Christmas Day 2013

Despite my earlier post about a blue Christmas Titus and I did get it together and we had a fun morning.  Last year we started a tradition of getting our kids new (well new to us) jammies that they can open on Christmas Eve.  I started looking for jammies at second hand stores back in October.  We got some very cute ones this year!

Christmas Eve, James, Gideon and Faith in their new jammies:

Gideon and I got up earlier then everyone else so we watched the end of A Very Monkey Christmas (Curious George) while we waited for everyone else to wake up.  First we opened stockings:

Both boys got 3 little airplanes in their stockings.  I bought them very cheap at a second hand store way back in Oct.  They have had a lot of fun with them.

And then I made breakfast, which no one ate but me.  Titus wasn’t feeling well (upset stomach among other things) so he didn’t eat and

the kids ate the stuff from their stockings.  I made so many cinnamon rolls I ate them for days!

Opening presents:

Daddy and his pull up bar:

Our boys and their new cowboy boots!  They have worn them every day since!

Mommy and her new yellow cast iron pot! (super super super happy!!!)

New blue tractors from Grandparents Penner:

And the best present for the boys, Hungry Hungry Hippos!  At the last minute on Christmas Eve I bought it for them at the second hand store for $2.  My poor boys, it only came with one marble!!!! 

But that didn’t stop them from having fun and they played with it all day! 

I am very very proud of Titus for really getting in and having fun with the kids, even though he felt sick.  Way to go Babe! It was a very Merry Christmas!

Looking back 4 years

Last week marked four years ago I married the love of my life.  As I look back on our four years together I can see how much we have been blessed together, and how God has taken such good care of us.  Our first year was in Hawaii, which was amazing.  We lived in this beautiful little one bedroom apartment on the second floor. I loved it!

July 4th 2010

God knew we really needed time together as newly weds without any friends or family around.  We had plenty of money, and Titus didn’t work much.  We just went on lots of dates the first half of living there.  God blessed us with a son in September that first year.

Since James cried all the time it slightly changed our newly wed date life we had going on. 😉  But you can’t stay newly weds forever!

We went to Maui as the first family vacation ever!

Titus and I went to the Marine Corp ball.  I think it was our first date after having James. (Which I think got cut short because he started crying at the baby-sitter’s house ha ha!)

Our first year anniversary.  We didn’t do much (it was just too hard to leave James), but we did borrow a friend’s motorcycle and took a ride up through the island.  I don’t ride motorcycles when I’m pregnant and it was something Titus wanted to do.  I don’t think we even went out to eat or anything.  It was just a quick ride.

Our second year we moved back to Minnesota into this little house:

Titus’ grandma had moved to Kansas and she let us live here rent free for our second year of marriage.  It was a huge blessing since it helped us make ends meet that first year out of the military.  Our second year we didn’t do much, but reconnected with family and friends.

We went to Texas and Kansas that year for vacations.  For our second anniversary we went out to eat at Bergen Bar.  I think we might have gone back home and watched a movie together too, before getting James. I can’t remember.

Our third year involved another baby and yet another move.

God blessed us with a second son, Gideon.

A month later we moved to this beautiful house:

We had a happy third year with our two little boys.

The 4th of July

For vacation we went up to northern Minnesota.  It turned out to be a horrible trip with the two little boys, but at least we spent some time with family. This picture sums it up nicely:

On our 3rd anniversary I forgot. Completely forgot! In my defense, I was under large amounts of stress, and incredibly sleep deprived!  Titus how ever went all out, dozens of flowers all over the house, chocolate every where, and a beautiful pink set of jewelry.  He is truly a wonderful man. Maybe he knew I needed some extra love that year!

That brings us to this last year.  Last summer I think was one of our best ones.  The boys were a bit older and loved going to the barn.  We spent lots of time there since we decided to move yet again!

Half way through our 4th year we moved to Denver, CO.

