Happy Halloween

I'm beginning to think that perhaps we over-celebrate our holidays. This year we did regular trick-or-treating, two church Trunk-or-Treats, and a pumpkin carving party. Oh, and two trips to the pumpkin patch. Well, I like candy. So there.

This year Kenley was Cinderella and Parker was Gus-Gus, the mouse. They both looked so cute! The irony was that Parker HATED getting his whiskers and nose drawn on (all three times), and Kenley was horribly envious of the whiskers and nose. So each time I had to do it I had Parker crying because he DIDN'T want whiskers, and Kenley crying because she did. By the third time, Halloween night, I was about ready just to draw some stupid whiskers on her face. Who cares, right?







This is Kenley with her goldfish Walter that she won at Trunk or Treat. He has already died and been replaced by Wal-Mart imposter fish, but don't tell Kenley.


Here is Kenley with Cameron Humberstone at the pumpkin carving party. Aren't they so cute?

Let's lighten the mood a little

The Saga of the Porcupine

So the other day I put Kenley in a new shirt that has a little cartoon porcupine on it. I told her it was a porcupine and she got all excited and said, "Porcupine book!" and took off running for her room. She flipped through her book until she found her animal book, and then flipped through all the pages until she found the page with, sure enough, a porcupine! Then the next morning James had his hair all spiked and she pointed at him and called him "Porcupine!" Silly girl - smart and funny!

Newest Phobia

James Earl Jones. He makes an appearance in Fantasia 2000, and when he came on she told me he was a "scawey man" and crawled into my lap. I tried to ask her what about him was so scary, but she did not choose to enlighten me.

Fire Damage update

Please pray that the worst is over for the Rancho Bernardo area. If what's been done is the extent of it, our friends and family have been spared in a series of miracles. Our neighborhood of High Country West was spared, and we are so grateful! Fishers, Drakes, Muirs, Lillys, Brundages, Humberstones - all of our loved ones in the Westwood area had homes on their street burn, but not their homes. Of course we feel so sad looking at the extensive list of homes burned in RB, but after so much scary news, it feels so good to be able to breathe a sigh of relief for those we love so much. We have had a wonderful 20 years here and made so many memories at these friends' homes, we truly would have been mourning alongside them. This afternoon has just been call after call after call saying, "It's amazing. The neighbors next door and across the street burned, but our house was saved." SIX of our closest friends have stories like that - it just makes me so grateful. Thank you everyone for your prayers, and please continue to pray that the winds die down and the firefighters continue to have strength, because we are not out of the woods yet.

Fires

Although the fires are raging all around us here in Southern California, we are out of the way and safe up here in Murrieta. Scott, Dad and Joanie, and Mom and Kirk have all been evacuated. As far as we know, all their homes are fine, but there is still much to hear today and more to come I'm sure. Rancho Bernardo, where we grew up, has seen a lot of fire damage so far. I saw it on the Today show this morning and it was absolutely unrecognizable. The restaurant James works at is also in the danger area so luckily he has been able to be home with us. Please keep the area in your prayers and especially pray for the winds to die down and for comfort for those who lived in the hundreds of homes lost so far here in San Diego.

A little bit about Parker

You know how as a mom you're always saying, "This is my FAVORITE age!" no matter what age your baby is? (I've found that habit stops when they turn two.) Anyway, seriously, Parker is just at my favorite age right now. Old enough to sit up and play with toys, but not yet mobile. He's getting good sleep and is just a happy little man.

We had his six month appointment this week, and he's still a long guy. Again he's between the 75th and 90th percentiles for height and in the 50th percentile for weight. He weighs 17 lbs., 6 oz. and I think he was 23 inches long. That last number doesn't sound quite right. Maybe it was 27 inches. Someday I'll learn to write these numbers down. Okay, I just measured him with a ruler and it was 27 inches. Anyway, he did so good at his appointment. Shots just do not even faze this kid. Last time he was asleep before we even left the doctor's office. This time I took Kenley out in the hall during shots so she wouldn't be scared and by the time James and Parker came out, he was all smiles again. Then we took them to get portraits done in their costumes, and then out to lunch at Chipotle. Yum. I'm getting sidetracked. This is supposed to be about Parker, not tacos.

Anyway, we are seeing the beginnings of scooting. I kind of thought we never would because he's so content to just sit and play, but sure enough, we're seeing new things lately. Propping up on his arms, sticking that bum way up in the air, and the frustrating scooting backwards AWAY from his toy. I think we'll see big things here in the next few weeks. He's also starting to get interested in Lucy, our dog. He likes to grab at her face, talk to her, and flail his arms all around. She has been licking him for months, but it's like he just now noticed that there was a fun doggie attached to that attacking tongue.

