Young love...

We have some very good friends who happen to have a daughter almost Konner's age. She is an adorable little girl and from the very beginning Konner has been smitten!



Every time he sees her, or talks to her, or simply talks about her he gets this goofy little grin on his face.



They love playing together.



We are however still working on him being a gentleman and taking care of her instead of the other way around!



Although they're only 4 and 5 years old, it is extremely fun watching them play together chase each other around and simply enjoy childhood together!

6 years ago...

Tomorrow is mine and Colby's six year anniversary. I wanted to sit down and write this beautiful, poetic, tear-jerker post but just couldn't figure out how to write exactly what I wanted to say. So I went back though some old pictures of the two of us and ended up smiling as I relived so many memories! I remember the day we got married so well, it wasn't your typical wedding day at all. It was just the two of us in a tiny little office at the courthouse, I don't even have a picture of me in the dress I wore! We didn't have all the normal wedding day stuff, the hours of make-up and hair styling. We didn't have all the tears as all the girls got ready and as my parents prepared for me to join another family. I never wore the big beautiful dress I bought, or carried the bouquet of flowers my mother and I spent hours working on. We didn't have a photographer there to capture every moment or get every configuration of family grouping you could imagine. To be honest, we didn't even have great odds that this thing called "marriage" would even last! But we did have something even better than all those things...we had love.

Neither of us knew what the next few years of life would look like, we had no idea of the highs we'd reach or the very, very lows we'd hit. We had no clue that by our fifth anniversary we'd have three young children running around our house calling out "mommy" and "daddy" all day long! We didn't know what it really took to be married. But even when we weren't quite sure if it was still there, we had love.

Looking back, I don't know if anyone actually thought we'd make it. I don't even think we always believed we would! I'm sure when we reached our first anniversary most of the people in our lives were a bit shocked! And again at our second anniversary! Hopefully by now the shock has worn off though! :o) And while a big part of what kept us together was pure, raw, untempered stubbornness, the bigger part was love.

See, through everything, all the up's and down's, the good the bad and the ugly, that's one thing we've not lost. I can honestly say, I still love that man, with everything in me, to the deep down core of my being I love him! I love him more now than I did when I married him. I lay down every night, snuggle up next to him and breath a sigh of thankfulness that i'm his wife. I'm so thankful that he is the father of my children, they may not fully understand until their older but they are truly blessed to be able to call him "Daddy".

I love you Colby. Thank you for giving me the privilege of being your wife! We've had some amazing times together and some truly heart breaking times, but through it all you've stood by me and loved me with a love I didn't know was possible. I look forward to many, many more years together watching our children grow and growing ourselves and I can't wait to see what the rest of life brings! Happy Anniversary!!

Basic update

I haven't posted in awhile and the kids are all napping so i thought i'd give an update for all those that care! Of course not much is really going on so it may end up being a very boring update! :o)

The kids are all doing very well, continuing to grow like weeds even though they never actually got my permission to do that! Konner absolutely can't wait to go to school this fall, he talks about it to anyone who'll listen! I still can't believe he's old enough for school. I try to picture myself as the mother of a kindergärtner and it just seems so weird! Since I was home schooled most of my life I really have no idea what all parent's do. I keep thinking i'm going to go in there and be the most inexperienced mother the teacher's have ever seen! :o) But i'm sure everything will be ok, at the very least we'll figure it out as we go and i'll be more prepared for when Lexi goes next year! It will be very different around here with him gone all day though. I'm not sure how the girls will get used to it. I'm already planning on crying quite a bit the first few weeks at least! My sweet little boy is growing up! *sigh*

