Turkey and more turkey





Thanksgiving was wonderful this year. Benny's birthday was ON thanksgiving, so we strarted the day off with cinnamon rolls and an amazing egg dish Matt made. Then I took the kids to a play date at pump it up, then home and both babes napped! So Matt and I had two hours to just unwind and hang out together before dinner. It was AMAZING. Funny how the smallest things can bring the biggest joy.

 

After nap we headed to Cris's for dinner with  my parents, Bethany and the four of us. We had a great time. Ben got to open his gifts and then we all enjoyed the spread. I can't go without mentioning the dessert buffet. Cris made three four pies 

Little man's birthday party was at Pizza Caboose on Friday morning after Thanksgiving. He had a blast. They have a train that circles around and around the track up on the wall. He just kept staring at it totally enamored. He was also quite smitten with the cupcakes shaped in a turkey. I am so in love with this video of him. The way he just rests his head on his fists and stares at them with such longing. Priceless.

Ben & Lexi taking care of the pizza

Gorgeous girls- D & Remi, Kris & Kinners

Brooklyn and Braeden

Ben, here are your catch phrases at the bench mark of your 2nd birthday:
Ahhh man
Ooh nap (oh snap!)
Sure!
Jeah! (for ya)
Ok, we will
NOOOOOO!

You make us laugh daily little man. You are such a light in this world, you have more personality than we even know what to make of. You have realllllly challenged me these past several months, but so did your sister and we survived, and now look, she's the best big sis anyone could ask for.

You and Brooklyn and truly best friends. You love to play puppies with her. She likes to boss you around, but man, you can hold your own.

You tell us all that you love us: "I lub you daddeeee", it melts us. When you say it to one person, the other three always chime in asking you to say it to us too.

You love to be the star of the show, you love to dance, you ADORE trains. Your newest favorite show is "Thomas the Choo Choo Train" which you ask for most emphatically. You still adore Elmo with all your heart. Construction trucks, any emergency response vehicle captures your attention.

You like to pray before dinner. You will often say "pray?" and then fold your hands over your mouth and what we hear most of the time is "mama, dada, sissy, amen". I love this the most of all the things you do right now.

You still thoroughly love being naked. You do the naked dance and then strip youself down. We have begun to limit this per teacher Kathy's instructions after the last blog post :) You are not allowed to get naked any hour of the day whether at home or in public like you would like; but you are managing to adjust.

You think your daddy hung the moon. Your papa and grandpa too. They are definetly your fist bumping, wresting buddies. Oh how you light up when your dad walks through the door. I am in awe of the difference in your relationship with him at this age compared to Brooklyn's with daddy when she was two. You boys will stand in the family room and shoot hoops for hours on end. Or go outside and rake leaves together, or snuggle up on the couch and "watch the game" as you say.

I would comment on you what your favorite food is, but really it's generally all food. If it's food, you'll eat it. You have a sweet tooth (no surprise) just like your mom and sister. You fancy pizza quite a bit and most anything with meat or cheese.

Ben, thank you for the joy you have brought to us. As hard as some of the moments over the past two years have been...the beautiful ones cancel those out ten fold. I used to wonder what God had planned while we waited for our family to come to fruition, and I couldn't fathom what he had planned, and now I know why. You and Brooklyn are unfathomable. You are truly a GIFT, and one I often take for granted, but never forget I have. I love you more each day, so beware to your future bride, by the time you are marrying age I'm going to be one love sick mama :-))

All my love,
Mom

Jesus (a lot to be thankful for)

This past Monday night, November 19 at 6:30pm Brooklyn asked Jesus to come live in her heart.

She has been asking a lot of questions over the last few months about how people go to heaven and what things make God happy. We explained to her about the "prayer" we both prayed when we were young to ask Jesus into our hearts. Two weeks ago when she was asking some more questions Matt said "Brooklyn, whenever you are ready to ask Jesus to come live in your heart and be with you always, we can pray it together". She got really shy and said quietly "no, I'm not ready".

Before I got home on Monday night, she said to Matt "I have love in my heart", Matt said " who do you have love for?" B "God! Do you think that makes Him smile?" to which Matt replied warmly "that makes Him happier than anything".

So later that evening I asked her about their conversation and she said she was ready to say the prayer. All four of us snuggled up on the couch, holding hands. I can't remember the exact prayer, but listening to Brooklyn's sweet voice repeat her daddy's words made tears come streaming down my face. Truthfully Matt and I caught eachothers gaze right after she whispered "amen" and we were both so elated, eyes overflowing with tears. How blessed that moment was.

She has since told anyone and everyone in every which way she can think to say it...that Jesus is living in her heart.

Today at school was her Thanksgiving feast. The teachers always ask the kids what they are most thankful for. This is what her placemat read.

