Since I am here....

I am thinking I will start to just do one weekly update to this blog. Most likely on a Thursday or Friday. I have found that so much goes on with the kids and when I post everything, my blog looks a bit messy. Since I am here now though I will give a little update. :)

Kiley: Oh, Kiley. Well, Girl scouts was a hit. I convinced her to join. I still hope I can convince her to join gymnastics or dance (dance preferably). I guess she loves being home so much that she doesn't want to spend even an hour away from home. That is one of the reasons she gave me when we discussed it. She told me she will join when she is 10. I am not going to force her to do it, but I think she would like it. I might be able to convince her to try it for two weeks before making a decision. Kiley got her report card and of course did very well. At her old school, she scored off the charts for everything and was taken out of her classroom and put into a gifted classroom. This district, however, is the best school district in Colorado and it has a more difficult curriculum. She is still scoring above average in reading and spelling, but is not doing as well in math. (Still getting a proficient score though). This district uses a math curriculum called "Everyday Math". I have a K-12 teaching license and have never heard of this before. I looked into it and got some materials from the school. Apparently, it's only used in a handful of school districts but has been shown to have higher overall scores when these kids were tested in later grades. One subject that has been coming up frequently in our house the past couple months is popularity. I have always associated popularity with high school, but Kiley is dealing with it now and has been since 1st grade. In 1st grade there was a small group of girls who declared themselves popular and called their group "The Girls Club". Kiley was in the club, but struggled because she wanted to play with friends who were not in the club. We had countless conversations about being friends with everyone and always being kind and how popularity is just an idea and it's much more important to be friends with everyone. This new school has something similar. Within the first couple weeks of school, Kiley told me that there were two really popular girls in her class. I asked her why she thought they were popular and she said they just were. I asked her if they had a lot of friends and she said no. Again, we revisited the same conversation we had the year before. Kiley, of course, became friends with these two girls, but still played with her other friends. Last week, Kiley told me that this group is now handing out "popular invitations". Where do these girls come up with this stuff? She told me she is confused because she knows they will give her an invite, but that means she can't play with her other friends. I told her that the decision is hers and we had yet another discussion about being kind to everyone and being friends with everyone etc. She has a good heart and a good head. I hate to see her torn though.

Creighton is getting feisty. The terrible two's are upon us, even though he is not quite two yet. Today, he found a crayon and colored on the wall and wainscoting in the dining room. I will have to make a trip to the store for a Magic Eraser. He still cracks me up, but keeps me busy and on my toes.

Cort is cutting his two bottom teeth. He is only 17 weeks, but by about 24 weeks they should be completely in. This week has been really bad for him. I am giving him Tylenol and Orejel, but he still has moments of hysterical crying. Last night, I didn't get to bed until after midnight and Cort was up at 1am, 2:30am, 3am, and 5am. I am on my 4th pop today. Thank goodness for Caffeine.

Chad is still studying for the tests. We have been really busy the past three weekends, so that has hindered his available time. We need to start prioritizing things though so that he can get these tests done by the end of March. I will be so happy when he has his license and I don't have to worry about giving him time to study anymore.

Our neighbors are still the greatest! We had dinner with them the other night. I am not much of a drinker. I drink very lightly maybe once a year, if that. I succumbed to the peer pressure and had a shot of Patron and it was AWESOME!! One was enough for me though. The Bachelor was on last night and our neighbor made us chocolate covered strawberries to eat while we watched it. He just brought them to our house and then went back home. At least three times a week he cooks something for us. I made them a cake and we are having them over for steaks in two weeks. We have discussed putting a gate in our shared fence so we can go back and forth that way to each others house. We share a gate with our other neighbors, but don't know them that well. We might just move the gate when we redo our fence. It's really fun having them next door. They love poker too!! Always exciting news to me since I am pretty much a poker shark. We have a table in our basement and they do too. We will probably play a lot this summer.

I have some cute pics of the kids, but am too tired to upload them right now. Maybe this weekend.

Girl Scouts, Houses, and good neighbors.

