Christmas will soon be here!

Things have been well here at the Greenfield home. I'm praying we stay healthy for our trip to Shelton next week and am excited for Christmas to be here! I'm just about ready for Christmas. Shopping is practically done (except for a few stocking stuffers) and I'm definitely packing away the sweets which is proof of the holiday season, right?

Yesterday my mom and I made a load of candy to eat and give out. We made: peanut butter cups, chocolate covered cherries, gumdrops, hazelnut truffles, almond roca and bon bons. YUM YUM YUM YUM YUM! KJ was a great taste tester and I think Lainee was wishing she could be one.

The kids are just growing up so fast. They continues to amaze and entertain us. I learned I now have to watch what I say seeing as how KJ told Chad what him and Lainee got him for Christmas. He's also becoming quite the little dancer and singer. He really loves to play tunes on his piano and have dance parties around the house (and we like it, too!). Lainee is learning how to sit by herself and she is already trying to do the scooting motion, especially if there is something she wants to get. Chad and I are wondering if we create scooters rather than crawlers? We will see which direction little bug goes in.

I hope this holiday season is good to you and the next year brings you all health and happiness.

Things to be Thankful For

I know this post should have come before Thanksgiving, but things got a little hectic with illnesses and everything going on around the house. So, here is my list of what I'm thankful for this year... it's not everything, of course, but a pretty good start!

1) My family!
*I can't even begin to tell you how blessed I am to have such a wonderful, loving husband and two beautiful, healthy children!



*My parents, who if I can be half the parents they have been to me, I am set!

*My beautiful sisters who are my best friends and their husbands who make them happy!

*My mother in law, such a strong and wonderful woman who made me feel part of the family from the start!

*The rest of mine and Chad's extended family-- so many great people I have the priviledge to be related too!

2) The fact that I'm going to be an aunt!!!
*I've been hoping for a little neice or nephew for a long time and Ashley and Elijah broke the news that they are expecting over Thanksgiving. Awesome!!!

3) A new bed and a roof over my head!

*We've been wanting a new bed for so long and it was delivered last week. It is big, comfy and great! It's so nice to have a nice and comfortable bed. We are also so lucky to be financially stable to afford the things we need (& want) and that we are able to raise our children comfortably!

The new bed!

4) Time I get to spend with those I love.

*Whenever family is over or we get to visit family, it makes me cherish every moment I have with them. Because we live all over, it's so nice to have those times where we are all able to spend time together.

Last, but definitley not least...

5) My Salvation!

"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures..." 1 Corinthians 15: 3,4

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eterlasting life. John 3:16

*God has blessed me in so many ways, most imporantly he sent his son to die for my sins so that I may have eternal life!

What's For Dinner Blog

I've created a new blog at:

http://foodfoodyumyum.blogspot.com

It is a blog that I hope will be filled with yummy recipes and meal ideas. I've invited many friends to share their recipes and they are able to post in it as well. If you are interested in posting and becoming involved in it, let me know and I can send you the info you need to sign in and start posting!

Play Dough

The other day we made some homemade playdough and KJ had a lot of fun with it! We put on our Sunday School CD which KJ really enjoys listening to and went rolling/patting/cutting away on our (supposed to be red, a little too pink) dough!

Trick Or Treat

Halloween was a fun day, as usual! We made delicious sugar cookies, carved some cool pumpkins and KJ got a good amount of candy!

