Thanksgiving!

This year we was the first Thanksgiving that we did not spend with our family. Since we are headed up to Utah and Idaho next week Joe and I decided that we would do better to save our money  (and wear and tear on our car) and just stay here in Alpine for Thanksgiving. We were invited to spend the day with some of our friends from church and it was truly a wonderful holiday! We really enjoyed it. Joe dropped the kids and I off at the R.'s house at 9:00am and then drove over to the park to play some turkey ball with the men and young men from our church. He really impressed those fellows with his football prowess, they were talking about getting creamed by Bro. Christensen the whole rest of the day, haha. Way to go honey!

The kids and I visited with our friends and then helped get everything set up so that we could enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at 12:00. I baked two pies for the occasion, a pecan pie for joe and a chocolate cherry cake/pie (so delish!). I received the Lion House cookbook from my brother-in-law Jonathan last year for Christmas and it really has the BEST pie recipes! Including an Awesome recipe for pie crust. I absolutely LOVE this book! and Thanksgiving was a perfect opportunity to bust it out and pour over all of the drool worthy recipes. 

There were about 20 people who shared in Thanksgiving dinner and so it was a noisy, cheery affair. My kids even behaved themselves and didn't spill too much. haha. After dinner we sprawled out on their couches and had naps and then set up a game of Rook with the adults. It was a really great day!

The next morning we packed up Jadyn and McKay and drove the two hours south to the Big Bend National Park. The R.'s came with us and we got adjourning campsites and had a blast "hiking" to the hot springs and playing/fishing in the river and then enjoying hot chocolate, and the games sardines and B.S. Jadyn had such a good time playing with the other kids and running in and out of our tent. She was pretty bummed when we had to take it down the next morning. What a fun couple of days!

LIKE a puppy

Joe and I have begun to notice that the older McKay gets, the more like a puppy he becomes (weird, I know). Here are some of his more canine qualities:

-Drools. Everywhere.

-Wiggles whenever anyone pays him any attention.

-Growls at everyone, and everything.

-Crawls around the house whining when his mommy isn't home.

-Eats scraps off the floor with great abandonment.

-Carries toys in his mouth. 

-Shreds and eats unguarded books and paper. 

-Comes to you if you pat your knees and call "Come here boy!"

-Pees on the carpet.....(after ripping his own diaper off).

-Scratches your face with his nails.

-Slobbers on what ever part of you he can get his mouth on.

-Knocks over the trash can and drags the trash as far as he can make it before Mommy intervenes.

Uncanny, isn't it? Here is a photo to help you more fully visualize the comparison.

And now to address the capitalized word "LIKE" in my title. Jadyn has been big into comparisons lately. Here are a few of my favorite conversations with her:

Jadyn: "Mama, what is that?"

Me: "That is your pinky finger Jadyn."

Jadyn: "Ooohh...What is that?"

Me: "That is your ring finger Jadyn."

Jadyn: "OOOoooohh...is it like a pinky Mama?"

Me: "Uuuuhh yes Jadyn."

Jadyn: (holding a bundled up camera cable with yellow and white connections) "It's like a bee mama!! It's like a bee! Buzz buzz....ohhh. Bee is sad Mama, Bee needs a hug."

Jadyn: (Holding out a sunflower seed) "Mama, Open it. Open the nut."

Me: "Jadyn, this is a seed."

Jadyn: "...Is it like a nut?"

Me: "Yep, It is like a nut. But it is called a seed."

Jadyn: "....No...it's called a nut. It has a shell."

And just because it is cute: Jadyn got an old scoop and started shaking it over McKay saying "I'm salting you McKay!! I'm going to eat the baby!!" She then begin pretending to nibble on his knees saying "nom nom nom."

YES! Mormons are followers of Jesus Christ!

I have a favorite Hymn that I sing to Jadyn at night when I am putting her to bed called “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” The first verse reads:

I know that my redeemer lives

What comfort this sweet sentence gives

He lives, He lives who once was dead

He lives, my ever living head.

He lives to bless me with His love.

He lives to plead for me above.

He lives my hungry soul to feed.

He lives to bless in time of need.

Here is a beautiful rendition of this hymn from YouTube:

As a mother, I have a desperate hope that my children will grow to know their Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To know that He loves them. My favorite moments with my sweet two year old are when she expresses an interest in talking about spiritual things. She is learning to say her own prayers and sometimes the things that she comes up with make me laugh, but I absolutely love hearing her voice them!

This is a typical prayer for Jadyn: “Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for this day…Thank you for McKay, and Daddy, and Mama, and Jadyn, and Blue, and cereal, and spiders…Christ. Amen.”

I love it. I love that she loves to pray, and that she will remind us when it is time to pray if we happen to forget.

A few weeks ago Jadyn found a rock that Joe had brought into our house and held it up excitedly exclaiming “Mommy! It’s Jesus! It’s Jesus! Mommy!”

I found out later that she got this idea from her nursery leader at church. The lesson had been about how Jesus Christ is the rock of our salvation. That He should be our foundation.

