Of Rock Lawns and Cactus Flowers

Angel

2010-09-23T17:42:00.001-07:00

We are in our new house and Chris picked perfectly! This is about the only space of the house I'll show you though, the rest is still under construction. I had to add this picture in though, just to show that Chris is actually home in the evenings! I'm more excited about that than anything else, it's great having him around more!

We added a new family member this weekend on our way home from Norman. Chris and Silas had a great time at the OU game. I'll try and get those up in the next few days. I have been asked how big she is and this is how tall she is - she's standing on the floor, Karis is sitting on the chair. And she's 9 months old so she still has lots of growing to do. :) She's a very sweet dog and we are loving having her! She's not trained very well, but learning quickly. . .

The size of her paw in my hand.

Blogging ABC's

2010-08-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Since the movers are here and there isn't too much for the kids and me to do. We emptied out one room of the house and move in all our luggage, toys, books, video game systems and games, a 13" tv to play said games on, that we are going to move ourselves. Add four people and a recliner (which we won't move but felt would be nice to sit on for a few more days) and we have a messy jam packed room.

And I saw this on one of the blogs I read and decided it would be fun to do! You type each letter of the alphabet in your browser and see where the computer thinks you're going to go. Let's begin:

A- amazon.com - no surprise, we go there a lot! Have I told you about Amazon Prime yet? :)

B- blogger.com - must be a coincidence?

C- cbshome.com - the real estate company we are using to find our house in Omaha. Our realtor was and is amazing!

D- dooce.com - one of the few blogs I read that isn't a food blog or Christian blog, she's ex-mormon and making a living off her blog.

E- ebay.com - again, not surprised. Ebay has everything!

F- facebook.com - I love facebook.

G- maps.google.com - this is our favorite maps website.

H- harkinstheatres.com - It's been a while since we've seen a movie in the theater so I guess this one just goes to show that we don't go to many websites with the letter h in it!

I- inashoe.com - This is the website where I got this idea from. She's the mother to 10 children and there's always something going on in her house!

J- joythebaker.com/blog- She is one awesome baker. She does everything from cupcakes to wedding cakes to pies and every bit of her website is delicious!

K- klm.com - This is the airline we flew when we went to Paris in March!

L- library.pima.gov- We will miss them when we leave next week. :( Although I'd bet Omaha has libraries, too.

M- mail.yahoo.com - Guess I check my email a lot? LOL

N- netflix.com- Chris had to talk me into getting netflix because I just wasn't sure we'd use it a lot. We have had the movie Hamlet sitting on our shelf now since 6/30 unwatched. But we do use the streaming quite a bit. . . .

O- omaha.craigslist.org- Love Craigslist, too! And I've already been looking for bunkbeds for the girls!

P- passionatehomemaking.com - There are a few women who post on this blog but they all offer encouragement to homemaking moms and relevant Bible verses and how to's for various ways to live naturally.

Q- netflix.com/queue- I think this is the only website to make it on here twice!

R- rockofsahuarita.com - Our church family's website. sigh. We will also miss them very much. This Sunday will be our last Sunday at this church.

S- smittenkitchen.com- She's another foodblog that I read. She makes incredible dishes and many of them from foods I've never cooked with or eaten. Her dishes look so great it helps me to try things we might not have wanted to try or known how to cook!

T- thepioneerwoman.com- Is there a person left that doesn't read her blog yet? I originally just read the cooking section of her site but now I love all her website!

U- usaa.com- Hopefully the last bank we will ever use.

V- vrbo.com - and we have never rented from this website, but visit it often before we rent a vacation rental. I'm not sure why, probably part of my OCD. . .

W- weather.com- We visit them online and watch them with breakfast every morning. Sometimes I wonder why because every day is pretty much the same here in the desert! Perhaps I'm just getting in the habit for when we move to Omaha!

X- xe.com- I check this website occasionally just to see how the dollar is doing against the euro. I won't lie.

Y- youtube.com - the kids love the gummibear video. In French.

Z- zillow.com- we checked a lot of the houses out on zillow for info when buying a few weeks ago. . . sometimes I'm not too sure how accurate the information on there is though. I'm just sayin'.

Apple Annie's 2010

2010-07-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

Figured about a day was good to leave the birth story at the top of the page so if you're curious and hadn't read how Silas entered the world then scroll on down! After you read about our trip to Apple Annie's of course. Our last time to go before we move. *sniffle*

We picked lots of peaches then went on to the vegetables part of the orchard where Chris taught the kids how to pick okra. (Sorry for the redness, under a red tent and I'm still very much learning how to use my camera. As if you couldn't tell.)

Silas learned how to then went searching for the perfect one to pick. He couldn't figure it out at first but kept trying.

And that's his best friend that he's kinda sad to leave when we move providing moral support for picking okra all by himself!

Alright! Now what? ISN'T IT SUPPOSED TO DO A TRICK OR SOMETHING?

(Again, red tent)

But I just had to throw in that I'm learning a lot from boys. Boys just aren't like girls. For a boy you toss a few legos in your purse or a hot wheels car and it'll keep them entertained for hours while you wait anywhere for anything. It's a little more difficult to fit Karis' dollhouse in my purse though, but even if it did fit, when we get where we have to wait and pull it out we'd discover we forgot Barbie's bath bubbles at home so EVERYTHING IS RUINED NOW ANYWAY! The boy's heads are covering up the little girl's castle her parents brought for her.

When we got back from Apple Annie's I started asking Silas about what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and what sounded good for breakfast and dinner.

His answers?

Boy- 'I want a chocolate cake.'

Me- 'Ok, what kind of chocolate cake? Texas sheet cake, layered cake, what kind of frosting?'

Boy- 'Just a cooked cake, mom. That's chocolate. And for dinner I'd like that chicken with the mushrooms and green beans and carrots, please.'

No joking. I didn't make up a single word of that, that truly was our exact conversation.

I only left out the part where I hugged him and kissed him all over because he really is the best.

Something I'll never forget

2010-07-18T15:59:00.001-07:00

My boy's fifth birthday is today. Somehow I have never put his birth story on the blog and I plan on correcting that today. Just so you're forewarned. There will be no gore, this is the family version.

It's a Sunday morning and I'm miserable pregnant. I now have cankles, can only really fit into one dress, and have just over a week until we are due. Chris and I get up, eat breakfast, get Karis ready to go and head off to church. We come back from church, eat lunch, take a nap. After nap time we lounge around and rest and play with Karis.

At bedtime we read Karis' bedtime stories and Bible stories and tuck her in. Since she was our only child at the time bedtime wasn't early, around 9:00-ish. I didn't learn about schedules until Silas came around.

I go to bed but never fell asleep. Which is pretty typical for me in the last trimester (and many, many other pregnant women I hear!). So I toss and turn and after a bit I started having contractions. I knew Chris had to go to work the next day so I waited a few minutes before waking him up, but at midnight I'd been having strong contractions for about 15 minutes and they were getting hard quick so I woke Chris. He was wide awake and timing contractions and after just a few minutes told me it was time to call the midwives and go to the midwifery. I didn't like the sound of that because I had only been having contractions around 20 minutes and labor lasts FOREVER! Plus, if we weren't ready to deliver she'd send us back home. End of story, we're waiting to go to the midwifery but sure, go ahead and call her if that makes you feel better. Chris had fortunately gone through all the birthing classes with me and recognized a few signs that told him how quickly labor was progressing where I was completely in denial because I was convinced labor always takes a long time.

Chris walks downstairs to grab the phone and for some reason I follow him. Hungry, ready to chew him out some more for his outrageous ideas, take your pick.

I waddle through the hallway then down a few steps and on the landing of our stairs had a huge contraction. It was then that I realized just how fast this kid was coming. We have a bathroom at the bottom of the stairs and Chris asks me if I can get down to the bathroom and hopefully, carefully get in the bathtub before he comes. And it just wasn't going to happen. Two steps down and I'm trying not to deliver him on the stairs but Chris puts the phone on his shoulder and catches Silas with both hands while I'm standing up. Yes, you read that right.

I lay down, Chris hands me Silas and runs to grab a towel and the midwife gave us two options: we could get in the car and drive to the midwifery or call the ambulance to take us to the hospital. Unprepared as we were we called the ambulance. Did I mention we live in a town mostly made up of retirees?

We learned our lesson and with the first appointment when we found out we were pregnant with Caedis, Chris' first question was 'What do we have to do to not do THAT all over again?' I don't blame him one bit.

Zoo

2010-07-15T20:24:00.004-07:00

This past weekend we dog sat. (See below) Boy was it something. The dogs are so sweet and we were so glad to have them! It was a learning experience for us I must say. They are sweet did I mention that?

Caedis wasn't too sure what to think about. . . well. . the land mines in the backyard and thought they'd need plenty of paper. Apparently.

While we still had the dogs Chris' brother and his family came to see us! And correct me if I'm wrong but I think this is the first picture we have of all 4 King grandbabies. Or at least it's the first one I have.

As if you hadn't seen enough examples of my boy doing exactly what I ask him to do. . . .

'Crawl in the turtle shell Silas!'

'OK. Now what?'

Sigh.

Since this is the last time we will be going to our zoo for a while we had to take pictures with the squirting frog. We have so many pictures of that silly thing. . . .

House full

2010-07-09T13:48:00.001-07:00

We are dog-sitting this week for a friend who's out of town.

Only we may not ever want to give their doggies back.

What we will be happy to give back is their dog hair left all over my floor, furniture, and ceiling fans.

And maybe the doggie breath.

Because Tucker is always this close to your face.

Why yes, that's certainly a reason to celebrate!

2010-07-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Chris and I were talking about what we wanted to do on the 4th. He's a tired guy and never home so he said he kinda just wanted to relax and stay home. I told him I would like to go see fireworks, but other than that we could stay home and that was ok with me. Then in comes Karis.

Our sweet darling baby girl who had to remind us that one year ago this happened:

Instantly we felt awful. How in the world did we get so wrapped up in moving to forget this?

We apologized profusely and asked her what she would like to do to celebrate her day and she said all she wanted was to eat on the red plate and watch fireworks. We love her so much.

The week that we learned our kids have too many Uncle's names beginning with the letter J.

2010-06-27T13:29:00.019-07:00

Uncle Jared came to see us this week. For the last time while we live in Arizona. That's quite an event! And he ~~brought~~ met his friend Kristi out here which means this was a big week in our house!

We tried to mark off a few things of our to do list. The one we made when we moved out here six years ago and haven't gotten to do it all yet. That one. So we went to the Titan Missile Museum.

The drive itself was SO LONG that must have been the reason we hadn't visited there yet. It took us 2 minutes and 34 seconds to drive there from the house.

We tried to obey all signs posted

(which I think is why Jared brought Kristi out).

