A Month of Thankfulness!

Tomorrow we start November and we are inching closer to Thanksgiving! I can't believe how quickly time seems to be going by this year. The twins will be 5 months old on November 7th, Stella is 18 months and Max is FOUR!

Something that I think is really important to Rob and I in our parenting is teaching our children to be grateful. There are SO MANY adults and kids today that have a HUGE sense of entitlement and it drives me bananas. Instead of being grateful for the blessings that we are given we are constantly on the hunt for more or unsatisfied, even when our every need is filled. We are not perfect and can definitely be guilty of this as well!

In an effort to remember just how blessed we are as a family, we are going to be celebrating November with a Month of Thankfulness and Gratefulness! We plan to show our appreciation for those around us with random acts of kindness and little things that just say THANK YOU!

Some ideas that I have for the month are...

1. Make treats and take them to the fire house down the street. These firefighters are the ones who responded to our scary 911 call with Max last year.
2. Send treats to Mommy and Daddy's coworkers.
3. Give a $5 gas card to someone.
4. Leave a $1 by the coffee machine at a gas station.
5. Donate our old clothes to friends and others.
6. Donate toys we don't play with anymore.
7. Turkey our neighbors with a surprise on their doorstep.
8. Visit the Oklahoma Food Bank and donate canned goods and $ for meals.
9. Pick up trash somewhere.
10. Take a treat to our LifeKids Director at church.
11. Give an offering at church.
12. Make dinner for friends.
13. Take old towels and treats to the local animal shelter.
14. Write a Thank You card to a friend.
15. Send a TS gift to someone just to say we love you.
16. Leave candy for the mailman.
17. Adopt a kid for Christmas.
18. Leave change on a vending machine.
19. Treat our sitter to a sonic drink.
20. Take a coffee to our MDO director.
21. Bring breakfast for our MDO teachers.
22. Leave nice notes on bathroom or dressing room mirrors for the ladies.
23. Make a military care package for a deployed soldier.
24. Take a dinner to a military wife.
25. Pay for the person behind us somewhere.
26. Pray for a friend.
27. Call our grandparents just to say Hi.
28. Tip the teenage boys who helped us take our groceries out.
29. Give a gift to our siblings!
30. Adopt a family for Christmas.

Other little things we want to do are be kind, smile at strangers, teach Max to open doors for ladies and the elderly, put carts back at stores, let someone cut in line, give more hugs, say Thank You to everyone, complain less, laugh more and pray often!

I don't know that we will get close to doing everything on our list but we are excited to show others that we are thankful for them!

Our month was inspired by this!
http://ticklestogiggles.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-birthday-was-awesome.html

The twinsies are 3 months!

I can't believe the twins are already 3 months old! Time goes by so fast, faster and faster with each kid it seems. We celebrated by getting family pictures taken with my friend Sarah again. She is SO talented and everyone just raves about each of the pictures that she does for us. So blessed by her friendship and her talent!

Here are our little owls...

presley-left, jackson-right

Mama with the babies

The Conder Crew

September 2011

maximus owen-3.75 :)

Maximus! I can't believe you are almost FOUR! Where does the time go? This picture is SO perfectly you. You are definitely crazy and a little bit, ok a lotta bit stubborn but you are also incredibly smart and funny. Daddy and I often have to hide our laughter at the things you come up with. You are still a bad sleeper dude....but you have solved the problem by sneaking into bed with us like a little ninja. We don't even know you are there until you kick Daddy 19x in 5 minutes and he gets irritated with you. We are doing preschool at home with you and your smarts astound me! You love to learn and you love Jesus and that is all that matters to us!

stella katherine-16 months

Sweet StellaBella. I can't believe you are already 16 months old. First off you are a drama queen but we love it. You throw big ol temper tantrums with real tears and ugly looks. You are feisty but gorgeous as ms. sarah says. You are a DADDYS GIRL! Half the time you just tolerate me. :) You are still our little pipsqueak but you are getting taller. We go back to check on your PDA heart stuff soon and we know you are going to be fine. You love your babies but you REALLY love Jack-Jack. We love you and adore you, our little comedian!

presley jane-3 months

PJ, your hair and eyebrows have a reddish tint and your eyes are light but not blue. I want to call you Gingersnap but you have definitely picked up PJ as a nickname. You are very chatty with your constant gooing and cooing and you already love your daddy. You are sleeping better at night and usually wake up once to eat in the early morning. You are our sweet baby girl and we love you!

jackson gage-3 months

Jackson you are 3 months old! you are so handsome! You have dark dark hair and beautiful green/brown eyes like your daddy. you have lonnnnnng dark eyelashes. You are seriously one chill baby and you are a mama's boy already. There are times when you cry and cry but if I hold you, you just fall asleep. You are definitely owning the nickname Jack-Jack and Stella is a little bit obsessed with you. We love you little man!

