Miss Know It All

Okay, so Jenalyn doesn't exactly look like that
<------------ but she has been a real smarty-pants lately. After just about every sentence I finish, she says, "What does ________ mean?" She asks it about big words, small words, slang words that don't mean anything, it's a little flustering actually. But I try to patiently answer all of her questions. I don't want her to ever think she can't ask questions. So the other day, after a million questions already, she asked me "What does fun mean?" *uhhh* Jenalyn, you know what 'fun' means! She said, "Well I just want to know everything."

She retains most of it too. It amazes me when she spouts off something to Corbin that I previously explained to her. Makes me proud *grins*

Corbin has been a real sweetie this weekend too. I always tell him, "You're my favorite little boy in the whole wide world!" Well, this weekend he started telling me, "You're the mommy in the best wide world." Yah, the words are out of order, but I know what he means. He loves me :)

Vocab-ala-Jenalyn

Pickelish: (adj) pik-el-ish
A word describing an object that has an odor which resembles a pickle.

We went out to dinner tonight and my sandwich came with a pickle spear. I offered it to Jenalyn. She doesn't normally like dill pickles - but she could eat grandma's homemade sweet pickles by the handful so I was interested to see if she would take it. She accepted it, and then sniffed it and said: "Mmm...it smells pickelish!"

She didn't finish the pickle. She took one, teensy-weensy bite and set it back down. I guess she'll stick with grandma's sweet pickles. Who wouldn't?

MILESTONE!

Jenalyn has her first loose tooth! I thought she was too young for that! She called me at work yesterday to tell me the big news! I'm so excited for her! I keep asking her to show me her "wiggle tooth." We both giggle every time.

I have to admit, I didn't fully believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Partly because she's so young, and partly because we saw our friends this weekend and Aimee was showing off her loose tooth! But, lo and behold, IT'S LOOSE! No mistake about that!

(If you click on the picture above, it's the top right bucky tooth that's loose. The picture was taken in a tee pee at the a museum in Price, Utah. I'll be blogging about that later.)

Bad Dream? Lesson Learned.

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. last night to Jenalyn calling for me. I ran into her bedroom and asked what was wrong. She said she had a bad dream. I asked her to tell me about it: You were changing Corbin's diaper and you asked me to water daddy's plant (daddy doesn't have a plant - actually we don't have a single live plant in the house because our cat eats them). So I went to feed it and it tried to EAT ME! It started moving and coming after me! It was poking me and chasing me!

I promise my 5-year-old has not seen Little Shop of Horrors! What a scary thing to dream about! Poor thing!

I asked if she could go back to sleep and she said she didn't want to because she was afraid she would have another bad dream.

So I suggested we say a prayer and she said, "and a song too?" So we knelt down together. She asked me to say it. So I prayed that Heavenly Father would give her peace and comfort. That he would wrap her in his loving arms and fill her dreams with flowers, rainbows and beautiful butterflies (she tells everyone she only likes beautiful things). After I said amen she squeezed me >>so tight<< style="font-style: italic;">"Thank you mom! That was such a sweet prayer!" Then we sang "I am a Child of God" (her choice - her favorite) and I tucked her back in and didn't hear from her again until after sun rise.

I hope I taught her that whenever she is feeling scared or frightened, she can turn to her Heavenly Father. He will be there for her - just I as came running when she called my name, He is quick to comfort when we seek Him in prayer. He is a loving father and He wants her to be happy.

NEWS FLASH: Green Toilet Water

Upon arriving at preschool yesterday (the day before St. Patrick's Day) the students observed green paper footprints leading to the bathroom. Subsequent to following the footprints, the students found green toilet water in the potty. Jenalyn, second-year student at the school, reported that the green toilet water made her "heart giggle".

*LOL* She really said that. It was so cute. I guess it truely tickled her fancy. It's the simple things, right? Like green toilet water... She talked about it at random times throughout the day. Last night when I was tucking her into bed she told me that I needed to tell all my friends at work about the green toilet water. When we woke up this morning she checked our toilet to see if the water was green. I think she was a little disappointed...hmm...maybe next year.

In other news, we did some shopping last night. I was really pleased with the deals we found at Macy's. We got a new outfit for Jenalyn - something green for St. Patty's Day - and a nice shirt and tie for Corbin - his very first tie. We tried it on last night and he looked in the mirror and said, "I look just like dad!" He seemed so proud. Anyway, we got it all for about $20! Here's a picture fashion show for ya:

(Honestly, how handsome is he? Does he take your breath away? He does mine.)