There wasn't a sign saying 'keep out of the jeep' or 'don't break the handle off the jeep', so I guess it was ok that the handle dropped to the ground when SOMEONE had the bright idea to open the jeep up and get in it.

We took pictures outside the jeep, though. Just to be on the safe side. Next time we'll bring sunglasses for the kids. :)

Then we went to the gaslight theater. Uncle Jared taught the kids what those holes in the boards are for!

Or maybe it was Uncle John or Uncle Jake. The kids have too many Uncles with J names and can't keep them straight!

After Caedis saw Silas have trouble with that one she was done and went inside for some music and popcorn.

We truly will miss this place.

The next day we went up to Gates Pass because Kristi wanted to see cactus.

And there's a lot of it right around there.

Here's Jared and Kristi. Just in case you thought I was making her up. She was behind her camera even more than I was. And that's ok. She bought a Canon. Smart girl.

Don't even ask what he's doing because I can't tell you. What I can tell you is he is wearing his gaslight theater T that his momma got him the night before because we needed to have something with their name on it in a few months when we miss them!

This was the only picture Chris took all week. Glad we got one I guess.

After we had seen enough cactus we left to go get some dinner.

And the kids broke the LAW.

They wore TIES. Their penalty?

Cutting them off!

Again, my baby didn't care one bit when her tie was cut she kept right on eating her orange slices.

And playing with her straw.

I took her closing her eyes to mean she'd had enough and after dinner we went walking around Trail Dust Town.

Where the kids got their shoes (?) shined. Or would have maybe? No. Ok.

They got sent to jail. Where there are rules. The first rule? NO COMPLAINING!

Then we saw the show. It's free. But entertaining. Wonder if they have this in Nebraska?

Somewhere in the middle of all that we went bowling, too. I'll have to search for those pictures because woo-wee was that fun!

Because I know you're wondering

2010-06-25T14:23:00.004-07:00

I know you're all sitting at the edge of your seat pondering how yucky and nasty my hair is since I revealed a few days ago that I STOPPED USING SHAMPOO.

That's why I'm taking a minute to let you know that I'm absolutely shocked that my hair hasn't been going through the filthy stage where I'm always looking for a hat. It's weird although I won't complain. This nasty stage is the entire reason why I didn't make the switch earlier but now I'm wondering two things.

One. Why didn't I just make this switch earlier? My hair is so much more manageable and less ratty and it's wonderful!

Two. How long ago could I have made the switch and not gone through the dirty phaze?

Well, Ok, there is a third. I'm a woman SO THAT'S ALLOWED!

Three. It also makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong because my hair doesn't look all nappy and greasy.

I'll keep trying to remember to give updates on this important issue.
Thank you very much.

2010-06-22T15:13:00.002-07:00

Haven't had much spare time in the last bit. Turns out there's a lot more to moving than what I remembered but since I have a few free minutes let's just see where this goes.

First I'm antsy. Right now one of Chris' best friends is getting on a plane to fly and come see us! We LOVE to have company but for many excuses hardly anyone ever comes to see US. We usually make the trip back to go see THEM. I think the last person that came to see us was my mom last August and I'm so happy someone is making the effort to come visit us before we move I can't stand it! So on the agenda is all the stuff we've been saying we want to do before we leave Tucson but haven't gotten around to yet. Except go to the Grand Canyon. Again, there's no time unless we, hmmm, unless we change our driving route to include the Grand Canyon on our way to Omaha. . . guess we'll have to see about that one!

Perhaps because I'm so excited to have company I went to the store and didn't buy shampoo and conditioner. Somehow it didn't make it on the list and I have absolutely NONE in the house and there's no way I'm using Chris' because, well, it's Chris'. So I tried something new and did the No Poo thing. I've been debating doing this for a while and apparently this was the extra push I needed to try it. As for today my hair is truly different in a very good way. Just hope Chris likes the smell of Apple Cider Vinegar. MMMMMM

I haven't turned into one of those only organic and natural products moms but I can see where I might be on that track. I've been making my own deodorant for a year or so now and just don't see myself switching back to the store bought kind anytime soon. But it could be that I'm a frugal mom instead of a natural mom as baking soda and vinegar (for the hair) and cornstarch, coconut oil, and baking soda (for deodorant) cost a whole lot less than the ready made stuff from the store. . . .

Around the house it's a common thing now for my boy to say something that gets us all to laughing we are literally crying and our ribs to hurt for days. He says stuff like 'That's air coming out of my body!' after he, uh, well, emits odors. The other day we were discussing him turning 5 and he's all 'I want to be five so MY ARMS WILL GET LONGER!'

Last Friday we finished up our second year of homeschooling. We had planned on finishing in May before our vacation but since we found out we were moving I decided we needed to get the house ready to sell or rent ASAP and took a few weeks off. This was going to be our first full summer break in a few years but now since things look a little iffy we are going to take a two week break and start third grade just after the Fourth. Normally we school year round and begin our year the week after Labor Day but since we'll be moving at that time I want to make sure we get started a little early. After having the last two days off for summer it's going to be hard to convince me to begin again so soon. . . . Although I am excited to start some of the stuff I have planned for them this year!

And now it's time for me to get up and start some cooking!

Omaha

2010-06-08T18:47:00.003-07:00

We are in Omaha this week house hunting. Our oldest are at basketball camp this week with my sister so we have just one of our babies with us this week. I must say she's enjoying being an only child! And might I just say that I have the best sister!

One thing about being in Omaha that's certainly different from Tucson is this sign we keep seeing.

I can't help but keep from laughing at them but a part of me is also shaking in my boots because I happen to like the very mild winters we have in the desert.

Port A

2010-06-06T18:13:00.022-07:00

I'm going to try and catch you up on what's been going on around here that's kept me away for so long! I mean moving is no great excuse to quit blogging, C'MON! So we'll start with Karis' recital.

Before her recital we had some great friends over who have no kids but love ours. . . they came extra early and played games with the kids.

Karis was so nervous at her recital because it was her first time on stage without a teacher in front of the doing the dance with her. You never would have known though because she did fantastic!

Her dance was one of the first and when it was over we had to scoot on out and get ready for vacation. We planned on leaving early the next morning for a long drive to the beach.

Once we finally arrived the kids jumped in the water and found lots of stuff. Caedis was not fond of the seaweed but we couldn't keep her out of the water either.

My nephew found a jellyfish. My son got stung by one. And no one peed on him, poor guy.

The girls chased the birds around. . .

And I have no words for this:

LOL - she is such a funny girl!

The kids were all actually willing and happy to take a picture together. . .

And here we are doing one of our favorite things on the beach. . . feeding the birds. We buy loaves and loaves of extra cheap bread just to feed them then hand each of the kids their own loaf and watch 'em go at it.

After we fed the birds we put some clothes on them and went to the museum. If you can call it a museum. It takes about five minutes to see the entire thing.

We call it the five minute museum! Ha! Genius, I know!

But every year we go back. Something about tradition, I think.

We found a new tradition this year and you'll be blown away by what it is. . . get ready. . .

GOING TO THE PARK! Whewee! Now who doesn't want to go with us on vacation?

The kids kinda had fun and it was just plain nice not to have sand stuck in everything you touch and see for a few minutes.

Plus it's not that often I can actually get Caedis in a picture where she's not telling me 'Purse, no want.'

Since you're not around her all the time I'll translate:
Put the camera back in the purse before I rip it out of your hands and BEAT YOU WITH IT!

This was our favorite part of the trip to the park. Ahead you can see the ferries and out in the water were dolphins. They came really close to us chasing some fish. I did get some good pictures of that too, but I'm apparently keeping those to myself today. Maybe I'll get around to posting those later.

We put the babies and grandparents down for naps and took the big kids to the USS Lexington. They hadn't been before and we knew my boy would eat this place up!

He didn't disappoint.

If we hadn't bribed him with ice cream to leave he would have lived on that boat. Except the fact that every time we had to climb those steep stairs I used that opportunity to tell him he doesn't want to be in the Navy and climb stairs all day, he wants to be in the Air Force so he can fly planes instead. bwahahaha!

Karis only liked the fact that she's getting paid to be there! She found a quarter and she didn't pay her ticket to get in. Perhaps we'll remedy that next time. . .

After the Lexington and naps we went back to the beach for a walk. Not to be confused with going for a swim. We will NEVER take the kids to the beach for a walk on the beach again without making sure they have swimsuits on first. Lesson learned. Boys just don't care if their clothes are wet and sandy. AT ALL!

Caedis destroyed every sand castle she saw. And all this time we thought it was because of nature that our sandcastles disappeared overnight!

After all the destroying she was ready for bed and found and nice place to rest.

Take a look at my niece's knees in the picture above and you get a small preview of what the boys looked like by the time we left.

2010-05-22T13:40:00.003-07:00

Most of the time I think we have no pictures of our baby girl and I feel guilty. So maybe all these posts about her are to make me feel better. Or maybe she's just that cute while the other two are hunting for some toys and movies they have lost that they suddenly want to take on vacation. Guess we'll never know.

Not forgotten after all

2010-05-20T20:23:00.006-07:00

Since we found out we're moving we've been busy. With Chris' job it's been up to me to get the house ready to sell while taking care of kids and getting ready for vacation. So Caedis' birthday falling in the midst of this, well let's say I'm glad she's only 2 so she's not crushed by the fact that I had not planned to have a day all about her today.

Somehow though I found time to take Silas to karate. And during karate I got a text from Chris wondering where I was because he's home.

So back up and if you know anything about his job it's that he hasn't been home for dinner on a weekday since the last holiday because, well, that's part of the job and I hate that part, but that's just the way it is. So, to recap, I'm at karate with the kids and Chris is AT HOME!

Since he's never home for dinner I actually had plans for after karate. I mean c'mon! The car needed washing because I'm tired of driving a black truck that looks grey and has HI DAD written on the side of the truck. (Thanks Karis) Karate ends and we rush home. And since we've been much busier than normal dinners have been very low key. Which is also surprising because you're talking to the mom who makes everything from scratch now because it's so much easier to grocery shop that way!

So, it's Caedis' birthday and we go to Silas' karate class while Chris is home and I have NO plans for dinner. None. No birthday cake because Chris wasn't going to be home to celebrate (we were going to do that Saturday).

The kids and I rush home and Chris is sweeping the floor! EEEEE! Then I grab a few things for him to grill (!) and I run and get Caedis a birthday cake. To make me feel better I went to DQ and got an ice cream and cake ice cream and cake.

While we're out I went through the car wash and when we come out of DQ carrying the cake you can still clearly read HI DAD written on the side of the truck that now looks dull black instead of dark grey.

Caedis was so excited about the cake, but lit candles she's not so sure of.

