Oh dreaming of exactly what I want the girls room to look like... I love Pottery Barn Kids. This is the Pink Katie bedroom and I am in love.

Happy Birthday Melia!

I will have to post the pictures later since they are on our laptop and not on our Imac... yet...

Melia is 4 now! It is crazy that I have a four year old! She is so amazing in every way. She has such a cute personality and really likes to play with her cousins and friends from school. It is awesome watching her be the big sister and to watch her play with McKenzie. I love that they are so close. Melia is such a blessing to this family.
She loves to color and draw. Her drawings are getting better everyday and it really amazes us with what she is learning on a daily basis. She can write her name and she will any chance she gets. Yesterday, she drew six "Happy Birthday" balloons for her birthday and gave them to her cousins.

Anyway, I will post more about our boring lives tomorrow or later this week.

Happy Birthday to Melia! Time to make pancakes for Melia's breakfast! :)

Melia's view of our Family

I am saving this forever! Melia was laughing so hard that Treven's head was an oval. Also she was very insistent on doing teeth. She said Uncle Dave told her teeth are important. Great Monday night activity!

McKenzie's 2 year old Stats!

Height: 36 3/4 inches (no percentile because it was so high... double it for when she is older... 6' 1" tall... nuts!)
Weight: 30.4 lbs (85th percentile)

She did awesome at the doctor. We switched doctors since the girls are not on state insurance and we didn't like the clinic we were going to. We LOVE this place! McKenzie was not shy at all. She was laughing and playing with the doctor and it totally threw him off. She DID NOT cry at all when she got her shots. It was simply amazing!

McKenzie is healthy and growing well. :)

Why? Why? Why?

McKenzie is now on the kick of asking "Why?" over and over and over! It gets rather annoying, but I keep realizing that she is not a baby anymore. Crazy how time flies. Melia gets really annoyed of McKenzie asking "Why?" all the time. Kenzie does it to Melia while they are playing and Melia just yells, "Stop asking why!" It is pretty funny. It is awesome to see them play together now. McKenzie is at the point now where they play with each other, but it brings on more fights as well. McKenzie has her 2 year wellness check tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how that goes and her measurements. She is a tall girl! Melia loves Hocus Pocus now and wants to watch it 24/7. She is definitely her mother's child. :) But when she asks to watch it she says, "Can I watch bibbity bobbity boo? The one with the witches?" I have to remind her it is Hocus Pocus. It makes me laugh every time.
I am working 30-40 hours a week at the daycare. Our numbers are low due to summer vacations and such so hopefully the numbers will go back up soon so there is more consistency. Treven just became the Adidas Brand Coordinator so he is guaranteed 40 hours a week since Adidas pays part of his income so he will be getting a raise as well and some free Adidas stuff to wear to work. He is really excited about this new position. Treven also starts his Fall semester next Monday. He is taking 3 classes at school and 1 online. This is the first full time semester he has done since moving to Washington due to residency issues. It should be a good semester then he has only 16 credits left! He wants to go into school psychologist or counselor so he is looking into all he has to do for that through the next couple of months.
That's our update. It has been very hot this weekend so we have enjoyed our pool and air conditioning.

She is two!

McKenzie is two years old today! It is crazy to think she was born 2 years ago! She is growing every day and now is pretty much potty trained! (We are having problems with the whole bowel movement part :/) McKenzie is our goofy and crazy little girl when you get to know her. She is slow to warm up to people, but once she is warm, she is hilarious and goofy! I love it!
We are so blessed to have her in our lives and she makes everyday exciting for us.
Happy Birthday McKenzie! We love you!

Mom, Dad, and Melia

A Hot Summer Day at Work

Well I am going to try and post everything. I am at work right now, :/, but I am in the kindergarten room and there is wireless internet! Since almost all the kids are asleep and I got everything done that I needed to, I figured I would start on all the updating!

I am working full time (9-6 Mon-Fri) at the Daycare. I got a raise to teacher so I get paid more and have more responsibilities, but I love it! I love being able to be a teacher again and work with children to help them learn everything they need to know. They are little sponges soaking up everything that it going on. I am with the Star class, which is like 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 year olds.

