S-s-s-snake!

Derk took the kids outside on Saturday so I could catch up on a few things inside, and they had a blast watching a little garden snake....until Derk caught it, that is! Freaked Kyrie right out of her tree, and she refused to go anywhere NEAR Derk while he had it in his hands. :) Asher, on the other hand, was ALL about the snake and even held it! I guess I can't blame Kyrie considering *I* wouldn't touch it either. ;)

"My Happiness"

I've shared before that "my happiness" is what the name Asher means. He truly is. He's such a special boy, and we are so blessed to have him in our family. He came over to me the other day and begged to "get a picture with Mama" after seeing a few of Cambria and I on my screen saver on my laptop. I just love this kid!

Block Fest

Yesterday we took the kids to Block Fest at the fairgrounds. We thought it would be really fun for them since they all LOVE to play with blocks, and we were hoping we'd learn some new skills to make the most out of their block playing time. They had 6 different block stations set up with all different kinds of blocks, and the kids got 10 minutes at each station. Cambria got bored very quickly. Asher only wanted to knock over the cool towers all the older kids were building and crawl into every nook and cranny he could find. And Kyrie had the time of her life.

Sick of my videos yet?

I just can't help taking videos, and I just can't help but share them! :) If she weren't so darn cute....

This first one to show how she says yes. Her nodding and her jaw moving go hand in hand, and it's hilarious.

This next one is her new infatuation. Last week she was obsessed with monkeys and making the monkey sound. This week it's doggies. She says "dodgy" over and over and over (as you'll see in the video) every time she sees a dog, and the barking can't get any cuter!

Who does that?

It's SO hard for me to justify giving in to my non-pregnant cravings, so I normally don't. But I was really wanting some chips and french onion dip, and I finally gave in and bought some last week. You know that feeling you get when your craving is finally satiated? There's nothing like it. So today I felt like I wanted to eat some more since I haven't had any since last week. I opened the cupboard and saw the bag of chips, so I told myself I'd have some with my lunch. I got out the dip, and then took out the bag of chips......or so I thought. Yeah, nuthin' but air! Who puts an empty bag of chips back into the cupboard? I'll give you one guess, and I won't even keep you in suspense with waiting for the answer. Someone who does that is about 45 inches tall, goes to Kindergarten, and wants to cover up the fact that she snuck into the cupboard to eat some potato chips, so she put the bag back.

Hey, kids definitely make life interesting! I guess I shouldn't be giving in to the "natural man" anyway, right? :)

Super-human strength?

Apparently Asher is stronger than your average 3 year old. He picked up one of our fluffy throw pillows off our couch a few minutes ago and apparently turned it into a lethal weapon. Because when he raised it above his short little arms and propelled it forward, at what was obviously lightening speed, hoping to start a pillow fight with Kyrie, she said he broke her face and started screaming. SCREAMING. Maybe I should call Guinness and tell them to come check out my amazingly strong 3 year old who can break his sister's face with a pillow?!

No, he's not exceptionally strong, but having a child in the Guinness Book of World Records would be really cool. Maybe I should try and get my name in there by doing something ultra sweet like having the Fastest Diaper Changing Skills or being the Best at Multi-Tasking (i.e. holding a Mama's Girl 17 month old WHILE cooking dinner WHILE telling a story to a 6 year old WHILE trying to decipher the inevitable whining of a 3 year old).

Back on topic. Kyrie's just exceptionally cranky today. I know this because when I started trying to tickle her to get her out of this mood, she claimed that I broke her arm. I haven't seen that many mood changes in 3 seconds flat since I was pregnant and hormonal. Maybe Kyrie qualifies for the Most Mood Changes in the Shortest Amount of Time spot? Now that I look back on it, it's actually kind of funny.

I actually love when she feigns serious injuries because I get to have some fun messing with her head. When she told me I broke her arm, I got up off the couch really quickly and told her we'd better get her to the hospital NOW for x-rays and casts and shots, lickety-split! Wanna guess how long it took for her arm to get better after that? Guess! You'll never guess. It was a new world record, that's all I'll say.

So, I guess no matter who we're talking about, someone in our family is definitely cool enough to earn their spot in print. We rock.

Little Cambria and other ramblings

I just love her little voice, so I took yet another video of her talking. We've been working on animal sounds the past few days, and she's developed a new passion: monkeys. She has an ABC board book, and she flips to the page with the monkey on it and just makes the monkey sound over and over again. This little girl just gets cuter and cuter every single day. I just love her to pieces.

