A Sandbox and other Tales

Here's a cute story. We had the Bishops over for dinner last weekend and if they want to stay late, the only thing that works is putting Ty and Caelen in Caelen's room for a little "sleep over". Ty cozies up with his blankets on the floor while Caelen chats with him from her bed. You can hear these little voices going well past when they would normally be asleep. This is what we found when they went to take Ty home for the night.

For the first time in history Thomas estimated how long it would take him to get a project done and he was right! Estimated time : 20 min. Project: Sandbox.

He ended up buying river sand because it was way cheaper than the play sand and I wasn't there to insist he get the good stuff, but the girl's aren't ever gonna care.

While Caelen broke it in, Addison checked out the trees that have filled out in the past couple of weeks. She was quite happy!

And so here's our week in pictures, because I take too many and can't help myself from posting a ton:

Where's my suitcase?

My two year old got fed up with it all and tried to run away from home yesterday. We found her half way down the driveway (she had exited out both open garage doors) saying, "I'm leaving, I'm going away now." When Thomas picked her up and threw her over his shoulder to bring her back in, she laughingly protested. What set her off? I told her I wasn't going to take her shirt off because she got a little droplet of water on it. Poor thing, it's a wonder she hasn't tried it sooner.....

Happy Birthday & Easter

I wonder what impression Sunday made on Caelen. I wonder if every Easter she'll think she should sing Happy Birthday to Grandma and Grandpa, or if when it's their birthday if she'll start looking around for Easter eggs. But I'm willing to bet she just won't remember.
Either way it was the first Easter egg hunt for Caelen and it was my mom AND dad's birthday on Sunday. Church was wonderful with a ton of baptisms and people excited about their new (or long) walk with the Lord. Thomas was singing which meant I got to get myself and 2 little girls ready for Easter service by myself! (Did I mention service is at 8:15 am!?) But we made it ;) And on the way home from church Caelen just wanted me to tell her stories about Jesus. When I was done she'd want another one! It tested my Bible knowledge (and creativity, making those stories so a 2 year old can understand what your talking about takes some quick thinking!) and when I told her Jesus died she got so sad, but then I got to tell her He rose again, that's why we celebrate Easter! And He went to live with His Father in Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to live in our hearts. She got so wide eyed and said, "In MY heart Mommy??" and I told her yep, if she wanted, she just had to ask Him. She pondered that for awhile and then asked for another story. Sweet little heart.
After a quick bite at home, and constantly reassuring Caelen that we WERE going to Grandma and Grandpa's we just had to _______ first and then we'd go (wait for papa to get home, eat lunch, feed Addison, whatever.)
Joy is a 2 year old girl finding Easter eggs. Just see for yourself.

She spied an egg on the other side of the trampoline, and heck, the shortest distance between two points....

Yes, she's pulling at her chin and saying something like, Hmm.. there's still more, let's keep looking. At one point she told us all to "Shhhh! We don't want to scare the other eggs away!"

Getting some golfing lessons from Grandpa.

Imagine how colorful her hands were afterward!

Our first annual Kline Family Easter Egg Coloring Day! (or something like that....)

All home grown eggs! Caelen had a blast coloring, and putting stickers on her eggs. On Easter, which is my parents birthday, we'll have dinner at my folks and a big Easter Egg hunt for Caelen after church. She doesn't know this yet, we take life one day at a time :)

Here's a big smile from my baby girl! She was very smiley this particular night.

And this is what you might see in my house during storytime before bedtime....

Snow Trip '09

Weekends go by quickly, but these kinds of weekends go by in a blink! I definitely don't feel like 2 nights at Donner Lake satiated my desire for vacation. I wish it had been a week!

I got the idea when Caelen became obsessed with Frosty the Snowman this past Christmas. How fun it would be to let her make a real one of her own! I picked Donner because we've always driven right past it on our way to Tahoe and I always wanted to stop and stay. With Addison's birth scheduled for snow season I decided to push out the trip as far as possible and still have snow. Which led us to this weekend.