Whether or not Jadyn missed the point, I love that she is thinking and talking about Jesus. It makes me so happy as a parent to know that she is already developing a relationship with her savior!

Over the last couple of days the media has been making a huge deal over the remark that Reverend Jeffress made that Mormons are not Christians. There is an awesome article HERE that addresses that question and asserts that YES! Mormons are followers of Jesus Christ! I hope that all of this media attention will encourage more people to look more closely at what we believe, and what they themselves believe! If you have any questions about the Mormon faith, PLEASE ask me!

How To Entertain My Toddler

I am always looking for new things to help me entertain my toddler. Here are few of the activities that we have really enjoyed this summer.
Cardboard Playhouse/Puppet theater. I ordered a double stroller when McKay was born and it came in this wonderfully big box. I cut a window in one side and strung curtains to make it a puppet theater, and then cut a door in the other so that Jadyn could also use it as a play house. She LOVES sitting in her own little space and coloring, or playing with her stuffed animals.

 


Pipe cleaners and Strainer activity:

This was soooo fun for her to do! I got the idea from this website.


Homemade Playdough: 
I have always hated the smell of Play Dough, but my daughter fell in love with the stuff at our local library's toddler time. she enjoyed it so much that I decided to try and make a batch of it at home to see if it would smell better than the commercial stuff. Sweet success! Not only does this play dough not stink, but it was a really fun activity to do with my daughter and I don't worry about her squishing the colors together or leaving it out since I know that I can just make more! Here is the recipe:

1 c white flour, 1 c water, 1/4 c salt, 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tsp. cream of tarter, Food coloring, Wax paper

Mix the food coloring with the water in a pot and then add all of the other ingredients. Cook over medium heat stirring continuously. When the mixture begins to really "dough up" on the spoon dump it onto a sheet of wax paper to cool. After it has cooled you can store it in a ziplock bag or plastic container. This stuff will dry out fairly quickly, so remember to put it away as soon as your toddler tires of it! We made purple the first week, and then one new color every time we needed to spice up the activity a little.


What activities do YOU do with your toddler?

Mmmmm...Panda.

Joe and I absolutely LOVE Chinese food. Well, at least we love the American version of it! We have spent many a date night at a Chinese buffet enjoying their cream cheese wantons, California rolls, and coconut shrimp; or hitting up Panda express for some of their delectable orange chicken. Living in Alpine we have been a little disappointed in the quality (and price!) of our town's Chinese food. Sadly it just isn't as good as the Mega buffets we experienced in Ohio or our favorite "Fortune Chinese" establishment in Provo, Utah. And don't even try to find orange chicken here, our little town has yet to see the light. In fact, when mentioning our love of Chinese buffets to our group of Texas friends we were met with responses like "Oh! I love Chinese buffets, they have great pizza!" or "I only eat their chicken nuggets." So sad.

We used to go to our Provo Chinese buffet whenever we really wanted some time to just sit and discuss our future plans. Joe took me there when we were first dating and we fell in love with the place. I took him there after we found out we were pregnant with our first child and we sat in one of the booths and made lovey-dovey plans for eons.

Well this lack of appropriate Asian cuisine in Alpine has prompted Joe and I to try to re-create some of our favorite dishes at home. We (and by "we" I really mean "I") are learning to love cooking new things and trying out new recipes. So far we have attempted to make orange chicken, coconut shrimp, California rolls, salmon rolls, cream cheese wantons, pot stickers, chow mien. chicken teryaki, and broccoli beef. Someday soon we want to make Peking pork. yum! Hopefully our time here in Texas will result in our mastering the art of cooking Americanized Chinese food. (And hopefully we will fine a way to reduce the salt, fat, and carbs in all of these recipes!!)

Homophone...do you know what this means??

Homophone:
Noun: Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, e.g., new and knew. 


This last week I had the flu. I kept bemoaning that people shouldn't possibly be a be able to contract the flu in August, when it is warm and sunny out and no one you know has it. I realized today that it is September. And that it has been September for a long time now. Way to go Kym for not even knowing what month it was. 


Anyhow, During my long miserable confinement, Jadyn would often come check on me and give me all of the sympathy that her little heart could muster. Here are some gems that she shared with me:


Kym: "Jadyn, Mama is sick."
Jadyn: "Ohhh...poor Mama! No more Mamas jumpin on the bed!"


Jadyn: "Mama sick? Mama sick? I hold you Mama."


Jadyn: "Ohhh...poor kitty, kitty is sick! Kitty needs a snack! (fruit snack)."


Jadyn: (Patting my face) "Ohhh...poor Mama. Mama is sick. I kiss it better." (Proceeds to kiss my stomach, elbow, and knee).


Jadyn: (Day 5) "Where's Jadyn's sick? Is Jadyn sick?"
Kym: "No...Jadyn is not sick."
Jadyn: "Is McKay sick?"
Kym: "No...McKay is not sick. Just Mama is sick."
Jadyn: "Ohhh...poor Mama. I love you Mama."


Kym: "Mama has the flu."
Jadyn: "Mama flew! Mama flew!! good job Mama!!"