Well, Parker's telling me he's hungry and Kenley's in her room shouting, "Mommy! I'm AWAKE!!!" So I guess this is it for the morning. Hope everyone has a good weekend! Oh, and our whole family is always giving my mom such a hard time for her lack of picture-taking skills, so I will take a quick moment and credit her for the first picture of me and Parker. As the mommy, I so rarely get cute pictures WITH my kids, and I love this one. It's part of a huge batch of pumpkin patch pictures that I will be posting soon.

Why I Love Having Two Kids

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I know I say this all the time, but Kenley and Parker really are just such sweet little buddies. Parker just adores Kenley and thinks she is SO funny! All of his biggest smiles and laughs are for her. They have such a tender little friendship and I'm savoring it while it lasts!

Photo Shoot at the Park

Well, these turned out okay. Not what I had hoped. I think what was frustrating to me was that I had anticipated Kenley having a hard time sitting still and doing a good smile, and she did have a hard time but in the shots of the two of them, SHE is the one that looks adorable! And Parker, who normally does nothing except for sit around all day looking cute and grinning, just looks dazed and weird and totally not himself. Whatever. They're okay. I do love the individual ones of Parker.

Picture overload, but they're cute!

I was practicing with my camera settings today in anticipation of trying to do a little photo shoot with both kids next week. But so far, so good - I'm happy with the ones I got today! The real challenge will be getting the two little wiggleworms together. Should be good times. We should add Lucy in the mix to make it even better.

Side note: Today Kenley came up to me wearing only panties, holding a black marker, and asked me if she could color her body. At least she asked. This time.












Just adding one more in here for fun. This is picture #2 after I messed around with it in Photoshop. Love it.

Ah, sweet sleep.... We are almost there....

I'm sure by writing this post I am totally jinxing myself. Oh well. Kenley is doing great in her toddler bed. She loves it. She still wakes up a few times a night and cries a little bit, but then settles down. I think she's just disoriented. I put a nightlight in her room tonight so we'll see if that helps. Parker is doing a good job sleeping as well. He's going down around 8pm, we give him a dream feed at 11ish, and he's been sleeping until morning, getting up somewhere between 6:00 and 7:30 for a bottle. The good news is if he's up before 7, he'll go back to sleep after eating. So I'm hoping Parker will keep sleeping all night, and Kenley will get used to her toddler bed, and then we will have night after night of delicious, uninterrupted sleep. Doesn't that sound so nice? Yes, it sure does. However, Parker has yet to pop a tooth through, and I think he's saving them for when we all start getting some sleep. Teething, here we come!

On another note, it must just be really frustrating being a toddler. It is also frustrating being the parent of one. This morning Kenley was walking around saying, "Baby water! Baby water!" Stop and think what she might possibly want. I got her a sippy of water but she made it clear that that was NOT it. She was getting more and more frustrated and starting to cry. Finally the much more patient James lifted her up and had her point to what she wanted. It was this small pink cup we have (haven't used it in weeks) - it's like shot glass size and has no lid. So there you go. That's a baby water. Water in a small, small cup. Sheesh.

Time for a big girl bed!

Well, we cleaned out our garage yesterday and decided to bring down Kenley's toddler bed. Right now we're borrowing a friend's crib for Parker, so we'll just see how the transition goes, and then eventually Parker will get Kenley's crib. Anyway, Kenley was very excited about the bed, but she kept jumping on it and it was driving us crazy. She jumps in her crib a lot so that will be a hard habit to break, I think. So we put her to bed and she did great, just snuggled right in and fell asleep. But she woke up cring around midnight, so I went in and tucked her back in. Then at 12:30 she fell out of bed with a huge thump and lots of tears. Back to the crib it was - I was tired of getting up! We'll try again tonight... She is a very wiggly sleeper though, I am hoping she doesn't fall out of bed every night. And speaking of sleep, since I wrote about Parker, he's had several good nights of sleeping all through the night. Maybe he just didn't know I was so frustrated with him. :)

Kenley's newest phrase is "No please."

"Do you want some cereal, Kenley?" "No please."
"Come give Daddy a kiss good-bye." "No please."
"Let's put away your tea set." "No please."

