Family Pictures

If you're anxiously awaiting your Christmas card from the Jenks Family, then you'll just have to keep on waiting...til next year - or maybe later. Yes, it's true, I didn't do Christmas cards. I have a million excuses, but basically I didn't want to take the time to do them. That's what it all boils down to. I have, however, really enjoyed getting many of your cards. As the holiday season approached, I planned on doing them and had our family pictures taken, but alas I never followed through. So, here's some of our pictures. My friend, Shaila, took them and I think she did a great job. She's a self-taught photographer and she's really got a talent for it. She has this fancy shmancy camera that I can't even dream of operating. We took them outside in the freezing cold and she did it really fast and still had lots of cute shots. She was such a pro- thanks, Shaila! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great time in Wyoming with my parents and all six of my siblings and their spouses and kids. It was a crew! I'll post about our fun trip later. This is a picture Shayla took of Iris while we were inside chatting. I love it because Iree always has her hands in he mouth like that. And she always lifts her eyebrows like that, so it looks like she has a unabrow. Isn't she too cute?

My handsome Romie in his festive sweater.

Roman and Jason are goofing off and I'm just checkin out Jason's bulging biceps. He does have nice arms, don't you think?

If I had sent out a card, thi would have been the picture I would have sent. Iris's eyes are closed, but oh well. It was still my favorite shot. Oh...by the way, I have cut my hair since this picture was taken. Don't worry, I got rid of that stringy mess. Now I just wish I would have chopped it before we got the pics taken. I just don't look good in long hair...oh well!

The Perfect Christmas Gift

Christmas is quickly approaching and I am once again procrastinating. Every year I tell myself that I'm going to get my shopping done early and guess what, I never do. So, why should this year be any different? We do a drawing on my side of the family with my sibs and the neices and nephews. Luckily I do have those presents bought and my parents' gift is taken care of, but I have yet to buy one thing for my poor husband and kids. This week I've been online shopping for things and nothing is really jumping out at me. Granted, my kids should be really easy to shop for. Iris doesn't know what's what and Roman pretty much loves everything, but I don't want to buy a bunch of crap toys that Roman will play with once and then they'll spend the rest of their days collecting dust in our basement. I've got enough of those already. I have put a lot of thought into this. It's become somewhat of an obsession. I want to get something that he'll really enjoy AND that isn't too noisy, big, or expensive. So, I was trying to think about what he's really into these days and it's definitely sports...mostly football. It's football season right now and of course Jason watches all the Seahawks games (although I don't think he wants to claim them this year.) Anyway, Roman likes to watch football with Jason (for a few mins), but what he really loves to do is "toss the ball" as he says. As soon as Jason gets home from work they go downstairs and play football. And I don't mean to be one of those moms that thinks their kid is extraordinary, but Roman does have a pretty dang good arm. You can ask any of my friends that have seen him throw. He's a natural...I think :) OK, this post is getting long so I'm going to try to wrap it up. So, I've finally decided what I want to get Roman for Christmas...a football helmet! It would be perfect. As you can see in the picture below, he's got Vivian's pink bucket on his head. She left it at our house when they were here for halloween and he was running around with it on his head. I thought it was kind of weird and then he said, "Mom, it's my football heh-met." That was about a month ago. Then yesterday he found his hat that I knitted and pulled it all the way down. He came running into the kitchen. I said, "Rome, what are you doing?" He was like, "It's my football heh-met. I wanna toss the ball." The only problem is that now I know what I want to get him, but apparently it's not so easy to find a toddler sized football helmet. I've been searching the internet and I've had no luck. Ugghhh....I hope I don't have to go back to square one. The boy needs a helmet. He can't keep parading around with his nifty-knitted hat pulled over his face! :) Anyway, we'll see what I come up with.

This last picture is of my two babies this morning at 5:30. Yep, that's when they like to wake up. I was so tired that I put them both in bed with me, but they were both really awake. Iree was laughing so hard and making the biggest smiles. Roman was being so cute with her too. He kept being all snuggly and lovey dovey. I just had to take a picture of them. I hate waking up so early, but it's hard to resist those two...even at 5:30.

