Reviews

Reviews of the most recent things I have done.

Book: Mockingjay....great book, I loved the ending but wish it was written differently. You will understand when you read it, if not let me know..I don't want to spoil it for anyone else.

Movie: Babies...thought I was going to love it. The couple from the U.S. were kind of weird and I don't think they represented American Culture (whatever that is) very well. Don't think I could watch it again.

Movie in the theater: Grown Ups...super funny. Laughed out loud most of the movie. Definitely would watch it again!

Shopping: H&M...had some awesome clothes for cheap....some were weird but loved most of what I saw. It was worth the drive to Scottsdale.

Treat: Kroger brand Baby Ruth ice cream...super yummy! Loved every bite of it and it's cheap!

Food: Johnny Rockets...went there today and had an awesome burger...their french fries were delicious... very comparable to Crown Burger (who has the best french fries ever). I really wish they had fry sauce though. If you haven't had fry sauce you need to. It's soo yummy!

Job at home: Being a mom. I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Coming up with a blog post tonight: Super hard and I am glad I thought of something.

Tried something new or really enjoyed something you have done recently...please share, I want to try something new.

Goodnight!

CJ

I don't post a whole lot about our dog CJ. He was our first "baby"! Kade even calls him his older brother. We got him only a month after we were married. When Ryan was at work I got lonely and didn't really have many friends. So I talked him into getting a dog. We would watch Planet's Funniest Animals on the Animal Planet channel. We would walk through the mall pet stores and talk about what kind of dog we wanted and eventually looked at the classifieds to find a dog. Originally we went to look at a miniature pinture (I have no idea how to spell it). While we were there I saw this little ball of fur and fell in love. That's when we got CJ. He was my baby and I dressed him up all the time. His favorite spot in the house is under the bed. He is a kisser and is always giving kisses!

Ryan and I are still debating over the color of this sweater....is it a black or a blue stripe??? I think blue he thinks black. He still disagrees with me after seeing it! What do you think?

Silly dog!

Trials are blessings

The only drawback with going to church with a baby and toddler not yet old enough for nursery is that it seems like you are always in the halls. Today was a pretty hectic day at church. Kamryn was restless and ready for a nap. Keegan woke up so I had someone holding him while I chased Kamryn through the halls. Then later on in the last bit of church Keegan was brought back to me with a huge blowout going all up his back...Good thing I remembered his blanket today! So he hung out in a diaper and blanket for the rest of church.

I did enjoy the Sunday school lesson (the whole 5 minutes I was in there). It was on trials or something like that. They were talking about how some grow stronger and some turn the back the to the Lord after a trial. Some would ask the Lord what have I done to deserve this? The sweet lady who took care of Keegan for me made a comment about the topic . I don't have her exact words but this is what I remember her saying, "Every trial is a blessing and every blessing is a trial. You have to take a blessing (trial)and ask Heavenly Father what he wants us to learn from it. We weren't put here on earth to lay around and read magazines and let the maid do all the work. We are here to grow"

I can relate to that so much. I have had a very hard trial with losing Kooper. I was lucky to let that trial help me grow closer to my Heavenly Father. Don't get me wrong I wondered, What did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me? Why me? Over and over. But those words above that this sweet lady said reminded me why we have trials. I am here to grow to have blessings (trials) so that I can grow and become a better and stronger person. It's not always fun to have these kind of blessings but I am grateful for my faith that helps me get through them. There are still days I am sad or just want my baby but I have come along way. I have grown. There are fewer bad days, but that doesn't mean I don't think about Kooper on the good days. He is always on my mind and in my heart. I love and miss that boy! I wanted to go to the cemetery today to take in him new flowers, but I didn't have any new flowers for him so hopefully this week I will be able to go out there.

BUMBO!

Today I finally got a Bumbo chair! Crazy that it took me so long and lots of kids to finally decide to get one. I noticed that Keegan loves to sit up and look around and I don't always have the arms to hold him with a 14 month old running around. So I jumped onto craigslist and found one for cheap, it may be purple, but who cares, it works!

Here he is with his big brother Kade sitting in his BUMBO!

Notice Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite in the background?

Here is a pic of Kamryn and her piggies!

Tired

I am tired! I have felt so tired lately. Not really sure why. I guess Keegan hasn't been sleeping as well as he usually does lately. Maybe he is growing again! All the wants to do is EAT! Had a fun night with Jenna and Nickey last night. I really needed a girls night and then got to hang out with my new friend Sara today. She has a little girl a little older than Keegan and it's fun to get together and "try" to do crafty things with my wild kids and the babies. But we have fun chatting anyway. I have almost finished my car seat shade, just a few more stitches! (took me long enough)

In other random news:

Kade breaks the school rule at lunch pretty much every day. He shares his food and today came home with Tommy's grapes.

