Our Kiddos

Kevin and Katie are playing house around me right now and are bringing me all sorts of food to eat. They are calling each other honey and playing so sweetly together. I love them so much. We had an adventurous morning. Within the first 15 minutes of being awake Kevin cried 4 times, and was sent to his room for pulling a fit about a banana and the color of cup he was given. Sometimes he is really emotional and I don't really know how to deal with him. I mean he full on had a melt down about how big his banana was compared to Katie's.
Now they are both over by the baby swing "fixing" it. Kevin has these little play toys and he is laying under the swing with his hammer and drill. Katie has her baby doll in the swing and is pretending to be the Mom.
Last night Katie kept getting out of bed and we were trying everything to get her to get back in without going up there and physically putting her in there (which is what she secretly wanted). Finally I told her if she didn't get back in bed she would have to stand in the garage in time out. She said "Okay, stand in garage" and started heading downstairs. She was perfectly happy to stand in time out rather than go to bed. When Adam went to get her out after 5 minutes or so, she said "No, I not listening" cuz she wanted to stay out there. Then Adam told her that she would have to stand outside in the back without the light on, and her reply was "Okay, get flashlight, kay". Then after we got her in bed she got out again and I let her know that if she was not willing to stay in her big bed that she would not be able to sleep in it anymore, she would have to sleep in the pack and play, so she cried and said "I want pack and play" like 10 times. FINALLY the last thing that we tried worked. I said we would have to lock the door. She said "no lock a door". I thought we were done with her antics for the night but 2 minutes later she cried again and came out saying she had to throw up (Kevin had thrown up the night before so it wasn't all too unlikely, except she said it so matter of factly like "I need throw up, kay". She wasn't sick at all.) I ended up having to lock the door on her unfortunately but only to prove a point for a second which resulted in her crying and gagging like she really had thrown up, but when I opened the door there was no throw up just a little 2 1/2 year old who was trying everything she could to stay up a little longer. She did finally go to bed once she realized I really would have kept the door locked. Silly girl. Also... I must add that I am just a little bit worried if she is this good at exhausting all her options now, imagine the teenage years... we are in for it.

Happy Birthday Kevin

We had such a fun day today for Kevin's Birthday. We had a birthday breakfast with his cousins and then opened presents.
He got 4 airplanes from his cousin Anthony which were the hit of the day with all the kids!!Then we took all the kids to the train park and road TWO trains and the carousel. Kevin has been obsessed with tying things up lately so Grandma and Grandpa Endsley bought him a bunch of caribiners and rope, with a custom sherrif's badge to match. Here he is tying the "bad guy" to the "ship" (the unfinished bunk bed). He got this present later in the day but it was definitely his favorite.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE JEREMY

Kevin has an Uncle who is SO COOL!! (he really loves him). Jeremy LOVES (understatement really) Mustangs. He owns 3 cars... all of them are mustangs.
ANYWAY Kevin has understood since he was little that Mustangs are in fact really called Jeremy cars. EVERYWHERE we go Kevin points out a Jeremy car here or a Jeremy car there. He sees them far before either Adam or I. He has truly become an expert on spotting these things.
So Jeremy for your birthday we thought we would post a tribute to you. Kevin got to borrow a Jeremy car for 15 minutes while we got these shots. He also got to RIDE in this cool car a few weeks ago and you would have thought he had just seen Santa Claus.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEREMY!!! We love you (especially Kevin)

Kevin's 1st Day of Preschool

Kevin started preschool in August and is truly loving it. I am so glad I caught a couple pictures of him right before he went. It is so fun to see him learning, he is so smart.
This is the first shot I got before I adjusted lighting but I had to put it in cuz he is making the best face.
He was SO excited to wear his army guy shoes, army guy shorts and camo shirt. LOVED it.

Kevin... growing up

Kevin has been so cute and helpful lately. I can't believe how much I love each stage he goes through. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately.
Kevin has been so excited for Cars 2 to come out, Adam even surprised him with Cars 2 cereal. So on the morning the movie came out he requested Cars cereal in his Cars bowl with his Cars spoon which is TOTALLY a balanced breakfast!!!

Kevin usually gets up around 7 and Mommy doesn't get up until 7:30 or 8. He plays so quietly I barely hear him and usually comes in when he is ready for Breakfast (okay judge me if you want but I am NOT a morning person and it works well for us). Anyway a few mornings in a row he requested help with his Thomas puzzle and was quite frustrated that he couldn't put it together by himself. I obliged and we would work on it together. A week or two after our last puzzle completion he came in talking about it and I thought he wanted help with it, but instead I came into find that he had finished it all by himself!! I was so proud of him. He has also been coming into me fully dressed in the morning and most of the time he matches REALLY well.I ask Kevin to do some things to help out around the house to teach him to serve and do his part. A lot of those things I ask him to do have something to do with helping Katie. This is him attempting to put Katie's shoes on... he was unsuccessful but it was worth a try. One day he will get it and it will help me a lot.

