The Dowdles: Keddington Kids

Spencer and Abby are on Spring Break this week and so the whole family came down to visit me and take me out to lunch for my birthday on Thursday. Seriously, I love my family! Every time I leave my family, I get so sad because it is just so wonderful to be with them. Even if it is just for a couple hours and even if we don't do anything particularly exciting.
Anyway, it got me thinking how amazing Spencer and Amy's family is, and I want to get it down while everything is still fresh.

Family Pictures, November 2011

Since Spencer and Amy's family is so big (yes, in comparison to everyone else's it is) I decided to split up the post where I talk about them. So today is just about the kids!

Okay, seriously, the funniest picture of them ever! Poor little Max is just getting smashed!

Anyway, first off is Abby.

Abby, Halloween 2011

Abby is five and man alive, I cannot believe how old she is! She is just this beautiful little girl that looks just like her Mommy! Being the first grandchild in our family, Abby has always been our little princess. I remember coming home from school many a day and seeing Spence and Abby taking a nap on the couch. She was such a well behaved baby!

As she's gotten older, she has shown just how smart she is. She's learning to read and write at the moment and just loves it! She loves preschool, too and can't wait to start kindergarten next year. She's at the age when everything that her primary or preschool teachers say is law and she will tell you so. She's also quite sassy when she wants to be, which, when combined with her brains, brings some funny moments. Like when my mom was saying their bedtime prayers with them and prayed that the girls would go to bed well. Afterward Abby said, "Grandma, remember when the wind was blowing really hard and Ms. Marcia prayed it would stop and it did? Well your prayers aren't going to be answered like that cause Lyla and I aren't going to bed!" Yep, she's too smart for all of our good!

Abby loves all things pink and girly. Amy definitely got the girly girl she wanted. She loves to dance and sing. She was in Gingerbread Kids this year and knew those songs so well! We tell Spence all the time that she is going to be his little cheerleader. She even cheers for us when she thinks we're doing a good job of cheering for her!

She also has an awesome imagination. She comes up with the best games to play! Like the day she came home from school and asked Grandpa to help her be a pilgrim like they had talked about in school. She isn't the best at playing with her little siblings sometimes because they don't always follow her directions.

A pilgrim (costume by Grandpa K.), November 2010

Abby does a great job of carrying our family's BYU obsession into the next generation. She knows the words to the Cougar Fight Song and the names of some of our favorite players. It got to the point that she would plug her nose and yell "Yuck" every time she saw something red because she thought every thing red was Swoop's. She's so great and can always bring the biggest smile to my face when she comes and cuddles up next to me!

Lyla is our little firecracker. She's sassy and she knows it! The girl is not afraid of anything, as is evidenced by the new scratch or bruise on her face every time I see her. Although the running into things has gotten better since she got glasses.

Lyla, September 2011

Lyla's just funny. Whenever I talk to her on the phone, she screams into it and yells "What?" about a thousand times to get me to repeat something she missed while actually paying attention to something else going on. She gets smarter and smarter every day. She loves to read stories and to try and answer the questions we all ask Abby (like "what letter does "Max" start with?). Amy and Spencer are in for a ride with Lyla for a different reason than with Abby. Abby's sassy, but she tries hard to be good most of the time. A lot of times, Lyla does things wrong on purpose, she just tries to be sneaky about it. Like today when she tried to very slowly reach into her mom's purse to get the gum I had just taken away and told her not to touch until after we ate.

Speaking of sneaky, this girl is really good at "hide-and-go-seek". Most kids when you say, "I wonder where so and so is" laugh or yell "here I am." Not Lyla. She stays super still and quiet, which is all fine and good when you know she's playing that game. But when she just takes off, and in public, it can be a little scary.

She got glasses in October and it has taken her about this long to remember to look THROUGH her glasses instead of under or over them. Despite that and a few incidents when her glasses have "played in her pillow" while she sleeps, she has done a good job of wearing them. It helps that she only has two adult relatives on our side that don't have glasses.

Halloween 2011

Lyla is always on the go, so we always have good stories about her. She's pretty much decided that she's the boss of the house (sort of reminds me of me when I was her age). In fact, she's told my dad that it is her house, not his.

We've decided that she's going to be the rugby player in the family. True, it's a rough sport, but she can handle it. At the very least she should run track because most of the time I'm convinced she doesn't know how to walk, only run! She's the best and no one can make me laugh quite like Lyla can.

Abby and Lyla by their little Christmas Tree, December 2011

Snow day! January 2012

Max is our other miracle baby. Everything in Amy's pregnancy went well, but when he was born, he had some medical problems that put him in the NICU for a while. It was scary for a while there, but he's such a little tough guy!

Max in the NICU, September 2010

Actually, he's not so little anymore. Nor did he stay little very long. Being in the NICU trained Max how to eat and sleep really well, so he grew pretty fast! And, I'm pretty sure he hasn't stopped eating since. It took him quite a while to start crawling because when we would put him on his stomach, he would just get high-centered on his little belly and get stuck. He moved pretty quickly from crawling to walking though, which also provided a lot of entertainment as he tried to get the right balance between his head and belly!

This little guy loves to laugh. He thinks almost everything is funny, which is excellent for everyone's self esteem. He gets so excited about everything and loves to just run around. Every time I see him I'm amazed at how big he is! And how cute. Seriously, he went to nursery for the first time yesterday. So old! And soon he's going to be a big brother, which is just crazy! He might have a hard time not being the only little boy in his mom's heart! But I know he'll be a great big brother, just as soon as he learns to share.