Jensen- 10 Months Old

I think we are due for a post with more pictures than words.  We will let the pictures do the talking this time.  Just know, this little man has his parents wrapped around his finger.  spoiled. rotten. little. man.

Can't wait to put all his monthly pictures into one post!

Favorite one, he is such a tease!

He has the saddest, cutest, little pout face ever.  Mini melt down whenever we set him on the ground.  Luckily he gets over it after a minute or so (at least until you make eye contact with him again.  Best to just pretend that you don't see him crawling towards you, otherwise you get his hopes up for a snuggle.) 

Love you Jensen boy!

p.s. my mom and I have a bet going.  She thinks he will walk by the time he is one (or at one).  I think he will wait for a month or so.  At this point my mom might win.  He just started walking across the room with nothing except for his push toy.

Two walking toddlers... this is going to be fun. :)

Pumpkin Patch

We have a pumpkin patch a couple miles from our house.  Last year my mom, Mykelti, and I took Adalyn there to choose our pumpkins, see the chickens, and take pictures.  We had so much fun that we decided to go again this year, and bring the boys.

They also had a hay maze for the kids.  Corinne took Adalyn through it. 

Hay fun!  Too bad Adalyn is such a girl and didn't want to even have the hay touching her....

Warming up in the cute barn

Oh and in case you were wondering, we did find some pumpkins :) 

Thanks Grandma, Grandpa, and Corinne for coming to visit us!

Hi

Hi

my name is Kajsa.

And I am addicted to Sweet potatoes.

 

 

Mmmmm....

 

 

Working on kicking the sugar addiction (you know, the constant need to have a treat every. single. day.)  The sweet potatoes we had for dinner last night definitely helped me not be SO crazy for a late night snack.   

 

Hope life is going well!  Happy Fall!

Caged Animals

Today is a blah day.  Sometimes I love Thursdays and other times, not so much.  Today, not so much.
How am I going to make it through the winter?  This almost nervousness (is that a word? probably not) that I feel for the cold weather is weird.  I do not want it to snow.  I usually don't mind it, but this year I am not excited for it.
The freezing days, harsh winds, and snow packed roads do not sound fun.  Outside is my freedom.  The kids love it and I do too.  What else can get you moving, endorphins going, and is free?  We use our stroller All. The. Time. (ask the neighbors). 

It is exhausting to me to try and keep the kids entertained all day inside.  There is a constant battle going on in my head everyday to keep them entertained, yet not let them watch too much TV.  I think we need to just get rid of the TV all together.  That would solve my problem right?

Do all toddlers need their mom to play with them ALL day.  I can hardly get the breakfast dishes done without the whining at my leg to do this or do that.

As I write this down I realize that yes whining and begging for attention is a normal toddler thing.

And maybe it is a normal mommy thing too after reading this post.  Sorry for the rant, I am going to grow up now and be happy.  :)

Life is good, I am blessed!  Here are my caged animals...

Refreshing

These days are being spent cleaning house.  Inside and outside.  It has been so cold the past couple weeks.  Mostly it is the wind that has stopped us from being able to spend time outside.  But this weekend the wind was calm and there was only a slight chill to the air.  We spent some time cleaning out our front flower beds and moving a pile of dirt that has been sitting on our driveway for months now.  Adalyn was excited to be able to "help" daddy.  We all loved getting some fresh air in between conference sessions.

Jensen and I supervised and cleaned up.

Funny story-  All summer long we have had a pile of top soil on our drive way.  We got it free off of Craig's list for our garden but we didn't have a wheel barrow to haul it to the back yard so there it sat, all summer.  I have been trying to convince McKay that we NEED a wheel barrow and that we should just go buy one.  But McKay is not a spender and he could not bring himself to go buy one for full price.  The yard is kind of his domain so I did not try and object.  I figured he would come up with a way to move the dirt.  And come up with a way he did... Here is our "new" wheel barrow.

I seriously can't help laughing out loud every time I see it.  Oh what the neighbors must think!  But McKay is so proud of himself.  And yes, he moved the dirt.  How can I complain about that?

Sun please stick around for a few more weeks.  I love this time of year, but I am getting a little nervous for the endless days of winter. 

Today I cleaned out all of our toys and books.  I packed some up in a box to rotate out in a few months.  I knew rotating was necessary, after Jensen completely ignored the box of baby toys in our living room for days on end.  It was time for a change.  I also moved a lot of the toys downstairs.  Unfinished basements are perfect for toy rooms... right?  That is where both McKay and I played as kids and we turned out alright so that is what our kids get too.  I love less clutter upstairs.

In the spirit of less clutter I also cleaned out my blog list.  For two reasons 1. the list of blogs I followed was WAY too long.  Nobody needs to read about that many people they don't know.  I scaled back to my favorites.  Hopefully this will help me waste less time on the computer.  2. Sadly most of my actual friends that blogged (as in I know them outside of cyber space) are done/ stopped blogging.  I miss reading about and staying "in touch" with friends and family.  What new thing am I missing that made everyone want to stop blogging?  Thank you to those couple who still write, I love "seeing" your lives even if we don't live so close anymore.   