Lexi...ahh my Lexi! She is quite a handful honestly. I love her to death but that girl is drama! :o) I keep thinking that I couldn't have been that dramatic as a child but i've been told by my mom and sister that in fact I was. She makes me laugh so often with her dramatics, everything is the end of the world with her. When she has to clean up her toys it's just so hard. When she has to try to go potty it just never works. When she has to wait to eat she's starving to death. Everything is very dramatic! But I guess that's life with a little girl, or at least life with her for sure! Oh and yes, we're still potty training. She's 3 1/2 and still isn't trained. I know, i'm a bad mom! :o) Now it's not for lack of trying believe me!! We've done everything you can think of with her! Rewards when she goes, spankings when she doesn't. Keeping her in panties, keeping her in pull-ups. You name it we've tried it over the last 8 months or so! We're getting close though I think. If I put her in panties and remind her about every 30-45 minuets she can stay dry. So far she's not remembering to go by herself but that's ok, any progress at this point is awesome! :o)

Logyn is still my goofy girl! She spends the day discovering all the new little wonders around the house. It's hard to believe she's already 1 1/2. Just doesn't seem like it was that long ago she was born. Colby and I realized that in a very short time we'll be out of diapers and the baby stage for good. It's weird knowing that we aren't going to have anymore kids, no more babies around here learning how to roll over for the first time, or crawl or take their first step. As sad and hard as it is to believe this phase in my life is ending, i'm very excited to reach the next phase. I know babies. I know toddlers. Now i'm about to learn grade schoolers! Crazy! All of life seems to be different phases and the older I get the faster those phases go. I know i'm only 24 and really not very old at all but life already seems to just be flying by me! It's so hard to remember to take each experience, each day, each new thing and hold on to it. It won't be here long.

Anyways, that's just a quick update on the kids. Colby and I are about the same, nothing much changes with us. :o) Although we are doing some spring cleaning around here. We have way to much stuff in this tiny little house and i'm so tired of being cramped. Of course when you have 5 people living in a 2 bedroom things are gonna be a little tight. We moved Logyn in the kids room last week so now all 3 kids are in the same room and Colby and I finally have our room back which is just awesome! It makes for an interesting nap time for sure but other than that it's going great. I finally went though all the kids toys and stuffed animals-and let me tell you there were a LOT-yesterday and got about 5 bags total to get rid of. Thank goodness! Now their room with be much easier to clean and less cluttered for playing in. Now I just have to deal with bags in my living room until we have our garage sale in 2 weeks. After that the house should be nice and clutter free...at least that's my goal. :o) I was going to post before and after pics but I totally forgot to take the before pics. I may just post the afters anyways, we'll just have to see.

Well since the kids are still sleeping I guess i'm gonna go get some more work dome around here. It just never seems to end! :o)

Have to share this

I was looking over the blogs I follow and catching up on some of them this morning and I have to share one with you. This is probably one on my favorite blogs and I love reading her new posts but the one I read this morning was not an enjoyable one to read. Don't get me wrong, she wrote it beautifully but the subject matter was very difficult. Apparently there was a dance competition in which 7 and 8 year old girls danced to Beyonce's song "Single Ladies". It was incredibly wrong! The moves these young girls do and the clothes they are wearing are absolutely inappropriate! It is a very direct and powerful post and I just had to share it. You can read it for yourself here. Please read it and take what she says to heart! Also while you're there look around a little bit, it's truly an awesome blog!

Two peas in a pod

Konner and Lexi are absolutely best friends! They have been from day one. Konner was so filled with fascination when Lexi was born.



He very quickly decided she was pretty cool and could stick around for a while!



As soon as she could play they were inseparable. They spent almost every minuet together, always playing, (almost) always laughing! :o)



*Yes they are in a box!*



*They both had babies in their tummy because I had a baby in my tummy! :o)



All in all they are the sweetest kids and the best of friends. I pray that they always remain as close as they are now!

All grown up

We found out last week that Konner was accepted into Carver Early Childhood Academy! He will be starting Kindergarten this fall and is absolutely thrilled! We applied back in January and have been waiting all this time to find out if he was accepted, I know it's not been a super long time but for someone who has trouble being patient it felt like forever! This school is a charter public school and they only accept so many students each year, plus the students are chosen through a lottery system so there really wasn't a certain way of knowing if he would get in. So I was very grateful to get the phone call saying he'd been accepted!

