11 months?

I can not believe this little munchkin is 11+ months.  That is almost a year.  Where has my little baby gone?  Why do kids grow up so fast?  She is such a sweet, loving little girl who is showing her independence and stubbornness more each day.  This little peanut has known what she wants and does not want since she was teeny tiny and it is showing through even more now.  She has crazy blonde hair and a big bright smile than could brighten even the darkest day.

 Getting a great picture of Kenzie has been a challenge lately.  She does not sit still.  The one above was me attempting to get a picture and she was crawling toward me wanting to sit on my lap.  Love her!

I had to post some tub pictures.  She usually loves her tub.  I usually tub all 3 at the same time which she loves.  I found out the other morning she also likes tubbing by herself!  She doesn't ever want to sit down which gets very frustrating!  Although, I must say she is pretty good at standing and sitting and walking around without falling.  I don't know if that's a good thing or bad.

Happy last month of your first year of life baby girl.  We are so blessed to have you in our lives.  You sure keep us tired and on our toes!

Home!

We are finally home!  We are officially moved in and settled into our new home.  We are so lucky to have such a great family that has pained through our 5 moves in 5 years and offered their help moving, unpacking, and decorating.  I am not quite sure we would have been able to do it with out all of the love, help, and support.

We  closed on the house Friday the 14th.  Ryan and I moved a few things over that evening but moved most of our things the next day.  With the help of Sue, Jack, Holly, and Ryan's work buddy Nate, we loaded, moved, and unloaded all of our things Saturday.  Then Arin arrived and started helping us unpack, organize, and decorate.  Sue painted Landon's room Saturday night and Sue, Arin, and Holly painted Kadence and Kenzie's room on Sunday.  Then Monday Sue, Ryan, and I (mostly Sue and Ryan) painted the living room and kitchen.  Sue and Arin helped pick our paint colors and I absolutely love how it all turned out!  Sue left early Tuesday am and Arin and I finished all the decorating.  Arin is so talented at decorating and I just love everything!  So, in less than a week we were all moved in situated and decorated.

My parents arrived the next Friday afternoon and Ryan and I headed over to the town house to finish up cleaning.  They watched the kids for us Saturday night so we could go out to some friends' of ours wedding reception.  It was much needed after the month we had!

So, finally we can say "Home Sweet Home" and feel like we will be here for awhile.  There are just some minimal things we will be doing over the next year to make some improvements to our home.  The home is a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom rambler with a triple stall attached garage built in 2008.  The main level is extremely open with vaulted ceilings.  There are 3 bedrooms on the main level so the kids are all right across from us.  We have finally regained our own room as we moved Kenzie in with Kadence.  Kenzie is still waking up once or twice a night and thankfully big sister is sleeping right through it.  Kadence didn't want her own room and was excited to share her new pink room with her baby sister.  Landon is loving having his own room.  It is the cutest boy room ever decorated with football, baseball, soccer, and basketball.  They all seem to be sleeping in a little bit longer in the morning.  Landon has been sleeping a half hour to hour longer; it is just great!  The downstairs was just finished prior to us buying the house, so it is brand new.  The downstairs family room is gigantic with plenty of room to play and run.  The kids have already spent a lot more time down there than I expected!  There is a large very nice laundry room which is home to my new washer and dryer (finally!).  The 2 bedrooms downstairs are large and I am so happy we finally have a spare bedroom (with a bed) for our family to stay in when they visit!  And the best part...we are sharing a wall with NO ONE (although if I had to choose a family to share a wall with I'd pick the Carlson's for sure).  So here's to home ownership and all it entails!  We are very excited and absolutely love our new home.


Thank you thank you thank you to everyone that helped us.  We appreciate it so much!!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!

These two handsome guys already share a love for football.  Landon loves playing football with Ryan and has even shown some interest in watching it, too!  When I took out Landon's jersey for him to wear he was so excited!  He's too young to know that the Vikings are actually terrible.

So tough!

Here's Landon after he came in from playing football outside with Ryan.  Too cute.

Ryan and Landon even went and watched Jack play football in the Fargodome.

Aunty Holly and Landon.  Ryan said Landon actually watched the game for awhile.  This is impressive for a busy body almost 5 year old.

So...we were busted.  This is what Kadence and I did during the Vikings game.  I fell asleep on the couch and she crawled up next to me to snuggle and fell fast asleep. Actually, the outcome of my nap was much better than the outcome of the game!

Sneak Peek at the Ballerina.

