Angel

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

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!

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.

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!