30.9.10

Pro-Life


There's a video link on facebook right now about a lady, Jianna Gessen, who survived a late-term abortion. It made me think about Kalea and the scare we had in one of her ultrasounds, which lead to some less than appealing "options" being brought up by some rather unprofessional ultrasound techs/doctors. My own doctor was furious with those individuals because what they found wasn't something that would necessitate one of these "options" to be discussed. And yet, in the past people have aborted, due to this kind of delinquent medical advice. We have a beautiful, happy and healthy child, I shudder to think about how many others aren't here because of such poor "advice".
We would've loved Kalea in whatever physical or mental state she came to us and we're grateful for the way she did come to us. Something to think about.


















Who Has Seen the Pictures...








27.9.10

The View Is Changing Fast


Dear Carmen (in the Phils)
Fall is settling in rather quickly in our neck of the woods. I took this a week ago, and to be quite honest, there is a lot less green now than there was last week! I will trade you the changing leaves and nip in the air for tropical heat and some karaoke any day! Well maybe not the karaoke
Hope this helps fill your need for some "Fall". The girls and I will be going on an adventure into Fish Creek this week, so I will try to get pictures of more than just yellow, at least some orange would be nice to mix in, right?
Love you guys!

26.9.10

When Daddy's Away...

The girls do their best to entertain themselves until Daddy gets home.
I think they have done a formidable job this time around. I am very impressed with their overall ability to get into and out of awkward situations with some ease, and to smile, even when they know they are in BIG trouble.
In all honesty the past few weeks have gone really fast, in part due to the fact that Brynlee's weird illness and killing 4 mice and cleaning up poo took up all of week #1.
Kalea found her groove in week #2 and we had some fun play dates, which were a great way to burn off some energy and lead to great afternoon naps!
This week we are busy getting the house clean and tidy in anticipation of our much talked about Wednesday morning trip to the airport to pick up our favorite guy :)
Enjoy the smorgasborg of pictures there are quite a few this time.










20.9.10

Post Sunday Pondering

Yesterday, besides the "fun" of having children, church was really really uplifting.
I sometimes hate my calling because I feel like I know too much about different people's situations, and I really liked the days when I was kind of oblivious. But yesterday I found that I especially enjoyed our Relief Society lesson because of what I know about these situations. As a presidency and individually we pray over the ladies in our ward, and it seemed that everything said yesterday was an answer to, at the very least, my own prayers, and I gained some insight and ideas about how I can help these individuals. What a great blessing.
I didn't really get a chance to study this lesson over the past week, I had my hands full of chaos, but these are a few quotes that I absolutely loved, from Spencer W. Kimball, and I'm looking forward to studying more on the subject this week, he said,

"There must be works with faith. How foolish it would be to ask the Lord to give us knowledge, but how wise to ask the Lord's help to acquire knowledge, to study constructively, to think clearly, and to retain things that we have learned."

"In faith we plant the seed, and soon we see the miracle of the blossoming. Men have often misunderstood and have reversed the process."

