Happy Halloween!

Happy (Belated) Halloween! Our family went to my Grandpa and Grandma's and we took the little girls around trick-or-treating.






As you can see, there were two other little boys that we decided to take with us. With the nine of us, one stroller, in the dark, and in the cold you can see how long that lasted! They were pretty helpful though. When we went up to a house this older couple would come to the door with a bowl of candy:

Us: "Trick-or-Treat!"
Them: "Aaaaaaahhhh! you all are soooo cute! Here you go, and here you go and, did I give you one? Well, here you go too! You boys are so cute! Are they twins? Here, you're so cute, why don't you guys just take another one. Well they probably can't have it can they? Oh well, you can eat it for them! Bye."

The only downside to this, was that the only houses that did this gave out peanut butter candy. (which half the people in our family can't have.)

Well, anyway you can imagine how long we lugged Luke and Levi around! After dropping them off we took Emily and Ashley around to another few houses we went alone to the rest of the neighborhood. Because my Grandma and Grandpa live in an older, community neighborhood they don't usually have anybody for trick-or-treating so even w/out the little girls we were a big hit! :)




The five of us, (Annsley, me, Seth, Cade, and Claire) all agreed on our favorite house. This lady met us at the door with a big bag of Almond Joy.

"Well, hello! I'm so happy we have trick-or-treaters. We never have any! Lemee just get this open...(attempts to rip) oh, well. (she bites down on it and tears it open with her teeth) okay, now here you go. (she hands one of us a heaping handful) and here you go, and, oh, I didn't give you enough. oops! here you go. Oh did I miss you sweetie? Well, I might as well just give you all of it, I'm not going to see anybody else tonight."

Then she continued to finish off the bag on us!

Anyway, we had a great time. Now we're just gettin' ready for Thanksgiving.

Soccer is in Session!

Soccer has been going for two weeks now! All of Claire's devoted siblings have been going to the games in the cold and rain. I'm posting a couple of the pictures that we took. And of course I have to add some of Cade and I, because we all know who Claire's real fans are, right? Go Lizards!

We will, we will rock you down, shake you up,
like a volcano about to erupt!
we are lizards here to stay,
We will rock you night and day,

Wins Losses
1 1

Seven more days of Summer!

....and summer is almost over! We've been gearing up for school all week. (O.K. the two days of this week that we have gone shopping.) Emily and Ashley got the surgery for their cochlear implants. I'm sure you've seen the pictures. They were major cute!!! They're going to Hope School. It's a school for kids with hearing loss, although many of the kids have cochlear implants. Em and Ash are going there 2 1/2 hours a day. There are three other kids in their class...all girls. They're going to have so much fun!! It's so weird, though sending them off to preschool!!! They're not even FOUR! It will be nice to have them at school while we do school for at least a little while! Last year it was a little bit crazy! (O.K. a lot!) We got them little pink backpacks today, as well as doing our own school shopping. I love school shopping. Organizing, notebooks, neat, organizing, pencils, orderly, schedule, organizing.

(Notice how I said school shopping, not the actual word school.) Actually, I'll be excited to get back to a schedule as long as Mr. Sun doesn't leave his spot in the sky!

Colorado

Our little astronauts


Em and Ash's first smores


Oldest and the youngest





Cheyenne Canyon.

Jackson

Yellowstone

Canyonlands

This is the cliff that Ashley almost fell off of. She was closer than this when my dad grabbed her.

Arches

Vacation!

We're back from vacation!! We had a GREAT time as a family, but it's good to be home! I'm not sure you want the whole rundown of the trip, so I'll just give you a quick summary!

Our first day we drove to Billings, Montana and stayed the night there. Uneventful except for the fact that my dad left the key to our borrowed sky box at home, and we had to call in a locksmith.

(Oh, and we made up this system of "tokens," where if one person "argues" with another person they have to put a "token" in. Each token is worth 25 cents, which the unfortunate offender must pay when we get back home. There is also a penalty for asking, "Are we there yet?" which my dad specifically thought up.)

