March is almost gone..

I am horrible at posting lately. I can't believe it's been a month. Oops. March was busy but fun. Jess and I celebrated our 8 yr wedding anniversary on the 14th. He brought me home beautiful pink roses! Pink is my most favorite color for those of you who don't know.

I made him muddy buddies (which he remembered when I made them that they were his favorite treat-- I know him so much better than he knows himself :) Then we went to Sandpiper for dinner. Here are eight favorite memories from the past years:

1- Kaden

2-Ellie

3- Kameron (in no special order of course... or are they?)

4- Our wedding day. He treated me like I was the most special person on earth.

5- Our honeymoon. He gave me a tiny white flower while we were on a hike and I still have it pressed in my scriptures in the Bible dictionary under the heading "Jesse".

6- Our first christmas together. We had NO money so we weren't going to get each other anything. He surprised me with tons of presents saying he "wanted our first christmas together to be special for me."

7- When we were taking celestial marriage together at the institute while we were engaged the teacher was talking about how we act when we cherish something. He pointed down at the way Jesse was holding my hand for an example. He was softly holding it between his two hands. Ahhhh. How sweet.

8- All of our vacations. He's always up to trying some new different restaurant or to go swimming spontaneously in the ocean with me. We always have a blast. And even when he gets ANGRY when he's lost I think it's cute. Love you sweetie.

Why are there so many wrinkles on my face?I feel old. I found my first grey hair the other day :( It had Jesse's name on it.

For spring break we decided to just go down to SLC for a getaway. Our trip was cut short when Jess had to work for 20 hrs the first day. One of the construction workers at the new hospital cut all of the internet wires so the whole hospital was down which wreaks havoc on Jesse's PACS system. Needless to say I didn't have a husband that day. We finally made it to our hotel in time for me to take the kids swimming. We stayed in West Valley at the hotel with the water park. The kids had a blast. Then we went back to the room just in time to watch Jimmer and the cougars lose the game. Bummer. We had a good weekend though. We went and had family pics done, ate at my favorite sandwhich place Kneaders, saw Tangled, hung out at Jeramy and Heidi's and went bowling.

Kaden LOVES bowling. It was the number one thing he wanted to do on our "vacation".

Who knew they had these to help kids bowl? Obviously not me or I would have been using one for years. I got THE WORST bowling score out of all of us. Including the kids. I'm good with that though. Bowling is not my favorite thing to do.

Saturday night we went to Jesse's 10 yr misson reunion. (Thanks again for babysitting Jeramy and Heidi!) I love listening to stories about his mission from OTHER people. They never fail to mention how crazy he was (like when he scaled the outside walls of the MTC to take the bars off his window) but also mention just as much how hard of a worker he was. Anyone want to watch my three kids for two weeks while we travel back to Croatia?? Where's Jesse?

The joys of my life

I love my life. I am so blessed to be a member of the Church. I am so lucky to have an amazing family and a healthy body. Here are some of the things that make me happy...

My crazy kids. They love to "dive" in the bathtub. Mostly this just means sticking their face in the water for ten seconds. They make me laugh.

My MonsterBaby (his nickname). He keeps us all laughing every day with his jibber-jabber talking and screaming at the top of his lungs for no reason. This smile melts my heart.

My sweetheart. He always plays with the kids so I can get stuff done and stays up late into the night trying to calm me down by thinking of rational explanations for all my fears and worries. Jess and the kids have invented this game called Jail which is a combo of kick the can and tag. It's always Kaden/Ellie vs Dad/Kameron. It has a billion and one rules and I love listening to them play.

Time with my kids. I am kind of a perfectionist. Jess prefers to call me a stresser. I have learned to let go of things like a clean house and a scheduled day and am trying to spend more quality time with my kids. At the end of the day, which really matters more?

Who cares if they wanted Christmas and Halloween cookies in February?

My Savior. Without Him, none of the above would be possible. I took the kids to the IF temple visitors center yesterday to watch the Joseph Smith movie. During scripture study one night Kaden kept asking questions so I told him we could go watch the movie. He didn't take his eyes off the movie for a second and asked a million questions. It's neat to watch him build a testimony and learn about the gospel.

Ok, ok. I had to put chocolate in there somewhere, right? Ellie has an obsession with cupcakes and so I took the kids to a cupcake store in IF. Ellie was in heaven. Kaden refused to pick one out. They didn't have vanilla with vanilla frosting. What a goofball!

