I've mentioned before that our blog typically serves 2 major purposes. The first is so that we can look back on these awesome memories when we are in a different season of our lives essentially. The other is to be a way for us to connect and update with family and friends that we don't see very often but those people might be interested in what we are up to. This post has been in the works for a while but I am finally getting around to finalizing it. This is sort of an update. A where are we now, if you will.
Our lives have been nothing short of busy lately. We always joke that July is the busiest month of our year... but fall is turning into a time that is just as crazy as July. We rarely sit still. When we do, it is usually just long enough to watch a specific football game. =) We keep a paper calendar hanging on our fridge (old school, y'all) and it is PACKED every weekend. It is actually packed most of the week, but our weekends are just crazy. With things we already have planned and then our advent activities next month... I don't see a free weekend until mid-January. By the time we roll around to that time though... I'm sure there will be something. We have been having a lot of fun as a family though. So, it is worth it. Last weekend was Halloween and the kids loved it. Next weekend we are going to the Fall Fiesta at Lake Eola. We have plans to hit up Disney soon for Kenzie's first haircut (and another haircut for Will... that boy is getting shaggy). We also plan to make our way down to EPCOT for fireworks one night soon. Once December starts... it is all over. Weekends consist of Celebration Snow, Light Up UCF, Disney, etc. It's good to keep these kids busy though.
One thing has been slowing us down off and on though for the past few months. Sicknesses. In Kenzie's first 3 years of life, I could probably count on one hand the sicknesses she has endured. Nothing major. Then school happened. Whew! Glad we are getting some of this out of the way now so we don't have as many issues in Kindergarten. If there was something she could have gotten though... she did. Except lice. We avoided that one. Thank goodness. (Hand Foot Mouth was FAR FAR worse though than lice would have ever been... and that one we did. Before school though so at least we didn't have to miss that much school while we dealt with that.) Then, to top it all of. Two kids. Anything Kenzie gets... Will eventually comes down with. Lovely. Poor kid. At least he will be done with a lot of these things early. He is definitely building up quite the immune system for a 1 year old.
While we are on the kiddos... let's chat about Kenzie. She is amazing. She is one smart, beautiful little girl. She definitely keeps us on our toes. She is still as energetic as she has always been. Now, she is more independent though so she thinks she can do more things on her own even when that isn't the best idea. She also talks like an older child. She is not only fairly easy to understand... but her vocabulary is phenomenal. Grandma and Grandaddy stayed with the kids last week for a few days while I was at a conference and I was told that the only word they used that she didn't already know was "path". So, she was told and now she knows that too. She comes up with some interesting things to say to us. She told me the other day that her and I were "on the same page" when I told her that I didn't know the answer to something she asked. It just amazes us the phrases and words she uses (that she has heard before) in the right context. It isn't just that she is spitting back out information willy nilly. She totally understands what it all means just from context clues even if we didn't specifically explain it to her. Baby, toddler, and preschooler brains are amazing. She is doing great in school. She tells us about all the fun things she does and she loves it. I am so glad. She is definitely blossoming. She is a natural. She is also a full on threenager so we have our moments. Her smarts combined with the independent streak is tough. We are making it though.
Will is also a talker and we are now in the "label everything" stage. He points and says "this" so we name it. He then sometimes repeats what we say. I asked him if he had a cough the other day and he said, "off?" and then proceeded to fake cough. Great. We now have a joker on our hands. He is on the move too. He has been walking with help for months but just this last week he has started to want help walking all over the house. He is also getting even better at walking while holding just one of our hands and will do it for long periods of time or distance. We have also seen him standing unsupported more and more. These are all things that Kenzie did about a month before she started walking so we are wondering if that is coming. We know it doesn't necessarily mean anything and he could not walk for months, but we are starting to think he is well on his way. Lord, help me. We are in trouble then. He is already into everything. Anytime he crawls into the room with that sly smile on his face we say, "Here comes trouble!" and it is very appropriate for him. It still amazes me though how different his personality is from Kenzie. They both love life and love to laugh. They are both energetic... but Will is so much more laid back. He is our "go anywhere", "do anything" kid. He rolls with the punches. Which is perfect for our lifestyle. He rolls right along with whatever we want/need to do but is also content to do nothing at times. Kenzie is our schedule oriented one that always needs to be doing something. (AKA... Kenzie is me and Will is Steven. Funny how that works out.)
