Kevin and Renee's Kids Blog

The other day I was listening to talk radio and the interviewer had on a guest who was ready to revolutionize the world of make-up…for guys. He had it all figured out. Guy Liner, Male Polish, Body Wax, Hair Care…most of it geared towards skaters, musicians and anyone who steps foot in a Hot Topic. He was pretty excited for his product line, and I tried to think if I knew of anyone who would actually buy it. I remember someone in high school who always painted their thumbnail black. But other than that, I guess my sheltered life has protected me from the alternative lifestyle of made up men.

But then I came out of my office today and saw why Caleb had been eerily silent for the last 20 minutes and now I get it. At least he chose black and not hot pink, and kept the majority of the washable marker on himself for this round. That reminds me, I still need to go scrub the hallway walls down…

Caleb continues to choose grunts over words. Screaming over asking. Sounds effects over phrases. And while we’re not concerned, because we know he can talk (he says things all the time and then never repeats them) it’s quickly becoming a necessity to get him to start communicating with us on a better level.

I know…every child has their own schedule, and we’re all for that. But I think it would do wonders for him if we could get him to expand that vocabulary on a regular basis.

He’ll say a whole bunch of words, and it’s a struggle to get him to put two or more together, but it’s possible. But the thing that cracks us up every time is when he says “car.” No one else would have any idea that’s what he’s saying, because it’s not a word. It’s a low growl, like an engine noise. It’s fun to take him through a list of a bunch of words and then when we get to car it’s “RAAAAAAA.”

This video doesn’t do it justice, but still cute…

On February 22, Kennedy and I played our first actual game. We had tried before but she wasn’t ready. Today we played all three of the games we own and she beat me every single time. I regretfully taught her the phrase, “I spanked you.” I have now been told that multiple times.

We played our second round of games, yesterday, February 24. Unfortunately, Kennedy used all her luck in round one and today mommy was on a hot streak. Kennedy didn’t mind at all until I beat her three times in a row at Candy Land. She sat there a minute and then just burst into tears. Talk about feeling two inches tall. I felt so bad. We talked about being a “soar loser” but most of all she just needed loved!

I’ve also included a picture of Caleb because you can’t take a picture of Kennedy and not take one of Caleb. Oh, and the outfit? He’s very into dressing himself. We are changing shirts about five times a day. I never knew a boy could be such a clothing diva.

A few days ago, I showed Caleb how to microwave a Lean Cuisine, one of his favorite meals. We pulled up a chair, I unwrapped the meal, he put it in the microwave, closed the door and then I lifted him up to punch the buttons. His eyes lit up when we hit START and he stood there for 4 minutes, watching the magic happen…because that’s what it is…magic. I’ll never cease to be amazed at the power of a microwave.

After that exercise, I wasn’t surprised tonight, when I went to pop some popcorn, to find an unopened box of Lean Cuisine waiting for me in the microwave. It was still frozen, so I’m guessing Caleb tried to cook himself some dinner earlier in the evening.

He’s become quite the busy bee when no one is looking. Yesterday, I discovered him pouring an entire bag of Cherios on the kitchen floor to Dawson’s excitement who was lapping them up as fast as they were being scattered (score!) and a few hours later, he had emptied about 1/2 a bottle of contact solution over his table and was cleaning it with his hands. Later than night, Renee asked me if he’d been in the garage after finding his little step stool by the door.

I guess this means we’re going to have to start watching our child instead of giving him free reign of the house during the day. How depressing.

I don’t remember Kennedy ever getting into things. She was curious about a lot of stuff, but not a trouble maker. But this is probably just another extension of the mother’s curse taking hold in my life. My parents have countless photos of me sitting in the middle of piles of unrolled toilet paper, beds covered in baby powder and my face smeared with creams and make up (I’m sure my mom especially appreciated that one…that junk is not cheap).

There’s a website that I’ve been to a few times with a solid PG-13 name, http://www.shitmykidsruined.com but it will have you rolling with laughter in a few minutes. Just like with a new puppy, there’s are things around the house that just won’t last long with kids. I don’t want to speak any truth into this, but I have a feeling we’ll be submitting a few photos to their site in the coming years. Let’s hope the damage is something we can laugh at, instead of cry over.

Now excuse me while I go nail down, padlock, secure and lock up everything in the house.

Caleb was in my office today while I was working and he was playing with the iPad. I can’t get him to stay in his own kid’s apps so he’s usually playing Slot games, or sending emails to random people or rearranging my home screen…fun stuff like that. So all of a sudden, I hear this big POP and then a huge scream and I looked over and he’s playing with a sound effect app. He doesn’t notice me and does it again. POP…AHHHHHHH…POP…AHHHHHHH…POP…AHHHHHHH. He probably did this 10 times in a row before I was able to get my phone out and record him. By then he caught on that I was laughing at him and it turned into a show. Still pretty funny.