The next couple days we spent at Yellowstone, and saw the bubbling mud, animals, geysers, etc. We did see Old Faithful, and maybe it was the fact that the day was cloudy, (it was hard to see the geyser well) or maybe it was the fact that I was skeptical about how amazing water shooting from a rock really was, but I wasn't terribly impressed. We also were stopped numerous times, by traffic, dozens of people claiming they had seen a pack of wolves, as they peered through their binoculars at several unnatural bumps on a hill.
Anyway, it was fun, and the only thing that I didn't like about it was our cabin. I'm not a great camper type person anyway, so a cabin with insulation coming out of a partly done bathroom, old candy wrappers lodged inside the hideaway bed, a flooding shower, and a toilet on the front porch didn't appeal to me. (Not that I'm complaining or anything, but...)

Grand Tetons was beautiful! Gorgeous snow-peaked mountains, dotted with pine trees, against the backdrop of a clear blue sky. A crystal clear lake, as cold as glaciers, with different colored stones lining the bottom was at the base of it! We stayed in a cabin again. This time it was a plus!

Our time with my dad's brother and his family went very well! It was very relaxing and enjoyable. We kids had so much fun, playing croquet, building dams, sleeping in tents, hiking, and playing a new game we invented titled-"Crawl Ball." Pretty clever? I'll give you the rules another time. It has something to do with crawling and a ball.

After that we headed to Arches, went on some hikes, enjoyed the beautiful scenery, and made our own rendition of Survivor Man. (I'll explain in a minute.) We also explored Canyonlands, and had a bad scare when Ashley ran straight for the edge of a 3,000 ft. cliff. Thankfully, my dad was able to grab her by the shirt, less than three feet from the edge.

Then-home!

By the way, Survivor Man is a show we used to watch on Netflix, and we made our own dvd of it with Julien, titled Survivor Kids. (Don't ask to watch it, our acting is slightly cheesy.) This time we made one about Cade and Claire surviving in "a remote canyon in Utah." I was the filmer and narrator. I'll post it later, when we get it made into a movie, and when we get it together, I have some pictures.

This is getting a tad longer than a brief summary so I'll stop.


By the way, we never actually followed through with the token thing. It died a quiet death when it's container began to overflow, and my dad was cleaning out the car. It was probably just as well. We all had a lot of money in there. We decided we'd cover it over with grace.

It's swimming time

Well, we had our first swim of the year last week! We all enjoyed it. Yes, even Emily and Ashley, who were content to dangle their toes in last year, had a good time. We got to the pool and initially were disappointed to find that, though they were excited about the idea of swimming, they were still scared. We swam alone for a little while, then Emily saw me jumping off the diving board into the pool. She decided she wanted to do it to, so she got my attention and asked to jump off the diving board too. Well, I thought that was great, and we should do it, but unfortunately my mom vetoed Emily’s brilliant idea. Instead, Emily jumped off the edge of the pool into my arms. After that she was excited to do anything, so we got out the water wings, and… we had some swimmers!! That was all fun, until we realized that we had to stay by their side in the shallow end the entire time! We immediately thought up several solutions for the problem…



* Swim with them in the deep end
* Pass them off to a willing (?) sibling and run off
* Complain until mom either tells us to leave them with her, or comes into the water herself


Eventually they started to get scared again and returned to their former positions on the steps with the tips of their toenails dangling into the clear water... Until next time...

Sisters....

After an exhausting afternoon at the park we came home to let two little girls have a little room time. About twenty minutes later we hear, a very surprising noise, a noise that makes us go investigate to see what mischief those girls are causing. The noise? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a remote giggle to confirm my fears that they were pulling all the wipes out of a newly opened wipe box or smearing their hair with my entire tube of lip gloss. (By the way, you want anymore fun "twin toddler stories" you have come to the right gal! I'll tell you about when they took all the clothes out of their dresser drawers....that was fun!) Dead silence. Any mom knows that is only a recipe for one thing....trouble. Well, me and my mom headed upstairs to check on the little culprits. We opened the door, there were no trace of my sisters. Under the beds, nothing. I opened the closet door, and what do you know? There they were...sleeping. Each was laying on her pillow, on top of a pile of shoes, sucking her fingers. Cute! So, I posted a picture of it. They look pretty darn cute.

Wrestling is done, Soccer has begun!