Growing too fast...

Lately it's been occuring to me that my kids are just growing too fast. I was telling Jason the other day that I just want to freeze them and keep them this size forever. OK, so I don't always feel like that (like when Iris has a bad night and wakes up 4 times or when Roman starts throwing a fit in Wal-Mart). But for the most part, I really enjoy the stages that my little babes are in right now.
Last Sunday, I put Roman in a white shirt and tie and he just looked like such a little big boy. This was the best picture I took of him, believe it or not. Yeah, he likes to show off for the camera now. My little Iree is just getting so cute and chubby. When she was born she weighed 6 lbs 8 oz, which is pretty average, but I still thought she looked so scrawny. So, lately I've been noticing that she's starting to really fill out. So, a few days ago it was kind of cold out and I have these cute little boots that my friend Korbi gave Iris.

Anyway, I went to put the cute boots on her, and they didn't fit! There was plenty of room in the foot area, but her legs are so chubby that I couldn't get the velcro thing fastened. Actually, I could get it together, but then it looked like she had muffin top over her boots and it just didn't look comfortable. Oh, my little Iree girl...you might have some cankles. Oh well, I'll definitely take a chubby baby over a skinny one anyday!

So, here's a picture of my cute little chubby girl. She turned 4 months old last Monday and I took this on her 4 month birthday. I seriously can't believe how fast she's growing. She's just changing right before my eyes. Oh...my babies are growing too fast. Maybe it's time for another one? Ummm....let me think about that one...no. ;)

Lots of Halloween Fun

We had a fun Halloween, and I took a lot of pictures for your viewing pleasure :) First of all, we had an elder's quorum party the week before halloween and we were supposed to dress up. I haven't dressed up since middle school, so I have to admit I was kind of excited about wearing a costume. I just ended up going as a witch. So, there I am in all my witchy glory. Is it just me, or does that wig make me look 50 years old. I don't like how I look with black hair, but it did make my teeth look whiter. Here's Roman and Iris with all their Jenks cousins before they went trick-0r-treating.

Iree was a flower (with a name like Iris, you just have to be a flower). Roman was a bumble bee. Neither one was too excited about it.

Here's Iris earlier in the day when she was feeling slightly happier. She and her cousin Keric wore the exact same shirt.

Trick-or-treating was kind of funny. At first Roman was all confused....

but then he got the hang of it and he started running up to the houses and saying, "I want candy." It was funny, but hopefully next year he'll use the proper,"trick or treat" greeting.

My sister-in-law, Amber has a Halloween birthday, so after trick-or-treating, we had a little family party at my house. Here she is getting ready to blow out her candles.

I decided to do some halloweenish food, so her birthday cake is supposed to look like a witch getting buried alive.

Then I made a snake sandwich (one of Paula Deen's recipes.) It was really easy and yummy.

And for our drink I made "witches brew." It was just lime sherbet and Sprite. Anyway, it was very yummy. So, we had a really fun halloween and now I have way too much candy that I need to get rid of. Anyone want some?

I'm Baaaack

Oh, my friends, let me just tell you how good it is to have the internet! I've been without the internet for 3 long months now and it was about to drive me crazy! i've been trying to get it for about 2 1/2 months and it's just been one disaster after another. First it was our gateway box and then the computer...anyway, it's a long boring story. I'm just glad I finally have it again and now I can see what all my fellow bloggers are up to. So, I'll try to do a quick update on what our family has been up to.
First of all, we moved into our new house at the end of August. That was interesting, by the way. But luckily we have great friends and family who helped us a lot, so it was a lot less painful than it could have been - but I still hated it none the less. We ended up getting all the painting, flooring, etc, done before we had to move in. I was pretty scared there for a while that it wasn't all going to get done in time, but it did. We're all settled now and we're glad to be in our new place.
Baby Iris was blessed on August 31 ( 6 days after we moved in to the house.) I just love this picture of her in her dress. She's like, "Thanks for finally taking that huge bow off my head, Mom."

