Christmas - A True Hollywood Story

This Christmas was not like any other Christmas. It was crazy. We flew across the country to visit the Winns (my mom and dad on a mission in Salt Lake City) and the in-laws (who live in Farmington just outside of Salt Lake City). The plane ride was crazy, the nights were long, and Kenna got off schedule. Kenna got off schedule and then Kenzie got off schedule. Kenzie got off schedule and then I got off schedule. Here are the results of my little family getting off schedule.

A relaxing walk with the family

Pictures with Great Grandpa - Fail...

Christmas Dinner at Grandma's house. She figured out that she can get both feet in a single cup. Sometimes she makes me so proud...

As you can see, things were crazy. Even though the schedules were off, we managed to have some good times with family. We spent the first week at my mom and dads and spent a week witnessing the crazy life that comes with babysitting 160 19 year old missionaries. We got to see Sarah, the wonderful girl that babysat Kenna for the first nine months of her life. She is serving as a missionary in the Salt Lake City mission. Small world eh? We flew across the whole country and Kenna was happiest spending time with Jarom, Lixi, and Jenna. She eventually got used to Jo-Jo, Ki-Ki, Rob, David, Gandma, and Bruce. We had a wonderful time seeing them. The highlight was going to breakfast with my mom and dad at Mimi's Cafe. Jarom and Lixi attended as well. My mom and dad got to sit back and watch their two children and their spouses attempt to take care of the small ones while attempting to eat breakfast. Jenna was hungry and got grumpy and then wouldn't eat her pancakes. Kenna won't hold still and ended up dumping my entire glass of water on my lap. When I apologized to my mom and dad for the commotion that accompanied the meal, my dad said "Are you kidding me? That was the best time I have had in weeks!" Apparently he enjoyed watching our struggle. Someday Kenzie and I will be able to eat in peace. Someday.

Don't be fooled by the earlier pictures. There were lots of smiles too. The best smiles happened with the snow. Kenna's grandma got her some ridunkulously cute snow pants and she rocked them the first chance that she got. She learned how to make snowballs and had a blast. She didn't wear any mittens and got very confused when her hands suddenly got freezing cold. Whoops.

Kenzie also taught her how she could catch snowflakes with her tongue. She was very proud of herself for catching one and could not have been happier doing it.





The last highlight thus far was Kenna seeing her first horse. She got very excited and was even brave enough to give it a kiss. Kenzie was quick to wipe her hands and face with a wet one and then she dumped hand sanitizer all over her face and mouth to make sure that the horse germs died. Oh the hygiene of my wife.




I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I will likely outsource the real blogging about Christmas to my wife sometime next week. Feliz Navidad.

To Grandmas

We are headed out to Utah tomorrow for two weeks! We are really, really excited. So are the grandmas. What the grandma's don't know is that SLC is merely a layover and we are abandoning our child with them for two weeks while Nate and I head to Bermuda for Christmas. We haven't given them a warning yet but there are probably a few things they should know about her latest developments...

Kenna can be induced into a coma-like state by being placed in the 'ng' (swing). Even when it is thirty degrees and windy outside she will still ask to get in the 'ng'. She'll want to have her 'nai-nai' (nite-nites aka silkies) and 'beekee' (binky) with her when she gets in the swing. The silkies serve as an excellent scarf to keep the biting wind off of her while you stand there freezing.


Kenna has to have a bath everyday. Although, since she has a staff infection again you will have to scrub the tub and all of her toys with Lysol after each bath. When she bathes she gets as much water as she wants. If she decides she wants to sit in the bath for an hour and forty five minutes (like she did last Monday), you must drain the water and refill the tub so the water stays warm. Also, if she decides she wants to lay on her stomach for a while and splash the water with her feet you have to drain some of the water and then refill it when she is ready to sit up. If you don't she will say 'ya ya' (water) over and over again until it makes you crazy. Also, Kenna has learned to "achoo" you. She gets water on her hands (or worse, fills up a cup) and flings it at you, to which you must laugh hysterically. We have found it best to put a beach towel along the bottom of the tub to try to keep the floor dry. Also good luck washing her. Haha.


