"Lord, to you we dedicate this child, Jackson Ray Konietzki"

Sunday, February 27th, was the day that we dedicated our son, Jackson, to the Lord! On the day that I found I was pregnant with this sweet boy I prayed and gave his life to the Lord, but it was the reminder that he isn't ours and that he does belong to the Lord that made yesterday very special and dear to my heart! Not to mention the fact that our families came to share this special time with us all. Our church does a good job of making it a very special time for each family and I just love the fact that our Pastor took Jackson in his arms and prayed over him- dedicating him to the Lord and giving him up to him! It blessed my heart to hear it and it was hard to maintain my composure as we walked off the stage with our son. In fact, I didn't maintain my composure about an hour later, when a man from a church- a man I had never met came up to Korey and I and said that the Lord had put it on his heart to pray for Jackson each and every day for the rest of his life! I don't know why God put that on this dear man's heart or what life has in store for my dear son, only God does- I just know that I am completely in awe, absolutely blessed and incredibly "overwhelmed" by it! Our Pastor shared this verse as our family's verse for Jackson, "Then I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with a whole heart!" Jeremiah 24:7 I pray that Korey and I will be able to show Jackson that the Lord is God and he is to be the ruler of his heart and I pray that God will give him a heart to know Him and a desire to worship him in all he does!

All in all, yesterday was a great day for me and our family. Hailey loved it because she had almost all of her favorite people at our house and only had to share the attention with Jackson and Jackson loved it because he was never at a loss for arms to hold him.

My only huge disappointment is that I have NO pictures of this special day. I'm so thankful that our church does tape it and give it to the family, because otherwise this whole special day may pass without Jackson even being able to see pictures of it! This, of course, tugs on the strings of my mommy heart, because Hailey had more pictures than I new how to deal with when it was her special day, but baby Jack doesn't even have one!

I'm so thankful that I had put him in his little outfit a few days before and taken a picture for my sister, who wasn't able to make it, because otherwise this cute little tie would never be seen by you all! :)

and, I'm thankful that Korey's Grandmother asked if we could take a 5 generation picture for her, because otherwise I'd have nothing to document the fact that Korey wore a tie...(for the second time since our wedding- and you may remember that that one only lasted until the ceremony was over!) ;)

"Thank you, dear Lord, for this beautiful baby boy. Thank you for giving us a heart to know you. Thank you for the promise that we are your people and that you are our God. Here is our son- take him and use him to do your will. And, please, dear Lord, give me the strength and the wisdom to raise him to be a man after your own heart! Don't let me get caught up in the day to day grind- let me always keep my heart and my mind focused on you and on glorifying and honoring you with all I do!"

My favorite things ever...

Today, on a blog I like to read they were having people write their favorite thing ever and it gave me an idea...since life has been rather rough around here lately, I thought sharing a few of my favorite things ever would give me a better outlook and share some adorable pics of my kids! :)

So, here they are, my favorite things ever:

*good friends who remind me to take the time out to play with my kiddos, like my friend Amanda, who gave me the great idea to create a "tent" for my kiddos to play in! (yes, that is korey's and my wedding picture...Hailey's favorite thing ever to drag around the house...)

*feeding baby Jack! I just love how much this kid likes to nurse, but HATES any and all baby food. He'll eat potato soup, but just literally spits out anything even slightly related to apples or pears... Today I was holding him on my lap and trying to feed him and he kept trying to turn and nurse instead...in fact, he even got angry when he had to eat off the spoon- poor little guy, growing up is hard!!

*Hailey's adorable outfits! I just love dressing her in such cute stuff...she is and always has been my life size doll! :)

*my baby sling- don't know what I would do without it. I wear it at least once a day and it is a wonderful arm saver!! :)

*Hailey's hair...it is wild and crazy and there's no way that it looks good, unless I put it in a braid, a pony tail or pigtails! It's really more like straw- it's so frizzy and thin! :)

*Korey's wonderful and helpful attitude! I love how he's willing to just step in and clean stuff! (not to mention Hailey's deep rooted desire to help!) :)

*Hailey's super cool attitude...she put this all on today and came to me and said, "cool princess" yes, Hailey, you are one cool princess!!

*Jack's love of toys and desire to grab everything and put it in his mouth! No matter what it is he loves to taste it... ;)

*the fact that Hailey can't stand to be touched...she won't even let Jackson's legs touch her- she just moves farther and farther away from him!! (just like her Papa...) ;)

*how cute these two little ones are! No matter how bad of a day I'm having it can always be turned around by their giggling and laughing!

hangin' in there...

that's what this sickness bug has been doing at our house- just hanging around!! And, frankly, we're rather sick of it! :(

Poor Hailey is just not doing so well with it all- her nose is running like a faucet, her voice sounds like that of a 70 year old lifelong smoker, she has a hacking cough that would put that same smoker to shame ,and although she's not running a fever anymore she's definitely not feeling up to par, as evidenced by her cranky, whiny little spirit the last few days!!

Luckily Jackson seems to be on the mend...he still has a little bit of stuffiness in his nose and a small dry cough, but he's dealing with it much better than his big sister, so either he's tougher than her or he's just feeling better! (I'll probably go with a combination of both of them, 'cause Hailey is rather whiny about life in general) ;)

yeah, you do see Jackson in a pink bunting, here, what can I say- it was given to Hailey and I'm just too cheap to buy a different colored one! :)

the good, God thing about having a family who is battling sickness is that we're all getting some very good excuses to put into practice the fruits of the spirit when dealing with one another! I'm not gonna lie- it's definitely been hardest to show love, joy, peace and patience when dealing with Hailey, but that frustration often has a way of transferring itself onto others around me, too, especially now that I'm coming down with this cold myself!