The whole family

Thank you God for blessing me with an amazing husband and beautiful healthy children.

Check out more of Sarah's work HERE!

Live from Oklahoma Cityyyyyyyyyyy

I am excited to share that I am going to be on live tv next week!

What I really want to do is throw up from nerves :) but I am genuinely excited. I have been a food tv watcher my entire life so I kind of get to pretend that I have my own cooking show for an entire 5 minutes.

i will pretend that I am paula deen...that will boost my self confidence!

So here's the deal, it's Monday at 11AM on the show "All About You" which is on local channel KSBI OK 52. I will be doing a 4-5 minute cooking demo on easy summer recipes featuring our AWESOME Tastefully Simple products. We will be celebrating National Panini Month which should be fun. I have a LOT of prep work to do and I need to get some timing practice in the next few days.

I know it might seem silly but I honestly feel like God is blessing my TS business and it reassures me that I am in the right spot. Sales is never an "easy" job but it's one of the most prevalent in our nation! How many people are in some sort of sales? We are all selling something! Heck, even bloggers are selling themselves to their readers!

gotta love our beautiful marketing!

To God be the GLORY for this super fun experience. I pray that anyone out there who is looking for a way to bring in extra income to their family or needs to experience Tastefully Simple in some way will be tuned in a watching. God can use ANYTHING to bring Glory to HIM!

Always,

Jesi

Create an Atmosphere of Worship

I'm not posting this because I am good at it, rather as a reminder to myself!

Today I got in a tizzy because I wasn't able to get ANYTHING done. Every time I tried to stand up one of the twins would start fussing and Stella was being needy and Max was running around getting into things and I was feeling overwhelmed. I called Rob, just to tell him I was going crazy. He gets a lot of those calls these days ;)

I decided to snap out of it. I reminded myself that babies cry. I put them down and took Max and Stella into the kitchen. We baked a chocolate cake for Rob to say "Thanks for being a great dad and the kind of husband who lets me off duty after you worked for 12 hours to let me take a bath and fall asleep for an hour." And by bake I mean we mixed up a Tastefully Simple chocolate pound cake which takes 3 minutes!

Then I got out my devotional and did it.

I was feeling better already. I blared some worship music and turned the tv off. I cleaned the kitchen while Max decided he was Jacksons babysitter, meaning he sat next to him and replaced his paci every time he cried out. Once my kitchen was clean I felt so much better. There are SO MANY days when my house looks like it got hit by a tornado and it really leaves me feeling out of control. If I can manage to keep things just a little cleaner I feel better. Relieved I went back to the living room and let the music play. I started singing along and Stella started dancing. I love how kids instinctually raise their hands to music. Max started singing along with me. Holding a content baby, watching another one sleep, dancing along with Stella and hearing Max belt out HOLY HOLY HOLY IS THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTYYYYYYYY. There was some serious worship happening in our house.

It's really easy to get caught up in the moment to moment challenges that come with motherhood. If we can just pause, at least once per day to remember our blessings and create an atmosphere of worship we might all feel just a tiny bit better. I know it worked today in my house!
Always,
Jesi

Chit Chat

This little lady is starting to repeat a lot more words!

 

Some of her words at 15 months

Mama
DaDa
Ma for Max
Yum Yum
Mine
Baba for Bottle
Ja JA for Jack Jack
Mmmmm
Uh Oh
Nigh Nigh
Hiiiiiiiiiiii with a distinctive southern twang
GRO for Gross
YUuuuu for Yuck
Sti Sti for Stinky
(are you noticing a pattern?)
Bebe for Baby
Bye Bye

We love you Stella!

Never Say Never

A lesson I REALLY need to learn.

I love looking back and seeing how God can bring things full circle. There are so many times when I have said "never will I" and  God has said "oh really?"