Currently, since it is summer, we are low on the amount of children we have at the daycare so I am helping out other classrooms, which is wonderful when I am getting full time hours. I had the whole week off last week so now the girls and I are trying to get back into the "school" mode. The girls started sleeping in until like 9 everyday which is sooo not normal, but I am thankful for it on the weekends and during our vacation.

Our vacation was great. My whole side of the family was able to go up to a house on Lake Mayfield that was made up of three condos. Two of the condos had three bedrooms and one had two bedrooms. Each condo had it’s own washer, dryer, kitchen, bathrooms, living room, and porch. There were doors that close and lock so if somebody only rented out one of the condos, they could be to themselves. Since we rented all three, we left the stairway open! It is wonderful to relax and have a great time with the family. The only downside was the weather. It was hot the week before we went to the lake and extremely hot this week, but the week of our vacation it was cold! The kids were able to go play at the park. My dad got Treven and I addicted to the app game Plants vs. Zombies (so much easier to play on an Ipad versus Treven’s I touch). All in all, it was a nice relaxing time to just be together even though we didn’t really get in the lake at all!

The 4th of July just seemed like a continuation of the lake week with the family that was still around. We had family dinners, which was just all the food left over from the lake since we had A TON! My dad got some fireworks for the grand kids to do on Sunday night and they loved them. We didn’t go to a fireworks show since they are all so late, but we definitely heard a lot of fireworks and saw some in the sky.

Melia and McKenzie are doing great. Melia is thriving being in “school”. She now can write her name with a little help with reminding her the order of the letters. ☺ She loves playing with the sandbox at school and now that it is summer, we have water play outside and she loves that too. She is definitely growing up and starting to help me with getting things for McKenzie, she is a great big sister. She is very obsessed with having her room clean and hates going to bed with it being “dirty”. The obsession has become more and more evident in this last week. I am liking it because she likes to keep her room organized and I don’t have to make them do it.
McKenzie is also thriving being able to go to school. She is doing better when I drop her off at her classroom. She understands that I am still at the same building, just in a different room. She is becoming very social and picking up on words like crazy. She is all about “I do it!” and is wanting to be potty trained so we are going to go for it this weekend. We will see how it goes! She puts on her own clothes and is very adamant about doing it herself. I have a love/hate relationship with her new attitude, haha! I love that she is becoming more self-sufficient, but hate it when I am trying to do something or go somewhere.

Other news is that I now am an aunt of 18 nieces and nephews! Avery Madison Stinchfield was born on June 18th, 2010. She is such a pretty baby and I am so happy for Brent, Buffy and her big brother Noah!

I have a ton of pictures to post so I will do that when I get home. I just wanted to be able to write down an update of what has been going on with us. (There you go Heather! Hopefully this will help me get going!)

Preview to Family Fun from last week

Girls singing and dancing "All the Single Ladies" by Beyonce

Quick update...

I know, I know, I didn't live up to my goal last week, but here I am! I am back!

Last weekend was kind of crazy. I was trying to get a bunch of certification done for my new job. Yup, my new job!

I have been subbing at a daycare that is owned by a family friend and so I was just there to make some money while trying to find something more permanent. Well I got an interview at DICK's Sporting Goods and the interview went great, but they couldn't promise me many hours :(. Our family friend texted me 15 minutes before this interview with DICK's and asked if I would rather work for her or DICK's. Well the position she was offering me is 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and my girls will be going to the daycare. With prayer and a lot of talking with my husband and some family, I came to the decision to go with the daycare job. Last week was my first full week and the first 3 days of "school" for the girls. It has been great and we couldn't be blessed more right now.

So last weekend I was doing STARS training, blood bourne pathogen training, and food handlers permit stuff. I just got my TB test done and all I have left to do is get my finger prints and background check done. More hoops to go through, right? But I am still getting full time hours with them which is wonderful.

I was also told last week that they want to train me to do more at the daycare, become a co-teacher, along with doing the scheduling and such. I am starting off being the break person that goes around to all the classrooms to give people their breaks. I am glad this will be a position I will be in for a while and the girls absolutely love being out and playing with other kids.

