The Staples Family Blog

I have a blog?

2012-01-25T11:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't forgotten.......well maybe a little. But the truth is I just don't hold still for the computer. I can hold still really well for a massage or a good book however;) But a post seems like a daunting task! Anyway, enough with my whining here we go.

Our life in a nutshell since the last post. Very busy November. Very crazy December. Got Intralasik eye surgery. Love it. Found a new home for our dog Minnie. Cried for a week straight. Got over it after I found out she got adopted by a retired Kindergarten teacher who is spoiling her rotten and giving us updates. Still cry when I look at her pictures though! Spent our two week break in Colorado (or traveling to!) and enjoyed it thoroughly. The kids played and played in the snow, and so did Kevin and I! Then we came home to reality and reality is great, but not as much fun as vacation in the mountains! Kevin is about to pull his hair out at work he is so busy and the kids and I just jumped right back into the school year. Funny how we complain in the summer about no school and complain during the school year about too much school.........ah but we do. That is why I should be in charge of the school system:) And I am rambling.

The kids are all doing super. Happy and mostly healthy......it's impossible for us not to have a little something going on around here, but compared to the sick season we had when Landon went to kindergarten.....it's a walk in the park. Landon is in basketball for the first time, which is making our schedule a bit busier, but it's teaching him some good lessons about teamwork and practice. Liam wants to join the wrestling team because he believes he has super human strength, but we are going to hold off on that one:) We are thinking of letting him play t-ball this spring. They both love school and we are still very pleased with their school and their personal progress. The girls still get excited about Mother's Day Out, they hug me and run right into greet their teachers and friends. They celebrated their 3rd birthday a couple weeks ago with a 'Girls Only' party. We played dress up, painted our nails, danced with a ballerina video, put on lip gloss and stick-on earrings, and ate pink and purple cupcakes!

So that's the nutshell version. Our pace of life still continues to be consistently less chaotic the older the girls get, but still just as busy. One phase of parenting slows down, while a new one arises. One challenge gets easier while another one gets harder! But through it all I thank God for the lessons the kids teach us. Parenting is teaching me so much about the way God feels towards his children. The countless times he watches us make the same mistake and the countless times he shows us grace and the indescribable love he has for each of us. We are so blessed just to wake up every day knowing God loves us and that we will be with him someday.

We continue to be heavily involved with Venture Community Church. We just celebrated two years of meeting together and look forward to seeing God work mightily through our small church in 2012.

Quick glimpse into the kids daily conversations...Liam 'Mom when I grow up I am going to drive a motorcycle. With a kickstand!' Landon jumps in, 'Well I am going to own a rocket boot store where I will sell my invention of the boot that rockets you into the sky.' Kallie then says, 'I want to be a kitty cat when I grow up mommy.' And finally Klaire says, 'And I will have a chihuahua with clothes.'

We never lack for entertainment:)

Nicci and I couldn't get Mark and Kevin out of our snuggies;)

Eating breakfast at the cabin.

The girls adore their cousin Lorelai.

They got Rapunzel stuff from my mom's side of the family.

What's it going to be!?!?! Remote control bumper cars! Yippee!

Playground in Redstone.

Very handsome boys if I don't say so myself.

The girls never complained about the cold weather. Only when snow got thrown in their face!

Go Eagles!

First hair cut. Ever. Yes, not single hair on their head has been trimmed since birth until a couple weeks ago! They did great and we only took off 2 inches which is hardly noticeable.

Klaire is just chill'n like she owns the hair salon, waiting for her turn in the big twirly chair.

3rd Birthday! Kallie was a pink princess and Klaire was a purple ballerina. Kallie's cupcakes were cherry chocolate and Klaire's were lemon blackberry! Klaire blew her candles out immediately and Kallie had a blow and spit technique so it took a bit longer!! Heehee

They were joined by friends from church and one friend from preschool.

To finish the party we de-accessorized and went for jump in the bounce house!

Creativity

2011-11-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

Definition: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination:

God has blessed our household with an abundance of creativity and imagination. Within minutes of arriving at our home, one should not be surprised to be greeted with an invitation to come to the playroom for a dramatic performance complete with illustrations (made just for you:), a full tour of our home guided by superman himself, a comedic act with original jokes, or a gift of three-dimensional paper creations. You might also hear some terms around our house that you are unfamiliar with. Here are just a few:

skurches- the marks on the pavement one makes when skidding their bike tires

looks- places in our house where you might find something scary

muspuff- you don't want to be one of these, evidently it's something similar to a goofball

You might also hear about an entire family you never knew existed. An imaginary friend was not enough for Liam, he has had an entire imaginary family for a couple years now. He has a wife named Kate and three kids. Hatch, Pop-up, and Pop-out (because that is how they came out of his tummy when he was pregnant) One of Liam's current aspirations is to create an entire new sport, cloud surfing. He is working through the details of the jet powered cloud board, hopefully a parachute will be mandatory.

The girls are quickly following in their brother's footsteps. They are drawn to art and music and are already trying to be little comedians and story tellers. Klaire makes up her own tunes on the piano and she requires her music book to be open, her special lamp to be on, and an audience. Kallie can sing an original song about anything for a continual 5-10 minutes in the car and I really need to get that on film:)

I would like to conclude this post on creativity with a little writing exercise from Landon. First, let me explain that he writes sentences and scriptures as a consequence to certain behaviors. We started this when he was 5 1/2 and it has proven to be effective:) This past weekend he got very upset over something he accidentally did and then stomped off as I was still speaking to him. So he was assigned:

I will not get angry about accidents. 10x

I will not stomp off when mom is talking. 2x

And this is what he wrote:

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I will not get angry about accidents.

I will not get angry birds for my birthday.

I will not get angry bees to sting you.

I will not get angry elephants to smash you.

I will not get angry at anyone.

I will not get angry at the table.

I will not get angry at...................I don't know. Oh yeah! My cup!

I will not get angry at me and you, and you, and you, and you, and you!

And I will not stomp off when mom is chiter-chattering.

And I will not stomp myself.

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I couldn't help but laugh while reading it and tell him it was quite funny. Next time he knows he is to write his sentences correctly and save his creative writing for later:)

Back to School!!

2011-09-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Our big second grader and brave kindergartener started school two weeks ago and they are both doing great. They got awesome teachers and we are adjusting much more easily than we did when Landon went to Kindergarten!! It helps that the girls are two years older and Liam is willing to let me drop him off in carline;) I just had a memory of me feeding the girls bottles and getting everyone fully dressed and feed and then unloading everyone at 7:30 to walk Landon up the hill and all the way to his door...........ahhh.......I know there were days that God gave me supermom endurance and patience.......

Kallie and Klaire started Mother's Day Out/Preschool last week and they love it! And mommy does too-oo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's two days a week for 5 hours. And EVERYONE asks me, "What are you going to do!?!?!" Ha!! What am I going to do? I will have that 5 hours planned out everyday. Mostly for errands because running errands with kids verses without is like a microwave dinner verses Patrizios (my favortie restaurant)!!!

We spent all day outside on Labor Day because the weather was A.MAZING. We played out back, we played out front, we went to the park, we flew kites, we ate two meals outside, we got sun burns.....not really I just thought it sounded funny... Anyway, had to throw in this picture because it is so stinkin cute. They are at such a fun age right now, we are soaking it up.

Summer in pictures!

2011-08-11T07:56:00.001-07:00

Frozen Yogurt and snow cones are the best treats to beat the heat in Texas!!

Liam had his 5th birthday party at every parents favorite place, Chucky Cheese:)

He had a Woody cupcake cake!

This was taken by the Carbondale Fish Hatchery (near the cabin). River fishing is not ideal for little ones, so we took the kids to this lake where kids are allowed to fish for free.

Kevin, Collin, my dad, and I hiked up to Geneva Lake while at the cabin. It was a challenging hike, but as you can see, very rewarding. We caught enough trout for dinner too:)
The boys tried so hard to catch fish in that little lake, but only had one taker. The rest had caught on to the game and ignored all of the bait we dangled in front of them!

We had a wonderful time at the Redstone 4th of July parade again. It never disappoints. We had Kevin and Landon on a four-wheeler, Liam and Lorelai in a wagon, Kallie and Klaire in another wagon, and my dad on his paperboy bike. Most of my mom's side of the family comes into town for the weekend of the fourth and we had a fantastic time with everyone.
This is Hayscreek Falls and it is just a few minutes up the road from the cabin. The water was super high this year due to extra run-off and so the rivers and waterfalls were awesome.

We are eating at our favorite breakfast place, The Smithie, in Carbondale. Kevin's parents were able to join us at the cabin for a few days before my family came in. We miss you Grandma and Grandad!

The girls were happy to go on our off-roading adventure. Kallie had strep throat at the time, but she was a trooper. The boys loved trying to skip rocks across Lake Lizard with Grandad, Uncle Mark, and Dad.
We took two four wheel drive vehicles and two four wheelers up to Crystal (in the winter the only way up is by snow mobile). The Crystal Mill you see was constructed in 1892 for use as a powerhouse for mining operations.

These two are pretty cute huh? Cousin Lincoln came over from Denver and had many adventures with Landon and Liam including a very memorable treasure hunt. Thanks Aunt Nicci!
Cousin Cora is such a sweetie and we enjoyed playing with her and NOT giving her strep!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin and I were able to get to Calgary for a couple days to participate in A Day for Drew and meet our new niece Piper!! What a joyful and beautiful little baby she is!

The girls moved into toddler beds at the beginning of the summer. And WHEW has that been an adventure:) They have way too much fun together instead of sleeping!!

We got to spend extra time with cousin Lorelai this summer:)

We went to several swim parties and enjoyed splashing with all of our friends!! We enjoyed watching Landon and Liam at swim lessons. They did awesome and we are so proud of their progress.

Nanna Janna made this very cool tent! We had some special camp outs with daddy and stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn.

We were very fortunate to get to see our long time missionary friends while they were on furlow. Matt and Nikki were still foot loose and fancy free last time we saw each other and now look!! They have two adorable little girls!

Well, those were most of the highlights from our summer! We are looking forward to school beginning and cooler weather!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cocoa and Garlic

2011-06-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

You never know what things your kids are going to become attached to. You usually hope that it something sweet and cute like a teddy or blankie. Or maybe something that is good sized so that you don't loose it or maybe a new toy that you worked hard to find and bought special just for them. Well, our latest attachment had none of those qualities. Meet Cocoa and Garlic our pet sheep from Noah's Ark that are less than inch in size. These are Kallie's. She named them. Yes, she watches me cook a lot:) And well these tiny pieces of plastic haven't exactly been easy to keep up with, but somehow Cocoa and Garlic remain with us.

Now I would like to tell you about one of our adventures with our beloved sheep. It started off as a typical grocery store trip. Klaire had to have her teddy bear and Kallie had to have her sheep. They of course had to use the bathroom right when it was my turn to order at the deli and they of course had to loudly announce that it was #2 that needed to be done. Immediately. So off to the restroom. Ten minutes later and we are back to the deli. Kallie had a sheep in each hand and Klaire was happy with Teddy. Many people stopped us to talk about the girls and their experiences with twins as we are accustomed to. They were their usual content selves until about halfway through our very long list, when they started to get fidgety.

We were picking out some vinegar right in front of the Starbucks coffee station in our very busy grocery store when I hear a clink clonk and look down to see Garlic fall, hit the wheel of the cart, and fly under the isle shelving unit. Meanwhile Kallie is hysterical. I try to calm her down and then I bend down to see if I can retrieve Garlic. Bending down is not going to work. I get on my hands and knees and see that there is only about one inch of space between the floor and the shelf and still can't see the stupid sheep. And my hand won't fit under it. So I lay down on the floor. My cheek is on the tile. I repeat, my cheek is on the tile. I see Garlic about 8 inches under the shelf. For a split second I think, tell her it went bye bye. But I can't. I find a pen in my purse and get back on the floor. Kallie is standing up in the cart yelling "MY GARLIC!! MOM MY GARLIC!! I NEED MY GARLIC!! GET MY GARLIC!!!!!!!!!!OH NO NOT MY GARLIC" People are staring, but no one is helping me. I'm wishing that they knew it was a toy sheep that my child was freaking out over, but what is one to think when she is yelling for garlic?!?!?!? After what seems like eternity on the grocery store floor I almost give up, but Garlic is meant to be with us and I miraculously reach him with my pen on my last effort. As I hand her that silly sheep I'll I can do is laugh.

What we do for our kids right???

Well, after that Cocoa and Garlic got banned from grocery store trips and for the rest of the day they rode in my purse. The girls put the icing on the cake by dropping a basket full of grape tomatoes all over the floor as we were checking out. I laughed on the way back home and told Kevin my next grocery store trip would be kid-free even if that meant nine o'clock at night:) Little did I know that my next trip wouldn't be any better. Stay tuned for the raw chicken juice disaster.

Drum roll please.....The Playroom

2011-05-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

First I must thank my in-laws for helping us SO MUCH with this project! Secondly, thanks to all of you that have given us advice on how to accomplish this. Listening to other people's initial thoughts on design projects helps me make decisions, even if I don't head that direction I at least know of another way to go! I can't believe I put up with white walls upstairs as long as I did, but I guess patience has paid off, we are very pleased with the turn out.

Some of these pictures were taken by my friend Sarah and used on her wonderful blog, http://restorativeliving.blogspot.com/2011/05/home-tour-my-decor-mentor.html, which featured some of my decorating:) You will notice that the wall color changes from picture to picture...I would say that the picture that captures it most accurately is #3 and #4. It is an aqua with a slight turquise tent, it was both Kevin and I's first choice out of the samples we got. So that choice was easy!
The wall vinyl came from etsy, I felt a bit bad for not designing it myself, but we were crunched for time and I was very pleased with the way the artist drew the swirls. The huge foam bags have soft microsuede covers that are machine washable! And when they arrived at our front door they were in the tiniest boxes which worried me, but then we found out they were vaccum sealed and we got to watch them grow which was very cool.

All right the art area is my favorite part of the room. I love how balanced it is:) The pencils were made by my father-in-law and we added the knobs for the hanging art bags that I am in the process of making. The sheet metal for displaying art was my friend Lauren's idea and it is perfect. No tacks to worry about and the kids can hang their pictures all on their own.

Remember the old primary colored table and chairs? Not me, I have blocked that from my memory:) A little paint and some super easy stool covers and waaalaaa.

We talked about built in storage cabinets down the long wall, but decided it would be smarter to put money into something that we can take with us when we leave this house. Also, the padded leather bench is very kid friendly because it doesn't smash fingers. I am in love with that bench and I'm so glad Kevin let me get it:)

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the tour! I need a big fun rug, but I'm finding them to be so pricey! This rug is made out of gumball size balls and I want one pretty bad but they are charging an arm and leg.........I guess it takes many hours to string one together and the balls are expensive. I looked into making one myself, but still doesn't make sense. Anyway, check it out:

http://www.edelynn.com/panelsandrugs.html

Look at me posting twice this month.........I feel like I just did an extra credit project:)

Blog Slacker.

2011-05-03T11:17:00.001-07:00

Here's Texas weather for ya, we were in swimsuits Saturday and on Sunday we had hail that didn't melt off all day because it was so cold.

Klaire looks so grown up in this picture!

Rain Forrest Cafe for Landon's Birthday dinner.

Singing him happy birthday, Liam is wondering if he gets icecream too. Haha

Before we went to Rain Forrest we went to Legoland also for Landon's birthday.

After the ride, he decided he wasn't a big fan!

Legoland had a pink room that the girls enjoyed. They want to be like Landon and Liam so much!

Our big seven year old...........what!!!!!!!!! Oh and everything in this room is made out of legos. Amazing.

Liam showing us his punch move. He told me the other day if he ran into a real bear in the woods he would try to fight it instead of running away. Unfortunately, I believe him!!!!!!

So I made headbands for the girls for Easter that turned well, but got a little lazy on the dresses and as you can see I pinned on some flowers instead of sewing them:) But look at that hair! They let me curl it!

Venture Easter Egg Drop. Our church had eggs dropped from a helicopter which was so awesome I forgot to snap a picture! Oh and I had all four of them by myself which usually plays a factor in how many pictures I take:) But it was a great outreach to the community and the kids had a great time.

A new found love. And let me say that every family needs a set of corn cob holders, your kids will think they are the coolest.

I have to admit it, I am not the blogger I used to be. I posted 62 times in 2008......and I have posted 4 this year. And I heard through the grapevine that my blog is getting boring and well I guess you are right....................................oh and I know who you are;) heheheehee

Well, I guess I am going to have to spice it up to make up for the lack of frequency!! So I am going to try to do better! Ya'll stay tuned for the playroom finished results and my latest embarassing grocery store story.............

Ski Trip. With no munchkins!

2011-03-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

We spent four days up at the cabin with some friends a couple weeks ago. And let me tell you, it was AMAZING. I missed the kids worse each day we were gone and couldn't wait to get home the last day, but I needed that break so much and I came back feeling refreshed and ready for anything they were going to throw at me!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin and I both grew up skiing but have never in our ten years of togetherness been able to go. So we were like giddy little school girls and thankfully skiing is like riding a bike and you pick it right up where you left off (except we both have more brains and less dare devil in us than we used to!!!!:).

Rachael (cousin to Misty's Hubby), Misty (one of my dearest friend's who I grew up with), and Me!

The ladies and day two.

I think he just fell for fun. I by the way, didn't fall.....................heheheheeheheeheheeee

Misty and I conquering an icy blue.

Mt. Sopris in the background. Misty's husband took most of these and we never took an all guy picture, but there were two couples with us:)

Two year old twinkies

2011-02-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

The girls turned two at the end of December, but we just celebrated last weekend!!! Sickness and travel delayed our plans....but they didn't know the difference:)

The last year seems like it was as much of a blur as their first.....will it ever slow down!?!?

Anyway, here's what the girls are up to lately:

Talking. Way too much talking around here:) Some of my favorite phrases are....."That's annoying Mommy." ......"Miss you Daddy"....."Where is my Daddy?"....."Sissy did it."....."You come here right now Mommy."...."Mommy Staples"...."I burped that" !!!!!!

Dancing. The girls and I dance all the time. Klaire can really bust a move. Kallie can too, but Klaire really tries to mimic my moves.

Singing. Jingle Bells is still being sung around here along with Jesus Loves Me and Itsy Bitsy Spider and the ABC's

Wearing panties! We started trainging them a month ago and it was a real challenge at first but we are glad we hung in there. They are doing great and they look adorable in their panties:)

Playing dress up. Between the four of them we almost always have someone in costume!!

Never-ending energy! The girls have so much fuel that some days I can hardly keep up with them. They just go from one end of the house to the other making quite a trail behind them. I am going to write a post just about the things they get into one of these days....they really are like little monkeys sometimes!! They get so hyper after dinner too. They run around squealing (with the boys) trying to pounce on each other and it is quite a sight!!