He also told me today when he got frustrated with me, "You're giving me gray hair!" That's what his teacher tells him and the rest of the class when they don't listen or are being crazy.

Kamryn has a new word, I asked her to come get her shoes on and she came running over repeatedly saying, "Shooze, shooze, shooze." She also was being very loving to Keegan today rubbing his head and within seconds it turned into hitting his head!

Just wanted to share some cute pictures from our friends little boy's birthday party this week! (Happy 1st Birthday Dylan!)

Kade and Landon

Kade and SJ (This totally looks like a Ryan Perry smirk)

Little Stinker!

She is growing up too fast. She has a love for taking all her clothes out of the dresser one piece at a time! She hasn't leanred to love to put them back though! I guess she gets it from me. I remember in high school I would get a shirt out and try it on and then I didn't like it so I just rhrew it on the floor and grabbed another one. Before I knew it half my clothes were on the floor. I hated putting them away. She is so stinkin cute lately with her talking and babbling and climbing and laughing. She is such a fun girl. Although I wasn't really excited or happy to put back all the clothes, it did give me a chance to go through some of them and pack away the ones that she outgrew. Love this girl! I look forward to all the fun girly stuff we will get to do.

Homework...

Oh how I hate homework...not for me but for Kade. Why does it have to be so frustrating...it is exactly why I would (could) never homeschool. When I ask Kade to do something or try to teach him something he tells me I'm wrong but when a teacher tells hims something then it's ok. I have found that giving him the choice to do homework or go to bed helps get the homework done. We are already having problems and he is only writing letters and his name. I am not looking forward to the real work...like math! YUCK!



I asked Kade why he added an A to his name...he doesn't know why but he likes it that way. I also don't know why his a and d are backwards. He actually knows the d is wrong, he tells me it's a b which is what it is...I guess maybe he wants to chance his name to Kabe!

So tonight the only way he would do his homework was if he used crayons...hope the teacher doesn't mind. This is what he did. Pretty creative huh?

Kindergarten

This whole Kindergarten thing has been interesting. Kade loves school and I can tell he is soaking things up like a sponge! Even the bad things...for example in my post Sunday he learned a bad word. And then yesterday we had this conversation between Ryan, Kade and I. I don't remember exactly how it lead to this subject but this is what I remember.

Ryan: Have you kissed a girl?
Kade: Yes!
Ryan: You should only kiss your Mom.
Kade: I kissed a girl on the play place.
Ryan: Oh you did. Who did you kiss?
Kade: The girl in the yellow shirt.
Ryan: What was her name?
Kade: Taylor!
Me: Where did you kiss her? On the cheek?
Kade: No....on the hand!
Me: Thinking, thank goodness.
Ryan: Why did you kiss her?
Kade: We were playing Dragon Slayer and I was the prince. She was going to die and I saved her.

I have no clue what is up with Kindergartners and Indian burns. I just read a blog post the other day about Indian burns but yesterday at the store I look over and Kade is giving Kamryn an Indian burn. I yell at him and then ask where he learned that. He said, "From Tommy, it feels good!" Well Kade and I had a talk about Indian burns after that. He still says they feel good. I remember I never thought they felt good as a kid. My older sister Bree liked to give them to me!

Something Kade is doing well at is writing his letters. He didn't like to trace them very much but looking at the work he has been doing in school he is improving so much already. He has also been learning lots of new songs. I always here him singing to Kamryn in her room. Yesterday it was BINGO! So cute!

Best Mother's Day Gift Ever! (Memory Monday)

So for Mother's Day about 10 or more years ago I decided that I was going to make my Mom the coolest Mother's Day present. She had a really old cookbook with pockets to put recipe cards in and then she also had stacks of other books and papers that had recipes on them. So I took out all the recipe cards and sorted them by food type and made a huge mess of all these recipes. Then I started typing them up. I think I typed up 10 (I may even be exaggerating) and then never finished the project. So this cool idea for the best Mother's Day gift ever turned into the worst Mother's Day gift ever. To this day my mom has to search for a recipe because they are all in folders and now mixed within each others different groups. Today I found out that my sister Ashley has been trying to help get them better organized by typing them up. And I also found a great idea that I am going to try and get put together for my Mom. Hopefully it will make up for all the stress I caused her when she could never find a recipe.

Sorry Mom! My intentions were good....

