yeah.. its been 6 months..

I've got lots to catch up on, so I won't waste time explaining why it's been so long!

My little family is growing up and it's SO fun!! My girls can now be found playing dolls together or reading or chancing each other around. :) They are both IN LOVE with Frozen. Kennedy will walk to the T.V point and say, "ehh it go!" So, pretty much daily we'll stream music videos or I'll give in and let them watch the whole movie.  And they both sit and sing along.. It's cute and makes them happy. And luckily I haven't found it TOO annoying yet.

We had a wonderful holiday season. Tessa was a princess for Halloween. Big surprise, Kennedy was a cow.. Since that's what Tessa was when she was 1. Just another bonus to having your kids birthdays in the same month! Ken was happy eating treats in the car with Dad while I walked Tessa from door to door. And get this, Tessa is still thanking Heavenly Father for Halloween in her prayers. So I think it's safe to say she loved it.

We made the long drive to Chicago for Christmas. It was the first time the whole family has been together in like.. 5 years I think? So it was exciting having everyone under one roof for the festivities.  I've decided I love having a 3 year old! She was so excited for Santa! It's so fun being a parent Christmas morning! We saw frozen for the first time, went sledding, ice skating, played lots of games and ate a lot of yummy food. :)  We had a great time and when it was all over we considered staying for another week.. Darn work and money and stuff.

We had some serious cabin fever through January.. Stinking cold long winters! So just a couple weeks ago we decided to get out of the cold and visit  our friends in Cali. They were threatening to de friend us and we need to still have friends in the area if we are going to move back one day.. So we just had to go! Oh My Goodness we miss that place! It's funny Mitch and I both felt like we were just back at home, like it was just our day to day life and we didn't have to drive back to Idaho the next day. We have such awesome friends we miss so much!! They were so awesome to let us crash and cancel other plans to play with us!! :) I wont speak for Mitch, but the girls and I LOVE and MISS the beach!!

We'll see if it takes me another 6 months or not.. ;)

Oops! Warning: Picture Overload!

Life doesn't ever slow down, does it? I've officially fallen off the blogging band wagon. Part of the reason why I struggle to blog is that I have to use Mitch's computer. Mine has some how become an antique in less than 6 years. (How is that possible! Money sucking technology companies!) Jk I'm not angry just sad that its not really usable any longer.

Being the last day of September I don't feel too bad that I haven't posted birthday goodness. Which we will get to. September 8th I had something very strange happen. For the first time in my life my birthday came and I panicked a little bit! I'm a quarter of a century old! Wow. Really.. Im still not sure how I feel about it. (any of you dealing with this same thing?)

Okay on to the goodness. Its pretty awesome that as a family we get to celebrate all our birthdays within 23 days of each other. Mitch starts us off and he got a new set of golf clubs. :) He must really like them because he got me a new vacuum and blender for mine! :) I'm in love.

Kennedy turned one. :) Its so bitter sweet! I'm one of those people that could hold a newborn FOREVER. I cry a little each day as they grow.. yes I know its good, it would be bad if they didn't grow. They just grow out of the stage TOO fast. But I'm so blessed with little Kennedy. She is still just as sweet as the day she was born. And she is getting so smart. She's been walking for months now. She does summersaults. And spins in circles. She folds her arms for prayers. She's got a full set of teeth. Twelve of them, and another one coming in. She says uh oh, broom broom (for cars), tiggle tiggle (tickle tickle), meew (milk, I know not even close.), mama, dada, ba ba (bye bye), te ta (tessa),  and just recently ta doh (touch down) and she raises her hands above her head. LOVE! She loves her sister so much. They always make each other smile in the morning. And Kennedy is very quick to give her hugs and kisses if she's sad.. or throwing a tantrum. We love her so much.