Flu: A shortened term for inlfuenza.
Flew: The past tense verb of "To fly"
Flue: A pipe, tube, or channel for conveying hot air, gas, steam, or smoke, as from a furnace or fireplace to a chimney.
Floo: A type of powder used for traveling via fireplace in the magical world of Harry Potter.


These are homophones. I wish I really could fly. Or at least travel by Floo powder. Or even by chimney as in Mary Poppins. But unfortunately, all I had was the regular old inFLUenza...

Timing

I have though a lot about how I measure time. I remember as a kid I used to measure the passing of time by how many months were left until my birthday, and then until Christmas. Since my birthday is in July the two holidays served to split up my year pretty well. I remember being about 4 years old and contemplating the great many years that were left until I would turn 18 and go off to college. I thought that day would never arrive, it was just too far away to be possible. In high school my schedule was so full that I expanded my measuring of time to include how many days there were until my next dance performance, or how many hours I had left before I had to be at work. In college my measuring stick expanded again to include marking how many weeks were left until mid-terms, and then until finals. And then I had a baby and I suddenly stopped marking time with my own activities but with those of my child. "Jade is six weeks already! another six weeks and maybe she will be rolling over!" or "McKay is already half a year!! In another few months he will be cruising/walking and will graduate to become a toddler." Time passes swiftly. It may seem slow in the moment but maybe that is so that we will have the chance to appreciate what is happening. We get that one chance and then it too zooms away to help make up our past experiences.

I read a wonderful talk by Dallin H. Oaks about timing. You can read it here. 
He said two things that really resonated with me. 


First: "In all the important decisions in our lives, what is most important is to do the right thing. Second, and only slightly behind the first, is to do the right thing at the right time." 


And second: "We prepare in the way the Lord has directed. We hold ourselves in readiness to act on the Lord’s timing. He will tell us when the time is right to take the next step. For now, we simply concentrate on our own assignments and on what we have been asked to do today. In this we are also mindful of the Lord’s assurance: “I will hasten my work in its time” (D&C 88:73).


I'm sure that many of us get caught up in waiting for the next stage of our lives to begin. I really like the reminder from Elder Oaks to concentrate on the assignments that we have been given right now. Right now I a am a mother of two very young children who require the majority of my time and my patience. It is so easy for me to wish them to be a little more self sufficient at times, but in doing so I know that I am wishing away the moments that are unique to the sage we are at right now. I realized the other day that Jadyn is hovering right on that edge between being a toddler and being a kid. A toddler is universally cute, they get to travel with mom most everywhere and are ood and awwd over much the same way a baby is. Once they enter the kid stage it seems like they loose a little of that unexplainable quality that belongs to those in babyland. I know I will miss her being a toddler, so I have determined to enjoy it while it lasts. 


I have really found a sense of purpose in seeking our what is to be my work right now, and concentrating on fulfilling those duties.


I hope that time will never pass too quickly!

"Who, being loved, is poor?" -Oscar Wilde

Did you know...that Joseph was the first man I ever kissed? The first man I ever broke up with...and the first man I ever got back together with? The first man I took home to meet my parents and the first man I kinda sorta dumped afterwards? He was my first boyfriend. My first love. My first heartbreak and my first true companion. Joseph was in my first BYU ward. My first student FHE group. He was there when I chose my major...and there when I changed my major...and there when I chose the major that I eventually received a degree with. He was right behind me when I walked across that stage and received my diploma. He was with me when I went through the temple for the first time. He was there when I was sealed. Joe shared my experience of carrying and delivering two beautiful children. He and I have traveled more than 10,000 miles around the country together. We have lived in 6 different houses, in 4 different states. 

We are about to celebrate our 4th anniversary as a married couple, and in looking back on this time I have realized that so many of the most significant experiences in my life have been shared with him. I was just barely 19 when I married Joe, and was so concerned over what experiences I would miss out on by choosing to marry so 'early.' Good times with roommates, crazy dates with boys, significantly more financial freedom...

Well, I was young. I didn't know then that every one of the things that I was concerned about would be fulfilled a hundred times over by my darling, loving husband. He has been the best of my "good times." When he dates me I am not just entertained, I am cherished. And as for having financial freedom, well, I can honestly say that after living on a gross income of roughly 11,000 per year, I now have the skills and the confidence to know that I can care for my family even through financially difficult times. This is true freedom to me: the knowledge that in the future we will not fail, since we have already succeeded in our current situation.

 

I am a better person now then I would have been if I had chosen not to marry my wonderful husband. I am so grateful that I did choose to do so. I am still young, but I know now who and what I am and what experiences are truly and will truly be significant to me. I am a wife, I am a mother. I never knew how much I would want to plan, play, and pray with another person as I do with Joseph. Thank you honey for sticking with me when I didn't yet know how completely you would change my life. "I'm everything I am because you loved me."

Ready, Set...

