Friday Confessionals

Ok, a friend of mine has joined her friends in doing a Friday Confessional and now I am going to join her.

I CONFESS...I don't ever add vegetables to dinner unless it's already in the recipe. I don't have a side of green beans, or corn...just about EVER! Although David and I are not veggie lovers, somehow our girls actually love them.

I CONFESS...I am really obsessive compulsive when it comes to toys. I never had a problem until I had kids. At my worst I would count toys and if one was missing we all had to look until we found it. I even made David count toys. He had to know how many characters came with each Little People set, trains we had, etc. I have gotten over my counting for the most part, but it doesn't mean I don't have the urge to do it. I simply resist for fear of making my children compulsive. I had to wean myself off of counting toys by counting only after the girls went to bed, to not counting at all now. (Ok, I count about once a month)

I CONFESS...I absolutely HATE HATE HATE reading! I seriously can't stand it. It's not that I can't read, I just don't enjoy it. I am actually a very good reader. David can't stand this quality about me. The thing that bugs him the most is that I will read about 200 pages in 2 days and then just stop reading, never to pick the book up again. I just get bored. I did this with the Green Mile and he will NOT let me live it down. He can't understand how I can get to a really climatic point in a book and not go back to find out what happens. He said I couldn't watch the movie until I finished the book. After months, he finally realized I wasn't going to finish so he let me watch the movie. The only things I find some enjoyment in reading are: true stories, church books, and self help books. Although I hate reading, I read every night to my girls and have made it my goal to instill a love of reading in them. So far it has worked great! Both of my girls LOVE books and will sit still while I read to them. (Those who know how energetic my girls are know how unusual this is)

I CONFESS...I hate wearing socks and shoes. I can't stand how confined my feet feel in shoes. Plus, it just makes my feet hot. I am a flip flop lover! I wear flip flops in any weather, all year round. The only time I wear shoes is if I am exercising at a gym (Because it's required), and when I'm pregnant and its snowy. I have lots of shoes and lots of flip flops, but I go for flip flops every time. I don't know why I even bother buying shoes, but I do occasionally wear them and I can't pass up buying a cute pair of shoes. I also can only buy shoes that are comfortable. I don't understand shoving your foot into a cute pair of shoes that has you dying because your feet hurt. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

These are a few of my confessions....I have TONS of them so I will post every Friday.

Spring!

My girls have been anticipating Spring for weeks now. Kadence wakes up every morning and asks if its Spring yet. Because of her excitement, Shelby was excited too. I talked to David and we decided to have a celebration for the first day of Spring. Unfortunately I was in a terrible mood on the first day of Spring and then David had school at night so today we finally celebrated. (What the girls don't know won't hurt them.) When I told them that we would have a Spring Party they were SO excited.

While Kadence was at preschool, Shelby and I made Spring Funfetti cake cookies. She LOVES cooking and likes to be referred to as "Little Chef." It cracks me up! At first she kept asking me "Where are the cookies?" She was confused that we were actually mixing and making our cookie dough instead of breaking the pre sectioned pieces from the package and putting them on the pan. Once I started to put the balls of dough on the pan she finally stopped asking where the cookies were. (Goes to show you how much we bake)

I caught her watching the cookies.

Then she caught me taking pictures of her.

Little Chef's job was to put all the sprinkles on the cookies. She actually did a really good job!


Our "Spring" Cookies!

What's a party without goodie bags? I grabbed things from around the house that we have been buying for when the weather gets nice and shoved it in the Tinkerbell slingbags that we got when we went to Disneyland and never gave to the girls. I even found 2 goodie bags from last Easter laying in my basement that went in.

The girls discovering their chalk, batons, and Easter goodie bag. I also bought two books specifically for our party. One was "My Oh My-A Butterfly!" the other was "Oh Say Can You Seed" They are both Dr Seuss style books and are full of information about these two spring subjects.

Shelby has been DYING to play with chalk.

Here's Kadence coloring with her chalk...both girls sat the exact same even.

While the girls colored, David started getting our new patio set out of the boxes and assembled.

I asked David to take a picture of us...and this is the best one we got. They make me laugh!

After chalk it was the swing set...