On numerous occasions, and more and more recently, I’ve been reminded that I’m not getting any younger. A few months back, I was a driver for our church’s youth group road rally and one of the leaders guessed I was pushing 40. He was embarrassed too so I’m fairly confident he wasn’t joking.

Next month, I turn 33, and Renee won’t be too far behind. Still very much young in the grand scope of life (Lord willing), but it’s quickly becoming more “at heart” than anything else.

As most of us know, kids don’t make us feel any younger. The constant chasing, correcting, moving, entertaining, deciphering, educating, showing, explaining, shuffling…I mean, it’s no wonder the favorite phrase of grandparents worldwide, typically after watching their grandchildren, is “there’s a reason God gives us children while we’re young.” We’ll, that and “hahahahahaha!” (My parents get great joy in watching me juggle the kids.)

So yesterday, Renee and Kennedy were arguing about something obvious (like what direction home was, for example) and Kennedy finally gave up, took a big sigh and then said, “you guys are old.” Ha! Fantastic.

Hey kiddo, I’ve got enough around me reminding me my days are dwindling. I don’t need my four year old to start chiming in. Save that crap for your teenage years. Good grief.

But no worries. I’ve got 30 days to enjoy my last month of 32. And no one is going to bring me down. Now, where did I put that Icy Hot? My back is killing me! (Yeah…not joking.)

We are pretty excited about a new Kid’s play center opening around the corner from us. A few years back, we discovered Rafiki, an indoor play center that was about 25 minutes from us. The kids just had a ball but it was a little far to go without making an entire afternoon of it. We found out they closed down around the same time Just Kid’n Around opened in Meridian, right around the corner from us. After going once and having both the kids just love it, we decided to purchase an annual pass that came out to about $35/month total for both kids. Not a bad deal.

So every Wednesday, I’m planning on picking up Kennedy from school and her, Caleb and me will go play for a few hours. We had a blast today and it might give me some time to blog as well. For two hours straight, the kids just played without any problems. It was pretty nice.

Christmas Greetings! Any guess who this letter is being written by? Well you aren’t laughing yet, so it must mean I got the pleasure of writing this year’s Christmas letter. If you are pretending you still don’t know who is writing this, then thanks for being so sweet. It’s me, Renee! Kevin has been busy directing  A Signature Christmas again this year, a production at church that he wrote, and has now copyrighted. But because of that, there hasn’t been much time to work on the wife’s “honey-do list.”

Joking aside, Kevin has once again had a beyond busy year. NewReleaseTuesday.com (NRT), the Christian music site that Kevin started in 2003, has become his full time job, resulting in a transition that has produced a lot of very full days. Around June, Kevin decided that he was no longer taking on any new clients for KMWeb Designs, the design business he’s been building since 2000. Even though he stopped taking new business, he still had to complete all of the sites in process. Now he only has a few open projects to complete for KMWeb Designs and then he will only have to maintain his current client base of about 120 clients. We are hopeful this decision will free up his schedule.

Because NRT is like Kevin’s baby, we will go ahead and give you an update on how she is doing and growing. The first announcement would be that we made NewReleaseTuesday.com a legal entity  this year. She is now officially an S-Corp named NRT Media, Inc. The biggest news this year was that Kevin started a radio station with the NRT brand. It can be found at NRTRadio.net. Take a listen. The NEW Sound Of Christian Music is a 24/7 online radio station that plays over 8 hours of the latest in Christian music with no repeats. Kevin also launched NRT Mobile Match, the second app designed for Apple mobile devices and the first Christian music game designed for the iPad. He was pretty heartbroken that he had to plunk down the cash to get an iPad for testing purposes, but he got over it quickly. He also launched NRT Ministry Partnerships, which allows NRT to donate $0.25 to a ministry during select months, for every new member on the site. Kevin also began a partnership with Westar Media Group, which assists in getting NRT’s one and two minute New Music Updates broadcast on 140+ affiliate stations worldwide each week! Finally, NRT was awarded a 2010 Standard Of Excellence Award and a 2010 W3 Silver Design Award. NRT continues to thrive, adding over 13,000 members to the site this year, an increase of 23% over last year! The past 12 months set traffic records for the site as NRT welcomed over 2.5 million visitors, an increase of 68% over 2009! Pageviews were also up 24% with visitors accessing over 6.3 million pages!

I think one of the most enjoyable parts of the year for Kevin was traveling to two of the big Christian music festivals with some friends, Creation East in PA and Creation West in WA, scoping out the scene for a larger presence next year. We were also able to do some travel as a family this year. In February, we flew out to Orlando and spent two weeks there with the kids. It was wonderful to get away and have a good time and was one of our most enjoyable vacations to date. Our last day at Magic Kingdom was truly magical. Mickey and Minnie were both at Minnie’s house taking pictures together, which is a rare occurrence. Kennedy was chosen in line to take pictures with all three princesses at once at the end of the evening. We also got to watch the fireworks display from the top of the Astro Orbiter in Tomorrow Land, overlooking much of the park. After it was over, the worker told us that last year, during Disney’s Year Of A Million Wishes campaign, that watching the fireworks from that location was one of their prizes. We are so thankful for that night and we know there’s no way we could possibly get all the stars to align and have such a magical night again.

