Happy 7th Birthday Kienan!

We celebrated Kienan's 7th birthday according to his current favorite thing: LEGOS. Yes, we went to Legoland down in San Diego. I must say that we had a blast and it is SUPER kid friendly... i think the tickets being $10 less a piece may have made my personal ratings a 100%, although we did use our AAA discount.Every birthday in our house (even if you are a guest) deserves a birthday muffin/cupcake. I have been doing this since kienan was little. Check here for last year's pics. This year we brought homemade cupcakes to Legoland and sang him Happy Birthday in the parking lot! :)

Legoland city or whatever it is called was by far my most favoritist thing! You really have to see it for yourself. Not to mention that many other parts of the park were made of legos. The man hours prior to opening this park must have been unreal.

Kienan and Kyle, the daredevils, had a blast on this crazy robotic ride. That is Kyle's legs in the air. I'm sure Kienan's legs are clenched to the bottom of his seat. He likes to be brave & courageous like his daddy, but he hangs on for dear life! I bribed him to raise both arms in the air on one of the roller coasters. I of course had to raise my arms to show him that it was safe. So here i was crammed into a little kid roller coaster waving my arms in the air like i was having the ride of my life 30 feet off the ground :)

After the first roller coaster Mackenzie decided they just weren't for her. But she loved anything else that moved. It's fun to watch your kids have fun.

Kiera wanted to go on every ride. She loved to go high, to go fast, whatever made her giggle! She pouted when the two bigger kids got to go and she didn't.

After a day at Legoland we had a fun dinner with uncle matty at Fuddruckers. The ice cream sundae may have been a highlight for kienan.

My baby is now 7 years old. As much as i attempt to cherish each day, time has flown as he's growing up so quickly. I often threaten my children that i will only feed them candy and cake so they stop growing and stay small :)
Some of kienan's interests are: football, football and more football (hmmm.. wonder where he got that from). He religiously watched the NFL games with us last season, remembered the players names (mainly the Steelers) and even wanted his own Fantasy Football team. Kienan spends a large portion of his free time running back and forth downstairs tossing the football up in the air and catching it. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He is in his 2nd year of flag football and has scored a 2 point conversion for the team! Kienan finished his first chapter book, Stink. He is in a 1st/2nd grade split and his teacher tells me she has nothing more to teach him. He points out to me that he has never had minus 3 on anything. He can still polish off 5 pieces of pizza, still loves to snuggle, and is still my favorite boy. He has my heart wrapped all around him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUBBA! xo

6 Years Ago

I've been gone soooo long that i don't even know where to begin. It's a bit overwhelming... and i don't even have much time right now. I think that i will start with the important event of my first born turning 6!!!!! Of course, i need to revisit the events of his birth day so that they are documented for his enjoyment in 10 years and my memory loss in 5 years. :)

Here I am prego with my first (wish i had thought to put pics like these for the girls' birthdays). I became quite uncomfortable my last few weeks of pregnancy, but continued to work (teaching middle school). I think i spent most of the time in my "Teacher Chair."

I had my Tuesday appointment in which my doctor said i had preclampsia with my high blood pressure and massive swelling in my feet (i could only wear slippers). She sent me home and told me to wait for a call as soon as a hospital bed was open in labor & delivery. Doesn't that sentence sound like it could be soon? Ya, nooo.. i slept sitting up that night on the couch waiting and waiting for the call.

It wasn't until 9:00 the next morning that we were told we could come to the hospital for this medical induction. So yes, i was induced that morning February 27, 2003 at Shea Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona. My friend Kristin and Kyle of course were by my side. Things did not move very quickly so some other medical stuff was done to get the labor going. I walked and breathed and was determined to do this natural-no epidural. My labor pain was ALL IN MY LOWER BACK.... worst labor pain of all three... My boss, Jayne, and Kyle constantly massaged my lower back, but to no avail. I could not handle the pain after some 5 or 6 hours i think. I really don't remember how much time passed. Eventually, in the early evening i started 1 of the 4 epidural doses. Did not like the feeling of the epidural!!!!!! I ended up throwing up, spiked a fever and just felt crappy. I finally started pushing about 5:00am. Kyle was such a great coach and husband especially considering he had NO SLEEP! My father-in-law, Patrick, and Kristin waited patiently in the waiting room.

At 6:32 on the morning of February 28th my beautiful son was born (also my parent's wedding anniversary). My greatest memory was when the doctor laid him on my chest i looked up to see the tear fall from Kyle's eye and land on Kienan's bare skin. :) xoxoxoxoxo

This is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE PICTURE from that day. We played the Nora Jones CD over and over and it was raining outside. SO peaceful and so calming. How sweet does that lil boy look?!?!??


