Newest Accessory

These would be the newest accessories to be found in our house.
Nice, aren't they?

We're not sure how, but Dave injured his knee this morning. We spent some time at Urgent Care where they told him what their "guesses" were and told him to see his family practitioner next week to schedule an MRI. So...he's supposed to be laying around resting and elevating until he gets the MRI done.
He's not a very good patient.
He's currently vacuuming the hallway.

This afternoon...
The boys got a couple of new balls to play with!
In an effort to discourage the daily 5:00am wake up call, I decided they needed more "rough and tumble" and less "sit around the house".

So far, they're a hit. Hopefully my plan works!

There's Always a Reason

(Forgive me while I revert to my "Early Childhood Professional" self for a minute...)

I've seen it a thousand times in multiple classrooms and schools I've worked in over the years. A young child who is typically well behaved and mild mannered starts acting out (in all sorts of ways) for evidently no reason. You ask the parents if there are any changes at home. They both say no. The strange behavior continues, so you ask again. Mom and Dad again assure you that there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary going on and they, themselves, don't understand what is going on with their child. After the behavior continues to be askew, you press the parents one more time to see if anything, anything at all, is out of the ordinary.

And then they come clean.

"Well, we moved him into his own bedroom" or "We are weaning him from the binkie" or "His pet fish went the way of the commode" or "Actually, we are in the process of getting divorced. Mom (or Dad) moved out of the house 3 weeks ago". (You'd be amazed how many parents actually think this is no major influence in their child's life and are clueless to the fact that it does cause stress on their 1 or 2 year old. I understand not wanting to share your personal tragedies, but there are some things teachers need to know.; Not all the gory details, please. Just the bare minimum will do.)

Voila!! THANK YOU!! In that instant, I know exactly how to best help your child. (p.s. I'm not judging you or your current situation, I just really love your child and want to help them in anyway that I can)

BUT. What am I supposed to do when it's my child that is acting out all of the sudden, and I honestly have no clue as to why his behavior is changing?!? No bedroom changes here, the binkie has been gone for a couple of years now and Mom and Dad are as happy as can be.

Luckily, I think we're on the tail end of the behavior swing. I still am unsure as to what set him off. But it's breaking my heart knowing there is a reason behind it, and not knowing how to help him. If only toddlers were capable of telling us how they really felt. All the time.

Imagination Avenue

This morning, Lala and I took the boys to Imagination Avenue. It's an indoor "city" that is all child sized. They have a fire department, grocery store, Home Depot, a school, a house, puppet theater, a clothing store, a jail and a road that connects all the stores. It's really a pretty cute idea. So here's an overload of photos from our excursion this morning!

Police Officer Stander
Fire Chief Stander
And then they both ended up in jail...
(isn't this the saddest jail face you've ever seen?)
Building who knows what
Shopping at the market


And doing laundry (which is Kehlton's favorite chore to help with at home too!)

AZ Haboobs

Arizona has some crazy weather during monsoon season. I know everybody heard about our huge haboob that hit on July 5, but we missed out on that one. It didn't make it far enough west to effect us.

Tonight, however, there's another one rolling in. Not as impressive as the last one, but icky nonetheless. The boys are glued to the back door watching the wind, rain (more like a heavy sprinkling still) and clouds. We get really excited when the weather changes around here!!

A Much Needed Update!

I've been horrible about updating the blog recently. It's not that I don't want to; we just really haven't been doing anything very photo worthy lately. But, I did catch Kehlton being cute this afternoon, so here's a few photos to tide you over until we really do something photo worthy!




*I'm not even going to apologize for the naked baby. My children HATE wearing clothes. They rip them off at the first opportunity they have. I figure - it's HOT! Why make them suffer needlessly? Besides. It gives me less laundry to do!

Sleepover

On Sid The Science Kid last week, Sid had a sleepover with a friend from school. So naturally, Brychan now wants to have a sleepover. Good thing he just wants to have a sleepover with "Baby K". I can accommodate that.


They had a LOT of fun on their sleepover. All 15 minutes of it!

Unexpected Visitors

This evening, we drove up to Lake Pleasant for a bit of hiking and playing in the water. I had NO CLUE there were wild burros in that area!! We saw a couple dozen of them in the hour or so that we were up there. Needless to say, the boys were thrilled!

Keeping me BUSY!!

Okay. So about a year ago, my sister in law was kind enough to let me steal her idea of selling the adorable car seat covers that she made. She made me a beautiful one when Kehlton was born, and I got SO many compliments on it. Everywhere I went! So, I changed the cover just a tad and started sewing. My sister joined in the fun, helping make burp cloths too. We opened an Etsy shop and had a few sales. I got a few more sales just from word of mouth, and then just sort of let the Etsy shop die. Last Christmas, I made tutus for my nieces. I LOVED them (I have to admit I fall pretty hard for anything small and girly). Again, my sister and I thought "ETSY!!!".

Long story short, we had a strange influx of sales the past 2 months. So, I've been working really hard on getting the shop up and going. Really up and going. I'm trying to finish one item a day to add to the shop, we're now on Facebook, and now: we're being blogged about!

So...head on over to Family Ever After, where my friend Rachel is hosting our first giveaway:

A free tutu!! (Made exactly how you like)

Here's to hoping this all really works!

*And for those of you who are tired of being bombarded with Kadydid Designs, I really am sorry. Once we're up and running, I hope to be less annoying!