Back from the dead

Kylie's Tinkerbell inspired house is made out of box.
Cara designed the wallpaper and added some rugs.
Karissa created a three story mansion that is stiil a work in progress.
We made wallpaper, carpet, bed, couch, lamp, coffee table, chair.
She hopes to add curtains, pictures and a bath and kitchen.

Hello everyone. I think I am back in the land of the living. After two weeks of the kids being sick, Sunday I came down with a severe case of strep. My mom came and took care of me and the kids for four days. I am still on an antibiotic and still not feeling 100%. Now my ear is swollen and stuffy,hopefully, next week will be better.

I am going to post some pictures of the girls "bookshelf doll houses." We had so much fun making these and my mom and i reminisced about when I was a girl. Of course, I didn't have a doll house at all and I used moving boxes to make mine not a book shelf but it was fun and I still remember it. Your kids can be as simple or creative as they want and it can be an on going project.

Mommy moments: Kylie and Cara were playing house and grandma overheard them say"Cara you be mom and Kylie you be the teenager, like Karissa." When grandma told Karissa she beemed with pride at being thought a teenager. Watching Kirk teach Kylie how to throw a football and Kirk saying "she's pretty good." Seeing Kylie's real personality come out because she is actually well. She has such a beautiful smile and laugh. Seeing Cara's nurturing nature come out when I was sick. She patted me or hugged me and wanted to bring me drinks. She even brought a chair into the bathroom to make sure I was OK while I took a bath! Watching Karissa decorate her doll house. She has such a creative mind.

I also created a collage for above Calebs crib and we got the neatest gift for him. The name plate in the picture...it is a magnetic puzzle with pictures behind each letter and the blocks come out to be individual magnets. How cool. He will have a blast learning to spell his name.

Odds and Ends

Kylie loves to strike a pose. We are so glad she is well!
Cara loves to have her picture taken, too.
The girls at the Radio Shack fountain.
Caleb loves the PACKERS!!

Today was a fun day. After a long week of sickness and staying home, we finally got out of the house. Karissa's friend Raven stayed the night and they had a blast. It sure is hard to know the rules of a friend spending the night. Cara and Kylie think of Raven as their friend, too and want her to play with them, too. Karissa wants Raven all to herself and Raven is content to play with them all. Raven has an older sister, so Karissa has been introduced to her first boy musician crush. She like Jesse McCartney but she really can't tell you why. He does sing one of the songs on her Kim Possible movie so she thinks that is cool.

Anyway, after the rain cleared away we decided to go downtown. We visited several fountains and just let the kids run around. They had a good time and were only a little disappointed that the actual Water Gardens were closed for repair. Ther is just something about falling water that is so soothing. Since we have had hardly any rain this year the fountains were very refreshing. After downtown we went to Petsmart to see all the animals. We were highly disappointed at their selection of pets. They did have a groomer in the store that was neat to watch through the windows. Then we took Raven home had dinner and put the kids to bed.

We are very hopeful about going to church in the morning. Cara has awakened once with a night terror (pretty scary) and Caleb has awkened several times. We are trying to get him to sleep in his bed and he is protesting. He goes to sleep but wakes up every 30 minutes or so. If he sleeps with us he wakes up every few hours. By the way, he was 16lbs 8 oz at his 4 month check up and 26 inches long.

On another note, I have been reading Job in my read the Bible through study. It is a hard read. Finally, last night I had to get out a commentary to figure out what was going on. I think that was God's plan all along...to get me to do more than just read. Anyway, Job is really interesting. I have known the basis of the book since I was a kid but there is a lot hidden inside of it. I learned that God is completely sovereign. He isn't obligated to bless those who obey Him. All His actions are based on His gracious nature and His own free will. I have never thought about God's own free will; only my own. Anyway, I was really struggling after the easy read that Genesis was to get into Job. Now I can't wait to get to it each day and see what I can learn. It is really neat in my Christian walk for the Bible to become so alive. I have always struggled with reading it and thinking "I know this or I have heard this before." Then I would skip to the next part. Now, I am learning everyday. I would encourage any of you who haven't ever read the Bible through to give it a try. It is addicting and gets easier everyday. Don't get me wrong...I have fallen off the wagon (already, only 28 days into the year) but I just climb back on.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and a restful Sunday. Hey Alyssa, it's great to see you back in blog world.