Shelby started teaching herself how to pump on the swing set. It shocked the heck out of us because Kadence won't even sit on a swing so we have no idea how she figured it out. Kadence doesn't like how unstable it makes her. Shelby kept falling off backwards and having the swing hit her. Kadence would yell, "Shelby fell on her head, but she's ok!" It was really funny.

Yesterday I was looking through FamilyFun magazine and saw cinnamon pull aparts. I was excited to try to make them, but Kadence doesn't really like cinnamon and Shelby doesn't like to be sticky. Then I realized the sections made it look like a flower and got the idea to dye the dough and make flower rolls. I was SO proud of myself because I am NOT a creative person. In fact, this is the first time I have ever made dough and even had to call David for advice. I don't many women who call their husband for advice on making dough, but he's made it before and I haven't. I am a Rhodes Roll kind of gal because it's easy. They turned out pretty darn good if I say so myself!

It was fun to see the girls pull the "petals" off their flower roll.

It was an AMAZING day for all of us. David and I love being outside with the girls and hearing how excited and happy they are. We try to spend as much time taking in how happy they make us because they will only be this age once. Life is a fragile thing and we try to make the most of what time we have together. I love my family and love the excitement my girls get from little things like 2 hours devoted to spring. At the end of the day I was almost brought to tears when I was tucking Kadence in to bed. She said, "Mom I have a secret.." then she whispered in my ear "Thank you for my spring party."

Another Truth...

Ok, here is another truth about me. Sometimes I let my cranky mood get in the way of my kids fun. I have been in a terrible mood all day...not for any reason, just in a bad mood. That usually makes me in a worse mood because I have no reason to be cranky and I can't seem to get happy. It's a vicious cycle. Anyways, I had a big day planned for the girls and I didn't do ANY of it. Kadence has been asking, daily, for over a month if it is Spring yet. She will wake up in the morning and say, "Mom, I think it's warm out...ITS SPRING!" I then have to crush her dreams by telling her its still winter. Well because she was so excited I decided we would make a big deal of it today. We were going to make Spring Funfetti cupcakes, go outside and play with new batons, hoola hoop, color with chalk and I had ordered books to give them as well. They are Dr. Seuss style and one is about butterflies and the other about flowers. It was going to be a great little day, but my mood totally ruined it all. We didn't do ANY of it! I am now thinking we will be doing it all on Wednesday instead since David has school tomorrow night. Sometime around 6 I started feeling bad for my poor kids and had to think of something quick. I know they didn't know the difference, but I did. I figured we could go get a Redbox movie and pop some popcorn and get drinks and do a movie night. When we were at Maverick getting our movie and drinks, they had their movie treats so we grabbed a few to share.

It turned out to be a nice recovery. Shelby earned herself a Sally (From Nightmare Before Christmas) doll for going potty. (Kadence got one too) They then decided they would rather watch Nightmare Before Christmas instead of the rented movie. All together our family movie night was $6! Sadly I don't always realize that my kids are missing out until they are already in bed. I feel terrible that I let my mood interfere with my children's enjoyment. I guess it's something else I can add to my list of things to improve upon.

Potty Time!

We finally decided that it was time to do the final push with potty training. We have tried to let it be all up to Shelby, but I was done waiting. Every time we would try, she would get upset and go "anti potty" so we would back of for a month and try again. It was obvious she knew exactly what was going on and to me if your child can tell you, "Mommy, I peed can you change my diaper?" then it is time to potty train. I thought it was going to be a HUGE battle, but have been pleasantly surprised so far. The first day she had 3 accidents which is SO much better than I was expecting. She is just like Kadence and can't get her poop on the potty and when she starts to pee in her panties she stops and finishes on the potty. So it's not too bad since it doesn't make a giant mess everywhere.

The second day was a little worse than the first with a few more accidents. We did however make it through a 2 hour birthday party accident free. I was SO proud.

The third day was just as good as the first! We even went to Sacrament meeting and she was doing pretty good. Then she ate a tootsie roll and her fake teeth fell out so we had to leave anyways. (Figures!)

