Lexi's birthday

I posted Saturday that it was Lexi's birthday and talked all about my little girl turning 4. Well we had her party that afternoon, nothing fancy, just family but it was fun and she loved being in the spot light! Miss Pris just pranced around the whole time and ate up all the attention everyone gave her! :o)

I did make her cake again this year and it was quite a lot of work! I think it was actually more work than her cake last year! But I spent most of the week doing things for it when I could so that made it so much easier. She decided she wanted a Tinkerbell birthday so if course I made a Tinkerbell cake, although I just bought the toys to go on the cake. No way on earth was I going to try sculpting them!! haha! So anyways, I just had to post a few pics of the party. :o)

Here's the cake...




The birthday girl, not real sure why she looks like she's praying here! haha




And just a cute one of Logyn. :o)




Anyways, just had to post a few pics from the day. Now it's time to get ready for Logyn's birthday! :o)

Made it through Monday

Can you believe it? We survived Konner's first day of school, and even survived his second day!! Who knew we'd all actually make it! Let me tell you, leaving your 5 year old son in a big room full of people he doesn't know at all is so much harder than you'd ever imagine!

I had such a hard time going to sleep on Sunday, all I could think about was leaving my tiny little boy in that room by himself (and yes, he is still tiny!). I have not ever had to leave him anywhere other than a family members house and I was extremely nervous about it. But he was awesome!! I was so proud of him, to me he was absolutely the bravest little boy in the world!

A few days before I had asked him what he wanted for breakfast. I told him this was a very special breakfast because it was his first day of school so I would make whatever he wanted. I listed several different things that I know he loves, breakfast casserole, pumpkin muffins, pancakes...anything he wanted. Out of all those options he picked Malt-O-Meal! Only Konner would ever pick Malt-O-Meal! :o) But he loved it and was so excited.



When we got to his school we took him into the Movement Room, found the row for his class and he sat right down. Colby snapped a few pictures, we gave him kiss-hug-and-bye (our routine before going anywhere) and that was it. He sat right down with the other kids and started watching Curious George until it was time to go to his class. Somehow he wasn't nervous at all. He didn't seem upset in the least that we were leaving him there. In fact the only thing that bothered him was that people kept walking in front of him so he couldn't see the tv. :o) I have no idea how he did so well, I would have been a nervous wreck.

(Right before we left the house)


(Watching Curious George)


I can't even begin to tell you how weird it was to have him gone all day. The house is so very quiet without him. The girls are very mellow when he's not here. And yes, it is weird to get only 2 cups instead of 3! Lexi had no idea what to do with him gone either. When it was time for lunch she actually didn't want to eat, she said she would wait to eat until Konner got home and went to lay down for her nap. She was so excited to see him when we picked him up!

As good as he did when we dropped him off, he had a very hard time when we picked him up! There was such relief on his face when he saw me standing there. As we walked back to the car I asked him all about his day and he broke down. He ended up just sobbing and telling me it was such a very long day. He asked me to please not bring him back. :o( I'm telling you, my heart broke right then! I knew I would have to take him back and I told him as much. He just hugged me and cried.

I felt like the worst mom in the world! How could I take him there every day and just leave him? I'm supposed to protect him and take care of him, that's my job! It's been hard enough just thinking about this experience but now it's here and he hates it?! I felt like my heart was breaking the whole way home.

On the way home I took him to get a chocolate coke from Sonic and he asked me if we could sit on the couch with a blanket when we got home. He said he wanted to have a long talk all about his day. Yet another heart breaking/melting moment. They came one after the other all day! :o) So of course we did sit and talk when we got home. As I started talking to him and asking him questions all about it he totally opened up and couldn't stop telling me all about it. Turns out he had a pretty good day, it was just very very long! That was such a relief!

Yesterday was even better, although he did say it was longer than the first day! :o) And i'm believing that each day will continue to improve! I've said for months now that I really think this is the best option for him and how much I think he'll enjoy it. It's just going to take a week or two to get him adjusted. It's good for me though, I spend a lot of the day praying for him that's for sure!

Anyways, I just had to share how everything went. It was hard and had some very sad moments but we all made it through and things are getting better and easier every day! :o)

All too soon, the clock will strike midnight...

This is a note my husband Colby wrote on his facebook. It was so beautiful that I decided to steal it and post it here! :o)


All too soon, the clock will strike midnight...

I have three children. I love all of my children with everything I have. It is hard to explain to anyone who only has one child how this can be. When you only have one child you love them with your whole heart. In fact they so fill your heart, that you can't imagine having anymore love to give. But when you have another child, your love is not split, it is doubled. It's as if you suddenly have another heart to give. And I think anyone who has multiple children would testify to this.

Having established that fact, I would like to take a minute to talk about just one of my children: My middle daughter Lexi. I have been accused (by certain parties who shall remain unnamed) of playing favorites with her and being softer on her than I am the others. While the jury is still out on this matter, I will say that none of them can melt my heart the way she can. One of our favorite things to do is dance to Steven Curtis Chapman's "Cinderella". She puts on her Cinderella dress-up outfit, I pick her up, and we do our best waltz to these words "So I'll dance with Cinderella, while she is here in my arms. Because I know something the prince never knew. Yes I'll dance with Cinderella. I don't want to miss even one song. Because all to soon the clock will strike midnight...and she'll be gone." There are many things in my life I would like to forget. But there are some things I hope never to forget. These moments when she is "daddy's little girl" are some of the moments I cling to, desperate to remember them through senility and old age.