That really is our biggest news. We also found out last week that after this Fall semester, Treven only has 16 credits left to take! We really hope everything works out so he can graduate ASAP! He is also started on his development plan at work for him to get on the road to become manager by fall. He is loving it and I am so proud of him for the hard work he is putting in at work.

That's it for now!

Update Along with Promised Pictures

Melia's drawing of me

Drawing of McKenzie

Daddy the princess with his girls

Cousin fun in our van

McKenzie and her clothes obssession... Melia's PJ shirt on as pants

Just a little bit about what is going on with us. I have an interview on Wednesday (thanks to my brother!) at DICK's Sporting goods for a position that would guarantee hours and would be wonderful to have. Keep us in your prayers. The day before Mother's Day I ran the Hippie Chick Half and Quarter Marathon with my Mom and sister-in-law. It is an all women walk/run the day before Mother's Day every year. My stomach started hurting and I felt really nauseous during it. When the quarter marathoners finish, the half marathoners can decided to stop at a quarter or keep going. I decided to finish at the quarter due to my stomach. Nothing else was hurting at all so I did 6.1 miles. I was proud of myself. My amazing mother and sister-in-law both finished the half marathon! I think it will be a yearly run for our family. The following will explain the past week with this stomach pain so it may be too much information, you can just skip over it!

My stomach calmed down until Tuesday and then it really started hurting. Treven had to come home early from work; I held out until he had 2 hours left of his shift. Anyway, I was really nauseous and it just felt like ingestion or something, but it never went away. Friday was the only day that it wasn't killing me. Saturday morning was a 5K in Washougal that my whole family was doing. I signed up for the run, but again, stomach pain so I walked it with my dad. On Saturday night, I fell asleep about 10 and woke up at 10:45 with extreme stomach pain. I couldn't sleep at all... Treven wanted to take me to the ER, but I didn't want to deal with spending the extra money. I would rather wait until morning and go to Urgent Care. That night I was able to get about 2 hours of sleep and I had to be sitting up on the couch curled in a ball to finally get those 2 hours. Treven worked on Sunday so I took the girls to my parents (Thank goodness they live so close!) and went to the Urgent Care across the street from our apartments. Well turned out, bladder infection along with gastritis. They sent some cultures to a lab to make sure it is a bladder infection, but it takes 4 days to hear back. They put me on antibiotics for the bladder infection until they hear back from the lab. We will see on Thursday.

Treven found out this last week at work that they are planning on getting Treven to manager by the fall which would be awesome! He would be salary paid when he becomes manager and it is what he wants to do. He wants to make this a career so that is one step closer! :) He still loves the job and the people he works with.

One day late, but I have had an excuse, right? :)

Mother's Day

As I look where I am at now, I feel so blessed for the family that I have surrounding me. My husband, Treven, is an incredible man and an amazing father. He strives to make our family's life better. He cares so much for our girls and loves every moment he has with them. The girls are such a blessing in my life and I don't know what I would do without them. I was meant to be a mother and I am loving every minute of it. I am not saying that I don't have those days where I want to pull my hair out and just want to have my own time; I do have those days! But that is part of motherhood. I feel like I am giving pieces of myself to my family and I love that I am able to do that.
This Mother's Day, I am able to reflect at my life and realize that I really am blessed with the wonderful family I do have. I also am so thankful for all the wonderful examples that I have had in my life. My own mother, my sister-in-laws, my sister, my aunts, my cousins, my friends, and so many more. I know of so many great mothers and I thank all of you for all the selfless and kind examples you have been to me!
Happy Mother's Day!
I hope that all made sense. I was rambling on with my thoughts

Try something new...