After she gets a bit of help blowing them out she tries to figure out how to eat this thing. Keep in mind that desserts and candies are a rare treat around this house for short people. We usually wait until they are sleeping tight to break out the cake.

She begins with the fork. Forks are good for green beans, why not cake?

And from here you don't need me interrupting.

She's 2

2010-05-20T11:58:00.002-07:00

My baby girl's birthday is today.

I have to say has grown up too fast already. At least she's learning early to like Apples. :)

2010-05-09T16:57:00.003-07:00

Last night we went to a dining out here in the desert and had a great time! I handed my oldest the camera and told her to take some pictures. She excels at that which is no surprise because anything she does she does wonderfully! Sometimes the only thing I think she can't do is clean her room but that's a whole other post. . .

So we got a new door put in this week. Finally! It's a beautiful french door and as soon as I remember to take one I'll take a picture of it.

We got the door just in time because we found out on Friday we will be moving to Nebraska! So no more Of Rock Lawns. . . . they actually have GRASS there. Real grass! I'm so excited about that it almost makes me forget just how much snow we will have in the winter. When I start thinking about just how cold it is in Nebraska I start getting a little worried and have panic attacks because I love our 110+ degree days!

We have a few months to enjoy our summer here until we move so we'll keep you updated. The next four months are going to fly by so excuse me while I go sit in the hot sun for a bit.

My backdoor

2010-04-13T18:44:00.002-07:00

SILAS!!!!!

}: (

Boys. And Shoes.

2010-04-01T18:34:00.002-07:00

Those two subjects do not belong in the same sentence. :)

I asked Silas to bring me a pair of flip flops so I could run outside as soon as I had the cornbread I was putting together in the oven. He comes down with stilletos. I'm not joking. So I sent him back up for FLIP FLOPS.

He says to himself 'OK, FLIP FLOPS.' Then he runs upstairs. I hear lots of rummaging around and after a minute he returns. With these.

Now, it's kinda an understood thing that if I'm going to slip on shoes I WANT THEM TO MATCH and both be MINE. The black one is Chris'. So I laugh and say 'They don't match.' He proves me wrong.

Apparently they do match. :)

Yes my flip flops are dirty, flip flops are always dirty. I just happen to not mind putting mine up for the world to see how dirty they really are. Considering their age they look pretty good.

The WORST bar-b-que EVER

2010-03-23T19:05:00.006-07:00

When we lived in San Antonio a few years ago there was this restaurant who had a billboard that said they had the WORST bar-b-que in Texas. For some reason we didn't believe them. So we had to go see for ourselves.

Rudy's BBQ has expanded since then, but they still have the worst BBQ I've ever had. Their restaurants are simple, no frills and as far as I've seen always located inside a gas station. When we are on the road I have a one track mind: get where we're going. We only stop every 4-5 hours on long car trips, but made an exception to stop here today for lunch.

Here's their version of a plate and a bowl. The bowl holds cream corn. This cream corn is the stuff you dream about.

They don't leave you hanging wondering which BBQ sauce is hot or not either. Straight forward and to the point.

Let's see if it passes the kids test.

First taste. . .

My boy had problems keeping his sandwich together.

Since I was busy *cough cough* dad went to his rescue.

'Just pick it up and eat it, son. Look at this.'

This just revolutionized his world.

And hers too, apparently.

While we were waiting for Karis to finish eating Caedis did the dishes.

This is a really good start for her! We're not on vacation any more!

Here's the 'sink' if you will. Or the tray.

Then the blank stare that comes after she's done eating and it's time for a nap.

I'm still not over jet lag just yet, so I have that same stare on my face right now. :)

Our last few hours

2010-03-20T10:00:00.005-07:00

Today is our last day here and we haven't done much. Honestly we are kinda worn out from all the stuff we've done this week. Chris had homework this morning so he got up and did a few hours of homework before we left while I tried to be quiet as a mouse. Oh! Yeah! That reminds me:

#8. Rats live in the subway/train stations. :/
#9. The metro and stilettos don't mix well.

Angelina's is known for their hot chocolate. So I got me some. It's like drinking a melted candy bar. Nothing like Swiss Mix. It's so sweet they serve unsweetened whipped creme with it.

Decided to go ahead and have lunch. Around that time all the tourists show up. Bah! This is one of those places that locals don't go because the tourists have run them all out. After that Chris talked me into a liquer, something about helps you digest food. Only, I forgot to take a picture of that. And those three items took us about an hour and a half to consume. I already miss Paris.

After Angelina's we went to see Monet's water lilies. They were incredible!

And after that we went shopping! The stores were jam packed with people and were so hot the cashiers had fans at their desks pointed at them and they were still sweltering. LOL The above picture is the view from one of the stores we visited. And now we are off to our last meal in Paris and more shopping! Au revoir! Since we will be leaving soon it will be a few days until my next post.

Louvre

2010-03-19T07:12:00.009-07:00

We decided last night that if we were going to the Louvre it'd be nice to see the Mona Lisa. And if we were going to see the Mona Lisa we would have to go early to beat the hoards of people that would surround her which means we'd never get to see her. So we we got up early and went to the Louvre. I assumed as I usually do that there would be neon signs pointing in the direction I need to go to get where I want to be. Most of the time I'm wrong. In times like that I heavily rely upon Chris to get us from lost completely to where we need to be. This one time I was right. There were signs everywhere pointing to where we might find her.

The green in the picture is proof of the neon signs pointing to her. :)

After we saw Mona we decided to walk around and see what we could see. We happened upon the Winged Victory which was a nice surprise as it's another one of those that's very popular at the Louvre.

After we saw the Winged Victory Chris asks me what I want to see next. Paintings? I say. I mean isn't that what the Louvre is full of? Duh. Well, it turns out it's full of a lot more.

We saw quite a few people painting paintings. Many of them were just beginning, but she looked almost finished.

About this time I decided that it might be nice to see Egyptian Antiquities. So we start walking.

We passed through rooms and by rooms and through them again. It turns out the Louvre is huge. Picture that and it's bigger than what you're imagining. Now what they don't tell you is that they close rooms periodically and don't notify you! So you start walking one way and oops! they decided to close this room today so you have to then find your way around that room to get where you want to go. It's all one big game. They sit in the little rooms laughing at those of us who walk through rooms 15 times thinking we're actually getting where we want to be and instead we're making circles.

Take this guy. He's given up so he's calling a cab.

We saw this girl more than once.

hmmm. . . .

We found Demeter in all the walking around (and the Venus de Milo) and then finally

Ancient Egypt!

We passed quite a lot of beautiful sculptures and art on our way but Ancient Egypt was worth all the effort.

The only problem was that we now only had an hour and a half to get through Ancient Egypt. And it's big.

We were fast as the wind and still didn't get to see all of it.

But we're going back tonight.

What we did see was breathtaking. The Louvre beats all the rest of the museums we've seen so far.

We were on a time schedule though because we had booked a wine and cheese tasting lunch.

The directions asked us to please be on time and we were the first ones there even though we got lost on the way so we got pictures of it all set up before anyone else got there. That was very exciting to me! It's the little things. . .

It was a small group and he taught us a lot about French wine.

His last bit of advice before we left was. . .

keep drinking French wine!

Champs-Elysees and the Arc

2010-03-18T08:44:00.008-07:00

Today we walked down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and on to the Eiffel Tower. And if you think I wore comfortable shoes you are sorely mistaken. I am just sore. Above was our first stop the place de la Concorde which houses an Egyptian Obliesk.

Second stop was the crepe guy. Technical term, I know. You see, Chris is a smart guy. He told me I could make all the decisions for the rest of the trip because he's tired of me not making them. Usually I have every second planned when we go on vacation. Not this time. Thought I'd try something different and guess what? IT'S NOT KILLING ME to not know what we're going to do every second of every day on vaca. Chris also learned that I'm going to take pictures of someone and since the kids aren't around he thought he'd take a few tries at learning my camera and get a few more shots of me than him. So back to our second stop. We're passing this crepe stand and Chris asks 'Are you thirsty?'

We continue down the Champs-Elysees stopping at a few places, but this is probably the most famous. I knew none of you had ever seen or heard of a GAP so I didn't want to waste time trying to explain what that store is. Instead I put up a picture of a store I know you all know is famous for their colorful macaroons.

I actually crossed the street halfway and stood taking pictures in the middle of the crosswalk for one light cycle to get a good picture of the Arc de Triomphe. Chris stood on the sidewalk and crossed normally. Thank you.

What I've learned #6. Going up the stairs to the top of Notre Dame and the next day going up the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe is fun. My calves thank me.

This is looking from the Arc down the Champs-Elysees.

Told ya Chris is a smart guy. He's a quick learner, too.

From the Champs-Elysees I wanted to backtrack to the Pont Alexandre bridge. So that's what we did! On the way there was a point and time when no one was around so we snapped this.

Since he's not in very many pictures today I thought I'd put that one up. That bridge was worth the walk.

We crossed the Seine and walked to the Eiffel Tower. We turned a corner and BAM! it was right there. There are no words to describe that moment.

That is the Eiffel Tower behind us. . .

There was a pretty garden on our way back to the metro to come back to the apartment so I stopped and sat. The Eiffel Tower is on one side and on the other. . .

Chris didn't want to sit down and look like a dork like me so I put him to work taking pictures of our surroundings.

Somehow he convinced me to leave that serene garden and walk up stairs.

But that too turned out to be worth it.

My favorite so far

2010-03-17T16:22:00.005-07:00

Chris took me out for a really really REALLY nice dinner tonight. This was our view. :)

Mostly for Karis

2010-03-17T08:43:00.012-07:00

We decided to spend today in Paris. I love Paris. On our walk to Saint-Chapelle we saw the view above.

Once we walked into the church it took our breath away! The stained glass is absolutely stunning.

The restoration signs were not so stunning but then what do you do?

After enjoying the beautiful stained glass we took the long way to Notre Dame and stopped in some stores.

It seems like the Parisiens know visitors come here for the Eiffel Tower.

This shop is one my mom would have loved, full of garden decorations.

I thought the kids would like this and bringing home a picture of a puppet is much smaller than actually bringing home a puppet.

We finally got to Notre Dame and we didn't get lost even once! Our last trip 3 years ago was awful, we (read I) got lost a lot. Yesterday when we left the apartment we went out and took a left. Walked to the next street and took a left. Then at the next street I took another left. :)

We were fortunate enough in our timing to see part of a mass in Notre Dame.

Ok, so all these come from Notre Dame and I wanted to put them out there, but really Notre Dame is a church and you can't talk while you're in there and I'm not going to bore you with a bunch of history about the cathedral. What I will do is list a few random things we have learned in our few short days here.

#1. (And I don't know how long this list will be) When making the last cup of chamomile tea and putting sugar in the tea make sure it's SUGAR and not SALT. SALT does not taste good in tea and looks an awful lot like sugar.