One of Kevin and I's favorite things that they do right now is call the boys down for dinner. I need to get it on video.....it is the cutest thing. They both make a bee-line for the stairs hollering the whole way......"LANDON!! LIAM!! Dinnerz weady! Landon Staples.....Liam Reed....come down!!!!! Dinnerz weady!! Boooyyyzzz!!!"

Double and Trouble. Tornado and Hurricane. Seek and Destroy. :)

Kallie aka Lil Pip, Pip-ers, Kallie Layne

Klaire aka Squeekers and Klaire Bear

Presents from Gamma and Ganddad:)Hooray for dizziness!!!Daddy picked this out. As you can see below, Klaire approves!!

Nanna doesn't need to pay a hair stylist anymore:)

Klaire.Lyndi made the cupcakes of course. I am spoiled. I told her to just throw some cute sprinkles on them, but she made them ridiculously adorable anyway.

Kallie.

Landon's deep thoughts for the day

2011-01-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

The other day Landon was pestering me about eating some candy (for the second time at least) and I had to have the 'limit your sugar talk' for the hundredth time........I tell ya that kid and his sweet tooth. You would think that we only give them sugar once a year the way our kids devour it!!! And anyway, I said that there are consequences to eating too many treats and he said, "Yeah God makes us get fat." I said "Well, God made our bodies work the way they do, but we choose how to take care of them so really we decide our own consequences." He didn't like that answer and argued until he got teared up because I was challenging his concept of God not asserting His power over individual will and choices and suffering coming from an imperfect world. So he ended up having a little calm down time and then we had a really great talk and he then accepted and understood what I was trying to explain to him. We started back at Adam and Eve and went from there, but I thought afterwards.....Gee....did I really just have that talk with my six year old.....I struggle with my own understanding of all this!!! Landon oh Landon I think you are going to do some special things for the kingdom. God please help me raise this child!!

Then he says a little later, "Mom did you know that if God hadn't created Antarctica that the world would be covered in water? Think of it like this mom, Camels have a huge tummy that lets them hold tons of water without flooding their body, it's the same way with Antarctica." I asked him if he learned that at school and he smiled and said, "I learned about Antarctica from my globe, but I wanted to help you remember it so I thought the camel story would help you mom."

Some things about me. just me.

2010-12-14T10:18:00.001-08:00

As many of you can imagine, things aren't about me very often. And they haven't been for a while. And...I like it that way (most of the time:).
So I occasionally want to post about something that is on my mind or something that I'm passionate about and I don't b/c 1) I don't post often 2) I'm not as interesting as my children 3) Because the main purpose of this blog is to keep people connected to us, especially the kids. BUT...I don't have the time or desire to start an all about Laura blog so I guess you are occasionally going to have to put up with an all about me post!!!!
That being said, I better get started because I have like ten posts that I need to fit into one!!

1) First, I always want to post about cooking and recipes. Yes, the kids make cooking difficult at times, mostly the girls, but we adapt and somehow we manage to rarely eat out. I love the days when Kevin takes all the kids upstairs and I get to cook by myself. It is amazing how much faster I am without distractions and less frazzled by the time I get my creation to the table! I am going to brave a piece of meat that I have always been intimitated by (and never want to buy:), filet mignon, for one of our holiday dinners. I will have to let you know how it goes!!!

Now I know I should have used a bigger bowl! I was whipping cream:)

Here is my Grandma's fudge recipe for all of you thinking Christmas goodies!
1 lb. Hershey bar
2 c. semi choc. chips
1 lg jar marshmellow cream
3 c. chopped pecans
41/2 c. sugar
1 lg. can evap. milk
3 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon vanilla
Pinch of salt

Mix sugar and milk together in a large roasting pot. Stirring constantly bring to a roiling boil and keep stirring for 6 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in Hershey and choc. chips till melted then add marshmellow cream stir till smooth. Add in the rest of ingredients and mix well. Spoon out onto parchment paper or wax paper.P.S. I break up Hershey bar, open c. chips, marshmellow cream, butter and vanilla and measure nuts all ahead of time because once you get it off the heat you need to move fast. It’s also very helpful to have two people spooning it out. Be careful not to scorch the sugar and milk.

2) Books!!! Oh Reading 'for fun' why have I denied you for so long!?!? Hummm....could it be because I was forced to read for so long and then went straight into baby bonanza during college and then started a business in the middle of the craziness......yes I think so!!!!! But the reading drought is over and I am hooked. Here are some books 'for fun' that I highly reccommend. By the way, Kevin and I had a really neat night last week....we both just picked up our books after we got the kids in bed and sat down on the couch and just read.....never turned on the tv and didn't miss it. Then we both completed our books within minutes of each other! How's that for good timing?? Anyway, we both just read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins(a three book series) and it was fabulous.

3) Parenting. This is my full-time, non-stop, super exhausting, always challenging, but very rewarding job. For me, it is the purpose of my life right now. I have an opportunity to influence these four precious souls more than anyone else and if one of our kids decides to love the world instead of God when they are grown, I will be heart broken and crushed. So I am giving it my all and messing up plenty a long the way. But I am pleading to God for more wisdom and patience and endurance and begging Him to forgive me for constantly failing. Parenting is the most humbling experience I have ever had. I feel like I continuely need my own 'little talk'!! I do want to share a book that has greatly impacted the way we strive to parent, Shepparding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp, I wish I would have read when we firsted started this adventure. I just bought two on Amazon for twelve bucks, I am giving them away right and left in hopes that other people will read it and be blessed from it as we have.

4) P90X. Okay I have been wanting to share my experience and opinion on this program for a year and it's pretty ironic that I talking about when I haven't done it months, but oh well! I mentioned in a post last fall that Kevin and I were doing the program and I've had several people ask about it. The program is 12 weeks long and you work out 6 days a week for an hour to an hour and half. A diet is also included which basically consisted of shedding weight the first month with lowfat protein and then they start adding in more carbs the second month and by the third you are eating tons of carbs. Anyway, that's how your are supposed to do it!!!! We did the diet for one week:) We did the program for a solid six weeks and then off and on for two weeks. Then I decided to just do it once or twice a week from then on and I haven't done it lately but hope to start again in January. So what did we think? Kevin hated it because it took up our entire down time (8pm-10pm) in the evenings. It takes a few minutes to set up the weights and pull up bar and we used a mat to protect our carpet and then you have to shower afterwards so it was nearly a two hour ordeal. We did decide the second month that we would stop at one hour even if that meant stopping in the middle of the workout (we would just skip forward to the cool down) and that helped. But to me the results were worth the effort. I was having trouble loosing the last ten pounds of baby weight (it had been 10 months) and I was able to loose that ten pounds in about 4 to 5 weeks with out changing my diet much. And Kevin used to have planters fasciitis (foot trouble:) and after all the stretching during the program it went away. And I loved the endurance that I gained back. I hated feeling like I couldn't go climb a mountain to to say (not that I could climb a very big one:)! I want to always feel like I can go for a hike with my dad in Colorado and keep up or go for a mile run without having to walk. And by the end of the six weeks I could do two real chin-ups by myself which is a good feeling ya know! So is the program killer.........oh yes most definetely......but it gets the job done!!

5) Decorating the play room! I have this blank canvas and we are planning on turning into something special for the kids this spring. Any ideas????

I really want to do a toy storage unit with a padded bench in the middle down this long wall. But I'm having trouble deciding whether or not to paint the angled wall btw. the regular wall and ceiling....does that make sense?? I am leaning towards yes to make the room look taller....but then it leaves us with one small strip of unpainted ceiling, so then I've thought about doing a different color on the ceiling and angled walls. But also don't know what color to do! I hate primary colors and it has to be gender nuetral....so I'm thinking light lime green or something in the aque family? Any other suggestions??
My mom found this great little table and chairs at a garage sale and I think I am going to paint the whole thing expresso and then make cushions in a fun fabric for the stools. The covers I am envisioning will have elastic around the bottom to secure under the lip of the stools and will be washable!!
This little nook is going to be the art area and the new home for the table and chairs. I'm thinking the reading area will be where the table currently is. As for the nook, I am going to have to put down some sort of rug down I think because I want the boys to be able to paint occationally. I am going to do a little curtain in the window....have no idea what kind..!! And here's my idea for the art supply storage or should I say Pottery Barn's idea:)See the big pink pockets!! I want to do those in fun fabric to match the stools and label them for all the art stuff. I want one down each wall in the nook with a way to display their art above it! Any ideas on how to display their art? Any other ideas on the playroom? Furniture, colors, storage, wall art????? Some cute wall vinyls???

That's all for now folks.......I don't want to be in the spot light too long!!!

Because I promised...

2010-11-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

Have your ever seen a cuter Buzz and Woody?!? The girls are enjoying their first suckers with our friend April.

We just got home from Thankmas in Montana and we are trying to get back in the swing of things. Kallie decided to climb out of her crib 12 times last night so I am dealing with that while Kevin is away on business. Fun.Fun. Suitcases are still full and I haven't even done one load of laundry. I am feeling swamped!!

Yikes! I'm back!

2010-10-31T19:32:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for Kindergarten with some help from Mommy:)

Our handsome little cheeseball.
Klaire is giving baby bear kisses.

Kallie is 'sleeping' with her babies.

And people ask me if they are identical!

Best buds.

Klaire our little dare devil wanting to ride with Landon.

Super hero Liam kept everyone safe when we went to brunch at little Ave's house. I'm ready to ride mom!!

Kallie and Klaire couldn't get enough of this!

Watch out people. No really he doesn't turn to the left very well!!!!

Costume pics coming soon!! October has been a crazy month!! Kevin has been gone A LOT and I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off even more than normal! But the kids are great. Hilarious and darling as always.

Our little Goobers

2010-09-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

(picture from June)

I have a few funny stories that I need to share before I forget them!!!

Last week I bought Liam and Landon some new underwear, boxer briefs, thinking they would maybe be more comfy than their briefs. So they were excited to try them (I love that they get excited over the smallest things, its' so fun) and Liam was particularly excited when I mentioned they would reduce wedgies. So he was wearing them for the first time and after a couple hours he says to me (as he is fixing a wedgie), "Mom these underwear aren't working, you are going to have to get some more." I said, "Well, all underwear give wedgies, I just thought these would be a little better." His eyes widen. I knew he had big news to announce. "Nope mom. Not all underwear. I KNOW that God's underwear NEVER give him a wedgie."

Now a little story that shows how much work I have cut out for me when it comes to taming the girls!! It was time for Klaire to get her jammies on and instead she was ignoring me and being a little toot to Kallie so I said, "Klaire, come to mommy or you are going to get a spank-spank." She looks at me, smiles, sticks her booty out, spanks herself, says, "pank-pank", and turns to keep 'playing' with Kallie. Well, she did end up with a real 'pank-pank' but I was so tickled I could hardly discipline her:)

We have decided that our kids are going to have some of the most creative (or strange!:) future aspirations EVER! Landon has wanted to be so many things, but the most memorable are 'Noodle Maker' and 'Poop Teacher' (he liked to coach Liam) but now I would like to announce that he has decided to be a 'Doggy costume maker' and a 'Science Experiment Teacher'.....we, especially Dad, is hoping for the ladder!!!! You should see some of the things he has tried to tape onto Minnie:)

I don't really have a particular funny story for Kallie at the moment. She is SO funny though. Both her and Klaire have the funniest facial expressions. They are very dramatic....surprise surprise....and they love to get all of us giggling at them. Kallie gets kinda shy around people so unfortunately most people don't get to see what a little turkey she is.

What's going on in Staplesville

2010-09-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

A lot. Which is why I'm a little behind on the blog:) And I don't have much time to post right now so I'm going to brief:) Or at least try:)

Some things we are up to......

-Softball for Kevin. 3rd season this year. Church team, he is coaching. He is enjoying it very much.

-Beth Moore Bible study. For me:) First one and I'm enjoying it very much. Even the homework!

-Hosting a small group on Wednesdays at our place. I love cooking for others!

-Bunco for me once a month and poker group for Kevin....we are on a loosing streak currently!!

-School school school. Remembering lunches, picture day, nightly homework, show and tell, dress up days, ahhhhh so much to remember!!

-Book Club for me. Shocker for those of you who know me well. But I am getting into reading and find it more enjoyable than straining my eyes and neck in front of my computer!! Which is another reason the blog is at the bottom of my to-do list):

-Church plant. Most of the stuff we are involved in is with our church community, Venture. We have been attending and helping out with the church plant since earlier this year.

Oh and the most important thing we have been up to...........

Tear-free Start!

2010-08-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

We have a first grader. AHHHH!!! That is so crazy! Let me tell ya this back to school was sooooo much easier than last year. Mommy didn't cry. Landon was a pro at getting around the school and we are so excited about his teacher. The first day he said that it wasn't quite as fun as he was expecting, but yesterday he said that first grade was even better than kindergarten. So he is settling into the transition from basically playing all day to getting down to business really well thus far. And he and Margo and Kiran all got different teachers):

Liam starts back to 2-day preschool next week. And the girls aren't going anywhere yet! We probably won't send them until they are three.

Where is your nose?Where are your toes?Where is your hair?Where is your ear?Klaire pretending to sleep in Liam's bed.Kallie is our shoe girl. I can never find my shoes!!I know it's not much curl, but I adore it and play with those curls all the time!Thank you Jesus.

A Cowboy without his hat...

2010-08-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Is like a Yodel without 'ay-hee-hoo'!!!!!!! Not a Toy Story fanatic??? Well then you may want to brush up on your Toy Story characters before you talk to Liam about his birthday! Actually his birthday wasn't all Toy Story, but his favorite present was 'Woody'. And Woody talks when you pull his string and he has several cute phrases like the one above. Liam didn't set him down for literally 48 hours. It was the only gift we got him because we were taking him and Landon to the circus, and boy are we glad we didn't get him anything else.

Woody has not only been his favorite new toy, but he replaced 'Blankie' at night. Which is a GINORMOUS thing in Liam's world. Blankie has been with him since birth and Liam has cuddled Blankie (or as he calls it....humm humming blankie:) and sucked his thumb with Blankie from before his first birthday. In fact, we had to cut the blanket into four pieces just so that I could wash it consistently. Blankie has been on every trip with us except for one! We forgot him and so we had to cut a piece off one of the girls' blankets! Blankie has comforted Liam through countless nights and naps and we believe it is one of the main reasons that Liam never once since he was about six months old cried when we laid him in his bed. We have enjoyed cuddling Liam while he cuddled Blankie and we have enjoyed watching him be calmed and so saying goodbye to Blankie is difficult. I have shed some serious tears over it and I am again as I type. Our Liam is growing up. It is a mark of a new chapter. A major new chapter for mommy.....

I remember when we wrapped him Blankie...

I remember when he couldn't decide which Blankie he wanted the most....

I remember when Blankie read stories with us...

But I will also remember Woody:)

I saw this cake in a magazine a few months ago and tucked it away in mind hoping that Liam would be happy with a motorcycle cake this year. And sure enough he was delighted with the idea. It was SO EASY. Two boxs cake mix, two cans chocolate frosting, coco puffs, chocolate doughnut holes, big pretzels, fruit roll-ups, green licorice, and a toy motorcycle and you're good to go.

Now I wish I still had some of this cake......chocolate is the best after a good cry!! I am going to be a wreck when the girls get to this age too:)

I am....

2010-07-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

Not doing For Keeps Design anymore. I know, not a very exciting change:) But for me, it's a big change.

Sarah and I started For Keeps right after I had Liam and opened for business September of 2007. We were super pumped and full of passion and optimism (and had more disposable time:). Now we are thrilled to be done with the money pit!! We believe that we had a great product but we just couldn't compete with our competitors pricing and website traffic. So we are both sad that it didn't end with us selling our booming business to Hallmark, but at the same time relieved to be saying 'adios' to the responsibility and stress. We learned SO MUCH throughout the process. We learned about strengths and weaknesses that we never knew we had.....I learned that I suck at writing and Sarah learned she could design when I forced her too!! We also learned what SEO stands for, how to file taxes for an LLC, learned what a comptroller is, how to run the administration side of a website, we learned about adwords, Xcart, the difference btw digital and press printing ($ is about it:), what EIN stands for, we learned the ins and outs of merchant services/credit card processing, and the list goes on and on. And I couldn't have asked for a better business partner either. She is an amazing business woman and friend.

Thanks for the journey Sarah!

Oh and by the way....we are selling our website. If you or someone you know is interested in an online retail store please contact me at lauramstaples@gmail.com for more details.

www.forkeepsdesign.com

Growing and Changing.

2010-07-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, we do a lot of growing and changing around here. I haven't posted about what the kids are really up to lately so I thought I share a few things.

First, this how much hair the girls have now.....ahhh enough for a real ponytail. I don't whether to smile or cry.

The girls are amusing us quite a bit lately with their interactions with us and each other. In this picture, Klaire is trying to get Kallie to stay put for the picture! Which is funny because this is the first time Klaire has ever held still for a picture when I wanted her to!
The girls are wanting to be very independent with certain things. Like feeding themselves for example, they want to use spoons and forks all the time now and get frustrated when we try to help them. Kallie is now taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to eat. She really does not want to be helped. I didn't think we could have another slow eater, but looks like Liam has some competition coming:) Hopefully he will snap out of it soon like Landon did at about four and half.

This picture below is a bit deceiving. They would actually much prefer to be riding this alone! They have just as many moments of loving each other as being jealous of each other. Trust me. Just this morning, Kallie saw me bending down to kiss Klaire's booboo and so she immediately stopped what she was doing and came over and sneakily tried to maneuver Klaire out of my attention and then when Klaire decided to go do something else, Kallie looked me straight in the face (like looky here mom, don't look at her) and proceeded to give me many hugs and kisses!

The girls are also talking a lot at home. They don't do it much when we are out and Klaire likes to talk more than Kallie, but Kallie is also quicker to sign for something. They have so many words now I have lost track of them, but my favorite thing to hear them say is probably 'daddy'. Something about little girls and their daddies:)

Liam is turning four this coming weekend): He is probably the one that I have the hardest time watching change for reasons that are hard to describe. He is just my little teddy bear and if you have ever spent much time around him you probably understand. Landon is a first born child to a 'T' with way too much brain in that head of his and so he is never lacking attention and the girls, well they get plenty too, so Liam is the one who will be off playing in his own world when all of a sudden he will come up and grab your hand and say, "I really like you. I'm glad God made you for me." Oh my heart. So anyway, I know now after watching Landon the last couple years, how quickly the innocence turns into knowledge and the comments and questions are still cute, but they just aren't the same. So I'm holding on....

