Feb 22, 2012

Tiny Dancer....

So both my girls are LOVING dance.
Colette is the prima ballerina and is really doing incredible in her recital piece. She's putting her feet into the ballet positions while at home. It's so cute, she's really loving that graceful, feminine movement.

Corinne really, really, really loves it. She begs to go to "ballet, ballet, ballet" every day. Her week revolves around when the next class is. She loves her little ballet slippers, and adores her little tap shoes.
She's obsessed with her little dance outfits, and when it's "Dance Day" she MUST wear her ballet shoes nearly all day. She practically beams happiness when she's in class dancing, and she's always mimicking the exact expression on the teacher's face.

I promise I'll take more pictures of both the girls. Dance class is seriously one of their most favorite things to do!

Feb 21, 2012

Journal Entry

It's been a long time since I've really talked about how I'm feeling, about life in more than a "this is what we're doing" way.
My life right now is pretty much me trying to be sure that my kid-o's have all that they need.
Let me be clear, not all the things they WANT, cause my kids want just about everything in Target.
Kallin, who literally wants a million things, Star Wars and beyond, and thinks that Target is like THE most coolest place to be.
Colette who wants an iPhone & iPad, uh, no dear. (Though we've started a earning chart, maybe if she works her little tail off she can earn something cool?)
Then there is Corinne, who wants every single lipgloss, tu tu skirt, and glittery she sets her eyes upon!
Not those temporal things...

REAL needs-- like am I making sure I feed them the right things, healthy meals- with no gluten, or dairy? (Uh, it's hard, and I honestly get so tired of having to think hard to cook a good meal, are ya with me!??!?!) Are they getting off the couch enough? Do they have a love for the outdoors? Are they healthy? Strong? Growing?
Oh, are fulfilled emotionally... do they get enough praise? Love? Am I teaching them to be well adjusted? Do they know how to handle defeat, sorrow, stress?
--sometimes I think, can I teach them that?!?! I'm sort-of a mess in that department some days.  
Are they being challenged in their little minds? Are they reading to me, so I can help them? Are they reading alone and developing a love of books? Are they counting? Do they know their colors? Numbers? Shapes? Is Colette doing her regrouping in math?

It's endless.... and I'm so tired of it all sometimes! Don't tell ok? 'Cause I like to appear perfectly assembled.
In my motherly role, I take it all on as my PERSONAL responsibility. Ok, I'm a little bit of a seriously obsessive person who loves to control my environment. :)
My husband and I laugh sometimes, because we really feel like kids raising kids. We have to dig deep, uh sometimes we have to go to the pro's-- think about things our parents did, and what we want to do differently, or what we really need to implement. I talk to my girlfriends about what's going on at their nest, and what their doing that works, or we compare total failures, and laugh our butts off about the crazy things we've done!

So how are the kids? They're great. They're mom is a little bit of a nutcase some times, but the kids are excellent.
We've had a lot of changes in the last year. Corinne sleeps in a big bed, is all frills and glitter, and can talk your ears off. Kallin is in pre-school, tall and handsome he loves Star Wars & Transformers. Colette is completely self sufficient & super-loving school. She's a great big sis, too. Each of the kids are phenomenal.

Let's hit on something I've not yet addressed. We moved, and then tried to buy 3 homes- all of which fell through for some reason or another. That was a really interesting time for me. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to leave the house that we'd built to our specifications. I put a lot into that place. There's so many memories in that home, and it's been a great place to be. We know so many incredible people who live there and were really sad to move away from them.
We sold the house in such a way that we could buy again. (never missed a payment, and our paperwork was done in such a way that we have full release of liability and the wording "Paid in full as agreed" and that allows us not to have a credit disaster.) We started hunting right away. I think I've seen a few hundred homes across Henderson.
Each home that we offered on, we got our hopes up. Well, I did. I always decorate in my head, and start to imagine what it would look like when we lived there. It was hard to loose the bidding war. It was even harder to finally decide that maybe house-hunting wasn't what we should be doing.
It was the right decision for us. I was so caught up in house hunting that everything that is important was on the back burner. We were in such a rush, and then we realized, we need to just sit tight and rent for a bit, keep the place safe and cared for. Well, as 12 things broke, and we fixed them, it was really good to be here. Disasters averted. (except for that time that Corinne took a sharpie to the cabinet... we might have caused that disaster.)

Then we decided to move our records to the ward here, and now we've got new callings in church. The kids are so busy in school, and we've started some extra curricular activities (dance & jiu jitsu).

I think this may be the busiest I've ever been in MY life. I'm the taxi cab, I'm trying to keep this big-ole house clean, and then there's the never-ending chores, i.e. Laundry & Dishes.

We're happy. We're living more in the NOW than we ever have. It's really been good for us. We enjoy this chapter of our lives and are planning for the future, we are looking ahead, but living life as it comes. It's great. We're rolling with this new plan that we feel the Lord has for us, and have given up the ideals of what we thought it would be. That's working so much better.

Feb 20, 2012

Tea Party

Welcome to our Tea Party. This mom's been under the weather, but I really wanted to do something fun with the kids, so I made up a tea party. We had Nutella Sandwiches, Cucumbers, Oranges and Caprisun Tea. The kids loved it, and everyone dressed in their best for the occasion. Kallin came as Anikin Skywalker, Corinne was Tiana, and Colette was Ariel (see the crown?). It was fun, the kids loved it for a 10 o'clock snack.
Now, I'm going to go lay down--- Enjoy our pictures of the tea party.

Hair Changes

my hair changes... well, more than most people. I was sitting one day thinking of all the different things my hair has been and well, lets look... (beginning about a year ago)
Dark with ombre in March (at LAMP), more light for 4th of July, then added purple. 
The one to the right was when I accidentally turned it blue... 
then below, is when I added lots of blonde cause it was ashy... 
Didn't love my blonde this blonde, and tried lots of things to fix it... 
got tired of it and went RED... 
Then my red faded out to a less Red-more Brown. 
Then I did REALLY RED. 

WOW. I'm a little, color happy lately! 

Feb 16, 2012

Corinne's Valentine Shoot

What a sweet little girl I have. She's so wonderful, happy and fun. She took so many incredible pictures, her personality was just shining! Every photo we laughed at how adorable she was, she smiled so sweetly, blew us kisses, and chatted. She even showed us some beautiful ballet moves. She's so fun. I'm such a lucky mommy. 




Kallin's Valentine Shoot

My little Kallin, oh, you sweet boy! I can't even believe how fun it was to take these pictures of him. I was the most nervous to get him up on the platform, he's usually a tough one, he wants to go play not sit and pose! We got SO MUCH personality, laughter, and kisses from him! Kallin is really quite the little model when he's in the mood!!! We got so many really great pictures of him, it was hard to choose what to post! The best thing we did (to get his "natural" smile) was make the sounds from Mario Kart, he thought it was so funny!! One of our favorites was THE WINK... we thought it was so cute Jenna & I were rolling laughing!