The Pink Ladies

Finally....the day arrived at last!

After making the mistake of telling Aidan "The Princess and the Frog," Disney's newest princess movie, opened on December 4th and realizing that was only in New York City, I had some damage control to do. She made it through the two week wait, and today finally arrived.

Aidan made invitations to her friends from school, Torey and Devree. In her invite, she made a dress code: the girls would wear pink dresses with long sleeved white shirts under them, white tights, and "cute" boots (not snow boots b/c those are not cute). They would wear their hair in braids and be "SOOOOO CUTE!"

Well, not everything was followed...Aidan forgot about the braids part this morning. Devree's mom got rid of her pink dress just last week because it was too small, so she had to compromise. And Torey doesn't like braids because they hurt her head. But all in all, it was three little pink blurs running through the theatre, squealing about the movie, and giggling a lot. SOOOOO CUTE!

What boys do...

(he bit into an ink pen...)

Martha Stewart I Am Not

My two oldest kids are "in school," placed in parentheses because we're talking half-day kindergarten for Aidan and a total of six hours of preschool per week for Taylor. This is not REAL school, right? I just have to teach them things like being on time and laying out clothes and backpacks the night before...but we're not into homework territory yet or anything like that.

Sort of.

Aidan gets a small amount of homework every Friday that has to be returned by Wednesday, and in a manner that makes me wonder how she is my child, she comes home every Friday and does her homework as soon as she walks in the door. She returns her homework folder on Monday, two days before it is due. I cannot relate to this as I was the student finishing up the last few math questions right before the bell rang, but I am thankful it is her personality. Hopefully it will stick when she gets older.

This week, my kids both brought home essentially the same assignment (from two different schools): decorate a turkey as a family. Both kids were give cardboard turkeys to cut out and then decorate.

After we ate lunch Saturday, Terry went to work and we pulled out the turkeys and any crafty stuff I could find. I have friends who are very good at this type of thing, and therefore, in my mind, are excellent mothers. It is not my area of strength, but I wanted to give it my best shot.

Taylor decided his turkey needed to be a Rock Star and Aidan went with a ballerina. After almost three hours, these are what we ended up with. They may not win any awards, but the kids love them, and I realized later that although we made a huge mess of my kitchen, we also had three hours of creating and laughing and talking about all kinds of stuff. I'll help them with homework for years to come if it results in those things!

She's Here!

I have not posted in quite some time as I was busy getting ready for our new addition, Kinley Olivia Kelley. Finally last Saturday, October 17th, she was born at 4:55 p.m. I was five days overdue and was induced.

I must admit that I struggled a bit near the end, just not knowing when she was coming (I had hoped with this being my third that she might actually be early, but she was late). I was so relieved when my doctor decided on a date to induce.

The labor and delivery itself was quite smooth; I feel fortunate that I've had three good birth experiences. My parents were also able to be here for an extended period of time, which was invaluable help with the older two kids and around the house.

Since we have brought Kinley home, Terry and I both have just been so thankful and loving the experience. I reminded him that he wasn't convinced a third was a good idea, and now he's talking about a fourth! (I give that a few more weeks to die away.)

I am determined to post more now since Facebook is only pictures, and I'm sure there will be stories to tell in the near future. Stay tuned...

Five Going on Fifteen; or, Choices

I never wanted to raise a spoiled child (who does?), and the last few weeks, we are having to work to figure out how to avoid this. My daughter is five going on fifteen, proving it on a daily basis.

We took the kids to a Rockies/Cubs game in Denver (Cubs being the key team, there). Coors Field has a section called the Rock Pile where the tickets are somewhere around $5 apiece. That's what we were intending, but we don't go to Coors Field enough to know the ropes. Rock Pile sold out early on, and all that was left by the time we got there were really bad $25 seats. There are four of us, and why would we pay $100 for really bad seats when we wanted it to be kind of a cheap night? Terry and I decided to forget it and try some other time, and Aidan started pouting. Don't worry--we didn't give into the pouting (would just encourage more), but we didn't want to feel like we lied to our kids after we'd been telling them all day we were going. So we bought the horrible, horrible seats and went. They were ready to go home about the 2nd inning, mostly because they couldn't see anything.