Anyway, Liam wants to go to the circus so we are going to take him and Landon at the end of this month. I hope they like clowns more than me:)

I let Liam push the gas on the four-wheeler. Bad idea. We about popped a wheelie and I had to literally yank his hand off of it before we had a collision with the mountain! But the next time he was timid, so I guess it wasn't such a horrible idea!Then there is 'L-dog' or 'what?' is his new nickname! He wants to know everything that Kevin and I are talking about so if he doesn't hear a whole comment he will say, "What?" or "What we're you saying?" Anyway, he is really enjoying his summer off, don't get me wrong he misses Margo and Kiran like crazy, but summer has its bonuses too:) He is getting to stay up later and watch more shows and play the Wii and sleep in and enjoy leisurely breakfasts and spend more time his family. So he tells me that summer is pretty great too. He and Liam are thick as thieves lately. Liam used to be lost with out Landon, but now Landon seems just as lost as Liam when they are apart...which isn't often! But I have noticed a slight increase in the argueing btw the two of them since school let out, but we expected that.

We had two goals for Landon this summer: - To ride his bike with out training wheels - And to learn to swim

And we were nervous about being frustrated with him on both goals b/c he let us know that he did not really want to do either. So right after school got out, I decided that he was going to ride his bike everyday until he got the hang of it. Kevin predicted it would take at least six weeks and I thought a couple, but he did it on one week and loved (almost) every minute of it. He is so proud of his achievement and now we are working on pushing off and getting started with out help b/c that's the hardest part. He has stopping down thankfully!

And we put him and Liam in swim lessons that went for four days in a row for two weeks. The first day Landon was behind on floating on his back and by the end he was jumping off a diving board. Watching him 'get it' was AMAZING. He is a little fish. We have to tell him to calm down all the time when we go swimming now. I taught him how to dive and he didn't even hesitate, just did it. His swim teacher was so proud of him too and Landon has been asking to move up to the next class. We'll see!! Mommy and Daddy might be able to take it from here:)

He is also being a terrific big brother. He has a lot of responsibility and handles it so well. Below is pic of him with the girls reading them a book.

That all for now folks! Stay tuned for a post about my latest big change.

Happy Birthday America!

2010-07-04T13:05:00.001-07:00

We were fortunate enough to celebrate today in Redstone Colorado. We are at my parents place and having a blast as usual. If Kevin gets offered a job up here, we may not come home:)

It's a hard knock life at the cabin.

Had some time in the car to burn:)

My dad road his paper-boy bike in the Redstone parade this year. And tossed today's paper!

Lorelai was grumpy at the parade but put on happy face for me when we got home.

Daddy and Landon were in the parade.

The girls weren't in the parade, but they might as well have been with all the attention they got:)

Thirty

2010-06-27T12:09:00.001-07:00

This post is a little over due.......but then again most of mine are:) Kevin turned the big 3-0 in May and I threw him a surprise party which actually remained a surprise to him! We had it in our backyard and I got him out of the house by sending him golfing (which he thought was a birthday gift, but was actually just to get rid of him for a few hours....hehehe) and while he was out all of the decorating took place and the guests arrived. I was so occupied that I did not get a picture of the set up.....but it was a Hawaiian theme and looked so cute!

His biggest surprise was the guest list.......it included some people that he never would have guessed to be at his party. Two of his best friends from Harding who live six hours away and their wives came all the way down just for him. The look on his face was priceless and it was exactly what I was wanting:) It will forever be one of those memories that sticks with me and makes me smile.

So I thought in the spirit of thirty I would list thirty things about Kevin that you may or may not know!!

1. He is the best husband and father in the world....now I've got my bragging out of the way:)

2. He is devoted to God and family.

3. He is a salesman for GES - a tradeshow exhibit house.

4. He loves to read.

5. He loves sports.

6. He continues to think that some day he is going to be on the PGA.

7. He is ready to pack up and move to a new place all the time.

8. One of his nicknames is Willy Wonka......b/c he has the most severe sweet tooth EVER.

9. He was born and raised in Bozeman, Montana where his parents still live.

10. He has two older sisters...one in Calgary and one in Denver.

11. He hates the Dallas Cowboys.

12. He was a competitive swimmer growing up.

13. He loves being an uncle to his nieces and nephews.

14. He is a big tea drinker..........a hot cup of tea every night.

15. He doesn't have much rhythm, but says someday he will take dance lessons with me!

16. He drives an older gold altima, which he lovingly refers to as 'the pregnant lady car'

17. He likes cats and wants another (we are 0-2 keeping them alive).....I continually talk him out of this!

18. He is an introvert.

19. He says that he knew I was the one b/c I was the first girl that didn't get on his nerves! Umm....thanks.....I think?!?!?

20. Favorite show - the Office. Favorite movie - Braveheart

21. He is a morning person.....thank goodness one of us is.

22. He is commonly referred to as the 'Tickle Monster' around here.

23. He is NOT a picky eater and so he is good sport about my adventurous cooking.

24. He wants to retire on a golf course.

25. He looks forward to traveling the world (with me of course:) after the kids are grown.

26. He wants to learn another language.

27. He can tell some really cheezy jokes.....I am still getting used to 'Staples' humor!!!!

28. He has a tattoo of a cross with a dove over it on his right shoulder. And wants another.

29. He thinks he works out in his sleep b/c his muscles look bigger in the morning.........:)hehe

30. He is getting LOTS of gray hair!!!!!!! He claims from me and the kids!!!!!!!!!

Thirty used to sound so old. Now fifty doesn't sound very old. Crazy how your perception changes. But one thing will never change......the fact that I will always be younger than you Kev!

Our backyard

2010-05-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Do you want the long version or the short? Well if you answered short, than we've been working on our backyard and here's what it looks like.

So for the long version. There are just so many funny memories that can happen when you combine me and well......lots of things for some reason. My family has nicked named all embarassing moments, 'Laura moments'........oh dear.....hope I don't pass it on to our kids:) Anyway, the backyard transformation all began when my father-in-law, Dennis, looked at our backyard for the first time and said, "A deck would be good over here on your side yard b/c this space isn't very usable right now because it sloops so much." Well he was right, it was a waste of yard, so we started planning the deck. Next thing you know I have design ready for Dennis and Kevin and they knock out the deck in few days! Here are some pics of the deck under construction.

Because I wasn't able to oversee the building of our fence, it is crooked. That was a joke by the way, I am little bit of a perfectionist for those of you who don't know me well:) So there was an uneven gap between the fence and the edge of the deck. So after much deliberation, I decided to copy my brother-in-law, Jordan, and build (ie- make Kevin and Dennis build:) planter boxes along the sides of the deck. So you will notice that the planter boxes are different widths, that was done to cover the gap! And there is a bench seat in between the planter boxes that is hard to see in the pictures.

Now on to the 'stone' patio. This was no little task people. We had to call in a professional, who luckily for us was a dear friend. Kevin's friend from birth, literally, they are one day a part in age, came up all the way from Austin to help for three days. You can check out his website here and if you live in the Austin area and want any kind of concrete or rock work done, Andy is your guy.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the patio in construction, but I do have a story. So it is day two of the patio. The design is dug out, the forms are in place, the road base is down (I sound like I know my stuff....don't be fooled...when asked to call around town and get pricing on road base, I forgot what it was called and asked for road kill...:) the guys have been waiting on the concrete truck for hours and it has finally arrived at the worst time possible for me!!! I had to take birthday treats up to Landon's school at a specific time that day and I had been told that the concrete was coming first thing in the morning and that Kevin would be available to watch the kids after lunch, well that obviously wasn't going to happen since it was 1:30 and the concrete truck had just arrived. So I had Liam, Haylee (Andy's four year old), and the girls had just gone down for a nap, and treats that had to be at Landon's school in 15 minutes.

So Kevin says, "just put on a show for Liam and Haylee and they'll be fine. We'll keep on eye on them through the window." Moms...you know what went through my head, Kevin and Andy and my dad by the way, very busy with the concrete forgetting to check on the kids, and Liam and Haylee jumping on the bunk beds or deciding to take a bath. Ya right am I leaving them with a show, even for 20 minutes. But the girls, safe and sound in their cribs, yes I can handle that. So I gave them the baby monitor (even if the girls woke up 30 minutes into their nap and I was home, I wouldn't get them up!)
So I scramble to get Liam and Haylee ready and out the door, grab the treats, and decide I better tell the boys we're leaving. Well that was a bad decision. They had starting pouring the concrete and right when I opened the door, Minnie slipped out between my feet and literally ran straight for the concrete. It was like everything went in slow motion, I'm running after her yelling as she leaps off the deck and lands smack dab in a mound of fresh concrete. I can't lie, a four letter word did come out of my mouth. Okay, so now it is 5 minutes til treat time at Landon's school, so I grab her up by the back of her neck and mouth to myself the whole way back inside, "Why now? Why me?" So I decide to deal with her later and I leave her in the laundry room covered in concrete. I go to get the kids in the car and hummm....what do I notice......the concrete truck is blocking my entire driveway. So I stop and say to myself okay, you can either cry right now or laugh, which is it going to be? Laugh I decided. Thankfully my dad's truck was parked on the street and so I did have to move a carseat and booster seat of course, but who cares at this point? We finally got into Landon's school and we were ten minutes late, as I opened the door to his room one of the less polite boys in class says, "Finally. We've been waiting forever." (He may have gotten the smallest rice krispie treat..) Minnie, by the way, was nice and crusty when I got home and cutting and brushing all the concrete out of her VERY long furr was so fun.

Now on to funny story number two. It's my mom's fault for finding these ridiculously awesome chairs and table for $30 at a garage sale.

They were a blah wood color and so I decided they needed some spice. I thought I was just super lucky when I found the exact color I wanted in a spray paint can (they only give you like 20 choices.....like how's a girl supposed to work with that?) Well, I wasn't lucky come to find out and here is why! I, like a good little spray painter, wore a little mask over my nose and mouth and did it in my empty garage with door open for ventilation, with drop clothes down and old clothes on. I thought I had my bases covered right? Oh no. After getting half way done, Kevin comes out and says, your face looks blue. And your arms. And your legs. What? That's not good. There must have been more wind than I thought. This is oil-based paint folks. Yeah, paint thinner gets it off, not soap and water. So I get in a panic, totally unlike me, (another joke, I panic often) and start rubbing paint thinner on my arms and legs, then I read the back of the paint thinner. It basically says, 'Don't put this directly on your skin and we are not liable for brain and nerve damage'. Well, I have had to use paint thinner before, but never had to basically bathe in it, so I hurry through what seems like a whole roll of paper towels. And yours truly did this bare foot so my feet looked like smurf feet and I had to soak my feet in paint thinner!! So I started feeling light headed and then I noticed that my pointer fingers were numb. That's it, I have had this on my skin too long. I'm an idiot and I now I have nerve damage to prove it. So I half yell, half cry for Kevin and he comes to calm me down. (My mom and sister were so glad to pass along the role of helping the basket-case! My sister loves to tell the story of when I thought my eye was going to be swollen shut for the rest of my life) He helps me realize that my fingers are numb from holding down the button on the spray can for so long:) But then lets me know that my face is still blue. I draw the line on the painter thinner right there. I AM NOT PUTTING THAT ON MY FACE. And you know what is crazy? My face was the most blue WHERE the mask WAS. Ya. I guess when I would breath in, it actually forced more spray paint in. So no more masks for me. At least not cheap ones. So I have decided to go blue until it eventually rubs off, when all of a sudden I get the greatest idea. Finger nail polish remover. And it worked!!! It burned a little, especially on my chapped lips, but hey no pain no gain right? JK. It was a horrible experience, but I learned:) I spray painted these pots a few weeks later, And I completely covered my whole body and made peep holes through an old t-shirt and wore it as a mask. Good thing none of my neighbors saw me!!!My tomato seeds are sprouting. I am going to transfer them to a hanging tomato bag and hope for juicy little tomatoes very soon. I also planted rosemary in my planter boxes and if it goes well, I would like to try more herbs and vegetables next year.

Well, here's the best part of our backyard. Enjoying it. If you are still reading this, I'm impressed, this was the longest post ever. Here are some pictures of our little angels and some close-ups of my favorite flowers.

Sweet Brother. Sharing. And Six!

2010-04-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

Liam is working on being a sweeter brother to his sisters. He thinks they are out to get him!!! He can't stand that they don't know how to share yet and that they don't follow his directions. Landon went through this with Liam when he was this exact age and then at about 18 months it got so much better. So we are only a couple months away, but until then we are working hard on Liam. It is tough for him because the girls are all up in his business all the time and there are two of them!! But we are slowly making progress, and he does have lots of tender moments with them. I happened to capture the one below. He asked for me to take a picture of him with them.
We must be raising some 'ladies men' because Katelyn has decided that she wants to marry Liam (she is in his preschool class). And he agreed. He sometimes forgets her name......minor details I guess when you're engaged at age three:)

They are fenced in because a Petting Zoo came to their preschool!

Baskets and boxes are popular at our house. The girls get rides down the hall all the time and since there is never a shortage of laundry at our house, there are always plenty of baskets lying around for them to choose from! I caught a very average moment on camera with them yesterday. They both look at the basket, turn it over together, try to get on together, but then disaster strikes and a fight breaks out!! But mommy steps in and makes everyone happy as you can tell. Sharing is hard for toddlers, but these girls are going to master it earlier than normal out of necessity:)

We have a six year old. What? Six? Yep, it's hard to say but it's true. He had a great celebration last weekend with friends, family, and some classmates. His two best friends, Margo and Keran, are sitting right next to him. He and Margo still plan on getting married....but Keran is next in line I guess! He had a Magic School Bus cake....and let me tell you that it is hard to find Magic School bus stuff these days. I remember watching that show.....anyway he loved his party. He told someone when they asked if he felt any different now that he was six, 'that he didn't...but he did feel better treated.' What a goof. If only it could be your birthday everyday right?!?!

Landon is such a ham that I didn't even have to pose these pictures. He had his own ideas.

He is just as handsome on the inside as he is on the outside. We are so proud of him. He talks about God and Jesus and Heaven all the time. He (and Liam too actually) tell us a few times a week that we are the best parents in the world (good parenting is such a challenge and trust me we feel like we mess up all the time, so it is nice to hear that they really do value what we are doing despite our shortcomings) and that they never ever want to loose us. They say it to each other too, which makes me want to cry every time. Landon is setting a wonderful example of how to be sweet to Kallie and Klaire (now we just need Liam to follow:), he is so giving and thoughtful to his friends, I could just go on and on!

This and that.

2010-04-05T19:45:00.001-07:00

Artichokes anyone????????????????????????

Yep, that's a slug you're looking at and yes he did come home with me from the grocery store. I about chopped my finger off when I saw his little head peeping out at me. And then I almost loaded everyone up to go back to the store and give them back our special gift.....and if I didn't have all the kids I would have. I didn't want to chew anyone out or anything, I just wanted to see what they would give me!!! Even though I washed the artichokes and steamed them I couldn't eat them....but Kevin and Landon did!!!

Guess I will be washing my produce a little better now!!!!!!!!!!!

These are Liam's cowboy muscles and they grow every time he takes a bite. Just wait until you hear his cowboy voice......he takes his southern accent to a whole new level!!!!

Double and Trouble or Pip and Squeak in their their don't pinch me St.Patrick's day outfits:)
These girls are keeping me on my toes. They want to play with everything they shouldn't and they are sneaky too!

I forced them into these outfits and they paid me back by not smiling in any of the gazillion pictures I took.

They love to play with daddy and anyone else who will lay down on the floor and let them pounce on them!!

All four of them were watching something.....so cute to see all of them together. The boys usually go off and play on their own, so when Kallie and Klaire get to have them they are very excited. Notice how Klaire is pulling Kallie's pony tail out.....ya that happens every day. And Kallie is actually worse about it than Klaire.

I'm an Auntie Again!

2010-03-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very special day.............my parents got another grandchild and it didn't have to come from me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My lil sis had her first and we are so EXCITED for them!!!! Her name is Lorelai Kelly and she is also going to be called Rory (which is a nickname for Lorelai).

She is so beautiful, she entered this world last night at 8:51 weighing 6 pounds 14 ounces and she was 18.5 inches. She has lighter colored hair and is just as healthy as can be! Lyndi is doing great too:)

Hooray for another cousin. My kids can't wait to play with her. I'm taking them up there to meet her tonight, can't wait to hear what the boys have to say about it. I let you know if they say anything blog worthy!

Landon and Margo

2010-03-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

Sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G....:)

Now that is what they are already saying in Kindergarten evidently!! Landon came home singing it to me one day! He said me and God were sitting in the tree.....I said "How about me and daddy." He said God loves me too:) So I decided to let him be five and continue with me and God.

But back to Margo, Landon's bestest friend from school, they have had some drama lately and it is to cute not to share. And Pam if you are reading this, we would love to hear Margo's side of the story!!!

So Landon and Margo are quite the pair. They do everything together at school and have already started planning their future together. They had already decided before Christmas break that they were going to tie 'the knot' when they were all grown up and they were going to have many children. How many? Well, they went back and forth on that for the longest time, but finally they agreed to eight after Kevin convinced Landon that a billion wasn't going to work out. And I guess eight sounded good to Margo too!

So every day I ask Landon about school of course and he tells me all about his adventures on the playground with Margo. They usually end up playing in the dirt or mulch it seems like!! Well, one day another boy was chasing Margo and was bothering her, so Landon being the little gentleman says, "Stop chasing my 'marry' girl'!!" (His way of saying future wife...hehehehe). I can't remember if the boy stopped or not, but none the less, I was proud of him! So chivalrous!! The relationship was so strong until one dreaded day in the cafeteria.....

Note: Landon did not tell us about this, we had to hear it from Ella's mom! So this is the story through Ella (with a little added from me)...she is so sweet.

Ella came home and told her mom that there was trouble in paradise. Ella, "Landon and Margo had a fight in the cafeteria mom and I didn't want to choose sides because both of them are my friends. Landon was tryinging tell Margo that when he grew up he was going to be the President of the United States of America and Margo didn't want to hear that and so she covered her ears and this just drove Landon crazy that she wouldn't listen to him so he decided to just keep telling her louder. MUCH louder, until she turned and yelled, "Landon, I AM NOT GOING TO MARRY YOU ANYMORE!" At which point Landon started to realize the severity of the situation, so he started pleading with her and by the end he said, "Can't we still be friends. Please?" To which I think she agreed.

So after hearing that, I was SO CURIOUS to ask Landon all about it and why he hadn't mentioned it!! I quized him like crazy when he got home from school and he said it was all true and that she had been grumpy to him ever since. I said, "Well, probably because you yelled at her Landon, and girls stay grumpy longer than boys!!!" So for the next couple days he said that she was playing with other people and not just him, and he was okay with that I think. He said that he and Margo were everybody's friend.

Well, I think paradise is slowly being put back together because guess what started coming home in Landon's back pack again? Margo's love notes. During centers they are allowed to use paper to create pictures and such and Margo usually uses her paper to write, 'Margo love Landon.' or 'Landon love Margo.' or 'Margo and Landon = Love.' or 'Margo heart Landon.' You get the picture! And she usually has drawn them holding hands. I have kept some of course to show him later in life!! See honey, you were always a ladies man........:)

Anyway, they are adorable and I hope you enjoyed their story. Here is a picture of them at her birthday party.

It's the little things.

