What You Don't Know

What you don't know before you become a parent is all the worry that comes with the territory. I think that's the hardest part about being a mom--you're so vested in these little people and in giving them a good life and raising them well, there just seem like an endless amount of things to worry and fret over. It kind of gives you perspective about the important things in life.

I love these two little people. They are my whole world. Nothing compares to the way Kara runs at me and hugs me and tells me, "you're a good mommy!" or the way I can pick Jessalyn up when she's crying and she nestles her head in my shoulder. I am truly blessed.

Right Now

Right now, my life consists of a never ending cycle of laundry, baths, feeding my children, bouncing the baby, and chasing after Kara. I'm basically a glorified maid/chef/food factory (I say glorified because I'm pretty sure regular maids/chefs/food factories don't get the benefits of kisses and hugs and laughter and snuggles from the people they cater to). I am loving it (except the laundry) yet feeling my brain go to mush as it is all becoming one long endless blur and I can no longer keep track of which day it is! I kept thinking yesterday was Saturday.

On another note, Kara is potty trained! After she finally decided to use the potty, it only took a couple days for her to start telling us on her own, and about two weeks to be accident free. My sister was a HUGE help. I'll write more about the whole process later (and it WAS a process!) I'm so glad to be rid of her diapers.

P.S
These pictures give a misleading idea that I never do Kara's hair. I do, in fact, do her hair every day... For some reason, I always take pictures of her in the morning before I actually do her hair. She really isn't a ragamuffin! Now, whether or not I do something other than a pony tail with MY hair is a totally different story.

Feeding the Horsies

Kara loves the pony and the horse at the ranch. She loves when they come up to her so she can feed them, so every time we go to the ranch, she anxiously asks if the horsies are going to come. This morning, we finished feeding the animals and the horses came up to us. Kara had a blast playing with them!

No Doubt About It

I think my girls are adorable.

Playing At Nana's House

We have been spending a lot of time at my mom's house--I've been able to keep her company while she is busy around the house, and she's been able to help me with Kara. Nana's house is one of Kara's favorite places to go--she asks every day if she can go to Nana's house! It's no wonder why--Kara loves her Nana and Grandpa (and auntie and uncle), plus, she gets lots of running time in the grass! I don't think Kara would ever stop running if she didn't have to.

How We Spent Independence Day

In spite of the firework ban here in Colorado because of the terrible fires and heat, we managed to have a pretty great 4th of July.

Originally, we were going to go to a pancake breakfast at church, but my mom told me that my dad was going to be in a big parade at the same time, so Kara and I decided to go watch Grandpa and Nana instead.

The parade was a lot of fun! Kara's favorites were the horsies (of course), the firetrucks, and Grandpa and Nana as they pulled the truck with the float on it. There were a whole bunch of cool old cars in the parade, as well as some singing groups and some dancing groups. It got hot by the end, but it was worth it!

Waiting for Nana and Grandpa to come by

Here they are!

Waving at Nana and Grandpa!

Later, after we went home and took a nap--well, actually, I took a nap, Kara pulled all of the clothes out of her dresser, all the toys out of her toy box, and all the stuffed animals out of her closet--we headed over to my mom's house. We all sat in the shade while Kara ran around in the grass (she loves playing in the grass!) and played with her ball. Eventually, Grandpa came out too and played a little catch with Kara. She loved it (and I think he did too!)

Meanwhile, the dog decided she was a little thirsty and snuck a drink out of my water. After she drank it all, she tipped it over and ate all the ice!

After dinner, we finished up the day by going with Grandpa and Nana to the ranch to feed all the animals. I might have *accidentally* let all the chickens escape from the chicken house when we were trying to move part of their yard/pen, so we spent quite a few minutes rounding them up and shooing them back in to their house. My dad wasn't very happy about it, but it was kind of funny and cute because they realized that there were loads of grasshoppers waiting to be eaten in the field next to them, and they all started running around and catching as many grasshoppers as they could. We move their house (it's called a chicken tractor) every day so they have fresh ground to peck at and new bugs to eat every day, but they had eaten all the grasshoppers in their house for the day, so they were pretty thrilled to have such a treat. I'm pretty sure they ALL got a grasshopper (or 2 or 3) last night!

