Yard Work

More of my husband's handiwork... We had a pretty steep area by the side of the house that would not grow grass. Scott decided to build a 2 level flower bed... The top level has shrubs and the bottom layer has flowers. It's a nice little touch to the backyard. And we don't have to look at the bare dirt anymore!


I am certainly not the gardeners that my mom & my aunts are... unfortunately, that gene did not get passed on! But I do manage to get my lillies to come back each year. These lillies were first started at my duplex (2 houses ago). When I moved to my first house, I took 3 bulbs and planted them at the side of the garage. They multiplied enough that I split them a couple of times and moved them to various spots. When we moved to this house, of course I had to bring a few. I think I brought 3 (maybe 4) to this house. This is our 3rd summer here and you can see how they've multiplied! I LOVE these flowers - they're so pretty!

Career Day

In 10+ years of life in the accounting world, one thing I've decided is that my kids will grow up to do something they love. I don't LOVE accounting. I'm good at it, but I certainly don't love it. I want my kids to grow up to do what they LOVE.

I thought these conversations were way off in the future... but lo and behold, the other night, Luke announced that he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Me: What's that Luke? What do you want to be when you grow up?

Luke: A chicken clown.

Me: [nothing at first! What would you have said?] Really? What does a chicken clown do?

Luke: [in a very matter-of-fact tone] They juggle chickens on plates.

Me: Oh, I see. Where did you see this? On one of your cartoons? On a movie?

Luke: No, Mommy. It's just what I want to do.


Let's just hope there are more career conversations to come...

Love these people!

Mother's Day

I had another great mother's day... my kids made special flowers out of tissue paper complete with a card (thanks, Jen!) and my husband gave me an iTunes card so I can download my Glee music.

We were at my mom & dad's for the weekend. My brother was also in town. The weather was crazy windy and a little cold on Saturday, but that didn't stop the kids from getting out on their tractor. Sunday was nicer, so of course that meant more time out on the tractor!

Luke loves his Uncle Wade!

thanks to Scott for taking the picture!

sweetest kids in the world!

Extracising

Luke loves to "extracise". That's how he says it. He not only loves to play with the treadmill (see Invention post), but he loves to run and walk on it. He knows how it works and he knows how fast he can go.

I had to post some video of him extracising... and please forgive my laughter in the background. It still cracks me up.

Inventions

Luke has a new favorite thing to do in the playroom...

He will say "Come see my new invention".

This is code for turn on the treadmill and make a giant mess.

I do love the creativity of it... it started with the play food bucket. He would take out the play food (say, an apple) and put it near the top of the treadmill belt. Then, he'd turn on the treadmill and the apple would make its way down the "assembly" belt. Soon, the food bucket was empty, thanks to the help of his assistant, Marissa, who would hand him something each time an item fell off the belt.

Every toy in that playroom has been on the assembly line... big toys, little toys, you name it.

Swingset

Luke & Marissa now have something to do outside in this wonderful April weather! Thanks, Grandma K!


Much unlike Rome, this swingset WAS built in a day! Thanks to some Saturday help from our good friend, Brian, it was assembled and ready to play on by Sunday afternoon! It has a rock wall for climbing, a ladder, and a slide. You can also see the glider swing (which is VERY high and looks like an accident waiting to happen if you ask me!) and 2 swings. Believe it or not, we tried to be proactive by purchasing the toddler swing, but lo and behold, Marissa would rather swing on the regular swing! Of course she would!

Luke has developed quite the imagination, so this set includes some pretty fancy extras, like an "attic" where he stores his "engine", a food shop where you can order anything from a hot dog to crunchy bugs, a lair for Batman and his entire entourage, and various other things.

We've already logged quite a few hours on the swingset, so we're looking forward to a fun summer outside!!

No, I didn't quit!

No, I didn't quit the blog! I've been busy... LOL.

I haven't posted since Christmas which means there's no way to catch up on everything... in summary, we had a nice holiday with Scott's sisters and brother and their families; we played in the snow several times since we had so much this winter, and the winter highlight was probably our trip to Disney World with Grandma & Grandpa Ellis!

The other thing I realize is that it means I haven't posted for almost 4 months of Luke & Marissa's little lives! They have changed so much in the past few WEEKS, let alone months! I'm so grateful that my friend / babysitter Jennifer writes down the things they do each week! She's kept a better record of my kids than I have! Thanks, Jen!