Jenalyn'isms

Just a couple cute things Jenalyn has said recently:

Jenalyn on Allergies:
We were in the car on our way to the grocery store and we were talking about Corbin's dairy allergy.

Jenalyn: Mom, are you allergic to anything?
Me: Nope. Do you remember what Aimee is allergic to?
Jenalyn: No, what?
Me: She's allergic to peanuts! Can you imagine? No peanut butter!?!?
Jenalyn: Do you remember what Chris is allergic to?
Me: No, what?
Jenalyn: He's allergic to fur! (he's allergic to our cat)
Jenalyn: I'm not allergic to ANYTHING!

[...pause...]

Jenalyn: Well, I might be allergic to the Jungle! I haven't been to the jungle yet, so I don't know if I'm allergic to it!

SO FUNNY!

And notice she said "yet." Today she said, "If we take Sultan to the jungle with us he might be scared of leopards." (we were looking at a magazine and it had a picture of a leopard.) So. I guess she's expecting our next family trip to be to the jungle. Anyone know of cheap vacation packages to the jungle?

Jenalyn on Snacks:
Jenalyn: Mom! I didn't get a snack after preschool! Can I have a brownie?
Me: No. You already had some candy. I don't want you to have too much sugar before dinner. (Again, just want to clarify, I am NOT a sugar-nazi!)
Jenalyn: Then how about some broccoli?
Me: (hmmm...let me think about this...) OKAY! Comin' right up!

*LOL* Broccoli is her second choice next to brownies? What? I love this girl! She's a dream!

Sixth Picture

I've seen this tag floating around blogville so I thought I'd do it.

Post the sixth picture in the sixth subfolder of your pictures folder. It's fun looking back at older pictures, so why the heck not, right?

So I checked to see what my sixth picture was and saw that it was our sweet kitty with Jenalyn. I immediately recognized the opportunity to blog about this very important member of our family. (Jenalyn always tells people we are a family of five - Mom, Dad, Jenalyn, Corbin and Sultan.)
Sultan hasn't made many (if any) appearances on my blog, but we love him to pieces! He's 8 years old and we got him when he was just a little mewing fur ball. He is Jason's baby. Jason never had a cat because his dad was allergic, so he quickly learned how cool cats can be.

• He is gentle with the kids...for the most part.
• We've only heard him hiss once in his entire life.
• He has a shoe fetish - he snuggles with our visitors' shoes - but doesn't seem to care about any of our's.
• He drinks water from the tub instead of a dish.
• He is an inside cat, but tries to sneak out every opportunity - but only makes it to the corner of the house and then he freezes like he doesn't know what to do next.
• He is the biggest, fattest cat I have ever met. Whenever someone new comes to the door they comment on what a big cat we have. He takes the fat jokes very well though.
  

First Saturday of the Month.

...is the BEST Saturday of the month! We love the Home Depot kids' projects! We always have so much fun. They have fun and interesting projects and it's great experience for the kids. Good, cheap Saturday activity :)

Today they made a Speedway. PERFECT for Corbin! Right up his alley! Jenalyn liked it too, but not as much as the jewelry box we made last month. We saw a lot of people from church there. Brother Bevans (Sr.) had several of his grandkids there and it left me yearning for my parents to be closer for simple but fun activities like this. My dad just retired and my mom will be retiring at the end of the school year. I am so anxious to have them around more often! It would've been fun to watch Grampa Jerry help the kids build this raceway. (He was at the Nascar race in Vegas last week and saw the real Home Depot racecar!)

Last month we got real lucky! They had free hot dogs, face painting, balloons and candy!
(Corbin declined the face painting, but as you can see in the background, he did not decline the candy *LOL*)

Corbin is threeeeee!

(*sigh, isn't he beautiful...er...handsome?)

YAY! It has been so much fun celebrating my little man this the past week!

Let's review:

Saturday The Aunts (Jason's Aunt Dale and Aunt Nancy) came down to visit. They showered us with gifts :) we celebrated mine, Gramma Jan's and Corbin's birthdays. After opening gifts Grampa John treated us all to dinner at Red Robin. We had a great time! Good food, good company, and Gramma Jan seemed to be doing pretty good. She looked so beautiful and seemed to be in high spirits. It just felt like one of those happy-everything-is-right-type of evenings!