Missing his brother

Yesterday we went to our friends little boy's birthday first birthday party. The kids had a blast playing with all the other kids there and I will post pictures soon! Anyhow as we pulled into the driveway and this is the conversation that Kade and I had:

Kade: said something that I am not going to repeat.
Me: We don't say that Kade.
Kade: Well a kid at school said it.
Me: Well we don't say it and Heavenly doesn't like it when we say things like that. It makes him sad.
Kade: Well I just want my brother Kooper to come back to live with us.
Me: I am sorry Kade, he can't though.
Kade: Well I just want him. Don' you want him to come back?
Me: Of course I want him to come back but he can't. One day you will get to see him again.
Kade: I remember seeing him when I was 3. (He was talking about when we had his funeral)

I feel bad when Kade talks about wanting to see Kooper again, I wish I could change things sometimes, but it also makes me happy that he remembers and misses him too and that he hasn't forgotten his little brother.

Love my boys!

Pig Tails!

Kamryn's hair is finally long enough on the top for pig tails. She kept them in for about 5-6 hours before ripping them out! She wouldn't stay still so I could get a picture of her smiling though. I also painted her tows and then she just sat on my lap while I blew them dry!

Why?

I know that God has a plan for everyone and every baby. I know that some babies just aren't meant to live a long life on earth. That there is a different plan for them and there is a purpose to what happens in our life. The saying Everything Happens for a Reason is true and I know it. But, and yes there is a but...why do the Mother's that are doing drugs during pregnancy seem to have no complications with stillbirth (I could be wrong, maybe we just don't hear about those cases often) and the ones that do everything right end up losing their baby at the end? Why can't the babies live that are being born into families that are loving, have a room prepared and all the necessary (and unnecessary) things bought and prepared for? Or why can't those who are unable to have babies have them? Why do they have to struggle through life wondering , why can't I just have a baby of my own? I know that adoption helps solve that problem and adoption helps solve the problem with the babies that are born to parents that either can't take care of them or don't want them, or that want a better life for their child. Adoption is a wonderful thing. But wouldn't life be easier if those who wanted babies could have them and those that didn't wouldn't get pregnant? I guess then we wouldn't have trials to learn and grow from and that's why we are here.

Yesterday when I started this post was one of those Why days. Today I am doing better. I know that one day I will know the true reason why Kooper isn't here, I just have to be patient.

Day of Hope

http://august19thdayofhope.blogspot.com/2010/08/day-of-hope-butterfly-gallery.html

http://namesinthesand.blogspot.com/

Part of their website includes To Write their Names in Sand. You can have your child's name written in sand. They are beautiful. Unfortunately whenever I have gone to request Kooper's name they weren't taking names at the time. Eventually I will get it. The Day of Hope gives hospitals boxes to send home with the Mother's who leave with empty arms. It is such a neat website.<>

So I sat at my computer looking for an idea to blog about...I even blogstalked for an hour and still couldn't come up with anything to say. Then I thought, what if someone just gave me a word and I had 5 minutes to type whatever came to my mind and that was my post. The first thing that came to my mind was Favorites/Things I love. This is what came out in 5 minutes.

New clothes (the way the make me feel and the way they feel. They are never the same once you wash them.)

Relaxing baths

Vacations

Reading (speaking of the last book in the Hunger Games series comes out soon.)

Singing/dancing for my kids and only for my kids. Today it happened to be to Barney for Kamryn. She thought it was hilarious...actually anybody would have thought it was funny.

Laughing so hard it makes me cry or better yet makes your stomach muscles ache.(last time I did that was after seeing a movie with Ryan while we were in Utah)

Shopping without kids and not for groceries.

Getting a killer deal. Who doesn't love a bargain?!

When I actually complete a cute craft by myself and it looks good.

Seeing a smile on my children's faces.

Being right.

Watermelon

Playing skee ball

Talking (just not in front of anyone)

Learning new things and being good at them.

Pedicures

The list could go on and on...

Little climber!

Kamryn's is getting to be more and more work! I have to watch her real close. She can now open doors. I thought it was only from the outside pushing them open once she grabbed the handle but tonight I saw her get out of our bedroom by pulling the door open. Also she is climbing everything and has found her way into the baby swing and leans back and forth to make it swing. The other day she was sitting in it and practically rocked herself to sleep. She kept nodding off.

I heard her pounding on something and walked into the play room and there she was pounding on the printer!

She is full of it! She is so much fun and is learning new things every day!

So I messed up the time that the Blogapalooza was supposed to start so I will band I will be posting Kooper's Story another time. I don't feel like it's complete or ready yet. Hopefully soon!

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Taking the Bus and sharing lunch

Kade has been begging to take the bus to school. We finally got him all set up to take the bus home. He was so excited and proud of himself. He also proclaimed when I asked him what he had for lunch and he said, "My friend's cheetos." Nice my kid is eating someone else's lunch and not his own. Then he proceeded to tell me that the man said to him, "No sharing food!"

Which brings me to my memory Monday...

I remember always having "hot lunch" at school which meant we had school lunch, cold lunch meant you brought your own. I don't know why, probably because it is easier, but we always had hot lunch. Very rarely my mom packed me a lunch unless I begged her. So one day I snuck my own cold lunch to school. It was uncooked package of ramen noodles. YUMMY! I thought it was an awesome lunch.The best part of school lunch was the chocolate milk.