Nicole and I planned out a day of Halloween festivities, but they all somehow ended up jam packed into a 2-3 hour period. We did not plan on having to freeze our sugar cookie dough after getting it together and therefore we were baking/decorating at the same time we needed to get the pumpkins carved. I ended up skipping out on the carving and cleaning up while everyone else made cool pumpkins to decorate the porch with. It all worked out; however, we were unable to dress up like we had planned because of the lack of time. Nicole pulled through and was a 50's girl for the night, but I missed out on being the black cat and we never got to dress Keesha up as the Geisha girl (it would have been really cool!). I threw a beanie on though for trick or treating and called myself a pro snowboarder. HA! We know that is far from the truth and therefore made a great costume in my opinion. :)

Trick Or Treating was fun. We had a Buzz Lightyear and a Pink Ladybug. We made a quick stop at mom & dad's seeing as how they were trying to keep themselves away due to swine flu exposure. We explained to KJ that we could see them but he wouldn't be able to give them any loves for a few more days. He actually did pretty well considering he hadn't seem them in a few weeks due to their trip to China/Japan. We then visited some more relatives and made a quick stop downtown. Lainee was ready to be home by the time we finished, so it was a pretty quick trip, but fun nonetheless.

Nicole and I had also planned a Halloween dinner, so when we got home Nicole was boiling some fettucini noodles that were dyed black for some black noodles and sauce. We were going to go all out and decorate the garlic bread too but we were once again in kind of a hurry so we just did everything else normally.

Here are some pictures of our Halloween Fun:

Fall Fun!

Well, our tree decided it was time to shed resulting in a lawn full of yellow, fun to jump in, crispy, crunchy, yard covering leaves! KJ really enjoyed jumping around in them and I really enjoyed taking pictures of the kiddos out in those beautiful fall colors. Here are some pictures!

Ok, so this first one is Lainee on the porch, but it is outside and she looks so cute!

A leaf found her hand and then it about found her mouth...

KJ having fun in the huge leaf pile!


Cute (I wish I had a nicer camera)!

Family Fall Fun!

KJ turns 2 and updates!

Well KJ had two very fun birthday parties (really, he had 3 if you count the one he had with just Chad, Lainee, Nana and I). It's still so crazy that he is now 2! He got a lot of cool toys and we had fun spending time with family in Shelton since we arn't able to see them very often. It was also nice because everyone was able to meet Lainee! Here are some pictures from both birthday parties, he had one over in Shelton and one here at home.

Here is the birthday boy with his cool cake that Grandma Martha made:

Mmmm.... Cake!

Here is the birthday boy at his party here at home!

And another cool cake made by Grandma Martha!

Here I am with the kiddos at KJ's party, I'm so lucky!

In other news, both kids seem to be growing so fast. Lainee is now over three months and just rolled over for the first time yesterday! She then did it a few more times! She's also starting to (baby) talk more and her and KJ just love each other, it's really adorable. KJ is just about a full blown conversationalist now. It's pretty fun when you can just talk to your 2 year old and he, for the most part, knows what you are talking about. He is responding with "huh?" alot, well to almost every question which can kind of drive you crazy, but it is still cute. As for Chad and I, we are both doing very well. I'm sure I drive him crazy with my current worry: the swine flu. I'm trying my best to keep my kids healthy I don't want the swine flu or any other flu or illness in our house, ugh! I just need to remember to pray and rely on God, he is in control not me and I know worrying about it definitely won't do me any good.

Here is a video of Lainee rolling over!

KJ went fishing!

This past weekend KJ got to fo fishing with Daddy, Nana, Uncle Dan and our friend Mark. Sadly, I wasn't there to see it...but KJ caught a fish! Him and Uncle Dan were the only ones that caught one and I think he had a lot of fun. Chad said that he was watching KJ fish when Mark said that he thought KJ had a fish and then both figured it was probably nothing until his bobber kept, umm... bobbing (?) and sure enough as KJ reeled it in (with a little help from daddy) there was a fish! Here are some pictures from it.

Here he is fishing:

Here he is with daddy and his fish!

He's growing up so fast, hopefully next time I'm there to see him catch his fish.

Here are some newer pictures of Lainee, she is growing up so fast too!

This weekend we are heading to Shelton to have KJ's birthday party with family over there, followed be another one here next weekend. He is going to be TWO! Crazy!! Blog birthday coverage to come!

Brief Update

Here are some things that have been going on lately...