Fall is such a beautiful time of year.  This month has been an interesting one at our house and will continue to have its ups and downs (please government please pull it together soon!)  But I am excited for the holidays.  Adalyn and Jensen are going to be Elmo and Cookie Monster for Halloween.  Their costumes are cute cute cute!  Can't wait to show you all!

Things Change

I have only been a mom for almost 26 months.
That is not very long at all.
Clothing styles change slower than that.

Recently I have become very aware at how little I know and how much I have to learn.
Especially when it comes to being a mom.


If something worked well with Adalyn I felt like I had all the answers.
But oh how wrong I was.

I do a lot of things differently with Jensen then I did with Adalyn.

He is a different child, we are different parents, life is different with 2 children vs. 1 child.

For example...
he does not sleep well.  At. All.
With Adalyn we let her cry it out.  Honestly it was what she needed.
Girlfriend wanted her space.

But we can't do it with Jensen.
He wants us there.  We almost think that he is afraid of the dark sometimes.
So it often takes 2+ hours to put him to sleep at night.  Then he wakes up 2 times a night.  It is like a newborn... almost.

He is teething, big time.

He is tired.
He sleeps a lot during the day to make up for it.
We are working on getting him on a schedule.
I believe in schedules.  We have just been lazy with bedtime routines this summer.
Kids need to know what to expect.
They need the security to be able to know that they are going to get fed and know that they are going to get a nap.
Moms need to know that their kids are going to get these things too.
This is day two of our newish schedule.
I hope it is working.


After having Jensen I looked into all sort of new parenting technics that I thought I would never use.
Cosleeping, babywearing, teething necklaces, and homeschooling just to name a few...
No I am not saying that we are doing any of them (besides the necklace part).
I just wanted to be more informed.
This researching has taught me that there are more ways than one to do something.
Each child is different and each situation is different.

I am reminded once again to stop judging.
We are all trying.

What is right for one child is not always right for another.
I realized that just because I have raised one child to toddlerhood (I know... not very old AT ALL, heaven help us for the next 20+ years) does not mean that the next baby will be a no brainer.
This realization makes me both tired and excited.
I can't wait to see each one of my children's personalities and spirits grow and develop... and face each new challenge that comes with it.

It really is an exciting and exhausting experience.

Sometimes I listen to the world as it tells me that being a mom is a brainless  job.

But when I look back at the past 26 months and see how much I have learned.

I know better.

I am No Artist

So, you know how you have to take a certain number of Art credits in high school to be able to graduate?  Yeah well I left all of my art credits until my senior year.  Then when I was registering for classes I was so disappointed in myself for doing that. 

You see I had this belief that I was going to hate taking art.  I can only draw stick figures so I assumed I would be terrible at all art.  A whole year of 3 art classes sounded hard and I really wanted to have an easier senior year (I don't know why... oh wait isn't that what every senior is after). 

But then a magical thing happened and I discovered that I actually liked art.  No I wasn't amazing at it, but it was fun and kind of soothing to my soul.  My teacher was awesome and let us listen to our ipods while we drew.  Yeah those classes ended up being so relaxing as we worked on projects at our own pace and listened to music.  I even saved a few pieces that I did and still have them today.  No they aren't that great but I love that I did them.  I take the same philosophy with my house décor.  No it isn't perfect or magazine worthy but I love it because I created it. 

Fast forward to a few months ago and I was trying to find something to do on Adalyn's wall.  In the deciding process I came across this picture.  I loved the flowers on the wall.  I assume they are vinyl stickers, but I am not really sure...  It was perfect because it filled the whole wall, and still gave some visual interest to the room. 

Of course I would have loved to have bought a vinyl sticker to throw up on her wall but I didn't really think I would have found one it the red that I was going for.  So then I got this crazy idea... I could paint them myself.  All I needed was a small can of paint and ta da!  A whole wall decorated for less than $15.  So that is what I did.  Adalyn hated that she kept getting locked out of her room, but I really did not want her watching me paint on the walls because I knew she would probably try and copy me the first chance she got. 

So one night I pulled the picture up on our computer and started free hand drawing the flowers on the wall.  The drawing process took less than an hour and then I was ready to paint.  I choose to paint with a foam brush because that was all we had.  It took a while to get used to it, but in the end it worked great for only being $.60.  The actual painting process took a few days and for a while things looked like I had smeared blood on the wall.  But the end result is so cool if I do say so myself. 

So here it is!  I love it better in person, but isn't that how it always goes?

 

So hard to take a picture of a whole wall all at once.  The wall color is an Aqua blue and the red flowers are California Poppy by Behr.  Yes it is bright, but it is a kids room so I thought that it was aloud. 

 

PS. This is what the opposite wall looks like right now to give you a better idea of what her room looks like now. 

 

 

Someday if we ever have another girl Adalyn's big girl bed will go in front of the flowers that I painted.  I think it will work out well incase there is ever an earthquake we don't have to worry about things falling on her head. 

This was a relaxing project for me and I am so grateful to McKay for watching the kids while I worked on it. 

 

Well that is all!  Have a great day!