The life of a two-year-old

I found a little line-up of Kenna's animals in the hallway yesterday. She told me they were in timeout because they didn't listen. Hmm, wonder where she got that from? She is such a parrot sometimes and has a killer memory. Yep, that means BE CAREFUL mom and dad! A few weeks ago I sang in sacrament meeting. When I got done and came to sit down, Kenna hopped into my lap and said "you're a good singer mom!" I looked at Jacob to let him know I appreciated the prompt, but he was just as surprised as I was and said that one was all her own. Then she grabbed my face in her hands and said, "That was wonderful! I'm so proud of you!" It was the sweetest thing in the world! I was really trying to figure out where she would have got that from and then finally I remembered. Later on that day when Kenna had a great potty moment I heard myself saying, "That was wonderful! I am so proud of you!" I instantly knew where she got it from. Ha! I'm so glad to know that the positive things are remembered as well as some of the not-so-fun mommy moments like timeout.

Well, it's official. My little Allie can crawl! She finally got her coordination figured out. It is so cute. Fortunately she still is content to stay put for the most part, but when she fully discovers her mobility I am really in for it. She is constantly moving some part of her body. Whenever she's in her carseat, she kicks her legs and gets herself rocking like crazy. It is the funniest thing to watch. I sometimes forget about it, but whenever we're in public and she gets a-rockin' we manage to get all sorts of attention. Especially when she kicks so hard the carseat falls back and she gets stuck. So then she'll just sit there and kick her legs some more. Silly little thing! It has been so fun with her lately. Jacob and I often comment on how nice it is we can really enjoy her without all the fussing.

This past week we finished up getting the side of our driveway done. We put up railroad ties for the back support, then planted some bushes in the front and filled it all in with some pretty red rock. It ended up pretty good, I must say. Tons better than it used to be. Considering what we had to start with when we moved in, we have made vast landscaping improvements. I just really have a hard time paying for rock. What? Paying for rocks? Even worse is having to pay for a load of dirt. Dirt? Now come on. What's next? Paying for worms? Wait a minute, they do sell worms. If that's the case, I really need to get in the business. Kenna at least would love it. Last week I showed her a grub worm that was crawling on the driveway and it instantly became her new best friend. Nice. Way to go mom. Now, I really struggle with creepy-crawly things, but am trying to not give Kenna the same heeby jeebies, so ya, I showed her the worm. She carried that thing around all afternoon! She kept squishing it and telling us how cute it was. Cute is definitely a stretch. Um, not even in the same ballpark my sweet little princess. I can think of a whole slew of other words to describe a grub worm. I tried hard to remain optimistic without letting my detest of the grub show through. She showed anyone who came within 50 feet. I told her to feed it to the chickens but she vehemently declined the offer saying, "No, it will die!" Well, I thought, it would meet its demise either by being pecked or smothered to death. Now if I were the little worm, I would opt to just get the whole thing over with quickly by the chickens rather than a slow, painful death in the grimy little hands of a two-year-old, but whatever. We add the grub worm to a growing list of creepy-crawlies Kenna has had to manipulate and investigate. We've already had grasshoppers, ants, and regular old slimy brown worms. I'm not sure what I'll do when she wants to hold a snake.....

We're Alive!

WOW. Almost a month since my last post? Woops. But, definitely time for an update. I have so much to update on this could take forever. I will try to abbreviate.

FIRST AND FOREMOST: I must tell y'all about my new BLING! So our anniversary was May 6th. Yep, the big 4! Yay for us! I ended up in Logan on Monday the 5th, and Jacob had to be up in South Jordan for work on the 7th and the 8th, so we didn't even see each other on our anniversary. Kinda weird, but okay. Anyhow, the girls and I finally met up with dad in Salt Lake on the 7th and stayed in the hotel with him. We were in the hotel getting ready for bed when Jacob handed me a little bag with a letter in it. He wrote me a beautiful little love note (sigh, I loved it) that had a huge wad of cash in it. I wondered "what the heck?!" Okay, didn't wonder, said that right out loud. He said he had been saving up. Hmm, nope, I do the checkbook, there is no way that amount could fly under the radar. He persisted and told me he wanted me to go buy the tracer band I've wanted to go with my wedding ring ever since we got married. I told him there was no way I was going to spend THAT much money on a ring for myself, and we could figure something else to do with it, oh, like put it into savings. Well, I finished getting ready for bed, hopped back into bed, and hopped right onto a little box. I can only imagine the look on my face seeing as though I had a really good idea of what was in that little black box. All I could do was huddle into Jacob and cry! He said, "you don't even know what it is yet!" I carefully took off the wrap and peered into the box to see an absolutely BEAUTIFUL diamond band. I was thinking of a nice little silver band but Jacob got me the the little silver band that included a row of amazing little diamonds in it. WOW. Double triple holy cow I can't believe it WOW. I was stunned. Floored. Humbled a bit, even? I just couldn't believe it. How did he do it? How did I not know about it? Well let me back up (this is getting way too long, but I just have to tell the whole story). A few weeks before my birthday I found a business card for a jeweler in Jacob's shirt pocket. I just smiled and kept it to myself wondering what my sneaky little husband was up to for my birthday. Well, my birthday was just perfect so I didn't worry too much about it. Then a while after my birthday, curiosity got the best of me and I asked Jacob about the card. He quickly came up with an elaborate story that he was helping out his brother who was looking into getting a little bling of his own for a special someone, but had been sworn to secrecy. He really is quite the little actor, and I ate it all up and my curiosity was satisfied. I was so fooled. I was actually thrilled that Karl was looking into getting a ring! So Jacob completely had me blindsided on our anniversary. It was like a little fairytale. I still look at it like a little girl and watch it sparkle. The bad news? I can't get my camera to take a good picture of it. I'll see if I can get it figured out. But if I keep putting off the blog it will never get updated. The other bad news? I was actually really very disappointed that Jacob's brother Karl isn't looking for a ring! And about the big wad of cash? Here is the most amazing and kind and thoughtful thing my husband could do: he sold a heifer. I don't think anyone truly understands how incredibly loving this is. Jacob, the animal lover, sold one of our heifers and took a large chunk of the profit just for me. So, the cash in my love note was the remaining amount from the heifer. Sounds silly, but it was one of the kindest gestures a girl could ever have. Thank you Jacob for being so wonderful. You don't know how much that meant to me. It's not the diamonds. It's knowing that I am married to a man who loves me more than anything in the world. Again, wow.

Okay, this is long. What else has been going on? Well, the girls and I drove with Grandpa Kerry down to Arizona for my cousins wedding. The trip actually went pretty well considering it was a 7 1/2 hour drive. Then we had a really quick trip up to Logan and Salt Lake and, like usual, didn't have nearly enough time to see anyone we wanted to see.

Kenna has some great news to share: she has had some great success on the potty this past week! YAY! Each day gets a little better so hopefully soon we can say she is officially potty-trained. I LOVE IT!

Allie is just a happy little cuss and cute as can be. She can't quite crawl but is trying to figure out how to get her caboose to catch up with the front of her body. Too fun! I am a little worried, though. When she gets going she won't stop which means I will be incredibly busy.

Well, that's it! Hopefully things will slow down a bit so I can be better at updating.

Oh, the pictures: First is me and the little ladies on Mother's Day. Thanks to Grandma Marsha for the incredibly cute dresses! Big shout out to Jacob (is he on a roll or what?!) for the beautiful corsage. The second picture: I came into my bedroom to find my silly little girls peeking out from under my bed. Still not quite sure how Allie got under there, but I have a suspicion her sister helped out a bit.