--Lainee had her 2 month check up (@ 7 weeks) She weighed 10 lbs. and measured 22 3/4 inches, she's growing like a weed! We also found out that what we thought was baby acne was actually eczema. :( Luckily, we are keeping it under control now with eucerin and hydrocortizone cream when we need it. Hopefully she will outgrow it!

--KJ got an Elmo potty book yesterday and since he has already gone potty TWICE in the potty after letting us know he needed to go. What a good boy, he is growing up so fast!

--Chad put our patio in this past weekend. It looks great and he is waiting for the rock to settle some before making it permanent. *Pics to come!

--Lainee is currently fighting a cold or allergies, I'm not sure which. She has a very snotty nose and it makes it hard for her to sleep on her back. Poor girl, at least she waited 8 weeks before getting sick, unlike her big brother who got one when he was only 3 weeks old! KJ was a little stuffy on Sunday but was fine the day after, so maybe she is just fighting off what he had? I'm not sure, I just know I don't like when either of my kiddos are under the weather.

--KJ is going to be 2 in a little over two weeks!!! Where does the time go???

--We got our pictures back from JC Penny's, I will post some so you can get a better look at them.

--I think those are the main things for now, if I think of anything else I will add it on here. Hope this finds you all well!

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Today is the first day of September and therefore the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Although many people don't read my blog, if there is anyone who does who may not have known this information before... I have at least spread awareness that much more. I had never really thought much of childhood cancer before hearing the story of a little boy who lost his struggle with the terrible disease. He was a cousin to a friend of ours and I began following his journey after our friend shared her cousin's story. Since learning of his struggle and "meeting some parents" of children who have/had this disease and reading other stories of innocent children who have had to endure so much suffering because of cancer, I wanted to help spread awareness.

I will confess that I have not been very active or involved in doing this since I first began last year, mostly due to pregnancy and now having two children, it's just been hard to be online as much as I had been before. Not that I did a lot before then. Anyways, here is my miniscule contribution to help spread awareness -- Breast cancer recieves so much funding and there is so much information out there about it, why can't it be the same for Childhood Cancer? The children deserve it!

Here is some information/statistics about Childhood Cancer.

Facts on Childhood Cancer (courtesy of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation):

* On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States.

* On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients.
* Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States.

* Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer.

* The causes of most childhood cancers are unknown. At present, childhood cancer cannot be prevented.* Childhood cancer occurs regularly, randomly and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. In the United States, the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults is increasing at a greater rate than any other age group, except those over 65 years.

* Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.

Here are some ways you can help!

Join PAC2, a great site for parents, family, friends anyone who wants to help spread awareness!

http://curechildhoodcancer.ning.com/

Sign the Petition:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/CureChildhoodCancer

Or, just spread the word through your blog or some other form of communication.

Thanks for reading!

JC Penny's Portraits

We got pictures taken at JC Penny's yesterday and here is the info if you want to check them out:

Click here and enter your Customer Name (jessica greenfield):https://www.smilesbywire.com/home.asp?AC=LTPP0122110742JCPOr go to http://www.smilesbywire.com and enter the following: CustomerName: jessica greenfield Access Code: LTPP0122110742JCP

I love Saturdays!...... and Updates!

The weekends are so great because for some reason I feel like I will be able to get more sleep... do I? No, not really... but still the fact that Chad is here and I have the idea in my head that I will get to rest or sleep more just makes me feel better. It's not that Chad doesn't help because he does... quite a bit, it's just that he can't really get up in the middle of the night to feed her and I'm not ready to switch to bottle feeding only. We do supplement at times and Chad gives Lainee her before bed bottle so that I'm able to go to bed earlier and that does help. Anyways, back to the weekend... it's just nice having that time to spend with Chad and the kids and to have him around!

Time has just been flying by! Lainee is now a month old-- WOW! She is getting so big. She is about 9 1/2 pounds now and probably around 21 inches or so, she's quite the little eater too! Here are some pictures in celebration of her 1 month birthday!