This week was parent observation week at dance.  I have been eagerly awaiting this day since Kadence started dancing.  It was so fun to finally be able to watch her dance with her class.  There is something just absolutely adorable about a bunch of 3-4 year olds in their dance outfits.  They did ballet first and then put their tap shoes on to practice for their "sugar plum" dance for the December holiday recital.

Practicing ballet.  I love that she's using the wrong foot!

Pretty girl!

Time for tap!  I think Kadence enjoys tap the most.

There's lots of love in dance class...

It was so much fun to watch the little dance girl!  I was pleasantly surprised that she wasn't shy at all. Can't wait for their holiday recital!!

Packing Up!

The day has finally come and we are packing up to move into our new home!  How exciting to end our 3 1/2 year rental phase.  We were fortunate enough to rent some really nice places, but it's just not the same when it's not yours.  I have been busy packing the past few days.  I feel like we just did this; because we did.  It is not an easy task to pack while entertaining a 3 and 4 year old and a 10 month old.   Somehow, I managed to pack up most of our house in 2 days and we were ready to move as scheduled.  We close on our home at 4 pm on Friday October 14th!  We are very excited to get this show on the road after a long month of anticipation.  It will be extremely settling to finally have a home to call our own, add some color to our lives, and stay put for awhile.  We are headed for family move number 5 in five years and hoping to not keep those numbers up for the years to come!

Tired.

For some reason, this is how I feel after the last week.  We have had a very busy few weeks with Ryan working some weekends, traveling, and trying to get things together for our house closing and move.  I feel like there are always a ton of things I should be doing and am reminded of this when I sit down for even 5 minutes.  It is very unsettling.  I can not wait to move into our house and finally start to feel "settled."  I know for sure that I have definitely had enough of the state of "temporary" to last me a long while.

I was running on the treadmill downstairs with Landon and Kadence keeping me company.  Kenzie was napping upstairs and Ryan was watching football.  All of the sudden I looked over to see Landon all snuggled in on the floor amongst some toys.  I thought he was just taking a little rest and then realized that he had actually gone to sleep.  He rarely naps anymore so it was very unusual to see him fast asleep on the floor.  Especially since I can count the number of times he has fallen asleep outside of his bed or the car on one hand.  So, I let him sleep and hollered for Ryan to come down with the camera.  He looks so peaceful, with the loud pounding of the treadmill and fan, the tv (up loud enough so I can hear it over the treadmill), his loud sister, and the bright lights shining in his face.  I guess he was tired!

Just some misc. pictures I snapped this weekend.

 What a soft, warm pillow Emma makes.

Pretty blue eyes.  She is looking very grown up lately.  She played "Littlest" Mermaid all weekend and talked on her phone.

Emma wants in, Kenzie wants out.  Ironic.

We finally had a little rain today.  We had the door open and Kenzie spent a lot of time at the screen watching.  She was mesmerized. I was glad that she was taking a break from: climbing the stairs (around my barricade), playing in the plant, tasting Emma's dog food and water, pulling on the blinds, climbing on her sister, messing up her brother's toys, eating paper, eating shoes, finding my phone and drooling all over it, pushing the buttons on the vcr, emptying out my kitchen drawers, sneaking into the bathroom to play in the toilet, standing on the kids rocking chair rocking back and fourth, throwing toys over the gate down the steps, and screaming at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason.  <3

Is that a peacock? A mohawk?

 

 

 

 

Baby hair is a funny thing.  It changes so much during the first year of a child's life.  First, it grows in utero serving no purpose whatsoever except causing some heartburn for mama.  Kenzie was born with a head of crazy, kinky, dark brown hair.  After a couple months, it started to fall out and just thin due partially to the growing size of her head.  Then, she had the lovely circular bald spot in the back middle of her head from sleeping on her back (although this still remains a mystery to me as she didn't sleep much and was always being held-or squatted around the house).  Then her hair started growing which turned into a baby rat tail in the back below the bald spot.  The more hair Kenzie gets, the lighter in color it looks.  Although, the funny thing is it looks red in a lot of pictures and certain light but not usually on a regular basis.  I remember thinking the same thing about Kadence's hair, it seemed like when it was turning from the dark color she was born with to the lighter blonde color, it often had a red tint to it.  Well, not only is Kenzie sporting a distinguished widow's peak, she also has some crazy hair that does nothing but stand straight up on the top of her head-much like her big brother's hair.  I just laugh when I look at her light wispy hair and wonder what it will look like in even just a few months.  Love her so much!  She's perfect to me no matter what "ugly" hair stage she is going through.  Might I add she looks exactly like her dad when she smiles...love it!