A Letter to My Children

To Noah, Ammon, McKenna and Madison:

I don't know if you will ever truly understand the depth of my love for you until you one day have children of your own, but I do want you to understand that I do, and will ALWAYS love you more than words could ever express.  Do not ever let the world, or any person in it make you believe you are not loved, because that is absolutely, unequivocally a lie.  I loved you from the moment I first knew you were coming to join our family, even more when I first saw you on the ultrasound screen, even more when I first felt you move inside of me, and even more when I first held you in my arms and saw your beautiful face.  My love for you grows stronger with each day, and there is absolutely nothing you could possibly do to make my love for you lessen.

I want you to know how absolutely beautiful you are.  Beauty comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, and everyone is beautiful in their own way.  Do not define yourself through the world's idea of beauty, or let others define your self-worth.  Learn to love yourself for who you are and embrace your imperfections; beauty is not defined by perfection. Nobody is perfect!

I do not labor under the delusion that I will be able to shelter you forever from those who would wish to hurt you or cause you harm, but I do hope that I can build you up to be strong enough not to let those hurtful people affect you.

I want more than anything for you to be happy, to be successful in what ever endeavours you choose to pursue in your life.  I want you to dream big, to hold fast to your dreams, and never let anyone tear them from you.  If you work hard, and put your sincerest best effort into becoming what you want to be, you can do anything!!

I hope that you always have a positive attitude, that you will look for the good in everything.  I hope that you can focus on the good qualities in people, and never allow yourself to be judgmental and unkind.  I hope you can find positives in ever situation and realize that your trials can be learning experiences that will help you grow if you allow them to.  I hope that you can look for, and appreciate the beauty that is all around you.  Remember there is always a rainbow after the storm, and stars in the darkest of nights.

I want you to learn the value of hard work, integrity, honesty, and respect.  The world is quickly devaluing these principles, and I want you to know how important they are, whether the world believes so or not.  I hope that you learn not to lower your standards, or jeopardize your integrity to follow what is popular or trendy.

I think it is very important for you to know that you WILL make mistakes.  Learn from them, learn to forgive yourself and move past them.  I hope that no matter what situation you may get yourself into, you always feel comfortable with coming to me, and your father, to talk about it.  We are not perfect parents, but we love you, and we are here to help you the best that we can.  Please remember that no matter what you do, we will always love you, and there is nothing you can do to lessen that love.  I hope that we can always have an open and forgiving relationship with each other.

I have greatly enjoyed watching you grow, learn, master milestones, and develop your personalities, and I very much look forward to watch you continue in these things.  Every day I get to hold you, watch you, and call you mine is the most glorious blessing.  You are my little miracles, and I thank God everyday that he let me be your Mother.

Love you always and Forever,

Mom

McKenna is One!

It is definitely bitter-sweet knowing my baby girl is now a one year old!  It is rather unfair how fast this last year has gone, it seems like yesterday when I first held her in my arms.

She has been such a sweet and loving spirit from the very start.  She was by far my "easiest" baby, and people have often commented on how happy she always is.  She loves giving hugs and kisses, and while the moments are becoming less as she gets more and more active and curious, when she sits and snuggles with you, it just melts your heart.  She is a little chatter-box, she doesn't say a whole lot of "real" words yet, but that doesn't stop her from having a full on conversation with you. :)  She absolutely LOVES to sing, she sings at the top of her lungs at church, sings whenever she hears music, and just sings to herself while she plays.  She is not quite walking yet, but she has always been one to do things on her own time...and she gets into plenty of trouble already, with out walking. :P  I like to play a little game with her where I rock her in my arms counting, and when I get to "three" I toss her gently onto the pillows on a bed, she thinks its hysterical, and now she will climb onto the spare bed in her room, rock on her knees and count "wha, dwoo, weee!" and throw herself down on the bed.  Recently she has started pointing to things that she wants and saying "diss, diss!" (meaning "this"), and has started getting a little sassy attitude when she doesn't get what she wants, or if one of the boys takes a toy she was playing with.  She has such a little personality, and we love having her as part of our family.

Here are some pictures of her special day:

 

After Daddy helped her unwrap the first present, she figured out how to pull the wrapping paper off all by herself :)

 

Her cake that I made, it was my first time ever doing fondant, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out:

 

 

 

The inside of the cake was zebra-stripped too :)

McKenna Riley's one year photo collage:

 

 





McKenna is 6 months old!

Little Miss McKenna turned 6 months old on April 5, 2012. She is growing like a weed!  I will have her height and weight statistics as soon as we take her for her six month appointment, but she is already wearing 12 month sized clothing!  She loves to eat, loves laughing at her big brothers, loves rolling and scooting where ever she wants to go, she loves her jumperoo and any toy that has lights and sounds.  She sleeps in her own crib in her own room, and loves her Little Einstein Aquarium toy and her Sleep Sheep.  She is starting to get up on her hands and knees, so I think crawling isn't too far in the future.  She loves to coo and squeal, and when she is really happy she likes to shriek rather loudly for no reason whatsoever.  She really is a sweet little baby, she loves  cuddles and hugs.  She is growing up way too fast!!