About Luke...

• rides his bike (with training wheels) any time he has a chance
• knows alot of shapes, including parallelograms (which I love to hear him say that word!)
• can almost write his name! The "L" and the "U" are good... "K" needs some help, and the "E" looks like a comb because he puts so many lines on it.
  
• enjoys hitting golf balls off the tee in the back yard
• plays "Lego Batman" on the x-box and knows all the little tricks
  
• buckles himself in the carseat
• gets dressed by himself in the morning
• potty-trained! (still use a pull-up at night)

About Marissa...

• has lots of words, including mommy, daddy, bye, puppy, mine, baby, up, brother, all done, and various other words that only WE know.
  
• she eats like every meal is her last! vegetables, fruit, meat, junk - you name it, she'll eat it!
• she's tough! scrapes and bruises all over the place
• personality plus! And she certainly makes it known when she doesn't get her way.
  
• she has lots of teeth - 10 I think - and she has been an easy teether just like her brother. So glad these kids know how to sleep!

Scott is back to working 2nd shift, so it's just me & the kids in the evenings. As tax season wraps up, I know that I have been short on patience and haven't enjoyed my time with them like I should. Tonight, as I tried to get supper on the table, Marissa had a death grip on my leg and Luke was trying to tell me something in the midst of it all. I found myself about ready to lose my patience! Something inside me whispered "they won't be little for very long" and I literally stopped. I stopped in the middle of the kitchen and just tried to soak it all in. I've been thinking alot about how fast the kids are growing up since I talked with a few parents in the parking lot at church yesterday - they all have older kids and were teasing me about how soon they'd be asking to drive and other things that I must confess make my knees buckle. What a couple of precious gifts I've been given!

I managed to get a couple of really cute shots of Luke & Marissa all decked out for Easter. I love to see them dressed up...








I hope to be more regular with my posts after this week... It will be nice to have some "free time" after the kids go to bed instead of heading back downstairs to my office to work!

Our Christmas pic

Santa!

fa la la la la. Right?

So, as you can tell, Marissa wasn't crazy about Santa.... Luke looks a bit dazed, but actually, he's just excited about the candy cane in his hand.

We really planned this trip out.... wait to go on one of Scott's days off so I didn't have to go by myself.... pick a weekday afternoon before school kids are on break so that maybe we can just walk in and go right to Santa without having to wait in line.... our plan worked perfectly! And still these little stinkers didn't want anything to do with Santa! Oh well!

I do have to say that this Santa is (a) the best looking Santa I've ever seen, and (b) so sweet and patient. He even *sounds* like what I think Santa should sound like.

Quote of the day as we left from Luke: "Mommy, Santa just told me he'd be at my house in a few days. I think that's weird."

Another cute outfit

One of the girls I work with sent this outfit for Marissa.... so sweet.

BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!!!

Our beautiful little girl is ONE! She is a FAST crawler and is interested in everything Luke is doing. She began crawling up the stairs.... I didn't know she knew how until I happened to see her halfway up the stairs one day! You can kind of see it in her birthday picture (below), but she fell off the 3rd stair just a couple hours after her professional birthday pictures were taken - instand black eye and huge bump on her forehead! She has taken steps between people, as long as someone is standing waiting to catch her. She says Mama and Dada.... but "Dada" is also the word for several other things, including doggie, baby, and Luke. Each one of those "dada"s has a different sound to it - she definitely thinks she's saying different words. She is cracking everyone up with her personality and she's even starting to show a little temper when things don't go quite her way. In fact, two days before her 1st birthday, she threw her first major tantrum while I was *trying* to visit some friends.... she SCREAMED (no, really, I mean SCREAMED) for well over an hour. In that time, I loaded the kids up, drove back to our house, called my doctor because I thought something was wrong..... and after an hour and 15 minutes or so, she just decided she was done. I couldn't believe it. Oh, sweet Marissa.

Here's Marissa in her birthday shirt:



We made cupcakes for the actual birthday


She wasn't too shy about getting into it.


This is another of Marissa's quirks: she likes to rub whatever she might be eating into her hair.... so, clearly the icing made an interesting look.

Other things I keep forgetting....

And before I forget YET AGAIN.... I have to jot down a few of the funny things these kids do....