For years I have been trying to get Kiley involved in some sort of activity outside of school. Every time, she talks about it like she is excited, but when it comes time to enroll she changes her mind. Once again, we have been talking about Girl Scouts and gymnastics or dance. I got the name of a troop leader who has a small class of girls that meet at the school twice a month. There are 7 girls and Kiley knows 4 of them. When I called yesterday to see about attending the meeting tonight, Kiley began to cry and beg. I got all the info and then went up to talk to Kiley. When I asked her why she was crying and didn't want to do Girl Scouts anymore she gave me the answer of "I just don't want to". I do not allow answers like this. Anytime she tells me "because" or "I don't know" I make her go up to her room and think about it. When she has written down the real answer she can come down and we can discuss it. So, after some though, she came down and said that she had two reasons. 1) she would be shy because she doesn't really play much with those girls. I told her that her best friend Erin is in the class. 2) She told me she doesn't have any badges and she doesn't want to be in a "race" and lose. I told her that the leader said we could bring home the book and complete the tasks and earn the badges (there is only 3 she doesn't have) and I finally figured out that by "race" she meant selling cookies. She watched this show the other day where two girl scouts were competing to see who could sell the most cookies. I assured her that everyone gets the badge (if there even is a badge for that) and that it is not a competition like that. I told her that they sell cookies to raise money so that their troop can do more activities and even selling one box of cookies is an accomplishment. Plus, we would have no trouble selling cookies. We would buy some, our families would, Chad would take them to work, we have great neighbors to buy from her, and of course she could sell them at church if she wanted to. I did convince her to attend tonights meeting and I would stay with her. Fingers crossed that she likes it. She is also saying she doesn't want to do gymnastics anymore. I haven't tackled that issue yet, but will this weekend.

On a happier note, I found some pics of the house Chad designed for his cousin. He works right now in health care design, but he does like doing custom home design. It's not as profitable, I guess. The architect for a custom build usually gets 6% of the cost, so this would have earned him $36,000. He didn't charge anything for it though. He has done two other homes in Omaha and they are also beautiful homes. He likes this kind of work, but he said when he opens his own firm (someday) he will not do home design, it's just not worth the amount of work. He will do our home though!

We finally have some neighbors. They bought the house next to ours that was foreclosed on. We are still waiting for the foreclosure across the street from us to be bought. It's only $259K, but does need about 40K in work. It could be amazing though. We looked at it and wanted to buy it, but it didn't have 4 bedrooms upstairs and that was a must have for us. I hope that the people who do buy it will be fun and let us come over and swim in the awesome in ground, heated pool. The new neighbors next to us are really great. They bought the house for 180K (pennies in Denver) and have put about 30K into it. The man, Jeff, is a tradesman. He can do anything. I mean anything. He gutted the house and completely remodeled the main level. It's a ranch, so it's about 1000 sq. ft. smaller than ours, but it looks really nice inside. We are going over there for dinner on Sat. Jeff and his wife, Dell, are our age and they have an 11 year old daughter, Sabrina. We talk to them almost daily. Chad has helped him with some of the projects in his house and loaned him some of our architecture and design books. Jeff came over on Monday and cut down one of our trees and trimmed the tree in the backyard. He is going to help us do some work this summer with the landscaping in the front and backyard. It's pretty awesome having great neighbors that are so much fun. I foresee many, many BBQ's this summer. We have some plans for the front yard first. We are going to pull up some of the landscaping to make a full third car space in the driveway (currently it's only about 3/4 a space and not big enough for a larger vehicle, but there is a full space behind the fence.) We are also going to remove one tree and put in a smaller tree, maybe a sugar maple. Eventually, we want to rip out the rose bush in front of our living room window and extend the patio all the way across and put up a nice white railing. The backyard's plan is to rip out some fruit bushes and a tree and put in an area to install our play set. We also want to put in a hot tub in the back corner of the yard.

This is the other side of our yard. Our plan for this area (the back corner with the bench and lattice) is to put some stepping stones across the yard from the sidewalk and put a hot tub in that corner. The sidewalk turns into a 3rd parking spot behind our fence. You can't see it in this pic though.

