Lunch Breaks

I scream you... you scream... we all scream for ice cream.

During lunch yesterday Shane was preparing a pepsi float; two of Daphney's new favorite things. After wading through crocodile tears Shane explained to Daphney that she needed to eat her jelly sandwich before she could have dessert like dad. Two minutes later I look over and one side of Daphney's sandwich is gone. I thought to my detective self, Daphney that was impossibly fast for you. After double searching the trash and all likely hiding places I submitted she must have really taken to heart Shane's talk.

But alas I soon found Demitri's cheesy smile drenched in jelly, and the biggest chipmunk mouthful of this mysterious sandwich. He then proceeded to finish the sandwich. That is my just barely teething son eating like a BEAST!

Chances are Daphney was probably just trying to share, but it cracked both Shane and I up.

It wasn't til I was probably 7 or 8 that I remember figuring out that trick. 

Mom said that we couldn't have this delicious chocolate cake until we had eaten all of our dinner. A giant yellow pile of corn kernels lay between me and my taste buds attached to that cake!

I was halfway through eating my cake when mom finally noticed the pile of corn that I had buried onto Jenny's highchair tray more than tripling the amount that she originally had. Yeah I was an ingenious person who didn't account for how long babies take to eat truck loads of corn.

The Worst Punishment On The Planet:

First my cake was taken away! Next in order to get it back I was forced to eat every now cold nasty played with kernel that Jenny had probably drooled upon.
I never had to relearn that lesson! And you can clearly analysis that my mom made a fantastic cake to cause a germaphobe to sink so low!

World of Imagination

What kind of a mother teaches her son in his dinosaur pjs and pilot helmet and her daughter holding her stuffed animal to sword fight with paint sticks! I will have to let you know if there are negative repercussions.

Topeka Zoo

She fits in with these tigers so well!

Our fantastic vehicle of choice

Daphney's checking out the first animal at the zoo. (giraffe)

They are both teething! :D

Daphney's Second Birthday

Happy Birthday to our sweet little girl! We went to McDonalds and got Daphney her first happy meal with her best friend Parker! I ordered a happy meal and the guy at the registered interrupted me to say "they are called mighty kids meals", and then with his eyebrows raised said "do you still want it?" Cracked me up... She also got to get her very first ice cream cone. When I handed it to Daphney she grabbed the ice cream rather than the cone and looked up at me super offended. But after we taught her how to hold it right she loved it.  

4th of July Photos

We won't document how many of us, what we had to do, or how many pictures we had to take to get these pictures, but I just love them. What a wonderful month we had celebrating the freedom of our country. Thank you to all who give their lives so voluntarily.  When I was doing my student teaching I had the experience of holding a small distraught boy whose father had just left to serve in Iraq. It was an experience that melted my heart and I will never forget. I struggled to find words to explain why his father had to leave but it was so easy to explain to him how much his dad must love us all.

So in this top picture Demitri is pulling Daphney's hair, and have you ever seen a happier little boy?

I am going to be super disappointed if we can't
come up with a good line to go with this picture.

Family Tour

So this summer the kids and I vacationed most of July with a week in Idaho, Colorado, and KS. Thanks to my great husband for allowing us to go and play even though on these trips we worked so much we needed a vacation after the vacation. Work is a bit relative, but anything with babies is tough like 14 hour layovers in Denver, boating all day everyday, a 4 days in the mountains sleeping with everyone in a cabin, a 12 hour car ride, and finally gardening and canning. All very fun with babies! Happy Birthday to both Abi and Heidi that celebrated their birthdays with us!

So the video is really fast in some parts...sorry. But my favorite part is the bowling for babies.  I promise we are good parents! 

Story is Simple: I told Heidi to knock it off and be more careful, because as you saw in the video she was really close to running into them. She claimed oh no Katie it is not my fault it really picks up speed in the middle. Whatever... but she made me try it. And you know she was RIGHT! 

Chicken Parenting

           This is one of my new favorite paintings and I want to try and explain my sacred and personal thoughts behind it. I envisioned this painting back during Easter. Demitri was learning to sleep all the way through the night still and that is always so difficult for me personally because I just want to snuggle tiny baby rolls at all hours. You would think it would be easy and I would rejoice at the opportunity to sleep all night, but those are the longest nights where I find myself pacing until I am accidentally running because of the ache for my child. Little does Demitri know even though I am not next to him to insert the pacifier and comfort him I am as close as I have ever been in spirit and heart. I remembered thinking to myself, "how will I ever do this?" It took a while to realize that I was so focused on the scene before me that I did not realize that I am often the one inside of the "egg" in which needs to learn how to do things without direct step by step instructions from Heavenly Father. And these experiences helped me to better understand his love and mercy that even when I don't feel his presences He is still near. That is why there is a cracked egg in which the viewer is supposed to be looking out of towards their own loving Heavenly Parents. 

          One of my favorite speeches by Elder Holland is one about the atonement and it had extra meaning to me last Easter as I was pondering these thoughts. This is the talk and a video of him speaking which I would encourage you to watch if you are interested, but here also is a shortened video of the talk if you prefer. 

I don't mean to say I understand completely or to demean the Atonement in any manner, but I feel like because of the blessing of being a parent and having to learn to let children grow from independence and indeed sometimes pain I better understand how a perfect loving Father could let our Savior be crucified on the cross and for a moment allow Him to suffer it completely alone and yet never be closer to his beloved Son.  

This is the section in which helped me:

 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” ^16. .... Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone." 

Elder Jeffery R. Holland

I hope this painting and message brings hope, peace, and understanding unto those that view it like it has unto myself. 

Plagiocephaly

Recently our son was diagnosed with Plagiocephaly which is basically having a flat spot on his head. This has many causes one of which is that when he was born his head was in the 98th percentile and his neck muscles had to learn to support his head. (Interesting Fact: Daphney's head was in the 5th Percentile). Other reasons include the fact that he was always laid on his back and he is a happy relaxed baby who did not bother moving out of his blanket cocoon at night. At first I was devastated at the fact that I felt like I had broken my son who was only 6 months old, but now we are doing much better and I feel just lucky to have a healthy happy son. Feel free to ask me any questions, because I would love to prevent this for other babies. Website

This is a picture of his head while he was at the doctors getting scanned for the helmet. The  back left and front right were protruding. The flat spot was then mostly on the back right. Because of the location of the flat spot not being directly on the back of the head it is believed that it might have originated when he had some bad colds this winter that caused the neck muscles to tighten on one side of his neck. Anyways it was not terribly noticeable especially because of how much hair he has now and he might have grown out of it, but if we didn't do anything while the head was growing then we wouldn't have a chance to fix it later if it didn't correct itself. Below is a picture of the white helmet that applies pressure on the two protruding corners to let the other corners catch up in growth.  

So I did some research online and found this design and painted it on his helmet. It made having a helmet much more fun and now he always looks like he is having a blast day dreaming about flying! 

Okay so I loved every picture and had to snap and share every flinch... Sorry.