One Saturday morning, I got up to run a few errands and decided I'd take Aidan with me and leave Taylor at home with Terry. We went to the store, and I was thinking about the little mani /
pedi place nearby. I told Aidan once that I'd take her to get her toenails painted sometime, and they were open, so we went in. She was THRILLED! She grinned the whole time and just thought it was so neat. She got purple toenails with flower designs on them. However, when we left and got into the car, she seemed to quickly forget that I just took her to do something special and asked me if I would take her to breakfast. I said no, she claimed I never do anything fun with her, and we ended up cutting our errands short and just going home I was so frustrated.


Final story: we took the kids to the Denver Zoo one day, which, by the way, was also way more
expensive than I had anticipated. Things were fine outside of a pregnant mama who could only walk at a snail's pace and the fact that it rained just a bit. However, the route we took around the zoo led to seeing the monkeys last. I was so ready to leave, but you can't ignore the monkeys. That's one of the reasons you even go to the zoo in the first place. As we walked back to the last section, our path took us by the mini-train and carousel. Both kids started begging to ride them, and we said that we'd consider after we saw the monkeys, hoping they'd be too tired to care. They weren't. They both still wanted to ride, and so we decided that I would take Taylor on the train and Terry would take Aidan on the carousel. We've been working with choices, lately, though, to try and help Aidan especially learn that what she decides has consequences and to give her responsibility. We walked past an ice cream stand, and Aidan said, "Ooooh! I want ice cream! Ice cream!" So Terry gave her a choice: ice cream or carousel? After an eternity of deliberation, she chose the carousel, we rode our rides, and started walking to the car.

Aidan started begging for ice cream and claiming that she never gets anything like that, etc. etc. Terry reminded her that she had had a choice and had chosen the carousel. After lots of grumbling, she said, "I wish I was my own boss." Terry explained that because he's her dad, he's her boss, and without one, she wouldn't have the other, and she'd have to make her own money, all that kind of stuff that's over the head of a five-year-old. Aidan was quiet for a few seconds and finally said, "Well, I want you to be the boss of me, but I want you to let me do whatever I want."

Okay, so that one is kind of funny, and Terry has been able to use it as an illustration in some devotionals, etc. But the bottom line is that we've hit one of those spots in parenting that we're just working our way through the best we can. It's a reminder of what a huge responsibility parenting actually is--these kids are going to have lots of times where they need re-directing, and while we won't always handle it perfectly or even know where to begin, we signed on for that job when we had them. :) It's a privilege, though a bit of a scary one, and I just hope we do them justice because they deserve it.

The Cabin at Red Feather

Last weekend, we were blessed with the gift of a cabin for four nights up in the mountains about an hour from here. Terry went alone for the first night and used it as a "retreat," and on Thursday after I taught my class, the kids and I drove on up.

The cabin was amazing--while it had all the comforts of home, we tried to remain in the mind frame of taking a "break" from normal life. No internet for four days--and for Terry and me, that is a really big deal! There was Dish Network, but we pretty much kept it off except for a Cubs game or two and movie for the kids. We just lived without an agenda or any major responsibilities for a couple of days.


On Friday, we had to drive back to town so Terry could sing at a wedding, and then we returned for another two days. We got up Saturday morning and went to have breakfast at a "hole in the wall" diner in Red Feather. The food was great and we needed naps immediately after! It rained all day Saturday, so lazing around was the perfect activity. On our way back to the cabin after breakfast, we drove past a cute church that was having a bazaar that day, so we stopped and went through it and bought a Christmas wreath for $5 and some baked goods. Aidan and I returned at noon for their fried chicken dinner fundraiser (Terry and Taylor ate a frozen pizza). This is just one of those things that we never do--I haven't done anything like that since I was a kid, but it was fun to experience.

Probably the best part of the weekend, at least for the kids, was the fact that our cabin was nestled in between the mountains. On either side were huge rock formations that the kids loved climbing. That is what these pictures are all of, and you can see how high they actually got! I tried to tell Aidan when we packed her clothes that she would need more than skirts for the mountains, but she didn't really listen. The last picture makes me laugh because she was actually climbing and hiking up these big ole rocks in a skirt and hot pink slip on shoes. But that's Aidan.

While we didn't do anything extremely outdoorsy, like kayak or go skiing (it is summer, after all), the kids adored the weekend, and I know they'll remember it. I was just happy to live without a schedule for a few days! :)

When I found out I was pregnant with Aidan, I wanted a little girl so badly. I kept telling myself it was a boy so I wouldn't be disappointed when it was...and then we found out it wasn't.

