Kyndall is crawling

As of Monday, Kyndall has joined the ranks of mobile infants! She is so proud of herself and you can just see her excitement now that she knows she can get ANYWHERE she wants. She is also pulling up on everything including her bed so naps have become a game of "mom I can't get down so therefore I can't take a nap". With this new talent has come some new obstacles. She gets herself into places she can't get out of. It has become a great game of "Where's Kyndall" in pictures we take. Here are just a few:

This is Kyndall underneath a shopping cart. How she got under it this way, is beyond me!


Can you see her? I'll give you a hint, she has on pink. Yep, there she is UNDER the table. Ryan witnessed this one and said she had fun for a little while until she realized that she was stuck. Funny!


Although I am so excited to have witnessed this new step towards being a toddler, it makes me increasingly sad. She is still so much of a snuggler that I can't really complain. I can't help but pick her up everytime she cries, she won't be like that for long. I just can't believe how fast time has gone when it comes to all the kids! What a blessing they all are!

Spring Break Chaos!

Spring break has come and gone! We decided that we would venture out for our first family vacation with all 3 kiddos. We picked somewhere close so, well so we wouldn't have to be in the car very long. Car rides and Kyndall don't always equal fun. We decided on Omaha. It has a good childrens museum and of course a fantastic zoo. We also counted on swimming some of the time so we knew it would be a perfect getaway. The trip was...horrible, no...crazy, no....sleepless, yes....a learning experience, yes that is what we will say it was. Here is what we learned:
1. Ella has to have a nap or else she turns into this monster that I choose to not handle. She was crying louder than her sister in the very quiant and VERY quiet restaurant.
2. Chase can't sleep in the same room with ANYONE else. He can't sleep with snoring or heavy breathing and he makes sure that you know it!
3. Chase and Ella can NEVER share a bed together in a hotel room. I repeat NEVER!
4. Orbitz or any site like that will ever get our business again. I am sure the feeling is mutual. Dealing with a mother that got NO sleep and is 3 hours away from home and just wants to get back as fast as she can go, doesn't equal nice on the phone to talk to.
5. The Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Omaha is a FANTASTIC place to stay. We will be going back there to finish up our stay, just Ryan and I.
6. Last but not least, Kyndall was the best kid on the whole trip and she was the one I worried about the most!
As you can tell our trip was cut short by us and our lack of persistence when it comes to traveling with kids. Ryan and I don't do well on no sleep and we may not have come back with any kids had we stayed another night.
So we came home early and got back in the car and went to Nanie and Papaws. I was going to get a little break! We had a good time there except for the fact that I got deathly ill with a sinus infection. Guess what, we came home early for that too! AHHHH, can I get a break please! God I think finally felt sorry for me and allowed the last day of break to be 70 degress (after 5 months of snows and freezing temps). Ryan took off work and we went to a fabulous park! The kids enjoyed the ducks, geese, turtles, and fish. We got coffee after our park adventure and headed home so that Ella could get her nap in.
Looking back on break it is funny but at that moment in time it wasn't. Parenting is the hardest thing I have ever done, I know cliche' yeah? But truely it is. These little people sabotage your whole life, make you feel like an idiot, make you want to pull your hair out, make you scream/cry more than you used to, and then they turn around and say "Mommy I sure do love you". Poof, it is all gone. What other relationship is like that? And even though it is the hardest thing in my life, there is NO WHERE ELSE I WOUD RATHER BE! Even at 3am, in a hotel room, with a 2 yr old awake and singing wonderpets theme song, and a 9 yr old screaming at her to shhh from under the fold out bed. And yep I said from under the bed.