2010-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Snow in our neck of the woods is such a treat. We got oodles of it last week, in fact we set a record! The boys had most of their snow clothes thankfully, we left Liam's boots at the cabin...wait til you see what we gave him to wear instead:) We made a cowboy snowman....or should I say I made a cowboy snowman!! The boys were too busy playing in it, but they were ready to put the face on of course. Kallie got to go out for a minute(Klaire was sleeping) and she was mesmerized.

Landon's Valentine's glasses have been worn by everyone around here and Kallie has sucked off most of the glitter!! It is really is funny how the cheap little trinkets often get played with more then the expensive toys.

Please don't make me daddy....they aren't my style!!(Kallie)

(Klaire)

Landon and Liam aren't really the wrestling type, but they love to jump on daddy and play tickle monster, so Kallie and Klaire have picked up on it and they will pounce on anyone who lays on the floor!!! It is priceless to see all four of them playing together.

Lee-man the Hee-man and Kallie Wallie

L-dog and Klaire Bear

Oh the fun one can have with a box. This box entertained them for a week. We played circus, jack-n-the-box, race car, you name it we did it with the box.

Frosty inspired the kids to all want to wear a cowboy hat. I think I got some real cute pictures of all four of them. The girls are walking now. Kallie walks everywhere unless she is mad and Klaire has really taken off this last week. She still crawls quite a bit, but she is walking across the room now and she would prefer to walk she just falls a lot! They are especially adorable right now and it's a good thing because they are wayyyyyyyyyyyy high maintenance when they are awake. They are like two little tornado's, if one doesn't make the disaster the other one will. And they cry for me a lot which is flattering, but it really wears on me. I didn't realize how easy I had when Landon and Liam went through this phase, I could just put them on my hip and cook and get stuff done. But with two crying and climbing up you.....you have just go sit down and play with them and just wait until they are asleep to do anything. I can get a little done here and there when they are awake, but not much. Try loading a dish washer with two little munchkins climbing in it.....ahhhhh it's nuts.

Growing Up Part II

2010-01-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

The girls had a wonderful time at their party. They loved all the attention and sugar!!! A special thanks to everyone who helped me with the party.....I truly couldn't have done it with out you!

Kallie and Klaire are changing every day! Their hair is growing very quickly lately. We can do pig tails now....hooray!!!! They are jabbering all the time and are still taking steps here and there, but mostly crawling. They interact with each other in new ways...like shaking their heads 'yes' and 'no' at each other! Klaire likes to dance to music and Kallie has found that she likes to wrestle with Landon (gently of course and they pounce on pillows together:). They are having a little seperation anxiety lately, especially with me, which is adding something new to the mix, but other than that they rarely cry. Everything they do is pretty adorable and we are having so much fun with them!

I need to update Liam's quotes b/c he has been saying some really cute things, so you guys will have to hold me accountable to adding his quotes....then I will actually sit down and do it!! Landon is happy to be back in the swing of things at school. He missed his best friend, Margo:) They are getting married ya know......that's what they told their teacher and Landon came home and told us. And since then, they have decided to talk about kids and Margo wants eight and Landon wants a billion, but they both agree that the first will be adopted from China like Margo and the second will be adopted from Arkansas!!!! (Landon was born in Arkansas) They are a crack up.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-29T14:27:00.000-08:00

From our family to yours! I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We are still in Colorado enjoying time with family and snow and mountains and new presents and great food and the list goes on and on:)

We have many great pictures that I want to share, but this will have to suffice until I get home and go through them all. This was the picture we were going to put on our Christmas cards, but those didn't happen this year! And I have four really good reasons why........Landon, Liam, Kallie, and Klaire. Maybe next year!

The girls will offficially be one in less than 24 hours......sniff sniff. We are going to make some cupcakes today for a mini-celebration and then they will have a Thing 1 and Thing 2 birthday party after we get home. (We are traveling tomorrow...their real b-day) I can't wait to see what they think of chocolate cake and frosting!

Growing up

2009-12-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

We are constantly being made aware of how quickly our kids are growing up, however Landon about made our jaws hit the floor when he explained pixels to us the other day. Landon to us, "Hey, mom you know that flower that is your screen saver on the computer?" Me, "Uh, yes." Landon, "Well that picture is actually just a bunch of pixels put together. And pixels are these little squares of color. Isn't that cool?"

And his reading has been shocking us as well. He can read paragraphs now. He will read out of chapter books and he doesn't sound words out anymore, he just says them. It is crazy, I will have to post a video of him reading a paragraph out of one of his books!

And our litte Liam has been saying things like, "Yes, that is interesting to me." and "Stop distracting me!" And he can write his name all by himself! His preschool teacher asked me what we did to get him to communicate so clearly...I said well we read to him but the rest is just the way God made him! And hearing big brother has helped out too!

We are so proud of our little boys! I plan to post about the girls soon!!

Oh November.

2009-12-01T08:02:00.000-08:00

Where did it go? I'm not ready for Christmas?!? Shopping....I don't have time for that! Will someone do my Christmas shopping and plan the girls' birthday party pretty please?

Seriously can you believe the girls are going to celebrate their first birthday in 29 days? I'm so excited to reach this milestone because we kept saying it will get easier after they are one...no more formula..no more bottles....they can eat pretty much anything...they can face forward in the car...etc. But something tells me it isn't going to get too much easier! At least not until they are about three. Liam is easy and I keep thinking ok, when the girls can go potty all on their own and get their shoes on and get in the car by themselves and they can go up and down the stairs with out me worrying and I don't have to carry a diaper bag and no one needs a snack when we are just going out to run errands...then it will truly be easier!!

But, I am VERY MUCH looking forward to no more bottles and formula! I HATE our bottles. Thought I loved them at first, but that didn't last long. They leak all the time when they are standing up and when we are feeding! So you set a bottle down that has a little left in it and ten minutes later there is a ring of formula puddled up on your end table. Or the girls get drips of milk on their chest while they are drinking.....arhhgg. So for all you new moms out there. BORN FREE bottles are not all they are cracked up to be. Ours started leaking after only a couple months of use and there are FIVE pieces to clean per bottle. We have stuck it out b/c we didn't want to pay for a new set, so I think after the girls are fully transitioned to sippies I am going to take those bottles out back and line them up and borrow a shot gun:)

Ok moving on! I'm off my soapbox. Here are some highlights from this month!

(Kallie is the closest to the camera) The girls interactions have been just priceless the last month. They LOVE each other. They laugh at each other, make squishy faces at each other, follow each other, it is delightful. They take toys from each other and knock each other over occationally still, but they are over it in about 2 seconds.We got to watch Avery Kate one day and Kallie was enthralled to say the least. (Klaire was sleeping:)Kevin's parents came down for a long weekend and helped us with the kids and many projects around the house. Kevin and Dennis made these great planter boxes for the deck and Marnie and I made curtians and pillow covers for my room....(or should I say the master bedroom...nahhh it's pretty much mine:) I will post pictured when everything is complete! Oh and you are probably wondering why Kallie is just standing in this picture?!?!? Well, little miss thang 1 is standing all the time now and has taken some steps!!! Not long now! Klaire is standing some too, but is more interested in talking! Klaire says, "Momma, Dadda, and Nanna very clearly and tries to say night night, banana, bye bye, minnie, and a few others. She also turns pages in books when you ask her to and points and shakes her head. She does some signs as well. Kallie says, "Momma and Dadda" and she will sign for more and wave bye.We took advantage of Landon being home from school and we all loaded up to meet daddy for lunch and see his new office. His company switched to a new location and Kevin got an office with windows this time and a fantastic view of downtown!!!This was a very important and private meeting going on here. The real decision makers were very concerned about how much they could twirl in their chairs. Daddy and his sweethearts.(Klaire in front) I caught them sitting like this. Klaire smiles with her mouth open and Kallie grins from ear to ear. Their laughs are also different. Kallie squeals and Klaire cackles.

This is the jail. The have come to like it pretty well in there. And I let them out to explore every day, it's just nice to have them contained when I am cooking or doing something with the boys.

Sorry this picture is blurry, Kevin didn't know I had the camera on manual control. Those are elves hanging from the fan. Their names are Hollis and Hampden and they come to life at night and get into all kinds of mischeif. The boys wrote letters to Santa asking for some elves to come and help us get ready for Christmas and these two came and rang our doorbell the day after Thanksgiving. They will stay with us until after Christmas and then they will go back to the North Pole until next year. Kevin and I sure are having fun 'helping' the elves and we are getting a kick of the boy's enjoyment. Landon has asked a few thousand questions and it took a little convincing, but now he is jumping out of bed to see what Hollis has done. You can find out more at http://www.elf-magic.com/. (Side-note: Kevin and I are thinking about telling Landon about Santa next year way before Christmas season, so that he doesn't hear it from someone else. Anyone been in this boat before? It will be interesting to see if any of his kindergarten buddies tell him anything this year, so far so good. He is just the type kid that isn't going to believe for long and we aren't going to force the Santa thing after he questions it. Any advise on this one?!?!)

You can't turn your back for a second with these two. If one doesn't find it, the other one will.

My surprise visit to see miss Lindy Carr and her precious family! I told Kevin back in August (before my birthday) that the thing I wanted most for my birthday was a weekend to spend with Lindy. So he promised me that he would let me fly up there and he would keep the kids. Yes all four of them! So I flew up on her birthday and she was in shock! We talk all the time, but we hadn't seen each other since April of '07. Anyway, it was awesome. So glad I went and I'm so thankful to Kevin for being SUPERDAD and successfully keeping all four and Liam was even sick. At one point that weekend, he called to tell me he was in Wallie World with all four of them and they were all as happy as could be...he says, "This isn't so hard, I don't know why you don't want to take all four of them grocery shopping:)" Very funny hunny.

Well, if anyone has any birthday party ideas....send them my way. And feel free to do some Christmas shopping for me, otherwise all of you that normally recieve gifts from me are getting coal......or maybe giftcards:)

Halloween!

2009-11-01T12:38:00.000-08:00

Well, as you can see we had Batman, Luigi, Thing 1, and Thing 2 at our house last week! I had the idea for Thing 1&2 a long time ago and I couldn't find any store bought costumes, so I had to make them, but it didn't involve sewing so I was good! I just bought solid red jammies (which hard to find by the way) and pinned on the felt circles I made. I bought washable blue hair gel from Sally's and I made the bows. The hair gel washed right out thankfully....I was a little nervous because I just dove in and covered their heads with out testing it first!!!

Landon was VERY determined to be a superhero this year, even though Mario would have been adorable!! We certainly wanted him to be what he wanted and trust me he LOVED being Batman. It was all I could do to get him not to sleep in that costume every night. Last night, some lady told him, "Thanks for keeping us all safe Batman." That was a highlight of his evening. He is so into the holidays now and if it were up to him our house would be decked out in holiday decor year round.

Liam would have been happy to be just about anything this year, I think this is probably the last year that he won't have a strong opinion. He was very familiar with Luigi because he plays Mario Kart with Kevin and the old school Mario Brothers with my dad. We couldn't get the mustache on him unfortunately. That would have been awesome!! He told everyone he was "super fast!"

The girls loved all the attention they got. I however, was not quite prepared for it! We had people stopping us for pictures right and left, it was crazy. I guess I'm not meant to be a celebrity:)

Klaire

Kallie

We are having a hard time keeping everyone healthy in our house. We are on round three of illness running through the family in the last 10 weeks. I know we are just 'paying our dues' for having four kids and two in school, but this getting really stressful and expensive! We've all had the swine flu, we've had sinus infections, an ear infection, a lower uti, and now croup. Fun. Fun. Maybe we will get the worst behind us before Christmas?

More coming soon!

2009-10-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

Lots to catch up on

2009-09-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

A lot can happen around here in a month! Let's see here...first things first. Landon LOVES school. We are so relieved and thankful, we have worried for the last couple of years about what school would be like for him. He is too smart for his own good and we didn't know if he would get bored and become the class clown or be overwhelmed by the chaos (we thrive on structure in our family:), but so far we are having no issues. In fact, he loves everything about school...new friends, computer class, art, music, p.e., lunch time, recess, circle time, centers, library, and of course his teacher! We have our first six weeks parent teacher conference this week, so we will get to know more about how it going from his teacher's perspective:) He has only had to pull his card one time and it was for something very minor, so we are thinking that she is enjoying him, just as much as he is enjoying her.

Now little brother is still adjusting to the whole kindergarten thing. Some days he just seems lost with out Landon, but preschool is helping. He likes that he is doing something similar to Landon...I think he enjoys having the same subjects to talk about.....teacher, backpack, lunchbox, projects, parties.....more than he does actually going to preschool:) None the less, it is good for him to have his own experiences and hang out with kids his own age. His teacher tells us that he is really sweet to the other kids he just sometimes gets grumpy.....well that didn't surprise us. He has had to adjust first of all to having two baby sisters, now big brother is off making new friends at kindergarten, he has never been away from mommy for a regular 5 hour stretch, and he just turned three. And for anyone of you that have boys, you probably know that boys typically are harder at three than two. That's been our experience at least. But all that being said, Liam is still really joyful and tender and we are still enjoying his innocence very much. I have been trying to give him my undivided attention during half of the girls nap time on Mon, Wed, Fri. We have been doing puzzles, books, alphabet & numbers, and computer games mostly because I still need work on my rocket skills:) He also still likes to cuddle with me often throughout the day...so he has me wrapped around his finger when he wants to! My favorite quote from him lately is, "Good thing the pooper lid is down." That is what he says when we take him number 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I guess since I am going in birth order I should talk about Kallie! Miss Kallie Layne has shown us in the last month that she is probably going to be more of a dare-devil than our other children! She went from crawling to pulling up and walking around things in like two weeks. Then I caught her climbing EVERYTHING and we had to buy a fence thing for the living room. And she doesn't care about falling, in fact she will just turn and dive and when she does get hurt she barely cries. She just keeps going. And she is not a big fan of the fence, she spends much of her time trying to maneuver her way out. She is crazy. Kevin let go of her this weekend to see how long she could stand up on her own, and it was amazing. The girl is going to walk way to soon.

Miss Klaire Elise (i have to use her middle name since i used kallie's....no playing favorites around here...:) spent the first part of the month jealous of Kallie's ability to crawl to mommy and beat her to their favorite toys. But then she started army crawling faster and then last week she pretty much went straight to a regular crawl. Then last Thursday she started pulling up on things! Now she is still a couple of weeks behind Kallie, but this girl is on the move now too. She will sit for longer then Kallie, they both are sitting up great, Kallie just doesn't want to sit still. Klaire has been more vocal lately...she says mamamama and nanana all the time and she has few others that involve grunting sounds. She gets very expressive when she wants something! They are both eating little finger foods and dairy now. Cheerios are like candy to them and like a babysitter for mommy:) They girls had been sick since my last post until last week we got them on some antibiotics for sinus infections and Klaire had her first ear infection. Kevin and I were about to go crazy when they were at the peak of their sickness, these kids are hard enough when they are healthy!

Kevin and I went on a three day vacation to a friend's wedding over Labor Day. It was my first time to leave the girls. I cried for the first two hours of the trip, Kevin thought he was going to have to turn around at one point, but I managed to get through it and enjoy myself for the rest of the weekend. Kevin has been super busy at work the last six weeks or so and I have been even more tired than usual with our new school schedule. Let me just tell you a little bit about our routine now. We get up btw 6:00 - 6:30, the kids get up at 7:00. I have to have myself ready and everyone's lunches packed before all the kids are up. Kevin leaves for work about 7:10 after he gets the boys up, dressed, and gets their breakfast. Then I dress and feed the girls, gather Landon's school stuff, the diaper bag, and my brain (this is optional most days) and get all the kids loaded up. Until Landon gets more comfortable with being dropped off, I am having to park, get all four kids out, get the double stroller in and out, and walk everybody up the hill to the back of the school to Landon's class. And on Tues. and Thurs. I have to get everyone out to walk Liam to and from his class at preschool. And we leave at 7:35 to drop Landon off, don't get home until 8:10, then I have about 25 minutes to get the girls out of the car, rediapered, feed their cereal, cleaned up, gather Liam's stuff, and we get back in the car and take Liam to school. Then the girls often fall asleep in the car and don't want their morning nap, so we get home and play for a while, then I feed them and lay them down 11:30ish. Then I clean up the disaster that we have made in our rush, feed myself, do dishes or start laundry, check email possibly, schedule appts., make calls, barely make a dent in my way too long to-do list, and then they are up again. So we go get Liam at 2:15 and then go straight from their to get Landon and we get home around 3:15. Then the girls get feed again and Liam goes down for a short nap. Then I try to get the girls to go down for a short nap from about 4:45 to 5:15 so that I can make dinner. Then at 5:30 I have to have the girls dinner ready and feed them and I try to have our dinner ready at 6:00. And Kevin gets home about then, we eat while trying to entertain the girls, then they get in their jammies at 6:45, bedtime bottle at 7:00, and bedtime at 7:15. Then we bathe the boys and read or play with them. Then they go to bed btw 7:30-7:50. Then we finish cleaning up and doing dishes. We started doing the p90x program two weeks ago, so we work out from 8:30 to 9:45, shower and go to bed unless we have a tv show we really want to stay up and watch. Anyone exhausted? I need a red bull just to talk about it. Thank goodness for weekends and having family close by to help out.

My brain was so over-loaded this morning that I drove away from school without the stroller. Yep. Just left it in the parking lot. The secretary called me and said, "Ummmm I think you left your stroller here. Some other mom brought it in and said it had to be yours." My first thought was how nice of someone to bring that into the office, my second thought was did I drive home with the back of the van open....no Laura that would have been ridiculously loud and you might be blonde but you did not do that, and my last thought was I am just known as the crazy lady with the double stroller who brings in her flock of children to drop her kindergartner off? Probably. They were probably thinking it's a miracle she doesn't leave it every morning!

Yeah our life is nuts. But I think Kevin and I are organizing it the best we can. It's a lot of responsibility, but we wouldn't trade it for anything.

Today marks one year that our nephew Drew has been up in heaven in our Father's arms. If you could please say a prayer for Kari, Jordan, and Peyton we would really appreciate it.

As usual, I have too many pictures to post, so here is an album full of TONS of cute pictures of the kids.

August and September Pictures

Sniff. Sniff.

2009-08-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

I know posting two days in a row...don't get used to it:)

Kevin and I dropped Landon off bright and early this morning. We left the rest of the crew behind with a friend so that we could just focus on him. He jumped out of the car, threw on his backpack like a pro, marched straight up to the school (said hi to the cross-walk guard of course), and followed us through the maze of parents and students all the way back to his room. He felt comfortable in his room and when I asked him to stand next to his teacher for a picture he hugged her instead....that is when I had to hold back the tears the worst. He is so sweet. They asked the parents not to linger, so we hugged and kissed him and walked out. He just went right over to the other kids and didn't look back so that was good.