Hello Again

This is the cutest exersaucer I have ever seen. Cara is playing peek a boo with Caleb and he is loving it. He is still a great baby but not a great sleeper.

First, I need to say I am so sorry it has been so long(for me) since I posted last. We have had sickness and decorating and my mom visited for a few days. Kylie seems to finally be better today. She still isn't eating much. Yesterday was horrible. Kylie and Caleb just took turns needing me and sleeping. Last night I tried to sleep with one on each side of me, but they kept waking each other up. This morning I told Kylie I was so happy she didn't have fever and she said "yeah! my ears don't have fever anymore." (we use an ear thermometor) Poor Cara waits daily for a church day and we have missed the last four due to sickness. Hopefully, Sunday we will make it.

If you haven't seen them yet, check out Kirk's blog for pictures of our newly painted kitchen and new living room curtains. We also painted Karissa's room with polka dots. Now we just need to accessorize everything.

I found Boots!!! & 17 POUNDS

For those of you who have been searching with me, I finally found him. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, bear with me. Ever since Cara got the Dora house for Christmas and all the people who go with it, except Boots, we have been looking for him. We saw him once at Toys R Us and didn't buy him and, of course, never saw him again. Everyday Cara says" can we go buy Boots today? It's some other day, Mom, that's what you said." So, I even checked on E-bay and they are double the price in the store plus shipping. So, last night I am late night grocery shopping at Walmart and happen to stroll down the toy aisle and what do I see...BOOTS! I gave him to her this morning and she was so cute. She said "thanks" several time all on her own. By the way Boots is Dora's side kick monkey.

On another note, I took Caleb to the doctor yesterday and found out all the kids have a respitory infection that will last about 2 weeks and there isn't much they can do for it unless it turns into Bronchitis. Yeah!! I also found out my chunk of love, Caleb, weighs a whopping 17 lbs. What a man...not even four months old yet and he almost weighs 20 lbs. No wonder my back has been going out.

That's all for now. Oh, one more thing. What do you guys do about lying in your house? We are having major problems with Karissa and minor ones with Cara. As Reggie once told me..nip it in the bud. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Pictures!!

I took this smiling pig tailed girls' picture because she was haunting me. I was blogging during rest time the other day and everytime I looked up she had snuck into the room with me. She is a very good sneaker, too. She scared me a few times but always had the sunshinny smile on her face. I couldn't resist the picture. I took Cara and Caleb's picture so everyone could see how GIANT he is. I love this John Deere shirt and thought this was a great picture. Enjoy :)

Weekend

It's amazing how a family sickness can bring everyone closer. God was definately watching out for me this weekend. All the kids got sick but Kirk had a three day weekend. We spent the weekend taking turns holding which ever kid was the neediest. We have watched football and movies and played and just enjoyed being a family all weekend. I don't think Kirk has left the house at all. I think Karissa and Cara are on the mend. Caleb and Kylie are still sick but not horribly so. We watched 40 Year Old Virgin(I totally did not want to watch this. Kirk lured me into it by starting it while I was nursing Caleb in the living room. Then I was hooked. I liked it but it had way too much cussing in it), Mr. and Mrs. Smith(I liked this one too, but had trouble not thinking about poor Jennifer Aniston) and Spanglish(This one was great. Definately, not a pick me up movie but very good). All of them were very good but very different. Karissa also learned to ride her bike without training wheels. Actually, I think she already knew how she just needed to get over her fear of it. Pawpaw watched her outside and she took right off.

