Fall Festivities

Well, fall is here - if you can call it fall when it is still 75 degrees out. We are slowly settling in and have enjoyed the things that go along with the season -

We carved Kenna's 'punkin patch' (what she calls all pumpkins she sees). We put it outside on the front window ledge and every time she walked by the door she would gasp and say, "oh my punkin patch - Hi!"
Kenna has discovered dress-up clothes. She took these shoes off her mini mouse doll and paraded them around the house. I also frequently find my shoes strewn around the house. She loves to wear them on the tile because they "click clack."
Football. My dad flew in for the TCU/BYU game where he and Nate randomly ran into some of his old mission companions.
My dad did some fix it up projects for us around the house which included a new sink and faucet.
We went trunk-or-treating to the stores in the town square and at the end they had a petting zoo. Kenna got to touch a duck and she saw a goat poop. She thought it was awesome. She came home and demonstrated to her doll how she saw the goat poop. One store gave out little bags of popcorn which was very exciting. She had to stop outside the store to eat it as soon as she got it. She couldn't believe that people were just giving her candy. After every store she would look in her bag, giggle and say "wow! isss so much candy!" (she only had about 7 pieces total).



Of course, trick-or-treating with Jenna, Bo and Grandpa. The girls were pros. They walked right up to the house, both knocked and both yelled "trick-or-treat" before anyone could open the door. In the first house they even tried to walk in and grab the candy for themselves. Luckily they were at our very nice neighbor's house and she didn't mind. She invited them in and let them pet her cat.


All during trick-or-treating Kenna kept saying, "wow isss so much candy!" When we got home she made it though three suckers. She took a few licks of each then said, "I wanna try duh red/blue/orange now." She also loved the skittles and smarties.


Finally, we let Kenna help pass out candy to the neighborhood kids. All night she kept asking, "There's more 'chillins' (childrens) coming?"

30 Day Review

Most jobs have a probationary period after the date of initial hire where an employee is critiqued to make sure the hiring managers didn’t make a big mistake. We have been in our home for 30 days now, so the time for our 30 day review of Texas is today. For the purposes of this blog, our 30 day review will include all things going on in our lives, not only those things relative to Texas. Here goes nothing. Also, I am inserting pictures in no particular order to break up all the text.

· Unpacking B+ It took nearly 3 weeks for us to get out of boxes and there is still one room upstairs that has all the Rubbermaid containers in it, along with assorted Christmas stuff. The house is livable, and the old boxes are almost all the way gone.

We got Kenna a little kid table

· Tanning A+ We have only been here a month but it has been in the 90’s or 80’s every day. We spend lots of time outside with Kenna and have gotten way more sun than we are used to because living in Texas is like living on the surface of the sun.

· Weather D Even though we might be a little tanner, it is too hot here.

· Employment A I have been busy working for the past 4 weeks and Kenzie is going strong on the job hunt. She has a few options already and is trying to find one that she likes. It looks like she will be headed to work in something more medical than the schools she was working in before. Oh yeah, and I like my job.

· Parking A+ Not normal parking of cars, but going to the park. We live a block from the park and there have only been about 2 or 3 days that we have not taken Kenna to the park. We love it!

· Potty Training (day 1 & 2) A This went great! Kenna got about 10 stickers on her potty chart and even managed to get a number 2 done on the elmo potty. Kenzie was very patient and helped Kenna learn how to be a grown up.

· Potty Training (day 3,4,5,etc) F Not so great. Kenna stopped going to the bathroom for 2 straight days and we decided it was better to have a functional child than one who was “potty abstinent”

I was in charge one night

· Visitors A+ Kenzie’s mom played hookie for an entire week and came to visit Kenna. Kenna had a blast and loved all the extra trips for ice cream, candy, and toys. Kenzie also loved shopping with Gramma Dawnie and took advantage of some time off from being a full time mom. Thanks for playing hookie Dawnie!

Notice the Sunday footware....