I managed to hold back my emotions until I got in my car. I know he is ready I kept telling myself, but a million things kept running through my mind. It's so hard. Then when I got home Liam was sad. He asked if we could go pick Landon up right then. So I talked to him about having special time with mommy today and he perked up and asked, "Can you be Wandon today mommy?" Choked up again, but it brings me so much joy to think about them loving each other that much.

So we played some games and puzzles and he enjoyed that very much, but when it comes to building rockets...I honestly need to take some lessons from Landon I guess!!

The last days of Summer

2009-08-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

Landon starts kindergarten tomorrow and I think I'm in a little bit of denial! My baby leaving me from 7:45 to 3:00 Monday through Friday.....what!?!?!? Liam is going to preschool for the first time too...just two days a week thankfully. It is going to be really quiet around here...I might get some work done if Kallie and Klaire let me!! I'm a little nervous about getting all the kids out the door and ON TIME...many of you know that timeliness is not my best attribute:) Over the years I have gotten faster, but then we just keep adding babies to the mix and it's all a wash! But I am not going to have Landon getting tardies, even if I do have mission impossible most days of my life! I'd like to see all the other moms have to get a three years old and twins ready as well and still make it on time(I'm sure there is some mom that has like seven kids and triplets...that will somehow manage to beat me:), than I wouldn't have to worry about bringing up the tail end!
Anyway, since my last post we have been to Cananda and back. We just took the girls and the boys stayed back with Nanna and Papa. We went to support Kari, Jordan, and Peyton on a special day for Drew. There was so much thought and hard work that went into this event. It all went beautifully and Drew's life was honored so gracefully by MANY. Kevin participated in the golf tournament along with 97 other golfers, what a turn out. I helped with a few behind the scenes things and enjoyed every minute of it (even the posters Kari:) I was enjoying time with family and friends so much that I forgot to use my camera much, unfortunately!

But here are few pictures of our family over the last few weeks.

Kallie is crawling! Klaire likes to get up on all fours, but she isn't crawling just yet.

Klaire is sitting up better than Kallie. Kallie is such a wiggle worm, that she doesn't sit still for long. Also, Kallie has a tooth now too. And unfortunately both girls have a cold right now which has made for a fun last couple of days.

The girls were getting some cuddling from some friends that came up to the tournament from Bozeman.

Kevin and Peyton on the tramp.

Liam is Three and Fire Ant Invasion!

2009-08-06T07:34:00.000-07:00

I know it has been way too long since my last post, I just don't spend much time on the computer these days!

So Liam turned three on July 17th....sniff sniff. He had a great little family birthday. It was wonderful to see him in the spot light all day. He was so excited and thankful for his presents and he sang with us when we sang him 'Happy Birthday'. He has such an adorable personality and we are so so so proud of him.

Three fingers are hard to hold up!

We filled up their sandbox and thanks to all the Aunties for the toys. They love them!

Big boy bike. He loves it and feels so special getting to ride like Landon.

Sweet Birthday Boy.

One of Lyndi's creations. It's so nice to have a cake-maker in the family!

(Klaire on the right)

We are starting a few chores around here and the boys are doing great!

Kevin and I probably hated fire ants more than anyone else in the world last week. It all started with a couple bites on the boys. We chalked it up to playing outside. Then the next day we found a few more bites on them, so we investigated and found 8 or 10 by Landon's bed. So we moved his bed and sprayed and called our exterminators. They came out and sprayed the boys room thoroughly and the exterior of our house. That night Kevin heard Kallie crying and so he went in calmed her down and patted her back to sleep. A few minutes later she was hysterical again so I told Kevin to bring her out to me and I would rock her for a while. He hands her to me and I immediately (we were not in very good light) notice that her face is all red, there is blood on her eye lid, and she looks like she has a black eye. So I jump up and we turn on all the lights and with in moments we both realize it is fire ant bites. ALL OVER HER. Her eye is swelling because she got bit so many times on it and she got so mad that she scratched it and made it bleed. Kevin runs in and grabs Klaire, who is sound asleep, and checks her and she appears to be unharmed. He turns on the light and finds Kallie's crib just crawling with them. Meanwhile, I am getting hysterical and anyone who knows me well, knows that things like this REALLY upset me. I felt so terrible and so scared b/c my dad is HIGHLY allergic to fire ants and she has never been bit before so I don't know how she will react and her eye is so swollen. Kevin and I felt like we were going to vomitt we were so upset. So I call our pedatrician and manage to articulate the situation in-between my sobbing. She assures me that Kallie's respiratory system would have already been affected if she was highly allergic and that we should just give her liquid benadryl and put some soothing topical cream on all of her bites, except the ones by and on her eye. So we do all that and put Klaire in the pack-in-play by our bed and Kallie won herself a night right next to me. I hardly slept a wink because I felt so bad for her. She ended up with at least 30 bites. We had the exterminators back out first thing the next morning and they sprayed every inch of our house and 'dusted in the walls'. They were nesting in the walls and coming out through our outlets. We baited the kids rooms for two nights to make sure they were gone and found nothing. I have killed a couple stragglers, but we think they are gone and the girls have returned to the nursery.

The girls are seven months now. Klaire has one tooth, Kallie is about to get one any day now. They are both about to be very mobile, Kallie has taken a step or two crawling. She mostly gets up on all fours and rocks back forth and grunts in frustration. She will also push up into a bear crawl position (up on her toes rather than knees). She seems to be the more hyper of the two, you ought to see her in the bath tub....she is a wild-woman!!! Klaire is MUCH better at taking a bottle, but Kallie is a little more content to play on her own for longer periods of time. We love watching their personalities emerge, they are getting so interactive and interested in life!

We leave for Canada for Drew's Memorial tomorrow. If you would like to know more about it you can visit the website at:

www.adayfordrew.com

We're back!

2009-07-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

We successfully made our first road trip as a family of six. It was an adventure from the get-go but we did it! We drove through rain, hail, snow (on the side of the road), and 105 degree weather. We had a mile marker pole punch hole through our bumper (not my fault!). We had a van go from spotless to mud covered disaster. We had moments of silence and hours of crying. We had conversations about turning around and going home and conversations about how we could do this again at Christmas! It was crazy...but we are glad we did it.

So during the trip I decided to start a list of all the funny things that had been said either btw Kev and I or the kids. Here is what I managed to write:

Landon to us about 15 minutes down the road, "Are we in Colorado yet?"

Landon about 45 minutes down the road, "Are we in a new state yet?"

Landon about 1 hour down the road, "Are we still in Texas?"

**We continued to get a 'are we there yet' question about every 15 to 20 minutes from Landon until Kevin had had enough and told him that we would just tell him when we got to a new state!

Landon, "Why is Texas so big?" How can Texas be so big?" Why didn't we fly? I really wanted to fly. Flying is more fun and we would be there faster on a big jet. But I don't know if I can wait this long."

Liam after having many snacks and me having to cut him off, "I need just one wittle bite to make me happy though..."

Me to Kevin at a gas station, "Help, Klaire just pooped all over my arm."

Me to Kevin, "You have got to be kidding me, there is a huge pile of poop in Klaire's car seat."

Me to Liam, "Get up off the bathroom floor!!" Next stop, "Liam! Get up off the bathroom floor!"

Me to Landon, "Don't put that....!!!!!!!! Arghhhh....you know not to eat food that's on the floor!"

Landon to me after we decided to let him sleep in tent, "Chocolate chip cookie your cool." (a Landon original. I must be super cool.)

Kevin to Landon, "Let's go eat breakfast..Nanna made Pigs-in-a-blanket." Landon looks confused. Kevin, "You know..little weenies wrapped in biscuits." Landon, "Those are different than human weenies right?"

Liam said some really cute things about the mountains and the cabin but I can't remember them and I didn't get them written down. The boys did so well in the car....really other than Landon's bazillion questions and them needing me to crawl to the back seat OFTEN...they were little angels. The girls did do some crying, but they were happy more than sad in the car so we are thankful for that!

The girls turned 6 months old while we were gone! Crazy how much faster your kids grow up the more you have! They are really getting fun...we are seeing more and more personality. They want to crawl and sit up on their own but they aren't ready just yet. They oink their baby food....except for apple sauce and pears....they seem to be liking veggies more than fruits which is totally backwards from what the boys did. But I know it is only a matter of time before they figure that one out:) They are really starting to get into each other...they make each other laugh and want to grab each other and the other one's toy.

Liam is going to be 3 on Friday and as you all know that is very bittersweet for me. He still sucks his thumb to fall asleep and sleeps with blankie and loves to cuddle and let me play with his hair and he can't say his 'L's' and 'R's" very often and I JUST WANT TO KEEP HIM THIS WAY FOREVER. I know I know other phases are fun and we will have experiences with him at each age that we can only have at that age, but he has been an adorable toddler. I hated seeing Landon leave this stage too, but it is harder for me with Liam. Anyway, I will post about his birthday in a couple weeks...

Here is an album from our trip!

Colorado Summer 2009

Our Colorado Adventure Begins Tomorrow

2009-06-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

Our 16 hour (for adults who don't stop much, it will likely be 22 hours at least for us!!) journey to the cabin begins tomorrow. Many would call a trip to the mountains a vacation, but we aren't ready to label this trip as such! And don't worry we aren't driving straight through, we might be brave, but we aren't stupid:) The girls might cry half the way up there and Landon and Liam might ask 'when will we be there?' 76 times and Kevin and I might just curl up in ball and shake back and forth when we get to stopping points.....but we can't miss out on an opportunity to go to the mountains!!!! I am actually very excited, not so much about the car rides, but for the parts in between. Fishing, hiking, four-wheelers, seeing family, hearing the river......yes it's going to be fun.

So I will take many pictures and might even post before we get home......?!?!? Say a prayer for us to have safe AND pleasant travel!

Some 5 month pics of the girls!

2009-06-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Miss Klaire.

Kallie loves her tongue lately. She sticks it out and touches it!! She is a goof ball.

I didn't have many pictures of Kallie and Klaire in the last album I uploaded, so here are several! They are doing great. They have been loving squash this last week. Sweet potatoes are up next. I surrendered to the homemade baby food. It tastes better and is cheaper. Why I decided to do this at this point in my crazy life.....I don't know. But they love it, wish I would have done it for the boys....I thought I was too busy. Funny I know.

http://picasaweb.google.com/laurastaples3/TheGirls5Months?authkey=Gv1sRgCMbJ1PyZor3EbQ#

Where to begin?

2009-06-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

May where did that go...June humm...will it be July tomorrow? Our babies are 5 months old......can you believe that!?!? They might be small, but these girls can move. They are little wiggle worms....rolling and inching their way around. And talkers too. They have been so funny this week, they have been jabbering with such excitement and VOLUME! We may have a couple extroverts on our hands:) They are really getting into their toys and rice cereal too. In fact, I think we may introduce some veggies in the next week. They are sleeping from about 10:00ish to 6:00ish...pretty good we think! We have to go in a couple times at night to re-adjust them and pat them, but that's it. They take a great morning nap and then the two afternoons naps are rather sketchy.....the first is usually less than 30 minutes and the second is only an hour an half. So we are going to be cutting out that little cat nap very soon!!! It's just hard to entertain both of them from 10:00 to 3:30 with out a break!

The boys are doing well. Landon is growing an inch a week....his legs are getting SO long! Liam's vocabulary rocks! He is using some crazy big words all thanks to his super big brother! Landon has gone up to the elementary that he will be attending twice to meet the teachers and turn in some art work for a special tile project. I wish I had taken a picture of his drawing....I will when we get it back! T-ball is over. It was a lot of fun, but Kevin was playing softball at the same time...so it was draining me.

Kevin's parents spent the last third of the month with us. Kevin and his dad, along with some help from Collin and our friend John, built a deck! We LOVE LOVE LOVE it. We are out there all the time now. The boys think it is awesome, they think they should get a popsickle out on the deck twice a day too!! We...humm....maybe I should say me.....have big plans for landscaping around the deck...but we are not doing to our yard until next spring. One step at a time. I wish I could snap my fingers and have the house painted and decorated and the yard landscaped...but I guess that wouldn't be any fun. So speaking of decorating......I know you have been waiting for the big reveal of the pink paradise. I think I am done for now in the nursery.....I would still like a shabby chic mirror...but I now Kevin is ready for me to focus my efforts into finishing the living room!

Let me tell you about our washer and dryer drama this week! At one point we were the proud owners of 3 washers and 3 dryers this week. Yep, six units. So the washer and dryer set that Kevin and I got (used for cheap) when we got married has been good to us. But we have had to fix the dryer twice in the last year...so this week when it starting to bite the dust again, we said ENOUGH! So craigslist here we go. I weeded through all the ads all week, made lots of calls, sent plenty of emails, hit many dead ends, but then finally....the 'ONE' showed up. Less than five miles down the road, a newer matching set, for a great price, we go and pick it up, the family is so wonderful, we talk about hanging out some time, we get it home and hummm....what is this hose for Laura? I have no idea Kevin. Then it hits him. Gas dryer. We are all electric. Oh joy. So I guess we don't need underwear for tomorrow. Just kidding...:)

Anyway, we decided to keep the washer since we got a super deal on it and hunt for the matching ELECTRIC dryer (and if we didn't find the match, then we would mismatch again). Which by the way, the ad said that the gas one was electric...we just failed to check! After more searching I found the matching electric...hallelujah...oh but of course these folks don't want to split the set (even though they don't match!...ahhh). So fine, will buy your set too, and then sell your washer and the gas dryer as a set and our washer and dryer too. Kevin got the new ones hooked up today after a little more drama (thought we were going to have to wait three more days for some special screw to come in, but we luckily found one) and I have NEVER been more excited about doing laundry in my whole life!!!!!!!! And I can fit all most twice as much in this machines.....hooray!!

That and take care of our 12 kids is about all I did this week:) Oh and did I mention our vaccum went out the week before (and it is less than two years old). Our house functions on survival mood with out everything pooping out on us....this week I think we limped along! Mom, I need you back in Texas to do our laundry!!!!

I had too many pictures to post, so please just follow this link to a picasa album. There are two videos...one of Landon playing t-ball and one of the girls eating cereal. Enjoy! Oh and I'm updating the boys quotes with some new favorites....I feel bad that Liam, Kallie, and Klaire's quote list will never be as long as Landon's because I just had ONE talker to keep up with!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/laurastaples3/May200903?authkey=Gv1sRgCPGd2c2ziayQLA#

I know. I know. I need to post!

2009-05-31T13:56:00.001-07:00

Posting is overwhelming me right now because I have so much that I want to post about and not enough time, so bare with me! I hope to have a super long post with many pictures very soon!!!!

No chance of being 'tom-boys'!?!

2009-05-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

We like a little bling around here....hope you enjoy the video clip at the end. We are finishing up the nursery this week so stay tuned for the unveiling of Kallie and Klaire's pink paradise.

Landon Landon Landon

2009-04-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

I just can't believe Landon is five! He is so grown up for his age, but I still can't swallow that number very well! Landon has been planning his birthday party since December...right after every major holiday passes he asks when the next one is. I remember feeling like my birthday would never come....when I would give him the count down, he acted as if his birthday would never be here until we got within about 15 days:) So what does a kid like Landon want for his birthday...well he had some very specific requests. First, he wanted party hats, it's just not a party with out those. Then we had to have a very exciting cake....it was going to be a rocket until Aunt DeeDee found a Wall-e cake pan. And for those of you who don't know about Wall-e...well it was movie about a little robot and his journey with another robot Eva...and to tell you the truth I have never watched the whole thing with them! But robots are big around here, so not only did Landon get a robot cake but he got a real robot too. He also wanted the cake flavors to be lemon and coconut....can you tell I let him help me cook??? And he has noticed that for the adult birthdays we celebrate with my family we make a special meal just for that person. So he decided that he wanted....you'll get a kick out of this....fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, and PEAS! He thinks he really likes peas but he has only had them in stuff not by themselves. So with much persuasion I talked him into green beans and rolls instead of peas:) Landon also wanted to go somewhere special to celebrate the big day, so we went to the zoo. My mom says it was like the Staples zoo went to the zoo:) Yes, we were a handful and thankfully we had several other people there to help us! We had a full visit at the zoo. First of all Landon had pink eye...but he couldn't have cared less. The girls did the exact opposite of what I thought they would do on a warm day being pushed in a stroller....they stayed awake almost the whole time and were very hungry. We were often pushing an empty stroller and feeding babies bottles while we walked, we made a changing table out of the stroller for the poopy diapers they blessed us with while at the zoo. And Liam flipped over backwards off a picnic bench which damped his spirits for the rest of the day until we rented a stroller for him and got him an icecream cone. But Landon soaked up the whole day in classic Landon style! He literally ran from exhibit to exhibit, asked a few thousand questions, and scoped out everything he could. Oh and I forgot to mention, we UNknowingly went on TWIN day. It was crazy the amount of twins that were there and how much attention the girls got. One twin mom told me that I should get a shirt made that says, "Yes, they are twins. Yes, they are girls. Yes, they are identical. Yes, they keep me busy!!" I do enjoy showing the girls off, but I don't like it when random people touch them.....it's like hello I am the hand washing nazi...what germs do you have going on!!!

So when he woke up on his birthday (4/24) he asked me when will I be five. I thought hummm..don't recall telling him that there is a specific time....but then again this is Landon:) So I said well at 2:04.....four twenty four two thousand and four, born at two o' four....crazy! So he watched the clock all day and when it was 2:04 he turned and said, "But this can't be! I don't feel any different!" So then came a lengthy explanation and many questions....one of which was..."So what can I do that is different now that I am five...ya know mom....like backwards soumersaults, jumping to the ceiling, running super fast....?" It was so cute. And still everything is about being five now. The other day I asked him if he would through away a diaper and he replied, "I don't think five years do that mom."

Yesterday Landon wrote and illustrated a 16 page book. It is titled, yes he titled it and put his name on the cover like a real author, 'The Playground Fun!'. It is about a day at the playground and it starts off saying, 'Some one was watching a duck swim in the pool.' Yes he wrote 10 word sentence and spelled the whole second half of the sentence perfectly with out help. Then each page has a character doing a park activity and he narrated it with little tit bits like...whee...and whoo. He did the whole thing on his own and was so proud of it. Kevin and I were just blown away. I mean he spells and draws every day, but this was over the top! I sure hope his kindergarten teacher can keep him busy...

Anyway, Landon is our big five year old now and we are enjoying watching him be a terrific big brother, make new discoveries, and learn learn learn!

The birthday boy!

Wall-e cupcakes thanks to my sister.

Wall-e cake thanks to my sister!!

This will get the ladies' attention:)

Klaire.

And I just had to add this. We are all convinced that Minnie wishes she were a baby, so the joke around here is that we have triplets. We decided to make her dream a reality. She was not happy with us.

Easter outfits a week late!

2009-04-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

All the kids were sick with a little cold virus last weekend (yes that has been fun) so we did our own Easter day last Sunday and didn't go to church. I was VERY bummed that the girls got sick, (seeing kids sick is always hard, but especially little babies) thankfully they didn't get it very bad and are mostly over it now.