#2. When crossing the street the people on the little motorbikes or scooters go past stopped cars. They won't run over you if you're not crossing in a crosswalk but they will stop abruptly and honk their little clown horn and glare. A lot.

#3. Use the bathroom before leaving any establishment that actually has one. There's no telling how far you'll have to walk to find one and you may have to end up taking a taxi back to the apartment when you get tired of looking.

#4. Ipods really do make the metro trip you're taking seem shorter.

#5. I don't wear anything above my knee anymore, but for future reference, those little bubble shorts worn with leggings look ridiculous. And everyone's wearing them here.

That's the end of the list for the moment but I'll keep updating it as the week goes on. This is the view from the Notre Dame bell tower.

Before we left the kids asked us to take a few pictures of specific things. Escargot was one of those specifics. So, Karis, in one post I have your picture of the Eiffel Tower that you wanted and snails. I love you sweetie!

We must have passed 50 restaurants before we finally decided to eat lunch. This one turned out to be the perfect one for us. Toward the end of our meal a French woman came and sat just in front of us on the right. Shortly after a little birdie came looking for food. She tossed a piece of bread on the table a few times and the bird kept on coming back for more.

To those of us with a simple mind this was quite entertaining. She kept trying to get the bird to eat out of her hand but it just wouldn't.

And finally it did take it right out of her hand! She was so happy!

Versailles

2010-03-16T09:37:00.006-07:00

We went to Versailles today. It was wonderful. And crowded. I don't like crowds much. Sorry.

The Chateau itself has a lot of gold and paintings. And tons of dust. I'll tell you what, if your occupation is dusting, apply here. THEY NEED YOU!

Most of the paintings and sculptures were absolutely beautiful. Their apartments were lush but of course they were because we're talking about kings and queens of France. What else do you expect?

Here we visited the hall of mirrors inside the Chateau and tried to take a picture of us. It *kinda* worked. I mean, we're in there aren't we?

After we visited the Chateau we went to eat lunch. The above picture is not where we ate lunch, it's Marie Antoinette's house where she pretended to be a peasant. But I do have to say something about lunch. The French people have eating down. As Americans we eat too quickly, don't enjoy what we're eating (or the company) and move on so we can play our video games. Every meal we have eaten here has taken at least 1 1/2 hours and they have all been very enjoyable and the waiters and waitresses don't rush you out so they can get more tips. I love it! They have machines that they bring to your table to swipe your card there in front of you which is another wonderful idea! We're also finding that so many of the French people really are kind although they are private. So to sum it up, I like the way the French eat!

If you hadn't noticed in the above pictures, it's kinda cool here in Paris and all that's around are bare trees and dead leaves. And even though it's all brown, it's still very beautiful!

There's some green! I had to really edit this one to get it looking that green, btw. This is still on the grounds of the Chateau, their gardens are huge! You could rent a golf cart to get you through the gardens they were so big but when Chris' eyes got real big and he mentioned a race and something about driving off the stairs and in the water I decided the walk wasn't so bad.

My camera's still new enough that we're protective of it and don't really want to be handing it to strangers so my camera bag made a good tripod here. Well, a decent one at least.

When we arrived the fountain was drained and empty and I was sad. We went out into the gardens and got tired. But turning the corner to leave and seeing the fountain on and working helped to put a bit of spring in my step! It's the little things that make some people quite happy.

We made it!

2010-03-15T05:15:00.003-07:00

We walked in the door a few minutes ago and are now plopped on the couch and that's the view I have. :)

We left yesterday? Who knows, time has lost all meaning since we are on vacation and some 6 or 7 hours off 'our time.' All seemed to be going very well, we left the kids with no problems, stayed a night at the Hyatt at DFW which we loved, and got through the forever long plane flight from DFW to Amsterdam. Then we get to Amsterdam and the airline will let Chris check in for his flight but not me. None of the people can figure out why so one writes on a little stub that it's ok I can get on the plane. The flight attendant actually letting people on the plane doesn't think that's such a great idea. Hmmm. . . I can't think of any reason why not! She gets on the phone and calls around and finally lets me on the plane but tells me the problem is something about a bag. There are two people each with one bag but there is only information for one bag in the computer. Whoops! The whole flight from Amsterdam I'm trying to focus on the positive- I'm on the plane, right?? Even if my bag isn't? Then if it doesn't make it to Paris I get to go SHOPPING!

We arrive in Paris and there's my bag. :) Now I'm starving so we're going to go find something to eat.

the first part

2010-03-13T21:51:00.007-07:00

Our trip so far has been pretty good. We began with a road trip a few days ago to drop off the kiddos and stopped by and surprised Chris' grandmother with a visit. She was warned a few minutes before our arrival, so she had plenty of time to jet or pretend to be asleep when we got there, but she stayed! Brave, brave woman! We had such a great time seeing her. Silas showed her all about karate and what he's learning. And her room's not that big, so that was a lot of fun!

We left there and went to my grandma's house and she's been having as much fun as the kids. I also learned that my niece has some kind of gravitational pull on my lens as most of the rest of the pictures I took are of her. She's so stinking cute!

This is the fun I was talking about that grandma's having. She was teaching the kids how to blow bigger bubbles, more bubbles, and testing all the wands to make sure they all work. . . we have the best grandmas!

Since we hadn't had enough fun at this point we thought we'd get all the kids together for a photo shoot. And that was enough fun to last for weeks let me tell you!

Tomorrow we are off to Paris!

2010-03-08T17:19:00.004-07:00

A week from today we will be in Paris! (Not Texas.)

In preparing for our trip I have been running around today like a madwoman and I'm fairly certain that's how it will be until we leave so I won't be on here much this week.

BUT next week we *should* have internet in our apartment and I will be doing my best to blog every evening about what we did that day and put up pictures. . .

So should you feel like stopping by next week, hopefully this blog will be a busy one! :)

Professional? I think not :)

2010-03-06T08:49:00.005-07:00

Chris called a few days ago from work. Which is kinda rare. I'm one of those wives that tries to not bother him while he's at work simply because I figure he has a lot of work to do and the more I bug him the longer he has to stay at work that day. You get the point.

So he calls me from work. And here's our conversation:

Chris: Are you busy on Friday? Say around 14:00?

Me: Well, we don't have any 'real' plans, but that is smack dab in the middle of nap time for Caedis. Why?

Chris: We have staff pictures on Friday and need a photographer. You up for it?

Silence. Palms sweaty. Chris works for a full bird Colonel. He's one of the most personable guys, really sweet, but still. Full bird. All I've ever done is take pictures of the kids and I'm still very much trying to figure out how to use this camera. . .

Chris: You still there? Are you ok?

Me: Um, yeah, um, hold on, you want me to take pictures of COLONELS?

Chris: Yeah, can you do it or not?

Me: What's the other option?

Chris: Someone with a point and shoot, so I figure you have the better camera which is why I called you.

Me: To take pictures of Colonels?

Chris: Yes.

Me: I guess I can do it?

Chris: Great, Thanks!

So I showed up yesterday nervous, no one has ever relied upon me to take pictures for them that actually need to hang on a wall and really I only got the camera just to take pictures of my kids. Really, the only reason.

These are with Chris' boss' plane and they wouldn't listen to me about the sun being in their faces and making shadows.

As it turned out they weren't all Full Bird Colonels. :) Close, though.

This last one is with the guys Chris works with most everyday.

dresses

2010-03-04T17:33:00.003-07:00

In preparation of Chris' sister's wedding this summer I thought I'd dig out a few of the dresses Karis wore at this age when she was a flower girl. The idea was to try them on Caedis and make sure I'm buying the right size and take pictures of her in them because I love putting clothes on Caedis that Karis used to wear. I don't know why I like it so much but I DO!

Despite the smile in the picture she was miserable. All frowns and unhappiness and because the dresses were all just a tad long she'd have to pick up the skirt to walk away. (It was so cute!) But then she got set down on the piano bench and I grabbed a banana to see if that'd cheer her up.

Random pictures of my hedgehogs

2010-02-23T19:21:00.005-07:00

These are just some random pictures I've had sitting around of the kiddos.

I have no clue what Caedis was finding so funny, but we see this face on her all the time. She's the happiest girl!

Putting on other people's shoes is also something she does a lot. . . she's so stinking cute.

Now, here she is running around in a diaper. This is very very rare. I like my kiddos fully clothed at all times and she is one that likes to not wear clothes as much as possible. Fun. :) And she found another use for Karis' panties.

He likes to be fully dressed all the time and clothes are to be worn correctly. This includes hats. He does not find this funny. I do.

After I took a picture of my boy in his hat he started pleading PLEASE can I just use your camera? Please. Mom, PLEASE?!? Now, they don't always get what they ask for but I gave in this one time. Put the strap around his neck and the above picture was the result.

When he was done, Karis asked for her turn so again, I put the neck strap around her and I hoped for the best.

2010-02-15T15:32:00.009-07:00

We went to the zoo today.

The kids wanted to feed the giraffes.

They were just a *little* excited.

On the way Silas was talking to Karis about feeding the giraffes and was telling her not to be scared, they won't bite.He would teach her how to feed a giraffe.

Instead of kindly giving the food to the giraffe, he just tosses it in the right direction. Turns out he has good aim, but that poor animal! They are going to run next time they see him coming!

Here's the previous image zoomed in a bit. I think his sister just learned how to really feed a giraffe.

She didn't particularly like being so close to a bearded dragon. Didn't you know they can breathe out fire, melt the glass, and come after her? I didn't know that actually. Guess we got lucky the dragon didn't feel like breathing fire on us today!

I handed Karis the camera and let her be the photographer.

Here they are learning about a monkey.

Silas didn't quite get why she was holding a container of vegetables that aren't real?!? They don't hand out snacks when they teach you at the zoo? C'mon!

Here are their tattoos they got from learning. Which is a good substitute for not giving them food.

This goes to show the best things in life are FREE! On our way home we saw this:

The kids got a bigger kick out of it than the zoo. No I'm not joking.
(It's the weinermobile.)

Spring cleaning

2010-02-02T19:28:00.003-07:00

The two big kids were sick today so I took advantage of that and brace yourself. . . turned on the tv, planted them on the couch and spent the day spring cleaning.

It doesn't really matter whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow when you live in the desert. Our seasons range from warm to hot with maybe a week of winter a year. And when I say winter I really mean highs in the 50s and lows around freezing.

So back to the cleaning.

