The Ceiling came down... and the carpet came up!

Monday morning Chris woke me up by saying " We have a big problem". I thought Taycee had wet her bed or something and said "It's ok, I'll take care of it when I get up". He responds "UH, the toilet has been leaking all night and the upstairs is flooded." SO NOT OK. The tank to the toiled cracked during the night and we had a good inch of standing water. We ran downstairs to see if it had caused damage on the main floor and found this... Yeah... SO NOT OK. The carpets were soaked upstairs and down. Luckily the basement was ok. an hour later the disaster clean up crew was here tearing thins apart.
Up came the carpet and pad...

Down came the ceiling....

We are hoping to have everything dried out and repaired by weeks end. What a fun way to start out the week. :D

I just have to post these pictures to explain how the picture taking process goes around my house.

Step 1- I notice the kids are matching or looking cute... or I just feel like taking their picture.

Step 2- I say something like, "Hey look, that red vine on our fence is BEAUTIFUL how about I take some pics of the kids in front of it."

Step 3- Chris helps round the kids outside ( he has learned not to fight me on it because he never wins... although I am sure he is groaning on the inside)

Step 4- I say something like, "Okay, go stand by the vines and smile."

Step 5- The kids go stand INSIDE the vines and do something goofy.... we get a picture that looks like this....

Step 6- I think this picture is fine but of course I would like something a little different, maybe not so much behind the vines as right in front of them, maybe no hands in the mouth.

Step 7- "I say "Ok, take two steps forward and put your hands down."

Step 8- The kids decide that 10 seconds of pictures is enough and take off running across the yard.

Step 9- Chris drags them back at my insistence

Step 10- They are now mad and crying and refuse to do anything I ask

Step 11- I try everything I can think of but all I get is this....

Step12- Chris gives me the triumphant yet frustrated "I told you so/This is why I hate pictures" look.

Yep that is about how all the pictures of the kids go around our house. :D

HOW???

How did this baby....

Turn into this kid....

I am pretty sure it happened in a blink of the eye.

This week Kaden went on his first field trip for pre-school. This is how he felt about it....

We went to Black Island farm pumpkin patch and got to smell onions and hold carrots...

and he got to pick his very own pumpkin off the vine.

He was in heaven.

Here he is with some of his other classmates.

Now please tell me how this tiny 5lb baby...
became this sassy BIG 2 year old girl? .... I want my baby back!

I do love them oh so much though. On Sunday I was getting Taycee ready and Kaden said "Woah Taycee, you are so pretty." And she is. And he is so handsome. And they are just too big and independent for my.. er hem... I mean their good.

Cruelty

It is something that we have all experienced, hopefully not personally, but we have all witnessed acts of cruelty in our life. I just finished watching a movie "The boy in the striped pajamas" I would not recommend it to anyone. It is a movie about an 8 year old Jew boy during the Holocaust. And as I lay here in bed at 11:00pm unable to sleep, by heart hurts because of the amount of cruelty that exists in the world. How can people be so hateful, and mean? You can not watch the news without hearing of murder, and robbery and acts of hate. WHY? What makes someones heart so hard? I can only imagine the hurt our Father in Heaven must feel as he watches his children do such horrid things, and then I look at my innocent 3 year old little boy sleeping so peacefully next to me and I cry. I cry because he has yet to know the cruelty of this world, the evil that exists, the anger and hatred that run rampant.... but he will.... and that is almost more than I can bear. I would give anything to keep him from that. But I know with a sureity that these sweet little spirits that are sent to this earth in these times have been saved. They are the elect children of our Heavenly Father who will fight the battle between good and evil in these last days. They are born with such keen intellect and strong will and determination. There are times when that strong will makes me pull my hair out, but I think my job as a mother is to help them learn how to use that will for good. And so I pray, I pray for the strength to help them to become what they need to be. I pray that I can teach them to love no matter the race, or the gender, or the religion or the mistakes. I hope I can teach them to be slow to judge and quick to forgive. I pray I instill in them a love for the gospel, that they will stand firm for the truth and not falter. I hope that they will see the "black and white" and not dabble in the "grey", that they will build a testimony of Christ, and of his gospel, a testimony strong enough to withstand those that would tear them down and lead them astray. I hope I can teach them to lean on their Heavenly Father, and fight the cruelty in the world.

