Kinsley Grace

I've realized that it's been awhile since i've updated you on the ins and outs of my kiddos so I thought I would take a moment to bring you up to speed, one child at a time!

Kinsley Grace, she is now a little over a month shy of her 4th birthday! Where did the time go? She will start Kindergarten in two years. Part of me is sad for her since many of her friends will start next year, but alas she has a December birthday. Secretly I'm happy because I want to keep her little for just a smig longer!

Kinsley is a very complex little girl. She's extremely intelligent; she knows all her letters and numbers and can write almost all of the perfectly. She remembers everything and anything; not one of those children that you tell "later" to, because she will remember later. Kinsley speaks beautifully and still uses her power of persuasion and reason to get her way. She still says a few things that are cute:

McDonalds: Old McDonald

Earrings: Engring

the past is always Yesterday, the future is always Tomorrow

But my list of cute toddler phrases is getting shorter and shorter. 

She is still in dance and loves every minute of it!

 

She loves her brother like a little Mommy. She knows what's best for him! But, now that he's very independent himself she is a full scale tattler. According to her, I must be made aware of everything at all times, good or bad. 

Kinsley still has epic meltdowns, but normally they can be stopped with the possiblity of losing all of her marbles (which she earns and loses for behavior). Her favorite put-down is "X can't come to my birthday party"... it doesn't matter if her party is 8 months away, it has been used. 

 She has noise issues, any loud noise bothers her and upsets her. But she will push through if she thinks the reward is worth it!
Kinsley also LOVES church. She has only been to Sunday School and nursery but she LOVES it! She in fact insists on praying over all of our meals and will even thank God when she's gotten on purple at school (for good behavior).

 I often forget how young Kinsley really is because she has such a maturity about her. I can bring her to my work and no one will ever know because she's so good and quite. I can talk to her and she listens. She also takes in everything, as I learned the hard way when Chris and I were fighting one day.
She loves new friends, being outside, and swimming. Her favorite shows are Doc McStuffins, Sofia, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Mickey Mouse Club House (although that is slowly fading). She loves all the princesses, but Ariel is her favorite. She love long hair, not short like Daddy's. Her favorite color is Orange (no lie, only my girl) and her favorite food is spaghetti.

Kinsley is my first baby and definitely had us fooled about how good and easy kids are!

Furloughing right along

Well on September 29th we went to a pumpkin patch and there ended our "fun". Notice there's no Parker in this picture? It's because he was feeling sick and cranky. Then the bottom fell out... furloughed. Yup pretties, I'm a government employee so that means I have to stay home. We aren't allowed to get other jobs to get us thought because "we have a job". This past weekend the kids spent the night at Grandma's but K woke up on Sunday not feeling her best... now it's Thursday and she's still sick! YUCK. We went to the doctor on Monday where she was tested for strep and was sent home with a virus determination, but if the fever is still around on Thursday to bring her in... well it's Thursday...

But I know all of y'all are like "um we don't care about sick kids, we have those, what ARE you DOING on your forced vaca?
Well I painted a buffet in my dinning room blue

I might be in love!~ It was just this redish-brown before so it's AMAZING now!
I have also:
Cleaned my house
Done laundry non-stop
Stained the deck (OMG NEVER AGAIN!)
Switched the TV from Verizon to dish to save $40 a month!
cleaned the carpet
ran 23,409,220,394 errands
made homemade dinners again
taken care of a sick girl
organized trouble areas
Sanded the Cabinets
Decorated for Fall/Halloween

Still to do?
Paint a wall chevron (just added this today!!)
Find a new bank
clean out the filing cabinet
change the kids rooms? (was going to wait until later closer to December, but if this furlough keeps on through next week I think it might get bumped up!)
Clean out the fridge
Clean all the bathrooms
re-paint the cabinets
clean the walls
change out/add photos

And the list keeps growing. I'm keeping busy since I can't even check my work email without losing my jobs. And it is nice to get a chance to do all this, especially since September (being the end of our Fiscal Year) was so crazy... but the unknown is still very stressful!

Happy Furlough!

Do you ever have moments of clarity? Moments where you just go "Ah HA I WILL CHANGE because that won't even happen again"?!?! Yeah i have those a lot too. But then nothing changes and I keep making the same stupid mistakes that I made before... it's awesome (not at all).

Call me human, call me lazy, call me whatever you want, it's all most likely true on some level! Lately I've been having a lot of those moments and I'm trying to let them marinate so that maybe they take root before I go all balls out and fail, again. I'm having these inklings about weight loss, spending issues, parenting let downs, and couple time that I know needs to all change so I can be the best me I can be... I'm just letting it sink in as I develop a plan of action.

The weight-loss involves a gym that the hubs and I joined together and a diet we're doing together. Spending issues involves not spending, because I'm at a loss for how to stop that crack craving (not real crack people, the shopping crack). As for the parenting and couple connection i've got a few bible studies to do. One of which Chris and I will do together!