So, I have been really trying to practice the fruits of the spirit and hoping to transfer the thought to my daughter, that even though you're sick and not feeling up to par it's not ok to make everyone else around you miserable- a surprisingly difficult idea to transfer to a 2 year old! ;) (actually, a surprisingly difficult theme for a mom to put into practice!)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control- against such there is no law! Galatians 5:22

Praying that you all are feeling better than we are here!! :)

we've been bitten...

by the sickness bug!

I really do blame myself. I was just saying to someone the other day that we'd made it through the whole winter without anything more major than a simple cold....why, why, why did I have to say something???? There are many times in my life where my mouth gets me into trouble and you'd think that one day I'd just learn to keep it shut, but I guess I'm a slow learner!! So, ok, maybe I didn't really cause us to get sick with my "mouthyness", but whatever the reason for this sickness in our house I sure am sorry!! Both kids have just been bears and completely miserable and Korey, usually my rock and my "break" when he gets home from work has been working late and sick himself!! :(

Here's how you know that your kids are sick...

*your two year old lays on the couch and watches the whole Elmo movie...and then cries because she wants to watch it again!

*your baby has a fever, so you strip him down to his onesie and it seems so commonplace that you take a picture of him without getting him dressed!

*your usually smiley baby doesn't smile and you consider it an accomplishment to get a picture without tears...

*you get to rock both of your kiddos to sleep in the same 24 hour span- who cares if it's in the middle of the night- for kids who hate to be snugled and cuddled, I'll take anything I can get! :)
*you beg your mom and offer to pay for her gas if she'll just come up and watch your kids for a few hours so you can get out of the house and hang out with someone who isn't crying, wiping snot on your shirt, or needing to be held!!

As I write this Jack is sitting on my lap and Hailey's in bed sleeping- no tears for the moment and I'm praying that this trend will continue!

"For we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us" 2 Corinthians 4:7- without Christ and His strength and peace and patience, I would not be a very good Mom this past week. I'm so thankful that He can and does show His power through me!

Is this love??!

Yeah, these kids are pretty much love personified for me!

I just love their cute little smiles and their goofy little personalities. I look forward to many more Valentine's Day celebrations with these two cuties! (and their Daddy, of course) ;)

best friends in the making??

Jackson's little friend, Joey, came over a few days ago to play with us! It was such a fun day- everyone enjoyed themselves, even Joey- can't you see the big smile!! :)

Jack and Joey are only 10 days apart and I really think they look fairly similar! In fact, Hailey always looks at this pic we have of Joey on our fridge and says, "Jack"!! :)

Hailey had to get in on the fun, too! She thoroughly enjoyed being by those two little ones and I'm pretty sure they really liked being with her, too!! :)


even Joey got a good night kiss before Hailey went to bed that night- I think he fit in our family pretty well!! I hope he gets to spend a lot more days at our house as he and Jack get bigger!

anything you can do, I can do, too!!

Hailey's been so into doing whatever Jackson can do these days! I'm not sure what the deal is, if she's maybe jealous of him or jealous of the attention he's getting, if she thinks he's having all the fun or what, but it is rather cute the "situations" she gets into trying to be like the baby!

No clue what the deal with trying to go to "sleep" all the time is, but she's been "playing" nuh-night, all the time these days- even her baby dolls go nuh-night all the time!! :)

she wants to take the bumbo seat or the baby in the bath with her all the time, now! In fact, without either one of them she cries and cries and won't even play in the bath, it's all I can do to make her stay to get her hair washed...go figure, huh?!

she's always begging me to put her in the jumperoo and in our little jumping thing that we put up for Jack upstairs...she did love these as a baby, so maybe she's reliving her baby days! :)

she likes to lay and play on his playmat, too, but he doesn't mind sharing, he loves to look at his big sister!

of all the baby things she copies, the swing is still by far her favorite. I "catch" her all the time in it- swinging back and forth and just hanging out listening to the rainforest music! The weirdest part of it all is...she HATED this swing when she was a baby, but apparently now that's all changed! :)

We WIN!!

I always hate how Packer fans talk about the Packers as "we", instead of them. But, yesterday, when they won the Super Bowl I said, "we win!! I can't believe we won the Super Bowl" :) I guess I have finally crossed over to the other side... ;) And, I guess I'm in good company- we had a ton of fun yesterday, celebrating the Packers going to the Super Bowl- and winning!!

before the game...we all got dressed up and had some "playtime" in the basement!

Hailey had a good time eating the chocolate! :)

and taking her own pictures...

but, all the excitement wore her out!

Grandma and Grandpa K came over to watch the game with us! The kids had a good time with them and I think the feelings were pretty mutual.

Hailey kept switching seats, during the game...

I just loved how she picked the spot right by the tv- best spot in the room!

and this one...how she even squeezed herself into this tiny little baby pack 'n play is beyond me, but she managed to!

Baby Jack was switching it up, too! Sitting on his "own" for the first time! Isn't he a big boy??

they always have to do what the other one does...it's so cute!

I guess I shoulda worn a green shirt...I'm looking rather left out! :)

don't you think these two look alike??! I do...they even have that same half smile!!

Aren't they cute- I just love both my Packer Backers!! :)