Costumes

This kids were so cute. Of course... slightly biased, but seriously. Kaiya was kind of forced into being Pooh. A couple weeks ago she told me that she really wanted to be Ariel - The Little Mermaid, but I told her that it would have to wait until next year. I had gotten Kaleb's costume a year ago June at a yard sale and since he was the Honey Pot, I really wanted her to be Pooh. Dream crusher that I am. And actually... she looks quite sad in this picture below. But I promise -- she warmed up to the idea after I found her costume at a yard sale this summer.

I wanted to give her a black nose. Well, Kaleb saw that and just had to have one too. I gave him freckles instead. Of course Kaiya saw that and had to have freckles too. At which point he remembered that I never gave him a nose. So they are both freckled and nosed. :)

Tuckered out. It rained for about 20 minutes while we were out. The kid insisted on walking by himself, carrying his own bag without any help. It was pretty cute. But he was spent.

Pumpkins!

On Halloween morning we went to a fall festival in the neighborhood. The kids got their faces painted. Kaleb happened to get the 11 year old aspiring face painter... she tried. :) We came home, grabbed lunch and then started carving. The kids helped pull all of the seeds out. Kaiya wasn't a fan. Kaleb thought it was awesome.
After the pumpkins were scraped out I put the kids down for naps and got started. There were special requests this year -- Elmo & Ariel. Thankfully I managed to pull it off. For the record, I got a blister scraping the outsides of these... the best tool I had was a lemon zester. Yeah. It was awesome.

More wedding...

More pictures from the wedding!
She was a dancin' fool.
Kaiya & Uncle Brent

Awww...

Dear Aunt Ruthie & Uncle Chris: Thanks for having our favorite food at your reception. We LOVE breakfast food and our parents actually let us eat most breakfast foods. :) Eggs are the best! And we even got to eat fresh fruit instead of cake. A-mazing!

Wordless Wednesday

Kaiya at the beach

Kaiya had a blast at the beach too! Her favorite things were getting buried in the sand (and burying Papa),

building and decorating sand castles,

throwing seaweed at Uncle Brent,

and swimming next to 4-5 dolphins! Papa was holding her out in the deeper water (waist high on Papa) and a huge group of dolphins came within 3-4 feet of them. When we came down in June she saw dolphins from the shore. On our car ride down to Florida this time she said, "I really hope I see dolphins this time!" So cool that she really saw them this time!

Wish I could tell you that I took a whole month off of blogging on purpose. But nope. I didn't. It just sort of happened. :) Got my camera connected to the computer here, so I can share some pics from our trip to Florida for Ruthie's wedding. We had such a great time!

Here are the pictures of the beach time that we had. Ruthie was super organized so most of our time was spent relaxing before and after the wedding. There wasn't too many last minute things to take care of. Well... except for maybe the bouquet. But I couldn't really do that too far in advance. I'll have to post a link to the picture of it. Cause it turned out pretty good for only having half an idea of what I was doing. Oh the trust she had in Bekah & I. :)



A little sequence of Kaleb pictures. He was being a stinker and didn't want to smile for me.

























Eventually I got one out of him...


Kaleb had so much fun at the beach. Glad I had so many eyes watching him, because at one point I looked up and saw this (and I am at least a half zoom on my camera):

Kaiya will get her post tomorrow! I'm determined to get back on the blogging routine. I've gotta have something to document the kids' lives! I'm too busy otherwise and it's all gonna just slip by. :)

One of "those" mornings...

You ever have one of the those mornings? I don't mean the straight out disaster kind... I'm talking about the kind of morning that appears to be going perfectly and then out of nowhere... everything turns upside down. The catch-you-by-surprise kind of morning. That was yesterday.

Kids let us sleep in 15 minutes late. Everyone is in a joyful mood. No squabbling over what to wear or how to do our hair. No complaints about breakfast. It is looking like we are going to be 2 minutes early for church today. And that, my friends, is a major accomplishment. You see, we have no problem getting to church right on time. But then we have to check the kids in. Take them to their rooms. And then head into the service. So essentially, we are usually 10 minutes late for the service. But today... we are looking good.

I grab my Bible (another accomplishment because this is usually forgotten) and my purse. Both kids are walking out the door. We get to the car and it is locked so I reach down for my keys and they are not in my purse. I hear Tony unlocking his car from inside the house. I hustle to the porch to let him know that I don't have my keys. He has already shut the door. I tell him that I don't have my car keys and he says, "Where is your house key?" Umm... on the same key ring as my car key. And we are now locked out of the house.