Corbin was so cute opening his gifts. He was so serious about it. They got him a cute...er...coooool...outfit and he threw it on the floor as if it was a gift bag full of dirt *LOL* Nancy and Dale just laughed it off. Said it was typical for a boy *whew* well, I really liked it! But we've always joked that buying clothes for kids is more a gift for the parents anyway! So anyhow, then he started unwrapping fun toys like dinosaurs and his favorite gift: the Screamin' Banshee from the show Mater and the Ghost Light. He LOVES it! Oh my gosh, he loves it!
Monday we took Jenalyn to preschool at noon and then me, Jason and Corbin went to P.F. Changs for lunch (Jason's late birthday gift from The Aunts was a gift card for P.F. Changs *woot*). Corbin got the most perfect, accurate fortune in his cookie! It said, "You will bring sunshine into someone's life." Uh, yah! He brings me sunshine every day...even in this grey, rainy Oregon winter!
Tuesday - his actual birthday - was a bust! I had to work a full day. It was so hard for me to be away from him like that on his birthday. I know there are millions of working moms out there who have to work on their kids' birthdays, but it was so hard for me. I was in a bad, rotten mood all day.

So we had planned on making homemade pizza for his birthday dinner. When I called to remind Jason to start the pizza crust in the breadmaker he was up to his eyeballs in client work and just couldn't break away. No problem, I'll just throw it together as soon as I get home and we can eat around 6:30. Super Mom can still salvage this birthday! ...da-da-da-dun-da-dun...

Well...when I walked in the door after a long, grumpy day at work, Corbin came running out of his bedroom STARK NAKED! Yep, no clothes, no diaper. Just the birthday boy in his birthday suit! I asked him why he was naked and he looked down like, huh? I'm naked? *LOL* upon further questioning and investigation, I learned that Jason had put him down for a nap and went back to his work. I walked into Corbin's room to find his clothes and found that he pooped on his floor! *ugh* Are you kidding me? Someone potty-train that kid already! Sheesh! So instead of throwing dough in the breadmaker, I spent the next hour bathing Corbin, cleaning up poop, mopping their entire floor (thank goodness for hardwood), stripping sheets, and Lysol'ing the entire room. *sigh*

I still love that birthday boy more than I can even tell you!

So instead of pizza, we decided to make "3" pancakes and bacon for dinner. I also threw together a little fruit salad for a side. I heated up some frozen blueberries in the syrup for a little sumthin' extra special. It was all quick, easy, and we had everything we needed. And best of all, Corbin loved it!
We'll have one more opportunity to celebrate Corbin's birthday. We're having his very first friends' birthday party this Saturday. Cross your fingers for me! I hope it turns out awesome!

Valentine's Day

I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. I thought Valentine's Day was as good a place as any to start.

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year! Perfect that it was on a Saturday! I made heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast and then cut the kids' PB&J sandwiches into hearts for lunch. I also arranged raisins to make the first letter of their names on top of their sandwiches. I wish I had gotten a picture - they turned out really cute.

That evening the Young Women in our ward had a girls' camp fundraiser and provided babysitting at the church. So we got to go on a real-live date for Valentine's Day!!!! It was great! We met our friends, Venessa & Rick at Shoji's for dinner. then we came back to our house, played with the kids a little, put them to bed and then we had chocolate fondue and watched The Rocker. I know, not yer typical Valentine movie, but it was really funny! Especially since Jason is a wannabe Rocker and Rick is a big fan of heavy metal.

So here are a couple pictures from our Valentine's Day. Frist is Jenalyn's hair for her preschool V-Day party. I love the way it turned out! (she's sucking on a sucker, not her thumb by the way)
(don't give me too much credit, I got the idea from someone else.)

There was one picture of me and my hubs on Valentine's Day, but I hate the way I look in it...so I'm not posting it here. If you're on Facebook you've probably already seen it.

My LOVE

<---------Whew! I love this man. This is STILL my favorite picture of him. So what better to do on Valentine's Day than to dedicate a blog about my sweetheart? I blog so much about the kids, I don't want anyone to think my Jason isn't important to me! He IS! So, to make it easy, I will construct a list of my favorite things about the man I love: [ahem...]

• He is SUCH a good father! Jenalyn was the first baby he ever held. Yeah...ever! So the whole baby-thing was completely foreign to him. It has been amazing to watch him grow into the father that he is today. He plays with them; he teases them (relentlessly - he's an only child so sometimes I think he's making up for not having siblings to pick on); he teaches them interesting things, like how to sword fight, what a ninja says, and the names and skills of his WoW characters *LOL*; and he's the resident bedtime story reader, he even lets them pick which voice he should use for the story every night: scary voice, silly voice, etc.
  
