Sweet Child of Mine

Dear Kennedy,

You are my little girl, today and forever. I am your dad and father, today and forever. I love you and you know that I love you.

You are my tender heart and you all full of love for others. Not only do you whole-heartedly love others, but you also get great joy from their happiness.  I love your tender side, but also love that you are tough when you need to be. This dad doesn't have wimpy girls, but beautiful tough ones.

You were born on December 26th, the day after we celebrate the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ. I will always look forward to the day after Christmas, the day you joined our family. You are proof of God's love for me, in that he trusted me to be your father.

Happy birthday my little blue diamond. I love you until the end of time.

Love,

Dad

P.S. provided by mom: I had to add my two cents to your dad's birthday letter you scrumptious little thing. You are truly a joy to me. I agree fully with your dad's letter and just wanted to add my favorite quotes from you this year.

Mom: "Kennedy you look awfully cute today."
Kennedy: "I know, I looked in the mirror."

Mom: "You are so lucky Kennedy."
Kennedy: "No, if I was lucky it would be my birthday."

Kennedy: "Dad, is root beer made out of bears?"

Kennedy: "Mom, you always say you are going to "run-in" but you just walk."

Kennedy: "Hmpf."

Kennedy: "Mom, why do I have to do everything?"
Mom: "Because you are my right hand."
Kennedy: "No, I'm your wrong hand."

Seven.

Dear Claire,

You turned seven at the end of November, but due to that bump you are leaning against, your birthday letter didn't get written on time. The longer dad and I have known you the more we understand why you were first. You are a rule follower, a good role model, a soft spoken teacher. You are not demanding with your little brother and sister, but usually gently guide them to making good decisions, sharing with each other and helping mom and dad. Overheard: when you were trying to convince Kennedy that she knows something that she had forgotten, "Kennedy, just keep thinking, you may be little, but you have a big brain." Not to say that you are against using less subtle techniques from time to time as well. You are good at the whine, my girl, really good. Your flaws make you real though, so we embrace that part of you too.

Claire are a sunshiny girl. You notice the little magical things in life. You point out delicate cocoons on trees, gather colorful leaves into bouquets, follow butterflies and love any creature God has created. You catch frogs, lizards, bugs and anything you can get your hands on. You have no fear about creepy crawly things, which is one of the things your dad adores about you.

I love that you still are enamored with art. I think your creativity is incredible and it amazes me how you mind can take colors, shapes and patterns and make such lovely designs out of them. I have binders full of your artwork and try every few months to condense your art into just one binder, but I really struggle to say good-bye to each stage of your talent. I love to see your trajectory and how quickly you improve and learn new things.

You love school and learning. You are very diligent and mindful of "the rules". Your teacher, Ms. Carronna, loves you too. Again, you are a quiet leader at school, but are typically found doing what is asked of you and leading by example. You are reading and writing well and love Junie B. Jones books this year.

You take piano and golf and we are establishing some really good habits on how to work hard to learn new skills. Where practice was hard and required a lot of cajoling, both positive and negative, at the beginning of the year, you now practice when asked and really enjoy seeing your progress.

For a girl who hated to snuggle as a baby, you have become a snuggly little thing. You like to be by my side and listen to adults talk. When we are aware you are listening and when we are not. You remember our words, our stories and the nuanaced way we talk about things. In this way, I think you are a lot like me that this age. I loved eavesdropping and getting a glimpse of a non-child world, too. Like you, I'd keep quiet when adults talked and listen as long as I could until I was tossed out of the room. We toss you out too when we find you listening in, but you always come back to me with questions about what we were talking about and nothing is missed on you.

I find you magical, Claire, I check on you each night before I go to bed and fall in love with you all over again. I'm glad you were my first and know that you were meant to teach me how to be a mother.

Love,

Mom

And from Dad:

My dear Claire,

Thanksgiving day was my first introduction to you. For the rest of my life here and forever, I will be grateful for your birth on that day and on every day. Watching you grow over the last seven years have been one of the best experiences of my life. I am so proud of the little girl and big sister that you are. I love you with all that I am and know that your Heavenly Father loves you perfectly as well.

Your gift to me is the opportunity that I have had to watch you grow and learn. You take your responsibility of being a big sister very seriously. Kennedy and David watch you and follow your example. I have seen the joy in your eyes as you help others.  Continue to be mindful of others around you and help them to achieve their potential and dreams.

When I see your curiosity, I see myself in you. I love that in addition to your feminine side, you are also a little tom-girl—ready to stare down a snake, trap a lizard or catch a dragon fly. Your life brings me excitement, love, joy and peace.