This brings tears to my eyes all over again. This Thanksgiving I feel we have a LOT (as always) to be thankful for.

The kids sang "God Bless America" before the feast began. It was so precious...however, I couldn't really hear anything on the video I took, so when we got home I asked her to sing it for me. Here she is. I could listen to this all day.

Happy **early** Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is not only Thanksgiving, but it's also Benny's birthday! My boy is TWO. Wow. So, more posts to come.

xo

only because I want to remember it ALL

Wow, oh my gosh. We have a two year old. Seriously. Like overnight this kid has become a full blown terrorist.

Here's the cliff's notes:

Matt has meetings til well past bed time every night this week and school on Thursday, so I've been on my own. On Monday night bed time was a battle of wills. I thought Brooklyn was the most stubborn two year old ever, I think Ben is trying to up the anty. He climbed out of his bed 14 times after I had put him down for the night. Nothing was working. I can't force him to stay in his bed. So after Brooklyn was fast asleep and we had been doing this dance for almost an hour I heard his door open for the 15th time. I was in the kitchen so stood as quietly as I could and waited for him to come all the way out. He stood at his door and rustled around. Twenty minutes went by. Finally I heard him sucking much harder on his binkie so I came quietly around the corner to find this.

This is the definition of stubborn! I scooped him up, put him in his crib and that was the last I heard out of him until 5:15am. The time change has totally thrown him off. My theme, mantra if you will this month is "it's just a season". We are indeed in a season. A very trying, extremely emotionally draining one.

Here was my day yesterday.

Ben bit my forearm so hard he broke the skin at the mall, he then ripped my tank top and bra down flashing the entire apple store at the mall. I mean, literally showing e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

We came home and I put him down for his nap after lunch. I came back to our room to do something and heard Brooklyn yelling "mom!!!" I cam out to find Ben had pulled the costco container of grapes off the counter all over the floor. I tried to put him back down a handful of times to no avail and finally realized he would not be napping. The day unraveled a little more from there. Lot's of screaming and hitting. He tried to bite Brooklyn, got a hold of her hair and ripped a few handfuls out.

I heard the kitchen chair being dragged across the floor to come and find this scene.

Yes, that is him reaching for a knife. I snapped this pic and then grabbed him. This kid is a total nudist. I quite literally can't keep clothes on him.

I decided to make popcorn and put a movie on after Brooklyn did some school work as a reward (and to lighten the mood a little). This was the next scene to unfold. I am love having the ability to take pictures of these. As exhausted as I am at the time, I am so thankful to have these to look back on and laugh at. I am not going to lie, I cried a few times yesterday. Peppered in between this boys mischievous antics, he does a lot of screaming "NO!!" and "STOP THAT" and hits. I just want to cave and give in so bad, but I know that's not going to do anything but affirm the things we are trying to correct. It's just exhausting disciplining that kind of behavior for 14 hours straight. Can I get an amen?

 This was his way of getting up on the counter.

I mean, are you kidding me with this kid?!! Who does he think he is? Just lounging on our counter top, naked as a blue jay shoveling popcorn into his gullet. Unreal.

And I write this all with love because like I've said before, I want to remember this stuff...the extreme difficulty of it all...just like the good stuff. I want to be able to show this to Ben some day and say "see, this is why you are paying for your father and my trip to Europe".

I am so thankful for the wisdom and love of my friends. I have had more people offer to take my kids, help me out in whatever form I need or just listen to my rambling. It really does take a village. I walked into the garage yesterday after I totally lost my cool and quietly prayed "Lord, please help me" over and over and over. I know Ben is HIS, and therefore I need to seek what HE wants me to do about all these things first. I am trusting this is "just a season" and we will all come out stronger on the other side.

I am so blessed, and so thankful. I'm also so tired and so ready for a break :)

Halloween and Frank the Tank

Halloween was a BLAST this year! The kids were both stoked.

We went to my mom's office after nap. They invited all the kids of the employee's families to come trick or treat from desk to desk. It was really cool. Ben refused to wear his coat and hat, so we kept saying he was an "off duty" fireman. Brooklyn showed her brother the ropes "see Ben, you say trick or treat, and they give you candy". Ben heard candy and was fully on board!

Ben sang songs to people, Brooklyn pointed out how good she looked, they chased each other around, they loved seeing the other kids there all dressed up; it was a lot of fun. We ended up leaving after lot's of oohhing and aaahhing with two huge bags filled with candy. Score! So, it's 4pm and they have both already had at least two pieces of candy. I could feel the energy level rising in the car as we scooted off to Kristin and Gary's for dinner and trick or treating with the girls. Matt met us there...where it was revealed I had forgotten to bring his change of clothes (that he reminded me of at least 3x). So he borrowed some clothes from Gary. Matt walked out and Kris and I started laughing because he looked just like Gary. I wish I had made them stand next to each other for a picture.

