A New Sunbeam

Jensen turned 3 on December 27th and is now in the sunbeams primary class at Church (class for kids age 3 turning 4).

This was his first week as a sunbeam.  Oh and I promise he did wear shoes to church.

 

Since he is a very young 3 year old I was worried about how he was going to handle the adjustment from the toys and treats in nursery to sitting with his class in primary.  Jensen rocked nursery.  He loved every second of it and sometimes would cry when we would pick him up because he didn't want to leave.  He loved his teachers and never looked back whenever we would drop him off.  

His first week in primary went ok with only a couple tears.  He was intrigued about what this big "primary" thing was that Adalyn was SO excited for him to come to.  I also don't think he totally realized that by going to primary that meant he had to skip nursery.  

After the first week in Sunbeams I could tell he was not totally sold on the whole primary idea and sadly each week since has only gotten worse.  He had a meltdown as we passed the nursery today and continued to pout the rest of sharing time.  Oh boy!

I have no doubt he will eventually figure it out and enjoy being in primary, but I am sure it will take a few more months for him to mature and grow into it.  

Thankfully he eventually settles down and has a good time with his sunbeams class.  Today after church he even told me- "I sorry for me bad choices.  I'm going to make good choices" so I think at least a little bit is sinking in!  

Jensen boy, it is fun watching you try new things and Mommy and Daddy love you!   

Ringing in 2016

The week after Christmas we decided to stay and hang out in Utah since McKay had that week off of work.  The week after Christmas was much more relaxing then week before Christmas.

We spent a lot of time playing games, going to Grandpa's basketball games, helping McKay's mom with a few projects, and letting the kids play with their toys from Christmas.  One night Adalyn convinced us all to have a tea party with her.  For Christmas I had given her my fancy tea set from when I was a kid and she is loving it.

For New years eve we ended up having an early dinner party with my mom's side of the family (around 3 pm) at my parents house.  We had a fun dinner and played a few games.  Then everyone left to put babies to bed and ring in the new year at their own houses.  After everyone left my parents house we let our \ kids stay up for a little bit and then we put them to bed around 9:30.  My parents, my grandma, and McKay and I finished off the night with a couple movies and a game of Settlers.  We were all laughing during the Settlers game about how tired we were, yet the game kept going on and on forever.  So even with the earlier party we still didn't get to bed until 1:30 am.

Here are the few pictures that I snapped of the evening.  Mostly pictures of mine and Melanie's babies because they are SO cute.  Declin was totally loving Baby B, but I don't think she was as interested as he was... then again it could have been my flashing camera that was freaking her out.  Declin has the cutest high pitched voice that he talks in whenever he sees a baby or is talking about one.

These last two pictures he is talking in his little voice, trying in vain to get her to look at him.  

 

 Also these babies have cool moms because we showed up in the same outfit.  :) We used to dress like twins when we were younger, but I swear this wasn't planned.

Declin's 2nd favorite person on our trip (besides the babies) was Draesen.  Yeah he wouldn't even look at me if Draesen was in the room.

Happy New Year!

  

The new years eve party was a fun way to end our vacation.  The day after we packed up and headed back to Idaho.  It was finally time to come back to reality.  The first week of January was rough for everyone, myself included.  It was hard getting back to preschool, work for McKay, cleaning the house, and taking down Christmas stuff, etc.  But after a few days we settled in and were happy to be back at home with our little family.

2016.  I am interested to see what you have in store for our little family.  Some of the things that we are looking forward to this year... my youngest sister's wedding this spring and then we will have them as fellow Idaho dwellers for the summer until school starts back up (they will be living about 10 minutes away from our house and helping with his grandma's farm this summer).  I am looking forward to learning more about my Webelos calling and figuring out the ins and outs of the scout program.  McKay is hoping to get caught up on work projects (someday hopefully!).  So lots of overtime in his future.  The kids are looking forward to spring and summer so that they can play outside with the neighbor friends as much as they want.  Oh and we will enter the world of public school this fall as Adalyn will start Kindergarten.  So we hope it is another good year!