I love

my life.

Happy Valentine's and Kameron's walking!

These are the beautiful flowers Jess was sweet enough to give me for Valentine's day. He had them delivered to my office since I had to work. He was also my last patient of the day so that counted as our valentine's date! :) He remembered I had purple roses in my bouquet when we were married. How sweet. Aren't I so lucky?!

I love my husband more than I can say.... however. He tends to be a little on the disorganized side. Those of you who know him understand completely. I have described him many times as a tornado wreaking havoc in his wake. He leaves things in random places and loses everything. If I had a dollar for every time he said, "Where's my wallet?" I would be traveling around the world in style! For the past year and a half we have lived in this house I have refused to clean his closet. I just close the door and ignore it, trying to make him do it himself. I finally cracked this week and cleaned it for him. Needless to say I filled TWO big garbage bags full of junk. I found some really random things that made me smile and just giggle because he's so funny to me. I love that guy. Here's some of the things I found: the lost tax papers for his business that we have been looking for for ages!, 11 golf tees, 2 golf balls, 6 tubes of chapstick, 25 referral business cards, 5 pens, 6 bullets and 2 UNUSED gift cards. Here's a picture of the finished product. I put a gift bow on the door.

Ellie got a balloon for her valentine party at school. Kaden wanted to see it and let it go in our living room where the ceilings are really high. So it was stuck up there for hours until Jess got a ladder to get it down. When she finally got to play with it again she refused to let it go. She watched a movie, played airplanes with Kaden and ate all her meals with her little hand clutched to the string of the balloon. She's so funny. I love my Ellie-bellie.

Today after work I was standing in the kitchen holding Kameron on my hip and Kaden said, "Ooh mom, you must be getting ready to have a baby real soon because your tummy is huge! OR you just need to exercise, but it looks really big to me." Gee thanks Kaden. That makes me feel like a million bucks. Kids say the funniest things. And mostly, their honest.

And last but not least... Kameron is walking! He started on his birthday but he is now officially walking only and no crawling. He's so cute! He dropped weight at his one year appt and is in the 6th percentile for weight so I have to put him BACK on formula. Blah. The doctor also wants us to see a speech therapist to help him with his food aversion. He's such a funny guy. Here's some video of the monster...

Weekend in SLC

Our niece Maddie got baptized in Lehi this last weekend. It was so neat to see a baptism. I realized I hadn't seen someone get baptized in like 15 years! To help Kaden and Ellie understand more about baptism before they watched Maddie, I had an FHE lesson where I crumpled pieces of paper up and taped them to Kaden to represent wrong choices. Then when we are baptized our garbage is washed away. When we were sitting in the chapel and Maddie and Jeramy walked in wearing white Ellie said, "Mom, I still don't see Maddie's garbage!" Pretty funny. Kids are so innocent.

Kameron and Grandpa Kim. He's always so nice to give mom a break.

Jesse's mom's dog Puppy was put down a couple weeks ago. :( While we were down in Lehi they picked up their new puppy, a corgi. We stayed up half the night during Christmas vacation trying to come up with the perfect name for Mary's new puppy. She decided to name her Lucy Katherine. She's pretty cute!

I love when kids are dressed in matching clothes. I haven't been able to do that until now. Kaden is in kids sizes now so it's hard to find clothes in infant and his size. They sure are handsome. Good thing they look like their father!

Just a few words

Kaden wanted a snow shovel for his birthday (no surprise there) so he could shovel the driveway with Jess. Well as shown in the picture below Jess has never shoveled the driveway so Kaden and Ellie took matters into their own hands and shoveled for him. I had to take a picture because Ellie thought it would be best to use a garden shovel. They finally got cold and gave up.

This is a typical meal for Kameron. Everything on his tray ends up on his bib after he spits it out. He doesn't eat anything. I don't know where he gets the energy to tear the house apart everyday. I bought some pediasure today... maybe that will help him break out of the 10th percentile!

Kameron's 1st Birthday

I can never believe it when my babies turn one. That first year goes by way fast. Even though Kameron had no clue it was his birthday, Kaden and Ellie did and they were so excited all week. Kaden asked if he could stay home from school and with Jesse's permission I said "Yes!" (Most of you know my opinion of Kindergarten.) So we partied all day. The kids played with balloons all morning.

