Nella-wella-bella (8 mos)

This post is long overdue. It seems like my other kids got individual posts every month when they were babies. But it doesn't mean we love Janella any less!! This girl has more nicknames than anyone I know. The kids call her Janelley, somtimes "wellie belly." Michael calls her nella wella, nellie, and so on. I call her a little bit of everything.

Janelle turns 8 months this Friday. At her last appt she was 14.9 lbs I think (25%) but her percentile for height was in the nineties.

Janelle is a peice of heaven in our home. She nurses 3-4 times/day, takes 2 naps (morning & afternooon) and goes to bed from 8ish to 8ish. She is also eating 3 meals of babyfood/day. My favorite thing is being able to just lay her down for her naps and bedtime. She goes rigtht to sleep and I love knowing I'm going to have the structure and those 4 hrs every day no matter what, to do whatever else I need to do.

She is really vocal. We get lots of fun comments in church about our noisy babe but its fun to listen to her.

I'm not gonna lie, she loves her momma, but she loves her whole family, too. She loves to watch her sibblings run around, laugh and be silly, and they like to entertain her so its a win win.

She's doing that cute ducking thing where when she sees a stranger or less familiar face she'll duck her head right by my chest as if to say, "I'm not so sure about you."

I love giving her big 'ol kisses on her pretty cheeks and squeezing her tight.

The kids truly love her. We were all in Janelle's room the other day (Janelle was playing on the floor) and Stetson wanted me to chase him and Kandace throughout the house like superheroes and Kandace broke down and in a very concerned cry said, " what about Janelle!? We can't leave her!" It was sweet to see how much she loved her sister.
We love you Janella!! :)

random...and husband of the year

I just have some random stuff to post about. Last Wed was our last den mtg for Lovell 3rd ward (thats where Michael took the pic of me). We're combining with another ward in March (yeehaw). Michael helped with this last den meeting and he also made homemade bread that day. He is pretty domestic like that. He also made some homemade baby food for Janelle out of sweet potatoes. He put the leftovers in little icecube trays and she loved it while it lasted. Last Thursday we had our Blue & Gold banquet. We only had one scout that could make it so we were small in numbers but that's ok! We had lasagna, salad, garlic bread & brownies for dessert. There was a lot about scouting I didn't know so the last few months have been a crash course for me. There's a lot of hoops to go through and it gets complicated but I think we almost have it figured out. I've loved watching how pack meetings srengthen families and ward families (active and less active).

n-a-u-g-h-t-y

Here is our princess caught in the act of crime. She disappeared for a minute and returned to the living room where we found her singing and dancing in her princess dress wearing a very bright shade of pink lipstick. She denied ever stealing the lipstick, but she sure tried hard to convince us otherwise.

Lucky lucky girl

This was taken last Monday when Michael had the day off. We headed to the farm so Michael could do some stuff and gpa & gma Asay ended up needing to go to Powell to get some stuff and Kandace was lucky enough to go! This was taken in their car with gma's phone. Kandace LOVES her gpa & gma Asay and I'm sure she loved the one on one time...the icecream cone didn't hurt either. :)

lots of love

Valentine's day was pretty low-key this year. Michael had to work that night so we postponed our v-day dinner 'til the next night. Jan had already said she'd watch our kids on valentine's day though, so I took them over and went home to enjoy some peace and quiet! (I'm pretty awesome like that). I took a bubble bath, ate a grilled cheese sandwich and worked on my sharing time. It was bliss.

The next night was awesome though. My dad & Brenda watched the kids and we went to The Rib n Chop house. I probably never should have ever gone there to begin with when went for our anniversary a couple years back because now thats the only place I ever want to go!! I had a 10 oz baseball top sirloin and Michael had the lamb. It.was. delicious. Oh my. And we had sauted mushrooms, salad, potatoes and calamari, which was a first for us but delicious. Can't wait 'til we have another exuse to splurge and spend all our money. I told Michael we might have to live in our van after tonight but I guess it will be worth it. We had a great time. Good conversations, lots of laughs and amazing food. We left Janelle who cried the whole time but oh well.

Stetson had a Valentine's day party at school and seemed to have a blast. He always has like a million things to say right when he gets home and can hardly contain his excitement. I got a valentine from my dad and the kiddos got sweet valentine's from gma & gpa Asay. Kandace was very excited about her tatoo (tutu) and has been wearing it a lot. I made Michael another candy graham. You'll have to ask him for details on it. :) Michael wrote me a sweet note and said we could go on a cruize in November that includes Cabo as part of the destinations. We'll see if that actually happens. :) Stetson will be in school then and thats a long time to leave my kiddos.

Blogging

OK so I lied. I was going to quit blogging for multiple reasons. Not that anyone cares, but I'll give you a quick lowdown. Sometimes looking at blogs is depressing to me because most people blog about only the good things and all you seem to see are sparkling clean kitchens, extravagant birthday parties and perfect families. Well I have to repeatedly tell myself that noone is perfect and a blog is merely a glimpse into people's lives and that I'm really doing ok. Plus, Michael keeps reminding me that it is ok to blog about only good things, but I somehow need to be validated that life isn't perfect and that I'm not the only one whose house gets messy and whose kids throw tantrums and pee the bed. LOL

There are some blogs that are actually really uplifting to me and I'll try to do that more in mine.

