Happy Birthday Kenadi!

Our little Kenadi is 5!  Her birthday was April 4th, and she was lucky to have Papa Hempel here to help us celebrate it.

Kenadi LOVES everything princess.  So, I made her this Little Mermaid cake- and she loved it.

Too bad the picture's a bit blurry, but here you go.  I borrowed the cake pan from a friend of mine who does beautiful cakes and cupcakes- her stipulation for borrowing the pan is that I post it somewhere for her to see.  So here you go Melissa!  Thanks!

Our happy birthday girl.  We love you Kenadi!

So what else did we do to celebrate?  Well, Emma sat on Kenadi's head for a while...

and we spent a nice warm weekend with Papa- enjoying the weather.

They love the sprinkler and anything that has to do with water.

 Lately we've been teaching Kenadi to ride her bike without training wheels.   She is a bit reluctant, but she does pretty good.

 Would you like a Mya update?

Well, I'm sorry to leave you all wondering how everything went.  Lets just say that it went as well as surgery can go.  The mass was exactly what the surgeon expected it to be and it's not anything dangerous.  It came out all in one big piece and was deep in her neck, but there were no issues at all.  She's been such a happy baby even after it all-and her necck is healing up wonderfully.  I just know that everthing has gone so well because of all of the prayers from family and friends.  Thank you all!

 Here's a graphic view for you- just so you can see how big her incision was.

I love my baby!

Who's like who?

Here's each of our girls at roughly the same age (~5 days).

Kenadi

Emma

Mya

Notice any similarities. Who looks the most alike? We looked through each of their baby pictures a few days ago and have our own opinions. What do you think?

Summer Fun

I'd first like to start you off with a little taste of something we've enjoyed in our garden this year.  YUM!  Too bad their season is over.  Now we are enjoying lots of raspberries, beans, and lettuce (and herbs).  Our spinach is done, and so are the peas, which Emma thoroughly enjoyed.

For Memorial Day (I know, I'm a bit behind) we went to an arts festival.  The highlight of going was that we rode our bikes there.  Despite the heat, I LOVED this family activity.

Here are some pictures of that weekend.  I just love these little faces, and had to share our sweet little girls with you.

We made ice cream in a bag for a family home evening treat one Monday.  We all loved it.  Of course, it has been so hot, and the ice cream was mostly soup by the time we finished eating it.  It was still delicious.

We've been taking advantage of the heat and swimming a lot.  The girls have some pretty impressive tan lines, even with all of the sunscreen I put on them.  I, on the other hand, don't look any different.  I wasn't blessed with nice tanning skin. 

Pictures of Kenadi

Okay, we will start from the very beginning. Well, maybe not the VERY beginning, but pretty close. This is Kenadi- inside. I was about 7 months along here.

Here she is at about 9 or 10 weeks. Isn't she so cute? =) I thought it was cute, for an ultrasound.

Well, I am going to bare all and let you see this picture. Lets just say I retain a lot of fluids when I am in labor. Can I blame it all on that? Oh well. I decided that if you read this blog, you deserve to know all sides of me. Even this one. Just look at us though. We were so excited to finally have her in our arms.

It was the neatest thing to finally see her and hold her. Randy and I couldn't get enough of her.

She was the cutest little baby. And so good.

We were so blessed to have my cousin Morgan on clinical rotations at my hospital, and in the birthing center! It was neat to have her there.

Of course, we had visitors. Everyone was so excited to see her. This is Grandpa, or "Papa", and Kenadi.

Kenadi and Grandma Simonson

For some reason I can't move this picture, or any around it. It is out of order, but this is Kenadi and Me, obviously. It was after one of my hormonal, emotional breakdowns. I had quite a few of those after I had Kenadi. I was extremely better after I had Emma.

Some of my siblings came. They look so enthused.

Grandma Jensen came too. Of course, I am missing pictures of all of the siblings who came, but you all get the point. This picture of Kenadi looks just like her when she sleeps now. Except she's bigger now.

Here she is at about one month or so.

I think about 3 weeks here.

This is her at about 9 months.

Anyways, Kenadi loves to get on this blog and look at the pictures I've posted. I will post more later, and not so condensed. Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did, and I know Kenadi will. Don't forget to read the post I did right before this one. It's worth it. (pssst, it's about a giveaway)

Kenadi is 4!

Sweet Kenadi is 4! It goes fast. She was excited to turn 4, and when the day came I don't think she believed she was really 4 because she didn't feel any different. She kept saying, "When I get 4 I'll be your age!" "Am I 4 now? Am I taller?" Stuff like that.

This was her first big friends party. We had it on Wednesday, and Randy was at school. We had a family party for her this morning. She loved her friend party. They all dressed up for our theme of dressing as your favorite character. Kenadi was.... Cinderella, of course. I finally finished her dress. She LOVES it, which makes me happy because I spent a lot of time on it. Well, it wasn't too hard, just dumb instructions. I also made her a "Princess Carriage" cake. She was definately in princess heaven.

Her birthday fell on Easter this year. So, we had our family party in the morning, after our Easter celebrations. Here are some pictures so you can see a bit of what we did that day.

The weather has been so nice. We've been outside every day, soaking up the sun, and mud.

Notice the pink chap-stick all around Kenadi's lips? She got some in her Easter basket and will put it on constantly for 20 minutes until I put it away. Emma does the same thing, except it goes in the hair, on cheeks, and eventually gets eaten.

The above picture and the ones to follow, are of Kenadi's party on Wednesday. I never did get a picture of all of her friends who came. I thought about it once, but was too busy to remember to do it. They were all so cute, I wish I did. We had a Cinderella, a Princess, Batman, a Wizard, a Knight, Woody, Buzz, another Princess, and I think that is it. Hopefully I didn't forget anyone. Make sure you pay attention to Kenadi's dress that I worked so hard on. I might have to post a better picture of it later.

"Duck, Duck, Goose!"

Here is the cake. Don't look too closely. It was a quick job, but I think it turned out pretty good. I think I'm going to dedicate the rest of the week to pictures of Kenadi from newborn to now. So, expect to see some more of her tomorrow!

Cinderella

"You're as lovely as your name, Cinderella!"

Last week we got to take the girls to see the Rogers and Hammerstien version of Cinderella that was done VERY well by a local high-school. I was so excited to take them. Kenadi is absolutely obsessed with princesses, most importantly, Cinderella. She dresses up every day in this dress that she calls her "princesses dress/wedding dress". I think it's because it is big an poofy and white, and it touches the floor. I got her a crown and dress-up shoes at the dollar store and she wears those right along with the dress. So, we were planning on going to this play all week, but then Kenadi got so sick that it became apparent that we were not going to be able to go. I was really sad. On Friday I mentioned something about how we were probably not going to go to the play, and that night Kenadi was miraculously better about an hour before the show started. So we decided to go. She was absolutely fine throughout the whole play, but then the next day she was so sick again. I knew that it was risky taking her, but we didn't sit by anyone so we couldn't pass on any bugs (we hoped). Anyways, I didn't regret it. Kenadi couldn't take her eyes away from the play the whole time. She thought that it was real, and that the girl really was Cinderella. Randy and I enjoyed the play too, but mostly we loved to watch the excitement in the girls' eyes. Here are a few pictures of the night:

Oh yea, Kenadi wore this dress to the show, and the funny thing was that all of the other girls her age were wearing princess dresses too! It was so cute! By the way, I am sewing Kenadi a REAL Cinderella dress right now. I'll post pictures of it when I'm done. It's coming along nicely!Can you tell what Emma wanted to do the whole night? Yea, she was a bit of a handful. It was a late night for them.