This was the very first time Caelen ever set foot, touched, or was this close to snow. As you can see, she was so excited! Her and I couldn't stop giggling as we slipped and slided and sunk into the snow. The snow was hard packed and icy. By no means did it cover the ground but Caelen didn't know what to expect and we weren't going for any other reason but to vacation and watch Caelen enjoy this new experience so the conditions were fine for our purposes.

We arrived Friday afternoon about 4 hours ahead of my parents. Once Thomas had hauled all our junk to the rather spacious condo, Caelen and I headed out to enjoy whatever snow we could find around the complex. We found a little clump of snow that made a good slide!

We enjoyed dinner at a rowdy local restaurant, perfect for having children as no one can hear my kids yelling and crying or overall grumpy moods that might (actually, will) occur. After our truck slid all over the parking spot we had chosen, we headed back arriving just about 15 minutes ahead of my parents.

Then, just to remind me that I'm never really on vacation, Caelen had night terrors all night and kept screaming or waking up and coming to get me (we slept in the same room as Caelen.) When I was finally settling in for a good nights sleep, it was time for Addison's feeding. I think I finally fell asleep about 3:30 am.

The next day (after waking at 7:00) we walked to a playground all covered in snow. We HAD to make a Frosty or die because Caelen had been looking forward to it since Christmas. Well, the snow conditions weren't very conducive to a snowman. Not only could we barely break it apart to clump it together but then it wouldn't stick. So we made a Frosty head. We couldn't stop laughing as we kicked at the hard packed snow, scooped whatever shavings we could muster together and realized this was going to be a pretty pathetic Frosty.

Poor Caelen said, "That's not Frosty! That's a big lump!" which came out as "Yump" and was met with even more laughter. But once we put on the coal, button, scarf etc, she really loved it and had to make a whole Frosty family. I think our stomachs all hurt by the time the Mommy Frosty was finally finished.

So here's our Frosty head. I told her this was why Frosty said, "Come on let's run now before I melt away!"

We even brought coal, a red button, scarf and pipe (which got left in the truck and yes, Caelen DID notice it was missing.)

The big kid on the trip, also known as Grandma, lay down and started making snow angels and Caelen was on it right away!

Poor Addison had a rough couple of nights. We're not sure if the travelling didn't agree with her, if she was out of sorts or if it was all the caffiene I drank LOL. But a confident Grandpa was usually able to soothe her cries with "The Clutch".
It ended all too soon but we'll definitely be back!

During the trip Thomas' trunk's diesel engine froze and wouldn't start (the temps were about 10 degrees at night, maybe 40 in the day.) AAA finally got it started and he had to keep restarting it every 4 hours or so (even through the night) to keep it warm. Thankfully that was all that was wrong.... or so we thought. Thomas' check engine light came on a day before our trip. He took it in this morning and it basically needs so much work they may as well drive it off a cliff. It's not worth the investment so they're selling it for parts! Thank the Lord it made it through this weekend. We could have never fit the whole family and all our gear into my car and the company truck he's driving as a replacement woulnd't fit the car seats.

Today on the way home from Target Caelen dropped her new Toothpaste she was holding and this was what followed.

"Mommy, will you get my toothpaste?"

"Yes sweetheart, when we get home."

"Mommy, will you get my toothpaste?"

"Yes Honey."

"Why?"

I think my mind shut off at that point.

First Smile on Camera!

First Smile Captured on Camera!!

You gotta love the huge wide open mouth smiles that all infants begin with :) There's nothing cuter, except maybe gas smiles...



Alot of people (including me and Thomas) have noted how similar the girls look (see previous blog on birth announcements) but this picture captures how much they don't look alike. Addison has got some piercing eyes! Caelen has big doe eyes :)



Here's Addison hanging out with her closest kidred spirit in the world, her Uncle Josh. She appreciated his quiet, calm manner so much so that she smiled more for him than we've seen yet (or since!)