So we celebrated his 6 years of existence at the bowling alley!!!! It was just family and his favorite friends from across the street. We played as 2 teams, had pizza, birthday cake and opened some very cool 6 year old presents!

Birthday Tradition in our house is to have birthday muffins on the morning of your birthday. Right now some of Kienan's favorite things are; Spongebob (i'm so over spongebob), making funny faces when his picture is taken, swinging in the backyard, thinking 6 years old is the same as being 18 years old, journaling and money.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIENAN CHARLES! I HOPE THAT WE EXPLORE AND LEARN AND DISCOVER AND LAUGH AND HUG AND READ AND RUN AND PLAY AND SING AND DANCE AND HAVE A BLAST TOGETHER!!!!

I LOVE YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!

XOXOXOXOXO

The Giggles

It's the baby giggle that is priceless....

(Kienan & Mackenzie)

Another Treasure

The Pledge of Allegiance

This was when we lived in the apartment so he was 4 years old :)

All About Kienan

He's all about being ACTIVE~

Kienan started playing flag football on the Stealers Team. He has had 2 games and yesterday HE CAUGHT THE BALL!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!! I'm hoping this experience will help him mature a bit socially, although i think he is very intimated by the older kids on the team. But he has agreed to put himself out there, try something new, and grow as a person :)

He still lives and breathes Tech Decks. He created a cardboard Tech Deck Park on his bedroom floor. I should take a picture. I recently made him his own "Kienan's Tech Deck Shop" signs. He wants to open his own repair and build shop.

He is reading like crazy. We took a trip to the book store the other day and he picked "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" which is a comic chapter book. Very attractive to the eye. He sat down and started reading it making about 50% of the words. Come to realize as i am reading to him in bed the story line is really for 12 year olds. Haven't decided how i'm gunna handle this one quite yet. He dug through some of my middle school math teacher books in the garage. He lugged them up to his room, sat down on his bed and proclaimed, "I'm studying Math today."

He still has his meltdowns, but seems to be a bit more independent. He can make me laugh and pull my hair out all in 5 minutes. He will argue his point until he can make that brown hair on my head transform to gray. He understands concepts way beyond his years. He is inquisitive about a variety of things from "How long is The Great Wall of China?" to "How come Martin Luther King Jr. helped people?" He uses Google on his own. And at night he still wants that kiss and hug from mommy and daddy. He is still one of the most amazing people in my life.

Family News

Here is our newest edition, Tommy hanging with his brother, Toby. Toby was hanging with us until the kittens were 8 weeks old. He is off to his new home, my brothers' house :) Kienan came up with the name Tommy. Since we have a mice problem in our backyard he figured we already have the "Jerrys" so now we have "Tom" like Tom and Jerry :)

Can you tell that Kyle insisted "No CATS!" for the first week before we convinced him to let us keep Tommy?

tough guy cuddled on the couch with the kittens~

We mustn't forget the first born children of the family. They are very curious about the kitties, still love their treats, and attempt to escape every now and then.

Josh earned Student of the Month in his school!!!! The program through is Character Counts. His Video teacher nominated him and he was chosen amongst 10 other students. We celebrated with a family dinner at Islands. He also had a 4.0 on his last report card. He had all A's and 1 B, but the B was in an Honors class so it counts extra. Check out his video website as he is adding new ones all the time.

Kiera is busy as ever keeping up with her older brother and sister. It is amazing how much she understands what we say. Her words are still "mama" and "dada". She's a dancer, an entertainer, and still a snuggle bug :) She mimics all of us in everything we do. No room for error i tell ya.

Kienan brought home 3 papers this week with 100%. He is doing so well in school academically! We are signing him up for flag football starting in January. He has more energy than the energizer bunny times 10. He is an avid skateboarder, reader, and loves to antagonize his sister :)

This series of picture really warms my heart. He recently told kyle and i that he has a hard time making friends during recess. Broke my heart and of course brought me to tears. I just can't understand how the whole world wouldn't want to be his friend. He has so mush to offer and i'm praying that everyone can see it too so he doesn't feel so sad at school, but rather shares this smile.

Mackenzie seems to have grown up so quickly all of the sudden. I hate that. She went from toddler to big girl way too fast. My parents gave her ballet lessons for her birthday so we will be starting those soon. She is very fond of being fancy these days. I believe she has worn more make-up in the past month than i have in the past 5 years.

Good to have a girl in the house :)The picture below was such a proud mommy moment. it just seemed that the girls room was getting out of control with their clothes and i was trying to weed out the summer clothes and their room look like a tornado, hurricane, and earthquake hit all in 2 seconds.