What do you get when you combine a wet, rainy day, and outdoor soccer? You get a devoted sister. Or... a mess!


Recently, Claire started soccer, giving me another opportunity to shower you with even more tips for a safe, happy and messy sports life. Last Saturday.... rain. We got there at 8:00 in the morning, all of us. Standing there in the middle of a muddy soccer field, with two three-olds and no umbrellas, I found myself feeling slightly (!) frustrated. The news that the game did not start 'till 8:30 did nothing to warm me up. After an emergency trip home for umbrellas, we all piled in the car for a few minutes to wait....

8:30. No sign of a let-up yet, this is what I call a true sister. If this isn't above and beyond the call of duty, I don't know what is. Shivering in my wet socks, and jeans, huddled in a blanket, under an umbrella, in a chair, trying to keep warm, I watched Claire's coach try to get 8 girls under 10 to listen to him.

All the moms are very positive, though. One mom said to my mom,"I love how we don't have just one star player. They're all just equally good." Another one commented to my dad, "It's just amazing to see how they improve over the year. I mean they just keep getting better and better, and they don't all follow the ball anymore. Oh look, is that Claire? She does really well on just driving the ball towards the goal. Alright team, good hustling!" We have some very sweet moms on our team.

By the way, their team name is the Killer Whales... I think. It has been changed 4 times in the past couple weeks. From Wizards, to Bullies, to Blue Whales, to Killer Whales.

All that to say, Claire has started soccer. Oh yeah, she's doing great. Their record: 1-1

Did I mention that by the time we got home the sun was out, and we went outside in shorts to work in the yard?

Another one of Kailyn's brilliant ideas!

I'm kind of known for getting really big, fabulous (?!) ideas. My cousins, and siblings found evidence of that just last week! We found a notebook with the brilliant ideas, rules, and guidelines of a club I had attempted to start....

Several years ago, I had an amazing idea to start a club with my cousins, (Annsley and Seth) and brother and sister, (Cade and Claire. Emily and Ashley weren't around yet!) I chose my title, "Kings Kids Writing and Reading Best Friends Forever Club" or KKWARBFFC.
The Kings Kids I got because we were Jesus (the kings) children. I don't know where the writing and reading came in, I think I planned to start something where we read a book and wrote something about it. Keep in mind, our ages range from 4-9 or so. The best friends part, well...I guess I thought we were all best friends! Later, Seth commented, "I'm not really best friends with you guys," so we were forced to change our title to, "Kings Kids Writing and Reading Club."

Well, we even got our own "government" together, with Annsley being the president, me being the secretary, and Seth being the vice president. We never could decide on what Cade and Claire would be. They went from the garbage men, to the prayer committee, to the spies?!
Anyway, we assembled some rules, 20 of them actually. I'll just write a few of them down because you'd probably fall asleep by the seventh.

Always obey all the laws (really?!)
All members of the club must practice the play at least once everytime we get together if possible (when we said must, we meant must. Even on January 1rst could there be no exceptions. By the way, we usually have next years play planned before that years is finished.)
You must have a trial before you are punished(we had a whole system of judges, punishments, and strikes.)
Don't bribe (I added rules like crazy. One time when I thought Cade was "bribing" Claire to do something for him, I added "Don't Bribe," and it got scribbled into the notebook.)
Don't blame (What are you supposed to do, "Who hit you?" "I'm sorry, I can't say I don't want to blame.)

Our strike system might be familiar....
1. warning
2. short talk outside (delivered by... you guessed it!)
3. trial with the three oldest counsel members (we managed to overlook the fact that a couple of the counsel members were often the ones in need of strikes.)

Our ideas for punishments were things like, "No playing with play mobile." or "We must wear costumes while we practice the play."

When somebody disobeyed I wrote this down in my notebook, "We are not doing this to be mean just to love others."

I compiled a purpose statement: (this is word for word, by the way.)

"This is not a club of rules, but a club of friendship. We may forget the rules but our friendship will last forever-" (added on the end,) "to glorify God and love one another."

Wow, if I was making up clubs like that at the age of nine, you'd better watch out in a few years!