I promise to you to do all that I can to help you grow up to be a confident, fulfilled young lady. A lady ready to face the world and all of its challenges and adventures.

Get ready Claire, it is going to be a great adventure!

Love,

Dad

Sister Love

When Kennedy laid down for her nap a few days ago while Claire was at school, she looked over to Claire's neat made bed and asked me to mess it up for her. I asked her why she wanted it messed up and she looked forlornly at me and said, "Every time I am trying to fall asleep and I look at her made bed and it makes me so sad to know that she isn't here".

There is nothing better than sister love. My girls are fulfilling a dream I didn't even know I had by cherishing each other. It has become one of the most fulfilling things to see their friendship grow. I just hope that David and our new baby boy will learn to love each other like my girls do.

Two

Milk.
Golf.
Sleep.
Repeat.

This pretty much sums up my newest two year old. David seems to only have one gear when it comes to things that he loves, full throttle. First and foremost, he loves his milk. He started craving it before he was even born. When I was pregnant with him I had an insatiable thirst for milk and not the watered down variety—whole, rich milk. I easily drank eight full glasses of it a day and I am sure that was why he turned out to be almost eleven pounds. Ideally, he would only drink milk and consume no food, except for a random sucker here or there. His favorite flask remains the bottle, preferably, dangling from his lips. Shhhh, it's on our two-year-old agenda to rid him of it.

Second, he loves golf. We've seen him playing naked, in a diaper, in his church clothes, in a Halloween costume, with actual clubs—both his, the girls and Dave's—and makeshift ones (picture sticks, pencils, swords, anything somewhat straight, no matter the length), in a 100 degree weather outside, in 40 degree weather outside. No matter, he is obsessed with it. He even loves to watch it, a sure sign of a true addict. He'll come and sit by Dave on the couch, grab the remote control and point it at the TV and say "golf". His concentration to the sport is pretty amazing to me. David will regularly play, independent of any prodding by me an hour a day by himself. Not just the random picking up a stick and swinging it variety of play, but lining up his feet with the ball, settling into soft knees, swinging, then hitting the ball accurately. He even follows through with that little heel popping up. Then he'll play with Dave or his sisters or me again as many times as he can convince us.

A close third, David loves basketball. This is a pretty cute sport to watch a one then two-year-old play. He's small and basketballs are heavy and big, but he dribbles and attempts to shoot. Dave calls him the eternal optimist because he will get right under a standard size basketball hoop and shoot and shoot. The ball literally goes an inch or two above his head. Regardless, he loves it. We bought him a child-size hoop with a ball, but this doesn't really do the trick. He prefers the real McCoy.

David loves his dad. I love to see how he lights up when he comes home and even how he crumples when he leaves. There is no one he would rather play with, follow around, sit still with, snuggle or just be with. I know, in part, he loves golf and basketball because Dave loves them, but I also think that they just have a lot in common. David is easy-going, fun and always moving, just like his dad. He also has his dad's crazy focus when he gets hooked by something.

Luckily, my boy loves to sleep too. No process. No drama. Just lay the boy down in his crib or Pack n' Play and he is out. I love that HE loves this because it gives me that needed to remember how much I love this little boy and focus on the minutes of his day and the details of his growth.

He loves a lot of other small things too: full-mouthed slobbery kisses, popcorn and a home movie, silent tantrumming, climbing things, jumping off things, skateboards, soccer balls, playing in parked cars, his Nike tennis shoes, his sister's shoes, wrangling a chicken, playing with water, dumping water and all of us. Mister, the feeling is mutual.

Book Club Calendar 2013

I've been hosting a book club for four years now. I still really love it and am so happy that we still have faithful members, new and old. In case you need some book ideas for the year, here is what we are reading.

Del Sol Ragnar

Complete Ragnar #2. Check. A few weeks ago we loaded up the cars and The Real Housewives of Palm Springs set out to complete our second 202 mile relay race from Wickenburg to Scottsdale, Arizona in a day and a half. We had an amazing trip and it was A LOT easier this time. I think we were all in better running shape and knew how to prepare ourselves a bit better for the emotional turmoil it puts you in to run three times in a day and a half, on no sleep, while surviving on whatever random treats you stocked in the car.

Before we left I kept thinking, we don't have to do something so dramatic just to have an excuse to do a girls trip, but after returning, I'm so glad that this is what we did. As moms, we do hard things all the time. We wear ourselves out. We go through emotional days with our kids. We feel like we aren't going to be able to finish our job the way we want to. At risk of sounding like a contestant on The Bachelor who claims that bungie jumping is a perfect analogy for falling in love, in crazy way the Ragnar is a good comparison for mothering and is proof positive that when you stretch yourself beyond what you thought you were capable of it is always astounding to think how much more you could do than you thought. Nostalgic, I know, but it really was a great trip and learning experience. And yes, I got weepy many times. I am really emotional, in a good way—I hope—when I run.

