Kenny Update

I realized that I forgot one of Kenny’s sabotage tactics that happened a couple of weeks ago (Future Kenny: and I wasn’t going to document it for future embarrassing stories, but I just underwent an epic 2 hour battle with you today over sleep. You can thank your 3-year-old self when I tell this at your wedding).

Typically during lunch time, I fix the kids’ food, and then make mine while they’re eating theirs. By the time they finish, I usually have just sat down to eat. So typically they go upstairs to the play room and play. Then they come downstairs, and we do nap time. One day after nap time, we went upstairs and found this-

As you can see, Kenny hit the heat button, so it got up to 98 degrees upstairs. (This was after I changed the “system” back to cool.)

Thankfully, this happened the day in between the appraisal and the inspection and not on the day that either of those happened. Phew.

Again, sure felt like sabotage.

18 Month Update

So, you got me. Reed is actually just turning 17 months, but hey… he spent his first day in nursery today and that’s the biggest milestone of 18 months anyway, right? (He spent his first day in nursery today to help “transition him”.) Also, next month we will be in the midst of moving, so I know that this blog post won’t happen.

Oh and hey, we’re moving. Not very far. Just 45 minutes up north. We will be changing wards, though. But we will still be in the same stake, which is good news. Everyone in our current ward is upset with Ken that we are moving. It is the running joke that the bishop and YW president is going to sabotage the move so that we end up having to stay. I love that Ken gets the blame for the move, though. Better him than me. ;)

Speaking of sabotage, I feel like I need to document what Kenny did within the last 3 months. I think he was in cahoots with the Bishop and YW president because it truly felt like he was trying to sabotage the move (or do everything he could to make me go insane so that we needed to stay in our current home).

This was in the midst of when Ken had to do his 6 week training in Alabama (plus one week in Japan), so I was by myself with the boys. I think it was Kenny’s way of “acting out” and expressing his dislike with his dad being gone for so long. Here is the list: (to be used for future embarrassing stories such as his wedding speech.)

1. He was playing at the church with friends while I was helping with a YW activity. Snuck outside. Ate snake berries from the bush. Had to call poison control and monitor symptoms for the rest of the day.
2. (Very next day) Locked Reed, himself, and me in the bedroom on the second floor. (Who knew that the lock was on the outside of the door?! why?!) Had to call friend to drive over, break into the house, and unlock the door for us.
3. (4 days after previous incident) Managed to sneak into the cupboard, grab the “kid-proof” jar of vitamins, hide upstairs, and eat who knows how many vitamins. (20? at least). Had to call poison control and monitor symptoms again. Poison control is now in saved contacts.

As we were doing projects and prepping to list the house for sale, the following occurred (mind you, still within small time frame):

1. Took 10 oz. water bottle filled with cherry kool-aid and proceeded to paint his carpet with the red devil drink. (Seriously. Not just a spill in one area. Squirts all over the room.) I did not see it for 3 hours (we had left the house), so it soaked, set, and completely stained his white/cream carpet. Scrubbed it for 5 hours. Still red designs throughout carpet.

^^^Does not show full extent. Cannot muster strength to find better pictures and relive the terribleness again.

2. Left hose on for undetermined amount of time. At least 48 hours. Soaked crawl space.

3. Broke bookshelf (?), crashed it into the wall, damaged wall.

Hopefully these little… surprises diminish a bit. Nothing like this has happened for a while now and hopefully it stays that way. (knock on wood)

And since this post has nothing to do with Reed, we will end with pictures of Kenny, and I will write another post just for little Mr. Reed.

^^^For a while there, it seemed like this was the only time he wasn’t getting into trouble. ;)

^^^Managed to find all of these worms after a rainstorm. Came running inside with this handful and said, “Mom! Look what I found!” After shoving them in my face.

^^^And wearing his dad’s boots.

^^^Completed his swim lessons. Very proud that he overcame some of his fears around the water.

Oh, and a sweet note to end on about Kenny. Kenny decided that he wanted to bear his testimony last week. So we talked about it during Family Home Evening. He then said he wanted to bear his testimony in nursery. So today in nursery, during snack time, he stood up and said, “I know that Jesus loves me. And I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

Love this little mischievous handful. Witnessing sweet moments like this definitely makes it all worth it.

Nanny and Papa Visit

A few weeks ago Nanny and Papa (my parents) visited. It was such a treat! Kenny asks all the time now when Nanny and Papa are going to come back… and I have to agree. When are you? ;)

For a Christmas present, I took my mom horse back riding. She mentioned to me one time that she really missed riding horses (bc she grew up on a farm), and so we took the boys out while she was down here to introduce them to horses!

My mom is such a pro. The owner was trying to get a feel for how well she could ride horses, and after a few minutes he turned to me and said that my mom was great. I have to agree.

The boys also loved being on the horse. (Especially Kenny after he overcame his initial nervousness.)