My 2016 New Years Resolutions are:

1- Follow our 2016 family budget and track the money that I spend.
We have had a fairly detailed budgets the last few years.  I really enjoy the planning and dreaming parts of a budget, but the actual sticking to it doesn't always work.  SO, I am going to try and stick to it better this year (not expecting perfection).  One of the tools that I am using to help me stick to my budget is to track my expenses.  I have tried keeping track of my money before, but I have never been successful.  This year I finally stopped trying to do anything fancy with my tracking sheet and I decided to just simply write it down on a page in my notebook.  I reference my "notebook of life" several times a day so it is easy for me to quickly write down my expenses.  Tracking my expenses is something that my mom is a huge believer of and so while I knew it was important I never really did it.  But just in the past few weeks I have seen a big difference in my attitude towards money and how we spend it.  Basically having a visual is definitely helping.  Oh and of course prayer is definitely helping me stick to my budget too.  Managing money is not a strength of mine, but hopefully I can improve a little bit this year.

2. Read the Sunday school and Relief Society lessons before class each week.  Our ward is really pushing for us to read the lessons and increase class participation.  So I am attempting to do my part.  Thankfully we have 1:00 pm church so I am often reading one of the lessons the morning before church (but at least I am reading them!).

So those are my goals so far this year.  Please remind me of them often :)

Happy New Year!        


   

Reflecting on 2015

This past year was a fairly uneventful year for our little family.  We still live in the same house, McKay still has the same job, we have the same number of kids, we drive our same cars, and thankfully we are all still in good health.  So while there were few events to mark 2015 by, I am very grateful for all of the lessons that we learned and changes that we made in the past 12 months.  It was a growing year for us and looking back on it I realize that we are different (hopefully better) people then when we started the year and for that I am thankful.  

In January of last year I decided to not go into details about one of my new years resolutions on the blog.  Mostly, because the year before I had created a million resolutions and then the week later I got pregnant with Declin and they ALL went out the window.  I felt silly about all my forgotten goals.  Also I partly didn't say much about my resolution because I didn't really know how to explain into words exactly what my resolution was.  My thoughts were to work towards a more chemical free house, but I had no idea how I was going to reach that goal.

So I just thought about things for a few months and by March I started to really narrow down what I wanted to do.  Then I just started one baby step at a time.

Before I get into some of the details of things we have started in our home I just want to explain my thoughts a little bit more...

  When looking for healthier eating options back in 2012 I kept running across articles, studies, and statistics about how unsafe our daily household products were to our health.  So not only do we have to worry about what food goes into our body, but we have to worry about what goes on around us. Many of these household products biggest threat is cancer, but hormone imbalance is a big second.  Followed by a whole host of other health concerns that our common shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, medicines, mattresses, etc. can cause us.  Some of the concerns are minor and other can be severe.  It really just depends on how your body reacts to the different chemicals.  Talk about stressful!  Blah!  Aren't you feeling stressed, just by reading this?!  Every time I read another new article I got so overwhelmed that in the end I decided that I just could not deal with it all in one moment so I focused on the food aspect for a while and ignored the rest.

By the time 2015 rolled around and I had gotten into a routine with our healthier eating, I was finally ready to face my fears and turn my focus to our household products. Sl..ow..ly I started researching things.  I decided to go one item at a time and try to find a healthier alternative.  Laundry soap then shampoo followed by makeup, etc.  A lot of trial and error went on as we looked for the right fit for our family.  Most of our past household products I have used since I was young.  They were the basic Walmart/Sams club specials that I had grown to love, so replacing things was a bit rough as routines were messed with and there were new textures to get used to.

The most helpful tools that I used during this process were Amazon, the Wellness Mama website, the EWG's website with their household product grading scale, and our local Natural Grocer store (which had a lot of things for less then amazon's price).

We are far from finished, but I am really happy with the progress that we made in 2015.  Here are just a few of the changes that we have made in the past 12 months...

-Toothpaste- I now make a homemade tooth powder.  Yes it is made with clay and sort of feels like you are brushing with peppermint salt, BUT we have noticed a difference with tooth sensitivity, # of cavities (McKay used to get a new one every 6 months and now it has been 12 months since his last one), and I think it makes my teeth whiter.  Plus it is almost just as cheep as the regular fluoride stuff.  McKay loves this stuff.  I sort of miss the minty fresh breath, but it is worth it.