Sick

Tonight, as Kirk and I sat watching the football game (Go DENVER!!) I learned a valuable lesson. I can't always tell which of my kids is coughing or crying. All four of our kids are sick. Yikes. Like overnight they all developed different symptoms. So much for church tomorrow. It's really funny how they all respond to being sick. Karissa denies it unless she gets sympathy for it. Cara wants to be sick but then doesn't really act sick. Kylie denies ever being sick (even though she is sick the most) but then wants someone to hold her constantly. So far, Caleb is a trooper. He just coughs and goes on about his business. They all have varying fevers and coughs and sore throat. Maybe tomorrow they will all be better.

On a side note, Kirk went to Temple, Tx to visit his grandpa who is in the hospital. He is doing much better and will be moved into a regular room today. While Kirk was visiting his grandfather shared his recent convesion story. It was pretty neat. Now, at least, we know he's a Christian. Hopefully he will get to go home in the next couple of weeks and we will go visit. He hasn't seen Caleb, yet. Kirk said he asked about Caleb right off. We knew Caleb couldn't go in ICU so we didn't send him on this trip. Anyway, thanks for praying.

Hey

Great news!! Kirk got our computer fixed. No more laptop for me. Now maybe I can post more pictures. We are all doing well and looking forward to our three day weekend. We had a pretty busy week with all our church activities starting back up. Karissa has done great getting back into school. Kirk has been working late as it is the end of the quarter. That's about all I have.

Just a side note to Josh. I do not have a One Year Bible. I have a Ryrie Study Bible and it has a plan in it. So far it is working. I did have a Chronological One year Bible but it was too difficult to read the same stories over and over. Not really difficult just hard to stay interested.

My Babies.

Kylie is so tiny. Caleb seems to weigh more than she does already. I can't believe she slept through his crying right beside her.

The Egyptian Singing Fish and Italian coloring book

Christmas from Italy

I forgot I wanted to send out a thank-you to Laura and Marco for the Christmas package from Italy. We all enjoyed the gifts and had a great time with the Egyptian singing fish. Thank your parents for the t-shirts and fish from Egypt.

New Year's Resolution!!

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to share one of my New Year's resolutions. I am reading "A Mom After God's Own Heart." In the first four chapters Elizabeth George talks about the main priority of a mom is to teach your kids about God; everyday all day. Of course in order to do that mom (me) has to know about God to teach and model who He is for my kids. (no pressure...your kids see you as God). Anyway I decided to read my Bible through for the first time in my 31 years. Now I know it is only the 8th day of the year and I am only in Genesis chapter 22 but I have learned things already. I am so surprised! I don't know why I have never read the Bible through but I think I just thought I knew most of the stuff in it. Anyway, I would like to encourage everyone to read your Bible through this year. I am trying to get Kirk to commit to it with me so we can talk about all the new things we learn. Also, something really neat is the "Bible for Little Girls" we are reading with the girls at night is following the same stories I am reading . So I can embellish for the girls. We have also started doing memory verses with the girls and all three are having fun with that. I am usually not one to talk much about my walk with Christ but I just felt lead to share this with yo guys. The book"A Mom After God's Own Heart" is great and very encouraging, too.

In other news, we are all well and enjoyed a relaxing weekend. We watched the playoffs and returned to church today after being out a few weeks. I feel like I am learning so much this year already. I guess that's all for now.

One more thing...for all you grammer freaks out there reading this I apologize for now and forever. I am not great with commas and I imagine some of you read this and just cringe. Sorry:)

Not Much...

I just wanted to share a few monumental occurances in our family this week. The first was Tuesday night. All four of our kids were up in the night. Karissa had a bad dream and came into our room 4 times before finally sleeping on a pallet beside our bed. In between Karissa, Cara came in and tried to sneak in our bed. Then she decided it was time to be up. At 3am I heard Cara and Kylie's bedroom door close and I go to check on them. I find Cara and Kylie sitting on the floor playing with the lights on. Cara woke Kylie up to play. Of course, Caleb was up to eat several times as well. Needless to say, Kirk and I were tired Wednesday.

