Aggressive much?

Apparently Kallie has some pent-up frustration she’s been needing to get out…

Rainy Monday

There are two things I love that a lot of people probably hate: rainy days and Mondays.  Well today I was awakened by the sweet sound of thunder and realized that the best combo had occurred: a rainy Monday!!  I have always loved rainy days (when I don’t have anywhere to go, of course) just because they’re cozy, and I’ve loved Mondays for a while now because it is our one day of the week where we stay home and do nothing but clean, do laundry, prep food for the week, do a packed school lesson, read lots of books and watch movies.  (Yes, I do actually love doing all of those things — it makes the rest of my week go SO much more smoothly when I prep our meals, do one marathon cleaning session, and do all our laundry (besides diapers) for the week.)

Anyway, just thought I’d share a couple pics of my sweeties dressed for church yesterday:

I love this one, even though Kallie’s eyes are closed:

This morning I was staring at Kallie on the floor playing the Leapster, wondering how she could possibly be so big already.

Hope you’re all having a great day.  🙂

Bedbugs

Remember that scene from Willy Wonka where Charlie’s whole creepy sick family is in the one bed together?  Hahaha…for some reason that scene popped into my head this morning when the girls were “sick” on the couch together.  I started shooting a video b/c we were bored and ended up FINALLY catching Kallie’s little fake laugh on camera.  Bonus!  😉

Boodja Boodja

So the girls have this new thing where, while they eat, Makenna will say some random thing to Kallie and Kallie will laugh hysterically.  This turned into Makenna making up all kinds of jokes, which Kallie laughs and laughs at too.  I caught the tail end of this the other night at dinner (Kallie was already pretty tired of laughing by then), and then Kallie goes on to babble in her language for a while.  It captures a little glimpse of her cute personality.  🙂

The Oil Spill

Let me start by saying that I obviously don’t ever bring up controversial subjects or sad stories on my blog.  My blog is basically a memory book for my family.  I’m only making this exception because we’ve had family and friends asking about the oil spill and how it is in our area.  I do get a bit angry and emotional about it, but it is the well-being of my children and family that is at risk here.  So that being said…

A couple weeks ago we went down to one of our local beaches to get a look at the cleanup effort for the oil spill and, obviously, a look at the oil itself.  We had heard that quite a bit had been washing ashore about 20 minutes to our west, so we headed that way.  When we got there, honestly…we were bored.  While the beach was littered with workers and there was a fair amount of equipment set up all around, including ships in the water and helicopters overhead, it didn’t seem too concerning.  There wasn’t all that much to take pictures of, so of course I was snapping pictures of the girls.

The rope-like contraption threading down the pier is meant to soak up oil as it washes in, to keep it off the beach (now I am by NO means an expert and could be completely wrong on some of this, so I apologize if I am!).

Up close, this was the worst of it that I could see:

The bigger, orange version of this rope is called “boom”, and it’s what you see in all of our waters everywhere now.  It’s built as a sort of net to catch oil before it washes up.  It’s ugly and creepy. 

I will say that there was a strange feeling in the air with the helicopters circling, tons of workers around, boats and rigs set up as far as you could see in every direction.  But the above picture is the worst of what we saw on the beach, and at most we left just shaking our heads at what a shame this was.

This week everything changed.  I took these pictures from another website that I will reference below if you want to see more.  These pictures were taken on Wednesday, and this is what our beaches look like now:

That hits a lot closer to home.   I’ll be the FIRST to say that I’ve never been a beach fanatic and have complained often about living in this area.  But I will admit that even twelve years later, I still have moments where I look around and think “Wow, I really live here?  People dream about living somewhere like this!” Anyway, what scares me is not that our beaches are ruined.  What scares me is that if you drive to the entrance of our neighborhood, the bay is on the other side of the street, followed by a narrow strip of beach, and then the gulf.  We are THAT close.  This is only the very first wave of oil washing ashore and hanging in the air that we breathe every day.  The leak that started all of this is STILL gushing in the gulf, over 2 months later.  Does this make sense to anyone??

It’s a losing battle.  This picture shows how the oil came ashore, was covered up by the high tide, and then new sand.  There’s no hope of cleaning that out, and it will build, layer upon layer upon layer.  That is what will be right under our feet now…not that we will EVER be going to the beach in the forseeable future.

Speaking of the cleanup effort:

It’s a joke.  People on the beach with shovels and plastic bags.  I’m not knocking them, and I admire their efforts.  But in the day and age we live in, this is the best we’ve got.  Everything about this situation makes no sense to me whatsoever, and I have the simplest of minds.  All I know is, we are entering hurricane season, and in the moments when my mind wanders and I imagine a hurricane churning out there and bringing in with it all of that oil…it’s too horrible to think about. 

