Almost April

Yep.  Almost April.  I'll just skip on past a comment about how long (or rather how seemingly short) it's been since I last posted.  We'll jump right on in to the good stuff.  Such as....

....Kenna and her new contact lenses!  Yay for Kenna!  It will be weird getting used to seeing her without her glasses on.  Another new page to turn in the book of Kenna.  She is growing up so fast.  These little milestones are so enjoyable for me.  Still waiting for her top teeth to come in, but hey, no rush.  Maybe she can sing "All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth" two years in a row.  

Another little lady around here who is growing fast is Miss Lexi Lou.  She quickly graduated from her army crawl to a full hand-and-knee crawl.  She's growing so quickly, in fact, that we aren't doing well at keeping up with her new found independence.  She snuck into the kitchen the other night while we were visiting with a neighbor and managed to roll down the entire staircase.  Fortunately, she was just fine.  If there is one thing I am absolutely certain about, it's that there are angels who keep watch over my little flock.  I have seen it many times, and I often find myself offering prayers of gratitude that we are not alone in our parenting endeavors.  Lexi continues to be an absolute joy.  She wins the best baby award for our family!  She is at such a fun age.  Her top teeth are working their way down and her toothy little smile gets me every time.  She's starting to pull herself up to things, so chances are her first steps aren't too far away. 

Ty.  Oh Ty.  Where would the Israelsen family be without Ty?  He's a 2-year-old for sure.  He loves to exert his independence, but still flashes us his handsome little smile and makes us melt.  He is the ultimate copycat of his sisters.  Whatever they do, he is right there next to them doing the exact same thing (as well as his 2-year-old self can imitate).  He has few inhibitions.  Obviously here in this picture, he is uninhibited by markers.  His face is simply a blank canvas, I suppose.

Dear Crayola, thank you.  Thank you for inventing markers that wash easily. 

Of course there is something oddly familiar about that picture......oh yes, I know why.  It reminds me of this:

Kenna when she was 3 1/2.  Must be genetic.  Or just a childhood rite of passage.  I especially love Kenna's hairdo.

Speaking of some great hairdo's, we'll add these ones to our collection:

A perfect princess lunch.

And since we like to get up to all sorts of random adventures around these here parts, we'll end with a good one of Jacob, aka The Bull Whisperer:

  Just another day in paradise.
 

This -n- That

Let's see...what have we been up to?  I'll go through some pics from the last little while to bring us up to speed....

Grandma and Grandpa Israelsen came down for a visit the end of January.  We LOVE having Grandparents come!  Grandpa had meetings down in St. George for a few days and Grandma decided to be the ultimate trooper and stay with us.  That is true love, really.  An opportunity to escape from the underworld (aka Cache Valley in January) to 60 degrees and sunny in St. George, and she decides to stay with us?  Sainthood right there!  We certainly didn't complain.  The kiddos loved the extra attention and I was in heaven with some adult conversation.  Of course I just enjoyed the company and let my camera collect dust, but I did manage to snag just two pictures.  This one is blurry, but it was so darn funny!  Grandma brought down a game called "Don't Wake Daddy."  The main piece of the game is a "daddy" who you can lay down into a bed to "sleep."  Basically throughout the game each player takes turns pushing a little button on the bed that eventually makes the daddy pop up and sit right up in the bed.  It's kind of like a jack-in-the-box, and you never know how many pushes it will take to make the daddy pop up.  Well, before Ty had really had a chance to see how the game worked, he got hold of the daddy in the bed and managed to make him pop up.  It scared to poor kid half to death and he screamed and threw a fit as though someone cut off one of his fingers!  He was absolutely terrified of it!  After watching the girls play it for a while, he became really intrigued with watching it, but still wouldn't get very close to it.  So he would have Grandma sit on the couch with the bed, then he would go over to the other side of the room and sit in the rocking chair.  Grandma would push the button, and Ty would wait anxiously for the daddy to pop up.  Every time it popped it scared him, but then he would smile and holler, "Daddy wake up!"  Pretty soon he decided he would brave enough to carefully slide out of the rocking chair, walk over to Grandma's lap and push the daddy back down in the bed.  Then he would hurry and run back to the rocking chair so Grandma could push the button until daddy woke up again.  He did this over and over and over.  Every single time the daddy popped up, he cheered and smiled and hollered.  It was hilarious.  And well, you probably had to be there to really enjoy it like we did, but it's a fun memory.  Here is a picture of Ty just after he pushed the daddy back down in the bed and he's hurrying to get back to his chair before it pops up again.  And thank heavens he has on his snow boots.  Extra protection, you know.