• He makes me laugh EVERY day. His jokes don't seem to get old. He just keeps getting funnier.
• He puts up with ME! I tell ya, this job aint for the weak! Some days I can be a monster! Even on my ugliest days, he still loves me. *shrugs* I don't get it!
  
• He has a way of soothing me. He makes bad days better. Last night I worked a long day, after only getting 5.5 hours of sleep. When I got home I was exhausted and he let me lock myself in the bedroom for a power nap while he made dinner and fed the kids. He woke me up at 6:00, gave me a bowl of his delicious, totally-loaded scrambled eggs (one of his specialties) and a cup of yogurt w/blueberries, and encouraged/forced me out the door to Relief Society Enrichment. He knew I would be upset if I missed it, and feel better if I went. He was right. (Shh...don't tell him I said that.)
• Whenever he helps the kids with a prayer he ALWAYS includes, "We thank thee for mom and for all that she does for us." He never skips that! I love that he teaches the kids to be grateful for me. I hope that doesn't sound vain or conceited to say that, but it makes me feel special and I think it shows them that HE loves and appreciates me. I love that he is teaching our kids gratitude thru his example.
• He LOVES me! He tells me I'm beautiful every day (yes, even on my monstrous days). He says, "I love you" at least a dozen times a day (again, even on my hideous days). He shows me he loves me thru his affections, words and actions (I don't think I have to tell you again).
• I love the way he hugs me. My head fits nicely under his chin. Some days there is no place I would rather be than wrapped in his arms, tucked away under his chin.
• Sometimes he calls me out of the blue because he saw a ladybug and thought of me.
• He is talented (he's learning to play the guitar). He is smart. He is tech-savvy. He is a good writer (one day he e-mailed me a poem at work entitled "I Stacked a Dish" it had me rolling on the floor laughing - yes, I rofl'd in my cubicle that day!) Sometimes he blows me away with all that he can do.
• When I get sick his nuture-mode kicks into overdrive!  He has gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to run to Wal-Mart for anti-nausea medicine or even just Advil or NyQuil and tissues.

Ahhh...it feels good to focus on the things I love about this man I have chosen to spend all eternity with. My weaknesses are his strengths and vice-versa ('cept for some weaknesses we have in common, like Dairy Queen for example). We make a good team.

I love you, Jason. Thank you for picking me!

Fun-filled Saturday

We had SO much fun yesterday! We woke up and had crepes for breakfast *yum* Then we got ready and headed out to Home Depot for their monthly kids' project. This month they made adorable Valentine's jewelry boxes. But, even better, they had extras, free hotdogs (didn't have one though), face painting, and candy everywhere! We had a great time! The kids loved it, of course.

After Home Depot we went for lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then home for naps.

After naps we had dinner and then took the kids bowling...for the first time... :) It was so much fun! Jenalyn has gotten really good at bowling on the Wii. When we walked into the bowling alley she said, "WOW! This looks just like real bowling!" *har har har* I guess she assumed Wii bowling was the real thing! Good thing we set her straight, huh? Anyhow, here are a couple video clips I got of the kids bowling.




Jason won the game - but only because he used the gutter-guards more than the kids!!! *psh* Yeah, that's how he rolls!

But wait! There's more! After bowling we went to some friends' house for a movie. The kids played for a little while and then we put them to bed and watched Deja Vu on Blu-Ray. Awesome movie, by the way!

So that was our fun-filled Saturday.

(Yes, you read that right - no cleaning got done yesterday! Of course we didn't clean today either, since it's Sunday. So please, no one stop by unannounced tomorrow, m'kay?)

Quick Weekend Trip to Utah

Who says January is boring? *pfft* Mine certainly wasn't! I had a wonderful month!

Mom's Birthday Bash:
I flew to Utah the weekend of January 17th for my mom's 60th birthday. (All by myself! No kids. no Jason. Just me. Yeah, I know!) We had a pretty good turnout. She got to see friends she went to high school with, who she hasn't seen in almost 40 years! The party was a lot of fun and I think mom really enjoyed it. I was glad we could do that for her. She's usually the one planning the parties, it's about time we had one in her honor. I love you mom!

Surprise!!!
The next day they threw me a surprise birthday party at Jennie's house! It has been about 11 years since I got to celebrate my birthday with my family! We just don't get to Utah in January very often. It was so nice. They laid out a big piece of paper and had everyone write little notes to me. SO SWEET! They made me a cake with ladybugs on it and sang to me *awe* made me feel so special!