The pictures were taken from: http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/2010/06/gulf-oil-disaster-pensacola-beach.html if you’d like to see the rest.

How the Girls are Growing

How about an update on the girls in general? 

Makenna will be 5 years old at the end of August, and I am wondering how that is even possible.  She is sen-si-tive to the max, bright, VERY inquisitive, extremely analytical, and hilarious.  I have to watch every word I say to or around her, because it can either come back to bite me or she will relentlessly analyze what I said for days.  She misses NOTHING.  You can see the wheels turning in her little head as Mark and I talk, and she can grasp things that I’m not sure a 4 year old should be able to grasp.  She loves to have long conversations about life in general, and she’s very concerned about her future as a mommy (mostly about whether she will immediatley be a mommy as soon as she gets married — she’s quite concerned about that baby coming out of her tummy, haha!!  I reassure her constantly that she can wait to be a mommy til later).  Our talks are priceless and precious.  I wish I could just freeze time when her little face is studying mine and listening to every word I say so seriously.  I know there will come a time, all too soon, where she doesn’t want to hear a thing that comes out of my mouth.  So I’m cherishing every second.  My all-time favorite thing out of her mouth so far is this: as I was giving her a long talk about the things mommy and daddy do because we love her and want to protect her and only do what’s best for her, she listened carefully and said, “And that’s just how I’m going to love my children.”    (Insert melting mommy tears here.)

She continues to be a wonderful big sister, guiding Kallie along and teaching her everything she knows.  On the flip side, we have ongoing problems with jealousy between the two of them, as all families do.  Makenna’s emotions can resemble a teenager’s at times, ranging from serious attitude to sweet cuddles within five minutes (wait, do teenagers cuddle? I’m thinking not, haha), so I have some delicate little feelings to deal with each day.  Not being the baby can be rough!  But when I walk in on them huddled in a room, Makenna sweetly teaching Kallie about something or other and Kallie taking it all in, it’s just the best.  She loves her little sis so much.

 Schoolwise, we couldn’t wait til she was technically a “kindergartener” to start our year since we had so much fun stuff sitting on our bookshelves, so we started a couple months ago and are now on Week 11.  Since we are loving it, I decided we would just continue that through the summer and then take time off sporadically during the year for say, Disney, Christmas, or whenever we feel like we need a break.  So far she is reading a ton of 3 letter words and BLOWING me away with how fast she is learning more.  Our curriculum provides little reader books that only have words that are appropriate for what she has learned so far, so she gets the satisfaction of reading the entire little book all by herself.  It is such a huge boost to her confidence, and she carries those little books around like a treasure.  The other night Mark and I were shocked when she picked up one of her library books and proceeded to read probably three-quarters of all the chapter names all by herself.  I was so intimidated at the task of teaching a child how to read, but it really is amazing how it can be done, and the things that they naturally learn as they grow and mature intellectually.  I just never thought she would be reading simple books at 4 years old!!  She is our little whiz child.  🙂

Kallie is 20 months old and acting JUST like an almost-two-year-old!  I think about her personality so often, and Mark and I have agreed on two things about her:  she is an absolute bundle of joy to our family, and kids like her are the reason people have more kids.  🙂  I don’t mean that negatively in any way whatsoever to Makenna, but it’s a well known fact that Makenna is very… intense.  She has always been mature for her age, very particular about everything, etc., whereas Kallie is more like a regular kid.  She’s a little free spirit, happy about everything, bouncy, crazy affectionate, spitfire of energy all the time.  Of course she is starting to develop some Terrible Two behavior, but it is so obviously related to the frustration of not being able to express herself fully yet through talking.  She has a small vocabulary such as “mama, dada, nana (Kenna), Baba, bug, ball, tee-tee (kitty and Katie/Katy)” and I’m sure some other words I’m forgetting.  Just in the past few days she’s been really trying hard to repeat other words after us, so I can tell that one day soon her words will take off.  In the meantime she can perform an impressive array of animal sounds, her famous one being a very vicious lion’s roar (which also applies to tigers and bears and other large animals).  She is a cuddler to the EXTREME, and wants to be on my lap every moment that I’m sitting, and she’s usually dragging 10 books with her.  Her newest love (and mine too) is singing before she goes to bed.  I get no protest whatsoever about going to bed lately because when I announce that it’s bedtime, she scrambles up to lay her head on my shoulder, where she is completely still while I sing her 3 or 4 songs before putting her in bed.  Sometimes she reaches her arms around and hugs me while I sing, or looks up at me and watches my face.  MELT. MY. HEART!!!  I know I’m a sappy mess, but I’m so thankful that God has given me the ability to recognize and savor these moments with every bit of my heart.  I honestly feel like that is a precious gift.  Of course I get caught up in and overreact about everyday stresses (probably more than most people), but in the next second I’m tearing up about how wonderful our girls are and how blessed I am to have them and their awesome daddy.  I know, I sound bipolar…ha!  😉