After the bath Kenna will scream and fight you when you try to lotion, diaper, and clothe her like it is some new torture you are imposing on her. She will scream 'neeewwwwww, neeeewwwww' (no, no) over and over and grasp for anything to keep her from this routine. Oh, and once you do get the diaper on, it is probably best to give her a little break to run around before you clothe her.

Kenna loves Santa Clause. She doesn't freak out like most normal kids do. This is possibly because I have been brain washing her for a month by showing her 'ho, ho, ho' (anything related to Christmas). So, take her to see Santa. She will willingly sit on his lap, though she may pretend to be shy at first. Also, she can eat her candy cane as long as you put a bib on her and intermittently wipe her hands and mouth.

It recently snowed here in Richmond (even though everyone says it never snows here). Kenna thinks this is the greatest thing ever, though she isn't quite willing to touch it yet. Be prepared to be confused because her word for snow is 'no,' so when I take her outside I am never quite sure if she is saying 'no' as in "Oh, look at the snow!" or 'no' as in "No!! I hate it here take me inside now!" Good luck with that.

Kenna loves Jenna. Probably a little more than Jenna loves Kenna right now. Kenna is constantly trying to kiss and hug her. You will have to make sure they see plenty of each other.

And finally, after a long day, Kenna likes to relax in her custom baby-sized lazy boy. She puts her arms behind her head and chills...ah, life is good.

Good luck Grandmas. We'll see you tomorrow!

Oh, and Wednesday was our five year anniversary. I realize people would rather read about Kenna than our mushy love life but let me just tell everyone out there that Nate is the most fantastic husband and father around. He does nothing for himself until Kenna is in bed at night and even then he will occasionally help me scrub the kitchen floor on his hands and knees or clean the bathtub. Kenna adores him and I don't know what I'd do without him.

Spousal Abuse

I am a victim of spousal abuse. This is no laughing matter. Dozens if not several bakers dozen’s of men are the victims of spousal abuse every year. Let me share my story with all of you out there and hopefully it will serve as a source of inspiration for all you other men who are abused. To all you victims out there – it is time to stand up and speak out. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.

I hold a very specific corner of the market in the world of spousal abuse. I fall into the category of toe abuse. To understand this you will need to have a little bit of background. Anyone who has known Kenzie for a couple of years probably knows that she was a ballet dancer for most of her early years. During this time, she danced on her toes and built up an enormous amount of strength in her toes. She was pretty much just like Superman or the Hulk, but only with her toes. She could lift something like 300 pounds with her biggest toe. I suppose that is how this all started. The woman possesses an absurd amount of toe strength that is just waiting to be unleashed.

The second piece of background that you will need to understand this story is that Kenzie doesn’t mess around about her sleeping. We have a king size bed but she constantly complains about me being in the middle and crowding her space. Honestly, even if you are in the middle of the bed the other person still has more than enough space. Irregardless (that’s right – I used it), she gets extremely territorial about her bed space and if I encroach upon her “space” (which is usually about 2/3 to ¾ of the bed) she uses her toe superpowers and jabs them into my legs to force me back to my own side of the bed. Now I played football for a terrible team against talented players for four years. I know how to take a hit. But the Kenzie toe pokes hurt like no other. I have woken up thinking I am being attacked some nights because of the toe pokes. I think she could go in to business and teach self defense classes with the toe poke as the single defensive move.

So let this serve as a general warning. Kenzie is a toe poker. Watch out.

My name is Nathan Winn and I am a victim of toe spousal abuse. If I can speak out about it, so can you.