The fence that Creighton is standing in front of is a small fence that keeps the fruit bushes safe. I want to remove those and the small tree next to it and make a nice area to put our play set.

This is similar to the play set we got the kids. Ours has a couple more features, but it's similar in size. It is being installed in the spring. I would really like to take out the blueberry and raspberry bushes in our backyard and put up a nice enclosure like this with some gravel. We will need some extra dirt to level off that side of our yard some, but I think it's the plan right now.

This is a pic of the lake that Kiley's school overlooks. It's so beautiful. She goes to a great school. The building is really nice and it's in our neighborhood, about 4 blocks from our house. There is a sidewalk that connects the middle school to the elementary school and in the middle of the two is the soccer field, baseball diamond, football field, and two playgrounds. The school overlooks this lake and a dog park and has a beautiful view of the mtns. DeVinny (her last school out in Lakewood) was the most beautiful because it was nestled in the foothills. Nonetheless, this school is by far way nicer than any school I ever went to.

I have learned to save the balloons until after the presents. This is all that Creighton was interested in and nearly all of my pics of him that night look like this.

Kiley's Valentines Day gift from me and Chad. It's really interesting. I am excited to have some time and read through all of the cards.

Our crazy dog is always sleeping in the most random places. We couldn't find her and she had gotten herself under Cort's bouncer and was sleeping. She is not a tiny dog. She weighs about 45 lbs.

Creighton loves Cort's bumbo seat. Anytime he sees me getting it out, he runs from across the room to sit in it.

He fell asleep again on his play mat.

Baby Cort finally moved to his nursery. I usually wait until 4 months. I don't have that great of a reason. I just like to be close to them at night until I know they can pick their head up. He is taking all of his naps in his crib and is sleeping 6-7 hours at night in his crib. He sleeps 6-7 hours and then wakes up for a bottle around 3am and then usually goes back to sleep until about 6am.

One of Kiley's chores over the weekend was to vacuum the main level of the house. (Chad vacuums the basement and I vacuum the upstairs). Kiley does a pretty good job. Creighton just uses the attachment and follows behind her. It's cute. I vacuum my house every day-well, the main level. We don't allow shoes in the house (except Creighton because he won't take them off), so our carpets stay pretty clean. I only do the upstairs once a week and Chad does the basement once a week.

P90X

I bought Chad the P90X workout system for Valentines Day. We have both been talking a lot about getting into shape. He is studying for his licensing exams and that is taking up all his extra time right now. He said I should do it first and then he will be even more motivated by my results when he is able to find the time to begin himself. I agree. If I want my husband to get his shape back, I should get mine back as well. As part of our commitment to getting into shape, I allowed him and the kids to go with me to the grocery store to choose healthy foods. He came home with 1 gallon of ice cream, 1 quart of ice cream, ice cream snickers bars, and ice cream big wheels. He is not allowed to go with me anymore. I did the legs and abs workout yesterday and I only made it 1/2 way through and was so tired and so sore. I was okay with that. I just had a baby 4 months ago and haven't worked out in a long time. I will do what I can and stop when my body tells me to. I was telling Chad some of the crazy exercises and I thought he would be surprised that I did them. He wasn't. He said "oh, I used to have to do that daily for hockey practice". I forget he played hockey for so long and was very strong at one time. His lower body is still very muscular, but he has lost a lot of muscle in his arms and stomach. Kiley likes to do the stretching and yoga workouts. She tried legs with me, but gave up after about 15 min. Creighton seems to like the stretching and the abs. He is actually pretty good at sit-ups for a 22 month old.

Kiley-some updated photos

This is a shirt Kiley got for Valentines Day. She looks so beautiful in yellow.

Kiley has been sleeping like this lately. She has decided that she does not want to make her bed in the morning and it is easier to sleep on the floor. Hmmm....