All that said, here are my favorite quotes from our van on the trip:

"I'm a very fearful person, Marci." Dayna

"You look like Angel Moroni with that." Tara to Monica while blowing her horn.

"I do pay attention when I text and drive." Jenie

"This is a great wind breaker, in a good way." Dayna

"2.5 is running on a level surface." After a conversation on how I trained at an incline of 2.5 in preparation for my hilly runs on the treadmill. Marci

"I think I'm preparing for a famine." Discussing the amount of food she has been eating. Monica

"Redo." Tiff

"We're popping Ibuprofen. I'm breaking ice packs. I'm swearing. It was a whole big ordeal." Dayna greeting me after my 2nd run.

"If I fall asleep, I may fart. Just warning." Monica

"I can't get on the bumper." Monica "I'll give you a boost." Dayna

"I'm going to get that SAD disease from running in the dark so much." Dayna

"Let's just get this done." Tiff

"I look, not angelic, but like a white devil angel." Dayna

"I just got my fifth wind." Jenie

"Tiff, you freaking had a baby in a car. You can do this!" Tara

"Squirrel!" Jenie

"I'm telling you, Ragnar Rapist!" Dayna

I blinked and she turned four.

The day after Christmas Kennedy turned four. Ever since, I have been thinking about what I wanted to write to remember about her being three. Three was particularly scrumptious on Kennedy. I really love this age when kids are old even to communicate almost anything, but everything that comes out of their mouth has a first-time-its-ever-been-said feel to it. They are so fresh, open-eyed, trusting and confident and all of this is true for my Kens.

Kennedy loves clothes. She goes through multiple outfits each day. At the beginning of the year, she would literally wear ten different outfits a day, but now we are down to about three—not including dress-ups. I wouldn't quite call her a fashionista, because I would think that you would have to have style or even just a simple coordination of colors, fabrics, or accessories for that, but she definitely has a point-of-view. She picks all her clothes now. I have just given up. She cares so much about it that it is really hard for me to protest. I sort of love wondering what she will walk out wearing each morning.

While she loves clothes, she detests sleeves, pants, or even socks. This works, for the most part, in a primarily warm climate, but getting her to wear warm clothing is a struggle. We settle on layers. She is warm-blooded, for sure. At night, Claire will be snuggled under several blankets while Kennedy sleeps in flimsy little pajamas and then throws off all the blankets. I love to see her sprawled out with arms hanging off the bed and one leg propped against the other at night.

Kennedy tells "stories" right now. I hate to call them lies because when pressed she will tell you that she is just pretending or imagining, but there are a lot of mysterious friends, play dates, places she has visited out there. Claire is very factual about Kennedy's "stories" and spends a lot of time scrutinizing these stories for truth and error.

My girl has daily quotables. At night, Dave asks for stories of what the kids said or have done and Kennedy typically has several. She asked me to put her hair in a bun the other day as she was going to a party and was "going to be eating cake". On Claire's birthday, she said in her prayer, "Bless CC on her, wait a minute, let me count, and then counting on her fingers, 'One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six', sixth birthday." In the car the other night, Kennedy asked Dave to turn on the internal lights. When he asked why she said, "So I can find my bummy". Dave told her that she didn't need a light to find her bottom. A minute later, she shouts out, "I found one!" and then a minute later laughing, "I found another one!".

Kennedy still loves her blanket, but has added a stuffed mouse, Razzle Dazzle, to her comfort objects. Of all the stuffed animals she could attach too, she choose one that her dad won for her out of a vending machine.

I asked Claire what she likes about Kennedy and she said she likes that she is kind. She really is kind. She is a mother at heart and a protector. She looks out for David and Claire. She makes sure that their needs are being met. She gets David food, leads him by hand away from dangerous situations and rubs his back when he gets hurt. She comforts Claire when she is upset, will take the higher road in disagreements with her and is always ready to forgive.

Kennedy is very independent, in many ways more independent than Claire. It amazes me the things she can do on her own. I would never test it, but I am sure she could survive in our home for weeks on her own (or at least until the food ran out) and maybe even take care of David while doing it. She has even changed David's diaper. She tried a poopy diaper the other day, but quickly discovered she was in over her head.

Kennedy asks for "X's and O's", hugs and kisses. Claire taught her this, but Kennedy is keeping it alive. I am loving her coming to me and asking for four X's and fours O's, "cuz I'm four years old". I can't squeeze her or love her enough. She is a gift in our home.