I have never been more grateful for the gospel. It is truly a gospel of peace, of good news, and of hope. As I was laying here with such a feeling of despair something that President Monson said in conference came to my mind...

"While there is much that is wrong in the world today, there are many things that are right and good. There are marriages that make it, parents who love their children and sacrifice for them, friends who care about us and help us, teachers who teach"

I hope that I can teach my kids to be some of the right and good that exists in the world.

The Kids

So Here is what these cute kids have been up to lately...

Kaden is loving pre-school... however I am not so sure how much the teachers are loving him. Have I mentioned he has a hard time sitting still and paying attention? Especially for 2.5 hours? Last week I went to pick him up and could hear him throwing a tantrum from the porch. SO NOT OKAY. We had many talks that weekend about obeying, and acting like a big boy and being nice and all of that stuff that seems to be so hard for a 3 year old to do. I think Tuesday went better. I also think that preschool teachers have the most patience on the planet.

Kaden is also starting to LOVE to sing. He is always singing a song to himself, many of them he learns at preschool so I don't know them. His speech is coming along quite nicely, he still is hard to understand for most people and his vocabulary is not as big as others his age... but considering where he came from he is doing excellent. He has an amazing memory, the teachers at preschool are amazed at how well he remembers words to songs after being sung only once.

He is also turning in to a total boy and thinks gross things are funny. He burps and farts quite often. The other night he let out a doozy in our room and said "Woah... excuse my bum" He is a tender soul though and is constantly watching out for Taycee, when I get after her for hitting or being mean to him he says "its okay mom, she's ok" It melts my heart to see him protect her. On that same note though he is not willing to take the blame for the naughty things she does, the other day I went up to the bathroom and there was and ENTIRE roll of toilet paper in the toilet, I called the kids in and started scolding them. Kaden got really wide eyes and just started pointing at Taycee. I guess she was the culprit.

Miss Taycee is POTTY TRAINED! WAHOO!!

She has been so ready for so long. She hated wearing a diaper if it was even the slightest bit wet and she thought sitting on the potty was so fun. She WAS NOT however waking up dry.. in fact usually she woke up soaked. My good friend Jocelyn had told me about the 3 Day potty training method and I decided to give it a try, we took advantage of conference weekend since we would be home for 3 days. I stocked up on toys and treats Thursday and Friday the training began, I was amazed at how quickly she caught on to the idea. By Sunday she was totally trained. I will forever use the 3 day method. It makes for an exhausting 3 days but it is totally worth it. Remember that Kaden took me about 3 months to potty train... yeah 3 days is much better.

Taycee has also got quite the little attitude. Chris is always commenting on how dramatic and emotional she is. HA, well yes, she is a girl. She has a naughty streak in her and the terrible 2's are in full force. I can't leave a room for more than 2 minutes or she has the entire thing in upheaval by the time I return. She does have a very sweet side to her however, she gives great hugs and kisses.

She has started saying her prayers and it is the cutest thing ever. She is very good at repeating the words and she has excellent pronunciation. She also is starting to sing quite a bit, every night before bed we have to sing popcorn popping and Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.

She also had her very first hair cut a few weeks back. All we did was trim her bangs, but still, it was a hair cut.

We thoroughly enjoyed conference weekend at our house. I am always filled with gratitude that Heavenly Father has sent us such amazing leaders who are not afraid to take a stand. They fill me with a renewed sense of dedication and determination to be a little better than I was yesterday.

My favorite quote was by Richard G Scott:

"We become what we want to be by being what we want to become each day"

Hope you all had a great weekend!