And today, the fourth day, is the same as the first and third day. I have been trying to cautiously do things the same as I normally would and just hope and pray she doesn't have an accident. We went and dropped Kadence off at preschool, brought David a drink at work, went to The Childrens Place, Carters, Maceys, Maple Gardens, and then brought David lunch at work. Through all of that she remained accident free....much to my delight!! She seems to have 3 accidents a day on average...and has about 12 or so successes. She has been getting a sticker each success and every row of 10 she fills she gets a small prize as a reward. Today she filled her entire chart of 50! We gave her a Sally doll. She ABSOLUTELY LOVES Nightmare Before Christmas and was ECSTATIC!! She immediately yelled, SALLY! Then she ran to her bed and got her Jack doll that is the same style. She has been making them kiss all night while we have a movie night on the couch watching Nightmare Before Christmas. I was able to give Kadence a Sally too since I got both for $9 total with free shipping! I knew they would come in handy for some sort of reward or distraction.

Here is the big girl with her potty chart and prize!

I think this face shows how happy she is! (Notice Jack nestled under her other arm)

I am now going to try to make a chart that encourages her to have fewer accidents. I am going to try to give her a prize if she only has 2 accidents in a day....then once she gets the hang of that I will bring it to 1...then zero. Hopefully it will work, but we'll see. She has surprised me throughout the whole process because she hasn't fought me at all. She has such a stubborn personality and I didn't know if she would fight me on it. I'm so proud of Shelby and so happy she has such a good big sister cheering her on. I don't know how many times I have heard Kadence say, "I'm so proud of Shelby, she's a big girl now!" I'm lucky to have two girls who love each other so much.

I'm not perfect...

I often find myself comparing myself to other wives, mothers, and students. I don't know why I do it because it always leaves me feeling bad about myself. I never used to compare myself to others, but since I got married I do it almost daily. In high school I didn't care what people thought of me and was secure in who I was. Frankly, if people didn't like it then they didn't have to be my friend. Now it's totally different. I see what homemade things others do, what crafts others do, all the cool places people go, all the fun things the moms do with their kids, and how amazing in general people are. My biggest problem is facebook. On facebook you are able to paint whatever kind of picture of yourself you want to. (And on Blogs for that matter, I just am on facebook WAY too often) You don't post about your imperfections or flaws, rather all the things you did well. Through the facebook goggles it seems as thought I'm the only one who isn't perfect. I need to do better to be happy with who I am and love myself. That is going to be a new goal of mine. I am very blessed and have an amazing husband who does whatever he can to make me happy. He never complains about watching the girls so I can spend some time away and always is willing to help when asked. I have two amazing and beautiful girls who just light up my world. They make me laugh daily and I love them for it!

Now its time for me to be honest with you and tell you some of my imperfections and flaws:

I yell at my kids

I don't get out of bed before 9am most days

I don't do the girls hair unless we are going somewhere

Sometimes I get busy and forget lunch until 2pm

I wear PJ's all day everyday and only put pants on when I leave the house

I gossip more than I would like

I feed my kids TONS of processed foods and I don't plan on changing it

I worry about everyone-even people I don't know at all

I don't go to church weekly (Sometimes not even monthly)

I get snappy with my husband for no reason

I swear

I don't shower daily because blow drying my hair seems like to much work

I am a terribly impatient driver

We eat out often simply because I'm too lazy to cook

I can't figure out this whole blog thing and make it look as fancy as you, but I do it for me as a journal not to impress you.

These are just a few of my imperfections, I hope they made you feel more NORMAL. I wish everyone would be honest and then maybe we wouldn't all feel like we had something to prove to one another.