I also still work to a point. I think that is one thing that a lot of people don't realize. Steven works full time, of course and I am home with the kids (a job in and of itself), but I also work periodically too. I work for a private school psych and there are times that once the kids go to bed I literally work for hours every night for a couple weeks straight to get things done. I'm hoping to return to seeing children face-to-face soon. As soon as those cases are given to me as this is typically a slower time of the year anyway. I haven't been able to do that in the last year because of Will's severe separation issues. Now that he is older and doing much better, I am ready to go back to seeing a child or two a month. I enjoy it because I love working with those kiddos but I also like to keep up with the school psych field and keep my skills sharp because I will return to full time work one of these days. In the mean time, I write a lot of reports. =)
To top all of that off, my sis-in-law, Julie and I started a business. I don't know that it has been mentioned on the blog yet, but if you follow either her or myself on Facebook, you have probably seen us post about it. Both of us love to craft so we combined our crafting powers and formed 3cousincrafts (named for our 3 kiddos). Check us out if you have a minute and are interested. We are loving creating new items and this is the time of year that we expected to be busiest... and we are pretty busy. It's been fun.
The holidays are quickly approaching and our Advent Activities are returning this year. We have a ton of things planned and this year Kenzie remembers a lot of what we did last year so she is looking forward to it. Our blog might see the return of the Friday Favorites posts for the month of December so we can share the activities that we are doing as well as the crazy antics of Kenny, our elf. I am super excited for Will to participate more this year and for Kenzie to be fully vested in all of this finally. It should be a fun month.
So, there's our new normal. We are just a family of 4, plus a dog, that is always on the go. Sometimes Steven and I remember the days that we used to sit at home all day on Saturday and watch football. Then maybe go to dinner... where we watch football while we eat. No longer. Now we are home with football in the background chasing kids around, reading books, playing hide and seek, and going to parks where there is no football on TV because there is no TV. We remember those times and they were fun... but this is so much better.
Our lives have been nothing short of busy lately. We always joke that July is the busiest month of our year... but fall is turning into a time that is just as crazy as July. We rarely sit still. When we do, it is usually just long enough to watch a specific football game. =) We keep a paper calendar hanging on our fridge (old school, y'all) and it is PACKED every weekend. It is actually packed most of the week, but our weekends are just crazy. With things we already have planned and then our advent activities next month... I don't see a free weekend until mid-January. By the time we roll around to that time though... I'm sure there will be something. We have been having a lot of fun as a family though. So, it is worth it. Last weekend was Halloween and the kids loved it. Next weekend we are going to the Fall Fiesta at Lake Eola. We have plans to hit up Disney soon for Kenzie's first haircut (and another haircut for Will... that boy is getting shaggy). We also plan to make our way down to EPCOT for fireworks one night soon. Once December starts... it is all over. Weekends consist of Celebration Snow, Light Up UCF, Disney, etc. It's good to keep these kids busy though.
One thing has been slowing us down off and on though for the past few months. Sicknesses. In Kenzie's first 3 years of life, I could probably count on one hand the sicknesses she has endured. Nothing major. Then school happened. Whew! Glad we are getting some of this out of the way now so we don't have as many issues in Kindergarten. If there was something she could have gotten though... she did. Except lice. We avoided that one. Thank goodness. (Hand Foot Mouth was FAR FAR worse though than lice would have ever been... and that one we did. Before school though so at least we didn't have to miss that much school while we dealt with that.) Then, to top it all of. Two kids. Anything Kenzie gets... Will eventually comes down with. Lovely. Poor kid. At least he will be done with a lot of these things early. He is definitely building up quite the immune system for a 1 year old.
