This is why we have kids...

So we've been doing pretty good at saying an evening prayer as a family lately and we've even been giving Jonas a turn when he wants. And he's started to figure it out and it's actually quite sweet. Tonight however, it was just plain hilarious.
It was a little after 7, which is bed time, and we were all sitting on the couch reading and playing around. Jonas says "More water" and I said "Ok, jump down and get one more drink, because we're going to have prayer soon and by soon I mean in like 30 seconds" (prayer time is right before bed time). He jumps down to get his drink and I turn to talk to Joel, I turn around (seriously only like 3 seconds later) and he's on his knees with his water. So I tell Joel, hurry he's on his knees lets pray. So Joel and I get down on our knees as well and while we usually let Jonas pick whose turn it is, tonight I just said, "Fold your arms Jonas, it's Daddy's turn to say the prayer" (It's been Jonas' turn for the last few nights in a row). At which point Jonas starts saying over and over "Mommy help you, Mommy help you, Mommy help you" Which really means "Mommy help me" Meaning he wanted another turn at the prayer. I said "No, it's Daddy's turn" (keep in mind we're all ready giggling a little at him) and he starts saying "Heavenly Father, Mommy help you; Heavenly Father, Mommy help you" (We start our prayers with "Heavenly Father") by this point we're both cracking up, Joel's practically on the floor and I'm on my knees, arms folded, head down, biting my lip so hard it's about to bleed trying to not bust out laughing. This goes on for maybe 20 more seconds and we tell him again, no it's Daddy's turn, and he starts again "Heavenly Father... Heavenly Father..." We're both trying SO hard not to laugh that we're not really responding to his requests, and after maybe 30 seconds of that Jonas, who is already kneeling on the floor facing me with his knees between mine, grabs my face, turns it to his and says "Mommy, pay attention mommy... pay attention" At which point we both completely loose our composure and laugh uncontrollably.

Happy Birthday Jonas!

Well, it's official. Jonas has entered the "terrible twos". So far, not so terrible, but I hear that comes a little later in the year, so we'll see. Grandma and Grandpa Davidson and Uncle Tyler flew in from Oregon to spend the week with us and had lots of fun playing with Jonas. Tyler showed him how to fix cars and Grandma and Grandpa just enjoyed being able to spend time with him in person and not via webcam. Then Grandma and Grandpa Leonard drove down from Tennessee for the weekend and the BIG bash on Saturday. We took him and some of his friends to this huge indoor playground in one of the malls. We had a jungle themed party with the most awesome-est cake EVER! check out http://flickr.com/photos/kavingate/3209520545/ to see pictures of it. We also took pictures, of course, that morning, all of which have been posted to my facebook album, so check the links on the side for the newest album (the other two are now full).

Random Updates

Well, I haven't been all that good at keeping up with this...surprise! But a few things I've been meaning to post lately, with intentions of putting up pictures, but that just makes it take even longer for me to get around to it. So sorry, no pictures. 

Last Sunday (November 23) was our 4th anniversary and I feel it is my civic duty to make everyone else jealous of me :) It's no secret we aren't exactly drowning in money, so we couldn't do anything super special or fancy and since it fell on a Sunday this year anyways and Joel works on Saturdays, we really didn't do anything. But Joel is in charge of creating and printing the program at church, and being the graphic designer that he is always puts a picture of a temple inside and a church related picture on the outside, could be a photograph or painting, whatever. For our anniversary though he put the Portland temple on the inside and out (two different pictures), which is the temple we were married in. Honestly, at first I wasn't sure if he did it on purpose or not, or if it was just a picture he hadn't used yet. But since he changes the inside picture all the time and not everyone knows where all these temples are he puts a little line on the bottom of the back page that says which temple it is. So on our anniversary he put "Inside: Portland Temple - Happy Anniversary Kristyn!" How sweet is that?!

Along with our anniversary will always come Thanksgiving! And I am proud to say that I actually made a real Thanksgiving dinner! I'll admit my usual escape is ground turkey and mashed potatoes, Thanksgiving in a bowl if you will, but no more. It went relatively well too all things considered. The turkey was small and so it finished a little sooner than I thought it, but we had no idea how to carve it, so by the time we were done with that we had to put it back in the oven to warm back up! It was also in carving that we found the giblets, I swear we looked all over for those things and couldn't find them! I guess that's why they wrap them in paper. The biggest catastrophe was the gravy, I thought I was going to be able to make gravy with the drippings from the turkey, but that just was not working. Luckily I had a back up, but I misread the directions and thought it was a 1:1 ratio, when really it was a 1:4 (1 part mix, 4 parts water), so I ended up making twice as much gravy as I had intended, but almost ended up making 4 times as much! All in all it was great, I still can't figure out how people can get everything to all be ready and hot at the same time... I suppose years of practice. Maybe we'll have Thanksgiving twice a year at our house, I have some catching up to do I think.