I can remember lying in my bed during the insomnia parts of pregnancy in the third trimester, wondering what a child made from Terry and Alicia might look like.

I can remember wondering if she'd be a tomboy or maybe girlie--if she'd like music as much as we do--if she'd grow up loving the Lord.

You can never accurately predict what your unborn child is going to be like. Terry mentioned a few days ago that had he prayed and asked for the most incredible kids and tried to describe what that was, he would have fallen short of what we actually got. We're biased, of course--they are our kids--but we are crazy about them. They're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but neither of us would want any two other kids or would want them to change in any way.


I am pregnant once again with another girl. This time I am not really bothering to try and figure out what this child will be like--I just anxiously await the day that we'll find out.

People tell me all the time that girls are easier when they're little, and then they turn into drama queens and are so hard. Maybe. But I also have a number of friends with little girls who are drama queens already. ;) Maybe she'll eventually get there, but I don't see a lot of that in Aidan so far. She has her bad moments like any kid would, but mostly, she is just really sweet.
Her latest "thing" is that she has to do everything just like I do. I have no idea why; every time she does it, I immediately think of the last time I yelled at her or something similar. Why would she want to be like me? But she won't get dressed in the morning until I do so that she can try to match it (a task that's increasingly hard since she owns mostly skirts and my preggo belly does not). Last night we both wore white tee shirts under tank tops and simple flip flops. She wants the same color nail polish as mine. She puts her towel around her waist when I do at the pool. She will crawl into bed with us in the morning and try to lay exactly like I am.

It is cute, and it is non-stop. Last night we were trying to hurry and eat dinner, throw the dishes in the dishwasher, and get to the church for practice, and she just incessantly was asking me questions like "which shoes are you wearing?" "what are you going to do with your hair, Mommy?" "are you taking a purse?" to the point that I just looked at Terry with that non-verbal communication: I just needed her to get her stuff and get in the car.

He reminded me, "In a few years, she's going to want to do anything BUT what you do. You better enjoy this now. It's sweet."

It is sweet. And so I am enjoying it.

Day Trip to Mountains

We took a day trip up to the mountains last Friday to Estes Park. The kids love the drive up with the river alongside the highway and the "tall mountain" (like on Dora). Aidan looks for different colored flowers, and Taylor just made up stories that had us laughing.



We've gone up a few times, but this time we decided to just go to one of the fun parks for the kids. They rode bumper cars, the big banana slide, go karts, played putt putt, and we all got soaked on the bumper boats. Mostly the kids had to take turns riding
with Terry since I wasn't so sure bumping into other cars would be good for the pregnant lady.

Every time we went to a different section of the fun park, Aidan would say, "Are we still in the mountains?" She didn't want to leave.


We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the river and then got ice cream, because according to Aidan and Taylor, the ice cream is the most important part of the trip.


I really love my family and feel so blessed on days like this that it doesn't take much for us to just have a really great day.

Taylor's surgery

Taylor had surgery one week ago today. He has had a hernia pretty much since he was born, and the doctors have had us wait because they apparently tend to correct themselves by the age of 2. Taylor turned 3 a couple of weeks ago, and that hernia was bigger than ever, so last week, we drove down to the Children's Hospital at Denver.
You feel better about your child's surgery when you walk into a state of the art building that is ranked in the top of the children's hospitals in the entire country, but it's still surgery--still anesthesia for the little guy--still scary.

He was such a trooper. We talked about the doctor "making him really sleepy" and other things before he went to the operating room, and so once he got back there, he just lay very still and breathed into the mask. They gave him laughing gas to start so that he would fall asleep first, and then they did the I.V. with anesthesia. We were there for the laughing gas, and while he wasn't exactly giggling, he had a goofy grin on his face as Terry asked him silly questions.

We didn't see him again until afterwards, and while he was a little grouchy (no smiles to be had), he just seemed to handle everything so well! We only had him on his pain reliever that first day, and he just went back to normal the next day. Last night I took off his bandage and could not believe the tiny, tiny incision that looks like nothing. I guess we had a good doctor. :)

The funniest part of the whole thing was picking up Aidan after the surgery. She got to play with her best friend Brielle all day that day, and when she got into the car, she turned on the mother hen mode, patting Taylor's head and saying, "Hi, Buddy! Did you have a nice surgery?" Terry and I just started laughing, but Taylor kept on his stern surgery face.