And God blessed us with a little girl two days before our 4th year ended:

Faith Natalie

In our four years of marriage:

we have lived in four different houses,

in three different states,

been blessed with three healthy and beautiful children,

Titus has had three different jobs plus going to school,

and I can truly see God’s hand in all of it.  From providing the money for our home births, to all our moves, and Titus’ different jobs.

And one of the biggest and best blessings of our four years together is the fact that other than when he worked at Mountain Power (for about two months) Titus has not worked a normal 8-5 job.  He has been home during the day a ton and we get to see him a lot.  There have been times that he has been busy (like when they bale hay or during harvest time), but for the majority of the time he spends a lot of it at home.  This has been an amazing blessing, one that I am very very thankful for!

I love you honey, here’s to another wonderful 4 years together, with hopefully more babies, and hopefully not as many moves. 😉

Children’s Museum

The first Tuesday of every month from 4 – 8 the Denver Children’s Museum has a free day.  Apparently Target pays for it and we all get in free of charge.  Emma and I went September right at 4 and stayed the whole four hours.  It was exhausting for both of us!  In October I had to go by myself because Titus has class on the first and third Tuesday nights.  In November Titus asked his teacher if they could have class a different day so that he could go with me.  I’m so thankful for such an easy going school!  I am also very thankful Titus went with me this month because I could really tell I’m a month further in my pregnancy.  I’m not sure I could have kept up with the boys very well at all.  I also got to take a few pictures this time around.  I’m normally sooooo busy running around, keeping track of two little boys in a very very crowded place that I don’t get to take any pictures.  What I really need is someone to follow us around to JUST take pictures because there really is fun stuff and cute pictures to be taken.

By far their favorite place to play is the grocery store.  I despise grocery shopping any day, and this “store” isn’t any better. 😉  I find it very tiring, but the boys have sooo much fun!  

 

James checking out his groceries:

All Gideon likes to do is fill his cart with fruit and veggies.  Then I dump it out and he fills it again. He’s so cute!

The boys and I have not gone to the bubble room at all.  The floor is slippery and it was too much work to look after both of them by myself.  But this time Titus took James while I stayed with Gideon in another room.  They both had fun! You stand on this little platform and pull a rope which brings up the ‘bubble’. So you can stand inside a bubble.  Pretty cool!

They also have a retired fire truck with child size uniforms.  This is also one of the boy’s favorite rooms.

It really is said how few pictures I got.  Next month Aunt Alaina and Aunt Tessa will be here, and I’m hoping they will take the boys!  😀 hint hint

Hiking

Last Friday we went for a long drive in the mountains and did just a little bit of hiking.  At the first stop James didn’t want to go at all, was in a horrible mood and kept talking about bears.  But by the end of the hike he was starting to have fun.  This first one was a very small trail that was pretty flat.  Perfect for little kids. 

We found this little stick hut that someone made.  James wouldn’t go in (still in a bad mood at this point).  I love Gideon’s hand on Titus’ leg!

We were far enough up that there was snow even though it wasn’t that cold.  The boys liked playing in it.

Always looking for Christmas family pictures!

Gorgeous!

By the end of the first hike James didn’t want to get back into the truck.  So I promised him we would stop again.  Well we missed our turn and drove and drove.  We weren’t too far from the city on the way back and I told Titus we HAD to stop because I had promised him.  So we saw a sign and stopped.  It ended up being quite a hike of which my body totally hated!  I am sooooo out of shape it isn’t even funny!

When we finally got to the top there were a bunch of rocks to climb on.  The boys thought that was fun!

It was around dusk so you can’t really see the foothills/mountains behind James. But it was a beautiful view!

Gideon in the weeds!

Titus and our boys!

Another family picture! I can’t believe how well the boys sat for this since it was on a timer.  The blinking light must have caught their attention.

 

Gotta get one of Mommy and Daddy stealing a kiss!

Happy fall!

The first snow!

