February 2017

The curse about sitting down to write an update is that the minute I start typing I forget everything that I had planned on writing about. And inevitably as soon as I send it off I remember half a dozen more stories I should have included. Oh well, I suppose something is better than nothing.

We are doing well here. We celebrated both Colton and Owen’s birthdays in January. I can’t believe how big they are all getting. Owen is the one who seems to be changing the fastest. He is quite the chatterbox. He learns new words every day and loves to have ‘conversations’ especially with his daddy. They will sit and talk and talk and it just makes Owen feel so special. Owen really likes to talk to his daddy about his ‘paints and booties’ (pants and boots). During the course of nearly every conversation with this kid he will mention his pants and boots at least once. He loves boots so so much, it doesn’t matter who’s they are, if he can put them on he will. He has already fallen down the stairs several times as a result of wearing Colton’s boots. I have actually started hiding them so that he can’t find them and hurt himself. He is so funny when he talks because he just has the cutest voice. He has learned how to say ‘Colton’, ‘Kaci’, and ‘Preston’ he loves to call them and then when they answer he will jabber away. Also if he wants to talk to me and Weldon at the same time he will say “hey guys, guys!” and then tell us what ever he was going to say. When he asks for something and we tell him no he will furrow his eyebrows and say “what?!” like he can’t believe we dared to tell him no. He has a blanket he sleeps with at night and carries around that he calls his ‘gigi’ and he was funny because brought me my big pink fluffy bathrobe yesterday and told me “mama gigi?” it is pretty much true, I love that thing, it is so warm and cozy! Lol One thing he likes to say is ‘I’m scared!’ which just means he wants to be held. We can be standing in the kitchen and he will say ‘I’m scared’ just so I will pick him up. Owen also loves to sing and dance. He makes up the cutest little songs. Recently when he has wanted to nurse he will sing me songs about it and clap his hands while he sings ‘nurse, nurse, nurse, ah nurse nurse.” I know I need to wean him at some point but how can you say no to that? He is also funny because when he is done on one side he will sit up and look and me and smile and say ‘other side?’ haha. He is so wiggly though and is so busy that if I didn’t nurse him I don’t think I would ever have a snuggle from him. He really talks pretty good though and for the most part we can usually figure out what he wants. He has also learned the joy of pestering, and Preston squawks really well so that makes it so fun for Owen and drives me absolutely bonkers, although I suppose it is only fair because it is usually Preston bugging everyone. Something funny he said the other day while we were out driving still makes me giggle. We were driving and passed a place where someone had hit a skunk and it stunk pretty bad. Owen didn’t like the way that it smelled and was trying to communicate this with us. He kept saying “eww, yuck, stinks, poop, bum, smells!” and repeated this until we couldn’t smell it any more. He does usually tell me when he has a stinky bum and wants me to change him but I want to wait a little longer before I start potty training him. He is such a little copy cat and is so fun to be around.

Preston is my sweet and sour baby. He is like that nursery rhyme ‘when she was good she was very very good, but when she was bad she was horrid’ lol that is pretty much this kid. Thankfully he is sweet much more than ornery and his sweetness makes anything else worth it. He saw a picture of Weldon and I when we got married and so now several times a day he will randomly tell me ‘Mama, when you got married, you were beautiful” or just come up and hug my leg and say ‘you are so beautiful mama!” he melts my heart. He also has to give me kisses and hugs before I can go upstairs if he is staying downstairs and tell me not to be scared of monsters. He dressed up as a red power ranger for Halloween, we ordered his costume of Amazon for him and it came about a week before Halloween. He was so thrilled by it and loved it so so much that we were afraid that he would wear it out before he even got to go trick or treating in it so we told him he couldn’t wear it until Halloween but that after that he could wear it all he wanted, and boy did he take us up on that!! The whole month after Halloween I could barely peel it off of his little body every few days to wash it and then he would stand by the washer and dryer in his underwear and wait for it to come out. He slept in it, played in it all day, wore it to Walmart, grocery shopping, and even a trip to the dentists. It is literally coming apart at the seams but it has strong muscles and he likes that. For his birthday in November we got him some more costumes and he likes them well enough but they are just not the same as his power ranger suit. Since it has gotten colder his power ranger suit is not warm enough so he has transferred his affections to some little feety jammies that he affectionately calls his ‘reindeer jammies’ even though they are clearly moose, not reindeer. He wears them all day and all night, except I don’t let him go to the town in them, but as soon as we get back home his clothes come off and his reindeer jammies go back on. He loves them because they are so soft and fuzzy, I know this because I am given the privilege of feeling them several times throughout the day when he says “hey mom, feel my jammies, aren’t they so soft and fuzzy?!” silly boy. He is quite concerned though because they are starting to get holes in the feet, so I am not sure how we will deal with it when they become unwearable. He is just so fun and silly and completely enjoying being a four year old little boy. He has quite the imagination and it is fun to hear him play pretend. He loves dinosaurs and power rangers, superheroes, and anything the color red. Several nights a week he will still crawl into bed with us a few hours before morning and he is fun to snuggle with.

 He asked where dinosaurs live and I told him they were all dead and didn't live on the earth any more... it was devastating to him, he must have thought they were still alive somewhere. poor kid

His reindeer jammies were worn through so I replaced the feeties and he was so grateful!