McKay will be 6 months old tomorrow. I have never met a kid who wants to be mobile as much as he does!
Baby Stats:
McKay is now a whopping 19 lbs.
He absolutely HATES rice cereal.
He absolutely LOVES baby crackers and Gerber rice puffs.
He likes to wake me up every two hours at night still (we're working on that).
He will wake up at 11:00pm to eat whether or not he went down at 9pm for his evening nap or 10:30pm. Makes no difference.
He is extremely dexterous with his walker. He can maneuver that puppy around chairs, under the table and out the other side, around corners, through doorways, and get it turned around inside the limited space of our bathroom. The only hold up is the lip up onto the living room carpet.
He can sit up now unassisted, just don't get him too excited or he will fall over backwards with all of the wiggling.
He is SO close to crawling! He has been getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth for a couple of weeks now. This last week he has begun pushing up onto his feet and then walking them in until they almost touch his hands. He looks like maybe he will just stand up and walk one of these days.

 He is a mama'a boy. Joe hates babysitting because McKay only lasts about 15 minutes before he begins to howl for his mama. He's not hungry, not wet, no tummy ache. Just misses little ol' me. Don't get me wrong though, he definitely loves his daddy, he just doesn't know what to do yet without mama.

Cribbage

Joe and I love to play cribbage together. It is one of those few games that is really fun to play with just two people. You can read about how to play it here. We are always looking for good projects to do together in the evening and decided that it would be fun to design and make our own unique cribbage board. We found this blank plaque at our local thrift store for 50 cents and Joe drew up a template for the peg holes on graph paper. He then copied the template to the bored, drilled them with the sweet drill that his parents gave him for his birthday a couple of years ago and then sanded the whole thing to get rid of any potential splinters. Joe wanted to put an old school BYU logo on it to represent how much we love our Alma Mater. I loved the logo but wasn't a big fan of the old color of blue used in it. So we decided to compromise by using the old image but with the updated navy blue coloring. I traced the logo and then free handed the peg stripes and victory panel.
 Here is the template Joe made:

Joe printed the logo and I cut it up to make it easier to trace onto the board:

Here it is with all of the free handed white:

The finished product! I used a silver sharpy to separate the peg holes into sets of 5, and then Joe sprayed the whole thing with several coats of clear varnish to keep the paint from scratching.

When the Kids are Asleep, Mommy Will...Sweep?

I have decided that my least favorite chore (outside of shaving my legs) is sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor. I used to love wielding my broom but that was before it would get caught on graham cracker glue or soiled by juice puddles. It also doesn't help that my darling two year old absolutely loves to 'help' with this project. She will hang on to the broom handle demanding that it be her 'turn' to fling the dirt around. Very cute but not so helpful in the long run, especially when she follows behind me and tries to sweep my already gathered piles with her hands, effectively scattering my efforts. I won't even go into the fun that she can have trying to work the water press on my sponge mop.

And so, I have decided that all sweeping/mopping must be done while the kids are down for their afternoon nap. I was working away yesterday while my babies were sleeping and anxiously watching the clock thinking "Oh no! I only have half an hour before the kids wake up. I need to finish this quickly so that I can have a few minutes to work on my Sketch....or maybe my photoshopping...or maybe my blog..." This train of thought led me to think about what things I am always saving to do when the kids are asleep. Here is the list I came up with:
Draw
Nap
Watch Criminal Minds, NCIS, or Bones
Bust out the hot-glue gun
Eat chocolate...hehe
Fold laundry
Work on family history
Read
Make phone calls
Pick up toys
Blog

What do YOU do when your kids are asleep?

Victory Points

Do you ever go to war again inanimate objects? Maybe devoting ridiculous amounts of brain power to out-witting an entity that will never be able to recognize your superiority? Well I do. And my current foe is my dishwasher. You see I am always fighting with my dishwasher for possession of the sippy cups and all of their accompanying lids and accessories. The dishwasher likes to flip the cups over so that they fill up with yucky water and debris, suck the lids down to melt on the element, and hide all of the little pieces that come out of some of these cups when they are broken down for washing. I spend my day celebrating when a sauce pan is dirtied because I know that the long handle on those babies will hold down at LEAST three sippy cups. Small to medium sized mixing bowls? PERFECT for keeping all of the lids from bouncing around. I have sometimes loaded, and then re-loaded, and then re-loaded yet again just to come up with that perfect combination that would keep my two year old in sippy cups for the rest of the week. Somehow this battle has resulted in the awarding of victory points to each opponents. This week it is

Kym: 4
Dishwasher: 1

Now you know what I spend my time thinking about...

He's a Keeper!

We went to check out our local Farmer's Market this last weekend and were pleasantly surprised to see the great variety that was there. Joe herded Jadyn around to see the different booths while I pushed McKay around in his little red stroller. Joe and I are hoping to set up our own booth in a few weeks, so we wanted to see what products were already being offered. After browsing for a while, I noticed that Joe and Jadyn had disappeared. After scanning the surrounding area for a minute I spotted them over in the playground area across the street. Jadyn was playing on the equipment and Joe was...pulling weeds? I took McKay over to investigate and sure enough my sweet husband was clearing the area of green puncture vines. If you have never come into contact with puncture vines then be sure to count your blessings; These little plants turn into vicious thorns when they dry out in the fall, at which point they are understandably very difficult to handle. Most people choose to rip them out of their yards early in the year while they are still green so as to avoid the painful prickliness. somehow though, this community play area had been neglected and the little green vines were creeping around all of the play equipment and grassy area. Joe spotted the problem and promptly began extricating the plants from the ground and piling them off to one side. He had made significant progress when one of the other daddy's at the park clued in to what Joe was doing and headed over to help. Parents (including myself) stand around watching their kids play all through out the week, and yet Joe was the only one to notice the awful weeds and choose to do something about them. I was so amazed, I think that often times we dismiss problems that aren't easily identified as belonging to us. "The city is in charge of this park. They should clean it up" is probably what most of us were thinking, but since it only took twenty minutes to fix a problem that would become much nastier later, why not step in and serve the community? This incident has yet again affirmed for me that my husband is a keeper.

