THE NAME DREYKEN

So a lot of people have asked us how we came up with the name Dreyken Jade. It started back before Tarek was even born and we were thinking of names for him. Dan liked the name Drackon, I was not such a fan. We decided to go with the name Tarek instead. Well, a few days before Dreyk was born Dan said he liked the name Drakken instead of Drackon. I still was not sold than he sent me an e-mail with the name spelled Dreyken, and the comment that if we named it Dreyken Roland it would have the same initials as him (Roland is Dan's middle name and the middle name we were going to use for a boy.) I thought the name looked to girlie and Dan said we could use it for a boy or a girl. I liked it for a girl, especially spelled Dreyken, however, I was not sure on a middle name. Dan liked the name Jade and I was unable to come up with anything else that I liked better. Plus the more I heard it the more I liked it. It was a good thing she was a girl because I still don't think that I would have used it for a boy and we were at a loss as to what boy name we would have used. Dan has informed me that the name means "Lord of the Dragons". So anyway, I have to give Dan the credit for the name as he came up with it. Dan enjoys using names that "mean" something so Kalli means "Beautiful" Tarek means "Scholar" and Dreyken means "Leader".

MORE PICS OF DREYKEN

Dreyken and I were able to come home from the hospital on Thursday, and just my luck, Tarek got sick. He has come down with Croup and has been running a fever with a nasty cough. Dan has been spending all his time taking care of Tarek while I try to survive tending to Dreyken. Dreyk also now has Jaundice and has been put on a biliblanket for now. Hopefully she will get over it quickly. I hate having to have her plugged in all the time and not be able to really cuddle with her. She has been a really good baby so far, so now if we can just get Tarek better maybe life with three kids will start to become a little more manageable.

INTRODUCING DREYKEN JADE

I had tried to post this earlier but was having computer / picture problems so sorry for the delay in the news. On January 27th Dreyken Jade joined our family. Dreyken aka Dreyk was born around 3 pm and was 8lbs 1oz (a rather big surprise to me as my other kids were much smaller) She was 21 inches long, and of course is a girl. Both baby and I are doing well, Kalli was thrilled to get a little sister, and Tarek has been letting anyone who will listen to him know that he really wanted a brother. I think he is slowly coming around to the idea of a sister, now that he understands he gets to be a big brother either way.

RAH! RAH! RAH!

Brooke called me the other day and asked if Kalli would want to go to a cheerleading camp that the High School Cheerleaders were putting on today. Kalli was of course thrilled! They were there most of the day, from 9-2, and than at 2 they put on a performance for parents to come and watch. It so reminds me of when I was little and we would go to different camps.

KALLI GETTING READY TO CHEER

KAYDRA CHEERING

KALLI DURING THE DANCE PART

KAYDRA GETTING READY FOR THE DANCE

AND THE GRAND FINALE!
I love how the girls don't have any hold on her feet. At least no one was dropped!

BABY NAME!

We have been really struggling with what to name this new baby when it comes. Tarek, however, has come up with what he thinks is the perfect name and I am afraid I am going to have a hard time convincing him otherwise. He has decided that the baby should be named "Darth Vader". His reasoning is that if it is named "Darth Vader" it will want to play games with him. Not sure exactly how he came to that reasoning, but I sure hope I am able to change his mind when the time comes!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN!

Well today is Dan's birthday, and being the good wife I am, I did not even wish him a Happy Birthday before he left for work this morning. In my defense, we have already been celebrating most of the weekend. He is really hard to buy anything for, so this year (like just about every year) he picked out his own gift. He found a small Pool Table / Air Hockey table that the kids really enjoy. His reasoning was that now, the kids can play games and he will have more time to watch sports on the TV without disruption! The kids also picked out some Jelly Belly's for him. He always loves to take a bag with him to Church and thinks it is really funny to switch the yummy beans with the nasty Harry Potter ones, so we did get him a few boxes of the gross ones as well. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAN! WE LOVE YOU! (I tried to find a recent picture of him, but as most of you know, he is very seldom in pictures and if he is it is rarely a normal one)

On another note, we have been getting ready for the baby to come and spent the weekend cleaning the house and moving things around. I have a cradle that I got just before I had Tarek and he used it a lot when he was really little. Dan moved it upstairs so that I could get it cleaned out and dusted off, and Tarek now enjoys using it as a cradle to lay in. It is so hard to believe how fast they grow up and to see him so big! I took a picture and thought I would post one of then and one of now. What a crazy kid!

WAY TO START THE NEW YEAR!

Well, I just realized that the month is more than half over and I have yet to write any kind of blog entry! What a great way to start off the year! Hopefully, I can get back into the habit of writing at least a few times a month. Just for a quick update, we are still waiting for the arrival of baby number three, and I am starting to get somewhat impatient. I know it will come eventually, but I am getting REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE! Kalli is back in school, and had fun getting to try her new experiment to create rock crystals with her Dad. She has been working on a school report project about Amelia Earhart that is due the first of February, so her Dad gets to be the lucky helper in the project this time. She has been working really hard. The kids had fun getting to play in the snow sledding, Kalli would go over to the drainage ditches in our neighborhood with some of her friends and they would spend hours out side sledding down the hills.

Tarek is getting more and more rowdy each day, and I am really looking forward to when the weather gets warmer and he can play outside and get rid of all that energy. He is now a Sunbeam (AAAHHH)! I actually got the "opportunity" to teach his class the first day. It was CRAZY! They have four Sunbeam classes in our ward and each one is pretty full. I had five kids there that day, and luckily, none off them were real criers. I did make Dan come to class with me, as I have a hard enough time keeping up with Tarek, let alone five three year olds. The very first question we got was "where are the toys?" followed by "Are there going to be Snacks?" It really was fun to get to see how the kids responded, and also knowing that I only had to teach that week and not every Sunday. Tarek has discovered a game on the X-box called Monkey Ball, and that is the highlight of his day if he can talk Kalli or Dan into playing the game with him. He got some of the capsules that when you put them into water they "magically" turn into sponges for Christmas. He thought those where the neatest things. He has also gotten to be pretty good at creating things with his blocks. They have been one of the best purchase I have made in awhile.

Hopefully the next post will be a little more entertaining with a little more news, but we will see!