KJ is also growing so fast, he's going to be two in a little over a month and I can't even believe it. It seems like it wasn't that long ago that he was Lainee's size. He was quite the trooper this past week as he had a good amount of facial injuries. Last Sunday he tripped, fell and smacked his face right into the coffee table equaling a lot of blood and a fat lip. :( Then to top it off, Monday he went to get the mail with Nana and tripped and fell in the driveway equaling a scraped/bruised forehead and nose. Poor little guy, here are some pictures of the battle scars.

As for Chad and I, we celebrated our 3 year anniversary on Wednesday. It seems like just yesterday we were getting married and now 3 moves and 2 kids later, here we are! Seriously, where does the time go? Here are a few photos of Chad and I over the years.

**Blogger Pet Peeve: Why do they have to post the pictures at the top of the blog rather than in the space you want them?? Grrrr....

Finally!!! The L&D of Lainee Makay

Ok, so I'm finally getting a bit of time to post up how the labor and delivery went of my little Lainee bug. Overall, it was pretty quick and easy and the pain (once I got the epidural) wasn't all that bad either. I'm just going to do a rough estimated timeline of how things went down... it should give you the idea. Here it goes:

July 6th

** A quick note: I was already in Moses with my mom when I went into labor, talk about good timing!

Ok, now here it goes:

3:30ish: Arrive at my Grandma Lola's house to visit, while there I start feeling more uncomfortable then usual and I had a slight stomach ache...

4:15ish: Arrive at Wal*Mart, proceed to walk around where I starting getting some pretty intense back pain that keeps me from wanting to be upright... Mom starts telling me that I should go get checked out while in my head it's nothing and it will most likely go away once I sit down.

4:40ish: KJ and I head to the car to wait for mom because I'm too uncomfortable to walk around and we listen to the radio. At this point it's hard for me to tell if the pain is easing up because I have a one and a half year old bouncing around on my lap. I also call Chad to let him know what is going on (just in case I go to the hospital.)

4:45ish: The pain has subsided some while sitting but I have to pee really fast so we take a 3 minute drive to McDonalds where the pain returns as I walk to the bathroom... and back to the car. I ask mom if we can just drive around so I can see what happens when I'm sitting to see if this is really anything to get excited about.

4:55ish: Mom runs into another store for about 8-10 minutes, I have a couple contractions in that amount of time and have to pee again so I go to use the bathroom... Mom tells me she really thinks I should get checked. (She wasn't about to take me home with the pains I was having.) So, I ask if we can just drive by the hospital and if I seem to have more pains then I will go in and see what's happening. **I REALLY did NOT want to go to the hospital if I wasn't in labor.**

5:05ish: Get to the hospital, hang out in the parking lot for a bit to see if anything happens. The pain seems to have subsided again but I have to pee AGAIN so I go in to use the bathroom and decide to admit myself, mom made sure I would. haha

5:45ish: I'm hooked up to the machines, Chad has gotten to the hospital and I find out I'm 5 cm dialated and that I need to stay hooked up for about 40 minutes and then I can get up and walk around.

7:00ish: Get up to walk around, have some regular contractions about 5 minutes apart as I'm walking around the waiting room and decide after about 30 minutes, I should head back to my room to see if anything has happened.

8:00ish: Still 5 cm dialated, decide to put me on the lowest dose of pitocin to get things started (and since I was already past my due date), meet my new nurse who is absolutely wonderful! Once the pitocin was started, the contractions REALLY kicked in. I really wanted to hold off on

8:20/8:30ish: Nurse checks me and I'm already at 8CM!!! Wow, the pitocin worked fast this time around! Luckily, the anesthesiologist was on the floor and came in to drug me, SO MUCH BETTER!!!

9-10ish: Hang out, waiting for baby to come down and just let the contractions do their thing. I start pushing at 10:00. The epidural was much different this time around. I could feel a lot more than I ever did with KJ and let's just say the pushing part hurt a lot more!