Cell Phone

Joe and I sat down to figure out our budget last year when we knew that we would be beginning Graduate school. We discussed options for slimming down our expenses to decrease the financial stress that we would be under and one of the ideas that we came up with was getting rid of one of our cell phones and just sharing the remaining one. Crazy!! Everybody needs a phone. Or so we thought. Since switching to a single cell phone we have become so much less dependent on it! One of the first things we notice when we downgraded was that whoever wasn't using the phone suddenly didn't have access to the time. This was an easy fix, we both got watches. After that we were worried about how to stay connected with one another through out the day. After doing some research we discovered that we can send text messages to one another's email accounts and vise verse. Usually when we are apart from each other, Joe is at school and I am at home. Since both places have a computer we can stay connected pretty easily. The cell phone is usually left with whoever has plans to be running around town that day. As the weeks have gone by, we have gone from always questioning each other about where the cell phone is to forgetting about its existence most of the time. Two or three days can go by where it stays on our dresser because neither of us thinks that we need it when we go out. It might seem kind of strange, but we really feel like there is a level of freedom associated with not being so dependent on cell phones. Especially now that many cell phones now come with features that allow you to stay connected with all of your internet resources. It is kind of amusing to watch our friends when they come over, and see them scanning through facebook while we are playing games or checking their emails during dinner. They do not even seem to realize that they are fiddling with their phone while they are doing it! I  can definitely understand how handy internet access would be, but really now, does anybody need access to twitter 24/7?

It's you or me buddy...

I have found that every time I decide to wage war against my children, they always win, so why even try? Last night I decided that McKay was going to stick it out and wait 3 hours between feedings because he is big enough to wait that long and I am so tired. He woke up at his 2 hour mark as usual and I bounced him and rocked him and sang to him and he never fell back asleep. So finally I just gave in and fed him again. Sadly, this pattern resulted in even less sleep for mama. We both woke up this morning tired and frustrated. Maybe I just need to work him up to it gradually like say making him wait 20 minutes longer instead of an hour. Hmm kind of the method used when boiling a frog...I am definitely in the mood for vindictive similes this afternoon...Poor kid, he doesn't even know what he's done to make mama grouchy.

It is so funny to frown at a baby and tell him what a torment he is and just have him giggle and coo at you. somehow I just don't think that this method of avoiding confrontation would work with adults.

Joe: "I hate you Kym!"

Kym: "goo...slow blink...drool"

Joe: "Awww...let me just look into your cherubic face and nuzzle you."

No...I just don't think that it would ever go down like that.

Our cooking adventures

Jadyn absolutely loves to help me cook. She likes to be involved in every step of the process and is very good about becing careful when I let her stir things and staying away from things that are hot (like the oven or stovetop). If she catches me puttering around in the kitchen without her then she will usually demand for me to put my project “On the floor! On the floor Mama!” so that she can see what I am doing. Well this morning she opened the drawer of pans under our oven, pulled out a skillet and said “Mama! Pancakes?” I haven’t made pancake for Jadyn in ages so I told her that of course we could make pancakes. I pulled out the bag of pancake batter and told her to go get a mixing bowl (which she did) then proceeded to hand her measured scoops of pancake batter, water, applesauce (these were going to be ‘fancy’), cinnamon, and egg. She had a blast dumping everything into the bowl for me. When it was time to mix all of the ingriedients together she shooed away my wooden spoon and asked for a fork, (well, why not?) I gave her one and let her try to mix for awhile. My patience for letting her mix is about 30 seconds long, at which point I have to take the bowl, give it a good beating and then pronounce that it is time to cook it.

Ooooohh goody. This is one of Jadyn’s favorite parts. I get her a chair and she climbs up to watch the entire process, occasionally snitiching from whatever might be on the counter near her (This can be a problem when it is a plate of last night’s chili). As a side note, Jadyn is VERY careful about things that are hot. She even freaks out if a shaft of sunlight falls across her, declaring it to be “Hot! Hot!”  I poured the batter into the hot skillet and then went to get a plate to hold the finished product. When I turned back around Jadyn was standing very still, with tears in her eyes. A creeping suspicion about her proximity to the hot burner came to mind as I asked her what was the matter. Blinking quickly she covered one of her fingers with the other hand and looking at me said “Mama…its hot!...its hot.” Oh poor girl! “Jadyn, did you touch the hot pan?” I asked her. Sniff sniff “Mama…hot.” She was so precious standing there, trying not to cry or make a big deal about her little burned finger because she knew she shouldn't have touched the pan. I checked her singed finger and then got out some blue aloe vera, poured it into one of those medicine cups and then gave it to her to stick her finger in. I kind of doubted that she would tolerate it for very long but to my surprise she kept her finger in that stuff for close to 30 minutes, occasionally pulling it out to check and see if it was still “hot.” We went on to make Pooh bear pancakes with the batter and strategically placed chocolate chips. I've got to figure out a way to make the other foods that I prepare as fun to help with because at the moment nothing is as fun as baked goods, and my house doesn't need anymore of those!