 

While Grandma and Grandpa were down, we decided last minute that they would stay with the kids Friday night while Jacob and I had a little getaway down to St. George for the Young Farmer and Rancher Conference.  It was SO fun to have a little overnighter!  Jacob and I haven't done that in a loooooongg time.  We were so incredibly grateful to Mom and Dad for doing that for us.  It meant so much.  The conference was excellent, and we had a great time.  While we were sitting waiting for the conference to start Jacob leaned over to me with a smile and said, "Brittney Otte: voted most likely to attend a Young Farmer and Rancher Conference in high school."  I just smiled and leaned over to him and said, "Jacob Israelsen:  voted most likely to attend the Utah Shakespeare Festival in high school."  He he he.  Yep, I had him there.  But, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and he thoroughly enjoys seeing a good musical with me at the Shakespeare Festival every year.  I also learned that I wasn't the only lady there who didn't grow up on a farm and ended up marrying a farm boy.  I'm sure Jacob isn't the only farm boy who has had a bit of marital refinement, either.

Here are the kiddos enjoying a little "sleepover" on the bedroom floor.  Ty loves being right in the middle of everything his sisters are doing.  Quite literally, as this picture shows:

It's been a fairly interesting project having him share a room with the girls, but he's slowly doing better.  We finally got him his own "big boy bed" and he loves it.

Ty also loves Lexi.  Quite often he loves her a little too much and she's not especially appreciative of his love.  He always asks for his picture to be taken with her.

And here we have the romantic Israelsen Valentine dinner.  Complete with a heart pizza, as per the girls' request.  The ladies really look forward to this and it's fun to spend together as a family.  Having small kids requires redefining romance.



Here is Kenna with her cute little Valentine box she made at school.  Oh the things you can do with a cereal box.
 


What do you do on a sunny Saturday in February?  Well, first you have to feed the farm help:

Then you have to entertain the farm help:

You need to introduce your baby to the fine equine:

You have to just smile and endure while mom takes a bazillion pictures (and get creative in the process, thank you Kenna):

And lastly, it's important to take time to just stop and discuss the finer things in life:

 And then go home and do a giant load of muddy, stinky, horse-smelling laundry.

Yep, the finer things in life I suppose.

Artwork

Can you tell I'm playing catch up?

Lately Kenna has been my little artist who seems to be constantly drawing a picture of some sort.  I LOVE to see what she comes up with.  Sometimes they are super sweet, and sometimes they are just pure silly and make me laugh out loud.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

This one says "Welcome to the farm"and below it, "farmer Jake."  In the middle is "Farmer Jake" who is surrounded by his three oldest little farmhands.  What a friendly fella he is- such a nice smile and wave!

Next is "May your winter be warm, Happy Holidays."  Aaah.  I love it:

And we all need a good family portait.  This one is entitled, "We are a happy family.":

And this random little silly one makes me giggle every time I look at it.  It says, "Dad ate too much banana cream pie on Christmas day.":

I'm not sure what it is about these sweet little pictures but they are SO FUN for me!

You know what's NOT fun?  What art I DON'T appreciate?  Well that would be Ty's artwork today.  He fingerpainted the walls.  He fingerpainted the walls (notice that word is plural) with the contents of his diaper.  I'll leave it at that.  Sometimes being a mom really stinks.  Literally.

Who is watching that kid?  Where is his mother? 

