PARTY TIME!
I flew in my own cake maker from Washington. :) Grandma made Jayden the strawberry cake he wanted!

Jayden wanted his friend Zach to sit right next to him in the same chair to blow out his candles.

We had a bunch of fun with Silly String in the backyard. Luckily the boys were good about not shooting each other in the face with it. Jayden did manage to spray himself in the face a couple times though :)

And of course we had to test out the next sandbox toys!

Once everyone was gone, Grandpa got to reading Jayden his new dinosaur book.

And here is a picture of Grandpa, the kiddos, and Gabe, and via telephone Aunt Brynn who was calling to wish Jayden a Happy Birthday.

Jayden’s birthday party with a couple of his friends is tomorrow, but that didn’t stop us from having fun today!
Royal and I bought Jayden a Coaster Car for his birthday. It’s just the knock-off of the Plasma Car, exactly the same (as far as we can tell) but oh so much cheaper. His cousins got ones for Christmas and when we were there visiting in January, he loved riding around on them. So, we decided we’d give it to him on his birthday and give him a whole day to play with it before he had to share it with his friends coming over tomorrow. We put it together last night and put it in our bedroom. Then this morning I hear Jayden out in the living room, “Mom, I just don’t want it”
Me(from my bed): “You don’t want what?”
J: “I DON’T want it”
Me: “Ok. I’m sure it’s fine” I just wanted to go back to sleep.
J: “MOM, I said I don’t want it”
Me: “Hey, Jayden. Come into mom and dad’s room. We have a present for you in here.”
J: (much happier): “Oh? Ok, Mom!”
Me: “Look Jayden, you got your very own coaster car!”
J: (exasperated): “I DON’T WANT IT”
Well, happy freaking birthday then! :) I didn’t really say that, but I think I may have flung myself back on my pillows and rolled my eyes at Royal. Are you kidding me????
Luckily, Jayden’s attitude changed when I found out all he really wanted to do was go downstairs and wake up Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Gabe. Once they were awake, he was real excited to ride around the kitchen. I swear I told Royal this was an outside toy.

Next, Jayden got in on some painting. Did I happen to mention we decided to paint our garage? Well we did and it looks freaking awesome! But that’s a whole ‘nother post.
“Am I suppose to be doing this?”

Gabe, our foreman, inspecting the work

The boys also finished up Jayden’s sandbox today. It is huge! We are going to have so much fun in there!!

Then we went out to dinner and finished up the evening eating some gelato. Yummy!

Sorry there were no pics of Willow. Maybe tomorrow. :) It was Jayden’s special day after all.

Today, Jayden is 3 years old! My little guy who showed up 3 weeks early, tried to come out face up, and took 19 hours to get out. I can’t say things have gotten much easier. :)

Royal’s parents and his brother, Gabe, have come to visit for the week to celebrate Jayden’s 3rd birthday and to help with projects around the house. That is one thing about Lovingfoss’ - they are hard workers. Norma told me tonight to go out and get stuff to paint the walls with because she likes to have something to do. Sweet!!

Today was sunny and 88 degrees, so what do we do? We go to the zoo!!! I lubed up the kids with sunscreen, but our white Washington visitors didn’t put any on, so needless to say they got a little bit sunburned. Ooops. Break out the aloe. :)

First things first, we had to go pet the baby goats.

Then the big goats discovered Fireball (Royal’s dad) had food in his pocket and started crowding in. Jayden’s not so fond of the big goats. Good thing Uncle Gabe was around to get him up out of the action.

Gabe, Fireball, and Royal have been working out in the garage to finish insulating and sheetrocking it. And then Gabe is also gonna build Jayden a sandbox, which Fireball is staining in the picture.

And it was just so hot out that we had to turn the sprinklers on!

Happy Birthday to my OLDER sista! Love and miss you lots and lots and lots!

I know you told me you’d kill me if I posted this picture. But I’ve not only posted it once, but twice now!!! :) I do it because you can’t punch me in the arm, living way over there on the far side of the country.