It's so cute. Today we went out to lunch and I went to wipe some salad dressing off her pants and she's like, "Oh, SANK you Mommy." And then we got home and had to change her pants to put clean ones on: "My jeans! Okay! SANK you Mommy!" Funny girl. What else? She likes to sing her ABCs but she calls them her EBEs. Hey, she's not perfect... Today I had on a sweatshirt with some writing on it, and she points at it and says, "Some EBEs!" all proud of herself. My computer's being lame but I'll come back and post a little video I took of her singing the ABCs. Oh, and she's started the charming toddler habit of wanting to do everything "myself." "Tenley do it MYSELF!" Argh. Luckily she'll let me help her do it herself. I'm clinging to that until she realizes that if I'm helping, it's not actually doing it herself.

Parker is still his happy little self. Just sits there and smiles. He's still eating a ton and is inching up on that 20 pound mark. Yes, the same 20 pounds that Kenley weighs. I think he was in a growth spurt because he was taking TWO bottles at night again for the last little while. Now he's back down to one, which still doesn't make me happy. I keep reading (my curse) that very few babies have an actual need to eat during the night by this age (six months). But if I just go in and give him his paci, he'll go back to sleep but wake up every half hour or so until I feed him, and then he just CHUGS down a 6-oz. bottle and then rolls over, totally content, and sleeps until eight. I don't even have to pick him up, he just wants food. So I don't know. When Kenley was little, she'd eventually stop taking a whole bottle and just take an ounce or two, so then I would cut out the feeding. But to chug down a huge bottle without hardly even stopping to breathe? To me, he's hungry, and I think I'd rather give him a 4am bottle and have him sleep until 8 than have him be hungry and sleep fitfully from 4am on and then be up for the day at 6ish. I don't know. I'm trying to feed him more during the day, so maybe that's why he went from two bottles down to one, but I want him to sleep from 8pm to 8am. Is that so much to ask? I need an uninterrupted night's sleep. Let me note oh so lovingly that I'm not soliciting advice here, just venting. :) I know what my options are, I just need to decide what I can live with!

Ah, the life

Until you've spent your evening with a two-year-old wearing last year's duck costume with a pink feather boa and three bracelets, toting a cell phone and a Cinderella fishing rod... well, you just haven't lived.

And another hair chop!

I finally did it! I've been wanting to cut my hair off for a while and my mom told me I had to before my class reunion next weekend! Now Kenley and I are twins!

Parker's sitting up!

So I've been all stressed out because Parker can't sit up yet. I read that they make a ton of progress in this area between 5 and 6 months, so I was ready to see something! It wasn't so bad that he hadn't done it, but he wasn't even CLOSE! Like every time I would sit him up he would just fall right over on the floor, not even sitting for one second. Don't laugh, but as of Saturday I was seriously starting to wonder if there was something wrong with his spine. Then on Sunday, he could sit! We would sit him up, and he would stay sitting for over a minute at a time! It was so weird! One day he couldn't, the next day he could! Kids are so amazing. So YAY for Parker! Oh, except you can't smile at him while he's doing it or else he gets so excited he falls over.

First Haircut!

Well, we finally went and got Kenley's hair cut! It was getting so scraggly I had to put it up every single day. Anyway, we went really short and it is adorable.

BEFORE


DURING
Kenley didn't really know what to think about the whole thing. She just sat there with big old eyes and a nervous expression. She was very serious and I think a tiny bit scared.




AFTER
So cute!!!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Kenley!

Today is Kenley's birthday! I wanted to write a little bit about the things we love about her, and what she's like right now. Just skip right on if you don't want to read a bunch of bragging on Kenley, but I gave birth to her so I'm going to brag on her all I want today! Not that I hold back so much on any other day...

One of my top favorite things about Kenley is her good manners. My Grandpa Pierce was a fanatic about manners, and he passed away about two weeks before Kenley was born. I really truly believe he caught hold of her in heaven before she came down and gave her a good talking-to about having good manners, because hers are unbelieveable. She is always saying, "Yes pees," and "SANK you!" and "Cuse me" and it is just so dang cute. I don't know why I love it so much, but I do. I think I have a soft spot for manners because it was so drilled into me by my own parents and grandparents, so I just think it's so adorable.

She is funny. Every day she makes me laugh right out loud. Today she was playing with a dolly and took it into the car, and she was saying "Scawey! Scawey!" in a really high-pitched voice, and then in her own voice saying, "It's okay, baby!"

Kenley LOVES movies. She is a slave to commercialized characters. She loves Elmo, Disney Princesses (especially Cinderella), Thomas the Train, Nemo, Cars, Alice in Wonderland, Dora, Curious George, and the Berenstein Bears(?). She would watch movies all day long if I let her.