I scrubbed and organized and straightened all day long with just a few minutes here and there to take a break. And my house doesn't look any cleaner than it did when I started. Now I just have stuff pulled out from kitchen cabinets that either need to be put away somewhere else or donated. The upside of that is that the inside of my cabinets are clean and organized (and so is my refrigerator!). So when Chris comes back home and wonders why he doesn't have any clean socks I'll make sure to direct him to the cabinets to prove that I didn't just sit around and play farmtown on facebook all day! LOL

This is why I needed to clean out the kitchen any way. Ready? I found this in there today:

Not just a picture, but a cd from our first Christmas living in Tucson (2004). We discovered just days before Christmas that Chris would actually get a few days off for the holiday so we decided to take a trip to San Diego to see Chris' aunt and uncle! We had a great trip. It was my first time seeing the ocean and first time in California. (I had seen the gulf before but was told that didn't count?)

But it leads me to wonder - why did I ever put that in the kitchen?!?

Karate

2010-01-28T15:02:00.009-07:00

Silas has been taking karate since the beginning of January and somehow I didn't tell my mom!

I'm going to win the best daughter of the year award for 2010!

I felt bad that I didn't tell my mom about such a life altering detail of our lives (I mean we have to go to karate class twice a week now) and I promised to take pictures at the park of Silas in his karate suit -or uniform or some fancy name I don't know yet- to make up for the fact that I didn't tell her for almost four weeks. So here they are.

Wait, Caedis? Woohoo??

'I'm right here, mom, didn't go anywhere.'

She's so innocent. And sweet.

And she tells me the name of all the rocks she collected while I was busy with the other two.

Karis' class starts first so her pictures will be first.

Stretches on the barre. She's paying attention and all is good.

What?? Hold on a second, I'm pretty sure napping on the barre is not something I'm willing to pay for during class! Wake up Karis! UGH!

Silas' karate is starting so we'll move on before I get all mad and go back to pretending she's actually doing something productive during class.

My boy is the shortest and youngest one in class by a long shot. His instructors are so good and we have loved the first month of karate. Until they give him a CHAIR! I can have them sit and nap at home! This had better be good.

At least he's doing something in his chair. PHEW!

If you notice in the above pictures Silas isn't protecting his head. Which is one of the first rules in karate. But then again I think all the rules are about the first rules in peewee karate.

His instructor is pretty good at getting his attention. Please note the huge smile on his face. Thank you.

At the end of class their instructors offer constructive criticism. I always ask him what they told him and he always replies with a big 'huh?' So I guess we'll never know.

"It's time to go, mom. Remember me?"

They bow out and we go home.

Except right now it's time for the second class of the week and we are late for class because I've been working on this and lost track of time!

A small taste of our Christmas

2009-12-28T20:43:00.007-07:00

For Christmas Chris and the kids got me a new camera! I am so happy to have it and have no idea how to use it. Here are a few, very few pictures from our trip to the midwest for Christmas. I'm uploading more on facebook, so check out my album there. :)

Funny Story

2009-12-14T09:50:00.003-07:00

Yesterday we had the student ministry Christmas party. We played the gag gift game and one of our boys opened a bottle of Windex. We all laughed so hard! HAHA YOU GET TO CLEAN ALL THE WINDOWS AND MIRRORS IN THE HOUSE FOR YOUR MOM - THIS IS THE BEST GIFT YOU'VE EVER GIVEN HER!

Joke's on us.

Of course he didn't want to take home Windex. I think that's one of the funniest gag gifts I've seen at a gag gift game, BTW.

After the game was over Silas walked right up to him and asked for his windex. Oh, yes he did. He gave it to Silas and my boy lit up. MOM, he gave me WINDEX!!! Can we clean the bathroom when we get home? PLEASE?

When we tucked Silas in bed last night we had to wait until he was asleep and pry the windex from his fingers carefully so we didn't wake him.

I. Am. Not. Joking.

Christmas Pictures

2009-12-03T17:09:00.005-07:00

Yes I let the kids play around in their Christmas clothes before Christmas Sunday in a park, roll around in the grass and *cringe* climb trees. And it was so much fun we might do it again next year!

2009-11-10T19:15:00.005-07:00

We went to the library the other day and Silas picked out this book. Normally when we go to the library I have books on hold and let them pick out a few more to bring home. I took a look at this one and we were in a hurry so I told him I would have to read it before he could, just to be on the safe side. He already knows I read all their books before they are allowed to - usually I read them at the library instead of bringing home books we may not like, you get the point!

Back to this book- we brought it home. I read it and it wasn't great, but it didn't teach him to start hating peas either so I let him have it. We read it together and the story is about a boy who has never tried peas but is convinced he won't like them.

Let's back up this train a bit. Silas likes food. No, Silas LOVES food. Doesn't matter too much what it is, although pasta is always the last thing he eats on his plate.

The boy in the story gives this monster his soccer ball so the monster will eat his peas and rescue him. Silas doesn't understand. He stops me and says 'But Mooom, peas are so yummy - why would he give the monster his soccer ball?' On the story goes and Silas is bewildered that the boy trades the monster his bike so that he'll eat his peas the next time peas are served to the boy.

At the end the boy ends up eating peas and loving them and Silas' response is shaking his head 'If only the boy would have tried them first and tasted how yummy peas are he could have had his soccer ball and his bike. I would never give a monster anything to eat my peas, I like peas.'

And all the while I'm going 'yes! Oh, yeah! YES!!!'

I have no words

2009-09-24T13:30:00.001-07:00

I was stunned to read this

And see this:

An apple a day. . .

2009-09-23T09:36:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I left the room for a minute to take a phone call because Caedis was crying and I couldn't hear the person on the phone. She was in her play pen so I figured she was ok for a sec.

I keep apples in the bottom drawer of the fridge so the boy can just help himself when he gets hungry. And that boy is always hungry. He grabbed an apple for his sister because he figured she was hungry.

Guess he was right. She only got a bit or two in before I jumped back in the room because it got too quiet so I knew they were up to something! (Took me longer to think of sending Karis for the camera.) She ate this thing down to an itty bitty core.

The ball

2009-09-21T15:28:00.004-07:00

How has it already been so long since I posted? Time flies when everyone is sick, I guess, or we lose track of time? I dunno. But it would figure that two days after we start school we're all sniffling and coughing and I can't tell you how many boxes of Puffs Plus Lotion and bottles of Robitussin we've been through in the last 10 days! Glad to be better again!

Even though I was still half sick (can you be half sick? or maybe I was half well?) Chris and I went to the Air Force Ball on base. We had to buy our tickets weeks ago and not foreseeing illness we bought them, so I was going no. matter. what. Here's a picture:

Only I forgot to tell Chris to take OFF his glasses! Always, always, always, take off the glasses to take a picture. Or wear contacts and avoid that route altogether. :)

Back to the ball - it was our first one. I think the last time I went to a nice event the Air Force put on was right after OTS about 6 years ago. I hope that we can make it again next year and the year after that and . . . you get the point. But even comparing this one to the last one it looked like a professional decorator had come in and decorated. We had seat covers and I even had to dig deep and remember which fork to use because they had three sitting on the table!

We arrived and began looking for our table and which one did they put us at? The table with the full bird Colonel and Lt. Colonel. Yeah, I'm still not used to Chris' job of working for a full bird even though he's nice as all get out.

Even sick and nervous we had the best time! I am so glad that we went and can't wait to go again!

2009-09-11T20:41:00.007-07:00

In the past two days I've been asked twice why I don't write on my blog anymore. I guess a two-ish months absence deserves an explanation. . . . I'll try and catch you up on what's been going on and continue that more regularly. . .

Right after Silas' birthday, which I still haven't put up pictures. . . here they are:
Things kicked into high gear at the King house. Chris was asked to step up in our church and be the youth minister. Never would we have thought he'd be asked to take such a position. But through this ministry God has blessed us and the student ministry tremendously!

Soon after that we finished our first year of homeschooling! We started first grade for Karis just after Labor Day 2008 and finished in early August. (We started second grade for her and preschool for Silas the day after Labor Day this year, Tuesday the 8th and it went great. For two days. And then we all came down with colds and had to take Thursday and Friday off.) Many days school went great, we had a lot of fun going through the material. Some days were hard and seemed to go on FOREVER! I found it hard to stick to a schedule. Real hard. So this year I've shifted a few things around to make it work better for us . . . and already we're off that schedule. GRRR! (See above!)

Right after we finished our year of homeschooling in early August, my mom came for a weeks visit. The week went by too fast! We were busy every day and virtually passed out every evening at the dinner table. I enjoyed being a tourist in my own city. Turns out there are a few things to do in Tucson that are fun.
After mom came out and before school started Karis came to me and complained of blurry vision. Turns out she needed glasses.
They have made a big difference in her reading and writing, but the best part is SHE LOVES THEM! I sucked it up and let her pick out whatever glasses she wanted (this was my second mistake. . . my first was going to the only optometrist around who had open appointments the next day). She picked these cute little Barbie ones. They have Barbie written on the side, a Barbie picture on the case and little a Barbie 'B' on each nose pad.

So what's up with Caedis. . . well. . . she's still not walking. No desire to. We're getting there, I think. When she crawls around on the floor and we sweetly remind her to stand up and walk you can almost see her eyes roll. She'll stand up and take an unsteady step or two and drop back down to a crawl. She's also learned that my curtains are fun for playing in when I put her in the playpen.

A comparison - Silas today and one year ago. This should be fun!

2009-07-18T17:17:00.002-07:00

Here's a picture of my baby boy one year ago, on his third birthday. He got better batter baseball and wore some shorts that were a little big. My sister made the comment 'he has no legs.'

Here's my baby in the same shorts on his fourth birthday. Today. I tried to squeeze him into the shirt he wore last year, but he wouldn't go for it.

Happy birthday shorty!

Must've been living under a rock

2009-07-05T19:09:00.010-07:00

I'm going to show and explain where we've been. Warning - there are lots of pictures to make up for the last two months! ;) And we're doing this in backwards order because I'm a first child and this means we do things my way. So, first up, here are the kids waiting for the fireworks (above) on base on the 4th of July. They always have the best fireworks show around and it's worth going even if we get the kids in bed two hours later than normal.

We're about to leave the house for the fireworks, but the kids just looked so cute I couldn't not take pictures before we left.

This is the gun-shooter (as they are known in this house) that Silas won

at the sack race! This is his first gun ever and now that's all he wants for his birthday (which is just two weeks away). (This is one you ought to click on to enlarge and see this boy's face. He knows he's about to win! Then read at the bottom why it's not cropped.)

On the fourth of July we went to a church pool party where Karis was baptized. *sigh* It was wonderful! May 19th she asked me if she was old enough to ask Jesus to come live in her heart. I laughed but have never been prouder. So they're about to dunk her under. . .

here is Chris and our pastor dunking her under. . .

And she's up! She told me later that she felt so special that the pool party and all the fireworks were planned just for her special day. I tearily told her they'd be there each year to celebrate her baptism and she grinned from ear to ear.