So the kids wore their new outfits today and they were so precious. Kevin was calling Liam Mr. G.Q. And on a side note, I have some new quotes from the boys and I really do plan on updating their quotes soon! I've been a wee bit busy:)

Landon will be five on Friday and it's making this mommy a little sad. Five just sounds so old and I know kindergarten is just a few months away. You would think that having two babies to hold would make it easier for me to watch Landon and Liam grow and change, but I think it is actually making it worse because when I look at the girls I am constantly reminded of what the boys were like when they were that age. And it seems like just yesterday that I was holding them and so I know what can happen when you blink. I guess since we are so busy too, our internal clocks seem to be running at double time and it is intensifying my desire to want to slow everything down. I am starting to notice that I am talk about time rushing by so much lately...and well I guess it's just on my mind a LOT! Forgive me if I sound like a broken record!

Well, there are really so many things that I want to post about and describe......I wish I had more time to REALLY REALLY describe what all is going on in our lives...but for now I think I am going to have to settle with giving the highlights!

Drum roll please............................................................................................................................................

.........................................................................................................................................

We are going to have swarms of girls after these two stud muffins some day:)

Classic Liam face. He is just as funny as Landon.

I just want to bottle them up and keep them this way forever.

Kallie was saying, "Go Mavericks!"

Kallie showing off her adorable grin.

Klaire says, "Kallie give me some space and please stop showing off your bloomers."

"Oh Kallie...you are just wearing me out."

Kallie is the one upside down. And Klaire is getting a double chin...oink oink:)

"Okay Kallie, that's it, you just don't mess with my headband."

"Yippee mom picked Kallie up and just took a picture of me!"

More than surviving...?!?

2009-04-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Well time keeps marching on and somehow we are keeping up with all four kids and the necessities around the house. Last week was my first full week by myself and I'm pretty proud of myself for getting through it successfully. (My mom comes over often while Kevin is at work...but she was out of town.) So I lived, in fact it I even had all four of them asleep once or twice!

People want to know what our life is like right now and I guess the best way to describe it for me anyway is exhausted delight...? I thank God every single day for these kids and giving us this responsibility and I pray for endurance and patience. Words just can't even describe how grateful I am. My heart aches when I think about how much I love our family. I am soaking up every moment because Drew has taught me just how precious each moment is.

So speaking of moments, only have a few before little Kallie and Klaire start calling for me, so here are some of my favorite pictures from the last week.

Kallie on the right. Aren't they cutie pie's?!? I adore these pajamas.

L-dog is a our little tee-ball man and Lee-man the Hee-man is giving me his 'whatever mom' face already....what is this 2 going on 14?!?

Thanks Grandma for the egg stickers!

Perfect placement of the stickers of course from our little artist and perfectionist:)

They are smiling a lot more now! They like rattles and toys but still aren't grabbing at them yet. They continue to show more and more of their personalities. Klaire is needing more cuddling to get to sleep and Kallie is needing more rocking in order to drink her bottles. Klaire has a louder cry but Kallie's is more pitiful! And they both HATE having a poopy diaper, (the boys would have sat in it all day with out complaining) buddy you better change it immediately after they go. And these little girls have enough tears to fill a pool, they bring out the big tears every time they cry...it's breaks mommy's heart most of the time:)

Oh and Klaire is in purple polka dot...I have to remind myself constantly that other people can't tell them apart!

Another week flew by!

2009-03-29T18:12:00.001-07:00

Can somebody slow down time for me? Please! It seems like this was just yesterday:

Landon was 27 months and Liam was a newborn....aren't they so little?!? So people have been asking if the girls look more like Landon or Liam...which is funny b/c with the boys it was do they look more like you or Kevin!! Ha. Anyway, here are some baby pictures of the boys. I personally, think that all of our children look pretty similiar as babies and we won't know who the girls really look like for a while.

Landon - he had more hair than the girls do and a widow's peak and his hair is bit lighter.

Landon in his little bear outfit:)

Now this is Liam.
And this is Liam - he had the most hair! And his is the darkest. Liam has hazel eyes and it looks like the girls are going to have blue. Here are some pictures now of the girls from a month or two ago.

Miss Kallie.

Miss Klaire.

Klaire on the right. So as you can see, they all kind of have similiar facial features, but they do have some differences too. Anyway, I can't believe how quickly the baby phase goes by. I am cherishing every single moment with not just the girls, but the boys too because I'm going to wake up one day to four teenagers!!! Kids are so much fun, I can't imagine not being a mom.

Anyway, we managed to get to church again and here are some picture from this weekend. Oh and the girls slept through the night for the first time last night. Eight hours. Yep, both of them. It was incredible....cross your fingers for tonight. I should be in bed right now since they are snoozing, but hey I've got to squeeze in a little computer time or else I'll go crazy!

Two above are Klaire and two below are Kallie.

Great Grammie and Grandpa finally got to meet the girls!

Klaire - seriously chilled out.
Kallie - even more chilled out!

Kallie could barely keep her peepers open for these pictures!

Cuddle time:)

First time to church

2009-03-23T08:32:00.001-07:00

The girls will be twelve weeks old tomorrow and I can hardly believe it. Time flies by faster the older you get and the more kids you have I've decided! Well we ventured to church for the first time as a family of six yesterday and it was wonderful to be back. Three months away from church has really been hard. I have missed our praise and worship and fellowship so much! The boys were so happy to see their friends and teachers too. The girls were blessed before the church by a long time family friend and our elders and of course they had to prove that they are real babies and cry a little during the prayer:)

They were all 'prettied up' as Kevin calls it and boy was daddy proud of them. He carried both of them into church with a huge grin, I offered to carry one...but he said he could do it:)

Here are their outfits from yesterday. I meant to get a family picture, but it just didn't happen! Klaire weighed 8 pounds and Kallie 7.8 last week at their check-up. Doc says they are just perfect.

Stay'n Alive

2009-03-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Our lives are just wild! I have been wanting to blog for two weeks and here I am just now doing it! Moving is over. The boxes are unpacked and now painting and decorating have begun. We've had so much help from our families and we could not have done it with it them! We love our new house, we have so much more space. I will post pictures when we get some things up on the walls. They boys are LOVING their play room and wow so are Kevin and I! The girls are growing like weeds...they haven't been weighed in a few weeks but I think they are getting close to 8 pounds...especially Klaire! Having twins is such an adventure let me tell ya, but it is so worth it. I have loved cuddling with all my babies, but there is just something pretty special about having one asleep on each shoulder.

Minnie wishes that I would rock her to sleep too!

Kallie left, Klaire right.I couldn't get them smiling at the same time, but they were being so cute.
Kallie looking at camera.
Klaire looking at camera and Kallie is trying to see if Klaire's cheek tastes good.
The boys get to keep their super awesome teepee up all the time now in the play room. Nanna made this for them for Christmas!
You should hear Landon and Liam talk like cowboys. They talk real slow with a major southern accent and they talk about the wild wild west and their horses:)It is not often that the boys want to hold their sisters, but when they do it sure is adorable.
Landon asked to rock Klaire last night. He said okay mom I got this, you can go do the dishes now. So sweet. He called me back in with in two minutes....but hey it was the thought that counted!
Klaire couldn't stop staring at Daddy the other night.Kevin's parents came down and helped us move and take care of all four munchkins.Our nephew Lincoln, brother-in-law Mark, and the boys in the front of the moving truck, check'n it all out.

Klaire is getting a good look at her Aunt Nicci. Kevin's sister and her family came down from Denver to help us move and didn't even tell us they were coming! They just knocked on our door, it was an amazing surprise.

This past weekend Aunt Penny came and we celebrated her birthday. Landon and Liam had three birthday parties for her!

Our beautiful babies

2009-02-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

The girls had there first photo shoot and you won't believe the pictures. They are AMAZING.

Go to our photographer's blog to check them out:

http://emilythurmondphotographyblog.com/

Hopefully this makes up for my lack of posted photos lately...............:)

We have a house finally!

2009-02-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

We signed the final contract on a house tonight. We are so glad to be done! We needed closure and we needed a plan and now we have that! The whole house hunting adventure turned out to be much different than Kevin and I had envisioned it. Buying our first house( i am so sad to leave it..it is the perfect little house) was a breeze we've realized! This time around was quite different. We were trying to accomplish so much with this move and we learned that you just can't have it all. Something has to give. We wanted to get closer to Kevin's office, closer to church, be in a great school district, get lots of square feet, have a big lot with big trees, have the perfect floor plan, have a home that was newer or had been redone, and we wanted to capitalize on the market and get a killer deal. And those are just the big wants....I could list so many little ones! Well, as you can imagine we couldn't find a house that accomplished all that! But we did get a new house, in a great school district, with a super floor plan for our family, on a nicer lot than what we have now, for a good price. So we didn't get closer to church and work....but we looked at least 20 different neighborhoods, 7 different cities, and who knows how many houses. I know one day Kevin and our realtor looked at 30 houses or something crazy like that!

So if we weren't under so much stress....all that probably would have been more fun! And I hope I don't sound like a whiner! We feel so blessed to even have the opportunity to purchase a larger home for our family. It's just that we had so many decisions to make and not much energy to do it! Landon asked why he and Liam didn't get to choose the house........! Maybe we should have let them....their only criteria was stairs!! Landon is now using terms like 'closing', 'stories', 'walk-ins', 'specs', and he loves looking at floor plans and determining where the bathrooms and kitchens are!

Oh and our closing on this house has been up in the air this week, but now we are closing three days later than what we originally agreed upon and we will be moving out on Saturday. We are supposed to close on the new house on the 27th and will be staying with family until then. Whew! So moving twice stinks, but that's what happened! It will be an adventure. And my sister and brother in law may not want children after we stay with them, but the boys are going to love it:)

On the pics from the last post. Klaire is first in purple and then Kallie is second in pink!

Quick update

2009-02-04T20:04:00.001-08:00

Me, well I am feeling SO much better. Thank goodness for antibiotics.

The girls, they had a check up today and Klaire is 6 pounds and Kallie is 5.10 pounds and our doctor says they are just perfect....but I already knew that:)

Landon and Liam are pretending that their stuffed animals are babies and they are burping them and making the sound effects to go along with it!!! HAHA......I told Kevin we need to get them some dolls....he didn't think it was funny!!

Kevin, well he is keeping me sane and taking on more than his share at work and home!

House, hummmm.....still working on that. Rent house or somewhere to live when we get booted out of here in 8 days....still working on that too!!!! Anyone have an empty house they want to rent us for 6 or 8 weeks??? And packing, well we just started that....I should say Kevin just started that. I'm in denial that we are moving from our first home and away from the Jacksons): I will start packing (in all my free time....ha) tomorrow!

Have to turn the flash off to get them with their eyes open, so that's why the pics are dark. And I'm sure you all can tell them apart......hehehe.......so I'll let you all tell me who is who:)

When it rains, it pours....I think our home is flooded!

2009-01-30T18:55:00.000-08:00

To make a long story short, I've been struggling with my recovery. I've been back and forth to the doctor and got sent to the ER yesterday. After many examinations it looks like I had two UTI's and now an infection in my uterus. I am on antibiotics and my doctors are closely watching me. I feel a little better today so it looks like the medicine is working, thankfully.

Also, our poor nephew, Peyton, has been in the hospital with a ruptured apendix, so please keep him and his parents, Kari and Jordan, in your prayers.

I promised a picture of Kallie (Left) and Klaire (Right)....so here it is. One look at them and the pain I am feeling seems to fade:) Also, our little Minnie (our dog:) hurt her back, she gave us a real scare for a couple days, but she is doing better. I think she was feeling neglected and decided that was her best chance at some attention!

Happily Surviving

2009-01-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what day it is....but I do know it is still January! The girls and the boys are doing well. Liam surprisingly is not jealous of the girls at all yet. He and Landon are so entertained by each other and their Christmas toys, that they have yet to realize how different our family is!!! Kallie and Klaire are super, they are gaining weight fast. They average about an ounce a day, they are both over five pounds. Klaire is still on iron for her anemia but that is the only 'medicine' we have to give. We got the okay from both the neonatologist and our pediatrician to let them sleep a little longer in between feedings at night. So they go anywhere from 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours between feeds at night and 3 hours during the day. The whole process of changing them, preparing bottles, feeding them, burbing them, and then me pumping takes an hour at best usually... it feels like I go from bottle to pump all day!!! I'm still hopeful that they will nurse some but so far they are loving their bottles and get pretty mad at me for attempting to nurse, so we will see. Landon did the same thing, so I'm not surprised or upset by it. Kevin gets up with every feeding at night and we each take a girl, he usually finishes first....he's got great burbing skills!

On a side note, we sold our house! We put it on the market 6 days after the girls where born and it sold in 12 days. It was such a blessing and a curse! We signed the papers the day before we brought the girls home, so we never had to show it after they came home (that is the blessing). But now we are in a pinch to find the perfect house for our family and have yet to find it and we have to be out of here in 15 days.......ahhh!! We just didn't expect it to sell that fast, our heads are spinning. So in between feedings we go look at houses with our realtor and thanks to my mom we have been able to juggle everything so far! Pray that we find the right house in the right place soon, we don't want to find temporary housing but that is what we will be doing if we don't find something very soon.

Life is a little overwhelming when I think about everything we have on our plate currently. However, when I just focus on what we are doing today I can manage. God has surprised Kevin and I many times the last 6 years, so we continue to look to him for guidance and wisdom. Sorry I don't have any pictures with this post! I know that's what ya'll want right now...I will try to get some up here in the next few days!

Home Sweet Home

2009-01-19T18:27:00.000-08:00

We are home! We stayed over night with the girls Saturday night at the hospital and were then discharged on Sunday. Everyone is doing well. The girls continue to prove how stronge and healthy they are and Landon and Liam are such sweet big brothers. Kevin and I are tired, but not too bad.............yet:) It is so awesome not having to go back and forth to the hospital and to be able to take care of Kallie and Klaire with out any cords attached to them! They were 4 pounds 13 ounces (Klaire) and 4 pounds 8 ounces (Kallie) on Saturday night and will be three weeks old tomorrow. Our hopeful due date would have been tomorrow too....36 weeks....but God answered our prayers for healthy babies and we are just so thankful. The boys got to see the girls for the first time on Saturday night when we roomed-in and it was priceless....the babies were finally real to them!!

Snuggle time

2009-01-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

The girls were snuggling this morning. We won't let them do this when they come home and aren't on their monitors just in case your wondering:) But for now it is pretty stinkin cute.

Pictures say a thousand words

2009-01-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

First outfits

2009-01-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

Klaire in my arms.

Kallie is Kevin's arms.

The girls got to wear the first outfits yesterday b/c their IV's were removed. They look so adorable. They are bottle feeding well and still get several meals through their feed tubes. They are starting to gain back the initial weight loss and are almost back to their birth weights. They already have Kevin and I wrapped around their tiny fingers. We love these angels.

Update from mommy

2009-01-02T15:46:00.000-08:00

I have a few minutes here before I head back up to the hospital so I thought I would give you all a brief update.

Here is a condensed version of events leading up to birth and the births. Monday I lost my mucus plug, went in got checked, cervix looked great. Not dilated at all. Thought it was a little weird however that I had gained 8 pounds in seven days, but my protein and blood pressure was great. So felt fine Monday evening and was relaxed. Middle of the night I was very uncomfortable, but this was nothing new. Felt like I needed to puke, but this is nothing new either! Then I'm just laying there and I feel it, no doubt about it.....I sit up and tell Kevin who is awake as well, "My water just broke." It is 4:50 am and we get April (we are so blessed to have best friends that live across the street) over here and we are out the door before 5:00. My water continues to flow out and my pants are soaked to my ankles by the time I waddle into the labor and deliver check-in. I am 2 centimeters and it was baby 'A' (they label them based on who is closest to your cervix) or Kallie's water that broke. My doctor is already there thankfully with another high risk patient who is laboring. He is very surprised and says, "Laura, you don't play fair." I said I know, but I can't help it. I love my doctor by the way, he has a calming effect on me like no other doctor I've ever had. We talk about the game plan and he and the nurses let me know that they understand that I don't want an epidural (I thought they were horrible and useless based on the one I got with Liam) but given the chance of possibley needing a c-section I may want to reconsider especially b/c the anesteciologist that was working right then was the best. So I reluctantly said okay. I'm very glad I did. Totally different experience. So around 10:00 a.m. I am dilated to a nine and feeling pressure but feeling great all things considered, they take me back to the operating room and Kevin and mom get cleaned up. I see another doctor come into the OR along with tons of nurses and two NICU teams. She says, "Don't worry, your doctor will be here. But right now he is delivering the other high risk patient and I'm here just in case. Don't push. Don't move at all. He will be here in less than five minutes." That's when I started to freak out and I wanted Kevin, but they wouldn't let him in yet. I knew it was time to push, Kallie's head was right there. But then my doctor rushed in and off we went. Kevin and my mom came in and Kallie came out beautifully. She was pink and screaming and it was all so surreal. Then my doctor went in to check on Klaire and found that she had turned transverse and he could get a hold of her foot, but he noticed that it felt like my placenta was detaching from my uterine wall. (At the time we did not know this, we just thought that he was unable to pull her out b/c of her position. When a placenta detaches from the uterin wall before the baby is born, they have about 45 seconds before the baby bleeds to death. The placenta is their life-line and they are basically one unit, when one bleeds out so does the other.) The atmosphere changed immediately and my mom and Kevin were whisked away. My doctor was calm, can't say the same for others in room. At this point I was of course very scared and emotional (But still unaware of why I was actually having a c-section. If the placenta hadn't of been an issue than he would have been able to just pull Klaire out by her feet which he had told me is not unusual at all.), but the anesteciologist became my support and she stayed right by my face and talked me through everything. After they had me cut open and were working on getting her out they let Kevin come in. Because of the location of my detaching placenta they had to do a cross-cut on my uterus. It seemed to take them a while to manouver her out. I just kept asking Kevin where is she, where is she. Then we saw her and she was blue and unresponsive. Kevin saw they nurse pick up her arm and release it, it just flopped down. They kept suctioning her and finally she let out a little cry. It was the best sound I've ever heard, I'll never forget it. She definetely had less blood than Kallie, but she never needed oxygen! What little fighters we have!

Recovery from a c-section is no fun. I have a whole new respect for women that have c-sections. Our doctor told us that b/c of the cross-cut on my uterus we shouldn't have any more kids. My uterus could never labor again and b/c we never know when I am going to go into labor, a planned c-section is not an option. But as you all know, we are done so that didn't upset us. To be extra careful, Kevin is getting the snip within the next six weeks:) I am very sore and my mood and comfort depend heavily on my pain meds right now. I got up sooner than many women that have c-sections, b/c I was incomplete until I saw our girls. I didn't walk, I was pushed in a wheel chair, but just getting into the chair was such an ordeal. Anyway, I came home last night. My doctor said we could stay last night but I promised the boys I would be home to read them a book and after they told me how much they missed me I had to come home. I cried all the way home from the hospital, ever mile we drove away from the girls felt like a hundred. I have never wanted to be in two places at the same time so badly.