St. Patricks Day

Today marks 2 years since Kadence started her casting journey. She is now in her 7th cast. She started at 78 degrees and has been as low as 38 degrees. She is currently at 58 degrees, in cast. I am hoping she continues to tolerate the castings as well as she has. She has started asking questions like, "When will Shelby get her cast" and "Why doesn't anyone else have a cast?" It breaks my heart, but we just explain it the best we can to her. We are so grateful for Shriners and all they have done for us. We are also very blessed to have gotten accepted and schedule immediately to start treatment based on the severity of Kadence's curve. Kadence was getting about 12 degrees worse every appointment (every 3 months) and the doctor at Primary Childrens still just wanted to "watch" it. He also told us that at 80 degrees they have to start worrying about damage to their internal organs....but still at 78 degrees he wanted to still "watch". I'm so glad David and I chose to change doctors and hospitals. When we switched we were informed that bracing Kadence didn't hold her in place like it does other kids. Kadence's back is "wired" differently and still gets worse while in a brace. Most kids don't get better, but the brace will at least hold them where they are at. The castings get more correction than bracing, but we still have to brace 3 months of the year. It gives Kadence's skin time to breath, her active body time to move, and keeps her back muscles strong. We are just casting as long as we can to postpone fusing rods, and are hoping we can postpone until she is 13 or 14. If we can wait until 13 or 14 her spine will be mature and we won't have to do multiple surgeries. If we aren't able to postpone that long she will get growing rods that will need to be adjusted as she grows with multiple surgeries until a final rod fusion at 13 or 14. We are hoping and praying we can postpone long enough, but are realistic and know in the back of our minds that it might not be possible. We will do castings until she no longer socially tolerates it. Most kids stop at about 5 when they are in school. Kadence is spunky and has such a positive attitude that I am HOPING we can make it a year or two longer. Once we stop casting it will be bracing until we fuse rods. Like I mentioned before, she gets worse in a brace so the longer we can go in a cast, the better! Thank you to all of our family and friends who have supported us these past two years. It means more than you will ever know. Even though I try to act like it's no big deal, I am usually a wreck! Thanks so much to my amazing husband who puts up with my meltdowns and negativity. He is my rock and helps remind me that it could be so much worse. And lastly, thank you to the anonymous giver on our very first casting. We were surprised with a basket full of all of Kadence's favorite things and $100. I wish I knew who it was so I could tell them how much that helped us and that we will never forget their kindness. I will always pay it forward by donating in March. (Hopefully my kids can get rid of their colds so we can actually go bring our donations to the hospitals) THANK YOU THANK YOU everyone involved! We feel completely blessed!

Our Floor Nightmare.....I Mean Project

Ok, my list of things to do to our house...in order were: Wood Paneling-OUT, NEW carpet, Our Bathroom, and then the kitchen floor. Unfortunately the tile in the kitchen started to peel up and I kept tripping on it, so with our tax return we decided we better get new tile in the kitchen. We wanted to tile the entire kitchen and get rid of the carpet because neither one of us think carpet belongs in the kitchen.

Here is the tile and carpet before we started

When we pulled up the tile I was mortified! We saw mold and water damage...NOT what I wanted to see at all.

This is what we saw

David's brother, Jason, came and helped him assess the damage and rip out the old floor. It was caused from a dishwasher leak that had been going on for who knows how long. It pretty much covered our entire kitchen.

The sick part is we never had those magnets in the left corner...yay for renting.

This is when I started to really panic.

The next day both Jason and my other brother in law, Aaron, came to help. The damage was right down to the sub flooring through two layers of tile and a sheet of plywood, but NOT in the sub flooring. Aaron helped David replace the plywood.

Meanwhile this was our set up in the living room

For those of you who know me, know how difficult it was for me to be compact in our living room. The girls thought it was great! Next, Aaron and David laid some of the hardiebacker (Cement sheets that make the floor level for tile) I was so proud of David because he laid almost all of the hardiebacker himself....and even more proud of me because I put the screws in 75% of the hardiebacker. (I don't do handyman work)

Aaron then cam up to show David how to tile. Aaron had done it before and had access to all the tools which was AWESOME! He and David laid 3/4 of the tile and then David laid the rest himself. I am VERY proud to say that I grouted almost the ENTIRE floor all by myself. (Again, this is very out of my element)

After some very loooong night, help from two awesome brother in laws, and an AMAZING husband this is the finished product.

I forgot to mention I laid almost the entire kick board myself too, and also the baseboards in the dining area. It felt so good to know that WE did the floor, not just the boys and David.

Of course when I was trying to take pictures of the floor today, Shelby HAD to get in them. :)

Kadence kept saying, "We're going to have a new floor?" She was so weirded out by the fact it was going to be "different." Then as we started getting our new appliances she would ask, "Is EVERYTHING going to be different?!" It was pretty funny. Thanks Aaron and Jason for all your help and knowledge! And a very HUGE thank you to my wonderful husband!! It is so nice to know that my husband can be handy enough that he can do most projects himself. (Or with help from someone who has done it before.)