In September, Kevin and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. We decided that we would do something special and after securing babysitting for a few days (thank you Mom and Dad McNeese), we booked a trip to Vegas (same place we had our honeymoon) and stayed at Treasure Island for a few days. We saw Penn & Teller while we were there as well as Jim Gaffigan (still laughing). For our anniversary dinner, we went to the Stratosphere and had dinner at the Top of the World Restaurant. It was a very special evening and we were so thankful for a few days with just the two of us. The kids had a wonderful time with Nana & Papa and Aunt Bonnie pitched in as well.

This has also been a big year for Kennedy, who just turned 4. We enrolled her at Maranatha Christian Preschool, which is the school at our church. She has loved going for a few hours in the morning and loves all of her friends and her teacher, Mrs. Yolie. She has also been busy with lots of art projects. She loves painting and recently drew her first picture. It was a robot. It was pretty cute to go from scribbling to an actual object. We did a few ballet classes this summer as well. Hopefully once the holidays pass, we can get enrolled in something more permanent. She loves to dance and sing. She is definitely her daddy’s girl. We think it’s funny that Kennedy looks like me but she has her dad’s personality, and Caleb looks like his daddy but he has my personality.

Caleb, now 2, is my sweet little boy! He is such a little love bug. He gives hugs and kisses just to give them. He loves to be held and cuddled. That said, he is all boy! We laugh at how often we say that. If there is something to climb or swing off of, he is going to do it. He loves to play Legos, trains and cars. He loves “Buzzzz” from Toy Story 3 and all the characters from Cars. He has a big one word vocabulary, and with that I mean, he says a word once and then won’t ever say it again. There have also been lots of moments this year with his sister dressing him up in things that no boy should have to wear. Being a good mom, I haven’t taken any photos, even though I’ve wanted to. Kevin just looks on and shakes his head.

With both of the kids getting older, I feel like I’m starting to become human again. My theory is that around 16 to 18 months, life starts working like normal again, but in my case just when I started feeling like I was back up and running after having Kennedy, we were pregnant again. I have been enjoying getting to do some running and walking. I also got a gun for my birthday from my sweet husband. It is a 9mm XDM. I have enjoyed getting to go shooting with my brother and some other family. I’m not a hunter, but I think target shooting is a fun skill to learn. This year, I also gave up leadership of the nursery at church, and began working with the preschoolers, which I love doing. I continue to be so grateful for the chance to stay home with the kids. After 4 years of not working, I do feel a little out of touch with reality, because I know I am so spoiled to have this opportunity.

As busy as Kevin has been, he has enjoyed playing tennis again this year. He is still leading worship at church and has officially become the “creative director” there, doing more graphic design and overall marketing. Kevin gave his testimony at church this year. He feels like God has been so gracious and he really felt called to share. Hear it at http://www.boisecentral.org/blog/?p=160.

In family news, my mom turned 50 this year, which is fun to say! My step-dad, Ron, had a big scare in the hospital where he actually flat lined but the doctors were able to bring him back. His recovery is a huge praise report of ours. Kevin’s sister, Bonnie, and her husband Josh bought their first home. Grandpa Beard has been going though lots of chemo but we are so thankful Kevin’s mom, Kim, has been able to be home to help him so much. God’s timing is perfect. Finally, we were so grateful when our best friends, Ryan and Cherry, moved home earlier this year with their little boy, Noah!

With just 8 days until Christmas, and the final day where kids were in school, we thought we better take advantage of the last opportunity to get to the mall to see Santa before the craziness began. While we still wound up waiting 45 minutes to see the big guy, the kids were so excited and behaved wonderfully. There was no hesitation in running up to see Santa, which kind of surprised me. Kennedy has fully embraced the idea of Santa with little nudging for us (I guess he’s so seeded into the culture it’s just part of Christmas, and we’re both fine going along with it). She thinks Santa is a girl though. Either that or she doesn’t have the “he” and “she” vocabulary down just yet. Other than that, she knows Santa’s purpose and afterwards, when we asked her what she asked Santa for, she replied, “Presents.” Trying to dig up some more intel, and Kennedy says, “I just asked for lots of stuff.” Way to cover your bases kiddo.

Later this evening, we were planning to go to a Christmas party, but discovered at the last minute we had the wrong date (it’s tomorrow). So then we tried to get together with some friends of ours, but that bombed out at the last minute as well. So we decided the decorate the tree that’s been up for 3 weeks (HA) and open some early gifts from Grammy Rena. We had a blast and I’ve never seen the kids so wired and amped. This upcoming week should be a blast if tonight was a preview.