Ahhhhhhhhh my happy place. Love is just not strong enough a word to describe how I feel about the ocean. Even though I haven’t lived in California for years I’m strangely possessive of it. It will always feel like home I think.
We weren’t actually at the beach very long on this particular day. It was windy, cool, and some of the kiddos were good and done after a couple of hours of playing. I’m still glad we got to sneak a trip in though, even if it was only a quick one.
A long time ago I discovered the secret to getting my boys to smile for pictures… candy. All the better if it happens to be cute candy that can become a photo prop. I actually carry a box of tic tacs in my camera bag to encourage smiles. My boys are just so busy that getting them to sit in one place for any amount of time can be a challenge. But I don’t feel too guilty using one tiny breath mint each as motivation to sit still and say cheese for a sec. Interestingly “cheese” was one of Kellen’s first words. It’s like he gets his picture taken a lot or something.
Dear Kelephant,
I love you so much baby boy. You just make our family complete. You are so easy going, endlessly cheerful, incredibly patient, and remarkably obedient. I had no idea one year olds were capable of listening and obeying, but you are a good little listener and it makes mommy and daddy so proud. You have the sweetest spirit. You are so special. I can't wait to see all of the amazing things you are going to do with your life. Heavenly Father has big plans for you, I just know it. Everyone remarks on what a content, sweet baby you are and you have been like that right from day one. You bring such a calming influence to our family. I know, my little mister, that YOU were meant to be a part of our family. We weren't just waiting for any baby, we were waiting for our Kellen. Our precious little boy. I feel so very lucky to be your mommy. I am so blessed that I get to hold you when you're sick and clap for you when you eat all your dinner and read stories to you with you cuddled on my lap. I feel guilty sometimes because your babyhood coincided with a lot of hard times for our family, but I hope that even through the tough times that you felt completely loved and adored. Because you are. You are so very, very loved. I hope to show you just how much every single day. And I hope you look back on your childhood and can know with everything in you that your mommy and daddy and big brother love you to the moon and back.
love,
Mommy
This is what a typical outdoor adventure looks like for our family. Bike for Mason (who always always always picks Cars boots as his footwear of choice) and wagon for Kellen (who has to be told don’t touch the wheels a thousand times). We go outside every day if we can help it. Even if it’s only “warm enough” we bundle up and off we go! We are all at our happiest if we can escape outside for a bit. Too much energy to be cooped up for long!
I am SO SO SO behind on blogging that I am struggling to find the motivation to keep up. Part of me just wants to write about the more recent stuff, but because I want to put all of 2014’s blog posts into a book for our family I don’t feel like I can leave out major events. So I feel like I need to try to catch up a little bit, even though I think I’d rather just write about stuff going on now. In any case, here we are in the middle of February and I’m writing about December happenings. Yeehaw.
We were able to squeeze several fun christmas-y things into our month. We were all so excited for Kellen’s first Christmas. He loved mostly everything (except for Santa, but we’ll get to that), especially the lights. In fact, the first time he actually genuinely crawled a significant distance on his hands and knees was when we put up the lights on our Christmas tree. He took one look at the glowing tree, pushed himself up, and crawled towards it as fast as he could! He hasn’t left it alone since. Our tree is only decorated from about a foot from the bottom up.
We have this tradition where we put up our Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day. The sooner the better we say, and the longer we have to enjoy them. The boys were so excited to “help.”
On of our favorite Christmas decorations is this little Fisher-Price nativity set. We usually get it out the first Monday of the month and do a little FHE where we tell the boys about the birth of the Savior. I was really impressed with how much of the story Mason remembered this year. He could repeat a good portion of it and could identify all of the characters. He called the gifts the wise men brought “Frankensince, Gold, and Mermaid.” Haha. Kellen mostly loved gnawing on shepherds and sheep.
One day I found the nativity like this:
We wore Christmas nammies as much as possible.
We made Christmas cookies.
We read lots of Christmas stories. One of our traditions is to go to the bookstore to read Christmas stories and pick out a new Christmas book each year. We are slowly building our holiday library. This years book was “Snowman at Christmas.” Such a cute book! The illustrations are darling and Mason loves look and find books.
We took the boys to the cemetery to see the reindeer. I’m not sure why the reindeer live at the cemetery, but they do. Their caretaker told us to bring them bananas the next time we visited. Apparently reindeer love bananas. Who knew?
Then we went to meet Santa.
Even though Kellen was decidedly unimpressed, this was the best Santa I’ve ever seen. He was so patient and kind with the boys and took lots of time to talk to them. Mason ran right up and told him that he wants a “screw” for Christmas. He meant a little toy power drill. He got one for his birthday, but that one broke and he has been asking for another one. We told him that maybe he’d get one for Christmas and Mason hasn’t forgotten it. He talks about Santa bringing him a screw all the time.
The setup to visit Santa was really nice too. Santa had his own little gingerbread house and families got to enter one at at time. It made the experience a lot more personal and less rushed to be away from the loud line outside the door.
We made several family outings to go look at the lights. There are a few local spots that are actually really pretty. We also went to a local tree lighting ceremony and that was really fun. It was exciting to be with the crowd and count down from ten to light the enormous tree. The boys met Santa there too, but I didn’t get a good picture of that one.
The end.
Or rather, to be continued…