But I really like the NICU nurses we have had and the neonatoligist is wonderful. She is a mom and she communicates very well with us.(there are two actually, they work one week on and one week off, so we haven't met the other one yet). I know they are in God's hands, but it also so comforting to know that they have a great staff.

All the nurses are so impressed with Kallie and Klaire. They said that they weren't expecting them to be where they are at. They are so strong. They have just the typical preemie things to deal with right now and nothing to be too concerned about. They are increasing their feedings and hope to have them off their IV's in about 3 days. They eat through their feeding tubes right now, but we may try some nipple (bottle nipple) feeds in the next couple days. They suck on their pacifiers quite well for their age. Their biggest challenges will be learning to suck, swallow, breathe with bottles/nursing, holding their blood sugars, holding their body temperatures, gaining weight, and no big apnea spells (which they have done VERY well with this...only had a couple...Landon really struggled with this). They heard a murmer on Klaire's heart today, but then they couldn't find it when the did the echo! Praise God for that. Kallie had been under the belli-ruben (sp?) light for jaundice, but she is off today and much happier! They keep telling us that Kallie is going to be the spunkier more stubborn one:) Thanks for your prayers. We will try to keep you updated.

Oh and a side note, only family is going to be visiting the girls in the NICU and we aren't sure when we will feel comfortable with other visitors after they come home. And I'm sorry that there are no windows in the NICU, you will have to live through pictures for now. Because of sick season, we just can't be too careful. Landon is not going back to preschool, we will not be at church for some time, Landon and Liam actually will not even get to see the girls til they come home. We don't plan on exposing the girls to other children for quite some time, so we are going to try to post lots of pictures and even some videos! Thanks for being understanding on this.

Pictures....

Kevin is waiting with my mom while they get me prepped in the operating room. (They deliver all multiples in the O.R. just in case they need to do a c-section.) My hero, my best friend, world's greatest dad, my full-time nurse.......I can't say enough about this man.
Me kissing Kallie.

After they got Klaire stable, they let me kiss her before they took her off to the NICU.

Silly blogger keeps turning these pics the wrong way. Kallie on left, she is pinkier b/c of the extra blood she got.

Twins and Pictures

2008-12-31T16:40:00.001-08:00

Okay, so i figured this would be a good time for my first post since many of you out there are very interested to see pictures of the babies and Laura will probably not be available to write a post for a few days. It has been a whirlwind 2 days and we are exhausted, but the good news is that the babies are healthy and breathing on their own. Right now we just need to them to feed well, grow, and learn to eat from a bottle or a breast. Hopefully if all goes as planned we will be able to keep this hospital stay relatively short, perhaps 3 - 4 weeks.

I am going to let Laura tell the story of the events leading up to the birth and the birth itself, because I would probably leave too many holes and leave out some of the little details. We did get some side by side pictures today and they look a lot alike, but you will have to wait for a few days to get those pictures. So without further ado here is Kallie Layne and Klaire Elise. Enjoy.

Klaire 1

Klaire 2

Klaire 3

Klaire 4

Klaire 5

Kallie

Kallie

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Kevin

Today is the day!!!!

2008-12-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

Lyndi just texted me with the girls weights:

Kallie--3.13 lbs

Klaire--4 lbs

Lyndi said that they are doing well and they aren't even needing oxygen!

The girls are here! Kevin just called and Laura is in the recovery room. Kallie entered the world at 10:31 a.m. and Klaire followed at 10:43. Kevin said they didn't know their weights or other details yet. He is hoping to go see the girls here shortly! Be praying for those girls and for Laura. Kevin said that Laura had a tough time but she did it!

UPDATE..Laura's dad just called (10:00) and Laura is dilated to a 9!

This is April and I thought that I would let everyone know that Laura is in the hospital having the girls!! Her sister, Lyndi is keeping me updated so I will post when I find out new information. As of about 9:00 Laura was dilated to a 4 and she had just gotten her epidural. Be praying for Laura, Kallie and Klaire....and Kevin too!!

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T17:25:00.000-08:00

The boys both liked seeing Santa, but they were annoyed with all of us telling them to say 'cheese'!! Santa's helpers were so concerned about the picture that boys didn't get to talk much to Santa. But he did ask them what they wanted and they said trains and cars. Afterwards, I asked Landon what he thought about seeing him and he said, "I thought he was lovely mom." :) Oh so polite when he wants to be! Liam said he would like to go back and see him again.

Today we made this gingerbread house as a family. It was just as much fun for us as it was for the kids. Kevin and are so excited about playing 'Santa' tonight. We are about to read a book to the boys about baby Jesus and drink some hot cocoa. Tomorrow we are going to put candles in our walnut bread (a delicious bread that Kevin's mom always makes for Christmas) and sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jesus.

I am so excited to be to this day and be home! Thanks for your prayers. We wish you a very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Still hanging in there!

2008-12-22T12:28:00.000-08:00

I'm still just on modified bedrest and no sign of labor yet! Yeah! I'm miserable, but the girls are getting stronger every day that they stay put, so that keeps me going. My doctor is very pleased with my progress and really thinks I can make it four more weeks! AHHHH! He says I don't know what miserable is yet.....that's scary. Seriously scary. Pray for my endurance and attitude.

Anyway, one week ago the girls were estimated at 3.0 pounds (Kallie) and 3.10 pounds (Klaire). So miss Klaire is being a little bit of a hog. However, my doctor says not to be concerned right now, we are monitoring their growth very carefully and Kallie is still growing. So if it gets to be over a pound difference and Kallie's weight gain starts to level out than we will talk about taking them early. But right now the goal is five pound babies. So pray that Klaire shares her food and that Kallie keeps gaining as steadily as her sister! (We've had them named based on their 'sides of my tummy' for a couple months now! It helps me to feel closer to them.)

So we still don't have middle names. Well correction, I have middle names......I'm just waiting on Kevin to make up his mind!! I have given him my favorite options, but he still can't commit and that's fine. As long as we have something in case I go into labor!

I think I can. I think I can.

2008-12-14T18:21:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last post because my ability and desire to sit in front of the computer is dwindling. So my posts may be a little shorter:)

First of all, everyone wants to know what name we changed. I forgot to mention that last time! Right now we going with Kallie and Klaire. Still no definite middle names, but I think we are getting closer. Picking two names at once is tough!

Last Thursday I decided to practice the whole hospital thing. I was having contractions all morning and so doc decided to have me come in and be monitered. Sure enough I was having plenty of contractions, but nothing consistant or to be concerned about and my cervix was still closed. Being in a labor and delivery room brought about many memories, some wonderful and some not so wonderful:) I'm on modified bedrest and basically only getting out to take Landon to preschool and go to the doctor. Other than that, Kevin and my mom are doing my shopping and it's great!!!

Showers! We have had two wonderful showers. Thanks to all the hostesses and everyone that blessed us with gifts for the girls. We are just so thankful! Here are some pictures from the showers.

Isn't my sister's cake amazing. I call it her 'masterpiece'!

The boys are doing great. Landon told everyone at preschool last Thursday that the doctor was trying to stop my reactions. Ha! Love it. We have an ultrasound tomorrow and I'll try to give another update later this week.

Updates

2008-12-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

We had a restful Thanksgiving, or at least I did! Kevin was a busy little bee getting all of our Christmas decorations up. Thanks honey. The boys are gearing up for Christmas. Landon is telling Liam all about Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, stockings, reindeer, etc. And of course Liam is just thrilled to have more things to talk about with his brother. You ought to hear them lately...they are just too cute. Liam will say, "Come here Wandon I need you." or "Wandon, lets go on a mission to outer space!". Today Landon accidental bonked Liam and so he came over, hugged him, and said, "It was an accident Liam, I love you too much to do something to hurt you." How sweet is that?!? They have only been physical with each other 2 times that I can remember and I know they will do plenty of that later on. But for now, our boys are pretty stinking sweet.

So I we had an ultrasound yesterday. It went very well. My doctor came in at the end to look at some things and he said he was very pleased that the girls were not sitting very low in my pelvis, the amniotic fluid measurements look good, and their sizes look good. The girls have done a switcheroo on us too. They didn't switch sides, but the one who was head down and slightly smaller is now head up and slightly bigger and the one who was head up and slightly bigger is now head down and slightly smaller! Sorry that was a lot to follow! But they are estimated at 2.10 and 2.15 right now and are looking very healthy.

So I let Landon come with me to this ultrasound and he was so excited to say the least. He charmed all the people in the office and nearly made me and the ultrasound tech wet our pants. In the middle of the ultrasound he ran over to the tech, grinned from ear to ear, and said, "This was the look I had on my face when my mommy pooped me out!" I thought I was going to die of laughter and embarrassment all at the same time. So I of course had to explain to her our recent talk with Landon. She thought the whole thing was worthy of America's Funniest Videos. I agree, if only we had captured our talk on video.....we would have won for sure!!

And we have changed one of the names of the girls:) Yep! But we still don't have middle names! Help! We don't care what letter they start with!

Here are some pictures from last week. We really like to play musical furniture at our house right now and Landon's room has gone from his room, to office, to playroom/office, to nursery/office all in 4 months. Landon and Liam are sharing a room and have been since August, they enjoy it very much and it is working well for our little house and our growing family. We weren't planning on doing a nursery for the girls in this house b/c we are putting it on the market in January, but Kevin got the itch after he surprised me with new dressers for the girls. So he painted the room pink last week and we are going to set it up to look like a nursery, but for now my desk is where a crib would go (and yes we are getting two cribs and sadly two will not fit in the room!). We hope to buy a house next year that has really big secondary bedrooms and let the boys share one and the girls share one. If all goes as we hope, we will get into a new house by July b/c Landon is going to Kindergarten and we need to be in the school district we want before school starts up! But if we have to manage here for another year, we will do that too!

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T12:33:00.000-08:00

I am just overwhelmed with thankfulness this week. The lesson our preacher brought to us this past Sunday and has made me consumed with being grateful, so I thought I would list some things I am thankful for.

-My salvation and Kevin's salvation
-Being surrounded by parents, siblings, in-laws, and friends who are also going to heaven with me
-My amazing husband
-Our perfect little boys and soon to be girls
-Our extended families
-Our church family
-Our friends
-Our jobs
-Our home
-Our food
-Our cars
-Our freedom
-Our health
-The aches and pains I have right now b/c that means I pregnant with two more angels.
-The million times I have to tell Landon and Liam to calm down or stop it b/c that means I have kids who are being kids!
-The dish washer that is full for the four time in a week b/c that means we have eaten a lot!
-The mounds of never ending laundry b/c that means we have plenty of clothes.
-And so much more. There are so many things that may seem little, but they are huge. Things like heat, air conditioning, more than one pair of shoes, indoor plumbing, beds, phones, computers.......all kinds of things that we take for granted every day! I could list 500 of them, but I won't!

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are all so blessed.

Life continues sometimes slow and sometimes fast

2008-11-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

I mostly want to put the brakes on life right now. The boys are changing so quickly and I want to soak up every minute with them before the girls come and wonderful chaos hits our home. Don't get me wrong, I can hardly wait to meet Kaitlyn and Kallie, but I know that no matter how hard I try to be super mom I will not be able to give Landon and Liam the attention they are accustomed to.

Also, I know that there is a possibility that the girls will come before Christmas or that I will be in the hospital during Christmas (on bed rest) and I want the girls to come when they are meant to come, however, I so desperately want to celebrate this year in the comfort of our home, giving the boys our undivided attention. I want the boys to feel so special and loved this Christmas and I know we can do that even in a hospital room (or if the girls have come, we can spend Christmas morning at home likely and then go up to the hospital to be with them) but it just seems to be on my list of 'trying not to worry abouts' lately:)

We will roll with the punches no matter what happens, but I just have this mommy instinct lately telling me that these babies are coming in December. I get my cervix checked at least every two weeks and this past Wednesday it was still long and closed, but it was soft. Doc told me he was happy with it and not to worry about it being soft, but you know I get held up on details sometimes:) Kevin and I have decided to look at it like, "Well, at least they didn't come this week!' So, 27 weeks is better than 26 and next week 28 will be better than 27 would have been! My prayer has not been for a specific week, it has been that when the girls or my body to decide to go into labor, that Kaitlyn and Kallie will be ready for this world. Premmies are fighters and modern medicine makes it possible for them to over come odds that in the past they otherwise would not have been able to overcome. So we are thankful. Nervous and prayerful, but thankful.

On a lighter note, Landon and Liam have been cracking us up with their latest baby comments! Liam has decided to call the girls 'Luigi'. Yes both of them. Or 'K K'. I guess we will take whatever we get from him:) I suppose the boys will have even more trouble getting the girls mixed up than us! Landon wants us to put a stamp on one of them.....he might be onto something there. We may have to do something to keep them from having their identies stolen by each other!

Landon may have gotten his need for details from me:) This week was no exception. We have gracefully danced around his questions about how the babies got in my belly and how they get out for awhile now. We knew that our responses like, "God put the babies there. And the doctor helps get the babies out." would only suffice for so long. Well it happened this week at dinner. He cornered me! I was clearing dishes when I heard the dreaded question come. Landon said, "So, how ARE they babies going to get out if you don't have any holes in your tummy?" I flubbered for a second and then smiled and said, "How about you go wash your hands while your daddy and I talk for a minute and then we will answer your question." So Kevin and I quickly decided that we shouldn't make this a huge deal, the question is not going away, and he is going to get too many confusing answers at kindergarten next year as is. So I sat down on the couch and he ran over sat down, criss-crossed his legs, stared at me with anticipation, and says, "I'm ready for this talk mom!" (I could hardly talk to him with a straight face.) We simply told him that babies usually come out mommies 'bottoms' (he knows the real term b/c 'bottom' also did not suffice his need for details!). Then came the denial, "No, you are kidding me dad. How does THAT work??!?!?" I said the 'bottom' gets big enough for the baby/babies to come out and then after the baby comes, it gets small again. And the mommy is fine. Landon had a few more questions that Kevin and I can't remember mostly b/c we were doubled over and then he says, "I got it. It's just like me going poops. But when I get a big one it comes out looking like a mushroom, are the girls going to look like mushrooms when they come out?"

I leave you with that! And some pics!

45 Days Until Christmas!

2008-11-10T18:50:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming! In 45 days! When I tallied that number I could hardly believe it. I have so many things to do before the gifts are opened (like, actually buy the gifts...). For a lot of you, sending out Christmas cards is at the top of that To Do list. Before you buy that overpriced, generic box of greeting cards for the 8th year in a row, stop by http://www.forkeepsdesign.com/ and browse through all the unique, custom designs we have to offer. Visit the Holiday section and you'll find designs in all price brackets - even as low as 99 cents!! Since you know the owner there has to be some kind of perk, right? How about a coupon?! When you order before 2009, use coupon code HOLIDAY10 and receive 10% off your entire order. Custom designed Christmas cards for 99 cents plus 10% off! You REALLY can't beat that!

Trunk of Treats and Our Pumpkins

2008-10-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

Trunk of Treats is a huge event at many of the churches down here and ours is no exception. Our children's ministry puts on this event and they provide bounce houses, a petting zoo, an indoor maze, food, contests, and tons of candy!! Church members decorate their trunks and pass out the candy. We have a great turn out from the local neighborhoods too.....in fact I saw more neighborhood families than church families.

It's hard to tell from the picture, but we had many shoes in our trunk. The kids thought they had to smell them before we would give them candy:)

Liam was running a little fever that night but he still enjoyed everything. We weren't sure if he would wear his costume, but once we got there and he saw everyone else in theirs he didn't complain and especially when he started getting candy!!

If you ask him if he is Lightening McQueen, he will say, "well actually, I am Weeum." He is too cute and quite articulate like big brother:)

Sunday we carved pumpkins. Landon our little artist, wanted to do everything himself and just couldn't understand why we wouldn't let him use the knives. Kevin made him help 'pull out the pumpkin brains' and at first Landon was not a fan but then he really got into it.

From left to right: Landon's, Kevin's, Mine, Liam's, and of course you know whose the two in front are!

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch with Kevin's parents. They were in town with us this weekend. Landon jumped in the bounce houses while Liam rode the hay ride with Granddad/GrandPop (Liam has decided that he is GrandPop...so cute). They both REALLY love their pumpkins.

By the end I was pretty exhausted, so I made Landon pull me everywhere. JK- He couldn't get me very far and I'm pretty sure I was about to bust out the back of the wagon!!!

For Keeps Design Gets Big Publicity

2008-10-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I and For Keeps Design are being featured on the site Freebies4Mom (see it here) this week. We're giving away a $25 gift certificate to our store (so go enter the giveaway!) and offering a 15% coupon code to her readers. Heather, the owner of Freebies4Mom, told me this morning that she is expecting around 1,000 people to enter the contest. Wow! On top of that, she was interviewed by Inside Edition this past week (set to air on Monday) so that should really spike her website hits this week. We are super excited about what this publicity will do for getting the word out about For Keeps Design. So feel free to post this on your blog and spread the word!
And don't forget to check out our latest holiday designs. We've been uploading many new ones and a lot of them are only 99 cents! You can't beat that!

Double Stroller Contest

2008-10-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! I'm hoping to win this new super awesome CHICCO double stroller for the twins! If you want to enter too, then just go to http://parentswithstyle.blogspot.com/search/label/Trevi%20Twin%20Stroller
and follow the contest directions!

Race Day

2008-10-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Running for Drew were: Josh and Beckham, my dad, my brother-in-law Collin, Kevin, Liam, Lyndi, Landon, Tiffany, April and Avery, and me!

The sun was beaming down on us this morning at the race for mitochondrial disease. It was started two years ago by a family who has a little girl with the disease in our town. Last year alone the family was able to present a check for one hundred thousand dollars to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation and most of the proceeds were raised by the race and it's sponsers! So we're excited to see what they raised this year!

In case you all were worried about me racing....I didn't go....I waited at the finish line for everyone:) Landon ran for almost an entire mile! Way to go Landon! And Papa was the third man to finish the 5K! Thanks everyone for coming out and supporting Drew and the fight for a cure.

Cure for Mitochondrial 5K and 1K

2008-10-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hey if any of you that live in the area are interested in walking/running this Saturday morning in memory of Drew please email me for details lauramstaples@hotmail.com! We will be there, hope you can be too!

Our lives last week

2008-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Last week was very emotional for us, but we are thankful that Drew is home with our Father. Thanks to all of you for your support for the Clarks!! Landon and Liam have been praying for Drew to 'get better' for so long that they were a bit confused when we told them to thank God for bringing Drew to live with him:) Landon has prayed....that Drew would have a good bed in heaven.......that he would have trains to play with....that God would be with him every day.....that God would give him the band-aids he needs....that he wouldn't ever have to cry anymore.....and some more that I can't remember right now. Kevin went to Calgary for Drew's celebration last week and I had to stay home, but he called me often and gave me lots of details so that I could feel like I was there too.

