Fun Family Labor Day Weekend

Well this last weekend was a great weekend as we were privileged to have visits from lots of family. Edward, our nephew got baptized this weekend, so Edward, Katie, Andrew, and of course Jessica & I were all together with our respective families. It was a fun-filled weekend with a lot of great visiting. We were sad that Jan and Mary and Mom weren't able to make it with their families, but enjoyed the time that the rest of us had together. Here are all the pictures. The first group is of the kids at the baptism on Saturday. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of Edward, so I'll have to just wait and get a copy from someone else.

Next are pics of Mallory, Ellie, & Cora. We tried to get a picture of all three of them plus Katrina and Lauren, but there was always someone missing. They are 5 of the 6 girls all born in 2007 in our family. It was sure fun though to see how each one of their personalities are different. Their voices are all distinctly different...Ellie talks in 3rd person all the time, "Ellie needs to eat", etc... Cora & Lauren have raspy voices that sound like they are smokers, Katrina is very soft spoken and you have to get really close to hear her, and Mallory has this very high pitched cute voice! They are all different, but yet they all had so much fun together...minus the times that they all wanted the same toys!


Drew and Sam were quite the partners in crime...or play! They had the best fun making these concoctions of pop cans and our left over food with tape and grass and anything else they could get their hands on.

Then, all the cousins loved having Einstein & Stella there. The Felkers brought Stella and Einstein was in 7th heaven. The kids had fun taking turns in the dog house...sadly they probably stunk like crazy afterwards as it's been a long time since I've cleaned it out and washed the dog bed and blanket, but they didn't seem to mind. The dogs had so much fun that after everyone left, Einstein was so depressed that he didn't even eat his favorite liver treats!

Then there was plenty of outside time for the kids and the weather was perfect for it! The little girls even tried to play some football, but didn't like it too much!

After the baptism on Saturday, I found Kayley reading to the little girls. She was having so much being the big cousins to the girls and to also hang out with the bigger cousins, Olivia and Elizabeth.

This picture is to show that 1) My brother Edward is a goofball and a great Dad as he willingly plays with the kids in putting on some dress up gloves! And 2) to show that Mallory is just like her Dad in more than just her looks. I tried to catch it, but Edward has an owl eye. He can close his left eye without the right eye even moving and sometimes he does it when he not even noticing it. Well, Mallory was eating something a bit sour and when she would make her sour face, her owl eye would show threw just like her Dad's and it was even her left eye! Like Father, like daughter!

These are a couple of photo shoots of the girl cousins. They were all being cute on the couch...once again, Katrina didn't want to get in.

Photo shoot #2...

Then, on Sunday the girls all went into mine and Nick's room to watch Cinderella. About half way through the movie I noticed almost all the boys had gravitated to watch the movie too. I took a snap shot for proof. If you notice the boys...Ross is smiling as he's on a new kick to be proud of doing feminine things lately. Matt smiles just cause he's sweet and cooperative. Both Edward and Judson hid...Edward is hiding his face and Judson took off as you can see his shoes in the lower right corner of the pic. It was funny! It was a great weekend and of course wasn't long enough!

My Masterpiece

Ok...my real masterpieces are our girls, but this was quite the project. Nick and I have been wanting to replace our linoleum in our basement entry way for quite some time. We looked into doing ceramic tile, but with the cost of the tile cutter and other tile supplies, it was worth it to do peel and stick tile that could be grouted like real tile. Well a couple weeks ago, we went to look at the selection at Lowe's and were blessed to get the exact flooring we wanted color and everything for half price as they were clearing it out! We were way excited, well I was more excited than Nick...I was just like a school girl! Then to top it off I did the math and it was exactly the amount I had figured in what we would need! Anyway, I decided to take on the project as my family is coming into town this weekend and I wanted to show it off. What a project! I ran into having to chisel away at the baseboards to make it fit, which Nick helped me with. Then after 2-3 days of working on it...it's done...well other than putting the baseboards back on, but the caulking is still drying on some parts. Anyway, I have to say that I drool over it everytime I walk by it and I'm so glad that we (I mean I) did it! I didn't have an actual before picture but I did have a picture of when we were trying to decide what pattern to use so you could see what was underneath. Only with the tile on it you can't see the gashes that were in the floor that needed to be replaced, hence why we did this! Oh...and did I mention that I did this all by myself, except for Nick helping me shave off the baseboards!

Kayley says the funniest things sometimes...

Kayley said a couple of funny things tonight that I wanted to document. We were eating Blizzards at Dairy Queen and she told me, "Mom, do you know that your duty is to your mouth?" Not quite understanding what she was saying, I thought she was talking about "dootie"...err...poop. So I asked her again what she said trying to understand exactly what she was saying. Again, she said "Your duty is to your mouth." Nick heard what she was saying and said she meant, "your duty is to your heart." Apparently that's a line from Mulan...so now we know that "Our duty is to your heart...and I'm glad that my daughter does not know the other form of "duty" (dootie)!

Then on the way home, we came on a road with a lot of pot-holes and Nick reminded me to try and avoid them. Kayley then responded with a "yeah Mom, watch out they fall you!" It was cute!