Last Night:
On the last night of my trip I stayed at my baby sister's house. We laughed, talked, bathed baby Boston, and stayed up until 3 a.m. making Thank You cards for my mom to send to her guests. The perfect ending to my care-free weekend.

(I stole my sister's picture collage because I don't have time or energy to make my own right now - besides most of the pictures are from my camera anyway *ha*)
I have more January memories to share, but I'm tired and I don't want to format pictures right now. So I'm going to bed.

Make New Friends But Keep the Old...

...some are silver while the other gold.

Last Wednesday night we helped our friends pack up their moving van and said goodbye *cries* they left us for Utah the next morning. They have been talking about it and planning it for a long time and it finally came...and now they are GONE!

We have been close like family since 2001! Before any of us had kids. Our kids have been friends since before they could walk. Aimee and Betty are the closest Jenalyn has to sisters and I know she loves them as if they were her sisters.

We've been a lot of places and have done a lot of things together. When we got back from helping them pack Wednesday night I stayed up [way too late] going thru old pictures so I thought I would share some.

This is the oldest picture I could find - taken on Jenalyn's first birthday in the zoo parking lot:
Here is a collage of other pictures of the girls together throughout the past 5 years:
And the most recent, taken New Year's Eve (these girls really know how to rock!):
Here is a small, condensed list of what we've done/been thru together:

• Countless game nights: Settlers of Catan and Papa John's Pizza (including some really intense games that I thought might end our friendship *LOL*).
• Numerous other games (i.e. Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit; Apples to Apples; Guild Wars; Munchkin *blegh*, etc.)
  
• We've had 7 New Years celebrations.
• Gone thru 5 pregnancies (combined).
• Moved 8 times (combined).
• Gone on 2 vacations together (Utah and Colorado).
  
• Countless shared dinners (sometimes 2-3 times a week).
• About 5 sleep-over parties (including a back-yard campout).
• A couple of trips to the zoo.
• Several birthday celebrations (Heidi and I have made quite a few birthday cakes together!)
• Several scrapbooking outings.

This list certainly doesn't cover everything. We've also enjoyed trips to the pumpkin patch, the County Fair, Halloween parties/trick-or-treating, parks, swimming pools, Sunday scones...just to name a few...

*sigh* I miss them already!

The good news here is I know we will stay in touch. With the technology we have, and as close as our families are, I have no doubt they will be in our lives forever! After all, they did move to UTAH - hello...we go to Utah at least once a year! They can't get rid of us that easily!

So here's to good, lasting friendships! I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Temorarily lost my will to blog.

I've had a hard time finding motivation to blog lately! No Christmas or New Year blog inspiration...probably because I have a million pictures to go thru and just thinking of it overwhelms me! ...so I'll skip that for now.

As I was getting ready to climb into bed tonight I found my motivation! *ugh* I'm so tired after working a full day today, and I have to be to work at 7:30 in the morning, but I don't want to lose my drive! So here I sit in my out-dated prescription glasses and my fuzzy pink slippers at midnight...blogging!

I had a thought...er, a memory from last night. We had our good friends over for dinner. While we were sitting down to eat the girls were talking. Betty said, "When I grow up I'm going to be my mom's mom!" Aimee then corrected her and said, "NO, when you grow up you'll have your own kids!" Then Jenalyn popped in and said, "When I grow up I'm gonna be my mom's friend."

******awe******

I didn't think about that much when she said it last night because so much was going on, but when I thought of it tonight I got all mushy-gushy. I have always hoped she would want to be my friend. I've hoped we'd always be close, that when she's a teenager we'll have late-night chats like I did with my mom. So to hear her say that she wants to be my friend when she grows up. *sigh* I'm speechless!

We got a hand-me-down bed net from some friends (their daughter grew out of the princessy-frilly fluff) and we finally hung it over Jenalyn's bed last weekend. She LOVES it. Heck, I love it! It's so pretty! So I took a bunch of pictures of her in her fun bed that night (Corbin popped in for a couple). The next morning she kept saying, "Mom, we should take a picture with me and you in my pretty bed!" To be honest, I was like, why? *lol* it's not my bed! But after she mentioned it about 5 times that day, we asked Jason to take a picture of us. Now that picture means the world to me! She wants to be my friend!!!!!
I hope she'll read this some day and know how much she means to me. I LOVE YOU Jena-bug! Bugga-boo! Sweetie-pie. Lovey-dove. Sweet-sis! Little-Lyn. Lets always be close, m'kay?