Dear Cortney

Dear Cortney,

Today we were at the park and there were some kids there that were being so rude to you.  There were these twins, a boy and a girl, who were about 1 year older than you who were being just awful.  At one point the girl was trying to push you under the slide, and being bigger than you she was succeeding until her mom finally stepped in.   Then later the girl was trying to hog this toy all to herself, that 3 kids can easily fit on.  Being the loving, friendly, happy girl that you are you tried to go play with her even though she was being rude earlier.  She wouldn't let you on, then yelled to her brother that you were being rude to her.  At which point her brother came over and started yelling at you, and their mom did nothing.

I felt so sad that you had to go through something like this, especially at such a young age.  I took you aside and we played by ourselves picking dandelions and had a talk about having nice friends and not so nice friends.  We talked about how you did nothing wrong, they just were not being very nice to you.  After a while we went back to the playground and you found some new friends to play with that were nice and you had so much fun that you didn't want to go home for lunch.

I just wanted to write this in hopes that one day you can read this.  You probably wont remember this experience, but looking back I want you to remember a couple things.  First I want you to remember that I love that you were so forgiving and tried to play with a girl who was rude to you - that was the right choice, sometimes even though you don't do anything wrong, people will be rude to you.  You are such a happy, loving, and kind person - I could not ask for a more wonderful daughter. Second, I want you to remember what happened after we stepped away from the situation, you went back and made different friends that were better for you.  If you ever find yourself in a situation that is headed in the wrong direction or making you unhappy, take a step back, think about what is best, and move forward.  Sometimes this means fixing what is broken, and in this case it means moving on to something better.

I love you so much.  Again I am so sad that you had to deal with something like being so young this but so proud of the way you handled the situation.  As your mom I could have stepped in and confronted the kids and their parents - but I am well pleased I didn't have to.  You didn't fight back, you didn't yell back, and you even tried to be nice to them again.  You handled the situation amazingly  by yourself.  I am pleased I am raising a child that is independent and can handle difficult situations.  You are growing up to be such a wonderful and loving person.  I love you Miss Cortney,

Love Mom

Funny Parenting Moment

I have known for a while today will be a stressful day.  Chris has his final defense for his thesis today - and even though he has done an amazing job and I am sure it will go well...still kind of nervous.  On top of that his parents just got into town, and they are coming up today, not to mention he will be graduating in about 5 weeks and we still have absolutely no idea where we will be moving to.  I am a serious planner and it is driving me up the wall that we have no idea where we are going to be.  I know it will all work out in the end, and I am trying to see this as a chance to learn patience, but at the moment I am finding that difficult to do.

So we have established it is a stressful day, now Cortney gets up and is just not herself today.  Her sleeping schedule has been way off, which I am sure is a big part of her acting this way, but she is just pushing buttons all over the place.  Today she has been playing twenty questions, except all twenty are exactly the same one I answered 10 seconds ago.   She isn't really listening to what I am saying, so I have to repeat myself a million times, and she is doing everything I ask her not to.  I know with a toddler these things are expected but today was way more than she normally does it, and she knows it too.

So I sat down with her and we talked about how we need to choose to be happy and listen to mom the first time.  And then I asked her

"Have you been nice to mom today?"

Cort - "no"

Mom - "Why?"

Cort - "Wait yes I have been nice"

Mom - just gave her a mom look

Cort - "no I have not been nice"

Mom - "What do you think you should say to mom?"

Cort - "Just be patient"

After this I laughed for about 2 minutes straight,  totally broke the tension and stress.  I love being a mom - it is amazing and it has taught me so much, and I continue to learn everyday.  I love how even though I am the one that is supposed to be teaching Cortney, she is usually the one teaching me.

A Surprise for Jenn!

It was shortly after Jenn and Spencer announced they were moving to Rexburg when I had the idea.  I wanted to surprise Jenn with something special for their new baby coming in a couple months.  Jenn has done so much for Cortney, and instead of buying clothes or cool toys I thought a small nursery would be a great idea.  After a couple weeks of thinking about it, I let my mom in on it and together we came up with this! 

We arranged it so that when we arrived in Rexburg it would be lunch time.  Since Jenn cannot really move anything anyway we planned that she would go pick up lunch, with Ryan (whose mission was to distract her) and Cortney, to make it take longer.  We got to Rexburg, and when Jenn left to get lunch she left with an empty house, we had not even backed up the moving truck by the door yet, and when she came back, the room she wanted for the baby looked like this!

 Can I just say how kind of difficult it is to find things for a red, white and black nursery?  But between me and my mom and our craftiness we pulled it off!

 The changing table and rocking chair were originally different colors but we spray painted them black to match each other and the nursery theme.  Gifts from many people filled the changing table and small 3 drawer rubbermaid container

 I even took some of the pictures from the photography session we did earlier this week and put them up.  It is kind of hard to see but I made them all black and white, unless there was something pink in the pictures, like the elephant or shoes - I kept those pink!

 A combined effort from my mom and me lead to this chair being finished!  It is a nice glider chair with a matching ottoman.  When we first found it it was a light oak color, and the fabric was falling apart and looked dirty, so we reupholstered it, and painted it, and we are excited about how well it turned out.  The fabric actually matches a blanket my mom made for the baby - it is on the 3 drawer thing by the other wall I even made a fancy pillow to put on it!  PS - the blanked on the ottoman was a gift I knitted for the baby too!

 This was under the window.  The bench was made by Spencers grandpa, and we put a couple of stuffed animals on it that she had, but we did buy the bear in the middle, and put the little ribbon on him.

 We also bought baby hangers - something Jenn was super excited about I guess, again thanks to a lot of different people they have many clothes and things to help when the baby will come!

 Just another view.  You may notice the lack of a crib, and the reason for that is, every baby in our family - for generations now has slept in this crib, that was still in storage when we took the pictures.  Cortney even slept in it when she was a baby.  Kind of amazing, I love that we keep that tradition going!

It was so hard keeping in a secret from Jenn, but we were so excited to show it to her yesterday!  We are so excited for Jenn and Spencer to move to Rexburg and start a new chapter in their lives, and excited that we could give them something to help out! Love you Jenn!  Glad you liked it!