My wishes for my beautiful little girl

Here are my 10 life lessons for my sweet Kennedy Joanna.

(1) You are, and always will be, more than just what you look like on the outside.You are a beautiful human, on the inside and the outside.

(2) You can be tough as nails and soft and vulnerable at the same time. It is so important to be able to be both, in this tough world you are growing up in.

(3) You can be a girlie girl all dressed up in dresses with fancy hair, or rock that awesome pair of jeans and a hoodie, with your hair up in a messy bun, too.

(4) It’s more important to be a good, kind person than anything else in the whole world. Your Daddy and I believe that our biggest job is to raise good people and I hope we are doing that with you.

(5) You are so smart and so capable of doing anything you set your mind to! You are going places in this world my love and I can't wait to see where you end up.

(6) You are sassy and outspoken, but remember always use that in a respectful way to get your point across to those around you. Words can hurt and the pain can last a lifetime. 

(7) Use your words wisely and try to think before you speak. This isn't always easy but it's a very important life lesson to learn.

(8) Remember to work hard for all that you want to achieve and don't expect others to get you to where you want to be. Your work ethic determines who you are and how you are viewed in the world.

(9) Love those that matter unconditionally and let go of those that hurt you. So much easier said than done sometimes but never be afraid to fall in love because you never know when your forever love will appear. 

(10) Always hug your Mama tight and say I love you, no matter how old you get or how much she drives you crazy! I still hug my Mama tight and tell her I love her every chance I get so I think you should too! :) 

Big thanks to Auntie Sheri for this BEAUTIFUL new photo of our little KJ girl. And big props to Daddy for rocking the awesome messy bun hairstyle too! 

“Mommy, I help”

The words most mothers dread hearing from their toddler. She wanted some fruit loops on Sunday morning and I turned around to this mess! She did look super cute though and she kept saying “oh I sorry mommy”. It was such a cute little moment!

She did clean it up with me....into two bowls which I then fed to Jordie....without ever telling him they were floor fruit loops. Hahahahaha that’s just the way life works sometimes.

I feel like that was just a suggestion??

Hahahahahahaha I know I'm not the only person that ordered cookie dough from the school with no intentions of cooking the whole tub! Right? Please tell me I'm not the only one?

I had to try out the product tonight to see what I thought about it and whether I felt that the serving sizes were pretty accurate. From what I can tell they were not bad at all. I made pretty much the whole tub of Monster cookies (save about 4 cookies worth that is still in the fridge for some snacking over the next few days!) and I can safely say that it would have made exactly 5 dozen good sized cookies :) And I think for $18 that's a hell of a good deal. In the span of just over an hour I have a big bag of cookies for the freezer for upcoming lunches for the kids! It's a win all around if you ask me!

And just because who doesn't love some reality sometimes....here's my MISERABLE very overtired toddler wanting one of those cookies that were still baking in the oven...and just moments before bed. This is real life my friends :)

Cute moment captured

This morning before I left for work these two came to say goodbye to me at the door. He asked for a hug and I was shocked that she actually willingly gave him one. She also leaned in for a smooch which I happened to capture too. The look of love on his face just makes my heart proud. He really and truly just adores her and I hope that never changes. She is so lucky to have him as her biggest brother and I hope she grows up to realize that he is always there for her, no matter what she needs.

Major cuteness alert!!

We went swimming yesterday with the Reimer kids and had a blast in an almost empty pool. Swimming is definitely our favourite family activity and all 3 of our kids love the water. I snapped a few photos of Kennedy and one cute one of me and Cassidy with her too.

Her little pigtails and smile just kills me! 

This pretty lady and I are doing swimming lessons on Saturday mornings while her brothers play hockey and I can't wait to spend more time in the pool with her! She's a total little fish :) 

The Barrows 3 with their favorite toys!

This concept was so much fun and as soon as Jenn posted about this kind of mini session I texted her and said that we were in! I knew how much fun the kids would have with the photos, and I was right. All three of them loved it, but none as much as James! He was so excited and totally into the different poses that Jenn had him do to go along with his Lego skateboard park he got for his birthday and spent hours building last weekend. 

I had such a hard time deciding which photo to put first on this post....but I settled with the big one of James cause he was just so excited and really did so good with everything that Jenn asked him to do! When I showed him this picture today he was so excited and couldn't believe all the awesome James's that were in one picture!

Next up is my favorite of Jordie! This  is the one that Jenn shared on her page and I just love it. This scowl is just so my Jordie boy that it makes me giggle each time I look at it!

And then Ms Kennedy with her Care Bears. I just LOVE the colors of this one best of all.