Since I’m sure the only people who will have made it through that super long update are my mom and…I don’t know who, maybe some of my mom’s friends?…I think that about does it.  🙂

Out and About

When I thought about summer break during the months leading up to it, I felt a serious dread about all of our activities shutting down for 3 months. BUT, we have managed to stay quite busy lately!  It seems like I’m discovering new things to do around here all the time now…or maybe it’s just that with the girls getting a little older and Makenna reaching school age, there are more options.  So anyway, here’s a few things we’ve been up to…

During the summer, the library moves their storytime over to the state park across the street, which is right on the water and has a beautiful new ampitheater.  Even on the hottest days, there is a decent breeze through there, so it’s actually pretty enjoyable.  The kids all go up front to sing and hear the story, then they do a craft or activity of some sort.  Makenna loves it!

One might ask whether that girl in the blue is a little too old to be dancing at storytime…I might agree.  Mostly because she was blocking my view of my child!  😉

Kallie sits by me and listens soooo intently while they sing and slowly relaxes as time goes on, until she’s clapping with each song.  Usually she’s loosened up and ready to run around right about the time it’s over, haha…

Some shots from our Thursday nights downtown (that’s Lily with the girls):

Kallie likes to play for about 5 minutes, then is whining to sit on my lap, dripping wet of course.

Last weekend we decided to try the Hot Air Balloon Festival, which was a short drive away.  We’ve heard about it for years and always thought it might be interesting, so “we” thought we’d better just go ahead and find out.  (Mark was a good sport, but I got the feeling he knew this was one of my dreamed-up ideas that would be a disaster.  It was.)   The heat that day was so intense you could hardly breathe.  I think we may have lasted 10 minutes, and most of that was the walk to and from the car.

SO, we headed over to the outlet mall instead, which has nothing to do with shopping anymore and everything to do with the kiddie activities there.  We did the rounds and hit the play area:

Can you believe Kallie’s face??  It’s the “cheese” face again!  🙂

Best buds:

Kallie taking off for her 2nd merry-go-round ride ever:

We have a picture of her first merry-go-round ride, at Disney World, and she looks less than thrilled.  This time she freaked when I tried to put her on a horse, so we rode behind Kenna in a bench. 

Last stop was Chick-fil-a for milkshakes!

Ready for another adventure:

Thursday we were supposed to meet up with Makenna’s friend Kinley and her mom at the air museum, but they couldn’t make it and we ended up going Friday instead.  We had such a good time!  Things get so much easier when your youngest is getting big enough to run around and play on almost everything.  I know I’m uptight, but I just don’t really have a good time when I have to either hold a baby constantly or cringe as they crawl around on a disgusting floor.  I’m much happier when they’re upright.  🙂

My cutie love:

Kallie is Kenna’s little shadow these days.  Whatever Kenna does, Kallie does.  It is the cutest thing ever.  They were playing copilots of this plane when Makenna ran off to do something else, but Kallie wasn’t big enough to get out.  Poor little sis!

My parents met up with us and we walked around the rest of the museum a bit.  Here Makenna and Baba are learning about life on an aircraft carrier:

I really noticed a difference in Makenna “getting it” this time, as far as understanding more of what some of the exhibits were about.  There is a small pretend town that shows what life was like during one of the wars (I’m embarrassed that I don’t know which one!  Way to go homeschooler, haha!), and she really seemed to understand that it was portraying life a long time ago.  It made for a great field trip.

So between all of that, many swimming trips to Grandma’s, the water toys in our backyard, and hanging out with family, we’ve had a great start to the summer!

Levi Brooklyn Long!

