Gratitude

I read quote in a the Yoga Journal today that said, "even the 'bad days' are filled with good moments" and decided to look for some moments I can appreciate about today. In the spirit of Thanksgiving... here are a few simple things....

*The sun always comes up, even when we have had a bad night.
*Antibiotics. (Bren has an ear infection, hence the bad night.)
*Rebates.
*Gas prices are down to 1.99!!!
*Brennan has a happy heart, even when he is sick.
*Kaeleb told us all about the true meaning of Christmas.
*Kaeleb's preschool teacher rocks. Among other things, she teaches them funny songs, like this one, sung to the tune of "Oh My Darlin' Clementine", which my fellow vegetarians will appreciate...

"Gobble, Gobble," Says the Turkey
"Soon it will be Thanksgiving time,
The way they treat me,
They're gonna eat me,
Guess I better run away."
Then all the kids bend their elbow and flap around the room. Very cute.

*The way my kids smell and their skin feels on my cheek....sigh....
*Our nightly family bedtime bowl of cereal.

P.S. Tell me some good websites for new backgrounds. I am getting jealous of some of your oh-so-fancy blogs and bored with mine.

Trick or Treat

Halloween Fun For Everyone. (Just making a rhyme.)

Here we have Luke Skywalker. I let his hair grow for 2 months but it was really short over the summer, so this is as close as we could come to Mark Hammil's "do" of 30 years ago.

We began the trick or treating early at Aunt Tammy's work. The school district office loves to have their families come trick or treating on Halloween afternoon. It's a good way to get a lot of candy in a short amount of time. We are all about time management.

Next up, our Baby Sith Lord in training. Brennan was not so sure about the whole people-looking-at-me-and talking-to-me thing, but as long as nobody tried to take the tootsie roll out of his hand he was pretty good.


In the column on the right you'll see the Jedi's trick or treating at the Jenkins. You'll notice that half of us are dark side Jedi's, that in no way symbolizes the family members in question, it was Kaeleb's request because, after all, what good is a good guy if there is no bad guy?


Post trick or treating at Tam's. We were tired kids. Yikes! It was only 8:oo. We had a great time trick or treating in Ivins, our old stomping grounds, and had a pizza party with the Robinson's. It was fun because it was dark.

Kaeleb was very methodical and deliberate about the whole trick or treat thing. It wasn't about the candy, it was about the process. The walk up the entry, the knock, the doorbell, (yes both, every time), etc. After we had gone up one block and back the other side he said "This looks like enough candy, let's go to 3 more houses and then be done." Only our Kaeleb would say that. He all but forgot about the candy by Saturday afternoon.

Brennan was really funny. He wandered around the yards and chased a black cat- we thought it was staged, but the lady of the house said it was a stray. He wandered around saying "cak, cak, cak, cak" (his word for cat)in a deep throaty voice. Then a truck drove by slowly with 2 big dogs in the back and Bren spent the next whole block saying "gog, gog, gog, gog". It didn't take long for him to figure out that he got candy when the doors opened and he very matter of factly walked up to each candy bowl and took what he wanted. It was very cute.

All in all we enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. We hope you all had a great night and look forward to seeing your pictures, too.

Pumpkin Days

Can you believe how festive we have been this month? The pictures above are of Bren being cute in a hardhat with a pear while Kwint was building a racing pumpkin for the 1st annual Green Valley 5th ward "Pumpkin Derby" (pictured next with Kaeleb at the derby), Kaeleb's preschool Halloween party, the boys "helping" me make pumpkin cookies (my personal favorite), and Kaeleb decorating a scary cat cookie. Ah, the simple joys of life.

We'll post more on Halloween tomorrow, after which we will get serious about celebrating Thanksgiving for the next month.... yikes, can you imagine? Ok, so we'll focus on gratitude and pilgrims, not so much on pumpkin pie and candied yams.

Pre-Halloween Fun

We are soooo loving this beautiful month of October. As you can see, we LARPed at a masquerade ball, spent the day at a corn maze, made gingerbread haunted houses and had a really great time at Dan and Dee's annual Halloween party. We didn't get pictures at the party, so if Dan and Dee don't mind, you can see us all by clicking on the Jacobs Family link. Everyone looks pretty good if you ask me!!

I truly wish I could elaborate, but my boys are playing with the plunger, software CD's, and otherwise destroying our home. If you wonder why I never keep in touch and rarely get a good blog in these days.... wonder no more. They take everything I've got.

Now it actually feels like fall...

It finally cooled down!! For real, not just to 85! We have been giddy with excitement. We even wore jackets twice! To celebrate, we added a little corner of Boo-ness to our front porch. It will be 85 again this weekend, of course, but after that we may actually have a little time in the 70's. Woo Hoo!

