Season on Blessings

I won't even start saying how sad I am that I have been away from my blog for months. Instead I will say what a blessing our busy life has been. We have been going like crazy people here, hardly time to breath and relax, but through it all we have watched God provide. First He is providing projects that keep my husband, and myself, so busy we don't think about the lack of a traditional job, or insurance. There is no time to worry. Second He is providing enough for us to pay our bills and feel secure - some times just enough - but always enough. Third we are watching our future look uncertain. Which some would say is not a blessing, but I oddly feel excited to see where God will take all of these new adventures in our life.

The original start to my blog was as a way to journal our kids lives for them in the future. I was remembering this and feeling HUGLY ready to get back to that. There is so much that I have not documented, funny sayings and moments, times that make us proud, frustrated, sad and SO SO in love with them. But I will just have to start fresh and let go of what we won't remember one day because it was never written down.

A few weeks ago I was watching Sarah and Alex at breakfast. I have enjoyed watching them go through the year together. Riding the bus together, talking about their principal or what they did in PE. Being excited for school adventures and arriving at home "starving" together. As they were sitting eating breakfast and discussing the possibilities their day held it hit me that this is my special memory that they most likely will not have later. The simplicity of their friendship and their easy love for each other. They are truly friends and how they are right now most likely will change and they will find each other together at the breakfast table less and less. This precious way that kids their age are with each other - no pressing school projects yet, no boyfriends or girlfriends taking their attention, no e-mail or facebook or texting, no separate activities taking them from the home early in the morning. You always hope they will remember and be bonded by these early years, but so much will happen between now and adult hood that it's hard to say what they will hold onto in their minds. I hope they will always know that they had a great time together as kids, I so enjoy seeing it, hearing it and feeling the warm love we have in our home. What a blessing they are!

This years Christmas programs were full of blessings, but watching my kids always brings me special joy. Hearing Adam shout out to his grandparents and his dad, although not very professional was super funny and sweet. Watching him sing his heart out and do all the extra hand movements I used to teach him the words to "We Three Kings" was so cute. Seeing him grow at school, learning how to make good choices out of our home, and seeing him make new friends that he loves so much has been simply wonderful. His school program was sweet and he spoke his line "U is for Undying Love" so clearly and loudly! What a performer he is. Give him a minute and you will hear the hippest Jingle Bells ever! With air guitar included. What a blessing!

Watching Sarah in our church presentation was amazing. What a beauty and she was so relaxed, not an ounce of nerves. She watched her "director" and knew EVERY word. Not to mention she was always on time for her scarf dance. Loved watching that! And Alex with his little solo and duet with his life long friend Brynn. Hearing how excited he was and watching him invite the entire world was such a proud mama moment. What a blessing!

Last blessing that I will include here - although there are many - is the HUGE blessing of church family. We have seen first hand what God has designed with the church coming along side and holding us up. We have been so loved with words of encouragement and gifts of help that we hardly know what to say. Our hope through this season of change and trial was that our kids would look back and say they didn't realize that daddy was ever out of work. That they did not worry about our security and that we just went on living life, trusting God and being a family serving our Savior together. Loving each other and learning Gods lessons for our little family. Thank you God for this opportunity to see how a loving church family can be a tangible example of your love and provision. What a blessing!

Now on to the rest of the holiday adventures. I'm hoping I will see some of those documented here now, rather then wait 2 months for a new blog post to happen. I hope everyone will have a blessed Christmas!

The Kroc Center

I thought I would share a brief little blog about the Kroc Center with you. I had the pleasure of photographing the opening weekend events with my good friend Valerie and Valerie Hibler Photography. The facility is amazing, I highly encourage everyone to kidnap their kids and go. Membership for adults is $25 a month, and kids is $15, not bad. And as a bonus childcare is free while you workout. They have all the great workout machines, they have a wonderful gym and dance studio, not to mention a chapel, banquet rooms, computer rooms, art rooms, guitar hero and rock band room, outdoor theatre and more. The best feature in my opinion though is the olympic size pool and the kids pool. There is a water slide and a splash pool and a cool outdoor splash pad as well. Lot of fun. Here are a few pics, sorry about the quality, I didn't take the time to make these look great, I just wanted you to get the idea of how great the place is. They offer lots of classes to, check it out!

Part of the kid area, you can see the squirters if you make the picture bigger.
At the far end is the water slide.
The huge hot tub. With the kids party room in the background!
The bottom of the slide and one of the water dump stations.
The rock climbing wall. You can take classes for this even. I noticed they offer a 2 hour, saturday morning class, for kids Alex's age.
Synchronized swimming was warming up when we were there, gotta love the choreography they do before they even get in the pool.
My favorite picture from the weekend, the mayor cutting the "ribbon" - actually a badminton net- with some of the kids this was designed for watching.