The Sanchez family goes to the dentist

It's dentist time for the Sanchez family! Our family goes to Dr. Maloney's office. It's this little building, with two assistants and a very sweet receptionist. You hardly sit down, before the assistants come to take us two by two to get our teeth cleaned! The waiting room is very tiny, and our clan kind of takes it all up. The other day while we were waiting, a man walked in. He stopped, taking it all in.... big backpack full of stuff partially pushed under a chair, books scattered over the floor, Emily and Ashley fighting over a toy, me laying down on two chairs reading.... He sat down gingerly and looked extremely relieved when about two seconds later this smiling face peeked out from the other side of the door, "Are you ready for your appointment Mr. so and so?"

Well, today I was getting my twelve year old molars sealed so I went in at 7:30. I had just started a story in a magazine about a waitress saving a man's life, when the receptionist peeks around the corner. "Oh, my goodness Kailyn. I didn't hear you come in! I'm so sorry! You know we just got the door's hinges oiled, and so now I can't hear it when people come in and I could hardly hear it before, and....."

Well, Dr. Maloney came into my room. By the way, he always has this huge smile plastered on his face, so he's working on my teeth, and he has this smile!!! While he was working on my teeth he kept telling me everything he was doing. I mean, every single step! I like to know what's going on in my mouth, but not that much! When I was finished, he smiled even wider and said, "Thanks so much for your help, Kailyn. You really made it easy by keeping your mouth wide open!" (That would have been kinda weird if I just closed it!)

Overall he's a very nice dentist, and we were in and out of there in fifteen minutes, so I'm not gonna complain!

Our New Car!

And we got it.... We finally bought the long awaited van yesterday! It's pretty cool, and we're all really excited about it! Yippee! Praise the Lord!

More of my adventures in the wrestling world!

I guess a lot of you have seen Cade's wrestling videos! He did pretty well! (I mean, win a gold at your first match, pretty good!) :) But I mean, gold medals can be over-rated. Let's continue the saga of Kailyn's adventures at the wrestling match!

....and so here we are, continuing the attempts of Kailyn, (sometimes successful) to entertain herself as she waits for wrestling matches. Well, we got there at 11:30, early enough to start weigh-in, but turns out they are doing the heavier weight class first, going down to the lowest one, which Cade is in. So, we got to watch some 100 pound boys, (and one girl) wrestle each other. By the way, girls and wrestling, I'll save that for another post! Of course, I didn't watch the whole thing. I took Emily and Ashley on a walk. On it we learned some very useful information....

1. You can go up to a lady and she will give you some food
2. Yelling does not work when Ashley runs away.
3. Bathrooms are very interesting places, partly because you press a button and water comes out, and these long pieces of paper come out of this machine.
4. There are lots of people to get handouts from, while waiting to watch Cade.
5. At a public place your sister is much more apt to do random stuff, such as teaching you to slide down the handrail!
Yes, there was no one around, and I was very bored, so I copied the idea from several fourth graders standing around. (Not a very smart idea!) So, Emily was sliding down, when Mrs. Long, (Logan wrestles with Cade) starts walking up the stairs. Oops! "Um, hi, what are you doing?" "Emily and I were just playing...."

Well, anyway, maybe you can apply these wonderful tidbits of info to your personal sports life. (or your brother's.)

Crazy award of the Year!

These are my very interesting sisters, in some very interesting pictures!




That is some wild hair, Emily! Emily always manages to look like a scarecrow in the morning, but Ashley....






Ashley on the other hand, somehow manages to keep her hair nearly perfect!









Emily just learned how to do this, and does it at the most random times! It's really funny!












One day, you guys are gonna get older and you're gonna see I'm getting my kicks from you! Love you guys!

The Circus of The Year!

You don't need to go very far to see a circus, in fact, there is one right here, in the Sanchez home! Better yet, why not read about it from the comfort of your home, while I take you on a fabulous trip to see the circus of your dreams! Well, one of the best ways to illustrate our very own circus is to go to the kitchen, where my family is just starting dinner....

