Family Home Evening: Aerial Toddler Twists

What could possibly warrant this type of reaction?

Oh, its the 2008 Aerial Toddler Twists Olympics! Should've known!

Karianna Quirks: The Christus

Karianna cracks me up-I love my conversations with her!

Today after nap we were laying together in her bed talking about the temple. She mentioned the Christus and I asked her to tell me about it. She said, "Its a statue of Jesus and he's big. And he's standing on something. And he has owies in his hands and his feet." I asked her how he got those owies and she said, "Becuase the soldiers cut his nails." Confusing the concepts of fingernails and metal nails. You'd think she was a victim of a traumatic nail trimming incident but thankfully she is not, though I guess potential therapy sessions down the road will tell me if I was too liberal in cutting her nails as a non-vocal infant. I love you Nana!

And What Are You Up To?

Karianna

Karianna has apparently not relinquished her ability to dress up in the greatest dress-up concoctions I could ever imagine.
Nor has she lost her ability to give me goofy faces.
But topping it off is her ability and desire to fold clothes...sure they were dirty, but its the thought that counts! I wonder when that "desire" is going to leave?

JD

Following in the ideals of his sister, JD has not relinquished his ability to somehow locate his lion and tiger and carry them off to bed with him. Yesterday before bedtime JD tells me, "But mama, I need lion and tiger". I ask him where lion and tiger are, and he says: "Oh, lion and tiger are outside. I get them Mama-hold on, I get them". And before I can catch his sleeve, he's racing down the stairs, pulling open the sliding glass door, and sure enough there they are on the playdough table in the backyard. We'll call it his sixth sense-he's going to love the zoo on the 11th!
One of his other favorite animals? The shark-as evidenced by his current favorite book.
The coolest part to me is he actually decided to share his book with Karianna-this is like, a ridiculously rare moment of non-argumentative sharing. It lasted about 20 seconds. Which is why you are only seeing the first picture and not the second one of them fighting over the book. So goes sibling-hood!

Jordan

I am officially starting a crawling pool! Pick your day now-winner gets 700 billion points! When in the world is Jordan going to decide crawling is more interesting than just lounging about? Jordan is just so content staying put, I honestly see no desire as of yet to really get moving. I'm telling myself he just has an insight into the future that I don't have, despite the fact that I've been down this road with 2 kids already: "Mom, I have my whole life to be mobile; do you seriously think it matters when exactly I start?" Touche, Jordan. To date, Jordan has joined the push up club and the rocking club-my date for the pool is still somewhere in the late Octobers.




Jared

Too busy studying to comment-sorry. :) But I would bet he would say he is excited to go camping with all the boys in a few weeks! And he would say he is stoked for General Conference (I just used the word "stoked"....weird. Just as weird as using the word "wicked", as in "that was wicked cool" the other day....just weird.).

Rachel

Missing my husband :) On a happy note, I get to sing the Messiah this year in our tri-stake Messiah presentation! Woo hoo! All the days singing the Hallelujah chorus in the car with my dad are going to pay off! And our ward choir is signing "This Is The Christ", my all-time favorite choral piece of music! Gotta love it.

Karianna Quirks Part Two

While Karianna was cleaning the loft, I heard her start singing to the tune of Leona Lewis:

"I keep cleaning, I keep keep cleaning. I keep cleaning, I keep keep cleaning"

On pitch and everything. I think we got a hit single on our hands.

Karianna Quirks

Karianna has been very interested in the body for a long time, and I am a big believer in just telling her the correct names of body parts (as my family can attest to...). The body part of interest lately has been the throat-Karianna can tell you what and where the esophagus and trachea are. So today after ballet class Karianna was drinking some apple juice and upon drinking too quickly started coughing it all up. Once her face faded from the bright red color it had turned, we had this conversation:

Karianna: Mama, some apple juice just went down my air tube.
Me: What's that called?
Karianna: My trachea...Mama, where is my trachea?
Me: I think you know the answer to there-where is it?
Karianna: Right here (she points to the left side of her throat). And what's over here? (she points to the other side of her throat)
Me: I don't know, what is over there?
Karianna: It's my food tube, and drinks too.
Me: And what's that called?
Karianna: (thinks about it for a minute, and then points back to the spot) I think there is a sausage right here.
Me: Do you mean "esophagus"?
Karianna: Oh yes, esophagus.