I will have to update the picture of him getting off the bus tomorrow when I get off work.

Impression on my heart

I wanted to share this poem that I found on another Angel Mommy's blog.


It isn't letting go,
it's going on.
It isn't only shadows,
and it isn't only dawn.
It isn't getting through it,
it's letting it come through me.
Not living in the darkness,
though the darkness I can see.
It's living with the sorrow,
but finding memories sweet.
It's knowing it takes both sides
to make it all complete.
It's soaking up the sunshine,
along with all the rain.
It's learning to let laughter
live side by side with the pain.
It's knowing that the past
won't change a love that's real,
or take away the joy you brought,
or the sorrow that I feel.
It's knowing tears and laughter
can live on the same face,
and knowing that your impression on my heart
can never be erased.
~author unknown

I love you Kooper and everytime I think about you it's almost like I can feel the impression you have left on my heart.

Blogapalooza

So a few weeks ago I signed up on Blog2print for the blogapalooza. The first 100 people to sign up and blog every hour for 24 hours would get a free book of their blog. Well after I signed up I realized it was for only the 24 blog posts, but I am still going to do it. I still have lots to do to prepare for it. Basically what I chose to blog about is Kooper's Story. Hopefully I will have been one of the first ones to sign up and actually complete the task because I think it would be need to have it made into a book for my family. So I have lots of work to do because it starts on the 17th! Gotta get working on my stuff!

Missing you

Last night I wrote this post...

A few weeks ago someone asked me, "Was it weird to have family pictures taken at the hospital just after you had Kooper?" It is a valid question. One that I might consider asking someone if I hadn't gone through the experience myself. Before I held Kooper I had never touched a dead body. I was so unfamiliar with death. I hadn't lost someone so close to me. I lost relatives I didn't know well but had never lost someone so close to me. Some may think it's weird that I have pictures of Kooper all over my house. It is my way of remembering. I cherish all the pictures I have of my sweet baby, every single one of them. It was hard to k now how to act when our photographer took our pictures. Should I smile? Should I not cry? All I did was be myself. I found myself crying at times and just enjoying spending time with him in that moment. Although it wasn't joyous I was grateful to have the chance to hold his perfect little body in my arms. It was so sad and devastating but we knew that Kooper was in a better place and that one day we would join with him and be with him again. I am glad to have a picture of our family at that point and time. It hangs in my living room. I can't take it down even though we have a new family picture. Those pictures mean more to me than all the other material things in my house.

Last night Kooper was so strongly on my mind. I miss him so much. I sat and looked through his scrapbook after watching his video and just thought about him and what he would look like and what his personality would be like. I yearn to hold him in my arms and give him hugs and kisses and hear him giggle and listen to the way he talks. Little did I know that today I would find out that a friend from church was going through what I went through just over two years ago. My heart is aching for her and her family. It is one thing to meet someone new that has gone through this, but it is a much worse feeling when you actually know someone who is pregnant and then to hear that they lost their baby. My stomach is in knots. I am in shock and it is just so sad and hard to believe.

Please pray for her and her family.

Trying something new

I have been desperate lately to find a way to help Kade listen and do what I ask. He has started having an attitude lately, talks back, won't listen, throwing temper tantrums and after him being gone all day and coming home grumpy I have had it. I follow a blog called Tip Junkie and they had a post about Chore Charts. I really liked this idea.

I haven't completely done everything I planned but tonight I started the "token idea". Because I don't have tokens laying around, I have a ton of dimes from when Ryan and I collected our change, I am using dimes. So tonight Kade got a dime for eating all his dinner and a dime for putting his dishes in the sink and a dime for other times that he listened without whining. He has also already had 2 dimes taken away.

At school he comes home with a sheet that says how good he was. If it's a green light he was good, a yellow he was okay and a red means he was bad. So as for the "tokens" he will get a token if he get a green light, he will break even if he gets a yellow light and he gets one taken away if he gets a red light. I think that this works better than stickers which we have done before because it's hard to take a sticker away that has already been stuck to the paper. I think it will be good because he will also be able to really learn the value of money. Although some may not believe in "paying" their child for behavior that should be expected, I am willing to try anything right now!

Hopefully it works out! I will let you know how much of a success it is....

Missing her brother

At times Kamryn seems happy to have all the toys to herself, especially Kade's toys! The first day he was at school I found her in the playroom playing with his superhero toys. Then there are other times I can tell that she wants her brother to play with. She is learning to share me with Keegan. She is a little monkey. In one of the pictures below with her on the book shelf, well later that day I found her laying across the second to the bottom shelf...So here are some pictures of the mischief Kamryn has been up to lately.