My Little Baby

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while. Kenna is growing so fast and getting so big. Every day I am amazed by what she understands and does. I've been keeping a list of some of the cute things she says and does. She is so much fun for us to have around and some days I actually feel like we're hanging out. We'll sit on the kitchen floor and eat 'appoo' (apples) together, or build with her blocks or play 'yai yo' (eieio = Old McDonald Little people). She is a blessing in our lives and I love her.

--Kenna loves to play hide-and-go-seek (although her hiding spots are pretty obvious). She hides behind a door or shower curtain or blanket and if we don't get what she is doing right away she will prompt us that we are supposed to call/look for her by say "Neeeeennnnnna" over and over until we pick up that that is what we're supposed to be doing. We call for her and then she pops out laughing and laughing like we really had no idea where she was.

--She LOVES Jenna. She will wait be the window when she knows Jenna is coming and she calls for her, "Neeeeennnnna" (both she and Jenna are called Nenna). One day we told her we'd see Jenna at church. Jenna was a little late, so Kenna spent the first 10 minutes of church calling "Neeeeennnna" at the top of her little lungs while Nate and I died laughing.

--Kenna loves to 'lulloo' (color). She looks like a little grown up when she's coloring.

--One night at dinner Nate was making himself a glass of chocolate milk. He got the Hershey's syrup out and Kenna, who was sitting in her chair, held out her sippy cup and goes "goonk! goonk!" (drink, drink). I guess she knows what the good stuff is.

--Every piece of jewelry is "a neck" (short for necklace). She knows where my jewelry box is and that is also a 'neck." Everyday she checks my ears and neck for a 'neck.' She then point it out and says "neck, neck" over and over again.

--At the children's museum there is this parrot puppet that Kenna LOVES. She calls it a "raaaaaawt". One day she was tired and hungry when we left and I had to rip the parrot from her clutches. She spent the entire car ride home and a good 20 minutes at home sobbing saying, "rawt, rawt." She'd finally get herself calmed down and them burst into tears again and say "rawt." I felt so bad but it was still kind of cute.

--Another time at the children's museum the power went out. We were told that when it did turn back on the fire alarms would go off. I tried to warn Kenna. I told her that there would be a loud noise and that she shouldn't be scared, but just to cover her ears. I didn't think she got any of it but a couple minutes later I saw her practicing covering her ears and looking at the ceiling. When I asked her what to do if she heard a loud noise she immediately covered up her ears. I guess i have to be careful what I say because she understands it all.

--Last night we were eating dinner with Jarom and Lix. The girls were playing in the kitchen and I see Kenna trying to dump out this bag of doll toys. She was having a really hard time and kept shaking and shaking it. Finally she got what she wanted (her purple play fork), brought it over and said "up." She then tried to eat Nate's dinner with her doll's fork. Kenna loves forks and feeding herself.

--Kenna has a new booster seat so she can sit up at the table with us. She LOVES it. When we first got it she would ask us to get her up just so she could sit in her 'teet' (seat) and when we tried to take her out she said "a noooo, a noooo."

--Kenna likes to climb on things. She has since before she could walk, but now she is taking it to a whole new level. She likes to stand up on wobbly objects (like her car) and she will slowly raise her hands above her head. She is so proud of herself when she can balance like that.

--We taught Kenna what Santa says. Now everything related to the holidays (lights, trees, reindeer) are all 'ho ho ho.' When we ask her to say Merry Christmas, she says, "ho, ho, ho."

This is her labeling the Santa "ho ho ho."

Random pictures -

Setting up the Christmas tree

Opening her fan mail

Playing with the craft fair ribbon scraps

Gobble Gobble

Wow! What a week of Thanksgiving festivities! For those who read the previous blog post about the indecent on the way up to Delaware, you should know it got worse before it got better. Kenna didn't actually end up throwing up again in Delaware, but plenty was coming out the other end. Between that and her acting uncharacteristically lethargic (normally the girl will not sit still), we decided to leave Delaware early and come home and take her to the doctor. The drive home was great. We stopped at a McDonalds with a play place and Kenna was in heaven. She was the only kiddo there and although she wouldn't go in the play place, she had a great time running around it.