We spent yesterday evening at Wonderland Park. Since Konner had his favorite cousin there, and Jamie had her sister to ride the rides with her that I could not handle, me and Lexi spent a great deal of time just the two of us (a privilege I happily accepted). We rode the ferris wheel with Jamie's Dad and Grandmother, and I let her bury her face in my shirt when she decided it was scary. She rode the cars, well, only the pink one. She rode the ponies and I stood by her, then switched her to another pony when she decided she needed "to hold on to that thingy (the reigns)", and then rode on a pony with roses in it's hair when she decided I needed to ride next to her. One of the last things she wanted to do was ride the Frog Hopper again. We made it in line as they were about to close it down, and they agreed to allow one more ride. As the ride began to rise, and then bounce downward repeatedly, Lexi started giggling. As she did I was reminded of a speech from (of all things) the sitcom "Friends", as a man who's girlfriend broke up with him tries to re-win her affections with these words: "If I had known the last time I saw you would be the last time, I would have stopped to memorize your face, the way you move. If I had known the last time I kissed you would be the last time, I never would have stopped." So there I stood, drinking in every individual laugh. Memorizing them. Saving them away for the day when that sound no longer fills my house, and purposing to treasure every time that I am fortunate enough to hear her call me "Daddy"

You see, I decided a long time ago that I will be the dad who is at every recital, every softball game, and every rock concert (even if it is only in our garage). I will kiss every owie, I will drink every cup of tea, I will dry every tear, I will return every hug, and I will try with every breath to be worthy of the gift God has given me. The gift called fatherhood. I will love them, I will protect them, and I will be there. I will teach them the great lessons of life someday. But for now, as the little moments of life go flying by, I will put my burdens aside to enjoy a simple living room waltz. And I will not miss even one song.

-Colby

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!!

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!!

More bows!

Ok, I admit it, making bows has become my new obsession!! I don't know why it has taken me this long to finally start making them but now that I have, I do it all.the.time! I actually got my first order this week too! A girl in our church wanted some, she's 16 and her mom said she is trying to bring the 80's back! :o) So it was a bit of a challenge to make these, I didn't want them to be too "little girly" since she is 16 but they are hair bows so they need a touch of girly. Like I said, it was a bit of a challenge but in the end she seemed to like them which is of course what matters most! :o) So here they are...

I made two of this one for her, she has a school event this weekend so these were for that. They are both 5" bows and turned out super cute!



These were all just for fun and I believe they are all 5" bows as well, except for the last one, it is a 4".








So now that i've made my first order i'm back to making for the girls again. I made these for the girls easter dresses. Would you believe we didn't get any pics of them in their dresses? They had matching dresses and bows and my photographer husband didn't get any pictures of them! We're bad parents! :o) We have decided we'll have to go up to Colby's work and take some photographs of them in their easter clothes because they just looked too dang cute! Anyways, here's their easter bows. This one was Lexi's...



And this was Logyn's...




These I made just for fun, I even made 2 of each of them for pigtails! :o)






And this one I made just for fun, I don't really know of much that Lexi has to match it but I got the idea for it and it ended up looking so cute! So eventually i'll have to find something that matches it just for the simple fact that it's cute! :o)




Ok, i'll stop for now...and I promise to blog about something other than bows next time! Cards maybe... :o)

Bow board

I've started making bows for my girls, I figured since I have 2 girls it will be a lot cheaper if i'm able to make them instead of buy them. Anyways, now I need somewhere to keep these bows that Logyn can't get to. :o) I was going to make one that looks like this...



But since I have 2 girls I wanted to do something that would work for both of them, so I decided to make them a bow board! First I got a piece of plain canvas-I used an 11x14 but you can use whatever size you want-enough material to cover it, ribbon to match, scissors and a glue gun.



I turned the canvas face down on the back of the marterial.



Then I took my glue gun and glued the sides to the back of the canvas. Be sure to pull the material as tight as you can.





Be sure to fold the corners down...



Then I took the ribbon and glued 3 pieces of it on the board.



Then glued one piece of ribbon across the top.



I then took a long piece of ribbon and tied a bow, I tweaked it until I got it to look just how I wanted. Then I glued the ends of the ribbon to the back of the board. And Ta-da!!!




I'm very pleased with how it turned out and now I finally have somewhere to keep the girls bows...can you believe i've been keeping them in a baggy all this time?! :o) Next i'll have to post some pictures of the bows i've made!!!

Konner

I've done several posts about my kids, in fact most if not all of them have something to do with at least one of them. What can I say? I'm a stay at home mom, the kids and house work pretty much make up my day! :o) But today I want to take some time to talk about Konner, indulge me while I get a little picture happy! :o)

I was 18 years old when I found out I was pregnant with Konner, I had babysat for most of my life and really thought i'd know what I was doing once he was born. As I said, I was only 18 so I was quite naive! :o) I went through the pregnancy counting the days till he would finally be born, finally got to my due date and...had to wait another week to finally meet him. That was the longest week of my life by the way! But finally, on Feb. 28th-which is my birthday by the way-I went into labor. I was up all night long and at 9:40 the next morning Konner was born!



He came into my life and filled a huge hole in my heart I didn't even know I had. My days became filled with wonder just watching this sweet tiny miracle grow and change. It was clear very quickly that he looked just like his daddy!







He grew so quickly from baby to little boy and has just continued to grow.He has always done things to make us laugh!


























All in all, he has been my pride and joy for the last 5 years. I've learned so much from him and absolutely can not picture life without him in it. I'm so blessed to call myself his mom. I love you Konner and am so proud of the little boy you've become!!!