Poor daughter of mine just wanted to rest her tired self. So she found the only cleared spot in probably the house that day and curled up as tight as she could. i found her fast asleep not even covered up with one of the million blankets we have. Nope. A pillow times three. She stacked them to make her half naked body warm. This is proof of how crazy our world gets sometimes. i feel bad that she didn't have a nice cozy bed to lay her head down, but at the same time i feel like this picture captures the unspoken truth of parenting at times.and here i am. UGH! done with the whole knee-in-brace look. Yep. Just Done.

Surrounded by AMAZING People

So the ear tube surgery went GREAT! It was quick and pretty much painless. The nurses and doctors were amazed how she NEVER cried once, not even when daddy left the room before surgery. They were also surprised how she woke up immediately after the procedure. They kept saying that it didn't even seem like she had surgery. I am very happy that she will be able to endure winter EAR PAIN FREE! I also feel relieved that her body will not have to ingest all of those antibiotics for such a long period of time. And, the BEST part is her world won't sound so muffled anymore! So my Mackenzie is amazing for her COURAGE and BRAVERY!!! She's already dressing up like a princess after her special chocolate shake :)

Kiera's had her 1 year well check last week. I was encouraged by her pediatrician to really get her to cry herself back to sleep during the night as she STILL WAKES UP EVERY 3 HOURS!!!!!!! She really only nurses once a night, but other than that she just wakes up to wake up. It doesn't bother me so much as i have been doing for 13 months and my body is just used to the schedule. But i decided to follow her advice. Last night at bedtime i stood by her crib as she screamed and cried and cried and screamed because i was not rocking her to sleep. i thought i was giving some awesome moral support as i hadn't left the bedroom yet. BUT, after 30 minutes of her screaming and crying and crying and screaming i decided to walk out of her bedroom for 5 minutes and return to encourage her to lay down in the crib again. She wasn't having it.... continued to scream and cry and cry and scream. So i walked out again giving her a chance to lay down on her own.... oh no.... she wanted her mommy. as i waited in the other room i suddenly heard a loud THUD!!! Simultaneously, kyle was installing a new shower head so i thought he had dropped his tool bag or something.... WRONG!!!! Little miss kiera, 13 month old little miss kiera, CLIMBED OUT OF HER CRIB AND LANDED ON THE WOOD FLOOR!!!! She walked out of her bedroom still crying insisting that i rock her to sleep. SHE WON! I felt sooo bad that i had rushed the process weaning her at bedtime and maybe my little baby still needs her mommy to rock her to sleep :) so i will! My Kiera June is amazing for her PASSION AND DETERMINATION!!!!

Kienan is doing SUPER in school. He was the first one in his class to start the reading program with BOB books. He is already on his 3rd book and keeps saying, "These are so easy i can read it with my eyes closed." As a teacher THIS IS AWESOME! As a mother I AM VERY PROUD! But as a lover of books I AM EXCITED as what the love of reading will bring to his world and hopefully enhance his life. So the other night i caught him under his sheet with a flashlight and a book. CLASSIC! My son is amazing for his INTELLIGENCE and CURIOSITY about the world!!!!!!

Josh has done it AGAIN! His video assignment was to create a music video. He produced and filmed it. There is some trick stuff in there plus he drew that picture of the singer BY HAND! That is his best friend, Kyle, singing who has a real band. But they lip-synced this song. I am amazed by josh's CREATIVITY and MATURITY that i have seen in the past couple of months!! Check it out!!!! : www.vimeo.com/1989993

I don't post much about my dear husband and i guess that is because he is not growing and developing quite like the littler people of the house... but he has been AMAZING lately. First, i want to acknowledge that we have now BEEN IN BUSINESS FOR 2 YEARS AS OF OCTOBER 1ST! What an experience to work as partners for these past couple of years! Our marriage has benefited by using this opportunity to get to know each other on a completely different level. The biggest struggle and challenge has been separating work from home life; being "Business Partners" one minute, "Parents" another minute and "Husband/Wife" even another minute. But here we are still moving forward. his PERSISTENCE is amazing! Second, he treated me to a saturday of sleeping in, a 1 hour facial and a 1 hour massage!!!!! WOW!!! That's a first and i loved it! So he is amazing for his THOUGHTFULNESS! And thirdly, he has been helping with the cooking, cleaning the house (bathrooms!) and taking on more of the parenting duties. For this i really appreciate his efforts. I am amazed at his role as a DEDICATED FATHER and THOUGHTFUL HUSBAND!!!!! Oh ya and i'm glad he's tapping into his INNER CHILD a bit more! :) i love you.