I suppose a sausage would go in your esophagus, so I give her bonus points at that.

Soft Spot

I have a bad habit. Our kids go to bed early, somewhere between 7 and 8 depending on the child in question. This is so ideal for me because I like having my evenings open-mornings are easy for me to sacrifice :) Here's where my bad habit comes in though: I miss my kids! As such, I tend to check on them sevearl times before I go to bed. The worst part of it is I would tend to wake them up because it was not enough to see them sleeping peacefully-I had to talk to them to know that they were indeed safe, secure and happy, and not traumatized by some nightmarish ghoul. Seriously, I think this way! Jared has said many a time that I am probably disrupting their development to quench my mommy worries...

Well, good news-I only check on the kids maybe twice a night before going to bed! Believe you me, that's a major improvement! And I rarely wake them up anymore, except I have to insert the word "rarely" because of my soft spot. His name is JD. He's my soft spot, and here's why: JD makes me feel so calm...peaceful....content. If I am stressed out or anxious or overly concerned about it, I can gather him up in my arms and be okay. Jared and I have always said JD has an amazingly special spirit. We felt it the instant he was born, something about him was so calming, and that quiet peace about him has never left, despite how many times he says "no" in a thirty second time span (you'd be surprised at the number-is there a guiness world record catagory for this?).

So tonite when I was feeling a little sick and overwhelmed I tippy-toed into JD's room scooped him up without bothering to rouse him, and just held him for a while. Eventually he woke up, drank some juice and gave me a sleepy "I love you mom" before I laid him back down for bed. Those few moments just deepened the soft spot in my heart for my little boy, who will surely grow into a man one of these days but will always be my little boy, and will hopefully always possess this quiet peace about him that effortlessly stills the worries of the day and simply invites the spirit.

Lovin' the Cool Air!

Fall is here, yahoo! My favorite time of the year is March/April, but I have to admit, feeling the slight chill in the air, and the undeniable aura of Autumn has me a slight bit giddy! As such we decorated for Fall/Halloween the other day. I don't pull out all the stops or break the bank by any means with decorations or anything like that, and this is probably silly of me, but anytime I look at one particular corner of our family room and taste the atmosphere, I feel something....I don't know, almost magical. Weird, right? It's there, I promise! I turned on my crafty side (though believe me, it's very slight) and made the wreaths-I was pretty proud of them! Here's what our front room looks like-and in case anyone is wondering, the clock still says 10:10:

Gott love it (even if its only me that loves it!)! Here's a few other happenings from the last few days in our home. We celebrated the final scene of Karianna's birthday extravaganze last weekend, so I'll pop in a few pictures of that-thanks to everyone who came and for all the gifts, Karianna has been in a dream land with all of them as of late! Sorry about the quality of the photos, our camaraman (whose name shall remain nameless) was not quite on the ball...

Finally, we are so glad that Jordan has gotten into a solid eating schedule with his food. We have a new concern though: what do his whiny little cries mean? Do they mean "Hurry it on up, you're not shoveling the food in fast enough!" Or do they mean "I'm done already! Drop the spoon or you'll regret it later!" What side of the fence are you on? Take a look at the evidence and throw me your best guess!

What's Your Nickname?

I have been waiting for seven months now to start calling Jordan "Jordy". This is pretty much the entire reason I wanted to have a son named Jordan! My not-so-little brother Robert's middle name is Jordan and when he was younger, Robert was kind of my baby-Suzanne took care of Stephen, I took care of Rob when needed. At some point I started calling Robert Jordy and ever since then, its been on my must-have list for kid names! Guess that's a huge tribute to Rob, eh? Maybe Jordan can inherit Robert's witty sense of humor, which seriously cracks me up (and since I just gave Rob major cyber kudos, I expect him to comment so I think at least one person enjoys my blog!!! :) ).

Anyhow, I have tried calling Jordan "Jordy" a few times; Karianna uses the nickname, at times during her bedtime prayers. It just is not sticking yet-I"m not sure that Jordan has enough personality yet to need the nickname-so far he is still baby jordan in my eyes, and that fits him just perfectly. So at some point, I am sure he'll receive the crown that is "Jordy" and it will please me ever so much to be able to use that name again-Rob is just a little too old now to be "Jordy"!