Oh, and I almost forgot....

....WE GOT TO SEE GRANDMA SHELLY AND GRANDPA KERRY!  Excuse me, I mean Elder and Sister Otte.  I just love seeing my parents wearing their name tags.   

Home

On January 3rd my dear, sweet Grandmother Otte passed away.  I knew the call would be coming, but of course the finality of it was still a hard one to take.

One of the limitations of mortality is the ability of words to accurately express how we feel.  Words fall so short of expressing the depth and magnitude of what our heart is really feeling.  This holds true for emotions of gratitude and love, or emotions of heartache and sorrow.

When it comes to my Grandma, there are no words to describe the love I have for her.  The memories with her are priceless.  And really, priceless doesn't even come close to express what I really mean.  The time spent with her and the lessons she taught made me who I am today.  And really, I have to include my Grandpa in there as well.  You can't have one without the other.  Oh, how I love them.  Oh how I wish I could pull my feelings out and post them here on my blog so you could really understand.  But then again, I'm certain that we all have someone in our lives with whom we can say, "I know what you mean," even though words fail to accurately describe.  Perhaps that is the true language of the soul.  A language spoken and understood without saying a single word.

Yes, sadness came with my Grandmother's passing, but at the same time a remarkable peace.  I often take a minute to stop and think of the moment she was finally able to let go of her aged body and cross over to the other side.  I wonder how it felt?  I imagine incredible feelings of peace, and light, and a sense of being home.  Grandma was 82.  Her mother died when she was 18.  To be in your mother's arms again after that long?...  Once again, words fail.  Her only daughter died of leukemia when she 7.  I have a daughter who is 7.  To hold your daughter again?  It's an almost overwhelming feeling to imagine.  Overwhelmingly awesome!  How pathetic is that for words?!  And not to mention the myriad of others who most certainly were there to welcome her home.  Speechless, I am.

Her funeral was a beautiful, quaint celebration of a life well-lived.  My sister and I were honored to take a few moments to represent the 7 Grandchildren and share memories of Grandma.  We ended up taking our favorite memories and putting them together in a poem that turned out absolutely perfect.  The only downside to the day was the HORRIFIC weather we had to travel home in.  I think Grandma enlisted some help from the other side to make sure the caravan of funeral-goers all made it home safely!

So thank you, my dear Grandma and Grandpa.  A thank you that someday I will really be able to tell you without a single word when I see you again.  When you are there to welcome me......home.

  

Lemonade

Here is a picture I took of the girls on December 1st:

And here is a picture I took just a month later on January 4th:

What a difference a month can make!  We went from playing with cardboard boxes on the front lawn in a jacket (I believe that green stuff is grass, if I remember correctly) to bundling up and playing with giant icicles in the freezing snow.  Is that something along the lines of making lemonade out of lemons.....?

The Book of The Past Month

Someone help me out here.

It's 2013?  Isn't that supposed to be the year in some kind of sci-fi movie made in the 80's where it seemed so far in the future it would never really come?  And now January of 2013 is already half over?  Oh heaven help me I'm already behind!

It's only been a month since I last posted, yet it seems I could post an entire book on the past 4-5 weeks.  I didn't think our life was all that adventurous, but due to the amount I need to catch up on it seems that apparently it is.  I'm ready for the adventure to slow down a bit.  Guess to catch up we'll take it one chapter at a time.

CHAPTER 1:  CHRISTMAS.  Actually, we'll back up to the week before Christmas. 

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house....

....Okay, so really there was nothing cutesy or poetic about the week or so before Christmas at our house.  We were all sick.  Sick sick and sick.  It started with Kenna whose regular old cold turned into croup and earned her a decadron shot at the Dr.'s office.  Anyone recall her stint with croup last May?  You just go ahead and search that in my archives.  You will just love it.  Ya, we were a bit fearful, but fortunately we didn't have an encore presentation of our 6-hour ER visit.  She missed almost a week of school and lost her voice for a month.  Absolutely no exaggeration on that.  However, she is in full voice again.  We can hear her.  LOUD.AND.CLEAR.    