I was looking through a family member's blog the other day and it included pics of me and my kids through all different seasons of life and it brought back great memories and made me so happy! I want all that recorded for me and my family and to have blog books every eary (just got 2011's and I LOVE it, as does Michael).

So I've just finished a mini blogging marathon so scroll down to look at the posts on Kandace's birthday. Its a little out of order but you get the idea. :)

Princess Party

The actual day of Kandace's birthday! Michael was gone all day at work unfortunately, but we partied anyway. It began with a princess party with 2 of Kandace's little girly friends. Their moms and I have become buddies since step and it was a good excuse to get together again. I have really special memories of Kandace's first princess party at my friend Shannon's. I wanted to recreate it for these little friends and it worked out awesome. I borrowed some nice things from family and neighbors to decorate the table and we had ham n cheese sandwiches, chips, grapes and confetti cake for dessert. The girls also did craft and opened presents. It was simple but I think the girls liked it.

The girls were Ashyln Hamer & Hannity Felkins.

writing valentine's

Today we got a headstart on making Stetson's Valentine's for school. He doesn't need them til Tue but I remember the drama last year with getting them done in time so we started early this year.
Stetson gets to practice writing his name at preschool a lot so he's gotten a lot better! He loves sounding our words and writing them. I'm surprised at how his handwriting has improved. I am proud of Stetson for the things he does and enjoyed doing this with thim.

part III

This was the final event!! In the evening we had Michael's family over for lasagna, salad and garlic bread. Stetson and Kandace love playing with their cousins so its always party when everyone comes.

We are grateful for a truly wonderful family to come support our kids and make it a special day for them.

Kandace got a homemade too-too (?) from gma Dorothy (who Kandace loves, she talks about her a lot) a beautiful necklace and matching earings from Christian & Jill (guess we'll have to peirce her ears now:-)) a rag quilt & bath toy from mom & dad, playdough toys from Daniel & Kasi, a dora puzzle from Jacob and a table set & chairs plus plates, cups, etc from gma & gpa Asay!! What a haul!

the day after...

This girl has been spoiled like crazy the last 2 days. I hope she doesn't think her birthday will be a 3 day event every year.

My boy

I've been so impressed by Stetson lately and want to remember this. 2 or 3 months ago, Stetson started trying to read and sound out words more. I think he started in the first place because of his love of books, which is why I'm a believer in reading to your kids from infancy. Well in the last few weeks, his reading has really taken off. We got him a bunch of sight word books for Christmas and he can read almost all of them. They have little activites in the back where you fill in the blank in a sentence and he picked up on that a lot better than I thought he would.
Well the reason I'm doing this post is because Stetson made this "List" tonight right before Kandace's bday party and I thought it was so neat. The first list says sleep, brursh teeth, play, eat breakfast, then last is do what dad says. His spelling isn't correct, but I LOVE how he tried to spell it out phoenetically. I just am like any mom and think my son is great and want to remember this.
I've been telling Michael over and over that I think he's at such a great age/phase. He listens to me so good at home, he is so inquisitive, happy, eager and just excited about life. Plus he's mellow enough to put up with Kandace somewhat. He's very patient when I'm doing something and can't help him right away, he helps me with Janelle a lot by fetching the wipes and other stuff and I'm just so proud of him for the good boy he is.

Kandace's birthday part I

Kandace turnss 3 tomorrow, but most of my fam has bball games tomorrow night so they came over for tacos and fruit pizza tonight. Kandace LOVED all of her presents. Todd, Emily & fam got her Dora PJS, dad got her a $ and a rapunzel story book that Kandace had spotted at Red Apple weeks ago and Mike & Rachel got her a bunch of princess stuff which was THE perfect present for this girl.

After everyone left, Michael and I got ready for round 2 of the birthday insanity by making 2 pans of lasagna for tomorrow night. And as if I wasn't already in over my head, Kandace is having 2 friends over tomorrow for a princess party. WHAT?? I know. It all seemed like a way better idea months ago when I thought this up, but we love all our family and don't want anyone left out.

My girl Kandace. So much to say. I have to begin by saying that there's nothing I love more than hugs from this girl. When I need one I just put my arms out and she climbs up in my arms, puts her arms around my neck and gives me a good squeeze.

Kandace is a lot different than Stetson was. She is girly girl through and through and keeps us smiling (and worrying a little) at her gestures, mannerisms and girl talk.

At 3 years Kandace...

*loves fruit. Still. she prefers it over most anything.

*loves to be read to.

*love anything and everything princess

*loves to watch Dora

*loves to go to the library, take the books off the shelves and stack them

*loves to tease her brother

*LOVES her baby sister Janelle. Just the sigh of Janelle can change Kandace's disposition

*loves playing at gma Dorothy's

Thank you Kandace for coming into our lives. You are our little angel and we love you.