Sleeping Beauty

A few weeks ago, I began trying to get Jadyn to stay in her bed and fall asleep on her own. I would take her into her room, put her in her bed and then sing a few songs for her, ending with a hug and a kiss and the words"night night Jadyn! Go to sleep!" She was not a big fan of this new bedtime routine, crying for "Mama, by me! by me!" and then wailing when I left the room and pulled the door mostly shut. I would call back to her from the other room "Go to sleep Jadyn! Lay down and go to sleep, it's bedtime!" Well inevitably, Jadyn would gather up her blanket and pull her door open to come see me. The first night that I tried this I was in the kitchen doing dishes and so when she opened her door I would turn around and go "Uh-oh!" in a stern voice. For some reason this would provoke the bizarre reaction of Jadyn wailing with tears and rushing back to her bed to throw herself upon it. So strange! This response has progressed to her slamming the door and THEN throwing herself upon her bed with me just offering a stern "uh-oh!" funny kid! she goes to bed pretty well now, so long as she gets enough "love time" before we put her down. She needs to feel satisfied that we have paid enough attention to her first, so usually we will go in and sing to her, or read her some stories, or just cuddle her for awhile. She is such a wonderful little girl!

Joe is SO handy!!

Joe has been trying to save us money by learning to do our car repairs himself. This year he has successfully replaced the struts, shocks, and radiator on our little Pontiac. We have lovingly dubbed this car "The White Eagle" and are hoping that it will last us through grad school. Joe is SO good about maintaining this car. He faithfully changes the oil every 3500 miles and keeps tabs on all of the lights and things that brighten our dashboard periodically. Last week he even put on new windshield wipers in preparation for the raining season here in Texas. What a handy guy! He sure is nice to have around.

Twist and Shout

We really enjoy dancing at our house. Jadyn and I rock out at least once a day and we often deck out in our "dance clothes" before we do. Jadyn especially likes to put on her pretty dance skirts and do her wiggle and giggle routine (with maybe a few well timed kicks) to daddy's Big Band Hits CD or ABBA. Lately these dance sessions have expanded to include our favorite little man, McKay. Jadyn likes to show him how to groove and gets really excited when I stand him up and help him "shake it" with her. The other day Jadyn BEGGED to dress McKay up in one of her dance skirts, and I thought, why not? He'll never remember it anyway...so sweet little McKay was bedecked in a hot pink sparkly ballet skirt and twisted and twirled with Jadyn and mommy until nap time. These kids are so much fun!!

Mmmm...Pop!

One of Joe and Jadyn's favorite daddy daughter dates is going out for a "pop" together. Joe takes her to the local Stripes gas station and they putter around the aisles, play with the stuffed animals, and then eventually get a pop to sip on the way home. Jadyn absolutely LOVES this one on one time with daddy and has figured out that it doesn't take much to talk Joe into going out for one of these "dates." The other day she found his pop cup, went to the door and called out "dada! go get pop! let's go dada!" Followed by the chanting of "p-op p-op p-op." Who could pass that up? Certainly not Joe. They came back 45 minutes later proudly toting the beloved beverage.

The Harry Potter Mania

I am a die hard Harry Potter fan, but due to living on a tight budget and being married to a not-quite-so-die-hard husband, I decided that I really could wait for the last Harry Potter movie to hit Redbox before I saw it. I thought that this decision would be pretty easy to stand by until my friend's and family's responses to the movie began to hit Facebook...and the pictures of all of the amazing Harry Potter costumes and parties were posted, and I found myself desperately wanting to join the masses outside of our local movie theater's ticket window wearing an "I love Potter" T-shirt and wielding a hand carved wand. The night after the movie opened we decided to have our own little Harry Potter party at home and watch part 1 of the seventh movie, in preparation for the now anxiously awaited viewing of part 2. The kids and I sported the obligatory Potter scars and we had so much fun spending the evening together! The next day the online Potter-mania was out of control, and after watching me stare longingly at the movie trailer, my darling husband packed us all up and took us to see the new movie. Yea Joe!! We watched it in 3D (the only version that our theater showed) and LOVED it. It was such an awesome movie!!! We snuck in a pint of vanilla ice cream but it all melted before we remembered it, we were so involved in the movie!! So happy to share that the end of the Potter decade was fully appreciated at our house!!

