Slave To Fashion

So anyone who knows me knows that I love fashion. I'm happy to report I have passed this gene on to my beautiful little daughter! She has been creating lots of outfits and is often very fashion forward. I've been wanting to blog about it for awhile and keep putting it off, but this latest adventure was enough to put some fire under my rear. While I absolutely love the new bib necklace look that is so in right now, Mckenzie took it to a whole new level.... LOL :)

Konnor is Four

So ladies and gentlemen, it is time for me to put on my sentimental hat. Don't say I didn't warn you! Konnor is four today. I can't believe it. How did this happen? When did this happen? Of course it makes me look back and so if you feel like joining me on a walk down memory lane, here I go...

I remember when I was in the fifth grade and had to start watching my younger sisters all the time. I had to walk them to and from school. I had to help cook dinner some nights and I had to stop doing most of my friend stuff because I had to keep an eye on them. When my dad left for good I had to stop doing all of my friend stuff that didn't include a friend coming to my home to watch my sisters with me. By the time I was in 9th grade I was cooking dinner, by myself, most nights. My mom was working 3 jobs to pay all of our bills and so I became the other parent. At 17 yrs old, when I graduated and had four years of helping kids with homework, cooking, cleaning, disciplining and sacrificing fun, I promised myself I would never have kids. From all of my experience, it was no fun. I never really thought much about it again. I spent the next four years perfecting the art of selfishness. You wouldn't believe how good I was at it!

And then, there was Konnor. Unplanned, 36 weeks of pure heck pregnancy. Almost 3 months on bed rest, born a month premature, didn't get to see him or hold him the first six hours of his life, barely got to see him for the three days in the hospital. He spent the first week of his life in a bilirubin bed, we could only hold him for 15 minutes out of the hour. It is slightly difficult to learn how to nurse a premature baby who you can't touch. Three weeks of pumping every two hours, mastitis... And then I woke up one day and realized I was in love. This person who I never knew I wanted, was everything that would ever make me happy.

You can't really explain the way you feel about your kids, especially the first one. They change you all in one second. You go to bed one night a married individual and wake up the next day in labor and then here is this person, this part of you that you had forgotten about for the first 22 years of your life. He knows you and knows you are supposed to take care of him and you have no idea how to. But you remember. You remember how you would never be happy without him, and you remember why it is important to be a certain way and you remember the promises you must have made to him before you left him to come to this Earth. As he teaches you the meaning of life, and how God can love us enough to forgive us over and over again, or how he loves us enough to punish us, or to give us a family, you realize why you are really here. You realize how much you love your mom and how much she really did for you, and how hard it must have been for her to work three jobs with four crazy kids at home, and how wonderful she was to still teach us that our Heavenly Father loves us and that is important to go to church and have faith that he will take care of you, even when she wasn't always takedn care of. And that you are as goofy as the next person, and Barney isn't so bad, and that fat (like obese) 6 month old boys are your favorite, and that people who drive minivans do it because they love the way their kids love vans and not because they are lame people, and the reason they drive like crazy people is because they have three screaming kids in the back, and that those dorks who dress up with their kids and dance and sing and skip with their kids in public are the coolest people you could ever hope to be, and that you want more kids. You want an eternal family enough to try really hard to be the person God wants you to be.

When your son has a hard time with something you want to help him, no matter what it takes, and when he excells at something you want to brag and you don't care if it bugs other people, and when the class bully pushes your kid down you want to beat the crap out of that (2 year old) jerk!! When your son doesn't push back, you want to tell him he did something right and you are proud of him (but you wouldn't be any less proud if he socked that kid next time ;)

Thank you Heavenly Father for customizing my Konnor just for me. For making his trials and successes my lessons. For making a cuddly, intelligent, Al Green loving, Text message writing, computer obsessed, forgiving, understanding, generous, bullheaded, beautiful, strong willed angel just for me. Please help me to be the mother he deserves and needs. Thank you for the last four years and please bless me with 400 more.