Now here are the other shots from each of them! I love how Jenn gave us multiple shots because in this series of James I think I love this first one the best of the ones that have just one part of the big photo above. You should have seen him leaning like a pro on that skateboard but the kid is a total klutz and couldn't balance like that even if he tried to!

LOVE IT! 

Funny story about this one in particular...James wanted so bad to be climbing on the rock wall but Jenn wasn't sure how easy that would be with positioning him in a way that she could make it look good...but SHE DID IT! He looked so awkward when she was taking the photos but man did she ever work her magic and he looks awesome up there scaling the wall!

This kid is so funny. I swear his session was the shortest and he just listened really well, did his few poses and he was done and off playing with the other kids. He is such a funny little character and he kept laughing and saying that he hoped that Jenn was going to shrink him so he was the same size as his toys :) 

These are his AWESOME new remote control cars that he got for his birthday. I'm not kidding, if you want to get your kids a cheap but amazing RC car, buy these ones! The two together were less than $40 and I got them online at Showcase. Actually they were $39.98 and I needed to spend $40 to get free shipping so we ordered him a third car that isn't nearly as fun as these two!

I bought this set of little Care Bear figurines before last Christmas but had planned to keep them and give them to her this year, BUT as soon as I saw Jenn's idea I knew I had to open them up for these photos, and man am I ever glad I did. These couldn't have turned out any better!

Once again I'm surprised with how Jenn can work her magic. This part of the shoot was definitely the hardest cause Kennedy is very fast and very busy these days, but Jenn clearly got some good shots in amongst me chasing K and her continually knocking down the Care Bears! 

SO...if you're in the PR area...book this session with Jenn Parkin Photography!! You won't regret it I guarantee that! These are the kind of photos I know I'll look back on forever and remember them at the ages they are now, with their favorite toys. I love them! 

Pure joy and laughter caught on video

Here in PR there is a very kind man that decorates his truck with Christmas lights and drives around town for as many people that can see him as possible. Because we live on a busy street we've never seen it drive by our townhouses but have heard its music playing nearby. We were at our friends house for a party on the 23rd and shortly before we left Jim said the magic words that had all of us scrambling to get our kids out the door "here comes the Christmas truck!" 

James was so excited and I love this video so much so had to share it on here for all to see.

And this hilarious video was taken at about 9:45pm on the way home from the party! This kid is a frigging riot and makes us laugh every single day!

I'm not so sure that this not napping thing is working out so well....

We are really trying to cut out Jordie's nap and during the day at the day care or our friends houses he seems to do okay without it, but as soon as he gets home or stops moving he falls asleep within minutes.

On Friday I did let him nap for just over an hour but this kid is a bear when he's woken up (as evidenced by this post about that afternoon).

On Saturday we had a birthday party to go to and we didn't get home until close to 5 so we thought we were in the clear and we'd have a little supper and put him to bed early and all would be good for the day. Well I made a cup of tea and sat down to snuggle with him and within a few minutes I could feel him leaning against me and getting fidgety. I finally said to him, "just lay down on Mommy and have a little snuddle." Well within about 2 minutes, this was him.

On Sunday we were busy hanging out getting stuff together for Sunday dinner and just enjoying a quiet PJ day at home. We all got dressed and headed off to watch James's karate at 3 and Jordie was in a great mood and seemed really happy and wide awake. Again, we thought we were in the clear. We got home about 3:45 and James and Jim and I went into the kitchen and were talking and literally 3 minutes later I walked out and this is what I saw. He just climbed right up there and promptly fell fast asleep.

A little bit later my sister and brother in law showed up for Sunday dinner and I had laid him down so he was more comfortable. I asked them if they were okay to just sit around him so we could wake him when Papa arrived so we could hopefully avoid the meltdown situation from Friday.

I swear she could have sat on the end of the couch but she chose to sit on the floor!

Today, he was home with Daddy and I told Jim to either put him down early so he'd have time to wake on his own to just keep him up as long as he could. Well Jim said he fed him lunch and then asked him if he wanted to take a nap and he promptly said "no Daddy". So Jim put him down in front of a TV show for a few minutes and this how he found him just a few minutes later...

I got home about half an hour later and he slumped over a bit so I laid him down to enjoy the rest of his hour and a half long "non nap". When he woke up he was so happy to see me and promptly ran over to my chair for a snuggle. I'm going to miss these once a week lunch dates once Jim is done school and back out there working!

Usually he loves to nap, but he's catching on I guess that he can just chill out on the couch and have a little snooze there instead. We'll see how the rest of the week goes at Debbie's house and if his bedtime keeps getting easier than we'll really make it a point to keep him busy in the afternoons!