April

Wow, what happened to March?? The first quarter of 2010 is gone, flew by me in a blink! I think in quarters now, after meeting with my CPA last week and finally having my taxes organized!! Initially he told me we may owe $6-$7K, umm huh?? I knew I'd owe because I didn't pay income taxes throughout the year for my photography biz, but what am I missing here??? When all was said and done, we owe 1k!! YAY!!! What a huge relief! So this job is worth it afterall, thank goodness because I love it and our family needs the income.

Anyway, since I last posted we've gone from freezing cold to 80 degrees. SOOOO happy Spring is here!! The kids have spring break next week and we're going to do some fun stuff. It will be nice to not get up early, no homework, no rushing around.

Ally, Reece, and Kennedy all started gymnastics classes this week. The all love it!! After a year of Kennedy boycotting all activities, from preschool to ballet, she finally agreed and was so good at it and just beaming out there in her class. What a big girl!! Felicity is wild as ever, but so fun! Victoria got a full time job as a camp counselor this summer! Yay for making lots of money before heading back to Radford!

I'm going to post iphone pictures from the past month- they pretty much tell the story of our days better than words can!

Reece's first gymnastics class and he climbs that high!

Night of her Chorus show!
Reece is 7!!
Our pretty 9 year old!
Kiki's first class, look at her go!
So excited!
Felicity's new backpack for preschool in the Fall!
County tot egg hunt with friends!
Reece's art was chosen for the county-wide art show!
Vic sportin' a new do!
Felicity's big girl room is coming together!
Finally nice weather, chalk time!
My sweetie
Ready for a day out with mommy
Felicity fell off the back steps and landed on her face, huge gooseegg, bloody nose and cut lips, poor baby :(
Kiki and DJ Daddy
Regression to a pacifier?
Riding our 35 year old horse!
Reece's "100 days of school" project!

Recent life

I'm already being a bad blogger, sigh. The kids have been home from school for over TWO WEEKS for snow, snow, and more snow! It's been fun! And crazy! Luckily Jermaine was home for the whole week last week too YAY! So I didn't get too burned out and the kids played in the snow a lot, and played a ton of Wii, Uno, DS, etc.

In between 2 snowstorms, it was clear enough for Kennedy and me to go Disney on Ice and have lunch together, such a great time!!

I'll let the recent random snapshots tell about the rest of our last few weeks!

The girls model their new bathing suits, even though it's 30 degrees outside!


Trip to the library before the first snowstorm hit


Kiki worked hard at this


Reece's friend came over in the snow for a sleepover, silly boys!


Boo boo chicken doing her thing


My cuties before their preschool tour


And so it began


Matching puppy PJs they got for their birthdays!


Soooo silly


Big girl opening her presents on her bday!


Mommy daughter Disney on Ice day!


All of our favorite Disney characters right in front of us!


Pre-first real haircut at the barber (for his whole life Jermaine and I have cut his hair)!


Post haircut! Our little man!

Happy birthday Kennedy Olivia!

I can't believe our little Kiki is FOUR! Four just seems SO big. Not a toddler anymore, sigh. We are so blessed to have this little girl in our family. She's so sweet, quiet, caring, smart. She watches the world around her in a serious way and is our only shy child. She loves to snuggle and when she smiles, it lights the room and your heart!

A message board that I've been a member of for over 7 years is closing down now, so I've been digging up some of my olds posts and saving them to my computer. Here's the one from Kennedy's birth:

"Sorry it's taking me so long to post! It's been pretty busy around here since I came home yesterday with all the kids and the demands of a newborn, boy did I forget how busy! Lol!
Well I am in total love with this little girl, she's so good and so perfect, I adore her! Rebekah already posted about my labor, it went great other than a minor bad reaction to the epidural that passed pretty fast. She came out with the cord around her neck and was a little bluish, was having some respiratory issues and increased heartrate for a couple of hours, but was fine and back with me within 3 hours.
She's nursing like a champ and my milk came in so fast this time, before I even left the hospital! The kids adore her and argue over holding her. When Reece met her, the first thing he said is "I want to hold my baby Kennedy"- then he licked his thumb and rubbed it across her forehead and said "Siiiiiimba...."! It was hilarious, he hasn't even seen the Lion King in ages, but that's what he thought of Lol!
I'm recovering ok, my body really took a beating! I have a few stitches, and my back is killing me, but I'm just thankful it didn't hurt during pg so I can't complain. The worst part is the cramping, whew that gets worse with each baby! So I'm trying to take it easy, although you know how that goes!
Thank you all SO much for all of the posts and well wishes, etc. You guys are the best!"