Levi made his entrance into the world on May 24, 2010 at 12:16 am and weighed in at 6 pounds, 6 ounces.  A peanut!  Katy did AWESOME and had an all-natural birth.  I knew she was tough!  😉

My mom and dad left to start the 22 hour drive to MN when they heard Katy was in labor, but of course they didn’t make it in time.  Kylie and I had to wait an agonizing week and a half before we were able to make a whirlwind trip up to meet the babe.  It was much too short, but we take what we can get.  🙂

Levi’s first trip out to dinner…he chose Pei Wei, for his mama’s birthday dinner:

Katy’s bday is June 3rd and mine is June 5th, and even though we’re grown and live on opposite ends of the country now, we try to celebrate together whenever we can.  We’ve been pretty successful most years!

Look at this cutie:

I’ve said from day one that he looks like Jake.  Apparently not many people say that, but it’s all I can see in him!  As he fills out more, we also think we see a lot of Kallie in him.  That makes me happy.  🙂

Katy’s birthday morning…doesn’t she look great?

I just had to take this picture b/c it makes me laugh.  We are a family who loves our phones, hahaha…come to think of it, none of us have landlines anymore, so our phones are our lifeline:

I’m thinking my dad looks like a pretty proud Baba here…I could be wrong.

I was luh-huh-huving the cooler weather and no humidity up there.  We got to eat a few meals out on the deck.  The pretty lady between Kate and I is Liz, Jake’s mom.  We were happy to see Jake’s parents again since it doesn’t happen too often anymore.

Our fam:

There is nothing more precious…

Super proud aunt Kylie:

Yep, he’s a daddy now! :

Peanut head:

Levi was a VERY big surprise to Jake and Katy, as I’m sure most of you know.  They’ve made a lot of major life changes to welcome him, including cutting short their time in New York and Katy having to leave her job in fashion.  But when you see that little head curled into his mommy’s neck, come on….she’s a natural. 

She has completely blown me away with how well she has adjusted so far to being a mom.  It’s awesome.  Makes me a blubbery mess.  🙂

Lovin’ on my newphew on my birthday morning:

We ventured out into the outside world exactly once (if you don’t count Target) and hit Mall of America.  It was another first for Levi.  Here’s the cute new family on his first mall trip:

Kate and her little bundle:

Then we blinked our eyes and it was time to go home.  Kylie and I rode in the backseat to the airport fighting (me for the most part NOT fighting) our tears over leaving this little guy.  I’m not sure how we’re going to live this far away.  We shall see.  😦

Luckily I couldn’t wait to get home to these two peanuts:

We are so blessed.

Ready for something new?

Or would you all like to continue seeing “Spring has sprung around here…” the next 50 times you check my site?  😉 

Anywho…well, we haven’t been up to too much around here.  I’ll give you a photo tour of our month of May.  We began introducing the potty seat for Kallie:

And she has been joining us at the table for dinner lately:

I’m sure I already posted some pics of her “cheese” face.  She’s still flashing the snarl/smile for us.

The first weekend in May we celebrated Mark’s dad’s birthday by spending the weekend at a HUMONGOUS condo on the pass, which was ah.ma.zing.  My camera was gasping it’s very last breaths at this point, so my pictures were just awful.  Anyway, the living area/kitchen were so huge and wonderful for our big family: 

We did nothing but swim and eat and hang out.  It was awesome.

The birthday boy…he doesn’t act a day over 20, I swear!  And I mean that in a good way.  🙂

Of course everyone had to get in on some water balloon action…here are the boys launching them off our 10th floor balcony.  Yeah, came pretty close to getting in trouble a couple times for that one!

Some siblings in bed…haha:

Kallie’s whiney face:

We’ve been going downtown every Thursday night, where they have a new event this year with music on the water and a splash pad for the kids.  We always have a great time.

Sweet little Lily…how beautiful is she?

After playing the pencil dropping game for too many months at our regular size table, I decided we were going to bite the bullet and buy a real desk for Makenna to do school. 

The first one arrived badly damaged, so when I called they immediately shipped out a new one and never bothered with returning the first.  Well, since my handy dandy hubby can fix anything, we will soon have TWO matching cute desks!  I love when those things happen.

Notice the all-important pencil slot…  😉

A new summer gave us the opportunity to go new swimsuit shopping, and this year we moved into the big girls’ department.  Sniff….it was a very surreal experience to be in a dressing room trying on little girl swimsuits with my little GIRL who is SO not a baby anymore. 

More fun with Lily at Laura and Matt’s:

The twin daddy/daughter duo, plus the odd child, haha:

“Oh dahling…”

So that was most of our May.  With one VERY notable exception: the birth of our little nephew, Levi!  He was born on May 24th and is cute as a button.  I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for Katy to introduce him on their blog, but I believe I may have to be the one to blog him first.  😉  Coming soon!