In the meantime, I am a little embarrassed to say that I have christened a nickname for Jordan, and I say christened because I use it at least once a day if not more-definitely nickname-worthy...although I certainly hope it does not stick, anyone who is reading this is hearby banned from using this nickname. Hee hee, bet you are curious now what it is! I am sorry to say that when I woke Jordan up for church this morning, I said: "Good morning stinky brother!" And when I strapped him into his carseat yesterday, it was: "Wow, you are growing so big stinky brother!" And when Karianna said her prayers last night, she nixed "Jordy" and instead said: "Bless me to be nice to my stinky brother." Okay, so I am just kidding about that last one, but typed in all seriousness about the first two "stinky brother" comments. The ironic thing about it is Jordan has significantly less poopy diapers than the average baby. Totally undeserved, this nickname. Don't worry Jordan, I've got an iron-clad promise that no one reading this will ever use it....and when you become a "Jordy", this whole stinky brother business will be totally forgotten!

Fact of the Day

Here it is: Due to the government buying out and "rescuing" all the banks that are going under, we have added an additional ONE TRILLION dollars to our national debt-and that is just the total for TODAY!

Conclusion? I think I need to go teach Congress how to balance a checkbook, because apparently they missed that.

Pooped Out

Sorry Mom, I just got so tired from sitting...

Beautiful Girl

Here is what we love about Karianna-our beautiful 4 year old:

Karianna is great at having conversations with us. My favorite time of the day with her is bedtime because after laying in bed with her and reading a story, we talk about anything and everything. Her ability to converse is amazing and I am always fascinated at her reasoning, which at time is very childlike and thus very wonderful!

Karianna is such a good big sister. She loves to babysit Jordan and teach JD how to do things. Albeit, the latter ends up being conducted in a bossy sort of fashion, but I love that she takes charge of her role as sister!

Karianna has a lot of faith. I wish I could be like her in that sense, and she teaches me everyday-shouldn't it be the other way around? :) I love that she sipmly believes-how wonderful.

Karianna is a singer! She loves, loves, loves music! Recently she has been requesting Leona Lewis (did I spell that right?) and has been known to sing the refrain from one of her songs in the middle of the Superstition Springs Mall Play Area....guess she's also big on music appreciation!

Karianna loves her extended family. She is always dictating stories about her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. They pop up in many a conversation. She relates new experiences to things she has done with various family members. WHat does all that mean? It means that she loves her extended family through and through, and you know, that's the way it should be :)

I'm sure every parent thinks this, and rightfully so, but I have to say it-Karianna is just so dang cute! :)

Karianna loves to learn; her curiosity gets the better of her in many situations! That means she has to know about everything, from letters, numbers, and spelling to female products, death, and weapons. It has taught me a great deal about how to answer questions honestly without overwhelming with too much information!

All in all-we just love everything about Karianna! Even when she has her grumpy, needy, frustrating days, she is just a joy in our lives and we are so blessed to have her in our family forever! Take a look at Karianna over the last four birthdays!

2004: The only True Birth Day! Born at 10:24 PM in Mesa, AZ after a very blissful epidural and a wonderful birthing experience, 10 hours from start to end-no complications at all! If I am remembering correctly, she was 8 pounds 8 ounces and 21 and 1/4 inches. She had a TON of black hair! Where'd that all go??? All the nurses thought she looked Native American given her almond eyes, dark hair, and olive skin.

2005: Birthday number one, and still resisting the urge to walk! Karianna didn't start permanantly walking until 4 months after this birthday, but once she did, she never looked back! In fact, according to her baby book, Karianna didn't start crawling until right before her first birthday! One fact to note-after only nibbling at her birthday cake, Karianna got sick later that night-we had done a really good job of nixing the sugar in the house!

2006: Birthday number two was in a brand new house, probably the first move that Karianna remembered! Karianna gave up her binky right before this birthday after a bout of hand and foot disease (which actually only affected her mouth and throat). Karianna got a great present this year-"Where's the Poop?" What a cutie (the birthday girl, not the poop).

2007: Birthday number three! By this birthday Karianna knew all her letters, numbers to 20, and had completely mastered the potty training dilemma. We got lucky, as I can still, to this day, count the number of accidents Karianna has had on my hands-thank heavens! Karianna's favorite things to do at this stage is play dress up, play with anything princess-y, and talk.