When I was young I never understood stay at home moms. My own mom worked full time and did an awesome job being a mom and working. I didn't really understand WHY you would go to college, get your degree and then "just" stay home with kids. It flat out didn't make sense to me.

me as a working mom

After Max was born I understood why there were women that chose to be stay at home moms. But I never wanted to be one. It took a few years of listening, prayer, job changes and pressing into God to desire it for myself. It's not always easy and it's a financial sacrifice to live on 1.5 incomes but I truly feel it's where HE wanted me. I quit my job when we just had Max. Little did we know that just a short 2 years later we would have not 1 more child but 3 more children. God was lining out HIS plan before we ever knew what was gonna hit us! Never say Never.

working as a stay at home mom

Twins, twins, oh my sweet twins. I cannot tell you how many times I made joking but cutting remarks about twins! I would laugh and say "If I ever have twins I am giving one away!" Of course I meant it as a joke! Because I never in a million years imagined we would have twins. Never say Never.

would you give one of these sweet things away? Me either!

School, school, blessed School. I have NEVER wanted to homeschool. I have lots of friends who do an awesome job at it. Not me. I have several friends who are organized and involved and love it and the whole time I am thinking "that is really great for them but never for me"

Funny story...Max is one of the kids who will have to wait until he is practically SIX before kindergarten because of the birthday cutoff in our town. SIX! He is a smart cookie and we did 2 days per week of Mothers Day Out last year and treated it like preschool. This year because we suddenly have four kids they will only be going on Thursdays so I can go work at the dance studio. We don't have the $$$ to put him in a private preschool and most of them are absurd schedules anyways. I have no desire to pack up 4 small children to drop him off for 2 hours and then turn around and do it again. No thank you!

ready for school last year

So I picked up a bunch of pre-k workbooks and some writing tools so that we could start some preschool work at home. So the other morning I asked him if he wanted to do some school? "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOOOOOOOOL" Max is a homebody. He is very social and LOVES playing with other kids but he LOVES being at home. I reminded him we had school stuff at home. "HOMESCHOOL? YAY!" He yells. I busted out laughing. God loves to get me everytime. I would have the one kid who requests to be homeschooled.

can you believe this kid loves home?

No, I am not commiting to being a homeschooler. But we are going to do Preschool at Home this year. I just feel like Max is MORE than ready and needs to start doing SOME structured work in tracing, adding, sight words. My friend over at The Ruby Zebra is a GREAT homeschool mom so I plan to pick her brain a little since she did preschool last year with Ms.B. I stumbled across this preschool set up so that is what we are going to be doing for the year amongst lots of play and lots of babies! Max is pretty convinced he is a Rockstar and I love that it is very scripture focused so I think it will be a good match for some "school" with Mama and Max. If I only do preschool with all four of our kids that is still FOUR kids that can get good use out of some planning and directed activities.

Little stuff, Big Stuff.

I will  never...I would never...that's not for me. God can't, God won't, God would never. God CAN, God WILL, God MIGHT! Over time God can change your heart and your mind to new things! Never say Never!

Always,
Jesi~not ready to call myself a homeschooler~haha

Twin Pictures

Don't you know that twin pics make you go all squishy baby voiced?

My friend Sarah is AMAZINGLY talented. She is starting up her photography business and took these pics of Jackson and Presley when they were just 5 days old. Aren't they gorgeous?

Sarah is seriously the baby whisperer. I have never met someone so calm, collected and easy with newborns. She is just PEACE. She can shush and lay her hand on them and just sit there calmly until they are ready. Photographing newborns is no easy task, its a hard job! But she obviously enjoys it because her work is the proof in the pudding.

Here are our little darlings.

Isn't she amazing?! Thank you Sarah! We are so thankful for your kindness and talent in documenting such a special time in our family!

Check out Sarahs website HERE!

Always,  Jesi

The Twins Arrival

In my last post I wrote about needing to be a better blogger so this is me playing catch up...

This is the the story of the birth of our twins! Presley Jane and Jackson Gage...

written on 06/08/2011
Yesterday went well for most of the day, just made slow and steady progress throughout the day. I was an 8.5 after I asked for all those good vibes to not stall out and all of sudden I was more than complete and my nurse was telling me not to cough or laugh too hard until we got in the O.R.

They got us set up in the O.R. for delivery just in case a c-section was needed for the 2nd baby out. Three easy pushes and Jackson Gage arrived at 6:40PM and was 6.4 and 20 inches long. He looks like a little old man and just like Max as a newborn! He was a 8 on his 1 min apgar and a 9 on his 5 min apgar.

Presley Jane was doing well, head down and they broke her water. I gave 1-2 pushes with her and suddenly she decided to flip HIGH breech and my dr. could not find her head at all. He was literally reaching up grasping around to find her and her cord prolapsed and started coming all the way out. He reached all the way up and grabbed her feet and pulled her out breech. she was grayish and not responding great right away but our doctor and nurse got her suctioned and rubbed up fast and she recovered fast and is doing great now! She had a 7 on her 1 min apgar but a 9 on her 5 min apgar.