Homemade Baby Food

I must admit, that when Noah was a baby and our pediatrician suggested I make my own baby food, I blew it off and thought she was nuttier than squirrel poop for suggesting it.  I was comfortable with feeding him jarred baby food, and didn't even give it a second thought when I had Ammon.  When I had McKenna, I started doing some research into it, however, and felt it might be well worth it to give it a try, but my friends all thought I was nuttier than squirrel poop for attempting it with 3 kids.  Even being a busy mom with 3 kids ages 5 and under, I have found that making my own baby food has been easy, doesn't really take that much time, and is well worth it! Not only is it WAY cheaper than buying commercial baby food, I have the comfort of knowing EXACTLY what McKenna is eating, she gets no added salt, processed sugar, preservatives, additives, or food coloring, plus it gives me the personal satisfaction that I am making everything she eats.

You don't need any special gadgets (ie a baby bullet,etc) to make the food.  I use a steamer basket (which I already had) that fits into one of our pots to steam most of the food, (some of it I bake in the oven in a glass baking dish) I puree it using my blender, (which I already had) and pour it into ice cube trays which I freeze and then transfer to Ziploc freezer bags.  I make the food in pretty large batches so I have quite the freezer stash, and I don't have to make the food all that often.  The only gadget I really wish I had for making applesauce is one of these: http://foodstorageandsurvival.com/apple-peelercorerslicer/ It would make peeling and coring and cutting up the apples so much less time consuming, but it really isn't a necessity.

So far Miss McKenna has tried carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, apples, bananas, peaches, pears and avocado.  Her absolute favorite has been pureed bananas and avocado together.  Mike thought I was crazy, that bananas and avocado couldn't possible be good together, but McKenna eats it at record breaking pace then cries for more every time.  I think next we are going to try plums or pumpkin.

I have been using the website www.wholesomebabyfood.com for most of my research and recipes, and have learned a lot about what foods are good and bad for babies at certain ages, and why.  For example; we have decided to hold off on broccoli because it is known to cause bad gas in young babies, and spinach because it contains, and can build up a lot of nitrates over time.

The only food I decided I was not going to make was baby cereal.  Breastfed babies at 6+months start needing iron from another source, and since I cannot fortify my own baby cereal with iron, I thought buying it was probably better, and our pediatrician agrees with me.

I had my heart set on waiting until McKenna was 6 months old to start her on solids (a) because she was nursing so well and b) because that is what the current recommendation is) but little Miss McKenna is a very stubborn girl, she knows what she likes and what she doesn't, she refused (and still refuses) to take a bottle of expressed milk and weaned herself off the binky at 2 months.  It is because of this stubbornness our pediatrician suggested we start her on solids sooner rather than later, so we started her at about 5 months old.  The first couple weeks were tough, she wouldn't eat more than a couple of spoon fulls at a time, and would make these horrible faces like we were feeding her the most disgusting thing in the world, but now she LOVES to eat the only food she doesn't really like to eat plain by itself are green beans, but she will eat them if they are mixed with something else.


I would recommend that everyone make their own baby food, or at least try it out and see if it works for their family.  I find time to make it while my kids are napping, distracted by another activity, eatcing lunch, etc, and it doesn't take as much time, effort, or equipment as most people think.  Plus I think you would be plesantly surprised to find how much cheaper it is too.

McKenna's Blessing

We had McKenna blessed the first Sunday in December of 2011.  It was an amazing day.  We had lots of family come to support us that day, and Mike was able to give our baby girl a beautiful blessing.  I made McKenna's bow, headband and bracelet and our friend Ashely made her little shoes.

Introducing McKenna Riley Campos

We welcomed the newest member of our family, McKenna Riley Campos, on October 5th, 2011.  She was born weighing 7lbs 5oz and was 20 inches long and had a full head of hair.  I had gone in for my check up that morning and discovered I was already dilated to a 5, so rather than send me all the way back to Tonopah, my doctor sent us straight to the hospital.  When I got there they started me on IV pitocin because I was not having any regular contractions, and a couple hours later my doctor came in and broke my water, which was one of the most painful experiences I have ever had.  With Noah, my water broke on its own while I was waiting in the triage, and with Ammon I had had a slow leak, but when my Dr. broke my water the rest of the way, it was not near as painful as it was with McKenna.  I was thinking about trying to do it natural, but after how painful it was to have my water broken, I chickened out and wanted to get the epidural.  It didn't work as well as I had hoped, however.  It seemed, to me, as if my progress was moving so slowly, and I was starting to get anxious and scared, Mike called our old Bishop (Bishop McCombs) to see if he could come and give me a blessing, and he said he would make it in as soon as he could.  Well, after the phone call, all of the sudden things started progressing at a rapid pace, before Bishop McCombs even showed up, and almost before my Dr. could even get there, it was time for Miss McKenna to make her appearance.  Luckily my doctor happened to be in the stairwell at the hospital on his way to check on me when they paged him, and he got in the room just in time to catch her.  Mike and I were instantly in love with our sweet baby girl.  She took to nursing right away, and was (and still is) quite the little nursing champ.  When Bishop McCombs came in to give the blessing, he was surprised to see a baby already in my arms.  Later that afternoon when the boys got to come in and see her, it was so sweet.  They were so in love with their little sister.  I was a little worried about jealousy issues from Ammon, but he surprised us all.  When it was time for them to leave, Ammon kept reaching for McKenna and saying "I take it! I take it!"  We only stayed in the hospital for one night, then got to go home the next day.  It has been so much fun having a little girl, she is very different from how the boys were as babies, much more calm, and sleeps way better than they ever did!  She definitely has us all wrapped around her little finger.