Like I said, I've got all these plans, but i know how i roll with plans so I'm letting them marinate for bit.

Picture Vomit!

So i'm nothing if not on time right? Here's some beachy goodness. My Kids LOVED it.  Kinsley was a beach babe ALL the way, while Parker loved the sand and the foot bath on the deck. He would NOT go near the water, while Kinsley was always wanting to go in it with us! 

Here she's checking out the jelly fish that were EVERYWHERE. They didn't sting but still I didn't like them. Kinsley also has a slight obsession with tattoos and band-aids. So it looks like we abuse our biker child... oh well

 

 Now these are going to be awesomely out of order but deal with it. We went to the Aquarium! Parker loved it once we let him out of the stroller... he can't say fish but he was excited about "UH!!!"

 My ever talented and extremely smart 3 year old was writing her name in the sand

 And since we know she's a child prodigy she might as well save the turtles too.

 "UH!"

 He likes to build though like his Daddy! Look at the baby belly! NOM NOM NOM

 First ever Putt-Putt. It went...

 SHARKS!!! And it was shark week on discovery while we were there... didn't get to watch it much since K has nite-mare issues.

 Here's our attempt at a family picture. Ha, epic fail

Then at the end of August I flew with the kids and my family to Texas for the weekend to visit my Granny for her 90th birthday. She was a little surprised!

 Four Generations!

 Parker met my cousin's daughter Ollie. He loved her

 I mean check the girl out, she's stunning!

 This is his "um Mom she's getting naked again" face. Such the gentleman, trying not to look.

 Being in Texas he also got his fill of guacamole!

 Ollie love!

 A little swimming!

 When did this boy get so big???

 He likes to drink thing like a dog... even out of dog bowls. It's really awesome.

Whelp this weekend we started back up to the normal grinding schedule. Little priss was excited to be back at dance! 

 Later that night we took the kids to a rodeo. It was pretty awesome. They got to do some fun stuff and we got to watch bull riding and barrel racing!

 Dang that kid and his cuteness!

So that's it. You're caught up. My kids have been driving me crazy, it's the end of the Fiscal Year here at the government so shoot me now... and wow. I'm a month away from my first ever 1/2 marathon... yea we'll see how that goes.
 

What Happened?

I'm here to tell you I was on a roll! I was working out CONSTANTLY, eating healthy i would say 70% of the time and looking good. I wasn't loosing pounds but everyone around was telling me that they could see a difference.




Now they would have been lying to me and just feeding me crap because they felt pitty for me that was working so hard with no results but I saw a difference (no matter how slight) too!


Lately though, no go. UH it's been so hard. Work is all crazy wonky and will continue to be until the end of September. I feel guilty if i don't work late, which means i then miss my workout time slot. UH sucks big time. When i don't workout then i eat bad. It's a terrible cycle.


Then we went to Texas FOR THE WEEKEND (crazy i know) and i came back sick so that threw me for another loop. I'm so far behind on my 1/2 marathon training i just want to give up but i won't let myself. UH! LIFE is sucking huge!

So you see, life happened and my motivation went with it. I'm trying to get it back and my good friend Cathy is trying to help me because she needs a boost too, but the desire isn't there right now. How do you get your motivation back?

Wedding Redo!

SO i have a MAJOR update coming your way but I wanted to throw this in for fun until I can get my act together! Over at Crafting a Fairytale she did a little Wedding Redo and I thought I WANT A REDO!!! So here's how it would go down if Cowboy and I could get loaded and do a killer vow renewal!
Now Northern Cowboy and I got married way back in circa 2006, aka Pre-Pintrest. So here's what i wouldn't change:

Time of year: LOVE the fall! Love what we did with the fall!

Change Time: The dress

 

While my dress was beautiful it wasn't my dream. I think i decided I wasn't going to be able to afford my dream and since this was beautiful, it was enough. Here's what I wanted at the time:

A silk taffeta look, but with more folds and drapes, etc. 

 NOW i would go for something more like:

 I would want it to be more memorable. Have the details more pronounced so they are more easily seen in photos. I would want it truly unique and i wouldn't listen to anyone else (like my Dad who hated the corset back, but that would have saved my back-fat!)

And for my hair (because OMG i HATED my hair!) I wanted something natural and free, like:

The Cake:

First of all it wasn't what I was told i was going to get. I was supposed to get a cake with swiss dots all over with edible fall foliage, not fake plastic crap.

What I would redo to:

Or even go non-traditional like:

The Flowers/table center pieces:
While proflowers did a budget good:

IF i didn't have a budget i would have preferred:

:

And while I LOVE the pumpkin/flower center pieces, i wish they would have been executed better:

and maybe with some height thrown in

The Venue was amazing a far as location and the staff and food. I wouldn't have minded if it looked a bit more like this though:

I mean if i had all the money in the world.... ;)