Max and Stella got to meet them and were so sweet! Max LOVES Jackson and Stella was already trying to smack them in the face with her love pats!

April Showers bring May Flowers

But I like April Flowers too!

I wanted to post about Stella's showers, one in late March and the second in April. Our flower is due May 7th but I am beyond A-OK if she decides to be an April baby instead. After all diamonds ARE a girls best friend and the birthstone of April. The only tricky part would be WHO she ended up sharing a birthday with! Both Rob and I were incredibly close to our grandmothers who have since passed away and they both had April birthdays. My DAD's birthday is also at the end of April but I don't think he would mind sharing his birthday with a very special little girl.

Back to the "April Showers"

My first shower for Stella was planned for March 20th. Some of my good friends were hosting it together and we all have crazy schedules and this was the one day that worked for everyone. So of course lovely Oklahoma had to have a BLIZZARD. Yes at the end of March. I know that might be the norm for northern states but on Friday of that weekend it was 70 degrees and sunny. Saturday morning we woke up to blowing snow, terrible roads and ice everywhere.

Needless to say it was a BIT stressful when my phone started blowing up with all the people telling me they couldn't make it because of the roads. But alas we decided to keep the shower on because there just wasn't another date that would work for us all. And it ended up going perfectly! My friends and family are so wonderful and we are so blessed to be surrounded by them. Stella Katherine or SK as I like to call her, has so many strong, smart, funny, women of God in her life to look up to as role models and that makes my heart sing.

The gorgeous sign that says Stella Kate over the fireplace. My amazingly talented friend Elizabeth made it, she was one of the hostesses but her and her hubs were out of the country because they are awesome travelers like that!

The beautiful food table. My sweet friend Summer made that cake and it was SO good. Coconut cake! We also had bruschetta, spinach artichoke dip, baguette, fettucini alfredo, mini cupcakes, fruit kabobs and this awesome spinach and fruit salad that my sweet momma makes with balsamic dressing. It's one of my favorites and I ate two plates of it. LOL!

Me and my gorgeous momma. I love her and she is going to be an amazing Nana to Stella. My grandmother and I were very close and sadly she passed away after a fight with cancer when I was in 6th grade. There is an incredible bond and love that exists between my Grandma Marcie, my Mom and me even though she is gone. I cannot wait to share that with Stella.

 
 
 
 


This is my precious sister in law. Auntie D or D as Max calls her. I am super proud of who she is becoming in Christ and love her like a true sister.

Rob's Mom and Sister. Grammy Pooh and D as the kiddos call them.

My stepmom Julia. She is always a rock of faith and I love her dearly. Grandma JuJu is her given name from Max and I know Stella will love her just as much as he does.

My nearest and dearest, this is my best friend Savanah. We have been blessed to be friends 15 years this year!! Savanah was incredibly instrumental in helping me become the woman I am in God and I STILL to this day call her first when I need advice or I hit crisis mode. No one else shows such care for me and unconditional open love. I adore her!

Again with my crazy talented friend Elizabeth. She made this for SK's room and I LOVE it! Isn't she amazing!

These are my gorgeous friends who hosted the shower for me. Amazingly I met all these lovely ladies in college and we are sorority sisters. But I am so thankful we are more than that and our friendship has continued and developed past those silly college days. Kera Don, Summer (aka Catherine Summer being the confirmation for SK's middle name to be Katherine) and Kalee. I love these gals!

My bestest military mommy friend. We understand eachother in a way that most people will never understand! I am so thrilled that her husband will be home soon but I am dreadfully sad about them moving. Dang Army!

These hilarious ladies are my friend Codie who I refer to as my twin and her momma Kim. They filled the shower with laughter. I love them!

I think it's funny that I am red faced and sweaty at this lovely shower. In the middle of a blizzard! What can I do but blame it on the pregnancy hormones?!

Then just this past weekend we had another shower at the dance studio that I work at/teach at. My boss's wife is having their 3rd and much prayed for child and so the moms at dance threw us a small joint shower. It was super cute and all our dance kiddos and parents blessed us with many gifts, gift cards and clothes for the new babies. We cannot wait to meet baby Dominic and it's been really fun to commiserate with Katrina on the woes of motherhood and pregnancy. She is incredibly wise but also super sweet and I loved getting to celebrate with her.

So those are the April Showers, May flowers are great and all but I'm perfectly open to SK showing up early and claiming a diamond as her birthstone. I'm just sayin!

Always,
Jesi