He also says that oatmeal tastes better now that he's five, and that he can do dishes faster.  Five is a powerful number!

In addition to his excellent taste, I happen to think he's adorable.  I'm partial.

Rather than try to retro-blog, I'll just try to jump back in day-to-day again.  I will make an exception to leap back in time to give a two special birthday glimpses. Stay tuned....

Today is actually Keegan's 5th birthday, but I can't blog his special day until I catch up on other important news!  Amid the Christmas festivities, Keianna turned six years old! 

Keianna Noelle is our little Christmas song, and an absolute delight.  She selected a birthday meal of homemade meatballs and noodles (a favorite with all the children), acorn squash and apple snack cake. 

Poor Kieran was confused by the proximity to Christmas.  All through Advent we'd talked about celebrating Jesus birthday, so it entirely shook his world when we had candles, cake, and sang happy birthday to Keianna!   All day long at each mention of  'Anna's birthday he'd get a bit agitated and exclaim, "No!  Not 'Appy Birthday Anna!  'Appy Birthday JESUS!"  Then he'd start humming the happy birthday tune, "Da da dada JESUS, dada da da JESUS."

For the full week between Keianna's birthday and Christmas Kieran kept pointing to decorations to confirm, "Dat candle fo (for) Baby Jesus?"  I'll say yes, and he'll say, "'Anna NO 'appy birthday, Jesus 'appy birthday."

Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be

In working or in waiting, another year with Thee.

Another year of progress, another year of praise,

Another year of proving Thy presence all the days.

Another year of mercies, of faithfulness and grace,

Another year of gladness in the shining of Thy face;

Another year of leaning upon Thy loving breast;

Another year of trusting, of quiet, happy rest.

Another year of service, of witness for Thy love,

Another year of training for holier work above.

Another year is dawning, dear Father, let it be

On earth, or else in Heaven, another year for Thee.

Hymn by Fran­ces R. Hav­er­gal, 1874

Tomorrow we begin our 2010 school year! Here's a glimpse at our day on paper--it feels more like a flow than rigid boxes when living it, and while it usually is very close to the paper version, it isn't static.

Kaira playing O Holy Night

Two Duets: Kaira and Kendra

(Just a tip for those of you with slower connections: I like to start a video playing and then walk away from the computer while it loads.  When I return and replay it, the flow is smoother because it has already loaded once.)

I've been so slow with blogging lately!  The holiday season has us busy!  (My photo host has also been giving me fits in uploading pictures.  It is usually fabulous, so I'm spoiled.)

I finally managed to upload pictures, so we'll continue the play-by-play of our Arizona trip!



Over there:


And a then from "over there":

What a beautiful and awe inspiring sight.  Pictures (at least my pictures) can't do the Grand Canyon justice. 

As amazing as the natural wonder is, anywhere we go I enjoy watching people:  the people were fascinating, and in return, I realized that people were watching us. 

So many people wanted to take our pictures!  Oh, yes, a  few kind souls offered to take a picture of our whole family (one of them is posted a few posts down).  That didn't surprise me.  What was odd was those who wanted to take our picture with their own cameras!  There were visitors from all over the world--many from Asian countries.  The Asian women were fascinated with our children.  They'd see Kieran coming around a corner and "ooh!" and "aah" over him.  (We think he's pretty cute ourselves.) Then they'd see Keegan and say, "Brother?  Oh!  he has brother!"  A moment later they'd clap their hands in delight seeing the three girls!  "All brothers and sisters?  All?  One, two, three, four, five?"   It was astounding to me because while five is more than our national average, it isn't something that usually stops traffic.  Several of the ladies asked if they could take the children's picture.  Their exuberance and genuine excitement was irresistible, so we were happy to oblige, but  I do wish I'd taken a picture of them taking their pictures.

The other picture I wish I'd taken was of the Condor Man.  As we were heading back toward the train, we saw a man waving an antenna back and forth.  He was off by himself, but as we got closer he looked over at us, and seemed amiable.  The children asked what he was doing,.  (Ken and I were curious ourselves).  We walked over to ask, and ended up being given a wonderful science lesson.  He explained that he was picking up signals from California Condors, and provided a wealth of information on the enormous, endangered birds.

Next up, in my super-slow play-by-play, the return train ride.   Stay tuned, it might be a day or three unless I can mend my ways.

I started to post about our trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, but got derailed just before posting about the train!  We took a train to the north rim, and the ride was an experience to remember! 

Before the trip: Kieran got in with a rough crowd, and made the acquaintance of some train robbers!:

The train!

Kieran much prefered this mode of travel to his car seat:


Outside our window--Looks alot like Wyoming!

And in addition to fascinating information told as we traveled, we had great entertainment!

Stay tuned.  I really will get to the actual canyon soon!  (If I don't get derailed again.  It seemed that once we got home and unpacked the Christmas season just hit full force!  Life is busy, but good!)

Next stop: The North Rim.