The next day we kept him home all day with Terry while I took Aidan to gymnastics and ran some errands. He did not want to stay home and tried to reason with me: "But the doctor fixed me! I all better now!"

I'm sure I'll feel bitter in a few weeks when the bills start rolling in, but for now, I'm thankful that he's doing well, that he's "all better," and even for that experience that somehow made us treasure him even more.

Blizzard!

We had a major snowstorm last week here in CO. We haven't had much snow all year, and then the day Terry and I were scheduled to fly out of Denver International, it came. Our flight was one of the only ones that still flew. We left the kids with some dear friends, and here was their fun couple of days.

Premature spring day

While strangely enough, it snowed for about five minutes today, we also had three or four days of 70+ degree weather this past week. I was glad my kids got to go outside, but at the same time, I know that winter is not over and was hoping they wouldn't think the warm weather was here to stay.
They always get excited when it's time for Terry to come home from work, and one day he took them out back to play while I made dinner. We couldn't resist these photos.

My yogis in training

I spend a good amount of time at the gym since I teach classes there. However, on the days I'm not teaching but still want to work out, sometimes I'll try to do something at home in order to eliminate the extra driving time and putting the kids in childcare. Last Saturday, I did Centergy at home, which is a combo Pilates/Yoga class to music. My kids started picking up on this as soon as I began teaching, and now when I do it, they jump right in. Here's a few downward facing dogs, up dogs, and stretches they did with me.


My workout was a little compromised towards the end, but it was more fun, too.

My Helper (#2)

The flu has landed at our house. Taylor first, then Aidan a couple of days later, and finally it hit me during the wee hours of Sunday morning and throughout the rest of the day. Now, this was not totally unexpected. After all, the mom is always the one who is closest to the germs, right? I even slept in the guest bed with Taylor (on top of me) the night he was sick and in Aidan's bed with her the night she was sick, thinking to myself as she semi-snored into my face: I'm next. But four days went by with nothing, and maybe I got cocky. It hit me like a truck about noon yesterday.

We came home from church while Terry took a musical guest out for lunch. I immediately changed clothes and got underneath the blanket on the couch, looking for anything "on demand" that the kids might like for an hour and half and let me sleep or at least not move. I found a really awful version of Snow White with actors that they loved. Check! But once that hour and a half was over, Terry was still not home, and my poor kids were, as Taylor said, "weally, weally, weally, WEALLY hungry!"

I have never asked Aidan to make a sandwich or anything of the sort. Sometimes when I pack her lunch for preschool, I put a piece of bread and some ham in front of her, and she assembles. That's the furthest we've ever gotten, but sickness, when you're really feeling awful, breeds necessity. I said to her, "Aidan, do you think maybe you could make you and Taylor some ham sandwiches for lunch so Mommy doesn't have to get up?"

"Oh, sure Mom! You just stay right there!" I hear chairs being dragged to the pantry, the refrigerator door being opened and shut, and little comments like, "No, Taylor, that peanut butter is full. We have to use this one because it's already open!" And a few minutes later, "Taylor, that is a big bag of bread. Mommy says use the little bag first." Really? She actually listens when I say that stuff? I thought. "Do you want Mommy's purple jelly or Daddy's red jelly, Taylor?"

Okay, now it was at that point that I drifted off to sleep. I think as soon as I realized that she was actually going to get it done, I relaxed, and there I went. I know I sound like a horrible mom, but you know that feeling that you just can't even turn your head or you'll explode in some way? That's where I was at. I was desperate for some help.

When I woke up, they were watching cartoons. I thought maybe she got distracted, so I said, "Aidan, did you get the sandwiches made, honey?" She turned around with a puzzled look and told me they already ate them all. "All done! And Mommy, I put everything away!" I peeked into the kitchen, and sure enough, there was nothing on the counter except a little glob of grape jelly.

Who was this kid? Why had I been holding her back all this time? My little four-year-old just made lunch for herself and her brother! Sure, they didn't eat any fruit or vegetables, but they ate, didn't they? Sure, there was a huge blob of jelly on my carpet because they decided to eat in the living room while I napped, but whatever. That can be cleaned. I was so thankful that she had actually succeeded in this that I started lavishing the praise and had her come over and give me a high five. In true Aidan fashion, she smirked, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "I just wanted to help you because you're sick."