I have missed so much blogging and a lot has happened in our crazy busy lives, and it would take way too long to blog it all, so I will just pick it up from now.... (besides, I can't remember what happened 5 minutes ago.)

Kaeleb LOVES preschool. His teacher, Miss Mary, is fabulous. He says "She is a very tall guy." She's got to be 6 feet tall, and is very pretty. They are working on alphabet books and learning about pumpkins this month. He comes home singing songs and teaches me new things every day.

Kaeleb is becoming a good little bike rider. He is very cautious, so we are excited to see him riding his bike to his friends houses and such. As you can see form the pictures above he is getting ready to be Luke Skywalker for Halloween. More pics will follow.

Brennan is hilarious. He is saying lots of words now. He loves our light up Jack-o-lanterns. He calls them "Dack" and says "yat" (light) and "off" when he wants me to plug them in. He is loudly proclaiming things "Mine!" and says "Don't!". He also says "more" and "done", which has really helped me out at meal time.

Bren is still not a great sleeper. He did sleep through the night for a month or so but no more. We have been experimenting to try and figure out what the problem is, but mostly, I think he just wants some extra lovin'. We are sooo tired but have come to accept our lot and love him all the more for it. (That's not what we say at 11pm 2,3, and 4 am though, believe me.)

Kwint and I are busy as ever in our respective roles. We had some trouble with both cars this week which resulted in a new battery and 5 new tires. Sheesh!! But we had a couple little miracles happen to offset it.... First, our fried computer (remember a few weeks ago?) started working again. Kaeleb said a prayer and the Lord listened. Then our dryer went on the fritz, and I prayed- "PLEASE! We can't have everything at once! Please make my dryer work again!" What do you know, He did.

The kids are self-destructing. I think they need food.

Autumn...bring it on.

We are soooo ready for Fall. No matter that it is still 95 degrees outside.... It is autumn INSIDE the Kemp home.

The Halloween decor is up and the fall leaf wreath is on the door.

Whenever I get the Halloween bin out Kaeleb tries on the Harry Potter wig. Here he is as Harry Potter.


And here is Brennan as Harry Potter.

Count your blessings instead of sheep

We had one of "those" weeks. Kaeleb accidentally spilled 20 oz of water on my laptop. (Fried. Completely.) Brennan ran head first into the duck pond at the park.(stinky.) Three skinned knees. Two days of hives. (not sure why.) Brennan wants to be as cool as Kaeleb, my expert jumper, and climbs on everything from the kitchen table to the hearth and desks and I am in a constant state of fight or flight trying to keep him in tact. I had a bad dream in the middle of the night and am having a hard time going back to sleep. So, in order to turn the negative energy around I am going to take Bing's (and whoever wrote the hymn)advice and Count the Blessings of the week.

Kaeleb had the mystery bag at Preschool on Monday and the snack basket on Wednesday, which really made him feel special. Brennnan added several new words to his vocabulary, including but not limited to: cool, want dis, want wawa, and cat. Kwint had one of the teens he counsels give him a nice compliment about how much he has helped him and feels accepted by him no matter what. I had a woman in one of my yoga classes say that of all the classes she has tried mine is the most relaxing. Grandma and Grandpa Kemp came for the weekend. We went on a fun bike ride, made some Halloween crafts with them and Tam's fam, watched movies, and Bren got some more great b-day presents, including the cutest ever little toddler Vans. And, even though my laptop is nuked, we got it to boot up long enough to back up Quickbooks and a few of the 1600 pictures I have taken. Note to self... When the pop up says "do you want to back up now?" don't click on "ask me again later"....

Ah, that's feeling better now, isn't it? We actually did have a really great week. They reorganized the EQ Presidency and Kwint is now the 1st counselor and is excited to work with the new 2nd. They have a seriously cool group of guys there.

Another nice part of our week is that the weather is FINALLY cooling off. Highs have been in the low 90's, which isn't all that cool, unless you consider that 2 months ago we were excited when it was under 110. So, the mornings and evenings have been so pleasant and we get to spend more time outside. Brennan has enjoyed the variety spending time outdoors has added to his diet. Now instead of eating mostly crayons and books he indulges in such fine delicacies as dirt, rocks, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, and grass.

We are so excited for fall. We love the weather, the holidays, the pumpkins...

We are also very excited by the new release of Brisingr, the 3rd installment in one of our favorite book series. (the clerk at Barnes and Nobles went to work 6 hours early and read the whole thing before her shift. Wow!) Yes, even I have grown to love dragons after 8 years of marriage to a fantasy buff. Not to mention Sci-Fi. Oh, Stargate SG-1, we miss you!

This is working well, I think I can sleep now. If I can get Bing's voice out of my head. Ah, "Holiday Inn", Christmas in on the way, too!