The first snow is always exciting. I remember waking up as a kid every morning hoping for the first snow.  And now with my own kids it’s fun all over again.  Now personally I don’t want snow in October, especially since fall just started and I’d like to enjoy it, but we woke up to about an inch on the ground this morning.  It wasn’t in the forecast I read so it was a complete surprise.  I don’t think James remembers snow from last year because he thought it was pretty cool.  Last year he pronounced snow with an S at the end, snows, but it sounded more like nowse.  It was soooo cute and I’m going to miss him saying it that way. James had to go outside right away so he and I got our boots on.  I couldn’t get him to wear a jacket and he looked terribly cold to me.

James and Mommy

Snow!

When he first saw the snow from the window he asked right away where all the dirt was. ha ha, I told him it was under the snow.  So he had to go check out his dirt pile:

Then I showed him he could eat it.  He thought that was pretty cool and tried snow at different points all over the back yard. So cute!

By that time Gideon woke up.  We’ve had two really really hard nights with Gideon (lots of crying for hours during the night).  He woke up with a horrible cold this morning.  I’m starting to wonder if maybe he has an ear infection (or maybe two ear infections) and that’s why.  It’s terribly unfair to be sick on the first day of snow.

An hour to two later Titus got up and said, “It snowed! We have to go play in it!” He was a bit behind, but we got everyone ready again (James still refusing to wear a jacket. What are we going to do this winter?? ha ha) The snow had already started to melt by then.

Titus and the boys made the cutest little snowman!

All the snow melted by the end of the day, except maybe stuff in really shady spots and the bottom part of the snowman.  Maybe we will still get a fall after all.  About three or four weeks ago someone told Titus when you can see snow on the foothills/mountains Denver gets snow 2 weeks later.  And she was pretty close!

Fabulous finds!

Yesterday we went and found a few places that were on a mental list I have.  We passed a yard sale at one point and on the way back I had Titus stop since there seemed to be a lot of kid stuff.  I am so glad we took the time to stop!  Titus got this bike for James for only $5!  I’ve been looking for a bike for him all summer and have turned a few down because of price!

 

I can’t even tell you how excited he was!   He forced us on several walks that evening so he could

keep riding.  My boy is growing up!

I do think it’s going to end up being more of a pain than anything else because I don’t think he is going to want to ride in the bike trailer or bike seat anymore.  Which is going to greatly reduce my biking time since he will need to be pushed and guided every where. And yes I am still biking quite a bit even though I am 25 weeks prego this week.  It seems to help my back a lot and it gets us places faster than walking.  I do how ever have to get off slowly because it gets to my uterus sometimes when I stop and get off. 😉

Titus also got this red wagon at the same sale.  It was also only $5.  Gideon seems to like it a lot!

When we got home I got on craiglist to look for a bike for Emma.  Just in case anyone was wondering this area seems to be pretty into biking and there aren’t any el cheepos out there. 😉 So I moseyed over to the free stuff and there was a free sand box and sand table just up the street from us!  Boy was I excited! So I hurried Titus back to the truck to go get those!  Apparently just down the street means different things to Titus and I since he thought it was further then I let on (which it really wasn’t!).  The sand box was gone when we got there but the sand/water table was still there. So I picked that up for free!

It needed a good cleaning but it works fine.  Even the umbrella still works!  You are supposed to put sand on the left side and water on the right side but I’m not sure I’m going to do that since I think my boys will mix the two horribly and make an awful mess.  Right now it has water in it but I think I’ll get sand for both sides.

Three great toys for a combined cost of $10!  I love a good deal!!

The first week in Colorado.