The second occurance was Cara writing her name for the first time. She made a picture of our family with people that actually looked like people and had clothes on. It had OM and CAAr written on it...with no help. I asked her what it said and she said Mom and Cara. Then she made Kirk a picture and I told her in her name the r is between the a's and she wrote CArA. We are so proud.

In mommy of four like fashion, I have forgotten the other occurance I wanted to blog about.

Pictures

This group shot is all of the girls cousins on Kirk's moms side of the family. They are at that age where it is hard to get them all to sit and look at the camera. Also here are there names...Christian, Kyler, Kason, Karissa, Cara, Kylie, Kaylie, Lauren, and Caleb.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all!! We had a good weekend. We went to our friends house for New Years eve, there were 9 kids and 6 adults. We played battle of the sexes while our kids had free reign of the house. All four of our kids were awake to see 2006 in. Caleb wasn't too sure about the horns and yelling and Kylie stayed real close to mom, too. We got home around 2 am and all the kids were up by 7am. Go figure!! Everyone seems a little stuffed up and coughy. I think the weather changing, the dryness, and the fires have us all messed up. I almost forgot.

Two great mommy moments...Karissa was asked for her phone number to set up a playdate by a 12 year old boy at the new years party AND she gave it to him. Cara holds out her arm and says "Dad look at my strong"(she means muscle but how cute is that). Caleb is starting to move his hands towards objects and holds his head up when he is sitting in the swing or bouncy seat and tries to pull himself up to sit. Kylie is still wheezy and stuffy. Hopefully she will be better soon. Last night , my wonderful husband, shampooed the living room carpet. We got a carpet shampooer for Christmas. I hurt my back moving the furniture off the carpet so Kirk jumped in and did the job for me. I think since the Cowboys were knocked out of the playoffs earlier in the day he didn't mind missing the game. We are a little sad the Cowboys didn't make it to the playoffs and excited GreenBay won. Today, Green Bays coach was fired so we are afraid Brett Favre will definately retire. Also if there are any more head coaches named Mike they better watch out!!

By the way, we saw Memoirs of a Geisha. I thoght it was good though a little confusing. I am excited to read the book.

Well, it is my favorite time of day, rest time. Karissa and Cara play quietly and Kylie and Caleb sleep. Usually, I sleep too but today I wanted to blog. I am typing on the laptop and looking at the screen of our big computer. I am not sure why but that is how it is set up right now. Our old computer is officially dead like cheaper to replace then repair. Just what we want to find out right after Christmas.

On that note, we had agreat and relaxing Christmas. We had Christmas with my parents here on Thursday and on Saturday with my brother and dad and step-mom. Then Christmas day we opened Santa packages at home and then headed to W.F. Once we were there, we had lunch and packages with Kirk's grandma and then walked across the street and had the rest of the day with the Wimberley's. We came home Monday morning and enjoyed just being at home together. I spent the day trying to find a place for all the new stuff!!! We barely had room for all the kids old stuff.

Then in Kylie like tradition she got sick. It must be W.F. So I spent half of yesterday at the E.R. with Kylie and about 75 other sick kids. After waiting for two hours I asked them how many were ahead of us. It was ony 23!!! Then I asked them to check her breathing again because it was getting more labored. Apparently, it was bad enough that we got right into a room. For the next three hours, they gave her steroids and breathing treatments. The doctor said she is probably headed for a diagnosis of asthma. Yeah!! Anyway she is much better
today. We have to give her treatments every three hours but she is breathing much easier.

Tonight I get to go to the movies. I am so excited to go out alone. I would love for Kirk to come to but it just doesn't work out that way much. I was hoping to post some Christmas pictures but I will have to get Kirk to do it later.

