Memorial Day Mini Vacation

We spent memorial day weekend partially at home and partially at my parent's house (they were out of town), just so we could get away from the norm...we had a great day on Saturday. We took Jenna to IHOP for her free birthday breakfast and then she and I went shopping for a few things we need at our new house. We had a blast! Brandon sent me for a pedicure at the beauty school in town while the kids were takings naps (my feet were SO dry and cracked from pregnancy/summer, etc.) When they woke up from naps, we went down to the river and fed the ducks. The kids LOVED it!
Jenna sat SO cute with Brandon and Kaden to wait for the ducks to come close enough to toss bread to.
Here is Jenna showing off her smiling breakfast pancake that she got to pick out as her free birthday meal! :)

A little too close to the duck--scared him right off!

These are the new baby ducklings we saw at the river. They were REALLY cute! Jenna wanted to get close and touch them, but the adult ducks were VERY protective and hissed at her.

We stayed at the river for a while, until the ducks had their fill of food, and then we all went for Mongolian food (which we absolutely LOVE) and to get Jenna's free birthday ice cream from Coldstone. (I am a birthday freebie junkie!) Busy day--The kids both slept well that night! :)

On Monday we spent the day at home--it was a nice break, and I was really glad we didn't have many plans because we were BEAT! My brother and sister-in-law (Jared and Amanda) came with their kids and we had a great barbecue. The kids loved to play together and it was a nice visit. Overall, we had a fun little weekend with a little bit of a getaway-I cherish those moments!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNA!

Today Jenna turned 3. I hope to not overwhelm anyone with another updated blog, but now that I am done designing and filling graduation orders for the year, I finally have a few spare minutes and am hoping to really keep up on my pics and journaling.

Jenna ended up being SO sick all through the night. I am not sure what was wrong. This morning she woke up enough to open her presents, have some breakfast, and go to the park. But when we came home she was out--I feel so bad. Nobody should be sick on their birthday!!

Jenna got a pop-up castle playhut from Brandon's parents and we had that set up for her with her presents in it when she woke up. She was SO excited! We gave her the princess dress up set that came with all the princess costumes. She loves to dress up as CINDABELLA...lol) and the little mermaid. So she has some good options now. We also got her a little pair of Little Mermaid high heels, which she immediately put on and wore to the park today. :) She finished up her presents with a new Little Mermaid beach towel. Kaden had fun crawling into her castle...he thought it was pretty great.

And then there was her cake...I had all these grand plans for a princess castle cake--we have been looking at the picture and making plans for weeks. And then I went to the store last night to get the stuff to make it. Now, my house was still a wreck from the chaos of the past few weeks, the laundry was still not completely folded, and it was almost 10:00 at night. I was exhausted. I happened to pass the bakery while I was looking for things I needed and there sat my little blessing...HALF of a decorated round cake. My beautiful princess castle cake idea flew right out the window. I had already bought Jenna the princess toppers and the thought of cooking something else just wasn't going to happen. Between my sister's wedding 2 weeks ago, and my father-in-laws birthday (we ended up with all the leftover cake!) we were caked out...and I knew this was a small enough portion that we wouldn't waste a ton of it. I felt brilliant with my new plan, until I came home. For some reason I started feeling like such a failure of a parent for not making this great cake...oh well. :) There will always be another year! I took the crown out of her princess dress up bag, washed it, and put it on top of the HALF cake. :) I bought a few angel food cakes and frosted them to put the princesses on--and TADA! That was the extent of her cake this year. I just had to only take pictures of it from certain angles to make sure you couldn't how I had cheated! :) She was so excited with it--and I am SO glad. I was really afraid she would remember that I didn't make the castle cake...but she didn't say a thing. What a relief...

Guess it is time to run grab some lunch and finish putting my house back in order! :)

A day at the WATERpark

It has been pretty warm here lately and they just opened the water park that is about a half block away. Jenna was pretty nervous about it last year and would only kick the water, but refused to get all the way wet. Lately she has talked nonstop about going! I couldn't believe that she actually REMEMBERED from last year! So, today after naptime (she abruptly ENDED Kaden's nap when I told her we would go as soon as he woke up) we walked over to the water park. She and Kaden sat by the side for the first few minutes. And then she warmed up to it and took off! She was all over the place, jumping in the fountains and splashing everywhere. She had so much fun. Kaden was still not so sure about it and crawled away. We did splash him through the water a few times, which he was fine with. But he preferred to just sit by me and the other babies at the side (and steal some kids raisins!)

When we came home Jenna picked a movie to watch and I got dinner ready. After that, they both took a nice bath and right on cue, they were both asleep by 7:30 p.m. Kaden is always pretty good about going to bed at that time. But Jenna has had a harder time lately with it staying light for so long. Tonight, no struggle at all. She was practically BEGGING me to go to bed. I have 3 words to say about today---NEW DAILY ROUTINE! It has been SO nice to have a few minutes of peace a quiet. Yes, I should be folding the 5 loads of laundry that we FINALLY got caught up on, or scrubbing the bathroom, or cleaning my kitchen...but I am sitting here writing about my day. And you know, it feels VERY nice. :)

Tomorrow is Jenna's birthday. I can't believe it. She turns 3. The time has gone so fast. Every year on her birthday I go back through a book I have made full of letters I write to each child every month. Hers are about where she is developmentally, emotionally, and all the things we have done together. Just a way to share my feelings while I watch her grow. It always makes me a little tearful--okay, a LOT tearful. She is such a beautiful little girl who has brought so much to our lives. Yes, she has some rough days--don't we all? But when I look back and see all the things I have felt as I have watched her grow, it makes me realize all over how blessed I am to have her (and Kaden) in my life.