Caedis shares a pacifier with her dad. This was before we took all the pacifiers and tossed them in the trash because that's what we do when they turn one. What?! Caedis was lucky. We were travelling and she got to keep her pacifiers for a whole two weeks after she turned one so we could get her to sleep while on vacation. And so we could get some sleep.

Karis had her second ever ballet recital in May. Isn't she the most beautiful little lamb ever? My only complaint is . . .

Photographers SHOULD NOT be able to make my 6 year old look 16!

Here's my baby on her first birthday which we celebrated by letting her keep her pacifiers and giving her a card telling her so. She appreciated it. ;)

About to pass out watching TV and eating chips while on the couch. Eating chips and watching TV and did I mention they are on the couch?? This is how you can tell we were on vacation.

Port Aransas. Oh, we love it here. Small town, small crowds, good tasting sand. . .

Hungry birds. Ok, I didn't post a picture of it and maybe I will shortly. . . my nephew is . . . there are no words. He had no interest in actually feeding the birds, but running through the ones that landed on the ground! No joke it was the funniest thing that happened on vacation I guarantee. That's the kind of fun we have in Port A.

That's a real live crab sitting on top of that girl. She wasn't a fan. Especially when they let it go and it wanted to hang around and enjoy the party.

This was my boy's first time to the beach as well as Caedis'. He grabbed a boogie board, set it in the shallowest water there, stood on it and exclaimed that we was surfing! That's my boy.

Told you we've been gone so much. . . now we're at my grandparents house and the kids are riding bikes. Unless it's cold they are never inside when we go here, except maybe to sleep and well, for other stuff they prefer to water the grass. Or trees.

Mother's Day, still in OK. This is what being a mom is all about.

Last year I bought a sprinkler because it was on clearance at Target. It's this really cool spin-y and squirt-y one sure to drench the kids and make big puddles in the yard. Turns out there was a reason there were boxes of them for give-away prices. YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH A SPRINKLER IN A ROCK LAWN, PEOPLE! Why didn't they have a sign saying that in the clearance aisle?? So we took it to my grandparents house for the kids to actually get some use out of and they couldn't get enough of it!

Still backing up. . . we're at my baby sister's college graduation. Couldn't be prouder of her. On the other side of her is not a lost surfer that just stood in the picture despite all appearances. I couldn't believe it either.

Last but not least is Chris' sister's college graduation. So proud of her, too!

That pretty much brings you up to speed, but I will say this: During all the May Madness my computer died. Literally. So Chris bought be this awesome Mac and I won't complain but rather explain that all these are put up as they came out of the camera as I haven't bought software to even be able to crop the pictures and can't use any of my old software as it won't work on a Mac, you get the point. So ignore the backgrounds for the most part, except that one that shows how few people there were at the beach - we had it almost all to ourselves!

P.S. I'll try to start blogging more.

Try.

2009-06-06T19:56:00.003-07:00

It seems as May has been our busiest month for the last few years. Now that June's here I'm ready to take a breather!

We had so much fun visiting family in the midwest and celebrating Caedis' first birthday and Karis' ballet recital. . . . we took many, many pictures and I'll be posting some of those shortly (I'm still learning how to use my new iMac!). Here's one of my favorites until then . . .

2009-05-20T15:49:00.001-07:00

My baby is one today! Where has the year gone?

Check out this post of all three of my babies!

I have a lot on my mind

2009-05-03T13:57:00.002-07:00

A week ago today Chris and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. An event that is so wonderful I can't fully put into words. On the one hand I have been so blessed with such a wonderful husband and friend. My life truly is better because he is a part of it. That doesn't even scratch the surface of how much I love him.

And then there's the other hand.

This week my parents divorce was final.

No I'm not divorcing Chris, I'll just put that out there right now. No question. (Reread first paragraph, please.)

I've been avoiding posting about their divorce and how it affects me. To be honest I'll just say I haven't dealt with it much at all. I've talked about it. I've accepted it. I've cried countless hours.

As for moving on or trying to move on, I haven't given that much thought at all. Mostly because it's so stinking hard to deal with all I want to do when I think about what is to come makes me want to curl up in a ball to keep myself from falling into pieces.

I've gone through the motions. I've not cut off all communication with my parents. But I have removed myself for the last six months and lived in my bubble in my safe house and gone on about my life here in the desert. I used to talk to my parents every day. It was rare to not talk to them at least for a few minutes every day. And now it's the opposite. I talk to them once or twice a week, maybe. That's something I'm not proud of.

I'm not naive enough to think they'll ever get back together, it's not that.

When they told us I didn't blame myself and I still don't. Most of the more obvious things that show a marriage is about to end didn't start to surface until I'd already moved off to college. At that point I was too selfishly consumed in my new life I didn't realize what was going on. Plus, I was convinced they would never divorce so what I did see I most likely deemed insignificant. I think that's part of what makes it so hard is that both my parents were there, married, and at least putting on a happy face the entire time I lived at home. I always knew that there was no magic number of anniversaries you had to celebrate to guarantee that a marriage would last until death, but just thought since they had lasted so long it was until death.

It turns out that even being married with three kids and living half way across the country my parents' divorce is still hard.

Living so far away it's been easy to escape the reality of the situation.

My dad remarried this weekend. That makes my heart heavy. I have never met his new wife.

Part of me wants to meet her. Part of me wants to curl back up into that little ball.

This week it all changes. The kids and I are going back to the Midwest to celebrate my sister's college graduation. (I'm so stinking proud of her I can't stand it - she's beat the odds in so many of life's challenges and still going strong.) My dad will be there along with his new wife.

No longer can I table the subject I should've dealt with earlier.

This will be a tough few weeks for me as I think through all this and begin to truly deal with it.

Silly kids

2009-04-17T12:46:00.004-07:00

*tap tap* Hello?

This thing on?

Oh, that's better.

Now I can give loads of excuses for my absence the last 17 days, but I figure that since this isn't the first time I've gone a few weeks without blogging you expect that from me now. Instead of boring you with all the things we've been up to I'll post this questionnaire I've seen on a few blogs and thought was cute and promise to try to blog more. I pulled the kids aside one by one and asked them these questions and put down their answers unedited.

BTW - Karis is six, Silas is three.

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Karis: It's nap time? (I told her that a few minutes ago. . . )
Silas: Spankings.

2. What makes mom happy?
Karis: When I eat. (We just finished lunch. . .)
Silas:Uh. . she doesn't spank me.

3. What makes mom sad?
Karis: When I don't eat and when I hit.
Silas: If I go in your room.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Karis: You tickle me.
Silas: You're silly.

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Karis: I don't know.
Silas: me!

6. How old is your mom?
Karis: Fifteen? No, 51 years old?
Silas: Three.

7. How tall is your mom?
Karis: You're as high as that picture.
Silas: Big like this (spreads his hands as far up and down as he can).

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Karis: Play games.
Silas: Vacuum.

9. What does your mom do when you're not around.
Karis: Work out.
Silas: You vacuum.

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Karis: It would be for our family.
Silas: Being you.

11. What is your mom really good at?
Karis: Being a mom.
Silas: Grill.

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Karis: Not slamming into doors. (you got me - I have no idea what she means!)
Silas: Grill.

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Karis: Watch us kids.
Silas: Pick weeds.

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Karis: Cornbread.
Silas: A restaurant.

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Karis: Hmm. . . When you help me do a puzzle or make a pizza or make some brownies or something like that.
Silas: huh. . . blanket!

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Karis: You would be Dora.
Silas: Ariel!

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Karis: Play games.
Silas: Vacuum!

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Karis: Our hair is the same, it's brown.
Silas: Same as we are.

19. How are you and your mom different?
Karis: You have straight hair and I have curled hair.
Silas: We spray all. . .

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Karis: I know that you love me because you give me lots of hugs and sugars.
Silas: Cause you do.

21. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Karis: The commissary.
Silas: Walmart!

babies are so much fun

2009-04-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

Easter pictures

2009-03-23T16:47:00.001-07:00

babies and black eyes

2009-03-20T08:39:00.003-07:00

My baby is 10 months old today. Yesterday she finally figured out crawling. She's been getting around by doing a push up, pushing forward with her toes, letting herself down and starting it all over again. Lots of effort to not get anywhere fast. It was so cute, but now it's just regular plain crawling that gets her around the house fast!

Once she figured that out, she pulled herself up for the first time yesterday as well.

We're hoping Silas has learned his lesson about what happens when you jump on the bed, but I still think it's going to take another one or two of these for him to get it.

a four ring circus

2009-03-18T21:11:00.004-07:00

Our guests have gone, so I'm uploading the pictures from when they were here remembering how much fun it was to have them visit!

I love LOVE having two boys and two girls in the house. At least for four days it was great! I like to dress the kids alike and my boy just doesn't like to wear pink. Or dresses. So he's always the odd one out. Except for the last few days.

Sweet girls. . .

Handsome boys. . .
for a second at least!

We went to Chuck E. Cheese and a baseball game in the same day. You just haven't lived until you've done that when all the kids are supposed to be taking naps.

Do you see that follow through?? He's a natural! Now we just have to work on aim.

At the baseball game it was pretty warm, so we got a huge cup of strawberry lemonade for the boys to share.

Turns out they can share!

When the lemonade was all gone, Alex asked me to take the lid off the cup. I did and he starts to eat the ice. Or rather put the ice in his mouth, spit it back in the cup, put another piece in his mouth and spit it back in the cup. Then complain about the dirt in the water of the cup. Yeah, it was cute. He's such a fun little guy.

My boy with cotton candy on his face. They so rarely get sugar they were loving life!

Karis is licking the cotton candy off her fingers. The ladies above us thought this was hilarious. Baseball? What baseball game? They thought they'd bought tickets to the circus!

Turns out they did buy tickets to the circus!

we actually have visitors!

2009-03-14T20:47:00.002-07:00

People actually drove all the way out here to see us! YAAAAYY!
That's my nephew with my boy. Yes they are dressed alike down to the flip-flops. (You thought I was going to say underwear didn't you?) Ok, their shirts are slightly different. Can you tell my sister and I shop the same store's sales?

I had to include a picture of our pet bird who was sitting in her nest watching the kids play. And I use the word pet very loosely.

Get what you pay for?

2009-03-12T14:59:00.003-07:00

Last year we had a bird build a nest on our porch.

I was told that to keep them from returning I should paint the porch ceiling sky blue or put rubber snakes around.

Paint was $20 a can. Rubber snakes were $.88. Not a hard decision.

Guess we just have smart birds.

Butterflies

2009-03-11T13:54:00.008-07:00

Remember these?

I took these of Karis two years ago (almost to the day!) at the botanical gardens. We went for their butterfly garden and had a blast! Isn't she cute? So little with an angelic face. We went back today, so fast forward three years and this is what you get:

Once we got inside the tent, Silas didn't like all the butterflies flying around and this is as close as he would come. Most of the time he was dancin' around and ducking and trying to keep them from landing on him.