Here are some things we did last week to occupy our time.

We watched miss Avery Kate. Three was a piece of cake for a day....:) I think four...two being newborns might be a bit more challenging!

We learned how to make hair bows thanks to my friend Erin! This is just the beginning people...I am probably going to be a little obsessed with hair bows for a while so expect to see lots of them on our girls:) I had to put some on Minnie, b/c the joke around here for the last couple years has been that I was going to start dressing her up if we never had a girl!!!!!

The hair bow holder was an unfinished picture frame that my sister and I painted and then put scrapbook rub-on's on. It is so easy. I am going to make another one and when we figure out what we are going to name the girls, I will put the letters of their names in the black circles. They will hang in their room. We are doing their room in black, white, and pink. I have decided to tackle the task (with my mom's help) of making their bedding b/c I just haven't found the perfect set! So I will post pictures of that as we work on it.

Speaking of names......I would love it if you guys could tell us some 'K' names! We are doing two 'K' names and really any name that starts with a 'C' can be switched to a 'K'. Anyway, we have pretty much settled on one name and are working on the second name....so tell us about cute 'K' names you've heard of pretty please.

And last but not least, my sister and I threw a house warming party for our friend Tiffany. No I did not do the cup cakes....Lyndi did! She did an amazing job, they looked even better in person b/c you can't see the shimmery glitter she brushed on them in these pictures. The butterflies she did out of chocolate. She melts the different colored chocolates and does her designs on wax paper...cool huh?!?

Dearest Drew

2008-09-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

It is through tears of pain and relief that I write to tell you that our nephew, Drew, went home yesterday. He went peacefully in the arms of his parents. We thank you for your prayers and support for the Clark family and ours.

Please read their blog to see how they are glorifying God amidst their loss.

http://jkpdclark.blogspot.com/

A Ray of Sunshine

2008-09-24T08:16:00.001-07:00

Many of you have been emailing asking for a Drew update. Kevin got home last night from seeing him and his family. (I was unable to go b/c of being high risk for pre-term labor, otherwise I would have been there as well. Words cannot express how distressed I am that I could not be there.)

Drew is hanging in there. Kevin said he was very peaceful, still seizing, but peaceful. Kari and Jordan continue to be beacons of trust, faith, and hope in our God.

Please continue to show your support through prayer. Thank you all for embrassing them and us with your love, encouraging words, and prayers during this time of pain.

Time-out Wonder Woman Wanna Be

2008-09-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm 17 and 1/2 weeks in this picture (18 tomorrow)!! I promise my belly is even bigger in person than this picture! So I met with my doctor yesterday and whew that was a long visit. I had tons of questions and he had lots of information. So basically he said bed rest is in my future and I'm going to get extra special treatment. He wanted to see me back in two weeks and I have another sono in three weeks. He made feel confident in him and the care that I will receive and especially about delivering them, but I am still very concerned about pre-term labor. He said that we were definitely going past 32 weeks and he felt confident about 36. He said that he has every intention of delivering them vaginally which is exactly what I wanted to hear.

I am supposed to take it very easy and lighten my load which is going to be very hard for me b/c I am an independent, first born child, that has lots of responsibilities!! But I am already trying! I am not picking Liam up at all, I am only doing light cleaning, I'm only going to cook easy meals that don't require standing in the kitchen all afternoon, and I'm laying down any time I get tired. My sweet mom is going to clean my house for me every two weeks and I've already had close friends volunteering to come over and help out with the boys and Kevin is of course going to be doing so much for me too:)

Hey a special thanks to all of you supporting Drew, I read all of the comments on their blog and it made me so emotional. I'm sure those encouraging words and prayers mean more to them than you will ever know.

Drew

2008-09-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Our nephew and his family are in desperate need of your prayers. Please read Jordan and Kari's blog, it explains in detail his status so much better than I can.

http://jkpdclark.blogspot.com/

Shock...utter shock

2008-09-12T05:40:00.000-07:00

Well I thought I knew what shock felt like, but yesterday was the first time I've ever felt it at full capacity! I'll just get right to it and then give you the whole story......drum roll please.........are you ready for this??? We are HAVING TWIN BABY GIRLS.......AHHH.....(insert SCREAMING and JUMPING HERE!!!!) No I'm not kidding, this is not a joke. We're still in shock too!!!!!

So I don't know where to begin.....because there is a lot to this story. Well, I'll start back in November last year. Okay so we were coming around to the idea of a third child and one day for fun I typed into google, 'how to have a girl', and I fumble through website after website reading all kinds of funny and bizarre things. Then I came to this website that seemed way too good to be true. In a nut shell it said join our program that has a 94% success rate and if you don't get the gender you desire we will double your refund. I talked to Kevin about it and he said maybe we still have a while before we should get pregnant (lots of trips planned) and so I thought about it for months...literally months. March rolled around and I knew if we were going to do it we needed to get in gear b/c it takes a few months of preparation. The preparation is basically changing your ph level by strict diet and supplements (calcium and magnesium for girl) and doing the deed on the days they tell you to until you get pregnant. Sounds simple, but actually it was fairly challenging to change my ph and I almost threw in the towel on a few occations. So I could write ten posts just on fertility and gender methods...but I don't want to....if you seriously want more info on that you can email me at lauramstaples@hotmail.com.

Okay back to the baby story. So we stuck with the program and some how got pregnant the first month! And even crazier than that, we got pregnant on a day when I was totally not 'suppose to be fertile'. In fact, I was so sure that I was not pregnant that I road a roller coaster two weeks later....yes ladies....I was mortified that I had done that after I found out. I didn't tell Kevin about the pregnancy test for three days and gave it to him for Father's day. He was SO surprised to say the least. Now fast forward to week eleven. My first doctors appointment and I've gained 10/11 pounds and my tummy looks like that of someone 6 weeks ahead of me. I say, "hey doc, I'm huge, do you think it could be twins?" He just laughs, listens for the heart beat, finds it and says "nope, just one." Then fast forward to my next visit at 15 weeks. I tease him again, "Are you sure there is only one, I felt this little one way before I felt the boys move!" He laughs again, finds one good heart beat and still says just one.

At that point, I put the twin thing to rest. It was a funny joke and trust me plenty of people have teased me about it over the last couple months, but seriously who has twins at the age of 26 with out fertility drugs?!? So doc allowed me to have my ultrasound a little early since I told him it was my birthday at my 15 week visit:), so we scheduled it for week 17. The last two weeks flew by and yesterday morning I woke up and started dreading my ultrasound. The baby's health had really been on my mind the last couple weeks and I was feeling SO guilty for wanting a specific gender so badly. I spent most of the morning in prayer and meditation and by 2:00 I was at peace and was finally really ready for whatever was to come. I prayed that God would allow me to see the big picture and not be so focused on my tiny little life, I knew I would love this next one just as much as I love the boys of course! I was just afraid of initial reactions.

So Kevin and I went in without the boys and we told the lady as we were walking back to the room that we already had two precious boys and we were crossing our fingers for pink. She said well don't get mad at me if it is a boy! So as she went to put the moniter on my tummy, Kevin jokingly says, "It would be cool if you told us we were having twins." She just laughed like yeah I get that one a lot. So she started rolling the moniter quickly across my tummy, then jerked it off, took a depth breath, adjusted her glasses and says, "Is this your first ultrasound?" Us not taking any hints go, "Yep, sure is." She rolls it over my tummy again slowly this time, we still have no idea, she takes it off again, looks at us and yells, "You guys are having twins!!" After we calmed down she started the ultrasound again and it all of a sudden hit me, our chances for a girl just doubled. I said, "Tell me there is at least one girl in there!!!" She looked at baby A for a long time and then moved to baby B and got a real good shot between the legs and I said, "I don't see a weenie!" She said well actually, I feel very confident that you are having two girls!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!! Yep, I haven't come down from cloud nine yet. Everyone's reactions have been priceless!! Thank you all for being so excited with us.

Please keep us in your prayers, as going full term is even more on my mind than it was before of course. Pray for 36 week, healthy twins. Whew....it has taken me 7 hours to write this b/c I can hardly sit still and my phone has been ringing off the hook! I woke up around 3:00 last night and never went back to sleep! So I'm going to try to get in a nap while the boys are asleep! I will post pictures of the babies and my belly this weekend.

Custom wedding invitations, birth announcements, and more!

2008-09-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

For the past year and a half I've been working with my friend and business partner, Sarah, to develop an online store that offers custom wedding invitations, wedding packages, birth announcements, party invitations and holiday cards. It's been such a journey! I could go on and on about everything we have learned, but I won't bore you! We are finally open for business and we couldn't be more excited. Go check it out at http://www.forkeepsdesign.com/. Everything on the site represents hours (or rather, months) of work spent designing, writing, researching and developing. Be sure to read the About Us page to find out more about who we are and why we chose the name For Keeps Design. A special thanks again to Sarah Jones Photography , as she provided much of the beautiful photography found throughout the site. We love the way it turned out and can't wait to hear from all of you! Let us know what you think! Be sure to check back because we will be adding new designs to all the categories and we will offer more specials and discounts as our business grows!

Pre-school and mini-what?!?!

2008-09-02T15:01:00.000-07:00

Landon started back to preschool this week. We are trying a new one that is closer to our house and so far so good. He was in full character this morning as we entered the building (well Liam was too!), they said hi to everyone we passed, hugged a few here and there, and he ran into his room with out even telling me bye....sob sob. I was like, "okay...I love you....I'll pick you up later....bye...". Then when I went to pick him up he didn't want to leave but I quickly assured him that we would be back on Thursday, so then he decided it would be alright to come home. Then he and Liam put on a great show for several of the parents and directors by embrassing in a HUGE hug and Liam told Landon, 'I wuv you Wandon" and Landon squeezed Liam tighter and said, "Ahhh, he must have missed me so much today. I love you too brother." Nope, they aren't always like that, but they do really love each other!!

Now on to my favorite birthday present.........my new mini-van!!!! I love it already. We were planning on getting one in a couple months but Kevin's car had other plans. The radiator went out last week and the starter has been going out lately and it was going to be a very costly repair. So we decided to make the jump to the mini-van early and say good bye to 'Black Lightening' (my sister's nickname for Kev's car....it was her first car:). I was thankful that we had been researching already and we had narrowed down our options before Kevin called me last Tuesday and said, "Get online and find your van Laura." We had decided to only search for Toyota Siennas and Honda Odysseys that had low miles and were only 2 or 3 years old. And of course it had to be a color I liked....I was a little picky:) So anyway long story short, we haggled on our top choices all week, almost ended up with a Pilot, but in the end we came back to our senses and realized that you can't beat sliding doors and middle row bucket seats and a dealer found us a van in color that I loved that was finally a price we were willing to pay and the fact that it had a dvd player was icing on the cake.

So enough suspense, here's our new ride. Words can't describe how much the boys love it, they act like we are going to Disney World every time we tell them to load up in the new van!! I'm sure that will wear off soon....:)

Randomness from last week

2008-08-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

First, a shout out for the best cell phone ever. I know there are fancier ones around, but this pink razor was meant to be mine. Last week I left it outside in a thunderstorm over night! Oops! Next day I realized what I had done and I just knew it was toast....but against all odds it came back to life. Oh but that's not the first time this phone has been submerged. There was the time when it was swimming in the bottom of my purse in apple juice, the time when I spilled half a bottle of canola oil on top of it, the times that Liam got a hold of it while teething and I found him sucking/chewing on it, and the countless amount of times that it has been dropped in parking lots, tile floors, and any where else one can drop a cell phone!!!! So I'm thankful for a phone that can keep up with my craziness! And a tip for anyone who's cell phone gets soaked....take it apart and let it dry out before you try to turn it back on!

Secondly, a big thanks to my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws for the new maternity clothes! Here I am sporting my new tank top that says, 'It's not easy being quesy!' Love it! I think my belly has slowed down a bit, but I still can't believe this pooch for only being 14 weeks (13 in the picture)

Can you believe these goobers? Never a dull moment around here. I tell ya they can make those 32 inch waist shorts look like 40 right!!!!?!?!?

And this is just too good not to post. Minnie lays like this all the time with us on the couch and Kevin was trying to help her maintain some dignity for the photo op. HAHAHA!!

All about Liam

2008-08-12T08:15:00.001-07:00

My baby is not a baby anymore): He turned two almost a month ago and I didn't get many pictures from his party b/c I was making sure everyone got fed. Anyway, he had a Lightening McQeen party and almost every present he recieved had something to do with the movie Cars! He loved his cake, loved his presents, and loved the attention. Here are some things about Liam that I want to always remember:

-He is so affectionate
-He loves to cuddle with his blankie and his mommy and daddy
-He loves his broder (brother)
-He talks VERY well for his age
-He adores cars, trains, airplanes, and tractors
-He loves books
-He can count to 11 without missing any numbers
-He sings a very cute version of Jesus Loves Me, Thank you Jesus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC's, I will fight this fight (a song brother taught him)
-He is not afraid of strangers
-He is more opinionated than Landon was at this age
-He is sleeping in a big boy bed
-He has started telling me that he loves me and it melts my heart
-His least favorite foods are meat and cheese sandwiches and green veggies
-His favorite foods are pizza, pastas, borritos, fruit, crackers and ANYTHING sweet
-He has to sleep with blankie and suck his thumb to fall asleep at night
-He enjoys doing pretty much anything that brother is doing
-He always wants to wear a hat and sun glasses when he go out
-He stomps down the hall and puts himself in time out when he is upset
-He gets very excited when daddy comes home
-He loves pretending to be animals
-He knows most of his shapes, colors, and letters
-He weighs about 31 pounds and is 33 1/2 inches tall
-He is starting to say some funny things, I am going to have to start adding his quotes:)
-His nicknames are Lee Man & Chicunk (that's what Aunt DeDe and Uncle Collin call him b/c he that's how he pronouced chipmonks on our Colorado trip and b/c of his chubby cheeks:)

Cooking....what cooking?

2008-08-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

That pretty much sums up how I have felt about being in the kitchen the last couple months. We have had a lot of pre-made meals and we have been eating out much more than we usually do. I hate that but everything makes me nauseated of course.....I mean opening up the spice cabinet...wow...let's just say I breathe threw my mouth a lot lately. Anyway, my goal of this post is not to wine about my nausea again, it is to share with you a couple great recipes. Because I actually tried some new things last night and made a decent meal for my family!

And also before I forget, I would like to say that my sweet husband, who is not very skilled in the kitchen (sorry honey:)...but he can grill and use his smoker well!), has been helping out so much. He made two meals last week all by himself and he has pretty much been doing all the dishes. Thank you Kevin!!

So the first recipe is for Creamy Tomato Soup without cream! A very healthy version and it was fantastic. Second recipe is for the BEST grill cheeses you will every eat. Third, is a summer dessert I grew up with.

Creamless Creamy Tomato Soup (Cook's Illustrated Magazine)

1/4 extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
3 large cloves garlic, minced
pinch hot red pepper flakes (optional)
2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes in juice
4 slices white bread crusts removed, cubed
1 Tablespoon brown sugar, packed (you can add more at the end if it is not sweet enough for your taste, but we liked the bold flavor with out more sugar)
2 cups chicken broth
Salt and pepper
fresh chopped basil for garnish

Heat oil in large pot on medium. Saute onions first, then add garlic. Cook until onions are clear and make sure not to brown garlic. Add hot pepper flakes if you want them. Next dump in tomatoes and their juices, let this simmer for a minute or two. Then add your bread cubes and brown sugar and let that simmer for about 5 minutes or until the bread is breaking down. Then get out your blender and puree this in two batches! Then return it to the pot and add the chicken stock and salt and pepper to taste. Let it simmer for another few minutes on low while you make your grill cheeses! Garnish with basil.

Best-Ever Grill Cheeses

1 bag of your favorite shredded cheese (I used mozzarella this time)
1 can of cream of mushroom soup ( I have done it with other cream soup flavors which are great too, but I thought this complimented the mozzarella really well)
1 loaf of sour dough or french bread
butter

Mix thecream soup and cheese in a bowl. Stuff sandwiches with the mixture and butter the bread. Grill to desired doneness!!

Summer Strawberry Pie

2 cartons of strawberries
1 carton strawberry glaze (found in produce section..Albertsons and Kroger always have..but other places are hit and miss...and make sure you don't grab the sugar-free it is not nearly as good)
1 graham cracker crust
cool whip

Slice strawberries, mix with glaze in a big bowl, dump in pie shell, cover with cool whip. It's that easy and oh so refreshing! Keep refregerated! Sorry I did not get a picture of the pie:)

Oh and total side note, a couple comments from my previous post just disappeared! Has anyone ever had that happen? So fyi--Kelli and Angela I did not delete your comments!!

Now that you know...

2008-08-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

So now I can vent to you all about my pregnancy woes. First, I feel VERY blessed to be pregnant and I am very excited about having another little angel...so just keep that in mind while I talk about all my symptoms:)

Okay, I am soooooooo not one of those women that loves being pregnant.....no way hose-a! I am in this for the end result! In fact, I have to tell myself on a daily bases, "it's all for the baby Laura, you can do this.....only 6 more months". SIX MORE months....ahhh:) Anyway, I am SO nauseated. I threw-up until week 24 with Landon and week 23 with Liam....so can we hope for week 22 with this one??? I sure hope so! My mom puked the same amount of time....thanks mom:) But I know of some girls that puked the whole time....so I'm SO SORRY for those of you who never get any relief until the end. Phinagrin (probably mis-spelled that) works well but I usually sleep for like 18 hours after I take one of those! So I take Zophran here and there and it helps a little, but then I get a killer head ache and even extra strength Tylenol can barely soothe it. So I am pretty much toughing it out. Nausea is definitely my biggest complaint at this point...but then there is the ligament pain that makes me double over, the hernia under my belly button is already back, my abdominal muscles have already separated again, my system is backed-up if ya know what I mean:), I'm peeing 2-3 times at night already, I'm crying all the time, my body pillow is giving me back aches (did anyone else have this problem...I can't figure out how to have good posture while I sleep with that thing!?!?!), and I'm my tummy is already huge!

Everyone has been teasing me about having twins because my belly has grown SO fast! I would not have been surprised to hear two heart beats at the doctor, but there was only one! I will tell all you girls that just have one...you will pop out really fast with number two. And all you girls that have two and are going for three....you will not be able to comfortably button your regular pants/shorts at 6 weeks!!! I'm already wearing some maternity clothes and I wish I was wearing more...but I am still forcing myself to do the rubber band thing for a little longer!! And I made myself my own bellaband:) A real bellaband would send me puking in 2 minutes of having it on, I can't have anything tight on at all.

So I will leave you with my latest crazy dream. The other night I dreamed that I had a really hard time pushing this baby out and then I passed out right when it came out and nobody woke me up until the next day. Then I woke up and was like where is my baby and everyone was like we didn't want to wake you up and then they handed me the baby and it was a boy with very curly hair!! Strange....but the dream seemed so real while I was having it!!!