Texas Roadhouse

As mentioned on an earlier post, Olivia has a birthday the day after Kayley's. So, after much convincing (only b/c he wasn't feeling very good), I got Nick to go. I actually went twice to Texas Roadhouse b/c the first time was to deliver a coupon that Jess could use (you know how we love coupons and we wanted to share the wealth...or the cheap). Then we visited and after much time on the phone, I got Nick to come, so I went back home to pick he and the girls up and we all went and had a fun dinner with them! I had to see if Jess had any plans of them singing to Olivia for her birthday, so Jess told our waitress and they came out with the saddle and some ice cream for both Kayley and Olivia. Olivia was the only brave one to get on the saddle...at least for them to sing to her. Cora got on the saddle for me to take a picture of her. She and Kayley are complete opposites in braveness it seems!! :) But, it was a fun night...our girls really do just adore Olivia and she is such a great cousin to them. It reminds me of how much she and Judson were my buddies when they were my girls' age. I remember them loving to ride in my "red car!" They used to get so excited about that! Judson loved me so much, he even asked me to marry him, he even bought me a ring, which I still have by the way! Then when I was getting married to Nick, JT had Judson tell me it was ok for me to marry Nick. It was so cute! We sure do love having the Carles so close to us now!

Oh and a funny thing from Edward when ordering his food. He was ordering his drink and asked for some "Hic"...he was at the end of the table and the waitress asked him to speak up, so he again said "Hic." No one could understand or hear what he wanted as he is a soft spoken boy anyway, so Jess asked him to point to what he wanted and he pointed to the "Hi-C" picture. Can't say I blame the boy...it does look like "Hic" to me if I've never read the word before! It was funny!

Kayley's 4th Birthday

Our Kayley turned 4 the other day and we can't believe she is so big now! It's amazing that we have been so blessed with such a smart girl. She is constantly asking me what sound letters make and she loves to read and write her letters! She still has two more years before she starts kindergarten as she misses the cutoff by 20 days, but I'm excited I get my sweet Kayley at home with me for 2 more years! She is a good big sister, when she and Cora aren't fighting and we couldn't ask for a better little Kayley!

She of course is still in love with Ariel, so we had an Ariel birthday party. We were hoping to have a swimming party, but unfortunately the rain didn't hold out for us and it was pouring down during her party! But, we made it work and it turned out to be a great party! She was lucky enough to have a lot of her family there as well as friends and she couldn't have had a better party! Her Aunt Mary even was there from Vegas!! :)

We started the party with some Ariel games. Since we were supposed to have the party at the pool, we had to tweek the games a bit. Instead of doing a game of searching for diving sticks in the pool, we searched for them in the house...a game of "Ariel's Sunken Treasures." Then, we were going to have a fun Ursula game with Aunt Mary in the pool, but instead had to do "Hot Sebastian" or Hot Potato...the kids took a while to figure out the rules of that one, so we eventually stopped the game and just gave all the kids some candy! :)

Then we did some cake and ice cream. I attempted to do an Ariel cake from an idea off the internet. Am I glad that Mary was there to help me with the artistic side of it! I was running late on everything with the party, so Mary helped me ice the cake while I went to go pick up some dinner. She did all the water/sand dune part and I wish I could take credit for it, but she did all that! All I did was bake the cake/sand dune with the holes in them and put on Ariel's fins...which also had to be tweeked as Ariel was a bit taller than we expected. Then I added Melody and Flounder for the final touches. I have to say that I think Mary and I made a good team and maybe we should go in the business!?! Olivia was also a good sport in sharing her birthday party with Kayley. Olivia's birthday is the day after Kayley's, so she had a cookie cake and had a friend, Ikea come with her. They were both great helpers with the kids and of course all the kids adored both of them!

Then it was time for the presents, which was mad caos as there were lots of kids and only one of me who was manning the station of the presents! Kayley hit jackpot and loved all of her presents though! It was amazing how fast my house got crazy messy...it felt like Christmas morning!

One of her gifts was an Ariel bathtub toy, which she had her eyes on at the stores! I'm not sure which kid had the idea, but someone wanted to play with it in the bathtub. They started to do it in the hallway bath, but I made sure all the parents were ok with it and decided to do it in our bathtub and let all the kids put on their suits and climb in...they did want a swimming party to begin with anyway! It was quite the sight and I'm shocked at how many kids fit in our jacuzzi tub! I didn't put theses in a collage format b/c otherwise it wouldn't fit all the kids in the picture. I got a head count and at one point we had as many as 10 kids in there! It was all in all a great party and a great time visiting with friends and family!

Sister Night

After Kayley's birthday party the other day, Mary, Jessica, and I wanted some sister time with one another so we decided to go watch Time Traveler's Wife. I have to say that it was really fun going with my sisters! I'm so blessed to have such great sisters and I just wish my other sisters could have been there too! I did like the movie...although I'm going to forewarn you with the fact that there is a lot of bootie shown!! I mean a lot and too much in my opinion! But, very emotional movie-for me anyway. After the movie was over it was pouring down rain and of course our car was way far away! So, I took the bullet and raced out to get the car...I missed Nick as he usually does that. Anyway, it was a great night and it was great that our husbands watched the kids so we could have some needed sister time!