Konnor was born 5lbs 10 oz and 4 weeks early, at 6 months he weighed in at over 21 pounds. He knew his ABC's by age one, was reading small words by age two, at age three he could read anything in front of him, had memorized most of the state capitols, knew and recognized music by Al Green, Ray Charles, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Blink 182, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Nelly, Ace of Base etc etc. We have had many bumps along our short journey and many many joys. How blessed I am.

Now what?

I came home from girls night out last night at mmidnight and sat down to check my email before I went to bed. When I logged in I noticed that all of the important emails that I had been holding onto were missing. I was livid. So today I asked Aarik why he would erase my emails. He said he didn't. Right as I was about to (nicely) disagree with him my son walked in the room. "Konnor can you check mommy's email please?" I said. Konnor "yeah!" He runs over to the computer, goes to the website, logs in to our email, and deletes every email on the page. He is 3 !!!! So I guess my question is now what?

First Day of Joy School

So, today was our first day of Joy School! We are blessed to be able to have Konnor and Mckenzie participate in the same program together! It is wonderful as a parent to see your kids becoming best friends. I'm sure it won't last forever so I'm enjoying it now! There are 6 kids in their group. Only two are boys. I'm new to the program just like the kids and I didn't really know what to expect since I am still waiting for all of my materials to arrive. It was GREAT! They loved it! Singing and dancing and reading and OF COURSE playing and eating! I'm so excited for them to have this opportunity, to learn about Joy, and make friends and learn some good listening and participation skills along the way! HOORAY for Joy School!!





Konnor and Mckenzie before we left for Joy School


With their back packs full of school supplies and sharing time things



Pulling out of our driveway




Mckenzie, Mary and Konnor playing with playdough. Konnor is covering his ears, but I can't remember why...

Crazy Funny Kids

Konnor (our little computer genius) found the Melissa & Doug website today. He was looking through the puzzles telling me which ones he wanted. Then, he saw THE puzzle that he just has to have. He told me he wanted to go to the store "right now". I explained to him that certain Melissa & Doug products you could probably only buy off the internet and that we needed to wait until we had the money in our account to buy it. Of course he said "I want money!!" to which I replied "Me too!" Then the bright ideas started flowing. "Mom! there is money in Kenzie's room!! Come on I'll show you!" (OK here I just laughed because he was really excited to rob his sister's piggy bank but never mentioned his own) I of course told him we couldn't take Mckenzie's money to buy him a puzzle. Then the best idea yet! He had seen me helping my sister look for jobs online yesterday, SO he sat down at the computer and pulled up the search we had used yesterday. "Mom! Utahjobs.com has money look!!" (pointing to the website advertising $27.00 hr jobs) OK seriously, is this normal? I almost peed my pants!

Wearing Tags and Eating Cookies

Last night I told Konnor and Mckenzie that since the missionaries were coming for dinner tonight that we would wake up in the morning and bake some cookies. This actually worked to my benefit because they wanted to go to bed right away. Today ALL day long the kids were so excited for the missionaries to come. Konnor even made the declaration "Konnor is a missionary!!" (I am pretty sure this was because he thought that would mean he could eat the cookies before the elders arrived) After they left tonight Konnor told us how much he wanted to be a missionary because they get to wear tags and eat cookies. We told him that when he is 19 he can be a missionary. To which he responded "I am 19! I want to be 19!" Holy funny kid! I only hope that he has that same desire in 15 years!

This Sucks

Why did my husband tell me a horrible murder story he saw on tv right before he walked out the door to go to work? Now, I am exhausted from not sleeping this week and I am too scared to sleep... Do I overdo it on caffeine and try to stay up to make myself feel better? OR do I go get in bed (with my kids) and toss and turn until I drift into a not so peaceful (and guaranteed to be nightmare filled) slumber? I'm thinking I need another Diet Pepsi. Anyone for a late, late night Twilight party?