I still have a blog... who knew?!

Disneyland
Good times with Friends
Hiking
Cruise to Alaska
First Day of School

So, I guess I still have a blog. Hmmm, I appear to have forgotten about it. I think it's been crazy and not crazy around here all at the same time (the above pictures are an abbreviated way to blog about our summer). Having Kyle home makes normal life things harder, I just don't want to do anything. If he is sitting on the couch working on the computer, then I want to cuddle up and watch HGTV. So not much gets done. Bad me, but good times. Then add to that a cruise at the time I normally blog first day of school stories and you get little blog activity. So, sadly I have no funny first day of school story. Bummer, because there have been some very good first day stuff in the Kivett household. Instead the school year is going along like clockwork. Alex is SO happy in his new class. He has a man teacher and has already received a call home, from the principle no less, to tell us he is doing EXCELLENT in his class. So nice to get that kind of a call from the principle. Sarah Just plane loves school, she loves to learn and in fact was thrilled to have homework over the weekend. Love it! Adam, who started preschool, is just happy to be doing something. Especially with girls around, my boys love the ladies, what can I say. This week brings with it the sub class for Kyle. So he should be subbing here anytime, making getting stuff done a little easier for me. Plus, I think he is getting bored. I would have liked to have seen the year end, and so would he, with a job. But God has different plans for us. He has blessed us with nearly 20 students, thank you, so that will keep us busy and help provide some needed income. I am doing childcare for my neighbor. One very sweet and SUPER easy 6 month old three days a week. So that helps, and hopefully subbing will fill in the gaps. We are blessed to have these options and I'll keep you all posted on how it's going. Our biggest prayer is our health. We have no insurance, so please don't throw our kids around, we can't afford to put them back together if they break. Hopefully fall holds lots of great things for our friends and family, I'm looking forward to changing colors and cooler days. Jeans and sweaters and cozy fires. We know God has big plans for us and those around us. Looking forward to seeing what he bring our way.

Enjoying a new hobby

So lately I have been enjoying my new - true hobby - photography. It's really fun to have something that is just for fun. I am passionate about music, but it is also my job so it's not the same. For Christmas Kyle gave me a new camera, I still don't know how to use all of it's fancy parts. Slowly I started taking pictures for people, because I enjoy the challenge and it's great practice, and oddly people keep asking. Ultimately I want to be able to take amazing pictures of my kids but they can only handle so much practice. I actually think my talent may be the detail pictures, meaning the cool mountain shot or the flowers that look so pretty. But every now and then I capture a really neat moment and I get so excited to see it. My next challenge is learning how to print these pictures in a way that doesn't look like just a regular snap shot. They look great on the computer but not as awesome printed up. (I also really want photoshop) I'm super blessed to have REALLY talented friends that actually know what they are doing. I'm actually trying to convince one of them, Valerie, to offer some classes in general on how to take good pictures and how to use our cameras. Kind of a mommy friendly class on how to really capture our kids lives on film. Good idea I think, right Valerie? :) These are a few of the thousands, I am not kidding, that I have taken over the last month. Gotta love digital. So if I call you up and say, hey can I have your children for the next few hours, say yes please. Maybe I'll grab a good shot of your sweeties.I like the colors of this picture. The log floating on the beautiful rocks. I wish it hadn't been so hazy so that the mountains looked a little prettier.
One of my favorite little girls with a huge weed - I know those have a name but I can't think of it.


I love the back light on this one. When I look at it bigger Ethan's eyes are so pretty.

I just really like the composition of this one. There is a free photoshop web site where I can change everything but her dress to black and white, so pretty that way.
The Libby clan, some of our dearest friends. Thanks for letting me play with you guys, I have so many new ideas just based of that little photo shoot.
These are some of my scenery shots - for lack of a better term. I just think they are pretty.

The Dempster clan, another set of really dear friends.
I love these "country" pictures we took.


I don't know why I love this one of Adam's hands hanging out of the car so much, but I think it is really cool. These were taken on our recent tent trailer camping adventure.
Mt. Adams, which Adam thought was pretty cool.

Just interesting to me to look at. Nothing more to say.

8?!