While we are on the kiddos... let's chat about Kenzie. She is amazing. She is one smart, beautiful little girl. She definitely keeps us on our toes. She is still as energetic as she has always been. Now, she is more independent though so she thinks she can do more things on her own even when that isn't the best idea. She also talks like an older child. She is not only fairly easy to understand... but her vocabulary is phenomenal. Grandma and Grandaddy stayed with the kids last week for a few days while I was at a conference and I was told that the only word they used that she didn't already know was "path". So, she was told and now she knows that too. She comes up with some interesting things to say to us. She told me the other day that her and I were "on the same page" when I told her that I didn't know the answer to something she asked. It just amazes us the phrases and words she uses (that she has heard before) in the right context. It isn't just that she is spitting back out information willy nilly. She totally understands what it all means just from context clues even if we didn't specifically explain it to her. Baby, toddler, and preschooler brains are amazing. She is doing great in school. She tells us about all the fun things she does and she loves it. I am so glad. She is definitely blossoming. She is a natural. She is also a full on threenager so we have our moments. Her smarts combined with the independent streak is tough. We are making it though.
Will is also a talker and we are now in the "label everything" stage. He points and says "this" so we name it. He then sometimes repeats what we say. I asked him if he had a cough the other day and he said, "off?" and then proceeded to fake cough. Great. We now have a joker on our hands. He is on the move too. He has been walking with help for months but just this last week he has started to want help walking all over the house. He is also getting even better at walking while holding just one of our hands and will do it for long periods of time or distance. We have also seen him standing unsupported more and more. These are all things that Kenzie did about a month before she started walking so we are wondering if that is coming. We know it doesn't necessarily mean anything and he could not walk for months, but we are starting to think he is well on his way. Lord, help me. We are in trouble then. He is already into everything. Anytime he crawls into the room with that sly smile on his face we say, "Here comes trouble!" and it is very appropriate for him. It still amazes me though how different his personality is from Kenzie. They both love life and love to laugh. They are both energetic... but Will is so much more laid back. He is our "go anywhere", "do anything" kid. He rolls with the punches. Which is perfect for our lifestyle. He rolls right along with whatever we want/need to do but is also content to do nothing at times. Kenzie is our schedule oriented one that always needs to be doing something. (AKA... Kenzie is me and Will is Steven. Funny how that works out.)
I also still work to a point. I think that is one thing that a lot of people don't realize. Steven works full time, of course and I am home with the kids (a job in and of itself), but I also work periodically too. I work for a private school psych and there are times that once the kids go to bed I literally work for hours every night for a couple weeks straight to get things done. I'm hoping to return to seeing children face-to-face soon. As soon as those cases are given to me as this is typically a slower time of the year anyway. I haven't been able to do that in the last year because of Will's severe separation issues. Now that he is older and doing much better, I am ready to go back to seeing a child or two a month. I enjoy it because I love working with those kiddos but I also like to keep up with the school psych field and keep my skills sharp because I will return to full time work one of these days. In the mean time, I write a lot of reports. =)
To top all of that off, my sis-in-law, Julie and I started a business. I don't know that it has been mentioned on the blog yet, but if you follow either her or myself on Facebook, you have probably seen us post about it. Both of us love to craft so we combined our crafting powers and formed 3cousincrafts (named for our 3 kiddos). Check us out if you have a minute and are interested. We are loving creating new items and this is the time of year that we expected to be busiest... and we are pretty busy. It's been fun.
The holidays are quickly approaching and our Advent Activities are returning this year. We have a ton of things planned and this year Kenzie remembers a lot of what we did last year so she is looking forward to it. Our blog might see the return of the Friday Favorites posts for the month of December so we can share the activities that we are doing as well as the crazy antics of Kenny, our elf. I am super excited for Will to participate more this year and for Kenzie to be fully vested in all of this finally. It should be a fun month.
So, there's our new normal. We are just a family of 4, plus a dog, that is always on the go. Sometimes Steven and I remember the days that we used to sit at home all day on Saturday and watch football. Then maybe go to dinner... where we watch football while we eat. No longer. Now we are home with football in the background chasing kids around, reading books, playing hide and seek, and going to parks where there is no football on TV because there is no TV. We remember those times and they were fun... but this is so much better.
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