I fed the pigs last night, which I do whenever I go out with mom because the pigs are my favorite. The little girls (there are 4 of them) had to wait while I fed the 2 bigger sows, and when they saw that I was coming back to feed them, one of the girls started running in circles around her trough and wagging her tail. I love the pigs because they have so much personality.

I hope everyone else had as good a day as we did!

Lazy Day

I have been feeling more and more tired every day, and have had almost no energy to do anything--eating, showering, battling my 2-year old. Everything has just seemed like a giant chore the last couple of weeks. My doctor had her nurse contact me today, and she is somewhat concerned about one of my lab results--I have to have some more tests done on Friday when I go in for my appointment--so that may be why I have been so stinkin' tired lately.

 Anyway, I really had a lot I needed to do yesterday. Among things on my "To Do" list were clean house, finish the laundry that has been sitting around for days, put the zipper in Kara's shirt, send something in for school, go to work... But after Kara and I ate breakfast and showered, I just didn't have the energy to do ANY of that. I still had to work in the afternoon, so I weighed the pros and cons and decided that I needed to lay in bed so I would be able to do my job and take care of the kids at school. Kara and I got dressed, hopped on my bed, fluffed my pillows, and I pulled out the iPad for her. I felt like a bad mom for letting the iPad be the babysitter, but it sure felt nice to relax and rest before I had to work in the afternoon! Kara also had a blast, I might add. After she jumped on my bed a few times, she snuggled right in next to me and played games and then watched The Land Before Time on Netflix (that's what I REALLY feel guilty about. I don't believe in movies except on special occasions, and I REALLY don't think a movie should be babysitting my daughter). The snuggling was pretty nice, and so was the little nap I caught before work.

And can I just say, it constantly amazes me that Kara knows how to manipulate my iPad better than I can.

Kids Say The Darndest Things

I think I've mentioned before that Kara is a little bit precocious. She has said a couple outrageous and funny things this week that I just had to write about.

On Wednesday, Jon and I went out for our anniversary. My sister told me that she had taken Kara up to go potty, and Kara wouldn't go. We've been telling Kara that big girls go on the big girl potty, and that she is a big girl and gets to do big girl things--that only babies wear diapers, and babies can't do big girl things. Well, Kara wouldn't go potty. Refused. So finally, my sister asked Kara, "Are you a big girl? Do you want to do big girl things?" and Kara told her, "No, I'm a baby. I be a big girl tomorrow."

She has also been telling us things like "it's ok" or "it doesn't matter" when we tell her not to do something. When we went to get Kara after dinner, my sister told Kara to do something and Kara told her "it doesn't matter." She has been very sassy lately, so after she sat in time out, I told Kara to go apologize to my sister for being a sass. One thing you should know about Kara (that I didn't think about at the time) is that she drops the "S" on the front of words. So she marched up to my sister and said "Hayna, I sorry for being a ASS." With emphasis on the last word. We all fell out of our chairs laughing! It was totally innocent, but funny just the same.

The other day, I went to Target to pick up a few groceries and my sister came along. While we were there, she bought some cute little onesie outfits that were on clearance for the new baby. When I brought them home, Kara got so excited. She told me "Those Jessalyn's swimmin' suits? She going swimming with us?!" She was so excited at the thought of her baby sister going swimming, but I had to explain to her that they were just regular clothes. She has been getting more and more excited and interested in having a baby. I hope she stays that way after the baby is born!

Random Happenings

These last couple of weeks, we've done a lot of things. For work, we went to a baseball game and an airplane museum, which were pretty cool.

The museum had the only Star Wars X-Fighter plane in existence, which was used in the movie, so I had to get a picture of it for Jon.

My mom and dad had a shipment of baby turkeys come in. Baby turkeys are extremely fragile, so one of them got sick and I tried to nurse it back to health. It started doing ok for a little while, but sadly, didn't make it after the next morning. I was pretty sad, but I also realize that it's the circle of life. The turkeys are so cute though--here's a picture.

We went to the zoo for my mom's birthday. Kara was pretty good up until the end, and then it was NAP TIME! She got so cranky! For dinner, we all went out to Pappadeaux, and it was delicious!