He agreed to take a picture with the flower if he could turn around and take a picture of the flower. That seemed like a good idea to me. The boy never looks at the camera and smiles.

Never.

This is what he took. I thought he did a pretty good job.

Caedis was still the entire time and one finally did land on her, just for a second. She wasn't a fan.

And Karis looks a bit scared here, too. What's the deal? It's a butterfly! They just didn't get it.

Once we left the butterflies, they had a much better time! Can you guess what Silas' favorite part was? He walked all around this exhibit singing 'Casey Jr.'s back, comin' down the track. . . '

He went in a boy. . .

2009-02-25T22:31:00.002-07:00

Came out a dentist.

DisneyLand

2009-02-22T20:05:00.009-07:00

I know you've been on the edge of your seat waiting for our DisneyLand pictures and stories.

Here they are. And there are tons of pictures, I only posted some.

For the record, this truly was the best family vacation we've had to date!

Chris and the kids on main street right before park opening, but what are they missing? That's right, the first thing we did was go get their Mickey Ears!

Just in case you didn't know their names. . . Yes, Caedis also has a pair. She wasn't fond of them.
If you take a scroll back up to the picture of Chris with the kids on Main Street you'll see lots of dark ominous clouds at the top. We knew there was a chance for rain but took ponchos and decided to tough it out. Good plan except for when the heavens open up and pour when you're on an outdoor roller coaster. Ha! Which is what happened, of course! Chris takes the kids on some Mountain Railroad roller coaster and leaves me with the bags. Seconds before it starts raining I covered Caedis and myself but once it started pouring I ran to the nearest store. Chris and the kids found me after getting soaked to the bone. No big deal, we just covered up, walked back to the hotel to change and came right back for more!

Once it stopped raining we stayed in the park and got through about 2/3 of the park in a few short hours. We focused mainly on the rides the first day. Karis says her favorite was the Matterhorn Bobsleds.

These are all day two pictures, we focused on meeting characters. In the picture with Donald can you see Silas' face of excitement? He was so excited to see Donald walking along! Karis got her book signed but not Silas, poor guy. He was crushed.

Here's proof that Caedis really was there. She slept most of the time.

I'm told no trip to DisneyLand is complete without churros. But did you know the churro stands don't take credit cards? Or IOU's? I know! We walked all the way to get some cash and I won't go into all the details, but *ahem* someone might have dropped the money after being trusted with it so we settled for a churro between the four of us and two funnel cakes. Blame me all you want, wasn't me and my lips are sealed. I don't think the kids minded.

The Princess Faire

Poor Aurora is trying desperately to get Silas to hold her hand and he flat doesn't want to! Just wanted to make sure you caught that, too.

I do have to input another story here. The princesses were all great at their job. Really. Karis was so excited she could hardly speak. Silas on the other hand literally stepped up to Mulan and the first words out of his mouth are 'I don't like this grass. I like rocks.' (If you can see in the picture she's standing on some fake grass.) They proceeded to have a conversation about rocks. Nice. Such a little gentleman!

The one who started it all:

The Fairy Godmother was my favorite. She was the only one who talked to Caedis and took a good few minutes with the kids. She was loverly. (Quick - name that movie!)

Last but not least was the Mad Hatter. He called Caedis a hedgehog.

We had three days at Disney Land and spent 25 hours total over the three days in the park. Before we left Chris was a bit skeptical about going in the off season, but over the three days the longest line we waited in was 30 minutes long. By the end of the first day Chris was saying he'd never go in the busy season again as most of the rides we walked up to and got right on.

That's the last you'll hear of our Disney vacation for now. I'll try and post Sea World pictures within a week or so.

Keepin' it real

2009-02-18T19:09:00.002-07:00

Ever heard it said that dinner's not ready until the fire alarms go off, or you can tell when dinner's ready when the fire alarms go off?

Yeah.

We have 143 fire alarms in our house.

But let's back this story up. A few days ago we bought yummy pork tenderloin so we could make prison pork. Awful name, scrumptious dish. To keep things short, you cut the tenderloin in half lengthwise, slather a filling of cream cheese and bacon or jalapenos on the inside bottom half, put it back together and wrap the whole tenderloin in a bacon weave. After that's done you grill it. Simple.

Chris wasn't home, I don't know how to use the grill and we're out of propane. Prison pork sounds soooo good for dinner.

Yours truly decides this can be cooked in the oven. Easy. That's what a broiler is for and I never use it. . .

No joke I was pulling it out of the oven when all 143 alarms go off. And we have neighbors that live 4 feet in either direction.

After 10 minutes the guy across the street knocks on the door and when Chris tells him we're cooking dinner he laughs. Laughs. Like this is funny. Look behind him and you see all the neighborhood kids lined up and staring at our house from across the street. Discreet.

Man was it good once we got to sit down. I think next time I'll buy the propane for Chris and let him grill it. It's less noisy that way.

2009-02-17T19:01:00.002-07:00

I realized it's been a while since I've posted pictures of Caedis. She's 8 months in these and is about to be 9 months old. She's almost crawling, working on switching from baby food to table food. It won't be long before she gets her first car.

This bow is not your regular every day bow in our house.

I love it, don't get me wrong, I just think it falls into the 'special occasion' category. The bow way up at the top falls into the every day category. Later I'll teach a class on how to categorize your bows. It'll be fun.

The most important thing about this bow is just having it. Reason being, Chris doesn't complain so much about the every day bows since we've been given this one.

He now tells people that comment on the baby's (every day) bow that it's not the biggest one we own.

P.S. I'm still working on Disney pictures - we took so many it's taking a bit to filter them all!

2009-02-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

We just spent a week in (sometimes) sunny

We had a few days at Disney and a day at Sea World.

More pictures and stories to follow.

bliss

2009-02-07T13:22:00.005-07:00

We've had that 24 hour bug that comes, leaves its mark and goes.

Not fun. So far I've had it, Chris and Silas have had it and Karis is washing her hands every few minutes just to be on the safe side.

Right now I have all the windows in the house open to air out *the* smell. By the end I did have everyone in the house walking around with a bowl/pot/pitcher just in case, but that's probably TMI. Although I'm glad they understood they needed to have it with them at all times.

Mostly because no matter how sick we are we planned a trip to Disneyland this week and I don't want the house to smell when we get back!! 'Cause we're going! I've never been, the kids have never been and we're leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow for a week where dreams come true!

PS. We are over the illness, just so you know, we're not really taking sick kids to Disneyland. Or maybe we should say we are so not many other people want to go. . . .the windows are up because it's a beautiful day outside, something like 70 is our high. Perfect.

Chris' son

2009-02-04T18:55:00.002-07:00

Silas woke up this morning and immediately took off his button down pajama shirt (that he can never get off without help, mind you) and changed.

He apparently dug through his shirt drawer, found two short sleeved OU shirts and put them both on. One over the other. All his other shirts were now crammed back in the drawer with the drawer half shut.

When he came and found me I asked what he was wearing and ever so casually he says he's wearing his OU shirts. Like it's an everyday thing for him to wear two and for him to change upon waking all by himself. I'm of course thinking it's more laundry I get to do.

Throughout the day he took them off, changed into another OU shirt.

And when I sent him up after dinner to clean his room? You guessed it. Another OU shirt.

At least he's learning to change his own clothes, if I'm really wanting to see the silver lining here.

Now for lessons on folding and how to do laundry. . .

Karis now has 12 pairs of shoes.

That has nothing to do with anything else in this post other than I just helped her put away the shoes that are too small and pull out the new shoes from her closet.

She's learning early, you can never have too many shoes. :)

A glimpse of my childhood

2009-01-29T10:23:00.003-07:00

When I was growing up my mom made roast every Sunday. Every Sunday.

There was never any question about what we were going to have for lunch on Sunday after church. Going out to eat was out of the question because we usually lived in such small towns that the nearest restaurant was half a day's drive.

So we had roast. Roast in abundance. Roast with carrots, potatoes, onions.

Roast.

I hated it. I loathed going home and having roast every Sunday.

I made friends who didn't have roast on Sunday and begged and pleaded to go to their houses for lunch so I wouldn't have to eat roast.

Fast forward to today and I've turned the corner. We're having roast for dinner.

And it smells soooo good.

Our tour of the firehouse

2009-01-22T15:41:00.002-07:00

Our home school group went on a wonderful firehouse tour today.

These firemen are wonderful! We had actually met them before at the birth of our little guy.
Because of that, I couldn't wait to go on this tour!

They did a good job at not giving a bunch of the info that kids don't care about. Which was nice. They got right to the point and the first thing they did was let 'em squirt a hose! They had this little house with fire coming out of the windows (a fancy piece of painted wood, really) to give them something to point at instead of each other. Someone was thinking!

They liked Silas. He was the youngest there so he got to try on their special coat.
You can see in the background, the little pink arm raised is Karis' because she wanted her turn.

Fireman G did a bit of talking, but he really held the short people's attention. Or maybe they were focused on the guy in the suit. Hard to tell from here. They were fascinated by all that went on though!

I know this one especially isn't great, but I thought I'd toss it in there anyway. If you've lasted to the end, that is.

When we left I asked the kids what was their favorite part of the tour and what did they learn.

Karis said her favorite part of the tour was their kitchen and she learned you shouldn't touch matches or lighters. I'm glad she learned the latter part, but my, oh my.

2009-01-22T15:27:00.002-07:00

I'm about to start putting together a post about our firehouse tour this morning, but first I just ran across this article.

Most of my news does come from Yahoo! main page, I'm not one to sit and watch Fox News in my spare time. I like the Weather Channel's local on the 8's much more. No joke, just ask my kids. I tend to sit and watch the weather in the mornings for the local on the 8's and usually end up watching a few rounds of it along with everything in between. Who'd a thought??

So back to the article.

The part that got my attention is they actually say "People are so scared they're starting to save."

How is that a bad thing again? Did I miss something?

I thought it was a good thing to save and not to live beyond our means. Then again, you're dealing with a woman who likes to watch the weather.

I am sad they say the Gap is in trouble and though I never shop there for myself, I tend to shop their clearance racks for my kiddos quite often. I'd hate to loose the Gap. S'pose that means Old Navy would go with that. . .

Where have you been?

2009-01-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

I know that's what you're thinking. Seems like we just disappear every now and then.

In the last month. . .

. . .Caedis has gotten two teeth! She got her first on Dec. 30 and didn't get her second tooth until two weeks later. I had never seen a baby with just one tooth before. To be honest, I was kinda hopin' that second one wouldn't grow for a while longer, just because it was cute to see her with just one. I know this is silly.