Chief's Game

Well, after much begging and convincing, I got Nick to go to a Chief's Game with me the other day. Nick's cousin has season tickets this year and we are excited to be able to see him more often because of it, but he wasn't able to make it to the pre-season game and so he kindly sent us the tickets! So, Nick got free tickets and it still took convincing for him to go. I told him that he could either take me to the game and Michelle/Kendall would watch the girls, or Michelle and I would go and take Cora with us and he and Kayley could go watch a movie together. So, he finally was convinced to take me...so thanks to Michelle for watching the girls we had a fun time getting soaked! It was nice cool weather when we got there and then during the 1st quarter it started raining a bit and then let up for a while, then started and never stopped! During halftime we started feelind drops on our heads and realized that our umbrella was failing us...so we lasted until about the end of the 3rd quarter and then headed out...but the best part was on the way to pay for parking, a lady randomly rolled down her window and asked us if we wanted a parking pass. Of course we said yes (not even knowing how much parking was) and were extremely excited and grateful when we got to the window and found out it 22 bucks JUST TO PARK! Wow!! I know now how those players have such nice cars! :) Knowing Nick if we had gotten up there and not had a pass, he would have backed up and left the game and not gone...so I'm really glad for that pass! It was a fun date amidst the weather! Oh...and here's a pic of the cousins playing before we left!

Cheesin' at Hardee's

The other day we went to Hardee's to eat and Cora was just sitting like this in the little window next to our booth...it was picture perfect, so I grabbed my camera and of course Kayley posed for me too. I just have to say that our girls are so cute and we love them so much! Oh...and for an update, we are officially diaper free! Cora is now sleeping both naptime and bedtime without a diaper almost for a week now and is dry everytime she wakes up! I'm so proud of our little girl!

Please Vote for our Girls!

http://showusthecow.com/photos.php?view=browse&tag=COW BELL

Please go to the above link and vote for our girls. I entered them into the cow appreciation day contest from Chik-fil-a. Thanks so much!!

Our Baby Cora Turns 2!!

Well by the title you guessed it, Cora turned 2 this last weekend! She was so cute. When I woke her up that morning I said, "Cora it's your birthday and time for your...then I was interrupted with an extremely excited "Elmo birthday party!" Needless to say she was way excited for her birthday party and yes it was an Elmo party! I got ambitious and did an Elmo cake...the icing had to be started days in advance in order to get the color just right...we didn't want a pink Elmo. But the cake was suprisingly the easiest thing to do with the party! We had Elmo games and of course the hottest present topic was Elmo so she got lots of Elmo type presents. We were lucky to have the Carle, Felker (Columbia Felkers), & Walker cousins and Grandma Jani & Papa Otto and my cousin Jack even came over from Fort Riley. The day started out being a rainy/wet one, but ended up being nice and great weather for the kids to be outside for our Elmo games. We had Elmo light/Oscar light (Red light-Green light), Blue Grover-Blue Grover (red rover-red rover), and Elmo Says (Simon Says). The kids had a blast playing the games and of course loved the bounce house so generously brought by Aunt Michelle! It was the perfect day for a party! Here are some pics of the kids...

Here are pictures of the cake. It was cute because during the time of singing Happy Birthday to her she was singing to herself. Then if you look at the the upper left picture, this is her trying to do two fingers...she always says, "help me" as she still has a hard time doing her fingers in a two.

Our first game was Red light/Green light with pictures of Elmo as the red light and pictures of Oscar as the green light. The kids loved being able to run and the big kids had a hard time going slow to let the little kids win sometimes.

The next game was Red Rover or Blue Grover sticking to the elmo theme. As you can see from the pictures...the girls did a bit better than the boys!! :)

The last game was Elmo Says. Cora was Elmo of course and she loved doing all the actions!

Here are some fun pictures of the cousins that got to come and enjoy the party with us! Cora was so excited to play with all her cousins and we loved having them all here! Thanks so much to all you for making Cora's birthday so special! She really did have a great birthday!

I can't believe our little baby is growing up so quickly. She is quite the cute little girl. She is complete opposite of Kayley in that she is really not afraid of anything. She's loves adventures and of course that means she gets into everything! She doesn't just need one toy out, she needs all of them! But, she is also my cuddler. She loves to cuddle when she wakes up and when she goes to bed. I love these small moments with her and it makes me realize how quickly time goes by. Since she has been able to talk, she has always had this cute little raspy voice and I just can't get enough of it. She also loves to do anything her sister does, so she loves all the princesses and loves to play dress up. She is also so grown up now that she is pretty much all potty trained. We've got wetting down to a T and stay dry all day. Going number 2 is difficult for her at times so we often spend most of the day during the time when she should go without underwears on so that she will feel it coming and not have anywhere to go...it's worked so far once and we're hoping it sticks! We just love our Cora so much and our family wouldn't be the same without her!