(getting a good picture took a really long time)

Tessa turned three! This may be part of why I'm feeling so old. She is one spunky sweet little thing. She can go from making us want to pull our hair out, to melting our hearts in seconds flat. (I'm sure thats normal for her age.) She loves to sing and dance. She has an awesome imagination. Which I'm sure she gets from her Dad. (I'll catch them hiding under blankets from polar bears or aliens.) She is very order oriented. If I list off what we are doing, she is happy to do things like go to bed or turn off her show. (Thank goodness I learned this early on!) And then she'll wrap her arms around my neck and say, "You're the best mom." She did this after I get her pajamas on the other day and she picked up her little toy house and said, "You can have this in you're room tonight, cause you're the best." She then took off and put in on the floor on my side of the bed. Love her to death.

We decided to have a dual party for them with just family. Themed it a pirate princess party and picked up some dollar store crowns and hooks for each of the kids. I made a makeshift castle out of cardboard and just let the kids play. You know laid back, nothing like what you would see on pinterest. But then I had the bright idea to make their cakes. Castle of course. Stupid frosting was impossible to work with and after close to an hour of decorating I called it good enough. Lol never again.

I totally forgot until I started sifting through pictures... The last week of August we made a kind of last min trip to Chicago to visit Mitch's Fam. :) It was a blast. We went to a Cubs game, visited down town and spent a lot of much needed family time. (thanks for having us on short notice!)

Here are JUST A FEW ;) sweet sister pictures from this past year. :)

FATHERS DAY and then some

Maybe its because I live a lot closer to family now.. or maybe I'm just lazy. Either way blogging has been on my back burner.. or more accurately in my slow-cooker. But July is going to be a really really busy month for us so I need to catch up before we are so far behind I miss too much! 

We've now been back in Idaho for almost 2 months. Its a little sad to admit we haven't been camping, hiking,  river floating or skinny dipping yet. Hopefully soon! ;) We have made some good friends and have been able to spend lots of time with old friends we haven't hardly seen in the past two years. 

We had a nice day celebrating Fathers. Mitch claims he likes all of his gifts. He's so sweet. :) The girls gave him a photo of daddy and them, that Tessa had colored the matte to. As well as a photo book of a whole lot of pictures of just Mitch and the girls.

Tessa has been talking about her birthday for about a month now. And she adds something new to her wish list almost every day. High on her list of wants is a trip to Cali to see her friends and go to the beach. (she might be getting that one from me..) She had a Dr. appointment a few days ago and the scale says she's a whopping 26 lbs. Some of her favorite things lately are throwing rocks into the canal, running at the track, and dressing up and dancing with her new friend. My favorite- she says, "Your'e the best Mom!" (or dad or kenney)

Kennedy went to the Dr. as well and she is 16 lbs and 27 1/2 inches tall. She love love loves the water. Can't get enough of bath time and she crawled into our neighbors freezing cold baby pool fully clothed the other day and cried when I took her out. She says "aww da" all done, when done eating. "rroom rroom" when playing with cars. She says ma ma and da da, (though I'm not sure she gets it.. I think ma ma means nurse me women more than mom.) She is cruising, climbing and standing alone for brief seconds. :) oh and my favorite- she gives big wide open mouth kisses! :) 

Another Move

Sorry I sometimes prioritize things like packing and spending a little extra time with friends over writing on our blog. :P We've been kinda busy lately. This is our second day in our new home in Idaho and (surprise surprise!) we're missing the beautiful sun of sunny California! But Mitch is working so I'll try not to complaine too much. We actually went to the park today. It was a quick trip and a brisk walk but it's nice to be outside some. ;) Oh and the best part of this move is we are ALOT closer to family! Yay! I've missed them! And like my sister said, it'll be nice not having to cry at every goodbye. :)

Our girls are getting big. Tessa calls Kennedy, "Kenny Coo Coo." So sweet. Though she's a typical two year old and we pick our battles daily. She does and says the sweetest things. "Ohh it's okay Mama, don't be sad." The girl is a little obsessed with sticks, rocks and dirt. But likes wearing pretty princess dresses so she may look like Mitch but she acts just like me!

