Logan Van-Craig Service

Here are some pictures of our new baby boy.

Halloween Fun

Halloween was really fun this year. Kenna loved her costume and wanted to wear it all the time. Luckily there were several parties we went to so she had lots of opportunities to dress us.



Here she is holding a snake at one of the parties. She wasn't too freaked out by it until she saw it stick out its tongue. I think it was then she realized it was a live creature.


Our first pumpkin together.


We also had a fun time wandering through a corn maze.

Baby Boy

It's a boy. Due on February 26th.
Tyler is very excited. Happily, Kenna also can't wait for her baby brother. I am excited as well but a boy will be a new learning experience so I am anxious about the unknown. We haven't thought much about names until now so we still have some work to do before we settle on a name.

Binky Free

We are Binky Free!!!!!
Somehow we got blessed with a stress free transition. I read up on a few different ways to eliminate the binky and decided the best way for Kenna was to have her do it. My sister was coming to town with her new baby so I decided to have Kenna give the binky to the baby. I prepped her for a week. We talked about how big Kenna was and that she didn't need the binky anymore. We talked about how the new baby would cry and it would make her happy to have a binky. Finally the moment arrived. Saturday morning we were taking family pictures. As soon as Kenna saw the baby she asked where her binky was. I gave it to her. She held it for a while and slowly approached the baby. She quickly gave it up and then ran away. (hilarious) She was a little sad the first week but we had other distractions for her bedtime routine. We turned on a music box and had a new stuffed animal for her (actually it was an old stuffed animal we found when we were unpacking but it was new to Kenna).
She does have some new fears though that came when we eliminated the binky. She doesn't like the dark and she doesn't like the door closed. She wanted all the lights on for a couple nights but we were able to talk her out of that. She now just has a nightlight. She still needs to door open but I don't mind since there isn't anyone in the house to disturb her. She is in a toddler bed but knows she has to stay there until I come get her. So far it has been good. She happened to find a binky today and I was worried we might have a set back but she did fine and didn't even mention it.
The next challenge is potty training. I'm trying to mentally prepare for this one. I don't expect it to be as easy.

Our New House

We moved into to our new house on May 3rd. We absolutely love it. I'll have more picture to come once I start decorating. Right now it is boring but I did take pictures so I can show the before and after.
Tyler and I had been talking about buying a house since last year. We started saving for a down payment but it wasn't until Tyler got hired with Chandler that we actually started looking. We got renters for our townhouse and moved in with my parents while we looked for a house. We literally looked at a hundred houses and probably a hundred more online. It is kind of funny how we got this house. After months of searching, looking and losing houses we were getting disappointed. We didn't know what else to do because we had seriously looked at every house on the market. We had 3 houses that we had saved in our "really like" folder and we checked them regularly hoping one of them would be active. When I went to check our folder there was a house saved in "favorite". I hadn't been to the house and I asked Tyler and he hadn't seen it either. There was only 1 picture so we figured that meant the inside was trashed. It was also cheaper than all the other houses which also meant it was probably in bad shape. We decided to look at it anyways. I was sick the day Tyler went to look at it. When he got home he was really excited and said he loved it. It also had 5 bedrooms instead 4 like the listing said. He said he wanted to make an offer. I was too sick to care so I said to go ahead. I started to worry we were going to buy a house I hadn't seen so I scheduled a time to see it with our realtor. I was early arriving to the house so I had to wait outside. I had this great feeling just sitting there. When I actually went inside I was really surprised. It had everything on my list! I told the realtor it was the house I wanted. Regardless of it being a short sale it was our house 2 months later. There were too many crazy things that went right with this house it was meant to be our house.

Zoo

A couple months ago we went to the zoo. Kenna hadn't been since she was a baby. She enjoyed it except that she wanted to touch every animal we saw (mom, I want to touch it). She really liked holding hands with Emma and Ada. Too cute.

Smoothies

McKenna loves smoothies. We got addicted to them at Grandma's house. I usually gave her a straw (since sippy cups don't work) but the straw was soon ditched and smoothie mustaches became the fashion

Pictures

I love going to get pictures taken because I don't take pictures very often and when I do they usually look...not so great.

Kenna

I've begun to notice a few things about Kenna that make me smile. She has an obsession with washing her hands. Any time she hears running water she wants to wash her hands (this is actually more annoying than cute). The other day I was going to scold her for playing with the cat food when I realized she was actually picking up the food that spilled out and putting it back in the bowl. It has become her tasks recently to make sure the cat food stays in the bowl. This morning Tyler spilled some of his breakfast on his shorts and when Kenna saw the spot she was very distressed, ran into the kitchen and came back with a papertowel and proceeded to clean the spot. I didn't realize a little 1 year old could have such a need to be clean.

The side of Teresa you didn't know

I was looking through some old pictures and couldn't help but laugh at these. I'm sure most folks think I was the girl that played with dolls...and I was but that wasn't all I did. I did venture to the world of cops and robbers. As you can see I was always adequately equipped for such an adventure.

Here I am in action in case you needed more proof of my adventurous side.

Officer Service

Tyler passed. He is an AZ certified Police Office. He took the test on Saturday and his final overall standing is the class is 3rd. He graduates on Wednesday. Since he is sponsored by Mesa and will be a volunteer officer for them he will get his Mesa police badge on Wednesday as well. He will work as a volunteer until he can get hired on with another city. Mesa isn't hiring at the moment. He has applied with Gilbert and is hoping to apply with a few other cities.

Help

I've been wanting to make a video of Kenna's first year but haven't gotten around to it. Finally when I decide to start I find out that all the videos I've taken with my camera or from Tyler's phone aren't in the right format to be imported into a movie maker. GRRR. So, if anyone's knows how to convert video files let me know.
Thanks :)

Count Down

Seven more weeks to go until graduation. This has been the longest 10 months of my life. Tyler started the police academy in September last year. We have come a long way since then. I think both of us have grown a lot. It hasn't been easy and I'm glad the end is in sight. And yet I have this feeling that there never is an end. There isn't such a thing as an easier life. And the more I try to work towards reaching that goal the more complex my life seems to get. Even once Tyler graduates he still has to get hired by a police department and then once he does he will probably have the worst hours (working nights and sleeping during the day) so life will still be crazy. Not to mention that Tyler wants to get his 4 year degree before he is 36. And do I even dare to hope that I can cut back my hours at work or even quit my job. (sigh)
So the best I can do right now is just look forward to graduation and let the rest take care of itself.

Tyler's 30th Birthday

The surprise party went well. Tyler had no idea. Point for Teresa. Tyler said I could never plan a surprise party for him because I can't lie. Either I am better at lying or Tyler isn't very observant. :)
Happy 30th Birthday Tyler!


Tyler was very happy to see the guys from the academy at the party.

Kenna's 1st Birthday

First hair cut

We put the cloth on just looks not becuase we needed to catch a lot of hair..lol. Actually I didn't save any of the trimmings (I know what was I thinking) but we were mostly just cutting the straggles so there really wasn't a piece of hair I could save.

A picture is worth a thousand words

She has so much expression on her face in this picture. I love it

Super Girl

It didn't take long to make her super outfit

Kenna + Hat

Haha, doesn't it look like she is modeling the hat for me!

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are lucky to have both our families close by so we had a combined Thanksgiving with Rowses and Services.