Just Another Year in Paradise

Our beautiful Daughter Jadyn turned 2 years old on the 11th! She has grown up so much this last year! It has been really fun to get to know her and see more and more of her little personality. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of her favorites:

Favorite colors: blue, yellow, and pink
Favorite song to sing: Twinkle twinkle little star
Favorite song to have sung to her: Burgler Boy
Favorite music to dance to: ABBA
Favorite food: Fruit snacks...and pickles
Favorite drink: "orange" juice. (It's really apple but she identifies it by it's color)
Favorite place: Outside
Favorite toy: Carlos the car kitty
Favorite movie: The many adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Happy Father's Day! 2011

I have heared so many people argue against celebrating holidays like valentines day, or mothers day, or fathers day because choosing a specific day to share the love supposedly cheapens it. Well I strongly disagree. I love having the opportunity to shower some of my favorite people in this life with love and affection for no other reason then the calender suggests it. This opinion aside, fulfilling my own expectations of these days is often very stressful for me. What gift could I possibly make/find that would adequetly convey my feelings for my wonderful husband on Valentines day, or my mother/mother-in-law on Mother's day, or now my father/father-in-law for Father's day?

I don't often succeed in finding the perfect words or gift for these wonderful people, but this year I was determined to find something special for my Dad, Mark Eagar. I chose to write a song for him and my little brother Joshua helped me to put it to music so that we could perform it for him together on Father's Day. It turned out so great. We all cried and enjoyed a wonderful moment together as a family celebrating my Dad.

A Train!

Jadyn absolutely LOVES trains! We went to visit a train museum with the Eagar family and Jadyn had a great 'ol time climbing in and out of old tain cars and sitting in a 'real' train station! She even got a little souvaner train car from Grandma E to remember the trip by. We sure enjoyed the family outing!

Our Epic Summer...2011

This summer the kids and I vacationed in Utah and Idaho for a total of 6 weeks. We went to two weddings (One brother, one cousin), welcomed home one missionary (my little brother Joshua), blessed one baby (McKay!), celebrated one birthday (Yeah Liz!)...and one graduation (Congrats Mom!), and ended it all with an awesome Christensen family reunion and 4th of July celebration. It has seriously been one of the most awesome summers ever, and it's only July!

Joe was able to be with us the first two weeks and the last week of our trip. In between he had to fly home to Alpine to work on his Master's project.

We had such a wonderful time visiting with both mine and Joe's families and seeing old friends from both Utah and Idaho. We also reaffirmed how much we hate being separated. Those three weeks were so difficult for me, I love my husband and have found that I worry about him so much more when we are separated by so many miles. I guess that this is an area where I need to learn to trust a little more. I do know that I'd rather miss him then not miss him though! 

Grow Baby Grow!

My sweet baby Mckay is so anxious to get moving!! This month we got him a Johnny Jumper and a baby walker and he has been thrilled with the new mobility. It has been so fun to watch him cruise around in his walker to explore a room and to spend time bobbing up and down in his Jumper. McKay is now four months old and 17.5 lbs. I think that he is working so hard to grow and get moving so that he can keep up with his big sister Jadyn. We love these kids!!

Baby Blessing

On Sunday, May 29th Joseph blessed our sweet baby boy in my parents house in Perry, Utah. It was a truly unique event for us as all of our siblings and our parents were able to attend! My brother Josh had returned from his mission a couple of days before and Joe's family drove all the way down from Idaho to be with us. It was such a special moment for our families as we were all together for the first time.

Nebraska City Conference/Family Vacation

Joe and I took the kids on a family vacation to Nebraska City in April! It was such a fun trip and miraculously the kids were sooo good! (How did we get so lucky?). Jadyn and McKay slept/played through most of our 4 ten hour travel days. We picked good places to stop and stretch our legs every few hours and it worked out really well. Joe and I are really starting to enjoy road trips together.

We planned our trip so that we could swing through Dallas TX and see our college friends, Carolyn and Mike, before stopping briefly in Tulsa OK to see Joe's cousins Grant and Maren. Then it was on to Nebraska City for four days where we experienced the novelty of rain (haha). Joe attended a conference for his career field there and the kids and I played at the library and watched movies in the hotel. Friday we got up super early and drove down to Oklahoma City to spend the weekend with Joe's Aunt, uncle, and numerous older married cousins. It was so fun getting to know more of Joe's family and being spoiled by Aunt Lucy. Jadyn loved playing with all the little cousins and cheering at their soccer game on Saturday. (she's stinking cute when she stands up and claps yelling "yeaaaa!!") We spent Saturday evening playing a really fun card came called "golf" with the adults and then got up super early Sunday morning to drive home. Deeply contemplating Easter of course. --speaking of, I love Easter! and not just because of all of the amazing candy. I love all of the reminders to think of our Savior, and what he has done for us. He lived, he died, and He lives again. And because of Him we can live too!!

Blessings

We have experienced so many blessings as a married couple! Looking back at the last year I have found it a little overwhelming to count our blessings. God's love for me and my little family is so evident! Especially when I choose to look for it. Today I was counting the blessings that we have received since moving to Alpine TX and wanted to share a few of the highlights:

-Joe received an assistantship that will help pay for his graduate degree in a big way.