Kenney is already 7 and 1/2 months old! She has finally started crawling on her hands and knees instead of her belly. Her third tooth is cutting through as we speak and we had to drop her crib down because she pulls herself up to stand on everything that gives her any kind of leverage. She is a little snuggle bug <3 especially since she's started into the separation anxiety, have to have Mommy all the time thing. 

Wish they could stop growing so fast!

I'm so glad we made time to get family pictures taken by our friend Liz before we left. Love them! We might have to make trips back just for her.

And even more than the sunshine.. I'm already missing our awesome Friends!! Come visit us!!

Its been 6 months!

Wow its been a while.. well not really that long ago. But a month in Baby time is a freaking long time! They change and grow so fast! So here's whats been going on.

Mitch- was let go the end of November so his life consists of job searching, freelance work and spending some extra time with us ladies!

Me- I'm still trying to figure out how to get my list of things to do done while still enjoying my babies.. I probably enjoy too much.. :/

Tessa- is seriously such a sweetheart. Daily she tells us "I wuv you very much." And "Awe, I wuv her!" to Kennedy while smothering her with hugs and kisses. She loves the beach and the pool. :) Thank goodness we live in California! Her vocabulary continues to blow me away. She picks up everything we say and what she hears on tv. She loves to sing "Her" nursery songs. My favorite is I'm a Child of God. :) She's at least 26 lbs and 34 inches tall. She's wants to be completely independent or completely dependent, which changes in flash. And she has the most perfect gorgeous hair. She gets complements all the time. :)

Kennedy- is getting so big!  She has been army crawling for a couple weeks now. Mitch calls it the wounded solider because she only uses one elbow and the opposite foot. Its pretty cute. Shes 14.4 lbs and 25 1/2 inches. (Which is crazy since Tessa was 14.4 lbs and 25 in at her 6 month app.) So she's slowed down some.. hasn't doubled her weight since birth yet. She has had lots of firsts since my last post. First haircut- mostly just the tail in back but also a little off the top. First cereal- I think she has ADHD. Even if she is starving she's too distracted to focus on eating. First time in a swing- she is normally asleep when we are at the park or this probably would have happened sooner.  First pool day- though she only dipped her toes in the water. The water was too cold even in the 90+ degree weather. First trip to the beach- it was overcast most the day but she loved watching the waves. First cold- :( poor girl has such a nasty cough!  But she is still so mild tempered and happy. :)

Here is some photo proof of how time flies! 

(and a little sister comparison.. these aren't the best to show how much they look a like.. next time)

Story Time

So I play basketball a couple times a week with some awesome ladies in my stake. Lots of us have young kids who we let play on the stage and run the borders of the gym. Of course there are little accidents now and then.. they are kids after all.. and us women aren't exactly playing no touch, slow basketball. I my self have lost some skin and received a few bruises and blisters. But Monday was the perfect storm.
We had a few more kids since school was out and when I got to the church Kennedy was crying instead of falling asleep. I wrapped her up and rocked her back to sleep. I put her back in her carseat and put the cover over top. I've been putting her in the corner in front of the curtain on the stage for the past four months and this time wasn't any different. Have you guessed where this is going yet?
Nearly an hour later we hear crying and we all look to the stage to see which child was hurt. And at first I couldn't find the source. Then I saw the little yellow blanket moving on the floor. I'm afraid I cussed out loud as I ran over to pick my sweet little baby off the gym floor. I was living a nightmare. I wish I had seen it happen. I looked her over and over looking for a bump or some sign of injury. All I found was a tiny bit of blood on her lip. I called Mitch and he asked our friend to come help give her a blessing. She was acting like normal, like nothing happened. Until I tried to feed her. She would latch on and suck but cry as soon as she swallowed. So we took her in to get checked out. Her Dr. looked her over and showed us some bruising in her mouth and by then we noticed a tiny bruise forming on her chin. But that was it! I wouldn't be surprised to learn someday that an angel saved our sweet little girl. I'll be forever grateful. And don't worry she won't be going back on that stage for a long time.. If ever.

FiVe!

Guess who turned 5 months today?!

Kennedy!

Hard to believe?!

I know!