We got home, got Kenna to bed and decided to lay in bed and watch a movie. At almost the exact same time Nate and I turned to each other and went "uh oh." That's right. Kenna got both of us sick at the exact same time. To make it worse, Nate was on call for the entire week of Thanksgiving. He spent the night sleeping downstairs on the bathroom floor and fortunatley no one called in the middle of the night. I spent the night upstairs laying in bed trying as hard as I could not to move. Kenna was up bright and early the next morning. We dragged ourselves to the living room, and turned on the TV. That is pretty much how we spent the entire day. We watched the same 5 DVR'd episodes of Dora the Explorer over and over and over. I had to go to the store and get crackers, ginger ale and gatorade and I think knowing that at least one of us had to be a parent that day forced me to recover quickly. By the end of the day I managed to go sit outside so Kenna could play. She was such a good baby while we were sick.

Luckily our week improved. The weather was nice so we spent some time outside teaching Kenna to run through the leaves.







We also took her to Toys R Us since she was so good for a day and a half and got her a baby doll stroller that she pushes around the house with her everywhere.

Thanksgiving was quiet and kind of boring but the food was good. I cooked a turkey and everything. Kenna didn't want to try anything new and ended up eating a roll on a fork and black beans and cheese. While we were eating dinner we asked Kenna what she was thankful for and she folded her arms to say a prayer. I guess we say that word a lot when we pray. It was pretty cute.




We got Kenna all bundled up to go see our neighbor's lights. She thinks they are the coolest thing ever. She kept pointing and saying "wow, wow." She was able to find a family of 'loddle loddles' (waddle waddles = penguins) and 'a mout' (mickey mouse).


We spent the rest of the weekend decorating the house and enjoying the lovely weather (haha to all you utards who have a foot of snow). And the best part of all was that Jenna finally came home on Saturday night. On Sunday morning we told Kenna that we were going to see Jenna today so she spent all day walking around the house calling "Neeeeeeeeennnnnnnnaaaaaaa" and trying to open the front door to find her. We missed Jarom and Lix while they were gone. I guess we didn't realize how used we are to hanging out with them and Jenna and Kenna can never live apart from each other now. They came over for dinner and the girls played ring around the rosy together. They can both say 'assis fa down' (ashes ashes we all fall down).

Football

I had to move the hairbows off the couch so I could sit down today and try to watch football. I don't really do a lot of man things, so I figured football on Thanksgiving was a way to get a piece of my manhood back. Then I began hunting for the remote. I asked Kenna where it was and she ran to the stroller and took it from the babies hand. She handed it to me and then wanted me to play pretend "bites" with her. No football was watched. So long manhood. I guess all we have are memories.

In other news, Thanksgiving was great here in Richmond. Here are 2 reasons that I like McKenzie more than a friend.

We are Officially Parents

Our blog is usually about happy things that I never want to forget. This entry is pretty much the opposite - it is about something so terrible that it has to be shared. Our life is not all glamor, just most of the time :-)

I think Kenna finally welcomed Mckenzie and me into the "official" parents club. We decided to go up to Delaware this weekend to visit the cousins and Kenna made it quite the trip. All was going well, we went up 95 and were about an hour out of Richmond when she fell asleep. Kenzie decided that was a good idea and zonked out as well. All was going well and about 30 minutes later I hear an "uh-oh" from the backseat. I look back just in time to see my kiddo ralph all over herself, the carseat, the back of the car, and pretty much everything. Kenzie was Johnny on the spot and reached back to try to use a bib to contain it all. You might as well use a sponge to wipe up the Mississippi. Then I am weaving through traffic as Kenzie attempts to contain the mess and we stop in front of some random burger place. As soon as the car halts there are bags, babies, parents, carseats, blankets, pillows, and 2,494 dirty wipes coming out of the car (on a sidenote, I think I am going to send pampers wipes a thank you card. They were all we had to clean up the mess and they did quite a good job) I am sure anyone driving by just laughed and laughed. It was nasty. We did our best to clean everything and got Kenna some 7up to drink as she watched us clean up her mess. It took about a half an hour to finish damage control. While in the midst of the cleanup, I decided I needed to snap a picture so I never forget this awful moment.