Look, even Willow can’t believe how old you are. :) just kidding dude, but really for 2 months and 2 days, you are a whole 2 years older than me. that’s a lot. :)

Finally! A post that should give you a chuckle at someone else’s expense! :)

Like I have mentioned before, I leave Thursday evenings to go to a Restore the Core class, which leaves Royal home alone with the kidletts to get them to bed. There is sometimes trouble with Jayden because he likes me to put him to bed and Willow, well, Willow isn’t too fond of Royal when she’s tired or hungry, so there is usually trouble with Willow. But, it’s usually the only time of the week where I get to leave the house without the kids and do something for myself, so while I feel bad that I know Royal has tough hour or so ahead of him, I know he’s completely capable, and it’s bound to get easier, right?

Yesterday, Willow hadn’t been having a very good day. She didn’t feel very good, I think she’s coming down with Jayden’s cold, and she took 2 very short (like 30 mins) naps. So, I knew she was going to be trouble for Royal. But, I fed her, gave her some tylenol, and put her in her jammies before I left and told Royal when I thought she’d probably be ready for bed. There’s always a small little window of time with her that if you can catch it, she’ll go to sleep for you in like 5 minutes. But with 2 kids, you just cant always hit that window. So, I left, and Royal finished up dinner. (from this point on is the best I can remember from what Royal told me when I came home. hopefully I get most of it right, it’s a good one!) Royal starts getting Jayden ready for bed around 6:30, gets pjs on, brushes his teeth, and then he tells him to go pick out a couple of books. Jayden can’t find his dinosaur book. He starts crying, ‘I want my mom, I want my dinosaur book, I want my mom, I want my dinosaur book’. Royal keeps trying to suggest other books, but Jayden won’t have any of it. Willow, who’d been getting fussy for Royal, decides since Jayden is crying, she will too. So, she starts crying (and just so you know, Royal always says that ‘Willow doesn’t cry, she screams’). Royal finally finds the dinosaur book downstairs, gets it, and reads it with Jayden. He puts Jayden to bed, a whiny Jayden who keeps crying that he wants his mom (Royal cannot handle whining at all, it pretty much makes him want to hulk-out), all the while Willow is crying and crying and crying. Royal goes into Willow’s room and starts rocking her, ready for the battle between the two of them that is her bedtime. He’s in there for about 5 mins, when he sees Willow’s door open and Jayden comes in and says, ‘Hey, Dad?’ and then he proceeds to throw up all over the floor. According to Royal, it was the most puke he’d ever see come out of a little kid. So, Royal flips the lights on, puts a crying Willow in her crib, turns her mobile on, and tries to strip down Jayden, who is covered from head to toe in puke, and now really crying that he wants his mom. He tries to get Jayden to take a shower so he can rinse him off, but Jayden won’t have any of it, so he just puts him in a bath. Jayden’s crying in the bathtub, Willow is crying in her crib. Royal gets some towels to clean up the puke, dumps our entire bottle of Bac Out on the floor and scrubs. Then goes and gets the vacuum to clean up the chunks and then gets hot soapy water and scrubs the floor some more. Kids still crying. Once the floor is clean, he grabs Jayden out of the bath, puts new jammies on him and goes to put him in his bed when he discovers Jayden had thrown up all over his pillow before he went into Willow’s room. So, he finds a new pillow and a new pillowcase and finally gets Jayden in bed with a promise that his mom will come check on him as soon as she gets home. Then back to Willow, the poor child still crying in her room. He finally rocks her to sleep and gets her in her crib. It is now 5 mins to 8:00. I walk in the door 10 mins later, the house is completely quiet, but I smell the cleaner in the air and see the vacuum out and I look at Royal and say, ‘What happened?’ He had just got off the phone with his mom, telling her what had happened, and from what I hear she could hardly talk she was laughing so hard, and then he gives me a look that says I am never allowed to leave the house again and says, ‘You’re gonna need to sit down for this one. Let me just tell you what happened.’ :) I was telling Kaylee the story this morning and she had a good point, she said, ‘Well, it can’t really get much worse than that!’. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next Thursday!

Today makes me 2 years closer to getting to see my brother again. 2 years, sometimes it seems like a long time and sometimes it doesn’t seem so long. 2 years ago, I was in my 20’s, that seems like forever ago. 2 years ago, Jayden was just learning to walk, that doesn’t seem so long ago. 2 years ago, April 14th became one of the worst day of my life.

