Sleepy

Sometimes it's hard to wake up.  Brayden fell asleep in the car today and I brought him inside and had to run to the bathroom so I laid him on the floor.  But he was down for the count, when I came back I found him still sleeping. He just laid there and slept while Kennedy and I giggled and took pictures of him.

Cakes

 Nate has made some beautiful cakes/cupcakes lately for people at work/church that I wanted to share.  The basketball cake came up around Valentine's day, and I had plans for a while to make the kids a cute heart cake for our family dinner.  Instead we iced together the scoop of cake that he cut out for the neck and the sleeves and called it good.  We've got it in the freezer and are still pulling it out, it was so good. 

The chocolate cake was just perfect.   I love the roses and curls. He also made a wedding cake for a couple about a month ago, but we didn't think to snap a picture of that one. 

Sunny Days

 Remember Nate's lovely Dodge Stratus with a car bra for extra support?  Well after years and years of prayers that it would last us just one more day, it finally reached its "too expensive to be worth it"  point.  That little sucker was cost us $2000 in repairs this year at 5 trips to the repairman.  He had been with us through a lot though, cross country trips, Nate's college years, and suffered through lots and lots of spilled milk.  So last week we spied a great deal on a mini-van and much to Nate's dismay, we are now mini-van owners.  I don't mind the mini-van thing though, I love the space I have now for our stroller, groceries, the kids, and the reliability.  It's still under warranty for a few years and that gives me a lot of peace of mind.  Mom and Christie, these pictures are for you! 

 Also, it's been ridiculously warm here lately.  We spent a couple hours playing outside yesterday with Nate and soaking up the sunshine.  I'm not sure what's up with Wisconsin lately, but we're lovin' it.

 I finally finished the letter for Kennedy's room a couple weeks ago and I wanted Kennedy to pose in a picture of her room.  When Brayden ran in to give her a hug,  I was glad I had my camera out. 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!!

Oh Valentine's Day, how I love thee!  No but really, Valentine's day is my very favorite holiday of the year.  As a die-hard romantic, I just love taking the time to tell the people we care about how much we love them. Since Nate and I are going on a hot date on Valentine's day, we decided to designate today as our family Valentine's day.  To celebrate, we had a candlelight dinner with heart shaped pizzas and chocolate cake.  In fact, the kids both ate so much chocolate cake that they are still up at 8:30 bouncing around in their beds.  Next time I'll have to remember not to give  the kids massive amounts of chocolate/sugar right before bed.

Brayden's face in this picture makes me giggle.  He's so excited to open his present!  We gave them both a little Valentine's gift.  Brayden got a megaphone that he's enjoyed saying "Moo!" into.

Here's Kennedy's new apron.  She my little sous-chef, so she was super excited to have an apron just like mommy.  She's already got a hoard of M&Ms in her apron pocket that she claims to be saving for later.   

Happy Valentine's Day from the Walkers!!

The Monsters

I have discovered a couple things over the last few weeks.  The first is that the differences between boys and girls constantly amaze me.  Kennedy picks up a toy and pretends to be its mommy, Brayden pretends to eat it while roaring like a lion.  In typical boy fashion, Brayden has turned into our resident garbage disposal.  Despite being smaller than 92% of other children, the kid eats a ridiculous amount of food.  The other day my 19 month old boy crammed down 3 pancakes, an applesauce, his sister's applesauce, and a his and his sister's milks for breakfast.  He's constantly finishing off Kennedy's leftovers and she doesn't mind slipping him her food when I'm not looking.

Little man made his first word combination and it is exactly what Nate and I would have expected from him, "hold me".  He also learned how to say "luh you" (love you) this week.  My life is now complete:)

In other news, Kennedy gave her first talk in Primary (the children's organization in our church) this week.  Her talk was on Noah and we prepped all week, even went to church on Saturday to practice. There's never any telling what will come out of her mouth, but it ended up being pretty sweet.  Some highlights include:

"Heavenly Father knows stuff"
"The octopus didn't get in the ship because he knew how to swim"
and
"Mom I am trying to give a talk, go to the corner"

Despite my giggling like a 12 year old the whole time, I was so proud of Kennedy for getting up there and not being intimidated by talking in front of her peers, she must have her daddy's genes.