10:29PM: LAINEE ARRIVES!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got to hold her right away and she looked so much like brother did when he was born, it was crazy!! I'm so relieved to have her and so glad to be done pushing. I only pushed for about 30 minutes opposed to the hour and a half with KJ, but because of the pain it seemed much more exhausting.

Ok, so I apologize for the length of this blog... yikes! If you even read it and I completely understand if you didn't... it's up for me too so that I can kind of remember how things happened. Anyways, the rest of the stay at the hospital went pretty well and now we are home enjoying being a family of four! I'm still pretty exhausted but I know it will get better and Lainee is definitely worth it all! :)

Here are some more photos of the adorable little girl along with her handsome brother!

Lainee has arrived!

Yes, Lainee is here... and I will post the L&D story and pictures hopefully by the end of this weekend!! Right now I need to take advantage of the time I have and try to get some cleaning done... but there will be a new blog in the next couple of days, I promise!!

Here are the quick details

Lainee Makay

7lbs. 12.4 oz.

19.5 in

10:29 PM

The Waiting Game

So, I'm still pregnant. For some reason I really thought that our little girl would be here by now and I'd be on the road to body recovery. No such luck! I know she will come when she is ready or when I'm induced, whichever comes first... but WOW, I'm realizing how impatient I really am at times like these. I've realized it is a lot harder to wait when you have been in the pre-labor stage for a couple weeks opposed to just going in to be induced because your baby (KJ) has shown no signs of coming on his own. Lainee has been teasing me for a couple weeks now while KJ had more of the "Hey, come and get me!" attitude. I think Lainee shares his attitude, she just likes to tease me while she's yelling this from inside my stomach. The worst part is that I'm not even really over-due yet, I'm just being a whiny, impatient brat because I'm tired of the aches and pains... I know, I need to just suck it up. She will be here soon!


In other news, 4th of July was nice. KJ liked the fireworks enough to not get upset at them but he was still a little unsure. He watched the majority of them from Nana's lap on which he proceeded to fall asleep and stay asleep, I might add, with all of the whistles/bangs/explosions. We had family in town since Wednesday between Chad's mom and grandma and my sisters and their hubbies. I think they all thought they would get to meet a baby before leaving town. I love spending time with family and there are still many more events happening this summer that they will come back home for.


Here's to hoping the next blog post is about the birth of Lainee... or maybe it's a boy and he is mad at us that we have been calling him a girl name and she/her... maybe he doesn't want to come until we figure it out!?! Either way, I hope I'm writing about a newborn in the next go around. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for a safe and healthy labor, delivery, baby and mommy!

KJ's New Haircut

Well, yesterday we decided it was time KJ needed another haircut... Chad's mom was here as well as Nicole and Chad, so I figured it would be a good time since I had extra people helping keep him occupied. He has had a few haircuts before but nothing ever too drastic. We decided to go a little shorter this time around; however, I had no idea what the result would be... We started cutting and then decided to try Chad's trimmers, the longest attachment being 1/2 in. Martha started with the trimmers and I thought I might start crying for a minute. His curls and longer hair were all disappearing and I was sure that we had made a mistake! After all of the hair was gone I was surprisingly very pleased and I think this is a great new look for the little man!! I miss the curls but he looks so much more like a "little boy" now and he is just as handsome as ever. :) Here are some pictures of his new 'do.



Daddy cut his hair, too! Here are a couple good pictures of my boys together, taken on Father's Day.

Now he looks even more like his daddy! Now it's just a matter of deciding if we will keep this haircut or let it grow out some, it may be a good look for the summer-- nice and cool!

In pregnancy news, stuff is starting to happen, wahoo!! I've been having some minor "contractions" I believe, or at least there has been some pain and I am making progress which is nice. We will see if anything has changed at my next appointment. Or, maybe Lainee will decide to make an appearance before then, that would be great, too!