I thought I had the worst day ever in highschool. I woke up late for dance team practice, at the crack of dawn, it was during spirit week for homecoming, which meant we had to be at practice at like 6am, so we could practice our homecoming routine, and then the guys showed up later to practice our guy/girl routine for the pep rally, so I was freaking tired and overslept. Oversleep a spirit week practice and you don’t perform and I couldn’t have that. Willie sadly had to get up with me, but I’m not sure he minded because I gave a ride to a really cute fellow classmate of his who lived down the road. I quickly gathered all my stuff, shoved it and my 2 fellow passengers in the car, and tried to take off. It was dark and foggy that morning and as I was hurrying to get out of the driveway, I managed to back right into my dad’s truck. Made a big enough noise to rally my dad out of bed. Nothing like wrecking 2 of your dad’s cars to make his day. Not a good way for him to start the day either, I guess. But I couldn’t stop and argue with my dad about it, I had to get to practice. Got to practice on time, got through practice and then during the last 15 mins we were making our t-shirts with our guys for the pep rally. After my partner finished his, I was carrying them off to the locker room and managed to drop them face first on the BRAND NEW gym floor. Nothing like wet puffy paint and fabric markers on a brand new basketball court to make your coach yell at you. Then my dad shows up right before school to take my car away to get it looked at. I had the car piled to the ceiling with stuff. Dance team stuff, school stuff, tennis stuff. My best bud and fellow dance teamer, Krisy, just happened to be parked next to me and let me put all my junk in her car thankfully, because there was no way it was going to fit in my locker. Well, it started pouring down rain that day. POURING. Since it was spirit week, the theme that day was Hippy Day. One of my favs. :) I had my dad’s sweet ole bell bottoms on, a tie-dyed shirt, some burkenstocks, you get the picture. Well all the rain created a lovely parking lot puddle, so as I went out to Krisy’s car during the day to get my math book and I dropped it in the mud puddle and then had to go in after it with my little burky’s on which meant soaked feet for the rest of the day. Awesome. Could it get any worse for a highschooler? Well, turns out it could. It stopped raining during the day, enough for Tumwater to get their tennis courts dried out. So, after school, I got on the tennis bus to go finish a match we had started earlier in the week that got postponed due to rain (shocker). A match I was decisively winning. 6-1 in the first set, I was up 4-2 in the second. I get to Tumwater and manage to lose the match. All I had to do was win 2 more games and I would of been done. But no, I lose the 2nd set 4-6 and then get pummeled in the 3rd. Awesome. I think I cried all the way home. I thought that was a bad day. Turns out, there are worse things that could happen. Who’da thunk? :)

I miss my brother everyday. Some days more than others. But I think about him every day, wishing I could call him, his number still programed in my cell phone. I can still hear his laugh. I can still remember what it felt like when I was trapped in a room with him talking about his motorcycle or something I know nothing and probably care nothing about and trying to figure out how long I was going to have to listen to him go on and on and if I could come up with an excuse to get out of there. I remember what it felt like to hug him. I remember what he looked like when he thought you were stupid or doing something stupid. I remember what he looked like when he fell asleep on the couch…not pretty…he was not a pretty sleeper…mouth open, drool. I miss all my brothers and sisters out here in Kansas. I wish we could all be together today. Maybe someday we’ll all be living in the same area again. If not, well, we’ll just have to be neighbors when we get to Heaven. Until then, I’m at least extremely grateful that I can talk to them and see them, if mostly over webcams, whenever I want. I know it won’t be like that forever.

Why on earth does pregnancy, child birth, and the months following have to be so brutal on a body? And why on earth does nobody ever talk about all the things that happen? Why does it have to be a secret, until it happens to you? Then people come out of the wood work and are all, ‘oh yea, that happened to me.’ What??? Where was the warning before I got pregnant and subjected myself to all the things that might happen. After I had Willow all I wanted to blog about was how bad my boobs hurt. But I figured you all probably didn’t really want to read about me complaining about how HUGE my boobs had become and how BAD they hurt and how my nipples felt like I had been rubbing them on cement. Now, who wants to hear about that? Nobody! But this hair loss thing? It just kills me. I had the baby, my body is healing, it’s been almost 5 months. I am working on getting my body back, my poor body that has been stretched beyond repair (literally, some of my skin looks like stretched out syran wrap, but I suppose nobody wants to read about that either). Why on earth do I have to lose my hair too? Handfulls of hair everyday in the shower. It’s all over everything. I vacuum and whats in there? Hair, lots and lots of hair. It’s in Willow’s mouth, on Jayden’s clothes, in the car, on the floor, in the sink, on my pillow, it’s EVERYWHERE!!! I don’t get it, why must it all fall out? I avoid really looking at my hair in the mirror, because well it just looks ridiculous. Then, I was going through our Easter pictures and I see this :

Oh my gosh! Is that what my hair really looks like? There is so much hair gone that I pretty much will need to rub sunscreen into my hair so I don’t burn my scalp.
Take a look at what my hair should look like. This was September before Willow was born. I know the picture’s not that good, but it’s the best one I could find of the side of my head with my hair pulled back. Look at all that luscious hair.