Date Weekend

We decided this weekend that our kids were due for some one-on-one time with their parents, so we decided it was their turn to go on a date. 

Every morning from 5 am until 8 am Brayden and I get loads of one on one time., so we decided what he really needed was some boy time with Daddy.  For Bray's date,  Nate bundled him up and took him outside.  The first few times we've tried to take him out as soon as we get out there he says, "cold! cold!" and shakes his head no.  The stars aligned Saturday and he played outside for a long time with Nate.  He was so happy getting to run around and throw snow with his daddy, despite having to wear his sister's pink boots.

Then they came inside and Brayden gave all of our windows a thorough cleaning.  I think he inherited his father's very clean nature.   Isn't he looking like such a big boy these days?  When he was little we always called him Baby Bray, but it's so hard to get out of the habit of calling him a baby.  He'll always be my baby boy though.  Today we took him for his very first haircut at a good ole fashioned small town barber.  It was such an adventure.  A friend had recommended the place to me, but when I walked in and saw four deer mounted on the wall, an 80 year old barber,  and a cash register from the early 1900's, I started to question her judgement.  The sweet old man was so kind and eager to have customers though.  He turned on Chuck Norris and put the TV in front of Brayden and him a sucker and Brayden sat still like a champ for the whole haircut.  I personally think it was the Church Norris that kept him still.

On Saturday Nate took Kennedy out to lunch to get her favorite cheese curds (sounds nasty but oh are they heavenly) and ice cream.  The whole experience was perfected when Kennedy saw a bigger man with a beard and yelled extremely loud, "Daddy!  Santa's here!"  Which is only slightly less embarrassing than when she pointed to an androgynous looking woman and yelled, "Mommy, is that a man or a woman?"  When I covered her mouth and told her to shut it she was like, "but Mommmmmyyyy, I just want to know if it's a man or woman".  Needless to say, I made a beeline out of that store.

Anyway, after their lunch date, I took Kennedy to her very first movie theater movie, "The Muppets".  The movie was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time, we had such a fun time.  Kennedy kept applauding after every song she was so thrilled.

We loved taking our sweethearts on dates this weekend and letting them be the sole focus of our attention for a few hours.  You really can't beat cheese curds and snow, we must be becoming true Wisconsinites.

Things I learned while Nate was gone

Nate came back late Thursday night/Friday morning from an 8 day trip business trip to these hugs.  Brayden won't leave his side now that he's home.  Today when the kids and I got to church I was in the foyer taking Kennedy's coat off and Brayden heard Nate talking at the pulpit and he got this huge smile on his face and starting yelling "Daddy!  Daddy!" and ran into the chapel up to the front row with his arms stretched up to Nate before I could snatch him and take him away.  

Here are a few things I learned while Nate was gone:

1) Nate does a lot around the house and I missed oh so much.  Changing the trash, washing dishes, picking up the mail.  I don't know how single mom's do it.

2) It's not a good idea to put your cell phone in your back pocket before going pee.

3) It's also not a good idea to put your backup cell phone on your bed while you take a shower because Little Man might put it in the tub and turn the water on.

4) It's also doubly inconvenient if your son is sick and has spent 2 hours at the Dr the day before

5) I have amazing neighbors and friends.  We had a snowfall Thursday night before Nate got home and I looked outside to see our missionaries cleaning our driveway for us and our neighbor snowblowed our sidewalks.  

6)  In Nate's absence, Kennedy started saying and doing some pretty hilarious stuff.  Like she started pretending Brayden was Daddy and has now officially dubbed him "Daddy Brayden" while they play house and such.  One day she was dressed up at Dorothy for the day and she said, "Mom if you want to see Dorothy just go to Sprout online dot com".  Lately I put her in her room and let her read books for 30 min (or an hour and a half if I forget she is in there which has happened a couple times) and I went in and asked if I could read her some stories and she said, "Mom, you have two choices.  Leave and don't come back until it's time for me to go to bed so I can read books."  Love and logic anyone?