Wow, Alex is 8 years old. Amazing! 8 years and 4 days ago I went to the hospital to be induced after being almost two weeks over due. I was nervous and excited. The first day was kind of fun, we played cards and had a ton of visitors. Kyle's parents and brothers family were waiting to leave on a long vacation until after we had the baby and so they were already passed their intended departure date. There was a bit of pressure, but I had high expectations of having that baby in the next few hours so no worries.....HA! At the end of day one, NOTHING. I was super bummed and starving as I had not eaten all day. Also I was really worried about having to get a second i.v. since the first one took 4 or 5 tries. Anyway, they sent me home, kindly with the i.v. still in, and Kari and Kate got me some dinner at Sharis. A club sandwich, I still remember. When I came back on day two I had made some progress over night and the doctor said I would for sure be having that baby.......HA! The end of day two came and NO progress. The doctor felt really bad for me so had me stay over night and tried a different type of induction, one where I could walk around and eat....NO PROGRESS! By day three I banned all visitors, I was a bit stressed and I was really feeling the contractions, with no relief. They were one right after the other. Finally at 6 PM my water broke, and I immediately wanted my mommy. Oh and drugs. Well it just went from bad to worse at this point. Apparently this kid had a big head because he was not coming. Every time I had a contraction his heart beat dipped, big time. And I was having contractions every 2 minutes or so. My blood pressure was dangerously low and I was still not progressing. So they gave me a new drug to stop the contractions - which made me shake and scared the whole room - and wheeled me off for my emergency c-section. At 12:55 AM on July 19 2001 the first of three of the most awesome gifts from God came into my life. Sadly I slept through about 12 of the first hours of his life, but once I was truly awake (I lost a lot of blood and was on morphine sp?, thus the sleepiness) I fell totally in love with this guy. He was an easy baby, minus that random rage he occasionally showed us. In fact we were not sure we qualified as parents with how easy he was. And he is growing into an amazing kid. He is smart, talented, a good brother and friend and learning every day how to show love for the Lord. We are proud of him and I can't wait to see where God takes him as he continues to make his journey through this crazy life. Yesterday we had a rock party, thus the cool hair picture at the top of the blog. Love you Alexander Allen, and I will love you even more tomorrow!

The end of the year brings summer.

The end of this year was full of fun times, watching our kids graduate not only from their current grades but in life.  Both graduating kids becoming more mature and more capable.  The end of the year also came with lots of tears as we see our babies grow before our eyes and of course as we watch Kyle graduate himself, from a loved job of 10 years.  It's hard to capture all the emotions, I suppose some really great song could be born out of it.  We should probably capture those creative juices and make something great, but for now I will just share a little tribute to each of the Kivetts that graduate on to something new.

Sarah Ann Kivett

This year when she started school I left her many days in tears, scared to go and really missing me.  The bus was always a struggle, causing her GREAT panic and me GREAT embarrassment. In fact you can scroll back to my old blogs, look in the September/October area to find a whole blog on our worst bus day ever.  Now she is happy, a monkey bar queen, always wants to go to school, LOVES to run ahead of her brother to the bus, leaving me on the porch waving them off.  She has made tons of friends, and even a special best friend.  She won the heart of her teachers one telling me she wasn't at all the same little shy girl that started school all those months ago.  She can read, do math and makes amazing pictures and crafts.  She is about to start the adventure of piano lessons but does not want to be known as a first grader until September.  She has made that very clear.  I think over all, a hugely successful year.  And the extra special bonus is that she talks freely about Christ and what he has done for her, she LOVES her Bible and I hear her singing songs from church all the time.  Love that girl!

Here are some pictures from her end of the year program.
Here is Becca her "best" school bud.
Mrs. Croser and Sarah, this was Sarah's teacher this year.

Alexander Allen Kivett

A boy that's been described as someone with "big feelings" by his first grade teacher.  The kid that told his teacher we were "going through a divorce and he had two houses", that was awesome considering we are about as far away from that as possible, he wanted the attention.  The kid that went to the principles office more than once for spanking Will, oh boy.  But he is also the boy that loves whole heartedly, that sympathizes with our trials, that has a new semi passion BASEBALL, and that is usually willing to lend a helping hand.  He managed by the end of the year to get the principles award for good behavior choices, not allowing his "big feelings" to control his every move.  He is reading like a champ, getting really good at math and is concerned about such things as "germs" and "what to do in case of a fire".  He wants to be a police officer, or a guy that fights in a war.  He also is about to start a new adventure, guitar lessons with daddy.  He always wants to have his Bible at church and likes to even reads it on his own.  Love that boy!

Here he is celebrating his summer  birthday the last week of school.
Alex and his teach, she was so awesome with him.
Alex and his best "bud" Will.
Rm.  22 - what a great experience he had there.

Kyle Alexander Kivett

Graduating is a bit more difficult for this man that I love so much.  We have both struggled with saying goodbye to Gladstone.  Most of you know why, but in short we love the people there and the opportunities this job provided for our family.  We have cried lots of tears over this and I have grown to respect my husband even more.  Seeing the outpouring of love and support - they are throwing a benefit concert in the hopes to raise enough money to cover his salary - has made me realize that he is truly living out Christ's love, even though he can't officially talk about it.  It's clear that the kids and parents in Gladstone know what is most important to Kyle, and that they feel loved for, cared for, worried about and educated by this amazing man I get to call husband.  I love that man!