Despite our 100+ degree weather Kevin was adamant about wearing these Tractor footy jammies given to us by our Gibson friends (I think). He loved them even though it probably made him sweat like a pig. I turned his fans up extra high that night and he seemed to do fine.

I'm a Slacker

I think I have mentioned this before, but I got a new camera for Christmas and its AMAZING... but our computer is rather slow so to upload my mega files to the computer, re size them, and then actually post on this blog of ours is almost an all day process. I don't know about you but I have several other things demanding my attention, meanwhile our pour little blog sits here and waits patiently for me to return. So here we go. I will post two things right now...


One of my FAVORITE MEALS is Hawaiian Haystacks... all the veggies are just delectable. Well I try to make it often cuz its easy and good for us and for a while Kevin wouldn't eat it and it made me sad. Then I got the brilliant idea to let him BUILD his own haystack... WORKED LIKE A CHARM. He loves them now and even asked for seconds on Sunday. HALLELUJAH!!! So one day we were all ready for dinner but Adam wanted crunchy noodles so he headed to the store really fast and I let the kids loose on the table. They chowed down. It was so cute to see them eat all the little condiments. Oh I love them.


NEXT POST

My niece Jaycee is so cute and wonderful. I lived with her family for 3 or 4 months before Adam and I started dating and she was about Katie's age at the time. She is almost 7 now and is very much in love with Katie. She also thinks she is bigger than 6 and that Katie is smaller than 24 pounds. She always tries to pick Katie up and carry her around. Well while I was cutting my other nieces hair Jaycee picked Katie up outside and accidentally dropped Katie... I heard this horrible little cry that sounded like she was saying... "oh my gosh this hurts so bad" as CoCo and I ran to get her I could see scrapes all over her little face. She had gravel stuck in there too. From what I can tell Jaycee must have dropped her by the stucco pillar on our patio and Katie's face was the cushion. Poor girl. Jaycee was so upset that she wouldn't look at me (since I have told her several times not to pick Katie up) I reassured her that Katie was okay and that it was an accident and that I wasn't mad as her. All of a sudden Katie reached up her hand and put it on Jaycee's arm almost to console her. It was so precious.
Here is her face... it healed quickly and everyone just thought I didn't wipe the food off her face.

Finally and Update

We have been having a great time up in Utah the last few weeks and are glad we had the opportunity to come. We are however really really really missing our Adam (he is in Kansas City for Training until Friday and has been there since the 24th). Kevin hasn't wanted to talk to him the last few phone calls and finally last night I asked him if he was mad at Dad and he said Ya. I said "cuz he's been gone for a long time" and he said "Ya cuz I super miss him". So cute.
Katie the little stinker is turing out her personality and showing us how much independance she has. She is absolutely relentless in Church, whining and crying unless she has food in her mouth. Good thing our bishop doesn't want us to have food in Sacrament anymore... ya like that's going to happen.
We told her to give us a smile and this is what we got. She is so freakin' cute I just want to kiss her all day long.

"I earned it"

Kevin "earned" this garbage truck finally.

It has been at least 2 months since Kevin saw this garbage truck at Costco and begged me to buy it for him. Every time we went to Costco he said that he wanted to see "his" Garbage Truck. This boy has a lot of motorized things just like this and it was NOT Christmas nor his Birthday so I told him he would have to buy it with his own money. He got excited, which really worked out well for us too because at the time he was on a mean streak with Katie and not minding us very well. We needed something to motivate and encourage him to be nice and do the things we ask of him.
My sister Collette set up a Marble system with her kids and Kevin really liked that so we started right away.
He would get a marble for simple things and two for big things (and sometimes Mom was lazy and forgot to emphasize the marble earning) but 200 marbles later he finally got to open his garbage truck. He played with it for 2 hours straight and was very very sad that he had to say goodnight to it. I think this fascination with Garbage trucks all started when Aunt Mandy bought him a little Matchbox garbage truck. We go out every Tuesday and Wednesday morning whenever we hear the trucks coming and watch as he lifts the big can and dumps all the trash out. It's the highlight of his day. I just love him.