7)  Lastly, that we love our Daddy oh so much.  He is funny and fun and kind and loving and life we are so glad we have him home again.

PS - After a long week we may or may not have gone to bed at 8:30 last night.  I am both fully rested and slightly in awe of that accomplishment.  

Two of my favorite things

 I don't think life gets better than watching your kids voluntarily hug

And sipping hot chocolate with this sweet munchkin.  It's a good day.

Christmas in pictures

We had a wonderful Christmas around these parts (despite my Grinch-y tendencies with the help of lots of cocoa and Mariah Carey Christmas tunes).

We had "Christmas" morning two weeks early with the kids because it was the only day we were going to all actually be home to spend the day enjoying our presents together.  Since we went to my parent's house for actual Christmas and our presents were too big to take along.  It was very non-traditional - we roll like that.  I got the best of both worlds, Christmas with family and "Christmas day" relaxing, making waffles, and playing with new toys for hours at home.

For Christmas weekend we trekked down to Iowa to visit Granny, Grandpa, Aunt Christie and Uncle Travis.  We decorated gingerbread men and Brayden had a blast eating blue frosting.

Christmas Eve morning Kennedy woke up sick and starting throwing up.  She threw up all day but perked up long enough to decorate gingerbread men with us.  She was such a trooper though.  All day she kept saying, "Mommy, I'm getting better.  Don't worry!"  She then spent the next 3 nights waking up every 30 min to an hour screaming with nightmares about Brayden taking her toys..

Christmas Eve we watched this video with the kids, got our Christmas PJs, and colored pictures for Santa.  It was a perfect evening of snuggling and celebrating.

We made it to a bounce house and the kids were in heaven.  We had to drag them out after 3 hours and they were still not ready.  Brayden loved pretending to drive the cars - what a little boy.

What would Christmas be with out nightmares, puking, gingerbread men and snuggling? All in all we had a wonderful Christmas! 

Cahoots

These two are definitely in cahoots.  I think they are planning a secret conspiracy to takeover the world and force everyone to wear aluminum foil.   Actually, these two have blossomed into the best of friends.  When they were little and we had two babies for a little while, everyone told me that after 1 it just gets better and I didn't imagine how right they would be.  Kennedy and Brayden love to play together.  In the morning when Brayden wakes up precisely between 5:31 and 5:35 without fail, he spends the next two hours saying "Sissy?  Sissy?"  He wants her to get up and play with him so badly. 

Speaking of Brayden, he has emerged from babyhood and I have fallen in love with his hilarious personality.  He loves to tease Kennedy and make all of us laugh. He's constantly got a smile on his face and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.  He's talking a lot and I love knowing what he wants and what he's thinking about.  He knows "yah" and "no" so almost any answer can be dervied from a simple yes/no question.  For example he was standing in the kitchen today pointing to my computer, "Brayden do you want my phone?"  "no",  "Do you want a drink?"  "no", "Do you want some music?"  "Yah!" I love it.  

Don't get me wrong though, there's a fair amount of smushing, smashing, and wrestling that goes on between these two.  But they seem to enjoy it...most of the time.

 Kennedy's seemed to have emerged from the Terrible Two's and my sweet girl has returned.  She is always thinking and has been asking some pretty hilarious questions lately.  Nate's sister Mel is pregnant and has a cute little bump, so one day we got home and Kennedy looked at Brayden and said, "Mommy, Brayden has a big belly too. Does he have a baby growing in his belly?"  To this we had to inform her on the difference between food babies and real babies. 

 One things for sure, whenever these two are together they are up to something fishy.  Whether it be carpeting my house with aluminum foil, emptying the cupboards and hiding inside them, or putting on my makeup, these two always find a way to make some mischief.

Ever since Brayden was a baby Kennedy really wanted to hold him, and he never really let her.  The other day he sat on her (in an attempt to get her to wrestle) and she wrapped her arms around him and said "Oh Daddy!  Brayden's letting me hold him!" So Nate snapped a picture of the momentous occasion. 

Nothing does a mother's heart more good than watching her kids become best friends.  I just consider myself lucky that I get to be their mom and hobnob around with these two schemers every day.