19.9.10

Sabbath Day Musings

Sundays are, let's face it, not always my favorite day of the week. They are supposed to be, and every Saturday night I have learned to pack the girls' bag and my own things and figure out what people are going to wear, etc... But somehow, SOMEHOW even with all the "proper prior preparations" it seems that we either don't get out the door on time, or don't get to even sit in our seats. I am beginning to see the error of our parenting ways as far as Kalea goes when it comes to church. She is the hallway child. The one that never wants to sit for more than 5mins, especially in a building full of friendly faces and endless doors and light switches. I am sure that one of these days I will be that mother whose child is running through the choir seats while someone is trying to share their tender feelings about the gospel, etc... Today I was the one who got some mighty impressive glares as her child shrieked at the top of her lungs during a most reverent moment. AWESOME. I found the glares pretty funny though, I just smiled back and had the thought, "If only you knew". I was happy my Mom offered to come to church with me so she could help with Kalea, it was really nice to get to sit and actually listen to and hear at least some of what was being said. I'm sure Brynlee is well on her way to following in Kalea's footsteps, so any amount of sabbath observance that I can actually absorb now while I have the chance is a wonderful thing. Thanks Mom.
I am learning to understand Kalea a lot more these days, her language but also her feelings/emotions. Steve being away so much has been a huge adjustment for all of us, but it has affected her the most. Today I tried to keep our Sunday routine fairly close to what it is when Steve is here. Steve is the Sunday waffle maker, I'm more of a pancake girl, so I made those- they smell the same so as soon as Kalea got a whiff of them she came running. I am so glad they made her so happy. Most of her acting out today seems to have been caused by some of the other changes in her life.
First, her feet just grew a size... in one week?! How did this happen? I can only assume that she's inherited that from her Dad and she is well on her way to having feet as large as his. I just hope she gains the height too or that will be awkward. So she didn't have "prid-deeeeee"Sunday footwear. I can totally feel where she's coming from, I've lived that experience too. Poor Kalea, sometimes as much of a tomboy as she is, she really likes to dress up for Sundays.
Second, in all my preparations I forgot to bring her last remaining soother or "see-eeee"(we call it a sucky) to church with us. In my defence, she threw me a curveball at around 12:15 today while I was trying to get dressed, curious? She basically painted the basement floor with her feces. Really. No word of a lie. Grabbed one of her IKEA paintbrushes and went to town spreading that love around. This almost caused me to throw in the towel and forget church altogether. So in all the chaos to clean up I neglected to grab the dang soother and what ensued when she realized we were at church without it was, nothing short of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. If that is what hell sounds like, I definitely don't want to go there :D
I feel like I'm making progress when I can recognize the things that set her off, so I can help her and remember not to take it personally when she throws those, super embarassing fits of rage in sacrament meeting. This little Kalea person is teaching me so much, I can't help but love her, but I am sure looking forward to the day when she will just sit on her chair and color me or Steve a pretty picture. Once again, I was very grateful for the Nursery and my Mom today.

14.9.10

T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!!


Note to self: Kalea is too smart for her own good. Just when you think she'll never figure out how to get into your practically adult proof stamp pads she figures it out! They are hard for me to open on a good day, how in the world did she do it???

11.9.10

Public Venting is Not the Answer

Sorry to all who read the blog yesterday. It's definitely not a good idea to blog when angry, so I would caution against it. I would also caution against letting things build up so much, that the venting has a chance of occurring at all. I have super strong opinions about certain things, I think everyone knows that. I also know that I can run my mouth over things that really don't concern me, and cross boundaries that I really probably shouldn't. There are many of us that aren't immune to that sort of problem. But, yesterday was one of those days when I really shouldn't have said anything at all. So for that I'm really sorry.

8.9.10

Thinking thinking I'm thinking...

I usually can think of something to write about, but not so much lately. Really, Kalea hasn't given me any good material lately- should I feel disappointed about that? LOL Maybe now I've jinxed myself and something exciting will happen soon. So for your reading pleasure, maybe I'll just share my random thoughts...
1. Yesterday morning as the sun was slowly assuming it's daytime position, I looked across to Fish Creek and marveled at how beautiful mist and trees and streaks of sunshine can be.
2. I hate that the leaves are turning already and instead of an Indian summer, it feels like winter is literally breathing down my neck.
3. I am not looking forward to Steve being away for 3wks but I am looking forward to the paychecks & having a car while he's away this time!
4. Kalea might love the fact that I am seriously considering taking her to Gymtastics every Friday until Christmas just to get her worn out so she will nap consistently at least once a week!
5. Brynlee is the best baby...EVER.

K, so on the subject of Gymnastics. This is a conversation Kalea and I had the other day.
Me: Kalea would you like to go into ballet class and learn pretty dancing?
K: No.
Me: You don't want to learn pretty dancing?
K: What?
Me: Do you want to dance?
K: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Me: Would you like to go to Gymnastics?
K: Yay!
Me: Yes?
K: Yesh! (complete with jumping in circles)

And to clarify, she will not be taking actual gymnastics classes since they are expensive and parented and only go for 10wks. I can spend $9/wk to take her for just over an hour and parent her without instruction for the next 16wks instead. So I think that's the way to go, I can't justify paying someone else $15/hr for 10wks to tell me how to help my kid do a somersault when she does them on her own at home everyday. That's just me.
Any other suggestions for how to pass the "indoor time" that we all love so much?

2.9.10

Slivers

Is it weird that I feel like "supermom" because I extracted 2 slivers from Kalea's foot? Honestly, I felt like I accomplished so much in that 2 minutes of my life, and she didn't squirm at all! LOL