. . . Karis has lost another tooth. Other than that, she's discovered she likes the color yellow. I don't think she likes it enough to give up pink just yet, but she did resemble a banana yesterday at church. No joke. Yellow shoes, yellow footless tights, yellow shirt. . . She looked so cute!

. . . Silas is still, um, Silas. He still walks around the house singing 'boomer sooner' almost every waking moment. You know, if he were to wear a different OU shirt every day, he'd have enough to last more than a week? Granted that he doesn't dirty his shirt and can wear it all day long. Which never happens, BTW. I've just gotten used to either cutting a hole in a trash bag for his head to go through, covering him, blending his food up and putting it in his sippy cup to drink or letting him wear a dirty shirt for the rest of the day after breakfast.

Those are our kid updates for the month and now to where we (I've?) been.

For those of you who don't know, we home school. Ah, yes. And we love it!

The only thing is we've had a few roadblocks with Karis. She is so good at math, science, grammar, history, and the list goes on, until you get to writing and reading and sometimes art. We follow The Well-Trained Mind pretty closely and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to home school. She recommends two books to begin with your child in reading. The first one I'm going to talk about is Phonics Pathways. The first thing I did was check and see if my library had it. You know what? They did! I figured if I liked it, if it worked for Karis I'd buy it after our three weeks was up from borrowing it from them. We began our reading lessons and holy cow it took 45 minutes to struggle through one of their simple lessons. I continued. I praised her small efforts and kept pushing through to no avail. It wasn't getting better, it wasn't getting easier and she was starting to hate her reading lessons.

Back to TWTM for me to see about plan B. The next book recommended was The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Library didn't have it. Shucks! So I shell out the money and buy it convinced it will solve all our reading problems. Are you laughing yet? Let's just say I actually pushed Karis to finish this one and again, it was a struggle.

Problem is that she doesn't recognize words that she's just read. She sounds every word out every time. Most of the time she puts the sounds together and gets the word right, but do you have any idea what that's like? I'm sure some of you do know and it's so frustrating!

Off to do some research and find out what's going on. . . and that's where I've been.

Here. Only looking up answers to what's going on and what we can do to help her succeed in reading.

Both Phonics Pathways and The Ordinary Parent's Guide use the same methods to teach, just do it a bit differently. I wanted to try a different method.

I came across a few articles and a few recommendations, but couldn't find anything that amounted to much. What I did find was a website that offered more reading curriculum with a different method.

The book is called The Writing Road to Reading. The site suggests using the fourth edition, but the library had the fifth edition so I got it. It is what it says. It teaches the child to read as they are writing which includes spelling in that. It's different. Karis dreads it.

The day I told her we were starting a new reading book you might as well have told her you were taking all her Barbies away. And that's serious talk around this house.

We've just finished our first week of this book, will start our second week tomorrow (we didn't have school today for MLK), and on Friday she turned to me and said 'This reading and writing stuff is fun, mom!' She's getting it. The lessons don't take a struggling 45 minutes to do. She's not dreading it. And she's advancing. So far.

I only hope it continues and although I don't think it's solved/solving all our problems, at least she's enjoying learning to read and write for now.

P.S. Any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations you may have I'd be happy to hear! What method of teaching yours to read has and hasn't worked?

I like Vegas for its spontaneity.

2008-12-10T21:37:00.005-07:00

We took a family vaca to Vegas, baby!

Vegas!

We had so much fun visiting M&M world. . .

You wouldn't believe what that bag of M&M's cost if I told you. Really. You'd pass out.

And you only think I'm joking.

The kids with the M&M race car. . .

I know Karis has her eyes closed, but it's the only picture of us all together in Vegas, and there was a long line of people waiting to take their pictures with such a huge celebrity!

We did other things in Vegas, like eating at the Rainforest Cafe.
Silas claims this was his favorite part of the whole trip.
The waitress walked up to see how we were, ect. and he immediately pipes up and says 'I'd like the chickens please and my sister wants pizza with water. My dad wants soda and my mom wants milk, too.' He didn't stop talking to her the entire meal.

This was a sight we saw pretty much every time we left the hotel.

And something you only see in Vegas. I know these aren't good at all, but I had to show proof - an underwater Santa!

The real reason we were in Vegas was for Chris to run the half marathon. He did it in 1hr. 52 minutes. Not bad, I'd say, seeing as how I can't run 1.3 miles! He's trying to get me to sign up and train for a 5K. I want him to take ballroom classes with me in return. I don't think that's a compromise he's willing to even think about. He is looking forward to running more half marathons, though and looking for different cities to run them in, so who knows where to next!

Last, but not least, we got to see Chris' uncle John. Haven't seen him in four years or so and I didn't take any pictures! What was I thinking? He just happened to be working while we were visiting. We got just a few minutes' window to visit and let him hold Caedis. He came right after we got back from seeing the Tournament of Kings show.

Which means we had some rowdy kiddos.

Especially since they woke up extra early that morning for the race. And the morning before that because in Vegas the sun never quite goes down, it seems.

If your kids haven't been taught to wake up when the sun rises, their Nana just hasn't done them right. That's just something Nana's do.

There's a bright golden haze on the meadow. . .

2008-12-09T21:23:00.005-07:00

Finally our pictures from Thanksgiving/Christmas in Oklahoma. I already posted pictures from our Thanksgiving/Christmas in Oklahoma City, now we're traveling a bit farther south in the Sooner state to visit the rest of the family. Not often that we're all together any more since we live a few states away.

There were so many cameras I don't think the three of them looked in the same spot for a single second! Here's Karis and Silas with cousin Alex. Or Al, as I like to call him. Doesn't he have the prettiest blue eyes?

That's my mom. The kids call her 'Nana.' She wanted to be called Grandma until the girl in the purple said 'Nana' one day, meaning ba-nana. After that it didn't take long for mom to decide she wanted to be called 'Nana.' I don't blame her. If I could I'd be called 'dada' since two of my three have said 'dada' first. The third hasn't quite said 'dada' yet, but she's a whole lot closer than I like to admit. Just something about the young'uns saying your name first. I'll probably never know what that's like.

Have you noticed the bows yet?

This is Caedis with the green and pink bow and cousin Jayden with the brown and pink bow.

Just to be clear -

THESE ARE GIRLS.

People seem to think that a baby with no hair must be a boy even though they are all dressed in pink. So instead of hanging a sign on their baby carrier, we put a nice big bow on their noggin. No matter what color the bow, people know you have a girl. It's nice.

Until someone decides to take your bow.

It helps you realize just how much she loves her bow, even though her dad would happily take them all and add them to the goodwill donation stack.

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance!

2008-12-02T13:14:00.001-07:00

I have been having too much fun with this!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

For John and Angela- Part Two: Karis' Birthday

2008-11-30T20:33:00.004-07:00

Can you believe I've posted three times in one day??? It's some sort of record or something!

Finishing up the John and Angela series for today I'm posting Karis' birthday pictures.

Girl wanted a big cookie with marshmallow icing. Never heard of it until her birthday. Man it sure is good and mess-y!

She had to stare at the gifts all day long on the piano before opening them after dinner and cookie.
Now for the best part. John and Angela's gift came the next day.

Commercial break to do a cheer: Goooo Uncle John and Aunt Angela! YYAAAAYYY!!!

She wasn't sure what it was at first, but she loves it and can't wait to finish and get it back! Thank you two soooo much! (It's called illustory and she actually composes and illustrates a book, sends it in, they bind it and send it back. Isn't that neat?)

For John and Angela- Part One: Christmas

2008-11-30T16:51:00.005-07:00

Chris' brother and sister-in-law have been so faithful and generous as to send us gifts from afar.
While we were in Oklahoma we opened our Christmas presents (since we won't be going back for Christmas we just 'do' Christmas when we'll all be together). Since they couldn't be there, this post is for them. A play by play, if you will.

I'm sure this doesn't need too much narration. . .

But here's Steve already reading the instructions and opening the first box.

And the suspense builds. . .

What could be in there???

And the crowd goes wild!

We love games! And for those of you who are going 'huh?' the four King kids used to watch the all day marathon of A Christmas Story for 24 hours. No joke.

And here's Carol reading what pieces there are and places and all that fun stuff.

While Steve opens the next box. . .

And it's. . . it's. . . I can't even pronounce the name of that game!

What in the world???

We set it up to play. . .

And slowly but surely start to understand. . .

Of course Chris wins this one!
And now we're addicted - so THANK YOU!

(For those of you who want to know - the game's name is Settlers of Catan. Get it, stick with it. You'll be glad you did!)

This one's proof we're addicted - we sucked my brother into playing it a few times at my Grandma's house, too!

Next up will be Karis' birthday.

Oh, what a beautiful mornin'

2008-11-30T08:47:00.010-07:00

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving week in Oklahoma! We hope all of you had a blessed Thanksgiving as well! In all honesty, it's been a tougher year for us, but even when it is tough we still have so much to be thankful for!

So while I'm cleaning and unpacking and doing laundry (grrr) I'll leave you with our family portraits that we took just before we left.

But check back, I'll try and get to our Thanksgiving week pictures soon!

You might be a redneck if. . .

2008-11-21T21:50:00.002-07:00

You've ever used a car defroster to unfreeze the wieners you brought for your kids to eat on a long car trip.

Of course we haven't ever done anything like that, though.

Catch a can canner canning a can as he does the cancan, and you've caught a can-canning can-canning can canner!

2008-11-19T13:16:00.005-07:00

We tried our hand at canning!

We picked these jalapenos at Apple Annie's orchard, and it was either let them go bad or can them. (Ok, there were other options, but those were the only two we actually debated.)

I use the term 'we' loosely. It was all Chris' idea. Which is why he looked it up on the internet (see the computer in the background?) and got right to work. I don't think it said you need to eat the seeds in the directions, that was his own addition!

They sure do look purdy, don't they?

I helped a little.

Taught the boy how to chop an onion!

Which had this result.

And since I don't eat jalepenos,

I'll never know how good they really turn out to be.

Six years of Karis

2008-11-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Sweetie!!!

Her world just got bigger

2008-11-13T21:54:00.006-07:00

Caedis had rice for the first time today.

Obviously I thought it was cute.

Or maybe I'm still relishing in the fact that Chris is home and able to feed her solid food.

And enjoying the faces he makes while he feeds her.

Yeah there's a lot of pictures.

What can I say - she's my baby!

She's getting sleepy.

Between the food and the camera it was too much.

She's going downhill fast.

2008-11-08T10:25:00.003-07:00

We got iPhones!!!

Yesterday while Chris was working, I went and got us iPhones.
He had no clue I was getting them. Didn't know why his phone said 'inactive smartchip' regardless of how many times he turned off his phone and took out his smartchip, blew on it and replaced it.

I'd highly recommend that if you get one, get it on a Friday so you have all day Saturday to sit around and play with and update it.