When Kenna approaches me at age 16 when we are doing some yardwork or cleaning gutters and tells me it is too gross for her to help with, I will pull up this entry, show her these pictures, and put her back to work. Mark my words.


After all the hubub, we spoke with several parenting professionals who informed us that this happens when you have children. Each one of them count re-count the terrible day when their child performed the deed. My sister told me that I was an "offical" parent finally because I had survived this ordeal.

I have no clue how parents can have more than one kiddo. But then I see things like this and think to myself "Self....Maybe, just maybe, they are worth it.

The Hollands from Germany

That's right. Germans invaded our little Richmond life this past weekend and we welcomed them with open arms. I had a roommate named Brad Holland while I was in college and have managed to stay in touch with him and his wife since graduation. He has been all over the world, even completing a tour in Iraq while his wife and newborn baby girl lived amongst the Germans without him in Kurgensvilleinstien or something like that. Brad and Erica Holland are some of our favorite people in the world and thanks to Skype we have managed to stay much closer to each other.

Erica and Brad were visiting their families on the west coast and on their trip back to Germany they stopped in Baltimore, rented a car, and drove the three hours down to visit their Richmond friends. If this is not impressive enough, they did so with their 2 and 1/2 year old girl AND their 9 month old twin girls. The back seat was just a little bit full. If that doesn't impress you, they landed at 1 AM on Friday night and still drove down here to visit - arriving at 4 AM Saturday morning. They are a bit crazy if you ask me.

I am told that Saturday morning was full of pancakes and babies, but that is only hearsay. I don't know what was really going on because I woke Brad up after 3 hours of sleep to go with Jarom and I to play paintball with the young scouts from our ward. I had been anticipating this event for some time and looked forward to shooting many of the scouts that I have worked with for a year with a paintball gun. I was really excited when Brad said that he was coming to visit over paintball weekend because I thought I would take advantage of his army training and put him on my team during the games. I mean really, what are the odds that your army friend comes on the one weekend when his army skills of slaying ninjas and zombies can actually contribute to civilian life. He did not disappoint and slayed several thousand scouts during our adventure.

The weekend was spent hanging out at the park, eating good food, playing games, attempting to watch the 4 babies at church, attempting to watch the 4 babies at home, and lastly, with Kenzie and I watching Brad and Erica care for their three children and being amazed. Seriously. I was tired just watching them. I have no clue how they do it. If we ever have twins I think I will have to sell one or something because you go from playing man to man to a zone. The babies are the cutest things in the world though and Erica and Brad are lucky to have them. We had a fantastic time hanging with them and catching up.

As an added bonus, Erica took family pictures for us. She really has quite a gift and can make magic happen with her pictures. We have been eying her talents for some time and Kenzie was especially excited that she was willing to take some pictures of our family. She is still working on stuff and will get us the full photo shoot later, but here are a few. Her blog link is on listed on the right if you want to preview some of her other pictures. She does great work - as you can tell from these. Funny side note - while we were taking pictures, Kenna saw this HUGE St. Bernard. The owners let her stop and pet him which was pretty funny. She kept trying to lay her head on him. She kept saying "woof" to the dog. A few minutes later a little poodle came walking by and Kenna goes "meow."



It was such a fun weekend for us and for Kenna. Kenna had a blast with all the kiddos around and we did too. Thanks Brad and Erica and crew for coming down to visit!

amateur photo hour...The girls would not hold still to have their picture taken for anything!