Roman got his first stitches in September. He was running and tripped and hit his head pretty hard on the corner of the trim. Anyway, we took him to the ER because it was on a Sunday night and he walked out of there with three stitches. Poor baby :(

Roman turned 2 on September 29. Ooops, I just noticed that the only pic I uploaded was of his Diego cake. Oh well...too late to try to upload some more. Anyway, that cake was so hard to make. Yes, I decorated that beast of a cake. Next year remind me to just buy one. I think I got carpal tunnel after decorating that thing. He did really love it though. It almost made it worth it...almost.

Jason turned 31 on October 14. He sure is cute for a man in his 30's don't you think? He requested that I make my grandma's famous wedding cake for his birthday because he loved the cake she made for our wedding. So, I got her recipe and just made a sheet cake. He said it was the best cake he's ever had. Thanks, gram!

And here is a picture of my little beauty. I just took this yesterday. She is the sweetest, cutest little girl I've ever known. I can't believe how fast she's growing. She is just so sweet and smiley and she even lets me put big bows on her everyday. My friend Korbi taught me how to make bows and now I'm addicted. Poor girl puts up with my craziness...at least until she has the ability to take them off :) Anyway, I'm glad to be back in the cyber world. I'm anxious to start checking in on all my friends...I got a lot of blog reading to do!

The scary tomato

Roman's new favorite thing to say is, "I scared." He says this a hundred times a day. The poor boy is scared of everything! He's scared of Whoopi Goldberg, Japanese cartoons, cats (but not dogs...surprisingly), and many other weird things that I don't have time to list. Anyway, a few days ago Amber and the kids came over to visit. Roman was playing in the backyard with the girls and Ava noticed this funny tomato on my plant. She brought it in to us and was talking about how it looked like a man with a big nose. Amber and I kind of laughed about it and then I put it on the counter. After they left Roman kept pointing to the counter and saying, "I scared." At first I couldn't figure out what he was scared of. I asked him if he saw a bug and he said no. Then he started saying, "Nose. I scared." Then I knew he was talking about the tomato. So then I picked up the tomato and said, "Is this what you're scared of?" Before I could even finish my sentence, he ran away screaming, "No, mommy! I scared!" Seriously, Roman, you're gonna be a man someday and you really can't be scared of things like cats and tomatoes! Although that is a pretty weird looking tomato with a really bad profile. And here's a picture of my little angel baby, Iris. I took this yesterday when she was 12 days old. It's amamzing how quickly they change! She is so sweet and I just hope and pray that she stays that way.

Iris Eleanor Jenks

Our little Iris Eleanor Jenks was born on July 17 at 6:08 pm. She was 6 lbs 8 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. She's just perfect. We're both doing really well. I'm surprised at how much easier her labor was compared to Roman's. The two biggest factors were theat my epidural worked (hallelujah) and she was a whole 2 lbs smaller than Roman was. Here are a few pics of our sweet little girl. My Mom and my little sister, Cicily drove all the way from Powell to come help me. It's been sooo nice to have them here. Little Iree (yes, I'm already calling her Iree for short) was born on my mom's birthday. Jason and I decided that since she was born on my mom's b-day then that's our tribute to my mom, so we gave her the middle name of Eleanor so that's our tribute to Jason's mom. Anyway, we bought a little birthday cake for my mom and ate it in the hospital.

This is the most recent picture i took of Iris. She looks a lot like Roman did when he was born. She actually has a lot less hair than Roman did, but her face is really similar. We're all so happy to have our sweet little Iris in our family. Roman wasn't sure about her at first, but now he loves her. He likes to pat her and say "pretty." He'll be a good big brother to her. She has such a sweet little disposition. I hope she stays that way forever.

Oh the stress...