Baking

This was just a few minutes ago, when my kids realized I was baking chocolate chip cookies...

I have to admit, I have been baking more than necessary lately. The reason?

My kids LOVE it!

This picture was taken just a little while before the "muffin incident". For any of you I haven't told about this here is a brief recap. On this day I had made some blueberry muffins with fresh, beautiful blueberries and yummy homemade streusel on top. They smelled AMAZING!! The kids posted up in front of the oven the entire 20 minutes. After I took them out I put them on a plate to cool. I put the plate as far back as it would go on the counter and explained that they were VERY HOT. For some reason, in my mind, this was enough to prevent premature muffin eating. We all walked into another room and I decided to sit down for a second to check my email. I sat down at the computer, right beside the kitchen door way, for MAYBE 5 minutes. When I got up and walked into the kitchen, to my surprise, there were muffins missing! I walked into the front room where konnor was sitting and eating a muffin. I asked "Konnor, what did you do?" He looked at me and very seriously said to me, "Well, I blew it off!" Yes, I laughed. Yes, in front of them both. But the muffins really were that good...

What Can Happen in Five Minutes?

Well, here are a few examples. First I walked out of the front room for maybe five minutes to pull out the stuff I needed to make dinner and i came back in to this.

We had beeen outside swimming all day and I guess she was pretty worn out!! Hilarious. AND a few days ago I had walked out of the front room to come back in to this.

Konnor is a pretty big kid and so this is hilarious to say the least. We have been keeping my neice lately and her walker was in the room. I guess it's a nice lounge chair...

Children's Museum and Yard Dogs

So, it wasn't my coveted vacation, but today we had a really fun day. We took the kids to the Children/s Museum (again), but this time we went early and stayed later. This was exactly the trick to having a fun day with an easier departure. We were lucky enough to have some of our friends come with us. The kids had a great time, and we actually did too. The kids got to do a few things they didn't last time. Since we spent most of the day inside we decided to go outside and play in the yard when we got home. The weather was perfect for an afternoon in the "pool" and afterwards we through some hot dogs on the grill. Is any one else glad that the rain finally stopped? :)

I need a vacation

How many hours of hands on mommy time, school time, grocery shopping, cooking from scratch, sign language, baking, checkbook balancing, being a trainer, a wife (OK you get the point, but I really could keep going) are required before you have logged enough time to get a vacation??

My Kids are Cute!

Today the kids went outside and played in the yard in the BEAUTIFUL weather! They wanted to take some pictures of them swinging and sidewalk chalking. Since we took pictures, I thought we could share them!

This last picture is a pretty funny one. This is what happens when you tell a smart kid that they can go to the Children's Museum if they go on the potty five times... they will sit there and try to go five times, in ONE sitting!!! After about ten minutes Konnor said "I want entertainment Mom!!" SO HILARIOUS!! So we let him listen to the music on my phone while he sat there for the next 20 minutes... should we just take him?? LOL By the way, he is holding my phone in this pic, I guess it served it's purpose for picture taking too :)

I forgot to put Konnor's Apple Pictures Up....

He said since we were taking pictures of Mckenzie eating sour cream, we should take pictures of him eating apples here are a couple cute ones.... The first is right after Aarik and I got home from the temple, the second is Konnor eating ann apple and the last one is Konnor dancing b/c he ate an apple! :)

Here are Mckenzie's Sour Cream pictures....

In that top picture she is saying "It's delicious"

Why even I can't ALWAYS say "No" to Krispy Kreme

This is the first of several posts I will be putting up b/w today and tomorrow. I REALLY love these pics....

A few Highlights from this week...

Monday my kids asked me if I would "go tanning" with them! (yeah, it did make me realize I need to cut back a little..) So since my kids are lilly white, and it was rainy out, we put on our swimsuits and went "tanning" in our front room! We have a lot more funny pictures of this, but I picked the one I'm not in.