"Disneyland on Skates"

So both my girls have been begging me to go to Disneyland. They pretend they are Disneyland and pretend to ride the teacups with their toys. I keep telling them that Disneyland costs too much money so recently Kadence said, "Can we just go to Disneyland on Skates?" She remembers us going to Disney on Ice and I guess that will be sufficient for her. I told her we'd have to see. Well when I found out that it would have Jack Skelington I knew we would HAVE to go. My girls are obsessed with Nightmare Before Christmas and LOVE Jack. Shelby is more obsessed than Kadence, but it makes me laugh. I never thought that would be one of their favorite movies. We took frontrunner down because we can ride for free since we are students. Jeff came with us just like last time because watching the girls as their favorite characters come onto the ice is priceless.

My sister, Rachel, and niece, Kylah joined us for the adventure.

I tried to get a family picture, but since we had already given the girls their sno cone cups, it was VERY difficult to get them to look at the camera.

Kylah couldn't wait to get to her seat before starting in on her sno cone!

Shelby sat like this for almost the first half hour of the show....only stopping in anticipation for Jack!

I didn't get a picture of Kadence smiling with her cup, but she really did LOVE her Tinkerbell cup.

Getting a cup was something that I always did when I was younger. My mom used to take me to Disney On Ice in April for an early birthday present. (My birthday is in May) I always got a cup to remember the trip and I still have them downstairs in a box. I told David this at our first Disney On Ice and he was indifferent to the idea. Once we got there and saw the girls faces he knew it would be a tradition for us as well. We all have a Cinderella mug. David, Kadence and I have a Stitch mug and Shelby chose a Flounder mug. This time everyone got Mickey except for Kadence. Its a fun little tradition to pass down. Not only do we get mugs, but now if you pay a few dollars more you get a cool fancy straw. We now have Cinderella straws, Mickey straws, and Stitch straws too.

As I said before, we knew Jack was going to make an appearance. Shelby was SO excited! We also knew Jasmine and Aladdin would be there which had Kadence VERY excited. In the beginning all the princesses came out for a little while. Kadence could have gone home right then and been a very happy girl. Shelby wanted Jack! She kept saying, "Come on Jack!" It had me rolling! Then they had a section with Alice and the Mad Hatter. Shelby had asked me earlier that day if Alice would be there and I told her no, so I thought she would be excited....NOPE! All she wanted was Jack.

FINALLY, the time had come.....Nightmare Before Christmas music started....Shelby went nuts! It was like seeing a girl meet her teen pop idol for the first time! "My Jack....SQUEAL....My Jack....SQUEAL" She was SO excited and so disappointed when he was gone.

Overall it was a very successful adventure and it will hold my girls off until our next Disneyland trip. I am hoping that we can go in July or August, but we'll have to see. David is working the summer so that we can have the extra money to go but it doesn't mean things will go as planned. Hopefully they do because anyone who has seen their child in Disneyland knows it's TOTALLY worth every penny and every stress!

Two Videos

Ok, so there are two videos that I had to get because I didn't want to forget the way each girl said things. The first is of Kadence. She learned a poem in preschool and would tell it to us:

I made myself a snowball

As perfect as could be

I decided to keep it as a pet

And let it sleep with me

I made it some pajamas

And a pillow for it's head

But then last night, it ran away

But first I wet the bed.

The reason it's so funny is because of the last line. It's supposed to be but first IT wet the bed, not I wet the bed. It would make me laugh everytime. She started correcting it...as you will see in the video so I wanted to catch her on video saying it the wrong way.

On Dr. Seuss's birthday we didn't do much, but I did have Shelby wear her One Fish, Two Fish shoes and Kadence wore a Dr. Seuss shirt that I found on clearance at Target. I was trying to get the girls excited about it because we read the books often and they did get pretty excited. Shelby was trying to tell me that she had her Dr. Seuss shoes on and it came out, "Dr. Seuss Sues" It made me laugh so hard (After I finally figured out what she was trying to tell me) Don't mind the cabinet in the background, it usually goes in the kitchen but this was in the middle of our floor project.