Creighton's New Shoes

Creighton is obsessed with his hat and shoes. He was given two new hats at Christmas time and he won't wear either. He has his favorite and it's on him from the time he gets up in the morning until he goes to bed. At nap time, we take his hat off and his shoes and set them on the steps. He gets them and puts them on right when he wakes up. He has the same obsession with his shoes. He loves his brown shoes and is always wearing them. He is, of course, outgrowing this particular pair though. I tried to find a similar pair, but wasn't able to. I bought him these white Nike's and though he would like them. He hates them though...as you can see.

Creighton Dancing

Creighton loves to dance. He turns on his pillow radio and grooves. Sometimes he has some pretty interesting dance moves. In this video, his dancing is a bit reserved, but still so cute.

She did it again!!

Well, Kiley cut her hair again-for the third time now. When she was 6, she cut about 4 inches off of one side and part of the back. I cut it into a cute bob cut for her. Then, she wanted it shorter, so she cut it again. I took her in and they had to cut it pretty short. She still looked cute and she got the short hair she desired. Since then, she has been trying to grow out her hair. Kiley's hair doesn't grow fast at all. I noticed the other day that she had some weird thing going on with the side, a chunk of hair was really short-like bangs on the side of her head :) I asked her if she cut her hair and she said yes and that she wanted bangs and layers. I added some side swept bangs for her because she didn't' want real bangs, she wanted them on the side, but not side swept-make sense? Then she wanted layers, which I had to do to disguise the bangs she tried to cut. I kept the length the same, except for a trim and didn't layer the back. In the end, she spent a day being grounded for cutting her own hair, but I fixed it for her and she was happy.

Valentines Day

Kiley has her Valentines Day party at school tomorrow. We had to sit down together and get the cards ready. It took a long time. Kiley wanted to write each child's first and last name. To speed things up, I signed her name. Then, we had to put a sticker on each one and attach a tattoo. When that was done, we had to tape them and insert the candy. Kiley wanted to get these miniature sports bottles with candy powder inside. The trouble was that they were too heavy to tape to the card. We ended up having to roll up the card and stick the bottle down inside. I am pretty sure the bottles will fall out of most of them by the time Kiley gets to school tomorrow. O'well. Kiley then wanted to individually pick each candy for the person. She based it on their favorite color, if they were a girl, boy, or tom-boy, if they were nice, if they got hurt that week, etc. She put a lot of thought into it. Here she is getting the cards ready. I think we spent about an hour on them.

Creighton and Addison

Thanks to daddy, we have a full supply of old blueprints to draw on. It's perfect for little ones. Here, Creighton is drawing with his friend, Addison.

Creighton's sock puppets- I really can't offer an explanation

The other night, Creighton was in his bed. We could see on his video monitor that he wasn't sleeping and was doing something with his hands. We looked closer and saw that he had taken off his socks, put them on his hands, and had them talking to each other. What an imagination! The next morning, he woke up with one sock on his hand and wore it around all day. (The bottom photo). Today, he woke up with both on his hands. Last night, we tried to talk him into letting us was the socks because, after all, he had worn them on his feet 3 days ago...ewww. He refused and put up quite a fight when Chad tried to take them. We gave in, of course. Once he was asleep, we pulled the socks off his hands and threw in a clean pair of socks (the same design). When he woke this morning, he had no idea they were different socks and threw them on his hands.

Finally getting some hair-still no eyebrows though :(

Baby Cort is 4 months old today! He is the sweetest baby. Recently, he has begun to laugh when we tickle him. We know he still looks a bit like an alien, but he is nearing the end of that phase. He is finally starting to grow some hair. He still has really blond eyebrows though. I think that is the main reason for the alien look.