Since Konner was a baby we were planing on home schooling our children, Colby and I both were home schooled ourselves and have just always planned on doing the same with our kids. But about a year ago I started really not wanting to, I really felt like the kids, especially Konner, would benefit from actually going to school. So I started looking into Carver a little more and fell in love with this school! They teach piano, spanish and dance on top of all the other regular curriculum. Then once they get into 2nd grade they can choose from other instruments and languages if they are interested. But it took some doing to talk Colby into the idea! :o) I was honest with him and told him I just didn't feel that I would be able to give the kids as good of an education as they would get going to this school. I mean I sure can't teach them spanish, piano or dance, at least not any dancing they would ever want to do in public! :o) So Colby, Konner and I went and visited the school, took a tour and absolutely loved it! Konner got to go into one of the classrooms and play on a computer and with some other kids and he loved all of it. He was so upset when we had to leave, he really wanted to stay the rest of the day!

So now that he's been accepted and he knows for sure that he is going to school this fall i'm having to really face the fact that he is growing up. When he turned 5 a couple of months ago it hit me really hard. I remembered my mom talking about my 5th birthday being so hard on her and I always thought that was weird, I mean 5 years old really isn't that old so it shouldn't be that big of a deal right? I was wrong. It hit me so hard, my little baby boy was all grown up! He was suddenly huge in my eyes and it was very hard to deal with. Now on top of all that he's getting ready to go off to school!

It honestly doesn't feel like it's been that long since he was born, a lot has happened these last 5 years and yet it still feels like he was born yesterday! I remember looking and his tiny little face and thinking "I only have you all to myself for 18 years!" Now that 18 has shrunk into 13 and continues shrinking all the time. However I plan on enjoying every single day of these next 13 years as much as I can! I love you Konner-bear and still can't believe you're old enough to go to school!!

So tired!

Yesterday I woke up feeling sooooo tired! I haven't been that tired in a really long time! I'd been up sick the night before for a couple hours so i'm guessing that was the reason for my lack on energy. But gosh, it was bad! I had trouble walking from one room to the other. I got no house work done at all. The kids pretty much played on their own for most of the day and I really did very little. It was crazy! But for some reason after giving the kids their baths and putting them to bed about 9:30 last night I suddenly got enough energy to clean the kitchen, including sweeping and mopping, as well as cleaning the whole living room! Not sure where that came from! :o)

This morning I decided I wasn't even going to give myself the opportunity to be tired. I woke up and 7:00 and took a shower, made coffee and got going with my day. The kids took their bath last night so they're already dressed and everything. Plus the house is already clean-for now-since I did it all last night. It's awesome! I'm really not a lazy person, please don't get that impression but for some reason I just had trouble moving yesterday!

But I have to say, Colby was awesome about the whole thing! When I told him I hadn't done much of anything all day his response was "Well good for you. You deserve to have a lazy lounging day now and then!" Seriously? How many husbands would tell their wife that?! He's awesome! He has never made me feel like I have to keep the kids and house looking spotless since i'm a stay at home mom. Whether I get everything done or nothing done he never treats me any different. I know of women who's husbands treat them just awful if they don't keep the house looking spotless at all times. I'm so glad Colby's not like that! This house is never spotless! :o) That may make me a bad stay at home mom but when you have a 1, 3 and 5 year old kids running around a tiny little house it's just not gonna happen! And I don't feel bad for it either! :o)

Another reason i've been so tired might be because i've been getting up way earlier than normal lately. My friend and I have been going walking every morning. We meet at either 6 or 6:30-in the morning!-and try to get in 4 miles every day. It's been awesome but I have never gotten up that early on a regular basis before so it does take some getting used to that's for sure! Plus her and I are starting a volleyball league tonight actually. We'll have practice 2 nights a week until the games start and them games and practices 1 night a week till July I think. I'm super excited but also a little nervous, I haven't played in years!! I played for 6 years in middle and high school but haven't really played since my Jr year. I've had 3 kids and gotten really out of shape since then so this should be quite interesting! :o)

Well it's time to get ready for much so I guess i'd better go. Enough sitting around for today I guess gotta get busy!! :o)