Dad-....and we thank you for this food, amen!"
Mom-"Cade, why don't you just ask for someone to pass the pears, you don't need to reach so far!"
Dad-"So how was your day?"
Kailyn-"Can you pass the spaghetti?"
Claire-"Can somebody roll up Emily's sleeves, she's getting them in the sauce?"
Cade-"Good."
Kailyn-"Huh?"
Cade-"I was just saying good to daddy."
Dad-"That's all it was, just good?"
Kailyn-"Did you know that Fletcher is still a vegetarian?"
Cade-"He actually told you that?"
Kailyn-"No, he announced it in front of class."
Mom-"How is Fletcher?"
Dad-"Can somebody wipe Ashley's face. Is this topic of general interest?"
Claire-"What's general interest Daddy?"
Kailyn-"He was just wondering if Fletcher was really interesting to the rest of the family."
Mom-"So how was your day, honey?"
Dad-"Oh, pretty good. I met with..."
Kailyn-"Oh, do you know what? My teacher passed out these eight page booklets and told us she wanted us to read them. I mean, how many junior highers are actually going to understand the north and south poles of magnetism just by reading about them."
Cade-"And then there was this singing class...."
Dad-"I think I was telling mom about my meeting."
Cade-"Oh, I'm really sorry daddy, but can I tell you about the singing class?"
Mom-"Hon, can you give Emily some more spaghetti, she's asking for it."
Dad-"Sure."
Cade and Mom-"Thanks."
Cade-"So, we were trying to read, and this singing class was going on next door and it was really hard to focus 'cause she just kept lalalalaing....."

Well, that's just a little taste of our own personal circus. And by the way, the show times are:

Monday: 7:00am-9:00pm
Tuesday: 7:00am-9:00pm
Wednesday:7:00am-9:00pm
Thursday:7:00am-9:00pm
Friday:7:00am-10:00pm
Saturday: 8:00am-9:00pm
Sunday: 7:00am-9:00pm

My job in the wrestling world!

Today I was schooled in what my job is in the wrestling world. The answer: to cheer at the appropriate moments, to support my brother, and to never, at any moment, under any circumstances, give some of my personal counsel to him. He was supposed to be warming up, and I thought he hadn't warmed up nearly enough, so I took it upon myself to tell him that he should be on the mat practicing instead of sitting on the bleachers with me. As you might guess, this lovingly meant counsel was not exactly appreciated.

As you can see, all of us girls had our different methods of entertaining ourselves.

Ashley.... Entertained herself by walking up and down the stairs next to the bleachers.

Emily.... Was entertained by asking to be taken on walks, stealing fruit snacks from a little boy next to us, and eventually joining Ashley on her quest to lose weight by walking up and down the stairs.

Claire.... Enjoyed walking with Emily, following my dad around, and wearing Cade's wrestling t-shirt when he went onto the mat.

Kailyn.... Read some books that she had already read three times, repeatedly checked the clock, complained about how we had gotten there way too early and how she was claustrophobic, begged money from Grandma, and pestered her nervous brother with questions about when he was going to be wrestling.
I wasn't exactly the model sister today.

Anyway, he did great, and won two out of three of his one minute matches! I posted a clip of his third match which he did win!

Cade's Wrestling Meet from Roland Sanchez on Vimeo.

What happens when you leave, mom!

My parents occasionally go out and leave me in charge of making dinner and putting the girls to bed. It can get pretty hectic....The other night was no exception.

We were having leftover soup, so the cooking wasn't a big deal but that doesn't mean everybody wanted to eat what there was.

So my parents leave and I start getting the soup out of the fridge and bowls down from the cupboard. Cade walks in, "Do we have to have soup?" I might mention that one of the soups is beef vegetable and the other is tortellini. He likes tortellini but he just had it the other day and beef vegetable is definitely not his favorite!

"Yes, you need to have soup."
"Why?"
"Because mom said so."
"She did not!"
"Yes, she did!"
"Well, can't I just have cereal?"
"No, you can have tortellini or beef. If you have beef you can pick out the carrots."
"But I want cereal."
"NO."

On that happy note I poured soup for each of us. We all sat down at the table....