We ate dinner and then hit the pavement. Brooklyn was yelling as we ran out the door "come on! Let's go steal some kids candy!!" She said it twice and I said Brooklyn, why do you keep saying that? Did you hear that on a show? She responded "No Gary said it!". Hahahaha, he said to the girls (joking) as they let "go steal some kids candy". It gave us a really good laugh.

this is what "done posing for pictures" looks like :)

Everyone had a blast, even Ben and Kinley. Ben had a sucker in his hand 90% of the trip, so he would reach his sticky little fingers into each person's bowl and grab a piece. Well, if I'm being totally honest, most of the time he would grab one, then speak Benny gibberish to the lovely home owner, they would smile and then he'd go in for another 1,2,3 pieces and not one person said no. In fact, it was as though they were suddenly under his little spell offering this cute, sticky little fireman all the candy he could grab. Con artist baby :)

We were all the way up the street in a really nice neighborhood (about an hour in) when Ben decided enough was enough. He threw his bucket of candy on the floor, took his fireman coat off, helicoptered it above his head, threw it on the ground and then quickly ripped his suspenders down and proceeded to walk to the next house with his pants around his ankle, baring his stomach as well. This boy!! A pack of dad's with beers in hand walked by as I was furiously trying to coax him back into his pants and they started cracking up. One yelled out "Frank the tank! Frank the tank" and then another one said "come on buddy! we're going streaking through the quad". Ben was just laughing and running in circles while his harried mama (ME!) chased him like a greased pig.

I realized we wouldn't be making it home without a ride, so I called Matt to drive up and grab us. We packed in like a clown car and headed home.

The girls had a blast! They did so good. Manners, hand holding, lots of compliments to one another. It was a pure success.

Such great memories. Now if only I could keep pants and diaper on this son of mine. He would really, truly, genuinely be naked all day, every day, at home or in public if it was socially acceptable and not hygienically un-cool.

Happy Halloween from the Feenstra Four!

Fall fun

Well, fall is in full swing around here!

 

Tete bought Ben matching skeleton pj's and Brooklyn's still fit from last year, so this made for some great pictures. These two...they make my heart melt.

My dad took Brooklyn to her school Harvest Festival last week. They had a wonderful time together. It was so sweet. Bounce houses, cookies, school friends and Papa, what more could she need?

 Then on Friday we had one of our favorite boys' birthday party- Brae, at playdate pdx, which is crazy fun for little kids. It's like an indoor pump it up, chuck e cheese and playground all in one. Brooklyn dressed as a cowgirl for the occassion. We always dress up for Brae's party since he was born ON halloween!

Kristin and her girls came over for dinner last weekend and I got this shot of B & Kal. I am obsessed with it. The only amiga missing is Remi. These girls have truly grown up together, and I just beam when I look at how much they love eachother, just like their mama's. We are also well aware how much trouble we are both in...they are going to be little heart breakers. 

 I snuck in to take sleeping pics the other night because I realized I used to do that all the time with Brookyn, and I don't think I have since Ben was a newborn. Look at those little lips. He's such and angel (when he's sleeping soundly).

 My baby girl is not a baby anymore. That's what bitter sweet is.

We are going to carve pumpkins, with hot cider and Charlie Brown's the great pumpkin tonight.

1,2,3,9,8

This afternoon was a rough one. We were supposed to meet up with some friends at the park and due to no one being able to get their act's together, we didn't make it. I was so frustrated, both kiddos were crying and whining and so although we didn't have time to make it across town to play at the park I decided to take us somewhere....anywhere. We loaded in the car and made a game time decision.

Brooklyn suggested we go to Oak Creek, the elementary school up the street. We got there while  after school care going on, so lot's of little first and second graders playing. There were two little boys (both in first grade) who took a major liking to Ben. They kept bringing him the ball and prompting him to play "catch" with them. Ben was so funny, fascinated and flattered, but still doing his own thing. He'd lose interest and wander away, then they would come back up to him and ask him some more questions. He was in the best mood, offering me kisses and holding my hand. It was pure sweetness. One of the boys said to the other "that baby is really cute. Babies love me...a lot". Haha

Brooklyn & I played house together, played on all the equipment, snuggled on the swings with her in my lap. She even looked up at me at one point while swinging and offered a simple quiet "I love you". It was pure gold, all of it. Honestly the best trip to the park in as long as I can remember. Mostly due to my complete focus on them, allowing them to guide me in their play and my willingness to participate, not just stand by and watch distractedly (which I do a lot).