I'm so glad I have those posts, as I would have forgotten so many details. Kennedy was born after a hard time in my life and healed my heart, she continues to light up my life everyday!

For her birthday she got "Twinkle Toes Sketchers", a new DS game and case, and some clothes and we're going out to dinner. Instead of a party I'm taking her to Disney On Ice Saturday. Here are some pictures of our sweet princess!


She was our fattest baby, soooo chunky and squishy!

One year old

Two

Three

Four

Kennedy

When Kennedy says "love" she pronounces the "v" as a "z" sound. It's the cutest thing ever and I smile every night when I walk out of her room.

Me: Love you

Kiki: Luz you

She's so squishable!

Future occupations

Tonight I was laying in bed with Kennedy at bedtime, kissing her squishy cheeks and talking about our day today, and what we'll do tomorrow. For some reason I asked her, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" She said, "I want to go to the gym and work out!" so I said, "oh wow, but what do you want to BE?" and she said "A Mommy!!!". Oh how I love her.

Then I went in to kiss Ally goodnight and asked her the same question, she said, "a photographer!". Love it!

So when I went in to kiss Reece, I asked him the same question and he said, "Well I would like to be able to shoot lasers into space, but I don't know if I can do that so I was thinking that I want to be a chef, but that's a lot of work and I don't know if you get a lot of money for that". I said, "well you'd get to eat a lot of good food!" and he got a big toothless grin.

Man I love these kids, so silly and wonderful!

death

Not the happiest blog header huh? What a hard concept for us to understand. Even as an adult I don't understand why people die before "their time". But then I guess it IS their time when they die right? My faith leads me to trust that although we don't know His plan, it's still His plan. Although it's hard, I know there's a reason. This weekend has been sad for me, for our family, and many others in the world I know. I wonder how many people lost a loved one this week? Many I'm sure.

We lost Jermaine's Uncle Ervin. He lived for a long 75 years, but still died too soon due to cancer. Jermaine and Victoria went to the funeral, 3 hours away, and I stayed home with the little kids. They said they felt so at peace after the service, knowing that he is ok and his wife is ok. He doesn't have cancer anymore.

Ally has struggled for days, crying several times a day and at bedtime. She wasn't that close to Uncle Ervin really, he lived several hours away, but I figured out that it's her first death experience and she's old enough to realize that she will never see him again. I think she's having a hard time with that finality. Poor baby.

Today I photographed a family who lost their newborn baby. My heart so heavy tonight with the burden of grief. One lived a long life, but left too soon. One never given the chance to walk our earth. I know they are both with Him tonight, no longer in pain but at peace. But how difficult it is for those of us still here, missing, remembering, regretting, wishing, praying. My heart aches tonight for Ervin's wife Elna, his 9 siblings, and many other family members who loved him so. And my heart breaks for the new parents who went home from the hospital without their son.

Uncle Ervin, third from the left, with his 9 siblings.

UP

For 2 years now I've been trying to get Felicity to watch TV. Not alot of TV, our kids don't really watch alot, but just one or two shows a day maybe. Just enough for me to get a few things done while she's mesmerized and not getting into trouble. However, she's never liked TV. Forget it, no Barney, Wiggles, Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, none of the shows that my others have liked. Then for Christmas Santa brought us Disney's UP. Ally and Reece had seen in in the theater with Nana, but the rest of us hadn't. I cried like a baby within the first 15 minutes, it's just a wonderful, magical movie!

So a couple of weeks ago Felicity asked to watch "Up". We put it on and she sat still for about half of the movie. We were dumbstruck! At one point I was like, "omg where's Felicity?!!" and realized she was still on the couch. What a wonderful thing! She asks every single day now to watch it, and although we don't put it on every day, I sure do save it up to use when I need it. With a creative, ambitious (mischievous) child like Felicity, the only times I can relax a little are when she's strapped into her booster seat (not really, because she has tipped her chair over before), when she's finally asleep (but until that happens we have to go in her room a billion times because she's into everything, and when she watches "UP".

Thank you Disney.

The negative side effects: she carries the box around and keeps taking the DVDs out. It came with 4: a Blu Ray, regular DVD, and 2 more. It's only a matter of time before she destroys them so I'll probably put them away and let her have the empty box. Also, she loves the bird "Kevin" on Up and talks about her all the time, asking where she is, and she cried when the dogs captured her and when she goes off with her babies. It's such a genuine cry and it's soooo sad, but I can't not let her watch Up! She would be devastated!