The last part of July and first part of August were so busy and slightly without internet that I haven’t been able to write anything.  We did finally find a house to rent towards the end of July, so we packed up the house and moved in about a week.  Titus did most of the packing at first because I came down with a really horrible sinus cold and was pretty wiped out for days. The last few days he pushed me hard to get everything packed up so we could load the truck on Aug 3rd. A huge thank you to my mom for helping me pack the kitchen! What a job that was.  The house we moved to is a furnished mission house, but because I didn’t see the house before we moved I had no idea what to take and what to leave.  The last few days before moving were a whirlwind of making decisions on what to take and what to leave, all based on a house filled with stuff I had not seen.  And by the way, it’s a whole lot easier to move from a small house to a big house then the other way around.  I was completely beyond making decisions by the time everything was packed, and my mind had been overworked. 😉    We loaded the trailer and truck and van all on Aug 3rd.  A huge thanks to Titus’ Dad, Mom, brother and his wife for all the help that morning and for bringing the noon meal!  What a blessing!  James thought packing the trailer was great fun and kept bringing things for Uncle Timmy to put inside.

Sadly the trailer didn’t end up being big enough so towards the end we started having to remake some of the to keep or to stay decisions we had already made!  Titus’ had to leave his motorcycle and I left my sewing machine and all my sewing stuff, some baby clothes that hopefully someone will bring before I need them and a few other things.  The moving trailer, van and the bed of the pick up were all completely full.  I didn’t know how we were going to fit everything into the house!

We stayed Saturday and Sunday night with Titus’ parents and left early Monday morning for Denver.  Sunday morning was hard and I cried a bit through church.  I had held up really really well that whole week of packing, but it kinda hit me Sunday morning.  Then Sunday night Titus took me to a surprise going away party that our family and a bunch of friends put on for us at Voss Park.  I didn’t know anything about it and it was such a great way to say good-bye to everyone!  It lifted my spirits a lot and I am so thankful for truly wonderful friends!

We left Monday for Denver and got there in the evening. The college that Titus is going to is in a church building right now and the church owns a house that is used for missionaries when they are on furlough. Kinda neat! But they haven’t had anyone there for a while and don’t want it to sit empty.  Since the house is furnished there were beds already set up so we didn’t have to do any unpacking that night.  Tuesday and Wednesday were spent packing up everything I didn’t need in the house, cleaning it, and unpacking all of our stuff.  All I can say is that having all three of my sisters here to help was unbelievably helpful!  They are angles!  The house had a lot to move out to make room for us.  There was a big chair, huge couch and a love seat all in the living room.  It was too much furniture so the girls and Titus moved out the very heavy couch.  It was very funny to watch them move it ‘the Reynolds’ way’ as my sisters said, since Titus had his own ideas of how to do it. 😉

On Tuesday night the church had a block party (it was national block party day or something like that), that I really really didn’t want to go to. But there was free food and the boys ended up having a great time. There was a bouncy house that James loved and there weren’t many kids so he got a lot of time inside.

Then the Englewood fire truck showed up and let the kids get inside. James was sooo excited!

Alaina was more excited about the size of coffee mug she found inside than anything else.

By Wednesday night I had figured out that there was stuff that had come with us that shouldn’t have, and stuff that didn’t come that should of. Very frustrating since I had spent so much time sorting through everything.  There is a whole box of kitchen stuff that should have come and didn’t including most of my Tupperware.  But on a happy note we found my sewing machine!  Ha ha! I am so happy that it accidentally got here!  Gideon got sick on Wednesday night so the next week was spent holding him and trying to keep him from crying.  It has been a very long week, and it doesn’t seem like we have only been here a week and a half.

I will post more later about the house but here are pictures of the back yard and the front of the house.  The backyard is a dream! I love it.  It could use a bit more shade, but it is completely fenced in.  I don’t have to worry about the boys back there at all! It’s wonderful.

This picture is to show you just how close we are to the church and school Titus will be going to. See the huge parking lot my boys ride their ‘bikes’ in? It’s also great! I’m going to love being so close to Titus’ school!

The happiest day of my life.

I just finished reading a two-part series that went through 4 generations of women. It started with the great-grandma and ended with her great-granddaughter.  The great-grandma immigrated to the states and the rest of the story takes place there.  Needless to say the story included at least three wars: WW2, Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Titus has a medal for serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom).   If I had known that 3 of the 4 husbands would have gone to war I’m not sure I would have read it.  Even now so many years later war stories and movies still bring it all back.  July 4th will mark 3 years and 7 months since the day that Titus flew into Oahu, completely safe and sound.