Kaden is such a mellow little guy and just loves to smile and clap. He is starting to stand up by himself and I think he will be walking in no time at all! He absolutely LOVES patty cake...speaking of cake, he LOVES chocolate cake too. We had some left over from my father-in-laws birthday party last weekend, and I gave Kaden a small piece. From the pics you would think I gave him the whole cake...but not so. He devoured this cake SO fast...he loved it. It was off to the tub as soon as he was finished, where he shared the leftovers with anything he touched. Needless to say, more cleanup was involved. :) But it was fun for him and that is what counts.

I am just so happy to be a mom and have such a great family. I feel so blessed...

Playing dress up

The other night we got all our past halloween costumes out so I can list them on Ebay--no sense (and no room!) in hauling them accross the country. Of course, Jenna had to try them all on--she had SO much fun. In fact, she was a lion/dragon for the next 2 days. I didn't even both with clothes because she kept peeling them off to put the costumes on. :) We tried to dress Kaden in the chicken costume, but he'd had enough of the whole dress up thing! (he DID look pretty cute though!!!)

Jenna LOVES to dress up right now. We bought her some princess dresses that we were saving for Christmas, but I am thinking that tomorrow (her birthday) we will just give them to her and save one of her other birthday presents for Christmas. She loves to be a princess and talks about how wonderful she is! :) Very funny...

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Happy Mothers Day! We had a nice day--Brandon's family came up and we had dinner (a barbecue) that was delicious! Brandon gave me a beautiful necklace and a card from him and the kids. I got a nap--which was the best present of all! :) It was just nice to really sit back and really reflect on how important my calling as a mother is. I feel so honored to have the special little spirits that we have in our family. Tonight after the family left, we got out our costume box and the kids/Brandon tried on costumes. Jenna had a ball!

A friend of ours took some family pics for us the other day--don't know if there were any comple family ones that really turned out great (VERY distracting to take pics outside!) but we got some cute ones of the kids...and since there are no pics of me on here yet, I am including a few. I rarely get one of me with the kids, so it was kind of nice.

Anyway, happy mother's day!

A day at the park--

We spent Monday night together at the park. It was a beautiful day and the kids loved spending time there. It was really nice to have Brandon with us as well--he is so great with the kids and they love to play with him.

Kaden just relaxed the first part--but once he caught on to what Jenna was doing, he was practically climbing out of the stroller himself. He loved the slide! Even tried to climb up it himself. VERY cute to watch! :) Jenna is a VERY brave girl (either that or I am just very paranoid!) She climbs up the climbing wall so fast, all by herself. I am always nervous she is going to fall right off! She is all over the place at the park! I love to watch her play--but the best part of all is that she sleeps SO well after we play at the park! :)

We are getting anxious for our move!! It is hard to know where we will go, when we will go, and just have to wait...but at least we feel like things are coming together and feel good about going.

I am hoping the time will fly as we make all the preparations and as I force myself to really go through things and dejunk before repacking things. I know I can't put it off much longer or it will sneak up on me and I will be overwhelmed! :)

We have barbecued a few times this week--we love to barbecue. I would do it again tonight except that I realized after our meal yesterday that we were out of propane and I didn't get more today. Darn it! I will have to post the recipe I made yesterday. It was SO good--a mexican flank steak with grilled corn quesadillas. Yummmmmy. We will have to fire the grill up again tomorrow...in the nice weather, I LOVE to take advantage of the great outdoor cooking and play time.

Changes are happening...

We are getting ready for some big changes this summer. We came back from our trip to Cleveland and we loved it. We are going to be moving there for Brandon to start Podiatry school in the Fall. We found a great little house to rent that is really close to the school and church. There were so many beautiful parks and scenery. I think it will be beautiful in the fall...

The kids are doing really well--Jenna is amazing to watch as she grows. Yes, we have many hard days, but it is so neat to see her develop and learn. She is constantly saying new things that just make me laugh! I wonder where she gets some of her phrases...today we went shopping together. On her way into the store she tripped and fell. She got up and kind of whimpered. I reassured her things would be okay and she turned to me and said "yeah, mom. I am going to go shopping now because that will make me feel better." It was very funny...she is excited about our move and her upcoming 3rd birthday. She mentions it at LEAST 3 times a day. I am glad, because her last birthday she just cried and cried when we tried to sing to her. :)

Kaden is crawling all over the place and growing so fast. He just adores Jenna and follows her everywhere. He is sprouting teeth like crazy, which makes for some serious mood swings and unpredictable nights. :) But his big, beautiful brown eyes just make me melt!

As for me--I am tired. I have been kind of under the weather this week and getting farther in the pregnancy makes me exhausted! :) The time has gone so fast--I didn't even remember how many weeks along I was until I finally looked it up online. 26 weeks now. Wow! I can hardly believe it. We still don't have a name...that is the dilema of the year! Any suggestions are welcome.

We are loving the chance we have to be a family--it has been nice to spend some time together and enjoy all the aspects of life that we help each other to see. We especially are greatful for our children and the breath of life they give us. It really is a great thing to learn from them...and we do so DAILY!