She is still so sweet to Parker. She runs to get him toys when he cries, and jabbers away to him. She can make him laugh harder than anyone else (by doing far LESS amusing things, actually).

She is totally potty trained, and did it pretty much all on her own! Thank you Kenley for that unexpected gift!

She has an incredible memory. Seriously. She can tell me where ANYTHING is ("Where are my shoes?" "In your room!" "Where is your Nemo book?" "In the car!"), and after she sees something once it is imprinted in her brain. Today she went and got a broom and tried to use the handle to sweep a toy out from under the couch. Okay, I know that doesn't SEEM brilliant, but to us it was. Maybe this is more impressive - when we came back to San Diego, we had just gotten into the San Diego airport and I told her we were going to get on the elevator, and she goes, "It's over HERE!" and points to this little tucked-away corner where the elevator really is, although you can't even see it from where we were standing. I just stared at her. Another time I was pulling out clothes for this winter, and she was absolutely insistent that her MeeMee (Joanie) got her a particular shirt. The scary part is that Joanie DID get that shirt for her, but it was a year ago and Kenley has NEVER worn it.

I love that Kenley is sweet and kind, yet strong and independent. I could never have imagined that I could love a child so much. People occasionally ask me if I wish I'd waited longer to have kids, and I always say no. I can't imagine what in this world would be better than this, more fulfulling than this, more beautiful than they are. We sneak in every night to watch these sweet babies with their little angel faces and every single night it almost makes me want to cry. Kenley has made me fall even more in love with James, to see how sweet of a daddy he is to her, how he does her hair and teaches her to love the Simpsons (grr).

I have a special bond with Kenley because she is my oldest, I had all the time in the world to just gaze at her perfect features and savor every single moment. I still try to savor the sticky kisses and snuggly lap-sitting, because I know it will be gone before I know it. But for now she is our little bug, the best thing I have ever done in this world. I love her sparkly smiling eyes, her blonde curls, her perfect rosebud lips, her very imperfect teeth, her cute little nose, her adorable toddler body, her mischievous expressions, and her sweet little voice. Happy Birthday Kenley! We love you!

Nauvoo!

We are back from Nauvoo! It was such an awesome experience. We got to spend so much time with Andrea, it just refreshed me. I miss my little sis so much. We took so many great pictures, so I'm just linking to the album so you can see however many you are interested in. Enjoy!

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=960121189660904306/l=306780568/g=7686048/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

The Latest and Greatest

Here are Parker's 5 month monkey pictures. He is growing up so fast. If you look closely on his right leg, you can see a tiny mark where he was burned by the buckle on his carseat this week. So sad! I am telling you, this kid is a tank. He just eats and eats and eats. He's still sleeping pretty good, and just the most good-natured baby you will ever meet. He is so happy and mellow. I am truly amazed at how happy he turned out, considering his grouchy start.



As we were taking these, Kenley wanted to hop up and be in some pictures as well. I love these because you can really see how happy Kenley is to be a big sister. She just loves her little brother so much.






Poor Kenley - this week she was playing out back and got COVERED in ants. Hundreds of them all in her hair, her clothes, on her face - it was NASTY! So every time she sees a black speck, she's like, "A ANT! A ANT!" I don't blame her for being freaked out. It was pretty gross. Kenley is at such a fun age with her vocabulary (not so much with her tantrum throwing). She loves learning new words and she's quite the chatterbox. I think about 6 months ago she knew 20-30 words and now she knows hundreds and speaks in sentences. That's really pretty amazing. She's doing great with her potty training. She'll take herself to the potty without any reminders, even during nursery at church! She loves her big girl panties, and I feel somewhat redeemed for buying cheapo generic diapers because boy is she STOKED to have characters on her undies! Seriously, it's so brand new and exciting for her.

Well, we're off to Nauvoo this week. I'm sure I'll take several hundred pictures so I'll have lots to share when we come home. Wish us luck with the babies. But Kenley is so excited to go on an airplane and see Annie, it makes it all seem worth it. Then when we get home, it's time for a birthday party! Kenley's turning 2!

The Hidden Pocket

"Where are your markers, Kenley?"
"In my POCKET!"
"That skirt doesn't have a pocket."

"Oh, um, well okay. I guess there is THAT pocket."

Another visit from Grandma Teddy!

We had a fun visit with Grandma Teddy last week. We shared lots of laughs and just spent the evening enjoying each other's company. I feel so lucky to live by my immediate family, and extra lucky that I get to see my Grandma so often even though she lives in Alaska. I just love her so much and it makes me so happy to watch her get to know my kids.