2008: Birthday number four-where did my litle girl go? This one is too big to be mine! :) I can only quote Buttefly Kisses: To perfume and makeup, from ribbons and curls; trying her wings out in a great big world...but I remember butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer. It goes on, and maybe we're not all the way to this sentiment yet, but we sure do love our little girl and cherish the moments we have with her!

Hospitals and Birthdays

Hospitals and birthdays...now there's a word couple foreshadowing disaster! Actually, it is just a good description of what our day was like in a completely unrelated fashion. First of all, Karianna's birthday is officially today! It was my goal to post pictures of her from each of her four birthdays going back to her actual birth day, but time is eluding me tonite and I'll have to save that post for another day this week. Happy Real Birthday Karianna!

The hospital part of this post actually deals with JD. He has had a few what-we-think-are-seizures episodes in the last week so we scheduled him to have an EEG done to see if he has some degree of epilepsy. I honestly had no idea how a 2 year old, who's favorite word is no and who has a ridiculously intense fiesty streak, was going to fare. JD is an amazing kiddo and he is so special in so many ways, but is it reasonable, even for a well-known children's hospital, to expect a toddler to sit still while having 23 electrodes glued to his head, forcing a nap, and flashing bright lights in his face? On top of requiring sleep deprivation upon arrival????

Verdict is in: It is so reasonable. :)

I'm not gonna lie, there was a ton of crying! JD had no tolerance for having electrodes attached to his head. But the neat thing is, he restricted his defiance to simply crying. Despite my expectations, not once did he try to rip the wires out, kick the technician, or squirm out of my arms. Instead he just softened my heart with huge crocodile tears and returned to general happiness once everything was in place. He fell asleep minutes after the test began, happily woke up when we needed him to, and upon seeing the bright flashing lights called out, "Lets do it AGAIN!" What a great little guy for hanging in there so well-good for you JD! One leg of this journey down, we'll see what tomorrow holds! For now, here's a few pictures I shot of JD, some of them courtesty of our very kind technician:

The calm before the storm, part 2...All 23 electrodes attached, next comes the I-Just-Had-Brain-Surgery-Bandage...

Poor guy! Breaking my heart, and no, I did not prolong the crying to get a picture!! He was actually much more calm now if compared to minutes earlier!

Having woken up from his 25 minute brain scan nap-happy as a clam! This isn't so bad!

The profile shot, which I just thought was so cool if only for his wired ponytail :)

The Big 4!

The birthday festivities have officially started! With both Jared's and my family close by, birthdays end up being weeklong extravaganzas; today marked the first day of celebration for Karianna's 4th birthday (and that's not even counting a few weeks ago when Grandma and Grandpa Lautenschlager threw a little party for her)! Karianna is finally at an age where she has good friends that she talks to and sees regularly, so this is the first year that we have done a friends party, although I tried to keep it on a low level given the fact that she will have 2 more parties this week. So today a few of her Sunbeam/Preschool friends came over for a makeup party-that's right, a makeup party, it was so much fun watching the girls slather themselves up with play makeup, and I was actually surrpised by how subtle they went-the moms must be doing their jobs right! Or is it the dads who want to protect their daughters from any boy who might give them a second look? Either way, nails were painted, makeup was applied, crowns were decorated, and cupcakes were covered in multicolored forsting, mixed especially by each one of the party guests. The best part of it was watching Karianna's face light up as she gabbed away with her friends, totally delighted at the idea of hanging out with them. My little girl is all grown up!!! We love you Karianna-happy birthday, and until the next party...here's some more pictures!

Classic Karianna picture taken before the party!

Decorating crowns and putting on makeup with friend Jenna and Lily.

The final product, Karianna Style!

Opening presents together...

...the fun way!

The loot: full princess garb, feather boa included! This was a "screecher" type of a present, ie, eliciting a good screech when it was finally opened!

Probably the fan favorite: a Disney CD player with plastic CDs that play-you guessed it-Disney songs. I even have to admit, this was a pretty cool present!

The girls got to mix their own frosting with food dye to make very creative star carkes. Dab on a bit (or a lot) or sprinkles and this is what you get if you are Karianna...in case you were wondering, yes she certainly did eat the whole thing...

Blowing out the candles-is anyone else concerned about Karianna's hair? Thankfully she got the candles out fairly quickly! Happy Birthday little girl!