Try not to stare at my huge boobs, I know, they are huge. An entire post should be dedicated to how I went from my little B boobs (I was very very happy with them) to my DD, probably DDD boobs that are nothing but obnoxious. But that’s not what this post is about, it’s about my hair. My poor, poor hair. With all the hair I’ve lost, I could of probably made a wig. A wig I could use right now to cover up my patchy baldness. And then, what about when my hair starts growing back in. I will look like a freaking porcupine with spikes popping up all over the place. I might as well shave it all off now and just start over from scratch. Me and Willow. We’ll grow our hair out together. It’ll be like our first mother/daughter experiment. Awesome.

We had a typical wet Washington Easter…even though we are in Kansas…Kansas, the 4th sunniest state…whatever… I’m just not sure what an egg hunt looks like without rubber boots, hats, wet clothes, the dyed eggs dye running when they come back inside. Maybe next year. :)

We bundled up the kids and Jayden got to business.

Willow hung out on the porch with dad, under a blanket, with a hat on. It just wasn’t very warm. This Kansas, it just really keeps you on your toes.

“I’m looking for something about this big”

“Ahhh, yes. Here it is!”

And since it was so rainy and Jayden has come down with a nasty little head and chest cold, we stayed inside and did inside Eastery things, like decorating bunny sugar cookies with some fantastically bright sprinkles that Grandma and Grandpa sent in their Easter package.

And then things got all crazy : Jayden eater of much too much Easter candy and all hopped up on cough medicine, Willow refuser of afternoon nap and cranky-pants yeller, Royal and Rachel seriously thinking of drinking all the alcohol in the house. But then, miraculously, (thank the Lord for miracles!) both kids in bed and asleep before 7:00. This just proves there is a God, and He knows how much we can handle. Hallelujia!

HAPPY EASTER!

This one’s for you Jessie!

Today was the first day I got to go for a long ride on my new bike. The weather and my spare time never seemed to coincide. I’ve riden my bike around the neighborhood just because it’s hard to see a new toy in the garage that you don’t get to use, but today was 65 degrees and a weekend, so Royal was home, so that meant I could actually go somewhere! I fed the family, put Willow down for a nap, and then headed off down the road.

I have been nervous about riding my bike ever since I decided to get clip-in pedals. When I was getting my bike fitted, I said something to the guy adjusting my bike about being scared that I was going to forget to unclip my feet and he said, ‘Well, everybody does it! You just pretty much tip over!’ Didn’t do much to quell my fear. Then I remembered my dear friend Jessie’s story. And then just a few days ago I was talking to my friend Tonya about my anxiety about my shoes and crashing and she said that it happens to her all the time and because of it her bike has been named crasher. Oh, crap.

I did really well all during the ride, I made sure I was going slow enough when I had to cross a road that I had time to get my feet unclipped. Until the very last road I needed to cross. Guess I was getting cocky. And well, I fell over. And did any car stop to see if I was ok? Nope. They were probably too embarrassed for me to say anything. :) So, I got a skinned knee, a bruise forming on my hip, and did I mention I sprained my wrist this week? Yea, well I did. During one of our stroller fit work outs this week. And then this morning at stroller fit there was a pushup competition and well I’m never one to back down to a competition and the pushups pretty much killed my wrist and I didn’t even win. Push ups are not my forte and well, I’m a little wimpy. So, anyway, when I fell over on my bike, I caught myself with my sore wrist. So needless to say, typing this is painful, but I figured you’d all get a good ole laugh at my expense and I’m not one to deprive anyone of a little happiness. Even if it causes me physical pain.

The sweet thing was when I got home and showed Jayden my scraped up knee, he immediately grabbed his stool and went over to the linen closet and tried to get me a band-aid. Ahhhhhh