• Marissa loves to "sing" while she eats. It all started when I fed her for the very first time in the hospital and the lady who came to help me start nursing said "oh, she's going to sing for her supper". Marissa has always made some kind of noise while eating, but now that she sits in her high chair and eats table food, she constantly makes some kind of noise while eating. I can be in another room and I know if someone has given her something to eat because of all the noise.

• I asked Luke if he would please let Ashley (our dog) inside..... he said "Well, I most certainly can, Mommy". How very helpful.

• Luke also likes to add "actually" to just about every sentence these days. I asked him if he wanted cereal and toast for breakfast and he said "Actually, Mommy, I'd just like Apple Jacks actually." All in a very matter-of-fact tone. Crack me up - how old is he anyway?

• Marissa has been giving guppy kisses for awhile, but now she's picking up on what we do when we try to get kisses..... you know how you make the "mmmmm" noise while you lean in for a kiss? Well, Marissa has started pursing her lips together tightly and making that "mmmmm" noise while she leans toward you and pushes her nose on your cheek. Once is just not enough, either..... which is fine by us!

• Luke calls Scott's whiskers "crumbs", as in "Daddy has crumbs on his face" or "Daddy is washing his crumbs". The last time Luke got his haircut, he announced that he had crumbs on the back of his head (where the hair was the shortest). This is especially funny when he tells OTHER people about the crumbs. For instance, his Sunday School teacher has a mustache - he told Mr. Doug that his daddy didn't have one of those yet, he only had crumbs. Funny, funny stuff.

• And just in case I haven't posted this somewhere else (because this is my favorite Luke-ism) - when eating something particularly tasty, Luke makes either Scott or me say "This is delicious" so that he can say "You can say that again". I love it.

• Marissa likes to twirl MY hair as she winds down.... I think simply because she doesn't have enough hair of her OWN to twirl. haha. It's pretty sweet though.....
  

True Confessions....

For any of you who check the blog regularly, you know that it's been a LONG time since I posted anything! Work was CRAZY busy.... I can't even find a word to describe how terrible it was. My family didn't see much of me - especially in the last few weeks leading up to 9/15. However, it is OVER and as my wise friend says, it "came to pass.... it didn't come to stay, it came to pass."

So, I'm now catching up on posting pictures and stories from the past month and a half! There have been lots of exciting developments in the Kenworthy house.... Scott started a new job on 8/3 and is enjoying it. The kids are growing and changing right before our eyes!

The "true confessions" part is that you'll see posts with August dates and you'll wonder why you hadn't seen them before. I back date my posts because I use the blog as a kind of "baby book". Back dating helps me remember the exact dates things happened. So, no, you're not on a one-month delay, I'm just cheating!

Enjoy catching up with us!

Toothy grin!!

Another season of Colts football!

Here we are on our way to the Colts Season Opener!


Here's Luke sending us off...

Our big boy

Again, you'll have to ignore the Purdue shirt. It was a gift, okay? :)

11 month pics - Luke & Marissa

(L) Marissa - 11 months - August 30, 2009
(R) Luke - 11 months - September 9, 2007

(Please ignore the Purdue shirt.... haha)

Marissa - 11 months old!

My last post of this kind for Marissa..... and I'm REALLY sad! Marissa got her first tooth on August 13th!! We have been waiting and waiting for this and without any warning, there it was! Her picture shows that new tooth pretty well!



Marissa also started CRAWLING! She's mobile! She had been pulling up on the furniture and had been pushing up on her arms, but up until the day she started crawling, she really wouldn't even roll over! She just didn't see the need! But, on August 13th (Yep!! Same day as the tooth popped through), she just started zooming around! (the video is pretty dark, but I had my camera near me and so I just grabbed it to catch the moment!)



Marissa says "Mama" all the time, and I couldn't be happier! Luke was all about Dada and the dog, so I guess it's my turn! She has taken an interest in her blanket, but only at naptime or bedtime. She is very social! If someone is in the same aisle as we are at the grocery store, she will wave and say "Haaaaaaa" until someone acknowledges her. Same deal at restaurants - she has to wave at everyone that walks by. People seem to enjoy it and her toothy grin is quite contagious.

We cannot believe how fast the year has gone. We talk about it all the time. What great memories we're making!