Rehearsing for his last graduation at Gladstone.  So serious!
The whole band on the stage right before graduation.
Crying his eyes out as his kids throw a fair-well concert on his last official day at work.
Conducting those kids one last time.
The standing ovation, which was followed by gifts and several hours of signing year books and giving hugs.
Just a couple of the students that have added to the difficulty of saying so long to that job.
Some of the die hards that lasted the 4 hours.  Some actually waited that whole time just to get him to sign their books.
Kyle and Mandy, my new friend, a.k.a. the choir teacher.
We had to go back one day this week to clean out all his junk, and here are the kids playing like monkeys in the storage units of his brand new band room, that he only got to teach in for a few months.  Boo.
I love all my graduates, and our life is taking a new turn in a lot of ways.  We are trusting God, finding peace in His promises and trying to still enjoy the summer, even if it has meant the beginning of unemployment for our family.  Thank you God for the love we share and how awesome my family is.

Nothing a little cuddle....

....and a lot of prayer can't help you through.  I am going to try and keep this post short, because I know after the week I will have a huge post full of pictures to share.  But, as I'm sure you all know, Kyle was let go from his teaching job last week.  This has been so sad for us, not to mention scary and confusing.  At the head of our emotions is the loss of that place, those kids, and what that job has grown to mean for Kyle.  We had all three of our kids while he was there, we grew up as a married couple, we suffered through losing Kyle's mom, and as a result so did his students.  He has counseled countless students who were hurting and been able to lay a foundation of trust that we have learned is so important when teaching, especially in today's world where trust is not always easy to build.  Then you add in the teaching, which he has gotten better at each year.  He has grown mountains in his time there.  It amazes me every year what he gets out of these oddly formed groups, as they frequently don't have the "normal" band instrumentation and he has to arrange and rearrange the music to work for them.  He also taught his kids a huge appreciation for quality music, not always easy when you consider what they listen to on their own time.  Not to mention all the things he learned to do for other teachers, other programs, and the school in general that had nothing to do with his job description.  And he did all these things with a happy heart, knowing that by doing them he was serving others.  

The outpouring of support has been amazing.  From our family, church family, and the community in Galdstone.  They are sad, and as shocked as we are over this decision.  We have been praying a lot, and know others are too.  We both feel strongly that God will take care of us, that this is His plan and that something better is in the wings.  But it's hard not to get nervous, especially when there are basically no jobs out there right now.  I am holding out for a huge contract from Disney for Kyle to do all their arranging.  A girl can dream right? :)

Yesterday our daughter tuned-in to the extra love her daddy needed.  She was his shadow, demanding long cuddles and never leaving his side.  If he walked to the computer, she did, if he sat down, she did, if he was outside, she was too.  It was sweet and I know made him feel extra special.  He'll never get cut due to budget from our family.  It's amazing how that security and love really goes a long way towards healing the heart.  But it will be a sad week, and there will be lots more tears for sure.  Pray for us and especially for me.  I want to hold him up, be his helper mate and we both want to be a living example of Christ's love for us.  We know his students are watching us closely right now, we want to encourage them and see a few seek Christ because of this.  Let this be a victory for Him not a tragedy for us.

I need a nack

Otherwise known as Snack!  This I hear rather often, well actually non stop.  Adam is the only one that actually says nack, has a hard time with those s's.  I never realized how hungary you get just being a kid, it's a hard job you know.  The unfortunate side effect of this constant need for food is that I really can not keep enough in the house.  I am always turning around and realizing that the kid snacks are gone, plus it costs a lot of money to keep these tummy's happy. There are two things that drive me especially crazy about this apparent starvation they are always feeling. 

1.  It never fails that twenty minutes after they eat dinn

er, or really any meal, they are STARVING!  So hungary are they that they can not even function, clutching their stomachs, doubled over in what they believe is a sincere near death experience.

2.  How can you be starving and think that a fruit roll, or a few chocolate chips, or really anything with no substance is going to do the trick.  Why is it the snacks I so cheerfully offer are always met with disgust and that, "I wouldn't eat that if it was the last morsel of food on the earth" attitude?

I know I'm not alone in these frustrations, just chalk it up to the long list of things people don't tell you before having children.  One of those little nuggets that grandparents hold back for the pure enjoyment of watching you battle it out.  And of course they ALWAYS have the good snacks, making true satisfaction at home just a little harder.  I guess I will just have to rejoice in the fact that they are growing, and that I occasionally get some fruit, or truly healthy snack in those little bodies.  I have to realize that a kid that can eat chicken nuggets, a hotdog, cheese and crackers and a banana for lunch (todays meal) probably does need a few extra snacks during the day.

Here is one of my s'nacker, eating a lemon -  He loved it, weird.