He's annoyed. I'm annoyed. The kids are oblivious. My mom was trying out a new church this morning, but had to stop at Elevation before going. I try calling her and get voicemail. All 15 attempts to call her. Great... she might be home around 1 p.m. It's 8:29 a.m. We try all the doors and windows. Nothing. Tony gets in his car and sits to think. Kaleb comes over and starts pushing buttons on Tony's car. He got two warnings to stop and just as he went for a third try, Kaleb sets off the car alarm. Lovely. Now our neighbors are going to egg the house. Horns blaring at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. Apparently the alarm repeats the cycle until properly shut off. We can't properly shut it off because #1 - we have no idea how. #2 - even if we did, Tony's key was locked inside the house. Tony decides that he will walk to Elevation and hopefully catch my mom before she goes to the other church. The kids and I start playing on the porch.

I decided to check the tool box for small objects that I could break into our house with. They make it look so easy on Ocean's Eleven. I attempted with a small drill bit, but couldn't make any progress. I muttered something about just wanting to kick the door in. (Don't worry Tim (house owner) -- my good sense came back before I tried it.) I gave up breaking into the house and started praying that my mom would get the voicemail I left her.

About 10 minutes later I see my mom pull up. Hallelujah! She happened to check her phone, in the middle of the service, see the missed calls from me and come home to rescue us. I picked up Tony and we put together our second attempt to get to church. Thankfully, there are multiple service times... so we ate our traditional Sunday morning brunch before going to church, instead of the normal after church brunch.

I think this is where I'm supposed to excitedly announce that we made it to the 10 a.m. service on time. Well... we made it to the parking lot on time. There's always next week!

Do I say this every post?

I feel like every post I say... gosh, it's been awhile since I posted. Unfortunately, it is true every time. :) Am I burnt out? Out of good material? My second child is totally getting jipped. Cause I was such a faithful and consistent blogger with Kaiya.

Here's a little fun for your Friday. Actually... not sure if you will think it is funny unless you attend Elevation, our church. But these two are a drummer and keyboard player at church and they entertain us each week as they really get into performing. Last Sunday was a Student Takeover week so they made this video for church on Sunday. I think the students thought it was as cool as us adults did. :)

"Tippity Top" Music Video from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

Overheard from the Kitchen

Last night the kids and Tony were playing in the living room while I did some things in the kitchen. Tony had to tell Kaleb to settle down and after he finished I heard Kaiya say to Tony: "You are not the mommy!" (wonder if she has heard that before?)

She then turned to Kaleb and started bossing him around herself. In which case, Tony pointed out the same to her.

Geesh! Guess the mommy holds some power in this house! :)

Wow guys... not much energy going into the blog lately. I've really missed the consistency of posting frequently. Gonna have to get inspired soon. :) I've been working a little on generating content for the office website. It's a work in progress with several more elements coming, including my own little page, where I will be posting healthy recipes and tips. Should be fun. Keep in mind it is very rough right now... but you can check it out: www.providencefamilychiro.com

Have a great weekend!

Kaiya saw me light the grill. She didn't come back outside until I was ready to take the chicken off the grill. When I opened it up, she exclaimed: Mama! I didn't know that fire turns into chicken! She was utterly amazed. And it was just too cute to correct.

Tony's cousin, Becca, watched the kids at the mall play area yesterday while I promoted our Extreme Makeover Event from the mall booth. Kaiya and Kaleb both enjoyed playing and Kaiya made some friends while she was there. She had been playing with two Hispanic girls and at one point ran over to Becca and said, "I am calling them Indians and I am the Sailor." She had just watched Pocahontas that morning. Nice. Disney is teaching my child about different skin colors. I think it is time to intervene.

Need some help!

Doing some research for our Extreme Makeover Event on Saturday. Here's what I need... leave me a comment with 5 things that are on your grocery list each week (or however often you shop). I need these to be items other than staples (i.e. bread, milk, eggs, meat, fresh produce).

Gonna post this on Facebook too...we'll see what we come up with!

Some good reading!

I came across this article today and thought I would post a link here. Dr. Josh Axe is a Maximized Living Doctor in Nashville. It's so hard these days to sift through marketing terms on labels. He breaks it down:

Natural Doesn't Always Mean Non-Toxic

Don't wanna forget these ones...

Kaiya's had a few gems lately:

To her babysitter while we were at work: "I've got to get out of this house."

To me at the end of a night where she had passed an unusual amount of gas: "I can't help my toots mom."

To Tony & I: "How does a baby get out of its mama's tummy?" We pause and look at each other because we're not sure how much to disclose. While thinking about what to say, she says: "Does it come out of her ring?" I assume this has something to do with the conversation we have had about being married before having a baby. And we decide at this point that she must be told the truth. Cause this is a child who will keep on asking. The last time we tried to gloss over something she looked at Tony and said, "You've got to be kidding me. You are joking." So we told her. She said, "Oh. That's silly." And that was the end of the conversation. Thankfully.

Summer Lull

I've got the summer lull, I guess. Extreme lack of posting going on here. We are living & breathing the office right now. Complete craziness.

