Friday, December 21, 2012

Winter Fun!

Conner is in LOVE  with the snow. Really, he just loves anything outdoors and the new dimension of eating snow, throwing snowballs, and racing down a hill on a sled just makes it that much more enjoyable!




It's really convenient that we can jump in the hot tub at my parents after sledding down the hill on the side of their house!



Sunday, November 11, 2012

Thoughts on marriage and children...

After Conner was born I got to thinking about how interesting the love process is with him versus Mark. With Mark it has been a process of falling in love as we got to know each other and then through marriage and time together, but with Conner it was an immediate all- encompassing love. It's funny people always say that having a child is a strain on marriage but in my case I think it's been the opposite. I feel like it has united us more as parents and cemented our family unit.

Let's just start of by reaffirming what many of you already know and that it that I am a dreamer and a romantic. Mark, while dreamily attractive, is a realist and loves good ol' hard work. This combination is probably not the easiest and requires work and compromise.

I would be lying if I said that the first year of marriage was honeymoon bliss, because it wasn't. I think I read one too many LDS romance books and watched one two many Disney channel specials about these perfect love stories and happy endings as a teenager. This distorted my perception of marriage and how every day love is. Don't get me wrong Mark does have his days every once and a while when he forces himself to think like me and be romantic or spontaneous and I love those days. But, in that first year I wondered why Mark didn't send me loving texts every day and surprise me with gifts and large romantic gestures. I didn't understand why he worried about money and our future...didn't he understand that love is all you need ;) Well over the past three years we've both grown and understood each other more and more and learned how to compromise. I think that the real turning point was when we went to El Salvador and both served the children together there. It's funny how service really does bring love, wisdom, and perspective. (You think I would have understood this on my mission).

The second year of marriage was another one of service only this time much more on Mark's part than mine. I think it's no secret that pregnancy was extremely difficult on me. Mark said he liked it because it made me show my vulnerable side and admit that I couldn't do everything myself. I am kind of a stubborn girl :) It also allowed me to see a side of Mark that I appreciated much more than gifts and that was unconditional love, sacrifice, and service. I needed him and he was my rock.

This third year of marriage has been one of the best for me. I'm not sick, I feel back to myself again and I love spending time as a family of 3. It makes me feel legit :) We've learned the importance of making time for us as well as Conner. Luckily Conner goes to bed early so it makes this easier. I don't know how people do it who's kids don't go to sleep till 10!It also makes me love him so much more to see how he interacts with Conner and plays. Seeing how much Mark loves Conner makes me love him all the more.

I'm excited to see how the ensuing years will be. Love you babe!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Murder Mystery Dinner

To break in our new house and in honor of Halloween I decided to host a murder mystery dinner. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! I am lucky to have a LOT of cousins that live near by. As you can tell from the picture below there are a lot of us...There are even quite a few that are "of age" and not pictured (meaning in college or older). I love having a fun/nerdy family that will get in to anything

The theme of the murder mystery dinner was a costume ball so everyone got assigned characters and costumes to be.

Mark was a roman dictator and I was an Egyptian... 
 Brenton was a snake charmer...We were all a bit repulsed by his outfit. He ended up getting murdered as pictured above. The funny this was I was supposed to put together a kit for the person being murdered and have it ready under the sink. I should have read the instructions fully more than 1 hour before the party began because it told me to have crime scene tape and white face paint to make them a ghost. Luckily I had bought crime scene stuff to decorate for the party but unfortunately I did not have white face paint! So I put flour in a plastic bag and put it under the sink. The funny thing is I put the little bag next to the comet so when Brenton (my brother) took his cue to get murdered he thought he was putting comet on his face but did it anyway! What a goob





Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween

I was excited about this Halloween because I had dreams of Conner being the perfect little trick-or-treater of being this cute little boy everyone comments on. In my mind he could pronounce trick or treat perfectly and always followed up with a thank you. I don't know why I do it to myself. I just set myself up for failure.

He was a lion because during the time I bought the costume he was going through a phase where he LOVED  Lion King with a passion. He still enjoys it and does a pretty mean roar but not to the extent of before.


He always has a runny nose no matter how many times I wipe it

Conner is extremely social with other little kids. It makes for a VERY difficult church experience, but outside of church it's pretty cute!

He's really starting to get a hang on the coloring business

We went Trick-or-Treating with Conner's cousing, Carson and Audrey. Because Con idolizes Carson we figured he would do better at following Carson. Which was true however I don't think I'd call trick or treating a success. He did not understand the concept of a storm door that swings out. Every time I tried to back him up so the door could open he pitched a fit and arched his back and screamed. Mother of the Year award right here. NOT!


You notice how it has a Storm door....Yeah huge fit right after this picture.
Normally I dress up but I didn't want to be Hermione  for the 3rd year in a row.

Friday, September 7, 2012

My little parakeet


This little guy just melts my heart!! He is quite the adventurer lately and usually has some sort of cut or bruise despite my constant hovering (I can't help it!)

Conner has recently exploded in his language development. He went from hardly saying mama or dada to repeating all sorts of words and using a vocabulary of around 15-20 words consistently in a matter of weeks.