My grandma came in town for my mom's birthday, so we spent a little bit of time playing at the pool (Kara LOVES swimming and jumping around in the baby pool) and looking at quilt stores and just spending time together. Well, I have actually had to work most of the time that she's been here, but I've still been able to sneak in a little bit of fun. 

I got my mom to do Instagram with me a few weeks ago, and we have been having a great time doing it together. We have been doing a couple daily/weekly challenges, and these are a couple of the pictures I took for them:

Anyway, that concludes the randomness for now!

Just Because

Yesterday, we were gone all day at the hospital (my doctor wanted me to go have some tests run, but I'm fine), so we didn't really have a chance to work on potty training. I was worried that Kara would be uncooperative today because of it, but so far, so good!

This morning, we put her panties on and she happened to see this hat that she has (it has a kitty on it), so she immediately put it on after breakfast and started running around the house with it on (sideways, I might add).

She has been awfully precocious lately. Yesterday when we were driving to Denver, she told me "mommy, my name is Kara." I told her that she was right, so then she said, "Don't call me Kara. Call me babe!"


 She also knows how to spell her name, which is so cute, and tells me "B is for Bouncy Ball," among other things. We have been working on numbers and letters a lot, so it is fun to see her starting to put things together.

 And just because, here is the picture of her from this morning!

Friday Morning Madness

Our morning has been an adventure. When I was in the shower, Kara used her stool to help herself to chocolate in the candy drawer. When I got out, I was met with a giant mess of wrappers on the floor and chocolate all over her face.

Later, Kara decided to throw all the toys out of one of the toy boxes and yelled "mommy, look! I can lay down!" Climbing in and out of the box has entertained her now for at least 30 minutes!

A Few Generations of JNP Ranch

I "grew up on a ranch," so to speak. My mom has a long family history of ranchers, and my dad has a lot of family who farms in the Midwest (he goes out to help every year). I guess you could say that ranching and the Spirit of the West runs in our veins. Although we lived in a subdivision, in 1998, my dad was able to acquire a piece of land  about ten minutes from our house and started raising a few head of cattle, and from then through all of high school, the ranch was a part of daily lives. I can't say it was my favorite thing to do (I hated fixing fence, and we had a number of times where we had to go out and feed in the snow). Over the years, we had chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows. We all experienced bottle-feeding animals that couldn't (or wouldn't) nurse from their mothers, sterilizing males, helping birth animals--all the stuff that normally goes on at a ranch. When I left for college, I was glad to put the ranching days behind me.

However, I got older, got married, and had a little kiddo. Somehow, my ranching roots came back to me, and I realized that I actually enjoy helping my dad and spending that time with my family. One thing we have never missed out on is attending the Hometown Rodeo (I've written about it in the past), and I guess I just started to realize that I like being a "redneck" as my brother puts it. One of my dreams has always been to own a modest home with a really giant yard. I think I have a somewhat romantic ideal of what family life is like for us at the ranch, but it's my ideal, and I am going to cling to it.

Part of my renewed investment/interest in our family ranch comes from watching the love my daughter has for going out to help grandpa and his piggies (plus, she really loves the pony--and so do I!) I love seeing Kara and my dad get to share this special thing together, and it has helped me to realize a softer side to my dad that I didn't see when I was younger. A few weeks ago, we helped my dad build a chicken tractor for some new chicks he was getting, and then later, Kara went out with my mom and dad when they were putting up new fence so they could put the sheep out to pasture. My mom sent me these pictures::

Kara running to help grandpa

Later that week, I was at work and Jon wasn't able to watch Kara, so mom and dad took her to a 4H show in Kersey where a girl who bought one of dad's lambs was showing him. My mom says Kara had a blast! Kara told me that she had hotdogs for dinner, had candy, saw lambs and piggies and horsies. When she is a little older, I think I'm going to let her do 4H--she really really loves the ranch.

So, I may not always have the fanciest house, and my family really might be a little bit "redneck," but I love my family, and I love the lessons I learned growing up. I think learning the ethic of hard-work and learning that family is all you really have in the world (besides the Gospel) is part of what makes me who I am. For that, I am grateful for the experiences we've had, and I only hope that I do as good a job of passing those lessons and tears and laughter down to the next generation.