-Essential oils- We started collecting some essential oils and try to use them as much as we can.  I especially love using them in our diffuser to help our house smell nice.  I have now gotten rid of all of our chemical laden candles, scentsy, and air freshers.

-Raw Goat milk- I stopped nursing Declin when he was 8 1/2 months old.  Instead of going straight formula we gave him raw goat milk along with some formula.  Goat milk is the closest to breast milk and has great nutritional value and is very good for your gut flora.  Technically you are supposed to add certain vitamins and things to the goat milk when it is being used as a breast milk replacement.  But since he was older and eating solid foods plus drinking formula occasionally we felt like he was getting the nourishment he needed.  We would buy our raw goat milk from a local lady with goats in her backyard.  Declin loved it and barely noticed the switch from breast milk to goat milk.  Another big plus is that goat milk can be frozen so we would buy some once a month and then just save it in our freezer.  Once Declin turned one we switched to raw cow's milk and buy it from a local dairy.

- We switched from non stick cooking pans to stainless steal pans-  My parents were sweet and got us a new pots and pans set for Christmas this year.  Read about some safe cooking pans options (as you will see, we chose the cheapest option).

- Deodorant- I switched the deodorant that I use.  This one took quite awhile to find a kind that actually worked, but currently I am using Primal Pit Paste and it is working great so far.  We will see how it goes this summer. :)

-Make-up- So far I have only changed the mascara and foundation powder that I use, but have a new blush, concealer, and eye shadow waiting in my amazon shopping cart for me to try out.  Hopefully soon!

Anyways I am sure you get the idea and I won't bore you with a list of EVERY single item that we have switched so far, but things are going well and I plan to do a few more changes in 2016 too.

If you are considering making some changes in your house I highly recommend the Wellness Mama website.  She has a lot of clear, understandable facts about the dangers in household chemicals as well as some great realistic alternatives.  I also recommend the EWG's website.  It scores 1000's of products on a A-F scale.  A being the best.  Most of the products that we used to use scored an F.  grrr!


The second goal that I made, does not technically count as a new year resolution because I made the goal in April.  After hearing about all of the excitement about the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up   I decided to read the book.  I even had McKay read it with me and boy did I LOVE it.

The idea of only keeping the items that bring you joy was such a life changing idea.  McKay and I both got on board with the suggestions in the book and spent the summer sorting our belongings and getting rid of tons of items.  The cleaning process was such an awesome experience for me and was actually a great boost for our marriage as we worked on the project together.  I feel SO much better about my house and belongings in general.  I enjoy empty spaces and like having the things I love most surrounding me daily.  The way my house looks and feels to me makes such a difference in my attitude and outlook on life.  I did not realize I was so affected by my surroundings until I started changing things, but it had a big impact on me emotionally and spiritually.  Hopefully we can continue to focus on only keeping the things that we love in our house and lives.  Maybe it will even help us spend less money on unnecessary things!

Overall I would say 2015 was a cleansing year of sorts.  Oh and lets be honest...mostly just survived life with 3 little ones.  :)

 

     

    

 

   

  



    

    

Jensen is THREE!

Happy 3rd birthday to my oldest son!  In my mind he has been three for a few months now so it was nice to finally make it official.  

Having a boy is such an interesting experience for me.  So foreign and each of his milestones make me a little nervous (if I am being honest).  But, with that being said, Jensen boy has pulled on my heart strings in such a powerful and unique way that I am SO grateful that he is my little boy and that we get to go through this experience together.  He is definitely a mama's boy and he melts my heart each and every day.

Originally we had planned to celebrate his birthday in Evanston with McKay's parents, but when Jensen ended up sick the day before his big day we made last minute changes and decided to just celebrate in Utah with my family since they were already exposed to the lovely sick germs.  

So after a low key day of playing with the kids new Christmas toys (his birthday was on a Sunday so we could not have gone and done much anyways) we had a special dinner and then he got to open his presents.  

He got to use the "you are special" plate for dinner

For his birthday McKay and I got him a Strider balance bike.  Such a big upgrade from the princess push car he has been riding around ;)  Right now he is riding it around in the basement, but I can't wait till spring for him to ride it outside.  

