If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward.

I bet one legend that keeps recurring throughout history, in every culture, is the story of Popeye.

When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.

We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.

Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.