Just a Quick note

Our computer is on the blink so I have to use Kirk's laptop. I don't know how to do pictures on it so hopefully our computer will get fixed soon. My parents were here the past two days. I got to help with Karissa's class party! It was fun to see her with her friends instead of just hearing about them. We baked 4 dozen sugar cookies, Wednesday. If I never see or smell another one I would be OK with that. Now we are just waiting for Christmas. Then we have TWO WEEKS of all four kids home all day. Whatever will I do? Today was horrific. My parents left after lunch and everything fell apart. Kylie wouldn't go to sleep. She never has that problem. Then Cara and Karissa kept getting up to tell oneach other. I won't continue in detail but we did not have a quiet rest time today. Instead we had a scream, throw a fit, wake the sleeping ones up time. Lucky for me Kirk will be home the next three days. Then they will have new toys. Surely that will last them a few days? (hours?).

Belly Laugh

Just a quick note, I have to share with you what Caleb did. Last night we were room swapping the girls. Kirk, my mom, Karissa, Caleb and I were working in Cara and Kylie's room. Out of the blue, Caleb lets out a loud belly laugh. He is only 12 weeks old. He didn't just giggle and he didn't just do it once. He did it over and over until we were all laughing. Of course, the camera needed a new tape so we didn't get the monumental moment on tape. I don't think any of us present will ever forget it though. He hasn't done it since, either. Maybe he is going to have Kirk's funny bone!

Shopping Nightmare

Yesterday, Kirk and I and the girls went Christmas shopping. When Kylie heard we were going shopping she had to get ready. She came in our room with her monsters inc. hat on, pink beads, a purse and white sandels with red socks on the wrong feet. After going to Target, we got the girls some lunch and dropped them off at Aunt Sharons( including Caleb).Kirk and I then headed to Olive Garden for a quiet lunch. Then we headed out to shop some more. We were definately little town people in the big city. We had to wait in line to get in the mall parking lot! They had policemen directing traffic in the mall parking lot. After driving around aimlessly, we finally followed someone from the store and took their parking space. We should have known if outside is bad inside will be even worse. One store I went in to had a line to the front of the store to check out. Next year I will shop early. Luckily, we did a lot of our shopping at Thanksgiving in W.F. We ended up buying a book and some boots. Then we headed back out into the mess. Traffic on 820 was yucky. We picked up the kids and headed home. Then we had baths and the kids watched Polar Express. They love that movie. At all times one of them is singing a song from the movie. Even Kylie knows most of the words. I went to bed early after all the shopping we did. Today we went to church and then started our day of football. Tonight we watched Survivor and now Kirk is watching the Green Bay game. I like football, too but needed a break from the T.V. I'm headed to bed now. Hope you are all doing well and enjoying the Christmas season.

Deep thoughts..

Today, I received one of Kirk's presents in the mail. I was so excited because he had no idea what it was and he usually knows everything he is getting. So ,he is checking on a picture order in my e-mail and sees the word gift order. He can't resist and he reads what his gift is. So now do I give it to him or not. It is a really cute mouse pad with Caleb's picture. I am tempted to keep it for myself. So much for surprises.

I think we are almost done shopping. We are hoping to go tomorrow without the kids and then we can get finished. Mommy moments: Cara looks at Kylie who is screaming at the table because we turned off the tv for supper. Cara says "I think she'e having a meltdown." Then Cara says "Mommy do you want to throw Daddy in the trash?" I absently say "sometimes" as I am fixing supper. A few minutes later Kirk gets on to Cara for making Kylie scream and Cara says (with a straight face) "Mommy wants you in the trash, Daddy." We all busted out laughing. Cara is so funny sometimes. She is great comic relief.

Tonight, Kirk's cousin, Paige dropped by. She taught Kirk how to make "real" popcorn on the stove top. They had a lot of fun with that. Then they had a popcorn catching contest and even recorded some of it. I wish that I could let go and have fun so easily. I guess it's just not me. They were fun to watch, though.

I just want to brag on my kids for a minute. I really dreaded yesterday since there was no school. I thought I would have to referee and entertain all day. Instead, yesterday,they played wonderful. Karissa and Cara played all morning without hardly fighting at all. Then Karissa and Kylie played in the afternoon. It is fun to watch how they switch out who plays with who. Very rarely do they all three play together. The one who plays alone never seems to feel left out, though. I think it works out well so they can all have alone time and sister time.