Some of you already know this, but for those of you who don't, Jason and I recently bought a new house. I use the term "new" loosely :) The home we bought was a repo and we got a great deal on it. It's about twice the size of the house we're living in now and it's in a great neighborhood. Those are the good things about it. Now for the downside...the house was abandoned for FIVE years. I know, I didn't know that was possible either. It's a long story, but the people who owned it moved to AK and they kept making payments right before the bank was going to foreclose it. I'm really baffled as to why someone would do that, but whatever. So, the poor house has a lot of damage to it. Lots of mice had gotten in to it, so we have to replace all the flooring. Plus we're getting the whole interior repainted. And, since it was abandoned for so long some people broke in and stole the heater, air conditioner, hot water heater, and electrical panel. So, all that has to be replaced too. Good thing Jason's parents own a heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and electrical business. That's sure come in handy! So, anyway, for about the past two months we've been working on selling our house and getting the new house ready. Luckily we have a sale pending on our house so that has been a huge relief, but we still have soooo much work to do on this new house. Oh...and we're working on a timeline too. We have to have the house ready for appraisal on August 4th (so almost everything has to be done by then), and we have to be out of our house by August 25th. I know...what am I thinking? Did I mention that I'm having a baby in like 2 days?!! So, if I'm slacking in the blogging department it's because I've got lots and lots on my mind. It will all be worth it in the end though, right? I'm so excited to have the baby and be moved into my new house. I would just like to fast forward a few months so I can be done with the stress of it all. I'll keep you all updated on everything. I'll post some before and after pics of the house when it's all done. Wish me luck with all this craziness :)

38 weeks and the 4th of July

Yesterday (the 4th of July) was my 38 week marker. Here's an embarassing picture of me. I never realize exactly how huge I am until I see a picture of myself. I keep telling myself that I only look that big because I'm wearing horizontal stripes, but deep down I know it's not the stripes' fault. Anyway, I'm feeling surprisingly good. I'm really not that anxious to have the baby yet. Part of me is hoping she'll just keep cookin in there for as long as possible because I know that it's going to rock my world when she makes her appearance. I still have a million things I want to do before she gets here. But, there's also a big part of me that wants her to come pretty soon because I'm anxious to see what she looks like and hold a little newborn. Newborns are so fun too. We didn't do anything too exciting for the 4th. Jason's parents invited us over for a really yummy dinner. Then afterwards we went to watch the fireworks with Sean and Amber and their kids. I was actually kind of excited for Roman to see the fireworks because he's never really seen them. I thought he would love them. I was so wrong. He was soooo scared. I've never seen him act like this before. At first when we got there, they hadn't started yet, so I took this picture of him and Jason. He's pretty happy here, but of course you wouldn't know it because he wouldn't look at me to take the pic.

Then there were some kind of small fireworks that other people were doing and he noticed them and got a little spooked. He put his face in Jason's chest, but he would look up every now and again.

Finally, the real fireworks started and he just freaked. He wasn't screaming or anything, but he completely buried his face in Jason's shoulder and held on to his shirt soooo tight. You couldn't pry him off of Jason. The poor little boy was so scared. We stayed for most of the show and then we headed home because Romie obviously wasn't enjoying it, and plus it was almost 11 which is well past ALL of our bedtimes :) Hopefully next year my little Rome won't be so nervous about the works of fire.

My little pickup man

I've been are really sorry excuse for a blogger lately. I have a million excuses, but I won't bore you with them. I've also had a lot of blog-worthy happenings, but I'm too overwhelmed to try to back track on all my exciting events (well....not THAT exciting. It's not like I've had my baby yet or anything.) So, anyway, I'll just tell a short little Romie story that happened this morning. First of all, just a little background on Roman's love for Jason's truck. I don't know why Roman loves Jason's truck so much, but he does. Everyday when Jason gets home from work, Roman runs to the door and gives him a hug and immediately says, "I want truck!" Then he takes Jason's hand and leads him to the front door so he can let him play in the truck. Poor Jason is such a good sport about it. He usually gets home fairly late in the evening (usually around 7) and the poor guy is just famished. I know that he just wants to sit down and eat, but he's always a good sport and lets Romie have his way. So, this little ritual has been happening for the past month or so. Roman has to sit in Jason's truck and pretend that he's driving. He also likes to play with Jason's tools (especially the tape measure.) So, anyway, this morning Roman woke up at 6:30 and Jason hadn't left for work yet. Usually Roman wakes up at 7:00 and Jason has usually just left for work. So, they don't normally get to see eachother in the morning. So, I told Jason to get Romie out of bed and the first thing I hear Roman say is, "Dad, I want truck!" So Jason was his usual good-sported self and he took Romie to the truck.
There's my little Roman strutting his way over to the truck. Let me quickly explain the shoes with the footy pjs. I never let Roman go outside without shoes on, so he knows that if he's going to go out then he has to bring me his shoes. So, he brought me his shoes and I tried to tell him that he could go out without them, but he insisted on wearing his sandals on top of the pjs. It looks pretty cool.