The Royal Kelley Ball

We had our Royal Kelley Ball a couple of days ago, and I put on an old bridesmaid dress to be another princess with Aidan (okay, and Taylor even though he said he was a "pretty prince"). Aidan kept touching my dress, saying things like, "I just love your beYOOtiful dress, your Majesty!" We turned on some waltz music on the satellite channels on TV and danced together for a while. She may not have met a handsome prince, but I'd say it was a huge success for Aidan. :)

Our Princess Leia

What will they be when they grow up?

There are people out there who think you can see the signs of who your kids will be even when they are very small. We've all heard them say, "Oh, I knew when he was two that he was going to be a performer!" Well, okay. So maybe that person liked to be the center of attention, but what two-year-old doesn't? I am not so sure I subscribe to that theory, knowing how much different experiences can change a person throughout his or her life, but just for today, let's pretend they will grow up and turn into whatever activities dominate their lives right now...

Aidan. Well, she likes a lot of different things, but if I took a little poll of what she spends more of her time on, coloring, or "doing crafts," as she likes to say, would rank right up there. Every day when I pick her up from preschool, she has about five art projects I have to wait for her to walk around the room and gather up. The painting station there is a free time option, and she paints nearly every day. Yesterday, we had a really good day, so I took her to Michael's and let her pick out some crafty stickers to make pictures with, and you would have thought I gave her
some huge prize. She literally then spent about 3 hours doing crafts yesterday afternoon.

However, Aidan really likes to sing, as well. She's only four, so it's not like she's in a choir or something, but she sings in the car, around the house, when she's supposed to be going to sleep...She actually has a knack for staying right on pitch and remembering words and tunes after only hearing them once or twice. She also makes up any words she can't remember, and that's one of the funniest things she does. Last night, we had on American Idol, and she would turn around and say, "Mommy, that girl is not singing the right notes." or..."Mommy, that girl is singing right AND she's pretty!"

Taylor. He likes to color, too. For about five minutes, and then he's on to something else, so I wouldn't say that was a huge interest for him. He likes to sing, too, but unfortunately, we're pretty sure that pitch is not his strong suit. Maybe he'll play the drums.

What he does do is put things together. He has lots of train sets down in the basement, and I'll come down the stairs and have to ask Aidan if she helped him put something together. Always no. Just over Christmas, he got a puzzle from Grandma and Grandpa for 3+. I hadn't messed with those yet because he's two and I was afraid he'd get frustrated. However, after a couple of times putting that one together with Grandpa, we came home, he found Aidan's other puzzles, and that's all he wants to do. He must put that Sesame Street puzzle in the picture together about twelve times per day.

So rather than thinking that I just know what they'll do when they get older, I tend towards the Multiple Intelligences theory. This states that we all have characteristics of all different kinds of intelligences: verbal, musical, kinesthetic (that might be Taylor using his hands to put things together), etc. However, we tend to favor certain ones more than others. This theory also claims that we can develop our weaker areas throughout life, even watching them become tendencies over the others. Both kids clearly favor certain things right now, but who really knows what they'll develop and change into over the next, oh, twenty years or so? I hope I'm here to find out!

Yes, it has been three years since I've been on here. I almost feel silly adding a new post, because is anyone left out there?

Our camera broke right before Christmas, and I'm really all about the blogs with photos to match. And I got really busy. Did you notice? But this picture was taken on Terry's beloved iphone a few days ago and I couldn't resist.

Taylor tells jokes now. They make ZERO sense, like why does the Mary Kathryn climb the tree? Why, Taylor? Because, the PIG was in the TREE!!! And then he produces this fake laugh for a few minutes. It's not funny, of course, but listening to him tell a joke is. And so I laugh, which makes him laugh harder. And encourages him. (today Aidan told a real joke, which totally caught me by surprise, but that's for a later post)

He also must dress himself each day, now, and he does an incredibly good job. Yesterday, he put a short-sleeved blue shirt with a collar on under an Abercrombie looking gray, long-sleeved shirt. He looked like a cutie little 16 yr old who the girls would like. Terry later said, "Is that one shirt or two? I want to wear that outfit!" We are still working on the potty training--he just doesn't seem to care much--but on a good day, I put his big boy underpants on, sometimes over his diaper just to get the feel for it. "Diego goes in BACK, Mom!" he says.

When we go to the store without Aidan, he does not want to ride in the cart anymore (that's a horror story with any kid under 3, isn't it?). But he holds onto the side of the cart, sticks right with me, and places the items in the cart.

He's great, and February 2, I register him for next year's preschool. I'm going to enjoy him while I can.