· Picture Hanging C- I gave this one a C-. I know pictures are usually the last thing to happen in a house, but let me explain the low grade. While Kenzie’s mom was here, I complained to Kenzie that all of the pictures were piled in the living room and that we needed to put them up. The next day I returned home from work and Kenzie and her mom were happy to report that they had solved the picture problem. They had gone out (with Lixie being an accomplice I might add) and purchased a whole bunch of pictures that could work in our new house. I spent all of that evening holding up pictures on the wall, pounding in nails, and rendering opinions on how I felt about “how it made the space look”. At the end of the evening we had a bunch of pictures on the wall and the same amount stacked in the living room. And my masculinity took yet another blow.

Brad & Erica's advice "Don't ever let her start watching Dora, it will never stop"

· Sports A+ I can give this one an A+ because I am going to the BYU TCU game this weekend with Brigham (Kenzie’s dad) in the Cowboys stadium and I anticipate a good game. If I was writing this after the game, I would be depressed that TCU killed BYU just like Bruce said they would – but I am writing it before the game so I still think BYU can beat the Horned Christians.

Also, Jarom was able to find some Mormon-ball for us to play on weeknights. I played with him last week and played the best game of basketball I have ever played. I made four buckets in a row to give our team its fifth win in a row. After that game, I decided to voluntarily sit out the next one because I knew that I could never top that performance. I wanted to go out on top. Take some notes Brett Favre.

· Watering A+ The house came with a sprinkler system, but I haven’t turned it on yet. Luckily, our neighbors water main burst this weekend and there was a huge flood of water that watered our entire front lawn for 5 hours. Free watering? Yes please.

· Happiness A+ I know it is cheesy, but I am happy. I like my little life in Texas and I am glad that I have Kenzie and Kenna along for the ride. And the other Winns that live down the street too. I am very blessed and feel lucky to have had such a transition be such a great thing.

Here is the best part....

Before

After

Changes

Well here is the post everyone has been waiting for...house pictures. Ignore the mess. I'll put better ones up sometime.



So after some time in DE we drove through Memphis, where we got to stay with Bob and Melissa and Ashton, and finally made it to Dallas. We spent our first week living in a hotel. Let's just say I was very, very happy to get into the house. Waiting and getting our hopes up and then having to wait some more was hard but on Thursday night we finally got word that all or funding had gone though and we could get the keys to our house! We packed up with a poor exhausted baby and finally made it to the house about 9pm. Kenna has still not recovered from the packing/traveling/hotel living/unpacking/potty training and lack of sleep.

On Friday morning (Nate had to go to work :( boo for a real job) Kenna and I went and bought cleaning supplies and all the things that didn't make the move with us. We got to have a real lunch and then Kenna got a nap. Our washer/dryer/fridge and pods came that afternoon. Nate came home a little early and the real fun started. Major props to Nate who unloaded all three pods almost entirely by himself that night.

Kenna loves the huge tub with a seat

Here we are a week later and the house is mostly put together. I'm waiting on my steamer so I can properly clean the obscene amount of tile that is in this house. We've hung some pictures and it is starting to feel more like home. Nate and I talked about it and decided that Kenna hadn't had enough change in her life so we got her a big girl bed and started potty training. She likes her big bed but still asked to sleep in her crib at night.

Potty training is another story. She spent all day screaming yesterday whenever she had to sit on the potty (which were the times she started going on the floor). Last night she woke up wet in the middle of the night and again early this morning. Today we introduced new stickers and that seems to be working better. She hasn't had any accidents yet and she got onto the potty before her nap on her own so hopefully she will get a nice long nap and get some sleep.


She has been a trooper and I think we'll like it here. We are a block from a huge park with a duck pond and a massive playground. Last week we were going for a jog and then playing at the park every morning. Hopefully that will be able to start again soon. We've even been to a couple play groups and made some friends here.

Kenna has turned into a little sassy pants. When playing in the hotel she would scowl and point at me while saying, "If you not, I put you in timeout!" and "Relax I'm on duh phone." I wonder who she learned that from...

She also stared doing this really cute thing where she twirls her right arm clockwise while telling you something. I think she mostly does it when she wants to make a point but it will twirl around and around for several minutes. It is pretty cute.

Kenna likes to eat peanut jelly and belly.

Once I told her the answer was no so now whenever she asks to do something she will always tell/ask me, "the answer says yes?" or "the answer says no!"