Nike Belle

I find myself thinking about this funny little kid a lot these days and figured I better write down a few things before they become lost forever...

1. She loves to laugh and she loves to laugh HARD.  She's not a giggler or a chuckler or even a guffawer...she is a laugh until your belly hurts and you can't breath anymore girl.  If something is funny she wants it to last as long as she possibly can.  Watch it again, tell it again, do it again.  Just keep that laughin' going.

2. She is very observant.  She comes home from school and tells me tidbits like, "Christian's Mom died because she took too much medicine and now his Dad has to find a new job.  I hope he's not too sad."  and "Miss Camie's favorite color is orange but she just wears black all of the time."  When it was her birthday she said, "It's weird.  I don't feel 6.  I feel like I'm just still 5."  and the same about Sierra's birthday, "She still just seems like she is 10 to me."

3. She does not like to solve her own problems.  She just wants life to go smooth and easy and when it doesn't she often has a hard time coming up with a solution to it.  She does not like to be assigned creativity.  She hates coming up with sentences and drawings to match because she doubts her ability.  My other kids have thoroughly enjoyed drawing and coloring in kindergarten, but Nikell keeps it as simple as possible with as few colors as possible and as few words as possible.

4. She is becoming an amazing reader.  She still is unsure of just how good she is, but she is starting to really enjoy it and believe that she is a reader.  She reads us a story or two every night before bed and even participates in scripture reading.

5. She doesn't like to let people down or have people mad at her.  She wants everyone to be happy and will try her darndest to make it so.  She is having some great life lessons at school realizing that it's not always her job to keep everyone happy and that unhappy people are less fun to be around.  Her advice to Aiddie the other day was this, "Aiddie you shouldn't let other people decide if you are sad.  If they are mad at you then you can still be happy.  Just walk away and find someone else to play with."

6. I think her favorite thing to say is, "I wish..."  Whenever she really really wants something (which is kind-of often), she doesn't ask or even say that she wants it, she wishes.  "Oh, I wish I could have a cookie right now."  "I wish I could play with someone like Sierra is."  "I wish I had money to buy that."

7.  She loves to sing.  She sings loud and she sings clear.  Although I haven't quite convinced her that I am a Child of God does not contain the words, "An Dearthly Home"  Her favorite song is one she sang in Sacrament meeting, "Jesus Once Was a Little Child."

I love this kid...

Oregon

Mialee and Maggie

Abigail

Nike-Belle and Jakeeeee

Abby and Eli--our reason for going to Oregon

Trouble AKA JJ AKA Jesse

JJ and Kiella

Joe and Abigail

Abby and Shanee

We took a whirlwind trip to Oregon this past weekend.  It was a lot of fun--as usual.  The perfect balance of playing and talking and sitting and sleeping and even exercising!  My nephew, Eli, agreed to come stay with us for a couple of days before we took him home.  I don't think my children will ever get over having him here.  He is seriously the sweetest, nicest kid you will ever meet.  He entertained my children for hours and when I stumbled upon him and Aiddie playing in the sandbox together my heart nearly melted right out of my chest.  It's times like these that I contemplate kidnapping my nephews.  I want my girls to know what it's like to have an older brother and they never will.  But alas, Eli had to go home and get ready to go on his mission...

We went to Oregon to attend Eli taking out his endowments and Abby getting baptized.  Most of Shanee's kids are right between years of mine, but somehow Jake and Nikell ended up in the same grade.  Jake is also rather sweet and he tends to tug at my heartstrings too.  I tried to talk him into coming home with me, but he wouldn't.  And then there's J.J.  I have never had so much fun watching a kid in my life.  Him and Kiella alternated kissing and hugging and then Kiella running for her life.  I watched that kid uproot the same plant 27 times while I was there, successfully drench 5 cousins with the hose, sneak several snacks, and bring all the inside toys outside and all the outside toys inside (usually by method of throwing or driving).  He captured my heart too, in the end.  Who couldn't love those blue eyes? 

One of my favorite pictures is the one of Joe and Abby.  Joe is one of my all-time favorite people ever.  He has an unsquashable optimism that we could all benefit from.  He drives his mother wildly crazy while he happily does whatever task he is assigned while managing to do about 5 other things simultaneously.  He accompanied the cousins on his guitar while they sang at the baptism and I giggled the whole time Shanee was trying to help him learn his part.  I especially love how he is sneaking a peak at me when I took his and Abby's picture--he was supposed to be smiling to someone else's camera.

It was a fast trip and I always come home wishing my big sis' lived so much closer...