Here his is with both his nieces who just love him to bits.

And the girls snuggling on my bed while I do laundry.

Sorry the posts haven't been more forthcoming. I have felt like I have barely a moment to breathe and rarely one to sit down. I can squeeze in time to read E-mails maybe every other day but most certainly can't find the time to compose a message in response. So I'm catching up with these few sentences and pictures and hope you enjoy them. You might not hear from me until early next week but I promise I'll have a fun blog then.......

Doing better

Thanks everyone for all your encouraging comments and E-mails after my last blog. It's always good to know you're not alone :) With the colds being recovered from and the weather getting nicer all our attitudes have gotten better, and Caelen is having "quiet time" right now Becky. LOL!

Here's my "Little Mama" today. Yes, that's the breast pump.

And here she is showing Addison her baby doll.





Here's a cheesy (all-around!) grin.

And here's a precious shot from a couple night ago.

Today Caelen got bit by one of my Mom and Dad's chihuahuas because she was pestering the poor dog non-stop and he had a treat he really wanted to eat. We've discussed not bothering the dogs before and this time it came back to bite her in the.... face. Better a chihuahua just warning her than a bigger dog really mad. So that was a little bloody.
Then at home she smacked her toe with the BBQ tool and cut her toe. After a band-aid and some medicine she kept saying that her toe hurt. I was comforting her a bit and then she said, "Jesus can help me Mama."

WANTED: Sanity

I once read that having children is like being pecked to death by a duck. I finally understood exactly what that meant this past weekend as the culmination of exhaustion from no sleep for months, my toddler giving up her naps, two sick and cranky kids, and a 6 day work week for my husband finally caught up with me. If I heard "Mommy? Mama? Mom? What's this? Where you going? Where are you? Why Mom?" one more time I thought I might twist off completely.

Now those of you who know me well know my dry and sarcastic sense of humor and won't be taken aback by such statements as the above, but rather will just laugh. That's my intention. I love my children more than anything, but I seriously have never come as close to a nervous breakdown as I did this weekend. I felt like I went up to the edge of insanity and looked over. The grace of God pulled my twitching body back.

The reason it's like a duck pecking me over and over, or like Chinese Water Torture is because it never ends. My toddler is with me 24/7. She doesn't always sleep through the night and needs either more juice, snuggles, or a diaper change. In the car she screams, cries and kicks because it's too bright outside (even if she has her sunglasses on and her blankie over her head!) She doesn't nap anymore, she follows me to the bathroom, into the shower, or into any room that I go to without her, talking the entire time. The questions never end and she doesn't like to play by herself. When I'm feeding Addison, like I do every 3 hours, Caelen is right there next to me playing with her sister or asking me questions. If I leave a room to get something she hops right up and follows saying "Mommy where you going?" "What you doing?" After she's in bed, Addison has her witching hour and usually cries or is fussy for an hour. Then it's all night trying to keep her asleep and fed, only to wake up too early the next morning with my toddler yelling from her room, "Mommy! Change my diaper!"
My thought is if she could give me just a couple minutes to miss her, I'm sure I would, but I never get the chance. God bless her little heart she's a good kid. I know I'm just exhausted and still making the transition, and Lord knows some children require more maintainence than others.
But somehow I've regained a little control, and we've survived Monday, and Papa is on his way home as I write this. YAY!


Yesterday as Thomas was cleaning the garage, the household cleaners, which are usually kept up on the garage refridgerator were on the ground. I went out to get some ingredients for dinner, and you must know by now that Caelen was right behind me. I asked her to help me carry some cans in, she declined the oppurtunity, so I grabbed a couple more and looked just in time to see her squirt Fantastik house cleaner into her eye.
We rushed in and began flooding her eye and face with water. Thomas had to hold her down. When it was all done and she wasn't crying but more like whimpering and didn't scream if I asked her if anything hurt we figured she was good. She looked at us and said, "I won't do that again." We just had to laugh!