Photo A Day- August 17

Every day after lunch, Daddy heads to work. We're so thankful that about a year ago, he was able to switch from third shift (overnight) to second shift (roughly mid-afternoon to midnight). It has made the biggest difference from barely seeing him at all on third shift, to having him here with us all morning until lunch time! It's always sad when Daddy has to leave, but especially because it usually also signals nap time. Waving Daddy bye-bye to work (with the dog's help, of course):

Photo A Day- August 5

"Daddy will save me from bedtime, right?"
Everybody loves the weekends when Daddy is here for bedtime!

Wordless Wednesday: Movie Watchin'

Family Paint

I'm so thrilled that Kenna is majorly into artsy crafty things. Her favorite by far is painting! Almost every day she begs me to paint, or asks me at bedtime if we can paint tomorrow. This time she invited Daddy to join her, and when Finn went down for a nap, we all three painted together!

 I want to encourage and facilitate her creativity as much as possible, but sometimes painting just sounds like way too much of a mess to do every day. We found some easy ways to make the set up/clean up not such an ordeal- we use a little styrofoam veggie tray as a paint pallet, which washes off easily to be reused several times. When we got something large in the mail that came separated by large squares of cardboard, we saved them in the basement and they make the perfect sized table top that we can set out quickly for messy projects.

Kenna sat and dictated an idea to Daddy and he painted it to her exacting specifications- a "scary switch" with scary teeth. Then afterwards she wanted the witch to have a dress, and Daddy somehow managed to fit that in as well.

Here is their finished collaborative masterpiece:

 

Mommy painted a Kenna-inspired "happy" sign in pink and orange:

And here are some of Kenna's finished ones. The first one picked up the texture of the cardboard beneath it. The second one reminds me of big slices of summer tomatoes! However, Kenna likes to pick which of her "pieces" go on our fridge, and neither of these were worthy to make the cut. Too funny.

She is such a prolific painter that I ended up getting one of those little cardboard shelf files meant for magazines to hold all her finished sticker, paint, and marker creations!

Bathing Beauties!

A few nights ago we let Finn join his sister in her big bath! I guess it isn't technically right to call a boy a "beauty" but he was pretty stinking cute and they had a ball together. Kenna loved the company and someone else to splash... Finn looked like he was not quite sure what to think, but as usual, was his happy, good-natured little self!
Anyone who has known Matt since his YMCA days especially knows what a lighthearted and fun-loving a personality he has, so these next few pictures won't surprise you! He decided Kenna needed even more extra company in her bath!
I love seeing how those personality aspects have carried over to his parenting... there are so many times that I'm doing the mom thing and thinking about cleaning up the mess after or not wanting to be too silly/too wild/too whatever that I unintentionally stifle a little bit of the fun. I'm so glad that Matt balances out that part of me because Kenna absolutely loves lots of wild sillies with her Daddy and just completely glows in his attention!
I love that he is such a hands-on (or bath-in if you will) dad to our wild ones and can only imagine how much better it will get as Finn gets bigger and more able to get in on the action. Oh my crazy family- I love you so much!

Turning 30!

Well, there's a pretty awesome Daddy around here who had a pretty crazy birthday week... what a way to celebrate by adding a little boy to our clan (Finn was born the 1st and Matt's birthday is the 7th!):
but it is an extra special birthday for him...

Happy 30th Birthday, Matt!

on March 7th our favorite husband/Daddy/best friend/bread winner/student turned 30 years old- a milestone birthday! Between all the nursing, late nights, and normal exhaustion that comes (for all of us!) with a newborn in the house, it wasn't the extravaganza celebration I would have liked it to be. However, it was sweet and full of family and love, just like our life together, which is the most important thing.

One thing that I did actually finish while still pregnant with Finn was to get an alphabet of photos with attributes about Matt printed on them, which I strung up around the living room for him to find first thing in the morning:

And Kenna helped me make Daddy his favorite homemade cake: yellow cake with chocolate frosting!
The first one fell apart when I tried to turn it out of the pan, so I made a second one which he ended up having to frost himself so that he could eat it... such is the life of a parent-of-two birthday, apparently. It still tasted good!

We also put 3 candles in a doughnut for him for breakfast, with a second doughnut being the "0." Matt now has a little crew of helpers when it comes to eating birthday treats:
Mommy mostly sat and nursed Finn all day- it's what I do these days!
Another decoration I did was to put 11 things on our mantle representing Matt, one for each of the 11 years we've known each other.
-his dissertation and master's diploma representing his academic achievements
-a picture of Kenna & balloon for Finn
-his bible at the center since he tries to keep God's word at the center of his life
-his grandfather's pipe for how he values family and the wisdom he's gained from those older than him
-ski gloves because he loves cold weather (one of the very first things I learned about him)
-a picture of us in Paris, for his love of travel and heart for the nations
-a Superman hat from when he was a little boy
-a yellow mailer, his favorite color and representing the many letters we sent each other while dating and falling in love
-his cowboy boot for his love of the great outdoors (it was supposed to be his hiking boot, but since I put this all together after a 5 a.m. feeding, I couldn't find them!)

and last but not least, his glasses for one very special reason: Matt has a rare genetic eye disorder ans was told in his early 20s that he would be legally blind by the age of thirty. He prepared himself that he might never see his children being born, might lose the ability to read and watch movies, and might not be able to care for himself and his family. According to God's great mercy and perfect plan, he hasn't! Other than these glasses, you'd probably never know Matt lives with this scary possibility. Praise the Lord!

Some other fun birthday things we did:

Matt's parents cooked us a fabulous family steak dinner and took us to lunch at Red, Hot & Blue the next day (Matt's favorite!) :
And we took Kenna to Monkey Joe's for a special big sister treat with my side of the family:

We're so proud of you, Matt! Happy birthday!

Wordless Wednesday: Last Year & This Year

Wordless Wednesday: Funnies