Kailyn-"Emily and Ashley are going to watch our movie with us."
Cade-"NO, I do not want them with us, they are really naughty."
Kailyn-But we won't...(to Emily) you want water? What do you say? Okay." I get up to refill her cup. "Anyway, we won't be able to....Watch out Claire, she's spilling her water!"
Claire"You didn't put the lid on tight enough."
Kailyn-"I didn't put the lid on, you did! Like I was saying, if we don't watch
Cade-"Oooo, cool, she has a little pool of water in her bib!"
Kailyn-"Like I was trying to say, IF WE DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE WITH THEM WE WON'T BE ABLE TO FINISH IT!"

Why do I get the feeling that nobody cares about what I have to say?
By this time Emily has decided that soup is more fun to chop up in tiny bits then to eat. I give her the firm command to , 'no play, you need to eat.'

We finish our meal and start on our ice cream, all except Emily, who has still not finished her soup. (I have already told her that she will get no ice cream because she was a slow eater.) Just then, she holds up her empty bowl. 'Ice Cream, please?' Who could resist that smiling face? I start dishing up ice cream for her....

Cade-"Why are you giving her ice cream?"
Kailyn-"Because she finished her food."
Cade-"But you told her she wasn't gonna get any ice cream."
Kailyn-"I know, but she did finish her soup. I thought maybe she deserved it."
Claire-"You never stick to your punishments for her."
Kailyn-She's fine."
Claire-"You're too soft-hearted!"

Well, we clean up the kitchen and head downstairs to watch our movie. We watch with Emily and Ashley for a little bit, but then put them in my room to play "trains." For about ten minutes all we hear are the cheerful giggles of toddlers, but then....
"Waaaaaaa!" We rush in the room to find Ashley sobbing, pointing at her older sister, the picture of innocence. Come to find out, Emily bit Ashley. This is not the first time either. So Emily gets to go to bed, Ashley gets to be rocked, and my parents get an earful when they return from their date.

The Front Yard and Little Sisters! Part Two

Okay, so you think I would have learned, that when you want to play with your little sister you don't do it in the front yard, it just doesn't mix! But did I learn, no...

I got Emily up from her nap and brought her downstairs where we had a glass of chocolate milk and licked the bowl from my mom's banana bread. Okay, we're starting off pretty good. Sisterly bonding is on its way! But then I decided to take her on an excursion on a bike. Don't ask me why, she had enjoyed it the day before. Once again, I underestimate how long a three-year-old can be entertained by something. We rode the bike down the driveway and up and down the sidewalk. I checked on her and she had a snot-crusted nose, her hair is in her face, her teeth are chattering, and no she's not smiling! Not a good sign. But I was having a good time riding down the sidewalk and it's all about me right? So Cade rides up and I ask him to check on Emily. Bad idea. She reaches out to him with eyes as mournful as Ashley's were the other day. Sadly, Emily joins Ashley back at the house. When I checked on her ten minutes later she was happily playing with her doll. Go figure, where am I on your priority list?

The Front Yard and Little Sisters!

The other day Ashley asked me if she could play outside. "Run, please?" I obliged. I took her into the front yard and left her on the grass with the brief command to, "go, run." Whatever that means! Then I went to go shoot some baskets. I'm aiming at the basket when this frantic waving catches my attention. I underestimated the ability of a three-year-old to entertain herself by running back and forth across the lawn. I went over to her and consented when she asked to 'throw the ball.' I lifted her up to the hoop and she threw the ball at it. It bounced on the ground and rolled away. I set her down and she began to run after it. "Stop!" Oops, that doesn't do anything does it? I chase her, deposit her on the sidewalk and chase the ball. After I have caught both my fleeing ball and my sister I drop her off back at the house. Big, tearful eyes are the only thing that lets me, groaning, pick her up and send her off to "run" again. Three seconds later I'm lifting a giggling toddler up to the hoop again. This seems vaguely familiar. Needless to say she is promptly dropped back off at the house.

Moral of the Story: If you want to play with your little sister, do it in the backyard. The front yard is just too hazardous!

Just Beginning....

If you're reading this now I want you to know the purpose for "Kailyn's Kolumn." I love writing, it's one of the ways I process things. I love the challenge of expressing my thoughts in a clear interesting way. Through this blog I want to express my thoughts to you. This is an avenue for me to write, to share with you part of mine and my family's life. Happy Reading!