Church and Valentines Day

Today was a good day at church. I took some clothes in for one of our members who has two little boys and are struggling right now. The little boy was very excited to have several brand new outfits. Our refugee family that the church sponsored also stopped by. I gave them about 3 boxes full of clothes for the 3 year old, 5 year old, 13 year old, and the mom. Today, one of the little girls was wearing an old outfit of Kiley's. I also bought them $100.00 worth of groceries when they first arrived so they would have food for a week or two. They were very grateful and gave me a big hug. It made me feel very appreciated, although I didn't need that to know I was helping them out tremendously. Kiley made me a Valentines day gift at church. She asked me what I had gotten for her and I told her nothing yet. I do have everyone's gifts, I just don't want her to go searching the house for them. I bought Chad the P90X workout system. I hope he doesn't buy it for me though. He keeps bringing it up and I am not sure how to give him the impression I don't want it without him knowing that is what's in the box that came in the mail the other day. I got Kiley this human body learning toy. She is very interested in the human body and how it functions. It is a doll that is covered in skin. You can take parts of the skin off and see the muscles inside. If you remove the muscle, you can see all the organs. It comes with trivia cards and information cards about the organs and their purpose. It also comes with a real, working stethoscope. I think she will really like it. Everyone always tells her she should be a Dr., but she always says she wants to be a teacher. I bought Creighton some new shoes and a couple outfits. He loves shoes. It's so nice to have a child that only wants practical gifts. I bought Cort a large stuffed monkey. Creighton will probably take it, but o'well. The kid's Grandma Kriss (Chad's mom) bought them all large pillow pets. Kiley is getting a dolphin, Creighton is getting a monkey, and Cort is getting a lion. They are really cute. My mom is sending all the kids money, but she also got them gifts. Kiley is getting a Zhu Zhu pet and a CD. Creighton is getting a truck and two outfits, and Cort is getting a book and some outfits. They will be very happy. I think we are running out of space for toys though. Might be time to make a substantial donation again.

Valentines Day

Kiley brought home a sheet from school for the Valentines Day party on Friday. I asked her what she wanted to do for her box. She said "I will just color a tissue box". Not very creative. I talked her into doing something a bit more elaborate.

Kiley

Kiley had a PJ dance for her elementary school on Friday. She went with one of her friends, Haley. Of course, Kiley has outgrown the really cute matching pj's and now usually wears some drawstring or yoga pants and a long sleeve shirt to bed. This was the best we could do for a pajama ensemble that actually looked like pj's and not an outfit. The girls had a fun time. Haley's dad took them to the dance and then dropped them off to our house and Haley stayed the night. The girls played in the basement (Kiley is standing in front of our basement door) and then went to bed. They were very quiet upstairs and watched a movie. I am not sure what time they fell asleep, but I would guess around 11:30. They had a really good time.

Baby Cort

I think that Cort has begun to associate this play gym with sleep. Within minutes of me putting him down to play, he is asleep. This has happened so many times.

Creighton at the Dr. office

Well, thanks to my sister Tricia, Creighton has a new favorite accessory. He has always worn a hat. Everyday, he has a baseball cap on from the time he gets up til the time he goes to bed. He keeps his hat and shoes on the steps and we get them first thing. Now, we also include these sunglasses. I wasn't sure how he learned to wear them on the brim of his hat. I did eventually figure out that they are too big for him to keep on his face, so he has to wear them like this. People laugh at him when I take him out to run errands with me. He is cute though.

My new hobby

I have found a new hobby. I like to look at thrift stores for used pieces of furniture and refurbish them. I am not usually one for thrift stores, but we stumbled across a really neat one out by our house. I found an old dresser for $20.00. It was in pretty rough condition. It was an antique white with stickers on it and someone had colored on it with markers. I liked the style a lot though. It's very old. On the inside of the drawers are some kids signatures with dates back to the 1950's. I painted it and put on some new hardware and it looks awesome and it is perfect for Cort's nursery. It will also be good if our next one is a girl, it will match her nursery as well. The kitchen set is actually a b-day gift to Creighton. He loves to play with the play kitchen at church and at home he is constantly setting the kids table with dishes and food. At first, we thought it was Kiley because it was so orderly, but then we caught Creighton doing it. I found this sturdy, but pretty used kitchen set at the thrift store for $10.00. I painted it some more masculine colors and I am going to put a hook on each side and hang a oven mitt and a pot. We are also getting him some pots/pans/food etc. for his b-day to stock this little kitchen. He will like it.