Swollen

It has been staying dark longer here in AZ which has been really great for my beauty sleep. Kevin sleeps until at least 7:30 now but most days it is more like 8. I can't even tell you how wonderful it is to wake up before him and feel ready for the day instead of him coming in at 6:30 wanting to watch cartoons while I continue to shut out the world around me.
Of course then my day gets pushed back further and further and I don't end up showering until 11!!!
Anyway, this morning Kevin came out of his room around 8 and I was sitting right here checking my email. I looked up at him and his face was unusually sleepy-swollen, looking quite shocked to see me awake and didn't know if he was allowed to be out of bed yet. I greeted him with a cheery "Hi, bud" to reassure him and he just stared at me. Finally he pointed to his face and lips and said "take this off". I asked him what he wanted me to take off and he repeated his request "take this off". After a while I finally assumed he meant for me to magically erase his swollen face. Maybe he just isn't used to it being that swollen from sleep... but I couldn't stop laughing as he looked utterly confused as to why I couldn't help him with his predicament. Poor kid just had to let his sleepy face subside and move on with his morning. Not to worry though, it did go away and he had a great day full of smiles, giggles and teasings.

Journeling for a POINT

I am doing this challenge and one of the ways you can earn a point is by journeling every day. Blogging does occasionally count so here we go.

This challenge is really opening my eyes to the things I have been somewhat immune to. I have grown accustom to thinking of only me and my family. When I do so I sort of shut down. I eat a lot more, I tend to opt out of hard things i.e. exercise, schedules, cleanliness (staying organized IS HARD for me), even the thought of reading my scriptures tends to make me sort of sigh. I know this is horrible admitting this in public but I need to face it all.
I have 10 things everyday that I NEED to accomplish and knowing I have those things to do makes me plan and accomplish my day better. When I do these things my life just seems brighter which tends to make me get out of my rut.
I have to do a random act of service every day and I gotta tell you it has been kind of hard to find things to do that I would consider giving myself a point for. So it makes me look out for ways to serve, when I see an opportunity I usually take it but then later think, I bet could find another more meaningful one. I really kind of like it so far. It sure does get me out of myself and focusing on God's children.
I know this is random, but I just want to interject here and say how much I love my husband. He went back to work full time today and it was really hard for him. He is so tired and also used to being home half of the day. He works so hard for our family and I really want to show him how much he means to us.
Speaking of family, Katie today was so fun. She has been a little fussy lately cuz I think she might be teething, so it was a breath of fresh air to have her happy and lively again today. She is attempting to walk and will try to take just one or two steps then fall down and laugh. Today while we were sitting on the couch she came over and stuck her head in my hands and then I just sort of grabbed her little face and wiggled it a little bit. She laughed so hard over and over and over again. Finally Adam and I were talking and she came over, grabbed my hand and stuck her face in it. She did that probably 20 times, each time laughing a little more than the last. Then she would attempt to walk, fall down, crawl over to the pillow and bury her head in it with excitement. So cute.
Last night after I put Kevin to bed he got out and I sort of got mad at him. He was trying to tell me that he wanted a different toy but I don't usually cater to that sort of thing so I sent him back to bed. He whined a little but did get back in bed only to get out again a few minutes later. He got out of bed again and when I asked him what the heck he was doing out of bed he very calmly said... "I was looking for you" He really wanted his other toy (but he had already picked his allotted 2 for the night) and I told him it was all the way downstairs and I was not going to go get it. He cried a bit and finally I said you can have lightening McQueen if you want (it was in the hallway) and he got mad and said NO, I DON"T WANT HIM. So I said goodnight and let him cry for a little bit then asked him again if he wanted lightning. By this point he is willing to compromise and he said yes. I gave it to him and he said (still kind of crying but with the sweetest little voice) "Thank you, Mommy" That made me want to go get the other toy from downstairs for him. Don't worry, I was strong and just told him "Your Welcome and I love you".
My kids are Priceless.

Updates

I am just amazed at how fast this last year has gone. A year ago today I was HUGE and pregnant and living away from my husband. I am so glad that we are not in that place anymore, but also a little sad that my little girl is going to be ONE next week. Crazy!!!
The kids have been so sweet lately and I am feeling bad that I have not documented the SWEETNESS.
Kevin is downstairs right now giving life to his trucks by talking for them. One of them is apparently sick and the other one is tired. He is loving stickers lately and we had some fun yesterday spelling our names on our shirts with them. I unfortunately forgot they were all over me when we walked to the store last night... the cashier thought it was quite an interesting fashion statement and wondered where she could get some. Ha Ha... the joys of being a Mom.
Kevin has been learning his letters and doing so well with it. Although he insists that his name starts with an A just like Mom and Dads do. Yes he knows our first names and calls us by them sometimes (thanks Curtis).
We have been doing a co-op preschool with 6 kids and this week was my week to teach. They are all such good kids and they learn really fast. I am NOT a natural teacher so sometimes I struggle but they are forgiving and don't mind playing with toys while I get myself together.
Katie is such a doll I find myself just wanting to be around her all day long. She sleeps awesome and is so happy to see me when she wakes up. She bobs her little head to music and bites Kevin's bunnies. She teases her brother by pulling on his hair or ears. My favorite is that she blows kisses. When we were saying night night to Daddy he blew her kisses and then she tried to do it back. She put her hand to her forehead and then extended her hand while making a clicking sound with her mouth. So CUTE!!!
I can't get enough of them.