We also celebrated the boys’ birthdays by going to Chuck-E-Cheese because Kenny is LOVING coin machines, so we thought he would really love going there. (And we were right!) He loves to do his chores (sort the clean silverware) to save money to go get candy from the machines. He gets 3 pennies each time he sorts the silverware and 1 penny for his tithing.

Anyway, Chuck-E-Cheese:

(Sorry I don’t have many pictures of Kenny because I stayed with Reed for a lot of it)

^^^Can you guess that he loved being able to climb the stairs as much as he wanted?

^^^Staring at all the games and a bit overwhelmed by all the noise.

^^^And here’s some of the things the boys got for all of their hard work. ;)

We loved having Nanny and Papa down here with us. Come back soon!

Kennyisms Part 2

Kenny is speaking full, cohesive sentences now and can easily hold a conversation. The other day the sister missionaries were over, and Kenny said, “So… how was your day?” A completely normal question to ask, but it is so weird to hear it come from a toddler.

Anyway, here are some of the funny ones from the last little bit:

• “Nana, I can’t understand you. My mouth is full.”
• Nana said to Kenny, “Do you know you have a good Mommy and Daddy?” To which Kenny said, “I have a good mama, but daddy messes up with me.” (Had to memorialize this one because it is no secret that Kenny likes to play with daddy more than mommy.)
• We were driving in the car, and the sun started shining in Kenny’s eyes. Upset, he said to me, “Mama! The sun is making me shy!” (Because he had to hide his face from the brightness of the sun… so since he was hiding his face, he was “shy”.)
• Driving to the store. Kenny: “Oh shoot! We forgot my quarter to buy doughnuts!” (So funny/weird to hear a two-year-old (at the time) say ‘Oh shoot’. Plus, doughnuts? You were planning on this?)
• The nursery teacher told me that Kenny was playing with playdough and he told her that he was making cookies. She asked if she could have one to eat, to which he said, “no, they’re not burnt yet.” … thanks, kid. I don’t burn them all the time.

A completely unrelated picture, but it has been so fun the last few days to be able to play outside, so I had to find an excuse to include it.

Three Years

Three years ago our world was rocked in the best possible way. He has kept us on our toes since day one (turning purple because he wasn’t breathing and getting rushed out of our hospital room), but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Kenny’s birthday is today even though he is sick with the flu 👎. That’s 2 out of 3 of his birthdays he has been sick… perks of having a winter birthday.

Even though he isn’t feeling 100%, he is loving the extra attention and has randomly been saying “wish me a Happy Birthday on Sunday!” (Ha because we have been telling him for weeks that “no his birthday wasn’t today but on a Sunday”.)

I made a birthday shirt for him and let him pick out the fabric at the fabric store. He went from cars, to dinosaurs, to pirates, but then he saw this M&M’s fabric, and he had to have it. Kid has got a sweet tooth, that’s for sure. I thought for sure he would change his mind once he saw the Mario fabric, but no. He wanted the “candy kind.”

And here’s his birthday cake. He chose Legos as the theme and helped decorate it.

Two days ago he told me he wanted to change his cake theme to a tree. I asked him what he meant thinking that I maybe misunderstood and he was saying “treat” rather than “tree”. But no. He wanted just a tree. After some probing (and maybe a little persuading) he went back to wanting a Lego cake. Phew.

And he specifically requested blue swirl cake, green frosting, blue writing, orange sprinkles, and pink candles. I just decided to go with it and not worry about the aesthetics.

And here Kenny is about to blow out the candles. He was quite concerned that we were going to be putting “real fire” on his cake instead of “special fire” like the fires we have in our backyard and in our fireplace. Not quite sure what he meant by that.

The Happy Birthday sign hanging on the wall behind him was made by Ken’s mom. She’s legit.

Anyway, we think you are great Kenny! You are smart, kind, fun, caring, and loving. You are so sweet and helpful with your younger brother, and Reed is lucky to have such an adoring older brother. He looks up to you and wants to be just like you. You are such a good example and try hard every day to do good. I love that you enjoy saying prayers and going to church. You are learning well to sit still and be reverent, and we couldn’t be prouder. We love you more than you will ever know!

 

Kenny vs. Reed

Time for a side-by-side comparison of the two. I should really do this more often. Especially since Reed is wearing the same clothes Kenny wore at the same age.

Kenny on left, Reed on right

Everyone tells me that they look identical and could be twins. It’s probably just because I’m their mother, but I can typically only see the differences (in physical appearance, personality, and mannerisms).

We have been blessed with 2 very happy boys, and we wouldn’t change them for anything.

Life. Is. Good.

6 Months

    

^^^It’s hard to just choose one. I love them all!