So Tuesday was a bit nicer, we decided to go outside and play! A few minutes after getting outside and putting down a blanket I looked over to find this...

After Explaining (several times) that we need to cover our "boobies" to Ms Kenzie she and Konnor both decided that they should. They agreed to wear "workout" clothes. They decided to dance while singing "Can I Have This Dance?" From High School Musical 3 :)

We are really starting to appreciate that they are best friends it is really sweet huh?

Since we were in our "work out clothes" and I was going running, Konnor told me he wanted to go "running with mommy!" So we put on his "running shoes" and sure enough he ran a good tenth of a mile down the road with me. Unfortunately we did not get any pics of this. I promise I'll try to remember next time! When we got home he sat on the couch with a big cup of water and didn't move for awhile. He kept saying "I'm SO tired!" "Konnor is SO tired!" It was So cute and SO hilarious. OK, anyone who knows me knows that Konnor is the love of my life. So I have to say I don't feel too guilty spending a minute "spotlighting" Mckenzie. This girl is the funniest person I have EVER met in my entire life! I wish I could remember every little funny thing she does, but since I can't, here are a few. I finally had to stop buying sour cream all together, and hide the bottle of Ranch that I keep for Aarik to put on his salads (etc) b/c Mckenzie will open the refrigerator, find the sour cream (or Ranch) and want to eat it. I used to be able to give her carrots, or celery to dip in it. But finally we resorted to her wanting sour cream/ranch, me puttting it on the plate and Mckenzie ordering me to give her a spoon. She would seriously sit there and eat straight condiments, for as long as she possibly could. Disgusting? YEAH! Hilarious?Ok, yes it is. A few weeks ago I walked into her room to get her clothes out of the clothes hamper and I found... EVERYTHING I had been missing for that whole week! AND some stuff I would have been happy NOT finding! I have since learned that if she finds ANYTHING and I do mean ANYTHING lying on the floor and she is in a cleaning mood, it goes in the hamper! She is BOSSY! She is SASSY! She has started hitting ( I know these things are not SUPPOSED to be funny, but I can not deny... they are!) This morning at 6:20 I woke up to her (in her sleep) screaming "NO TADA!!!" (that is how she says Konnor) and hitting the bed as hard as she could! What to do with this crazy little girl... The last picture I have for you today looks very much like a paparazzi shot and was taken before I convinced her to "cover her boobies"

OH MY HILARIOUS CHILDREN!!!!!

Mother's Day (a little late)