For now, check this out: ruthephotography.blogspot.com. Some really cute kids made the header. And check out her other pictures... I'm so proud of her - it's natural talent!

Actually... let's make this post all about Ruthie! Wedding countdown is: less than 2 months! Kaiya is going to be a flower girl and I found her dress at Burlington Coat Factory for $12.99! The lighting in these pictures is terrible and makes the dress look yellow... but it is a very light ivory. I was super excited about this deal -- it was missing the sweater that went with it, so the sales associate offered to take $5.00 off the already low price.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy together... for 2 minutes.

Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord all the Earth
Worship the Lord with gladness, come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us and we are His.
We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him and praise His name.

His love endures forever and His faithfulness to all generations.

Why wasn't I invited?

There's only one problem with this: It's my bed. And she was tucked into her own about 3 hours prior to this picture being taken. Hmm... At least she thought to bring company, right?

Kaiya's take on heaven

Lately at bedtime both Tony and I have had the chance to have some fun spiritual conversations with Kaiya. It's fun to hear her asking questions as she begins to put things together from church and stuff we do at home. We were surprised to hear that she doesn't think she wants to go to heaven. We asked her more about this and found out her reason is because All Dogs go to Heaven. And she doesn't really think it looks like that great of a thing. I had to find this clip and watch it. Now I know why...



We'll be working on this concept...

Chiro Kids

Short video entertainment for your Thursday...



Thought this would be better than a post about Kaiya throwing a ROYAL fit in Harris Teeter last night. So bad we left without groceries. Yep. It was bad. And very loud. I'm pretty sure everyone within 8 aisles thought she had cut her arm off.

Our 4th of July

Riding on the train to uptown for the fireworks. This picture is classic for how the ride went. Kaiya was excited and Kaleb was constantly looking for an escape route. Kaleb and immobile do not go together right now.

Kat brought glow necklaces and bracelets.

Kaiya & Kat

Kaleb kept making this face -- normally his eyes weren't closed, I just snapped at the wrong time. But he would suck air in his mouth and do this when he was excited about something.

His position through most of the fireworks. He would say "pop! pop!" as they were going off.

New Sprinkler

Uncle Aaron & Katie brought the kids a present when they came out this weekend.  A new sprinkler... this thing is fun.  The kids were entertained for nearly an hour yesterday afternoon.  Which is impressive considering their attention spans. :)  

Remember that feeling?

Kaiya just wet herself while playing hide and seek with Uncle Aaron & Katie. She was hiding... :)

Florida

Last weekend while Tony had a guys weekend, the kids and I escaped to Orlando for the weekend. It was really refreshing and we were able to time it right and see both of my sisters and my mom. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Kaiya jumping into the pool - borrowing Cameron's floaty suit. She thought it was cool with Spiderman.

At the beach where Ruthie & Chris are getting married.

This kid was so happy in the sand. It was ridiculous.

My buddy & I

Pictures before Ruthie's bridal shower.

Where's the fight?

I'm not a dedicated viewer of Jon & Kate + 8. I've watched the occasional episode here and there. But of course with all the recent press I decided to DVR last night's episode. Like most of America, I'm sad at the impending divorce. And watching that episode was so painful. I just listened to the lies that they are choosing to believe.

All I heard over and over last night was: "We're committed to doing the best thing for our kids." Well, FIGHT! Fight for the marriage. But today I was struck with something.

There are many many marriages dissolving just like the Gosselin's. People you know. People you love. And what I'm wondering is: Where the heck is the Gosselin's support system? And who's support system are you a part of?

Let's support each other. Let's love each other. Ask the hard questions when necessary. And fight for our marriages.

Here's one of the best posts I've seen on the Jon & Kate thing: Minivans are Hot

Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger - NO Bacon

Over the weekend I was traveling down to Florida and on the way home I didn't have food packed for myself and we had to stop and eat fast food (gasp!). Now before you go freaking out that I gave my kids the nasty food... I had packed for them. I know some of you were starting to go into complete shock. You can breathe easier now. :)

I stopped at Wendy's and looked over the menu. Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger sounded good because it comes with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Only I don't eat pork. Could order it without bacon, but that would be just a regular cheeseburger, right? Not at Wendy's... a regular cheeseburger is similar to Mickey D's with just ketchup, mustard, pickles. I really wanted the other toppings. So I decided to order a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger with no bacon. The cashier was so confused. I mean really confused. I explained to her that I wanted the toppings and she said I could just order a cheeseburger deluxe. Only... a cheeseburger deluxes is: $1.49. And a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger is: 99 cents.

Ummm... I'll take the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger - no bacon. Well... all hell broke loose in that Wendy's when she put that order through. WHAT? A Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger without the bacon? Can we do that? But isn't that just a cheeseburger? Why doesn't she want the bacon? Isn't that just a single cheeseburger? Manager gets involved and is just as confused. Just make the freakin' sandwich for heaven's sake.