• We have a scooter… no Stacy. Not a razor scooter, though that would be equally cool. Baby Reed has been scooting around for about a month now, and he is loving being able to get around. He wants to play with Kenny so bad. (Update: Today he is getting up on his knees, rocking back and forth, and pushing with his feet. He is so close to crawling. I think that may happen soon.)
• Is almost able to sit up on his own completely. I’m still not quite confident leaving him alone when he is doing it, but he will balance sitting up for 90 seconds or so (or until he gets so excited that he kicks his feet hard and falls over), and he does the “tripod” sitting by himself.
• Is eating solids now. (We started giving him them probably 3 weeks ago). The first thing we gave him was a watermelon to suck on, which he loved. The first real feeding we did with him was sweet potatoes.

• Unfortunately, he now wakes up at least once every night… but it is way better than him not napping during the day. He usually naps twice a day, but sometimes three times if they are short naps… aka if Kenny wakes him up early ;)
• Is still having silent GERD issues. His pediatrician said that most babies outgrow it by this stage, but he still hasn’t. We are going to try taking him off of his medicine again at 9 months. (But right now he is still in the limbo of upping his dosage of medicine and that hasn’t quite kicked in yet, so nursing has been a challenge this last week. This happens every two months or so when he needs a higher dosage, and every time it kicks my butt. He goes on a nursing strike because his tummy hurts so bad. It’s really hard to see him hurt so much. I hope he outgrows it soon.)
• Similarly, he is a very distracted eater now. We’re talking pitched black room, silence. It’s hard to occupy Kenny whenever it is time to feed Reed. This last week we introduced Kenny to his special “nursing toys” that he can play with when it is time for Reed to eat. The toys are Ken’s old legos, which make a perfect excuse to say that they are only for when Reed eats… “Reed could choke on the legos, so while I’m feeding him, go play with your ‘special toys!'” We’ll see how long this holds Kenny’s attention.
• Is such a curious little boy. Loves to be down on the ground to wiggle and squirm around. We’ll see how long this lasts as well. I think he may be entering the phase of getting sad when I leave the room.

^^^Going through some of Reed’s clothes. I forgot how quickly I need to rotate clothes with a baby.

We love our little “Reedy”, and are so happy he is a part of our family.

P.S. A note about Kenny- he is 90% of the time potty trained now. Hopefully he continues forward and doesn’t regress too much. That would make our wallets happy! ;)

Kennyisms

So Kenny has been speaking in sentences for a while now, so I’ve started compiling some of his funny “Kennyisms”.

If I ask Kenny to do something, Kenny will sometimes say, “puh… Puh…. Puh… Puh-lease.” Not in a sort of way to give me sass but more of that he thinks that is what you’re supposed to say in that situation.

Similarly, a few times lately I have asked Kenny to do something, and he hasn’t listened. (Crazy, right?) When I get tired of asking, typically I’ll say something like “okay Kenny, I’m serious. You need to get in your car seat now.” To which he will reply with, “Mom! It is called patience. You need to get some.”

We were driving in the car and it was completely silent and all of a sudden Kenny says, “Mom, then what happened?” I said, I’m not really sure what you’re asking. Then he said, “me don’t know either, mom.” Ha, happens to me all the time, kid.

Kenny loves the song “Follow the Prophet”. He loves to march around and make it into a “follow the leader” game. My favorite is when he sings the song though- “Follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. Don’t go stray. Follow the prophet. Follow the prophet. Go that way!”

Me: Kenny make sure you eat the skin of your apple so you can get the nutrients. Kenny: “treats?!” (He thought I said treat when I said nutrients) me: no, nutrients. It’s where all the vitamins are for you to grow big and strong. Kenny: *looks at the skin closely* “me no see them!”

^Completely candid during a Friday “Family Movie Night”… which Kenny gets confused with Family Home Evening every Monday. This is how it goes down every Monday. “Kenny, it’s Family Home Evening. Let’s go do it!” Kenny- “Movie!!!?!! Popcorn?” Us- “No, that Family Movie Night, not Family Home Evening.”

^As I was looking through pictures, I came across these. This is when Kenny was sick (probably like 3 months ago). It was the weirdest thing seeing him so calm. He sat on the couch all day. It was really quite sad… and also eerily quiet.

We love this silly boy.

Sharing is… Your worst nightmare

Last night Kenny woke up screaming/shrieking. I quickly ran in to his room and asked what happened. As he was a scream crying, he told me that he “wanted that phone!” 

Glad to see his nightmares consist of sharing problems. And that pretty much summarizes his play date experiences. :)

And a completely unrelated picture-

  

Happy Thursday!

I found this picture on my Mom’s phone, so I just had to post it because let’s be real- I never print out pictures anymore so if I don’t put a picture on the blog to be put in our yearly blog book, it will never get off my computer.

I just loved finding this picture, though! Typically when Kenny takes a picture, it is hard to get him to do his actual smile. He will typically ham it up so we get a super cheesy overdone smile. Don’t get me wrong . . . those are nice too, but I just thought this picture was so precious. It was able to capture his true smile, which I love to see.

So Happy Thursday!