My parents gave him a dress up firefighter costume and some play car keys.  Both of which have been a HUGE hit.  Also he looks absolutely adorable in the firefighter costume. 

After presents we sang Happy Birthday to the birthday boy and then had yummy brownie cake with ice cream. 

We were happy to have my parents and Mykelti there to celebrate Jensen with us.

At three years old Jensen loves cars and balls as well as jumping off of the furniture and sword fighting.  He also loves flashlights and hide and seek.  He is a big teaser and is perfecting the art of annoying his sister.  The teasing is slowly driving us all crazy!  McKay was/is a big teaser too so I think it is just in his blood.  He loves to cuddle and be held a lot still, especially right before dinner when I am running around like a crazy lady.  He isn't the best sleeper at night, but will still take a nap during the day so I guess we are compromising.  

He is doing preschool here at home with Adalyn.  He is not engaged and involved as much as she is, but he still loves doing all of the activities.  He knows his numbers 1-10 and about 3/4ths of the letters and their sounds.  He especially loves the letter J and points it out where ever we go.

He hasn't quite mastered the art of getting his own clothes on.  Partly because I just do it for him (bad I know!) and partly because he is a boy and he could care less about what he is wearing.    

He is Adalyn's little shadow and loves having her to play with.  His favorite foods are pb&j sandwiches, peach fruit cups, pretzels, graham crackers, and tortillas.  When he takes a nap he loves having a big graham cracker in bed with him.  Lots of tears are shed if it breaks in half.  

His favorite books are the No David books and any book with a monster or a bear in it.  

He loves the color orange and his favorite movies are Monsters Inc. and Night at the Museum.  

Grateful for this boy in our family and we love watching him learn and grow! 

       

  

      

Christmas Vacation 2015

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a great end to 2015.  I am excited about the fresh start that a new year brings.  Before we move on to the new year I have a few posts that I want to add about the end of last year.  Specifically ones about how my resolutions went last year.  But for today we will just focus on our 2015 Christmas vacation.

We just got back from a 2 week stay in Utah.  My parents were sweet and hosted us the whole time.  The kids got spoiled with all of the fun party food and many gifts from all their adoring fans (aka. grandmas and grandpas).  Yesterday was a big day of finally opening up all of the new toys and organizing them in the basement playroom.  The kids then proceeded to play for 2 hours on their own so I would say that they like their new toys.

Christmas break was really full the few days before Christmas with parties.

We started the week off with a party at Corinne and Stu's house where we finally got to meet baby August.  He is my kids first cousin on my side of the family and he came all the way from Connecticut to meet them.  Also at their house we built graham cracker houses.  This was our family's first time doing this together and some of us did better at it then others.  But then again... some of us have kids and some of us don't.  So who knows who would have won if their weren't kids around to add their own flair to the houses.  

Twinners!

First picture with baby August.  Oh and Declin trying out August's car seat for size.  

Four Cannon sisters back together again too!  

 Building our gingerbread houses.  And the kids eating the candy as fast as they could.  

My youngest sister, Mykelti, also got engaged over the Christmas break to Draesen Smith.  We are thrilled for them and can't wait to celebrate with them on April 30th.  So along with all of the Christmas festivities we also threw in a good dose of wedding planning.  One step included going wedding dress shopping.  We decided to make it a girls day and go to lunch after.  This is my last sister to get married so we had to make it special.

Watching Mykelti try on wedding dresses.  

We are hardly all together these days so this holiday season was such a fun treat.  Love my sisters!  And Adalyn LOVED Zupas.  She has asked me every day since we went if we can go again as get more soup.  haha!  She is totally my daughter.  Too bad we don't have one in Idaho!  

  

All of our wedding rings... oldest to youngest.  Mine is in the middle.  Can't believe we will all be married soon!

We also went to several of my dad's team's basketball games.  I love going and taking our kids since high school basketball games were such a huge part of my childhood.  Luckily they won every game over the holiday break which made going that much more exciting.

Grandpa's youngest fans

After a game one night we headed over to Draper Park to see the "tree of life" or lights.  It is always so pretty and much easier to go see then temple square (which we did not make it to this year).