I left my friend Kat to bring the order out for us. After my exit they proceeded to go nuts on her about my order. She just shrugs her shoulders. I think they might have thrown the food at her, but there were other guests in line behind her.

I know I was the one ordering... but this really didn't seem all that complicated to me. Make the sandwich and don't put bacon on it. I'm the paying customer -- shoot -- it's not like I asked for an additional discount for leaving the bacon off! It was so funny. Kat and I laughed about it for a good 10 miles down the road. She thinks that a rule was made at that Wendy's right after I left that no one can order the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger without bacon. She's probably right. :)

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Kaiya put this up her nose last night.  Daddy was babysitting... need I say more?

To Daddy's credit though... he is the one who got it out.  And it was WAY up there.  I couldn't see it - he could only see it with the flash light.  Took us 2 1/2 hours, but he finally got it out.  She was spastic, we didn't have the ideal tools, and had to call a friend over to help us hold her down. :)  But... we didn't have to go to the hospital!!  We seriously prayed that thing out of her nose... because honestly... Tony was in no frame of mind to debate vaccination with the ER staff. :)

Kaiya has some bathtub paints and usually wants to use them every bath. Understandably, I don't want her to use them every bath. :) So last night I told her no since she had used them the night before. She whined a bit, but then went on with being in the bath. I went into my room and started putting clothes away. I walked past the bathroom to check on them and stood in the doorway where they couldn't see me. And I see Kaiya picking up the paints. She hadn't started using them, but was more just entertaining the idea of disobeying me. I stood there for a minute or so while she was internally debating. She caved in to the temptation and began squirting it onto her legs. I chose that moment to walk into the bathroom, expecting her to fully jump out of her skin with guilt. Negative. She barely acknowledged my presence. It went like this:

Me: "Kaiya. Did Mama say you could paint tonight?"

Kaiya: still squirting the paints... "No."

Me: "Then what are you doing?"

Kaiya: still squirting the paints and not even bothering to look up... "Paint'n."

Hello? Who am I? Just your mother!! The one you are supposed to obey! Yeah -- she got the paints taken away. Possibly forever.

The joys of having an older sister...

Bollywood - Kaiya Style

I let Kaiya watch snippets of So You Think You Can Dance and this was her favorite of Wednesday night's show. Mainly because she has decided that the guy is Aladdin and the girl must be Jasmine. You can't really see the dancers on this video -- this is Kaiya's interpretation. At the end of the routine the dancers kiss -- look for Kaiya's attempt at kissing the air. :)

Promotion

On Sunday our church got a new check-in system for the kids. I think with the update, Kaiya was also moved up into the next age group since she turned 3 in March. She was a little nervous at first to be going to a new classroom, but they won her over with playdough. :) On our way home from church I was trying to talk to her about what they did in her new class.

She told me a little about the class and then announced in a very serious voice: I'm getting older.

I said: Yes, baby, you are!

It was quiet for a little bit and then from the backseat I hear: "Mama? Am I still three?"

She said it in the most confused and concerned voice. I said - "Yep, you are still three." A great sigh of relief from the back seat. :)

Love these two...

Thought I would post this sweet picture of the kids. They played together upstairs while I cleaned for about an hour. Very little squabbling and sharing problems. It was really sweet and a relief to see them playing so well. They were really enjoying each other.

To post or not to post...

I've debated posting about this for a few months now. It's personal. My male readers won't be the least bit interested. And it's possible some of my female readers won't be interested either. But I just can't help myself. I found this thing that is just too cool not to post about it. So there's the disclaimer -- if the female reproductive system grosses you out -- read NO further. :)

In February, a friend was telling me about The Diva Cup. Her sister was going to the Philippines to be a missionary and wouldn't have regular access to stores with tampons, etc. So she ordered the diva cup. I went on the website and checked it out. Then I found it at Earth Fare, one of our health food stores. I'm not gonna get into the logistics on how one would use this thing... but I really prefer it 10x over to tampons. You have to change it less frequently and I'm saving money and being green. It was an investment... $39. But I've heard that you can get it cheaper... it just depends on the mark-up of your store.

Anyway... check it out. The website has a pretty extensive FAQ section... but if you have a question, you can e-mail me-- obviously I'm not too shy. :)

Kaiya's Prayer

The other night I was getting ready for bed and Kaiya was hanging out with me in my room. My legs were really itchy and so I was scratching my legs and saying, "My legs are driving me crazy! They are so itchy!"

Kaiya says: "Oh mama, I will help you with that." Folds her hands and bows her head: "Dear God (said very dramatically), please help mama's legs no not be skinny anymore."

The prayer was too sweet to interrupt -- but "not be skinny" -- NO!!!!! Definitely the last thing I would be praying...

More of the pictures Ruthie took...