-We found an apartment...when family housing (and all other apartment complexes) were already full.

-We found all of the furniture that we needed for an AWESOME deal.

-A Branch of the Church here in Alpine, with members that have been SO welcoming!

-A group of fellow mommy's who were also looking for companionship. I love meeting for story time at the library, play day at the park, and crafts at somebodies home!

-Friends who share our interests, come for games 2-3 nights a week and conveniently live next door to us for when I need to borrow eggs.

-A graduate community that BBQ's once a week and tolerates a 1 1/2 year old getting into all of their stuff.

-Both of our families coming to visit.

-A monster calf that paid for us to go home for Christmas!

-The safe arrival of baby McKay. He is such a sweet baby!

-We were finally accepted into family housing up on campus (yea for a washing machine, dish washer, and a second bedroom!)

-A new part time job babysitting (SO grateful for the extra income! and for a work opportunity that I can do while staying home with my kiddos)

-A tax return that will enable us to pay for the next year of graduate school WITHOUT taking out a student loan.

-The beautiful weather that lets me get out with both of my babies.

-Joe's flexible schedule that lets him be home when I need him (for the most part!).

-Our wonderful families, who love and support us, especially while we are so far away!

Kisses

We have been trying to teach Jadyn how to "give" kisses. She knows all about recieving them, when asked if she would like a kiss she will turn her cheek up towards you. But when asked if she can give YOU a kiss, she turns the same cheek up and presses it against your own cheek. Super cute but not totally successful. So yesterday I made the kissy noises at her until she started mimicking, and then I showed her how to give McKay kisses. After watching for a while she went for it, but couldn't quite get the timing of when to smack her lips and when to bump McKay's head. She finally just pulled back and studied the problem for a minute. Her solution? A full tongue lick up the side of the poor baby's head...

The Labor and Delivery Story...

During that last month of pregnancy you really feel like it is never going to end. You are so uncomfortable and so tired and so ready to meet your new little baby! Well I was feeling all of these things as my ninth month drew to a close. We had an ultrasound at 39 weeks in which the technician told us that this was going to be "one big baby, AT LEAST 8 lbs, probably bigger though." With this news, and the fact that I had been having contractions off and on for a few days now, we were pretty sure that the kid would come early.

The next week slowly dragged by and we arrived at our due date with no baby.Two days later Joe's Mom flew in to spend the week and help out with the new baby...still no baby.

We had had a Dr.'s appointment early that morning (Monday) and our Dr. suggested waiting another week and then inducing. I responded with "How about this week?" Our Dr. really wasn't a fan of inducing but he agreed to let us schedule it with the hospital for Thursday morning. We really wanted to take advantage of having Grandma here to take care of Jadyn during the hospital stay--and frankly I was SO ready to have this baby out of me.

Well Monday night we went to bed yet again timing contractions...and Tuesday we woke up with still no baby. The fake labor was really starting to wear on us emotionally. Thursday morning could not come soon enough. Tuesday and Wednesday Jadyn and I played with Grandma, going for long walks to try and encourage the arrival of this little man. Wednesday afternoon Grandma suggested that I take a nap when Jadyn did since the days and nights of very little sleep were about to begin. I did and slept like a rock for over two hours. It was amaizing. That evening a nurse from the hospital called and asked if we would like to come in and begin our induction that evening at 7:00pm instead of waiting until morning. Yes! definitely yes! anything to make this happen sooner.

After being treated to a super yummy dinner by Grandma, we said goodbye to sweet Jadyn and headed to the Hospital. They got us settled in and gave me a pill to help my cervix soften. 45 minutes later I was having contractions every 2 mintues that were about 90 seconds long. I guess I just needed a little boost to start labor! Or maybe it would have started on its own, we'll never know. I labored until 3:00am when the nurse wanted to start Pitocin to make things move along faster...I kind of thought that they were moving along just fine but what do I know? Only that if they were going to start Pitocin then I wanted to have an epidural, so we ahead and called the anesthesiologist and got that started. Then started the Pitocin. things moved along until 7:00am when Joe needed to step out for a break (grab breakfast, check on Jadyn). The nurse checked me before he left and I was still a 5, so no need to hurry. at 7:30am The Dr. came in and broke my water. By 8:15 I was having REALLY strong contractions and felt like the baby was about to pop out at any moment. I called the nurse who checked me again to find that I was now a 9. She calmly suggested that I invite my husband to return. I texted Tawana to send Joe back but she said that he had already left. As the minutes passed I started to worry that Joe wouldn't make it in time. I was feeling an EXTREME need to push that wasn't subsiding between contractions. The Dr. came to check me and also asked where my husband was...things were going to start moving quickly. Well Joe did arrive at that point, he had stopped to pick up chocolate doughnuts for me...what a great husband to smuggle me food. Well I finally got the ok to start pushing and three contractions later baby Joseph McKay Christensen entered the world! 7 lbs 6 oz. 19 1/2 inches long. He is so perfect. He wouldn't cry, just layed there on my tummy and blinked at all of us. We are so grateful for his safe arrival!!