As I listened to the conversations of the little kids there, I couldn't help but tear up a few times. A hot topic amongst my closest groups of friends lately has been how close we are to real school starting, and how truly soon these days of having my babies to myself 100% will be coming to an end. On exceptionally difficult days I long for those days to hurry up and get here, but in reality I am dreading it with all my heart. Gulp. They still LONG to have me right next to them, to be pushed on the swing, to have their hands held as they walk along the retaining wall, to lay down on the jungle gym pretending it's our bed to sleep in...with them. I keep hearing, from those ahead of me in life, that I'll long for these days back, and today I got a glimpse of the present, side by side with the all too near future. "The days are long but the years are short". They are.

Ben truly thinks this is how you count to ten. His favorite number is two. Everything is two. I know that I'm going to blink and he will be counting to 30 just like his sister, so today I'm going to cherish the 1,2,3,9,8 of this life.

26.2. Bam.

Holy #$%&!! I ran a marathon. I did it, like actually, really, truly did it.

As Matt and I have been sitting her talking I was reminiscing about how when he signed up I felt this pressure to do it, not for the joy of saying "I've ran a marathon" but so that I wouldn't be home and resentful to him for being out there running all those long runs on the weekends.

The truth is I have mourned more for him than rejoiced for myself. My husband is my hero. He is the strongest man I have ever known (along with my dad) and I could not respect him more if I tried. He didn't pout when the Dr told him the marathon was a pipe dream with his knee for this year, he mourned yes, but then with a smile on his face he pushed me out the door for each and every weekend long run I had and greeted me with encouragement, and a reminder to thank God for my healthy body...basically "don't you dare whine to me about shin splints" :)

So this morning was very bitter sweet. Kind of feels like my life's motto. With every blessing, I can also clearly see the sadness of what's been lost.

I woke up at 4:40, sipped my coffee, had my quiet time, ate my oatmeal and the kicked it into high gear! I was genuinely pumped. Bethany picked me up (Thank You Buff!) 5:30 and I was down on the waterfront by 6. I found my corral, wandered around, checked my stuff, hit the port-o-pots (25 min wait btw) and was ready to rock.

The first four miles were AMAZING!!! I passed my long, old dear friend Ang and her sweet family right about mile 4 while they were out to cheer me on. So good to see a familiar face!

Then at mile 8 I started to feel some tightness in my hip flexors. First opportunity to tap into the mind over matter. Kept going.

Mile 14 Christie, Jinger and Wendy were there to cheer me on! Seeing those bright smiles and hearing them scream "you're doing amazing, keep going!!!" quite literally kept me going. I sent Matt a text saying "half way there, gonna be a long second half" with this pic. Oh wait, I just looked at it for the first time and it's horrible, so no pic post :)

So, then the grit began. We ran down hwy 30 and once we hit the hill to go up to the st john's bridge my legs and feet felt like jello. I kept telling myself..."you've run much farther than this, just keep going".

At mile 17 I started counting down the miles, not up anymore.

Mile 18 I literally hit the wall. I wanted to stop more than anything. I no longer cared who was passing me or who I was passing. All goals were out the window. All I knew I HAD to do was finish strong and not walk.

Mile 22 I passed Christie, Wendy and Jinger again. It was like another shot to the system. It also helped that we were heading down the hill past the Adidas headquarters and hills are my friend. I just kept telling myself "you have 6 miles, you can do six miles" "you have 5 miles, you have done 5 mile runs a hundred times" and so on.

We crossed the Broadway bridge and I felt like it was me and 3 other runners. The pac had thinned and it was nice to have some breathing room.

Home stretch. I was over the bridge, it was just another 1.2 miles. YESSSSSSSS!!!! At this point all the thoughts of quitting and walking were long gone. All I could think was "just KEEP running". So I did, albeit quite a bit slower than the start :)

It's strange, the run up waterfront park felt strangely quiet. I kept thinking "where are all the supporters". I rounded the corner to 3rd and there was EVERYONE!!!!! On the left was Matt, the kids, Chuck, Lisa, Bethany, Jack, Lisa's sister Pam and her husband Frank and on the right Mom, Dad and Ashley. Amazing. Pure joy.

I ran as fast as my legs would take me. Literally, I sprinted until I crossed the finish and felt like I was going to puke.

Final time: 3:58:05
My goal was 4:10

Sooooo pleasantly surprised. I also crossed the finish not only to find a rose, medal, shirt and chocolate milk awaiting me, but dozens of text messages from all my amazing friends and family. Priceless.

Some of my favorite signs along the course were:

"I don't know you, but I'm proud of you"- held by 8 year old girls
"Don't poop (out)" haha
"Hurry, run faster, they're running out of beer"
"Chuck Norris never ran a marathon"
"You can't stop now, we're all watching"
"I love tight buns" this one just hit my funny bone right when I needed it.

Carbo loading Sat night with Christie and Jinger

Get this, pizza with spaghetti on top!

Ben woke up right before I left @ 5:30am!!

Tete and Brooklyn on the sidelines

FINISH LINE!!!!

One of my favorite signs!