It’s kind of a funny story.  I had bought a plane ticket for Nov 5th but a few weeks before Titus’ return date changed to Nov 4th.  I will be forever grateful to the man from the airlines that talked me into spending the $150 to change my ticket a measly 24 hours.  “Just do it. It’s worth it.  You need to be there.” And he was right.  Two of Titus’ friends’ wives picked me up from the airport, took me out to eat (Cheeseburger in Paradise) and let me stay the night with them.  I’ll admit I might not have told the whole truth when I talked to Titus, but is it a lie if you tell the truth in the end? 😉  Titus’ friends on the plane with him told him they had a surprise waiting for him when they landed.  He thought it was a gallon of milk.  He’s such a country, dairy farmer boy. 😉

I didn’t sleep well that night.  It had been 10 months since I had seen him, about six of those he had been in Afghan.  Did we still love each other?  Did we still have things in common? Were we the same people? So much had happened in those few months.  I had moved back to the states after living in Ecuador for 8 months.  My dad almost died.  Titus had been in a IED blast that totaled the truck he was driving. He lost a friend, Garcia, the same week Dad got sick.  He was in a fire fight. He was drained, emotionally and physically.

Nov 4th was hot.  I remember being so warm in the capris and poke a dot shirt I was wearing.  We drove to the military hanger.  It was everything you’d see in a movie: a band was playing, there were flags every where, some people had made big banners that said things like, “Welcome home Daddy”.

We all watched  the sky, waiting for the plane.

A wrong one came first, which made us all mad that they would get our hopes up like that.  Someone in the crowd told us that the men are let off the plane alphabetically by last name.  I had to wait for P. Sigh.  When the plane came there was a line of higher-ups that gave them leis and welcomed them home, then they were left to find their loved ones in the crowd of people waiting.

Titus was one of the first guys off, the whole alphabetically thing was not true. We looked at this picture and we both think the guy at the very very top might be Titus. 😀

I was in the back and my plan was to wait until he saw me.  He wasn’t after all expecting to see me.  He thought he was going to pick me up later that day at the Honolulu airport.  But I was so happy to see him I ran up to him, put a lei around his neck and hugged him like there was no tomorrow. 😀  He had his gun in one hand and his computer case in the other, and he didn’t hug me back. It was like hugging a pine board. After a second he said, “Um, okay?”.  Ha ha ha, he didn’t know who it was hugging him.  He told me later that he thought I was one of his friend’s wives or something.  So I stepped back so he could get a good look at me.  Once the shock wore off he said, “You aren’t supposed to be here yet.” Now I had kinda thought it would take him awhile to process everything, so I wasn’t mad that he wasn’t more excited to see me.  Men need to think things through for a while sometimes.  We stood at the back and watched other people greeting each other. I distinctly remember this big guy with two huge duffel bags walking up to his girl, throwing the bags on the ground, and grabbing her and kissing her like there was no tomorrow. 🙂  It is a good memory, but at the time slightly awkward since Titus and I weren’t kissing each other yet (we waited until our wedding day).  Then they all had to leave on a bus to go turn in their guns, more waiting for us.  When they came back Titus was mentally ready to see me.  And gave me a big happy  hug.  It was the happiest day of my life.  Some women say it’s their wedding day, the day their first baby is born, maybe it’s your 16th birthday and your dad bought you a car, or the day you graduated from college.  But for me it is Nov 4th about 9:45 a.m.  The day God brought Titus safely home.  Thank you Jesus.

A quick note, I did not take any of these pictures.  My camera was broken and I didn’t have another one.  All the credit goes to Dog Barney Productions.  Thank you for being there and taking these pictures!  It’s the only picture I have of that week in Hawaii after Titus’ homecoming.