The cold quickly spread to Allie Gal.  It seemed to be the mutated cold which managed to wreak some serious havoc on the poor little lady.  She also missed a week of school.  And just when we thought we were out of the woods she managed to get an ear infection.  Let me just paint a little picture here for you.  Allie really is a sweetie.  We love her dearly.  However when Allie hurts, we definitely know it.  She has a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome, and we all suffered with the ear infection.  And of course it came on a Saturday night.  A huge and much appreciated THANK YOU to our beloved Aunt-in-law JULIE (oh how we love you) we were able to get an antibiotic.  Allie was finally on her way to recovery.  We thought we all were....

... until my little angels shared the horrific mutation of a cold with their mother.  It was the cold from the underworld which culminated in my dear husband taking 2, count them 2, days off work and taking me to the Dr.'s office.  Once again, an antibiotic came to the rescue.  The beloved z-pac worked its magic on my bronchitis helping me feel a bit human again.  I haven't felt that yucka in a long time.

You can probably guess despite my over-zealous efforts of sanitation, the rest of the gang ended up with the cold.  Fortunately Ty and Lexi didn't seem to get it near as bad, but we managed to clean out a warehouse full of Kleenex.  Absolutely no exaggeration on that.  Jacob was the cold caboose, and compared to the rest of us he got by relatively unscathed.  His halo must burn a bit brighter than the rest of us.  Or maybe he earned his halo taking such good care of the rest of us the angels took pity on him!  Perhaps the angels took pity on all of us because just in the St. Nick of time we were all better and ready for Christmas.

Christmas Eve we ventured to the theater to catch a matinee of "Rise of the Guardians."  We followed it up by a trip to Applebees.  Merry Christmas Eve to me, I wasn't cooking!  After filling our bellies, we slowly worked our way home in a blizzard where we prepared for our traditional reading of the Christmas story out of Luke.  We have quite a cast of characters:

The angels (who most impressively recited nearly the entire angel monologue by themselves):

   
Our Baby Jesus, played by Lexi.  Set design by Kenna.  Never have you seen a more impressive manger:

Don't forget Ty the shepherd!

And of course just use your imagination for me playing the part of Mary and Jacob as Joseph.

The rest of the evening consisted of exchanging family gifts followed up by arranging a plate full of cookies for Santa- complimented by some carrots for the reindeer.  We of course couldn't forget filling a glass of milk to go with it all.   Finally we got the kiddos dressed in their Christmas Eve jammies and off to bed.  The girls were so excited.  But knowing Santa wouldn't come unless they were sleeping, managed to fall asleep before too late.  And really, Santa appreciates that.  She, I mean, He likes to get to bed at a decent time too after he's gotten all his work done.  It is so fun to watch the excitement of little children at Christmas.  It truly takes it to a whole new level.  The girls managed to wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:15 Christmas morning.  I'm sorry to say that their mother made them wait until 7 to head on out to the living room to let the unwrapping begin.  Hmm, actually I'm not sorry.  I have a feeling in just a few short years I won't be able to prolong it even that long.  Oh come on, don't judge, it was still dark!

Let the Christmas madness begin!

I thought I was being such a good wife to give Jacob a new little collection of western movies for Christmas.  Way to go me, I got roped into "enjoying" most of them with him.  I think maybe he belonged to Louis L'Amour's Sackett family in a previous life.

I am happy to say I did redeem myself in the kitchen Christmas Day.  We had a rather delicious Christmas lunch, if I may say so, and then let our bellies settle so we could head out for some sledding.  It was cold, but we had a blast!


 Bundle up the baby.....

Load up the dog....

 And we're off!

Who says you can't go surfing on Christmas in Utah?  Certainly not us!

Yes, let it be known I too got on the sled.  My derriere was frozen upon our return home, but we had fun nonetheless!  We headed home to end the day with a nice cup of hot chocolate.  And a good western, of course.