 He was trying so hard not to smile for these pictures because "power rangers don't smile"

Kaci is clever and smart and fun. She likes to be in charge of things and play baby dolls with Preston. Sometimes I play with her but not as often as I probably should. I am in the process of making her a Barbie dress though for her Barbie dolls so hopefully that counts for something. Kaci had a bit of a cold this week so she missed a day of school, she was funny though because she still wanted to make sure that even though she wasn’t at school she still did her reading and her counting for homework. She loves structure and I think that is why she really likes school, plus she is good at it and always getting recognized for her good behavior so I think it makes her feel special. Hopefully she will continue to enjoy school even as she gets older. Kaci loves to dance and listen to Celtic Women and as you watch her you can tell that she just thinks she looks so beautiful and graceful, of course I think she does too, but I hope she always feels that way about herself. Kaci is very kind, if she gets some candy from school or something she almost always comes home and shares it with her brothers, without me asking her too. She is especially helpful and patient with Owen and he adores her for it. I don’t often have funny stories about Kaci because she is always so proper and dignified, but she said something the other day that made me just about die laughing. We were talking about babies and how they are born. Kaci very seriously informed me that the reason babies need so many baths after they are born is because “they come out of peepees”. Hahaha well that’s one way to look at it I suppose. I think she is in a hurry to grow up but I just want her to stay my little girl forever. They had class dance parties at school to reward the kids for being so good and Kaci thought this was the greatest thing ever. She said they even had a pink and purple disco ball and got to make a human train all around the room. She was really excited about her dance party and it was fun to hear her talk about it. One think I really like and appreciate about Kaci is that she listens if I tell her to do something, she will do it right away. I say put away her laundry, or come in for dinner, or get pajamas on, and Kaci is the first one to do it pretty much every time. It is really nice and makes things easy for me. Very rarely do I have to tell here more than once to do something. I love my sweet little miss.

Colton is the very definition of silly, and he embraces that side of him. He is learning how to joke and tease and he is not afraid to do so. An example of this is that one time at school before Christmas his teacher had asked him if it was cold outside. In response he got down on one knee with his arms stretched out wide and started singing “Baby its Cold Outside!” to his teacher. She laughed and asked if he had been listening to much Christmas music lately. Earlier this week we were at Walmart after school to grab a few things and as we were walking down on of the isles one of the workers accidentally knocked over an end display. I was very proud of Colton and Kaci because without me even asking them too they stopped and helped her put the boxes back up. After they were done she asked if they wanted a cookie so we followed her to the bakery and she gave each of the kids a cookie. As we were walking away Colton is holding his cookie with both hands and he quietly did an evil laugh and says “I guess kindness really does pay off!” He is a goof and there is never a dull moment around him. At his class dance party he danced and had a great time. He said he asked some of the girls to dance but they all told him no and giggled and ran away. He said no other boys or girls danced together, rather the boys danced on their side of the room, and the girls danced on the other side. It didn’t make him feel bad though, he just thought it was funny. They are still all in the cootie stage, except for him. He said no one knew how to dance like that anyway, and that he did because he gets to dance with Kaci at home. He is good kid and I am glad he is part of our family.

Things are going really good for us here. I really like Indiana, the only thing that is bad about it is that it is so far from home and family. We had one pretty good snow about two weeks before Christmas that melted off the day after Christmas, but it still made it extra fun to listen to Christmas songs and really feel like it was the holiday season in a way I never have before and I really enjoyed that. The weather here is wonky though, the kids got some sleds for Christmas but were not able to use them because there hasn’t been any snow. Monday of this week was gorgeous, 60 degrees with sunshine and everything. We spent the afternoon at the park with just a light jacket. Then it rained all day Tuesday and bam! Wednesday we got snow! Not very much, barely enough to cover the grass, but enough that the kids got to use their sleds. So they loved that. I think the snow is beautiful. I love the way it falls and it seems so gentle and soft. I also love how quiet it seems to make everything, and the way that it sparkles when the sun shines on it. I probably love it because we haven’t had very much so it is still special to see it fall. I suppose I would probably get sick of it if it snowed all the time.

I have been busy making Barbie dresses and drawing pictures for my story. I have been having so much fun with it and it has been good for me. I had better finish and get it published though because Kaci has already told her teacher and Colton’s teacher that her mama is an author and an illustrator. I love that she just states it as fact, like there is no possibility of it not happening. It has been fun to show them my pictures and get their opinions about stuff. They think it is neat. Kaci especially has taken and interest in my color pencils and likes to sit and watch me. She has her own Crayola color pencils but I got some that came in a nice shiny red tin and she has told me several times she wants some just like mine. Well Weldon surprised me with a set of 132 count Prismacolor Premier Color pencils that are professional grade! When those arrived I gave Kaci my color pencils that I had been using and she was beyond thrilled. 

Something I am really grateful to Weldon for is that he is always so good and supportive of the things I want to do. I say I am interested in doing photography and he buys me a nice camera, not an entry level camera, because he says he knows I am good enough that I need a nice one. And again he did the same thing with these colored pencils, I was using some that were a bit nicer then Crayola, and he went and surprised me with some that are top of the line because he says I am talented enough that I need the nicest ones. He believes in me so much no matter what I want to do and I love that about him. He never acts like my hobbies and interests are a waste of time or money and he tries really hard to make sure I get a chance to use them. Often this mean stopping the car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere because I just need to take a picture of that windmill, or making sure the kids stay out of the kitchen so I can draw. He never complains, and I am so grateful and lucky to have him. Often I think he and the kids have more faith in my than I do in myself, but I try to live up to their expectations.

Here is a picture of Weldon making me some ice cream because I was craving some but didn't feel like going to the store to get some so he got some stuff out of the fridge and ice from the freezer and made some. He is so sweet to me all the time!!

I have a wonderful life, and a beautiful family. We are so blessed in everything we do. I feel so fortunate in the life I get to live, and I intend to enjoy every moment that I have.