Reading books or watching movies that have war things in them is good for me in a way.  Even though I cry through them all (I almost cried writing this post!) it reminds me of how close I came to losing Titus.  It reminds me that I need to treat him like a hero every day, because that is what he is to me.  It reminds me of the things we went through, to have the very happy life we have now.  Just this week he cleaned the very messy house for me, and had flowers delivered just because.

       

He is so sweet, and I don’t deserve him.  I love you honey.  Thank you for serving, and thank you for marrying me.

One more parade! Jackson

I guess we weren’t done with parades yet.  We were invited by Dustin and Samantha to go to the Jackson parade with them and then a cookout afterwards. This parade was smaller and not nearly as long as the other two we’ve been too, which turned out to be a good thing because my boys hardly watched it.  I think they are paraded out. 😀

To me the best part of this parade is that Titus came with us.  Thank you Angela for milking and doing chores so we could have a family day.

My kids got way more candy this time around.  At first I thought it was because this parade just handed out more candy, but then I figured out that we weren’t sitting with a bunch of other kids like the last parades.  They had all the candy to themselves.

Picking up candy:

James got this little green ball from someone and he was more excited about that then watching the parade or picking up candy.

    

Gideon on the other hand finally got the idea and didn’t have any big kids getting in the way.  He kept clutching the candy in both his chubby little hands. It was very cute.

Despite the candy Gideon still wanted to wander off, which he did at all the other parades.  I think he would have been happy to walk in it. 🙂  It was nice to have someone else chase him for a change.

The cutest part of this parade were the mini ponies with little kids riding them.  I’m begging Titus for mini ponies now so that James and Gideon can start riding them and stop trying to ride the dogs at Grandma’s. 😉

After the parade we went to a grocery store to get stuff for the cookout.  This was a new store and they had carts with cars on the front. Boy oh boy were my kids excited!!!  I wish our store would get some!  Of course we got the one that only had one steering wheel instead of two (it was broken) and it didn’t take long for the fighting to begin.

Then we went to the park and played while Dustin cooked. Thanks Dustin!

 

  

Titus and I lounging in the grass.

James and baby Thomas.

It was a fun family day.  After we ate Dustin and Samantha came over to our house. Then they decided to stay the night and go to church in the morning with us! What fun. I can be spontaneous if I don’t know it’s coming. 😉  I had to quickly come up with a Sunday dinner though. So I cooked a roast in the oven, but had to stop at the store on the way home for potatoes. They weren’t anything special, just baked in the microwave.  I also made caramelized carrots, which were really good.  Dustin said it was the best pot roast he had ever had.  Which was really nice, but I can’t take credit for it.  I didn’t do anything to it! I was completely out of seasonings so I just threw it in a roasting pan with some water and cooked it while we were at church.  My in-laws just grow really good beef. 😀

All in all it was a great day!

Another try at a family picture.  We did wait until the parade was done, but there must of been

something over there that was interesting!

    

Milking the Cows and other fun stuff on the farm

Titus had been milking later in the morning and since the kids and I have been getting up earlier we went with him for a few mornings.  The kids loved it.  We normally go in the evening, which really doesn’t work very well since we all come home starving and there is no one cooking. 🙂   Since we aren’t going to be dairy farmers for very much longer I took a ton of pictures! Oh my goodness!

James helping feed the baby cows:

    

  

Titus hard at work:

     

Playing in the grain:

     

And the lime:

         

James actually understands where the lime is supposed to go:

  

I think Gideon just goes for all the Daddy hugs:

    

Gideon is also too scared to walk any further in the barn with out holding someone’s hand:

     

Trying to get to the hay mow:

       

Mister Hot himself:

Gideon:

Us:

(Not sure what’s with Titus’ face. Guess he was in a playful mood.)

Feeding the goats:

           

Begging for a ride on the tractor:

I think their new favorite thing to do is go for rides on the four wheeler.  Yes I know that doesn’t look very safe. And yes I kinda wish they had helmets on.  And yes I don’t drive very fast at all.

Playing with Grandma’s puppies:

 

There is a sense of freedom that you get in the country.  I hope some day to move to a quiet little spot.