Of course to the untrained ear most of what he says would just sound like nonsense but it's the progress that counts :)

You can see all the moving boxes in the background for our packing... We are now in the new house (more on that later)

Conner's phonetics:

mama
dada
grandma = ahma
grandpa = pah
ball = bah
no no
horse= ho or just neeeehhh
fishy = see see
thank you = de oo
more = moh
bubbles = buh buh
bye bye = buh buh (very similar to the one above I know but they're different)
love you = uv ew
car = voom, ca
off
hakuna matata = hun ata hun ata (his favorite movie is Lion King and everytime this song comes on he gets up and dances and sings along.






Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Annual King Family Reunion


So my Aunt & Uncle have a cabin up in Idaho in the Palasades and has been dubbed by Mark as his "dream vacation". This is for 3 reasons: the company, the competition, and the activities (too bad that last one didn't start with a "c").


Company: Usually in a family as large as ours there seem to always be a couple apples that fell pretty far from the tree (I'm not sure if that's the right expression but I'm going with it) But in my family that is not the case. Or maybe it's that we're all oddballs ??? But either way I love being around my family. It is constant fun and activities.

Competition: We are all extremely competitive and not only that but we are always looking for ways to compete. Several of these are organized (i.e., boat races, egg drop competition, scavenger hunts, Dance competitions, Minute to Win its, and Skits) while others are more impromptu (i.e., eating weird things, cooking, puzzple finishing, and lots of board games). It is a big deal to win these competitions!

Activities: In addition to all the planned competitions we also spend several days on the boat wake boarding and wake surfing, we have movies out on the deck, and we go white water rafting on the snake river (it's like 20 min from the cabin).


This was our river rafting group.

pretty view!


The annual boat races. We take this pretty seriously. You could only use 8 large sticks, 8 small sticks, 2 pieces of paper, and hot glue to make your boat. I tried to mimick the Ether 12 boats "tight like unto a dish" and while the concept was good it was pretty slow! At least it made it whole through all the waterfalls. I guess the Jaredites were more concerned about safety than speed.

The winners.
This was not my boat...but a good example

We went in heats of 6

cliff jumping

Mark used to be really good at wake boarding but only going once a year takes its tole. Last year he wrecked pretty hard core and got a bloody nose doing a flip so he was a lot more careful this year. I keep telling Mark that we are going to be a boat family.....it just may be a while till that happens
hiking group
Conner insisted on walking. Pretty much so he could play in the dirt.



One of my favorite competitions was a photo scavenger hunt. I gave a few of my favorites from different groups.
Where's waldo category
Grandma was a trooper and volunteered in her group for the mohawk from soap
Conner got volunteered to be the cross dresser. I have to admit he'd make a very cute girl. Hopefully my girls have his same sort of looks.
penny's over the eyes dead
fit in a tight place



I love my family and I am so grateful that we are able to do things like this with as big as our family is getting.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Conner's 1!


1 year ago our world changed forever when this little guy joined our family. Some of the changes were hard and it was a big adjustment to learn how to be a parent but I wouldn't have it any other way. Without getting too mushy I never knew such purpose and joy was possible. I didn't ever understand the bond and love between mother and child. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

What a change I mean I thought he was cute when he was born but he is SO much cuter now with his personality shinning through.


From the list of things little boys love (planes, trains, cars, sports, animals, music, etc.,) one of the things that tops Conner's list is animals. He LOVES animals so we decided to go to Thanksgiving Point's farm animals area for Conner's birthday. I've already mentioned how we go and look at the horses every day that live by us but Conner has widened this love to ducks, sheep, cows, and pigs. He can recognize which is which and he can successfully make a recognizable quack and moo.

He uses the quack noise for all birds and any mammal with four legs gets a mooo.




Conner loved going on the pony ride! He loved being the center of attention and every time he walked by the crowd of family watching he would give a wave or smile. He even gave the crowd a good show by flashing them. You can see the beginning of the flash in this picture.

After the petting zoo we went to my parents and had a BBQ to finish the celebration. I've been working on the decorations for weeks now. I went with the sesame street theme because that is another one of his loves.



 I made a timeline from birth to present!

 We had tons of fruit, chips & Salsa, hot dogs, corn on the cob, and brown sugar chicken wrapped in bacon. So delicious. I'm salivating now just thinking about it.


These were my Elmo cake pops. They took FOREVER!! I had originally planned to do  cookie monster ones as well but after the Elmos took so long the other cake pops were plain.



I totally copied a picture on etsy I saw of these poof ball thingys. I'm rather proud of myself





I have a confession to make...I actually enjoy some parts of Sesame Street. They have really upped their game in so many ways. The Sesame Street I remember did not have Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures, or the Flying Fairy school! One thing I could do without is Mr. Noodle. He's a little creepy!

Anyways, Conner loves sports (I may or may not be brainwashing him so he will be the next college star) but I figure there will be plenty of sports parties in the future so I may as well use the Elmo theme while it's still there.

Con digging into his cake. Brenton helped him out by painting a smiley face on his tummy.


Then it was present time. He unwrapped some of his present by himself but I think that his cousins did the majority. They were more excited than he was about the gifts. 






These were just a couple funny pictures of the cake pops. My grandpa was so funny when he was eating it. He is giving elmo a kiss in the picture to the right.