So I DID get the memo that you are supposed to blog about being a mom on mother's day, I just didn't get a chance until tonight! Like I ALWAYS say better late than never! SO here it goes. I was laying in bed Friday night thinkin about being a mom and all of my experiences thus far. I thought about how when I was pregnant with Konnor I really didn't think that I would like being a mom. I was mad that I had to get so fat to have a baby, that I had to spend 2 and 1/2 months laying in a bed, I guess to sum it all up I was still really selfish. I was ignorant to the joys of motherhood. Then I woke up on September 23rd 2005 at 3 in the morning in labor. Nine hours later, I couln't care less how "fat" I was, or how much time I had been out of commission. The only thing I cared about was that the baby I had waited to meet for the last 36 weeks was in NICU, out of my reach. We got our sweet beautiful 5 lb 10 oz boy six hours later. After 3 days in the hospital and a week on the "billi" bed(which only allowed us to hold/feed him for 15 minutes out of every hour) I finally got to start being a mom. I had no idea that it would be so amazing. I had no idea that you could love someone that much! Really, somebody should have told me...lol. This sweet little boy came into this world with a crazy woman for a mom. I hadn't liked kids before, I din't know what you were supposed to do with a kid you had ALL of the time! I loved being with him though, so we made due. For Konnor this meant that instead of singing lullaby's I sang the Alphabet song (seriously to a newborn, I know-crazy!) And when other boys were given a ball to play with I got him numbers, letters and books. And when I finally gave into his love of cars, we would sit on the floor and I would line them up into rows of colors. I know he must really love me b/c he went along with it. This resulted in a child with OCD tendencies, who was very highly strung, intensely logical, able to identify his ABC's at one, reading at two; in a nutshell he was Me but smarter. It took me three years to realize this, Poor kid. Luckily he has outgrown pretty much all of it, except the smart part! BUT in the meantime, I loved Konnor so much and he brought so much joy into our lives that by the time he was one, I wanted another one! This came as a MAJOR shock to anyone who knew me, especially those that remembered my first pregnancy. BUT after less than a month of trying Mckenzie was cooking. We knew she was supposed to be here. This time it was an easier pregnancy, a happier birth experience, a smoother transition. OK, other than adjusting to having a whiny girl :) The whole time I was pregant with her my only worry was how will this affect Konnor? I worried so much about it that I even got a blessing. In that blessing I was promised that this baby was going to be a great help to Konnor. And then there was Mckenzie! After a five hour labor (unless you count the two weeks before that...) she was born on June 28 2007. She was barely two days early and weighed in at a tiny 6lb 1 oz. " She is a little peanut" the Dr said when he held her up. From day one She was a very different kid. Where Konnor went along with pretty much anything I imposed on him, she would not have any of it. She is a feisty, freespirited funny little girl who would rather eat sour cream and shredded cheese than anything in this world. I finally let go a little allowing my kids to play like normal kids, and spend time away from me (ha ha) Turns out, she did help Konnor, and me too! I look back on my short time as a mother so far and realize how much we learn with our kids. Unfortunately they have to suffer through our learning. I am so proud of my kids for being as great as they are with such a nutcase for mom. I guess that's where they took after Aarik! In true "Jessica" form I will have to tell you not the greatest thing about being a mom, but the hardest. The hardest thing about being a mom for me is how much I love my kids! I never knew I could feel such a desire to protect, preserve, enlighten, enrich, cultivate etc etc. I wish I could lock them up at home, away from diseases and mean people, and pride and predjudice... wait what are we talking about again? I still haven't found the way to do all of these things, but I won't stop trying. I guess if we can't lock them away, we have to do our best to teach them about Heavenly Father and his plan for us. Never have I spent so much time on my knees in prayer. Never have I been so grateful for the atonement, which will allow me to be with my wonderful family, even though I am sooo imperfect. Never had I looked at other people as someone's child. Never had I realized that I really did like kids all along, I just didn't know it yet. My boobs hang a little lower these days, and no matter what size my jeans are, I know my rear will never be what it used to be, but I am so grateful for my children. I couldn't have two better ones. I look forward to the day I get to meet my third child (be it here, or in heaven). I will evermore have motivation to be good, keep trying, live righteously. I know I will make mistakes, I know I have made mistakes, but I am grateful for the chance I have been given to better myself. I hope my mom knows how much I love and appreciate the example she has been in my life. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all of the Mom's, will be mom's, Nana's, Grandma's, will be Grandma's, Klacki's, Mimi's and Granny's out there!