Happy birthday, new car seat! I love when I can turn the car seats forward! Kameron, of course, had a scowl on his face like always but he finally got used to his seat.

The kids wanted to go to McDonalds for lunch which is kind of a birthday tradition. Kameron was pretty hyper. Probably because his best friend Jesse was there!

My parents came down and took us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, another birthday tradition in the Wakley family. Kameron was CrAzY at dinner. We could not control the monster! All he wanted to do was sit on the table and throw everything on it on the floor.

It's not a party unless you have a party hat! It didn't last very long on his head but I had to try.

Oh look! Imagine that! Kameron has his mad face on! (That's what Ellie calls it.) He did NOT like his cupcake. I tried to get him to at least try the frosting but his scowl got worse.

Jesse is always so good to have fun in the moment! I always have to stick to the schedule!

Kameron's favorite thing to play with is cars so his favorite toy was the car he could ride. He actually had to wait his turn while Kaden and Ellie enjoyed it too.

We love our Kameroony! Like I said on previous posts he is like a new baby lately. He does not like to cuddle or to let you rock him to sleep. He will give his dad hugs and me kisses though. But only when he wants to. He's doing better at night and takes longer naps during the day. He is a horrible eater. His favorite is oatmeal with yogurt. Other than that he usually spits it back out. He loves to make funny faces and knows when people are laughing at him. He is so close to walking but refuses to try. I remember Jess and I saying "He'll be walking by Thanksgiving for sure!" He's been able to crawl and walk with his walker since he was 7 mos old and at Christmas he was walking all the way across the room. But now he won't even try to walk. Maybe someday. He loves Kaden and Ellie and they are always so nice to play with him and run into his room when he wakes up from naps. They still fight over who gets to pick out his diaper. They are pretty protective of him and always run to tell me if he has something in his mouth or is going up the stairs. He likes to throw fits already when he doesn't get what he wants which is something the other two never really did. But we love all the laughs he gives us--he's such a cutie pie. Happy birthday Kameron!

If looks could kill...

Kameron started making this face a couple weeks ago and I can easily say this is how his face looks 50% of the day. At first it made me feel bad, like he was mad at me or didn't like me. But then I realized that he makes that face for just about any emotion. When he's mad, sad, hurt, confused, doesn't like something or someone. It's pretty funny. What a cutie.

He has changed into a completely different baby within the past couple months. He had allergic colitis when he was born so he was on soy formula and was constantly throwing up. When I switched him over to whole milk at about 10 mos he completely changed. No more throwing up, he sleeps better, he actually has a personality now. He was super mellow and kept to himself. Now he's a total wild child and doesn't slow down for one second. He loves to laugh and talks all day. I didn't recognize this for what it was until he was off the formula then I realized how bad it was. When I would go get him from his crib in the morning he would have no emotion where my other kids would get excited and smile. Now when I go get him he cuddles into my shoulder and talks to me. I feel pretty badly about it. Poor kid. So in some ways I feel like I'm just starting to get to know Kameron.

So the other day Kaden and Jess were wrestling around like they usually do and Jess sat on Kaden and farted in his face. (Totally gross, I know. Where do boys come up with this stuff?) Well, Kaden didn't appreciate that so he went up to his bedroom upset. A couple of minutes later a little note came floating down from his bedroom and this is what it said, "dad win you fardid in mi fas that mad me sad." Translated it says "Dad when you farted in my face that made me sad." It was pretty funny. A couple hours later Jess made him upset again and throughout the rest of the night we got two more notes floating from the sky. They read, "mom, dad iz bad," and "dad, you ar doomd". That's Kaden for you.

I took this picture and later realized what Kaden was doing in the background! Yuck! So this last week Kaden and Ellie both had nightmares at night and I was laughing at the differences in their nightmares and now they totally match their personalities. Ellie who is dramatic and has a vivid imagination had a nightmare that she was being chased by wolves. They chased her into a wall and there was a pathway to get out but they were blocking it. Then they started to bite her arms and her back. I thought this was a pretty intense nightmare for a four year old! Very scary. A couple nights later Kaden also told me he had a nightmare. He said he somewhere eating lunch and he was so full but the lady said he HAD to eat ALL of his soup. Then he said, "It was VERY scary!" Of course this would be a nightmare to Kaden who is too logical to have too much of an imagination and follows rules to the tee. I had to laugh. I love my kids.