I realized today that I check my blog and friend's blogs everyday and yet, mine hasn't had a new post in a while! I am going to try and set a goal for myself... Blog every weekend. I really want to get going on it. I feel like this could be my journal and would really help me remember times in my life. So here it is...
For Kim: Substituting is turning out to be a not-so-great situation. This time last year I had jobs almost everyday. This year is a different story. I get maybe 2 calls a month. Anyway, so I am looking for something else. I would have anyway since I would not be subbing during the summer. I have applied to a couple of places. I did get a job but it does not start until the end of June so it is on the back burner. I am trying to get something else before then. We will see if something turns up. I am currently a substitute at a daycare which is working out well and it is definitely helping! I am pretty much thankful for anything I can get right now. Other than the whole work situation, I am gearing up for my first half marathon this Saturday. I am doing it with my mom, sister in law, and cousin. It should be a lot of fun. I am pretty nervous and I plan on going pretty slow and just finish. We are all planning on doing another one in October so I feel like it will be easier to train for. This half marathon has been hard to train for with the weather. I have been doing most of it on a treadmill. One another thing for me, I passed my last certification test so now I can receive my 5 year teaching certificate in Washington State!
For Treven: Treven is loving work still. He received a two dollar raise when he received a promotion to Apparel Lead at Dick's (Lead is right under Manager). He finished the semester out at WSU and will be taking the summer off of school. We are working on filling out all the paperwork for him to gain his residency so he can go full time in the fall. He doesn't know really what to do when he gets home from work now and has time since there is no school work. He is planning on getting some exercise back into his schedule since he now has some time and our apartment complex has a gym.
For Melia: I always say both girls are growing so fast and that is because they are. Melia decided to do gymnastics a little bit ago and did it for about a month, but there was only one other kid in the class so she didn't enjoy it much. She said she wanted to do swim lessons with her cousin, Andrew so we switched her. She is loving it and getting more comfortable in the water. She finally stopped being scared of the depth last week. I think the fact that she doesn't have her glasses on in the water does not help! She has about one month left of swim lessons then our pool opens here at the complex so we figure we can work on it with her there instead of paying $50 bucks a month... at least until I do find a job. :) She is loving Sunbeams at church and has a new friend Elyse from her class and begs to play with her all the time. I love how social she is!
For McKenzie: Well McKenzie is nuts! She has a lot of Treven's reflexes and she isn't scared of doing a lot of things. She jumps off of the ottoman onto the couch, off the couch, off the table onto blankets... she is nuts. If she falls down my parents stairs, she will catch her self on the railing like 2 steps down. It is crazy! She has done that three times. She is talking a lot more in sentences and picking up everything. She said her first prayer tonight with help! Some sentences are, "I want (enter item) too!" and "I love you too". But she will go on with more. She calls Melia "girl" since she can't say Melia. She loves to run, jump, and dance. She loves playing with her cousins, Noah and Beck. Those three are trouble all together! I am thinking of getting McKenzie a hair cut because she has such a mullet! We will see! McKenzie really is growing fast. She is wearing a lot of 2T AND 3T clothes. She is getting interested in going potty on the toilet so we will see if she gets interested enough to get potty trained!
Well that is really all from us. We may be going camping over Memorial Day weekend in California (all depends on my work situation) which will be a blast then we have a family reunion at a lake for a week at the end of June that we can't wait for!
That's it for now! Now on to accomplish my goal... I will be back in a week. :)

Melia and her princess trees

Spring must be starting because there are pink trees everywhere and Melia LOVES them. Whenever she sees one when we are driving she yells. "Those are my favorite!" She calls them her princess trees. On Sunday, we realized there are a ton of them outside the church building. Papa took a picture for her!

A relaxing night

WE ARE OUT OF THE OLD APARTMENT! This picture was taken a couple nights before we moved out. Melia really loves playing Rock band even though she obviously isn't really doing it, but she loves it!

I have been having a few of these "relaxing nights" lately. For those of you who haven't heard, Treven received a promotion to the Fitness department. He is going to be trained to be a CFT or Certified Fitness Trainer, which he is really excited about. Treven also will be considered full time so we receive the wonderful full time benefits. It is so funny that we are so excited about having health insurance... Treven and I haven't been insured for about a year so we are dying to have some insurance! He ALSO is getting a raise of 2 dollar an hour! Everything is going so well at work and he is loving the people he works with and the environment there.