"I Love Turtles" and Cars for Mothers Day

Our lives have been a jumble for quite some time now. We are balancing Aarik's 3rd shift with my afternoon job, keeping the kids quiet in the day time for Aarik to sleep, cooking, cleaning, not eating this, always eating that, going to church on Sundays, grocery shopping on Fridays, dealing with loss after loss, Monday night FHE, scripture and prayer at 8pm nightly, family events, friends, no friends and the constant stream of trials that we are getting to teach us some lesson that we must be too hard headed to learn... you get the point! Some of you are going through similar lifestyles I am sure. So I have reccently changed my prayers from " Father I CAN NOT do this anymore, please fix it..." to " Father I CAN NOT do this anymore! PLEASE help me find peace and happiness in this life somehow!" The funny thing is, as I changed my prayer to this, my family, specifically my children have become my lifeline. Granted they drive me out of my ever loving mind a lot lately. (they are 3 and almost 2 I think it is their job) BUT... If I can laugh, it is b/c of them, IF I can smile, cry tears of happiness or look forward to something it is them! So I thought I would share two quick cute and funny stories.
1. My sweet husband has been prepping our children all week for Mother;s Day. I am not really sure what these conversations entail when I am not around, but i know they take place. Today, we were sitting around the dinner table and Aarik said to the kids "You guys know what Sunday is?" Konnor stood up from the table and yelled "Mother's Day". He grabbed me by the hand, led me to his room and told me to sit down. "Cars for Mother's Day!" He said. So as I sat in the floor in his room he put ALL of his cars in my lap ( for any of you who have seen his collection you realize the time this took) As I sat there wondering what was going on, it dawned on me that my sweet three year old son was giving me his most prized possessions for Mother's Day. I am one of the lucky few mom's who get "Cars for Mother's day"
2. We always play a game with our kids to get them to calm down for bedtime. Aarik and I will ask them what their favorite "fill in the blank" is. We honestly do this every night, with the same colors, animals, foods etc. I guess we don't pay attention much or maybe we just don't act like we care b/c tonight as we played our nightly game I happened to be holding Mckenzie and when I asked her what her favorite animal was I expected her to say a Lion b/c that is Konnor's favorite and he answered before her. When Konnor answers first Mckenzie always says what he does. BUT tonight Mckenzie informed me that her favorite animal is a TURTLE! It caught me off gaurd and I laughed a little trying to figure out why my little girly girl would pick turtles. This really did something for her and she repeated over and over "I like TURTLES!!" " Kenzie likes TURTLES!!" She was so pleased with herself. It was such a cute and funny thing to see her sitting there looking so small and cracking up that she loves turtles. I know it might not be too entertaining to most people but I loved seeing her pick her very own favorite animal and love the one she picked. I'm glad my 23 month old daughter loves turtles.

Race for the Cure

I know once you have kids you are supposed to only blog about the kids but.... I am really excited and so proud b/c Aarik ran his first 5k this weekend. Saturday morning Aarik and I ran in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure in downtown Winston. Aarik hadn't really even trained for it and of course he still did well. I think this one may have been my worst time yet, but I ran it anyway and I am glad I did. It was really cool to do something like this together. However, my advice to others who attempt this would be: If you run with the person who normally takes your pictures try to find someone who knows how to operate a camera to take pictures on race day!! LOL My sweet sister Holly was amazing and volunteered to get up at the crack of dawn to take pics for us but had a little trouble taking pics at the finish line! I adore her for coming though; blurry pics are WAY better than no pics. Thanks Holly (and Jill) I think our times will be up in the next few days and I will probably post them then (though I would rather not put mine up as I know I added two minutes on to my last race time) We know Aarik finished at a little over 28 minutes and mine was 30 minutes and some change (I know it is shameful but I blame it on the fact that I was pregnant for three months and then had a miscarriage 2 months ago... I hope you all feel bad enough not to pick on me when I put it like that! :P )The pictures are out of order ( I think) b/c I can't remember to load them backwards. We parked a mile away b/c that was as close as we could get. The race was supposed to start at 8:45 but we wound up standing huddled together (in the midst of a nasty flu outbreak) with thousands of strangers, in the rain until around 9:30. They shot the gun, we started running, and it stopped raining. It was perfect race weather and a great course. I made the mistake of drinking quite a bit of a Redline (energy drink) b/c I was scared I couldn't run it. Unfortunately by the time we finally started running, it had worn off and did nothing but make me EXTREMELY nauseated so by the time I got to the finish line I was dry heaving and looking for a place to throw up. Luckily as soon as I stopped running I was ok. Aarik, however, did great and finished strong. As I had predicted, he is now hooked and we are hoping this will be our new hobby as a couple.