"Baby"

Kevin has been pretending a lot lately. It is something he mostly does with his Dad, but occasionally I get a glimpse of his silliness. Tonight in Wal-Mart he asked to get in Katie's car seat while I held the bugs and then he insisted that he was the baby and that Katie was Kevin. It was actually really fun to have him right in front of our faces like that cuz he is just so dang cute. I thought he would get sick of sitting in there but he stayed like that the whole time. When I would get tired of holding Katie Kevin would take a turn. They have such fun personalities.
Kevin has been talking up a storm lately, putting five and six word sentences together and using inflections in his voice. It cracks me up when he uses proper verbage because he seems too small for such sophisticated conversations. He truly is a little man.

He's growing up

The last few days have been quite interesting for me. Each day comes and I feel so blessed to have my little Kevin and Katie. Lately I have felt so strongly that my little Kevin is not so little anymore. It just amazes me that he hasn't worn diapers for 2 weeks now. He tells me when he needs to go potty and while sometimes nothing comes of it, he is old enough to recognize the urge to go to the bathroom. It hits me each time he has a success that he is growing up before my very eyes. The last few days his speech has been so clear and precise as he amazes me with these 5-7 word sentences. I love how this little man adores his Dad and sister. He says his own prayers now and takes care of Katie by getting her toys and giving her his pink bunny to play with. When Dad walks in from work he runs to the door and says "My Daddy's home" He is constantly saying Thank you and Your Welcome. He is so polite and sweet, yet completely has his own opinion. Lately he playfully contradicts whatever we say just because he has learned that he can. He is smart enough to recognize that the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle little star are the same tune (he starts out singing one and ends singing the other... so cute). When I show him attention he thrives, when I am too busy with other things it affects him. The boy is so smart and I could never have imagined the amount of love I was capable of for this kid. I am excited for right now and love living in the moment with him while looking forward to his future. Motherhood is a miracle.

It's Positive

So I am now at week 24. Wierd. I still remember the first day we found out we were pregnant. Although it seems like it was forever ago it has also gone by so very fast. Here... I will tell you the story.
It all started because I bawled one night for no apparant reason. I just kept sobbing and sniffling and Adam kept asking what was wrong. All I could say was "I don't know, I am just so sad... I don't know why." So he told me he loved me and hugged me tight, then we fell asleep. Oh but that's not where it ended.
The next night I started bawling all over again, and by this point I am just thinking there is something wrong with me, and Adam was thinking... "um she's crazy... I married a crazy women"
So the next day at work I was telling this whole saga to my friend Rita (who is 60 years old) and being so wise she says... "Um maybe you're pregnant?" and my immediate response is "No... Of course NOT..." (Since I had taken a pregnancy test about a week before cuz I FELT pregnant and it said no.) So I told her that we would find out in a few days if I was or not, because my time of the month was coming.
So after about a week I started to notice the little changes... moodiness, soreness, tiredness, going to the bathroom a lot. So I plopped myself down at the computer to learn a little about the signs of pregnancy.
I had them all. Yup I did.
So I called up husband and told him what I knew and then he said "That's funny cuz I was just on my way to Wal-Mart to buy a pregnancy test for you." It was fate!!
Needless to say I took it as soon as I got home. I was just a tiny bit nervous (cuz I really wanted it to say postive) so I walked around nervously and then checked on it.
To me it looked like it was just going to come up with one pink line (which meant no) so I walked out and tried to keep myself occupied. Then Adam went in to look and said with a happy sort of voice... "Uh oh! There are two lines"
I couldn't believe it I thought he was joking with me, but there really were two lines staring back at me... I was going to be a mother.
Adam and I hugged and kissed and were so excited for what we had just found out. Then like as if it were on cue... my phone rang and it was my sister Tiersa. She says "Ash... you gotta hear this... listen to Maya" Her little girl was in the bathtub splashing and playing around making all sorts of cute baby noises, and my heart just melted. I wanted to tell Tiersa SO BAD... but I also wanted this moment just for Adam and I.
What a wonderful thing to be able to give little Kevin a home and a family that will love and care for him so much. To be able to rear and teach this little spirit those things he will need to know to get back to his father in heaven. I am so very honored to become a mom and to give him the best possible situation for his goals in life. As I near the time when I get to see his little face I realize how blessed Adam and I truly are. What could be better!?!?!?