Well back to the reason why I am having a few relaxing nights... a guy named Tim, who Treven works with, broke his ankle about 2 weeks ago so they pulled Treven out of the back stock to cover Tim's area in Apparel. Then Treven got the promotion and WAS supposed to start this upcoming Monday with Fitness. Well another person in Apparel got fired last week unfortunately, so Apparel is short people so Treven has to stay another 2 weeks there to cover until Tim comes back from his injury. So Treven's hours now have shifted. He no longer has the abnormal schedule in retail of 7-4 Monday through Friday. He now has the normal retail schedule and is working a lot of nights. It is nice to have him in the mornings with the girls though. Kind of stinks, but Treven is okay with it. We still get the raise and benefits now so it is all good!I am so proud of all the hard work Treven is putting in both at work and school.

The other day Melia wanted to have a picnic so we took their play food out to the deck and had a play picnic. The girls LOVED it. It will have to be a weekly thing :)

We also started learning out letters with Melia. Each week we are going to do a letter and put the letters and things that begin with that letter on our window. Melia loves it and it really is helping her care about learning her letters! And yes, that is right, Andrew is up there. Melia insisted!

It has been a blast to have Anne right around the corner. Andrew and Melia love playing with each other and we went to the Children's Museum last week with Buffy and Noah as well and the kids absolutely loved it! We took Melia and Andrew to go see Treven's dad's snakes (he breeds and sells them) Melia and Andrew loved it and Andrew actually touched all the snakes along with their chameleon, Sam.

It is so funny to listen to Melia and Andrew talk to each other whenever they are together. In the first couple of days they showed us the difference between boys and girls, Andrew had asked Melia to tell him a story so she continued with telling him about the princess who fell asleep and the prince came and gave her TRUE LOVE'S KISS (she made sure we heard that part) and the princess woke up and they lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Andrew then asks, "Where is the dragon?". Melia said, "The prince got him." and continued to start the story over included the dragon part. Then Melia yelled out "And they lived happily ever after!" and Andrew goes, "AND THE DRAGON DIED!". It was awesome! Anne and I just looked at each other and laughed.

McKenzie is growing up so fast. She is becoming more social with everybody lately and is really picking up on words. She stills loved her babies and has to have her baby with the bottle when she goes to bed. She is doing great in the bunk bed and really loves it. Her new thing is to say "WAIT!" when I am saying good night and shutting the door. Then she wants a hug and kiss so I do and then leave again... she continues to say it and I say Kenzie, go to sleep. And she just cracks up laughing. She thinks it is so funny. She also loved Papa. She calls him Pops right now and runs to give him a hug whenever she sees him.

I am getting more sub calls lately so it is nice to have Treven have some days off during the week so I can sub without paying for babysitting. I am still organizing the new apartment. I am getting myself ready for the half marathon I am doing in May... we will see how it goes! This last month, my wonderful old room mate from BYU Idaho, Megan, came up to visit. She has never been to Oregon/Washington and she is thinking of looking for a job up here in the fall. She is in grad school at USC for Social Work. There are zero jobs in California so she is looking elsewhere. After her visit, she definitely is looking up here and wants to move here when she finds that job! We are so excited!

Today we went and saw my brother and his wife go skydiving and it was awesome. It was a beautiful day today and it was nice to be outside for most of the day.

Well back to my relaxing night... sorry for the rambling. Enjoy the pictures.

Preview to the new apartment

We are planning on painting some walls in our bedroom, living room, and kitchen/dining area so this is just so we can show those friends far away what the place looks like!

Girls room

Girls bathroom

Our bedroom

Kitchen :) That door leads to the washer/dryer and wonderful pantry!

Dining room

Hallway

Living room

District Defender of the Month!

I am so proud of Treven and his hard work is starting to pay off at work.

A couple of weeks ago he received Defender of the Month for his store. For those of you who don't know, Treven is an apparel processor at DICK's Sporting Goods.

Well today, all the store managers presented their store Defenders of the Month and explained why the certain person received it. Then they all vote on who will be the District Defender of the Month out of the people nominated from each store. Treven received 5 of the 7 votes (his manager could not vote for him) so that is AWESOME! Now he goes on to be nominated for Regional Defender of the Month.

I am so proud of the hard work he is doing and the awesome father and husband that he is! And we are so thankful for the help of my brother, Brent, getting Treven this job. It has been a real blessing in our lives and an answer to our prayers.

We love him!

New Hair cut for Melia!

I decided to chop Melia's hair to get it all the same length! We did it today and here it is!

Before...

After!

Another after shot