The rest of the week was party, party, party.  First was my mom's family's Christmas party.  But first half of the family went shooting before meeting the rest of us at the Christmas party.  I heard Rusty was the best shooter of the bunch.    

We have not been to the Fry Family Christmas party in a few years so it was fun to rejoin in on the nativity story, white elephant gifts, and a new game- the saran wrap ball game.  Have you seen that on Pinterest?  Really fun game!  

Baby August was a perfect sleeping Jesus

The next morning was our traditional Christmas Eve breakfast at my Aunt Jennifer's house (this is my Dad's side of the family).  LOVE this breakfast and these people.  There were about 100 people there (thank heavens their house is huge to accommodate us all) and we loved chatting and playing games while eating lots of yummy food.

  Bad picture, but my kids loved the kids dance party that they had going in their theater room.  I even saw Declin copying some of the other boys break dancing moves.  Hilarious!

Christmas Eve afternoon we had great intentions of going out bowling or to a movie, but we were all pretty tired.  So instead we split up and half went shopping (one of our crazy Christmas eve traditions) and the rest watched babies.  Then we met back up and played games all afternoon and evening.  Really we played games all week.  And after not going to bed before midnight for 4 nights in a row it starts to wear on you.  So Christmas eve was a nice break from the craziness.

Christmas eve night we had a mini talent show and opened Christmas jammies.  

Everyone playing the bells for the talent show

Christmas morning!  This was SO fun and slightly chaotic.  BUT my kids loved everything that they got so it made it all worth it. 

Everything spread out after Santa had come.   

When opening gifts we did a mix of watching each other open their gifts and then just focusing our own family and letting the kids open as they wanted.  It felt like I good speed and the kids loved being able to do things at their own pace.  

My mom made my dad a quilt with his old military uniforms.  He really enjoyed it! 

Grandma gave Adalyn this Elsa night gown and she literally wore it the rest of the holiday break.  To say she loves it is an understatement!  

August's first Christmas

 Grandma and Grandpa gave Jensen his first basketball hoop.  

Santa brought Declin this cozy coupe.  

Declin showing off his new book and begging Aunt Larissa to read it to him

Some of the gift highlights for us this year...

McKay- Surface Pro (Windows version of an Ipad), New shirt

Kajsa- New diaper bag, workbooks for preschool, new stainless steal pots and pans from my parents, and a Himalayan salt lamp

Adalyn- American Girl Bitty baby doll, Elsa night gown, Mommy's old tea set from when I was her age

Jensen- Basketball hoop and train set

Declin- Pop up toy (hands down he LOVES this thing as do Adalyn and Jensen)

Christmas evening we headed down to McKay's mom's house to have Christmas dinner with her.  The kids liked playing in her new toy room and McKay was able to help her shovel all of the new snow that came Christmas night.  

Adalyn and her new baby doll

Declin thought he was so funny with the basket on his head

  I believe Christmas 2015 was a success.  

The day after Christmas, Jensen woke up sick.  It happens every year after Christmas so I was planning on someone being sick.  We had planned to go to Evanston, WY to visit McKay's dad and mom so my parents were kind enough to let Jensen hang out with them while the rest of us went to the party (we tried to not spread the germs!).  Luckily he just had a little cough so he recovered quickly a few days later.  

The party in Evanston was special and 9 out of the 12 siblings (and their families) were able to be there.  We had a great turkey dinner and then opened presents.  Liz spoils everyone every year and the kids loved it.  Declin happened to be sleeping while we opened gifts so we just had Adalyn with us.  It was nice to be able to focus on just her for a few moments and watch her open up everything.  

   

 After presents we played another white elephant game.  Then chatted some more before heading back to my parents house so that we could check in on Jensen and be there with him since it was his birthday the next morning.

Well I think I will stop there.  That was the last of our Christmas celebrations and the next week of our vacation was much slower paced.  I will write about Jensen's birthday and New years soon!

P.S.  I must give credit to my family for many of these pictures.  We combined everything that we took into a google doc. so I am not sure who took which picture.  But it was fun to have them and be able to look back on all of the fun memories!