Roman took Jason's keys and knew exactly which one was the truck key and he even put it in the ignition. I was so surprised that he knew how to do that. Apparently Jason taught him how. Luckily he hasn't figured out how to start the ignition...yet.

My two little pickup men. This would have been a great picture if Romie had his eyes open :(

Nesting?

I remember when I was pregnant with Roman and reading What to Expect When You're Expecting, and they had like a whole chapter on nesting. The author said that most people begin to clean their house and organize, etc. just before they have their baby. I was actually kind of skeptical of the whole thing. But, to my surprise, I'm definitely a nester. Before I had Roman I felt this huge need to organize my closet, organize his room, and clean my fridge. With this pregnancy I have had different nesting needs. On Saturday I decided that I really needed to wash my windows. They've been dirty for a while. To tell the truth they haven't been washed since my mom came out when Roman was born and she washed them. Yeah, it's been a while, and lately they have been really driving me nuts. So, I borrowed my mother-in-law's squeegee (I don't know how to spell that), and I washed away. I hope all my neighbors admired the 33 week pregnant girl out there washing her own windows - ha! They're probably not up to my mom's standards (there are a few streaks here and there), but they do look a lot better. I just love shiny things :)

Of course this wouldn't be a real post without a picture of my little angel boy. He has loved the flowers this spring...or as he calls them "fowers". He loves helping me water them and then he goes up to them and smells them and says "oooohhh." So, here he is smelling the "fowers".

Roman's first carnival ride

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a loser because all I ever write about on my blog is my sweet little angel boy, but let's face it...that's really all I have to write about. So, anyway, last week the carnival came to town for the Spring Festival. I assumed that Roman would be too young (or at least too short) to ride any of the rides, but my friend Korbi informed me that they had a few rides for really little guys. Well, actually it turns out that there was exactly one ride that Romie and Beck were big enough to go on. So, Korbi was nice enough to pay buy tickets for Roman and Beck to ride on the cars. I think it ended up being like $3.75 for each of them to ride on the cars for about 2 minutes. Anyway, they looked so cute riding in the cars. I thought Roman would be a little more excited because he LOVES cars, but it was past his bedtime and he had a glazed over look during the whole ride. Here they are waiting in line with their tickets.

Jason and Stephen watching the boys.

Look at those cute boys! They're such good buddies. Even though they occasionally try to beat up on each other, they still are great pals. We have a picture of Beck on our refrigerator and everytime Roman sees it he says, "Becky!!" By the way, I never told him to call him "Becky". He came up with that one all on his own. Sorry, Korbi and Stephen :)

Soakin up the sun

This weekend it was sooo hot outside! On Saturday I think the high was 98. Even though I'm 7 months pregnant and my feet and hands can really swell in the heat, I was still loving the hot weather. It just seems like it's been cold for so long and it was great to be able to play outside and get a little sun damage on my skin :) My sister-in-law, Amber invited us over to her parents' house on Saturday afternoon. They bought a big slide that sprays water from the top and then there's a little pool on the bottom. Anyway, all the kids were having so much fun playing on it. Romie was apprehensive about the slide. He only went downs twice and Jason had to guide him along both times, but he still loved being there with all his buddies and just sitting on the edge of the pool. My ever-so-cautious Roman on the right and his dare-devil cousin, Ava on the left.

He's not a real big fan of the water...he gets that from me.

Just chillin with his friends and trying to keep hydrated. The poor kid looks like he's wearing swimming pants instead of swimming shorts. That's the story of his life...if it fits his waist then it's too long and if it fits in length then it's too tight on the waist.

It was such a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I hope the warm weather is here to stay. I'm so done with the cold!