We just found out today that Derk passed the National Counselor Exam that he took in Boise a few weeks ago!! The score you need to pass is 90, and Derk got a 122! Go, Derk! I'm so proud of him. He's worked so hard and has managed to juggle a completely insane school load on top of spending a lot of time with us. Now he just has to pass the Praxis next Saturday.... He says he thinks he's got the Ridgecrest, CA counseling position "in the bag", so that has me pretty excited. He just finished an interview with Yuma a few minutes ago, and that one is looking really good as well. That district has had 2 openings posted for 2 YEARS, so they're really desperate to fill the position. There are 2 other applicants they said, so Derk only has to beat out one of them to land the position. We'll hear back about that one next week.

Asher came up to me 2 days ago and said, "How'd you get so cute, Mom?" I just had to laugh because I'm always asking him how HE got so stinking cute, but I still took the compliment! :)

Wednesday was an eventful day. Kyrie, Asher and I all had dentist appointments. It was Asher's first time, and he did so great! I'd been preparing him for days and days about it, so he was fully aware of everything that would happen. I had him sit next to me while I went first to get him comfortable with it, and the hygienist was awesome and let him help her clean my teeth and hand her the stuff she needed. Kyrie went her first time before preschool, so she was an old pro and did great, just as we knew she would.

None of us had any cavities (I've actually NEVER had a cavity!), so that was great news. And the dentist gave me some really helpful advice on getting Asher to stop sucking his thumb. He said, from his experience, when you make kids stop before they're ready, they develop a stutter. Asher's definitely not ready to completely stop yet, but we are working with him on cutting back, and he's cut back a lot in the last year or so. The dentist recommended this product to put on his thumb that tastes completely horrendous, so I'm going to look into that.

Updated Post!

Check out my previous post that has the video of Asher singing. Here's the song he was singing. You're more than welcome to listen to the whole song, but the part he was singing starts around the 1 minute mark. We're huge Coheed and Cambria fans here, so I just wanted to make sure those of you who don't know the band have a chance to listen to the song so my little guy becomes that much cuter! :)

Saturday fun!

Saturday was a fun day. Derk has been so busy lately (and will be until after graduation, I'm afraid) that we decided to have a fun-filled day with the kids on Saturday (after Derk put in a half day at the college, of course). I scheduled myself a hair appointment, and Derk took the kids to play at the park while I was there. I got an hour all to myself and got a (if I do say so myself!) very cute hairstyle. It's hard to take a picture of the back of my own head, but you get the idea.

My stylist ended up running a bit late with the client in front of me, so my appointment ended up taking about an hour (not that I was complaining having an hour to myself! ;) ). It was after 5 by that time, so we went and grabbed some dinner at a Mexican place we recently discovered. The kids were actually very well behaved, so we all had a really fun time. After dinner, we headed back to the park since it was such nice weather. They don't have a bathroom at the park, so our playtime was cut short when Kyrie had to go potty. But we were there long enough for me to make myself entirely too sick swinging entirely too high on the swings. :)

Bri's making that face because she discovered some bird poop on the walk down to the park. She's saying "ewww!" :)

Derk will probably kill me for saying this...

Yesterday, Asher was trying to find Derk. I told Asher that he'd gone upstairs, so Asher went up to find him. I heard Asher knock on the bathroom door, and here is the conversation that followed:

Asher: "Are you in dere, Daddy?"
Derk: "Yeah, Bud, I'm in here."
Asher: "Will you let me in?"
Derk: "No, Bud, but I'll be out in a minute, okay?"
(long pause)
Asher: "Does it stink in dere, Daddy?"
(another long pause)
Derk: "Yeah, Bud, it stinks in here."

I'm sorry to have a good laugh at your expense, Derky, but I just couldn't resist! :)

Say what?!

Cambria was whining pretty badly earlier, so I started to tickle her to get her out of her rotten mood. She started cracking up and kept coming back for more. After about 5 minutes or so, she was still going at it, so I kept on doing it. Her laugh IS cute, after all. She suddenly stops, looks at me with the most serious look on her face, and says, "DON'T!" I had NO idea she knew that word, and the fact that she used it for the very first time in totally appropriate context was too hilarious! :)

First time post

Wow, I have a moment to type! And honestly, I should be studying! Praxis is coming up fast! And all of the students in my program think I am nuts to take the April 26th test! And I am sure that no one cares at all about this...so I digress. Life is like a box of chocolates, and thats all I have to say about that.

Random pictures from today

The kids had a lot of fun today. I worked hard this morning while everyone was napping to get things clean, and then we all worked hard this afternoon to mess it back up again! :)

Asher got to play on the laptop this morning. It was actually his first time. He's never been very interested before, but he begged for it today, so we played for a while. He sure had a great time playing PlayhouseDisney while wearing his skeleton costume (that he practically lives in, by the way)!