Silly Guy

Today is September 12th. This is my 13th post for September. That means I am posting 1 and 1/13 times each day. That's just a little sad. Actually, what it tells you is that I must be pretty stressed out because when I get stressed out, I blog. Not sure why, come to think of it. Guess it could be worse-I could have made friends with Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels...not my kind of guys.

While grocery shopping today, I had Karianna pick out her birthday cake mix. I picked out 6 choices, lined them up, and waited for her to consider them and select the best looking one (she chose chocolate, and probably because I have done a great job limiting it in the last 4 years...). After putting the rejects away, I turned back to the cart where the boys were lounging to add the cake mix to the basket. While doing so, I discovered that JD had done some shopping of his own. In the cart were 8 packages of sugar. He was reaching for a 9th. What a great helper! At least he understands the importance of food storage-when the millenium hits the Lautenschlager family is going to be begging for a dentist. I guess that's where we'll trade services-I'll teach your child to read if you take care of a toothache. Good planning JD!

One More Post!

Seven years ago I was in my first year of college at the University of Arizona. It was my first time away from home, away from most of my family, and trying to figure out how I fit into life in general. I knew little about the world; I lived in a bit of a bubble my whole life, fairly naive and painfully unaware of the hardships of the world. So on the morning of September 11, 2001 I headed to the gym with a friend, not bothering to check the news. As I ran on a treadmill, I didn't think to pay attention to the CNN reporters or watch the headlines running across the ticker on the TV screen. I made it all the way home when I finally flipped on the news and heard the announcement that both of the World Trade Center towers had collapsed, amongst other horrific details. I am a little embarassed to say I didn't know what the World Trade Center was, where it was, or what all this really meant. Of course I felt a huge wave of sadness, because even I could understand how many lives had been lost. But I just didn't understand what that truly meant. Friends who lived in my apartment complex did; the student body at the UofA did, as exemplified by how barren the campus was throughout the day. I didn't really get it though-I was so young.

Seven years later, I am still not what most would consider as "old". But in the seven years I think I have grown up a lot. I have six years of marriage under my belt and all the joys and hardships that go with it. I have carried and delivered three beautiful children and still can't quite fathom how it is possbile that I can love them or worry about them so much. I have lost my father for the time being and consequently have more clearly defined what it is that I believe in; the process still continues honestly! I have lived, in these last seven years.

When 911 happened, I didn't understand. I didn't know anyone in New York, Washington, or Pennsylvania. I was too young to really get it. Yet, as I considered today what happened, I think the enormity of it all hit me more today than it did, by far, seven years ago. I know loss and the sadness that accompanies it. I know how much I love my husband and my children, and I cannot imagine how I would surive in a world without them. My heart has gone out to the familes of 911 victims. I cannot empathize with them; I would never claim to understand that pain or the memory of what hapened. However, I can sympathize how I would have felt if it was my family, and my heart is sad for those that bear such a weight.

For those that do struggle with the memories and the sadness to a degree that many cannot understand, I hope and pray that they will remember that Jesus Christ understands, and He can bring hope and strength when no more can be mustered. I know this to be true in my own life; when all my mortal attempts failed, it was the only way to move forward. I know I will be taking a few moments tonite to say a prayer for all those affected by the attacks seven years ago, as well as a prayer of gratitude that we have a Savior who can make all the difference in the world.

Moments Worth Mentioning

Second post of the day-and I think there might be a third, figured I'd split them up so it would be easier to browse through them. Here's a few pictures that I took today in total randomness (and cuteness, depending on what picture you are looking at):

• As I was browsing through Halloween costumes, I was pretty shocked to find exactly what we needed to match Karianna's Dorothy costume; still have to figure out how to transform Jared into the Tin-Man (which is a huge promotion over his original costume-the flying monkey). Here's JD as the Scarecrow and Jordan as the Cowardly Lion! I'm so sorry for the onslaught of pictuters-I couldn't figure out which I liked the best!

• We had a huge storm today! Before the thunder, lightning and rain hit, here's what loomed over Northern Phoenix (we just happened to have our camara in the car):

Driving in that cloud was pretty fun. I headed out to the Rec Center to exercise, but before I went, Karianna made sure to tell me, "Mama, you better run into the rec center or you are going to get dirty in that dirt cloud". Thanks for the advice kiddo!