And finally, I'm sure we all knew it would have to happen some day... I was getting ready this morning and gave Jonas my comb to play with while he was hanging out with me. He left the room and I hear scratching on the hallway wall. I holler at him to please stop, we don't need to comb the wall. He doesn't. So I go out there to find he is not combing the walls, he is coloring them. Needless to say, he was in big trouble and he knew it. I was actually quite impressed at how well he behaved afterwards. Usually when he gets put in time out I put him into his crib because I didn't think he was old enough to understand to stay in one place. But I told him to sit on the chair in his room and not move, and he didn't. We've now been talking all day about how we do not color on walls and we only color on paper... And now I have to paint my hallway. The crayons that he used were the ones that just smear everywhere and the paint in the hall is the cheap crappy paint that comes with the house and just washes off if you try and clean it. So for those of you who have seen our house, the hall will be the same color green as the kitchen. We decided purple (our living room is purple) down the hall would be too much purple after that big living room and I'm not taking the time to paint beige. Boring! And anything else starts to get to be too many crazy colors. So that's what I'm off to do now, except I think I need a ladder...

Pictures!

Ok kids, I gave in to the pressure and joined Facebook. So now you can find me there. Just make sure you spell my name right - Kristyn Leonard - and you should be able to find me. As part of this wonderful new world I can create photo albums and post the link to other sites - like this one. So I have added a section to the side of my blog here and as I create new photo albums you can view them! Hooray!

We Made it! Nursery Time!

 
 

 

  

Jonas finally made 18 months this past week and today was his first day in nursery. He did totally fine, didn't even care when we left and no one had to come get us, they said he even sat and listened to the lesson. Hooray! To commemorate, we went to the beach last night and took some pictures. There weren't too many good ones, he's not really an evening person, he's more of a morning person, but that's just the way the schedules worked with Joel working and everything. And I really could have used a third adult there to help corral him. He made some of the CUTEST faces chasing these birds around the beach, but every time I'd try and get to the front side of him to take a picture the birds would fly off and he'd go the other direction, so I'd have to head back to catch him before he ended up in the ocean. In the meantime Joel was tossing bread to the birds to try and get them to hang around. In the end, none of those shots worked out. But now that I know what it takes to get it, maybe next time I'll have an extra set of hands. 

Hello World!

Another fun item just provided by my parents as a birthday present - a web cam! And for the record, I think it should count more as a gift for THEM than for ME... :) But with that we can now chat and grandma and grandpa and you can keep up with the ever growing Jonas. Joel has a yahoo messenger I think it's something weird like herrnubulator or something, but Mom and Dad use Skype so we've got one of those too; under what else, leonardohana.

As far as the munchkin goes, he's doing well. He started at his new preschool two weeks ago and LOVES it! I'm actually really surprised by how well he adapted. I was a little afraid to be taking him away from his friends and the only place he's ever known besides home. But in the two weeks he's been there he has only cried once when I left and that was because I came back in the middle of the day to meet his teacher and he thought he was getting to go home but he wasn't. And I'm told he was fine about 15 seconds after I left.  He's learning more signs, thanks to the Zollinger's who loaned us some Signing Times videos. Yes, you read that correctly I have finally broken down and let him start watching TV (he's not been allowed anything up until now). BUT, he only watches these educational videos, I sit and watch them with him, they're only 30 minutes long and it's not even everyday that he watches one. They loaned us two, but we only watch one every couple days. And they have been very helpful to all of us, because it's not like Joel or I know any sign language on our own, so we're learning with him. He just is so into everything right now, he love to "read" and he's trying so hard to communicate and I didn't want to hold him back. He was ready to learn more, and this is how we're learning, for now at least.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yesterday was my birthday, the big 2-7...closing in on 30 every year, yikes! We went to the Oatlands Wildlife Center here in Savannah yesterday morning, but I forgot my camera. How, I'm not exactly sure since of all people I ought to carry a camera 24-7. But that was fun, showed Jonas some more animals, he's now signing bird, dog and cat, which is pretty cute! Then last night we went to a waterpark, again no pictures since water and cameras don't mix. But again, tons of fun was had by all! Jonas just loves getting splashed with water, he did NOT want to leave. Mucho Mahaloz to Lethe and Liz whose phone calls I missed while at the water park. I'm sorry I'm such a slacker and forget to call on your birthdays! I still want to come visit for Christmas before Jonas turns 2 and we have to pay for his plane ticket! When I talked to Braedon yesterday he said he found a family home video of us that's about 20 years old and was going to try and burn it to a DVD, if that happens I'll put a little of it here just so you can see how adorable I was at 7 years old!