After everyone woke up from naps, we decided to play blocks in Asher and Bri's room. Kyrie decided to build her tower on the bookshelf to avoid The Brister, so poor Asher got the brunt of Cambria's destructive nature. He'd build his tower, and she'd come right over and knock it over, full force.

Derk's aunt gave us some clothes for Cambria to grow into, and Kyrie has latched herself on to these too small feety pajamas. She wears them all the time. ;) Can't you just hear her saying "Tada!"?

I love how hard he's concentrating. :) In the second picture, you can see Bri's head as she's coming to strike down poor Asher's progress. ;)

After blocks, the kids decided they wanted to put on a concert. As usual, their request was Coheed and Cambria. Yes, Derk is such a huge fan that we actually named our daughter after this band. :) If you aren't a Coheed and Cambria fan, this won't mean as much to you, but it's still cute nonetheless! The song is called No World for Tomorrow if you're interested in looking it up.

Between Cambria cracking up because she thought knocking over the towers was so hilarious and Asher's concert, I had a highly amusing day to say the least. :)

Kyrie's field trip

Her entire school went to the Dworshak dam and fish hatchery today. Derk was able to take the day off from school work, so we took Asher and Cambria and tagged along. Her school is very small, so it only took 3 buses to transport everyone. The dam is located about an hour and a half away, so Kyrie got to ride the bus with her classmates and had a blast. Derk and I followed in the van with the kids and got to talk and have a fun time ourselves.

We started the day at the Visitor's Center where the kids ate sack lunches consisting of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, fruit snacks and water (provided by the school). The patio where we ate overlooked the dam, and the kids had a hard time eating there lunch because there was so much to see and tons of room to run around. It was quite a bit warmer there than it is at home, so it was very nice to be able to be outside for a long period of time without a jacket. Makes me even more antsy for spring to finally, well, spring! Kyrie got to sit with her favorite pal, Clara, and they were just too cute to watch holding hands and giggling.

They loaded back up on the bus after that and went to the fish hatchery next. We got a tour from a really nice guy named Joe. I had no idea that there was that much that goes into a fish hatchery and dam. He was very knowledgeable and answered the kids' endless questions and really kept their interest (which we all know is no easy task with 20 Kindergarteners!).

First he took us to the pools where the fish self-feed. It was mainly steelhead trout, but there were some salmon as well. The fish were jumping out of the water quite a bit, and the kids all got a kick out of that. Even Cambria was really into it, which surprised me. Then he walked us past the water ladder that they use for the fish to get into the pools, and the kids got to see a very large trout. I'm talking at least 5 feet long. Pretty amazing that they can get that big or bigger.

On the way we stopped outside where they had a couple of fish laid out for the kids to touch and examine. The boys in Kyrie's class ALL instinctively started jabbing at the eyeballs. ;) Cambria was very interested but refused to touch it. Asher's reaction was hilarious. He was completely grossed out at first, then you could see him working up the courage to touch it, and then once he did he was back to being totally grossed out again. :) He didn't want to leave the fish, though. He wanted to take it with us and actually tried to pick it up there at the end, despite being so appalled only a few minutes before. I never thought I'd have to tell my son to "put the dead fish down and leave it alone!" :)

The fish hatchery was pretty neat. Joe told us about the spawning process. They had actually just finished spawning for the day, so we didn't get to witness it (I'm actually grateful for that), but it was still very interesting to learn about. Some of the parents got really upset at the thought that they'd actually kill the salmon to spawn, but Joe calmly told them that each female stores 7,000 eggs and that it's very necessary for the survival of the species to spawn. We went into this large room where there were several fish in a pan, waiting for spawning. They were still flopping around a little, and Asher got a little upset at that point and said he wanted them to let the fish go. :(


The next room we went to was where they do the fertilization process of the spawning. A lady came over with a bucket full of thousands of eggs, poured the "milt" (aka sperm) into the bucket, swished it around, and after one minute told us all the eggs were now fertilized. It happens that fast.
After that we went to the nursery. It was a large room full of several very long, rectangular pools where we actually got to see all the very tiny fish hatching. They were twirling around like crazy trying to get out of their eggs. That was pretty interesting to watch.

After that, Joe took us back out front and answered a few more questions. The Kindergarteners were all very well behaved and gave Joe a round of applause after the tour was over. We got there at around 10:30 and left around 1:00. I couldn't believe time went that fast. It was really fun and very informative. It sure wore Kyrie out. She passed out while Derk was reading her their nightly story, A Wrinkle in Time. There's nothing like falling into bed after a busy, fun and exhausting day!