Crazy Wednesday

Today has been crazy. We headed out to run some errands this morning. I had a load of clothes to drop off at Goodwill and decided to head inside to look for a shelf for Bri's room. I was totally surprised to find exactly what I was looking for (plus a few extras, lol). While browsing, the entire building started to violently shake. It took me a second to realize it was an earthquake! I haven't been in an earthquake since I was in 4th grade. It actually measured 5.8 on the Richter scale! Derk and the kids were in the van waiting for me, so they didn't feel it shake as badly as I did inside. We were all totally fine, and there wasn't any damage to our house, either (whew!).

At dinner time, we decided to watch a movie and eat our dinner in the living room. About halfway into the movie, Bri wandered off. Next thing we know, we hear a big bang and then her screaming. I jumped up to find her, and she was running toward me with blood dripping down her face. She'd been trying to climb up on one of our bar stools and somehow fell and sliced her lip. I scooped her up and looked her over, and she'd sliced it pretty badly. I handed her over to Derk so he could clean her up a bit while I grabbed a sweatshirt, her "baby" and her blanket. Then we headed to the ER.

Luckily she didn't need any stitches. The doctor said it's pretty deep but that she got lucky with the placement of the cut. If it was any closer to the part where the lip meets the face, she would have had to get some stitches. He prescribed some antibiotics to fight infection and sent us on our way. She was such a trooper. She was freaked out and clung to me, but she let the doctor examine her for the most part. There were 2 times when she got really scared and started crying and begging to go home. :( It was actually my shortest visit to the ER. We were in and out within an hour and a half, then we had to wait 30 minutes at the pharmacy. But to leave home at 9:15 and get back at 11:30 is a world record, I think!

Derk gave her a cool washcloth to put on her lip.
She refused to put it down, so I guess it really helped.

After a few minutes, she got super bored. I looked around, desperate to find something to occupy her with when I saw all the latex gloves. I decided to make her a couple of balloons! She thought that was so awesome!

She was beyond exhausted by the time we left for home.

We got home, I gave her some meds, we got her some clean pajamas and then tucked her in. Her lip was already looking a lot better, so hopefully it won't take long to heal. And hopefully it doesn't leave too nasty of a scar!

Merry Christmas!

I can't believe it's the end of 2009 already. Our day started off early. Really early. As in, 3am early! Kyrie came in at 3am and started talking about something. I can't even tell you what she was talking about because it was way too early for me to listen. :) We basically told her to go away and to please, please, please sleep for at least 3 more hours. She wouldn't have it. After I think 30 minutes of her bugging us, Derk all but threw his laptop at her and told her to go watch a show. That made her happy. But then Derk and I were up off and on for the next few hours, quieting her down and checking to make sure nobody was getting into the presents. I was so afraid she'd wake up the other kids if I fell back asleep and that I'd wake up to all the presents opened. Kyrie came back in at 6, way too excited to wait any longer. So we agreed to get up and let her wake the other kids up at that point. We were done opening presents by about 7am. *yawn*

Even with such an early start to our day, it was still the best Christmas ever. It was extra special because it was our first Christmas in our very own home. And it was super fun for us because we had purchased things we knew the kids would flip out over. I just love seeing the kids' excitement.

Here are the kids with their presents from Santa

The girls with their stashes


Spiderman playing with his new Spiderman

I also got a couple videos. Scott and Jean (Derk's parents) had talked to us about what to get for the kids, and we'd given them an idea for Kyrie. I'm so glad we talked to them about it and knew they were getting it for her because I knew ahead of time to catch her reaction on video!

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After all the presents were opened, we noticed there was an envelope on the tree from Santa (the video isn't the best quality, because like I said, it was really early and wasn't quite light enough for the camera)....

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After the excitement of the trampoline died down, we came back inside and watched Miracle on 34th Street. When that was over, Derk and I started on breakfast. One of the traditions from my side of the family is that my mom always makes a yummy crepe breakfast, so that's what we did. Kyrie refuses to let that tradition die! She looks forward to it all. year. long. Then we just played the rest of the day and relaxed (and napped!). It really was the best Christmas.

We hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. We sure miss celebrating with our family, but you are always in our hearts! Merry Christmas to all of you. We love you!

Christmas Eve 2009

Today was pretty fun. Derk and I were up until after 1am this morning wrapping gifts. While we were wrapping, Derk mentioned that a coworker had told him about a place to go hiking called Picacho Peak State Park. It's about a half hour north of Yuma. So we decided to do that for the morning. We woke up around 8, packed a picnic lunch and headed out. We managed to do 2 small hikes and a little bit of exploring before Asher and Cambria were worn out. By that point, they were both begging to be carried, which made for some very tired parents!

A pretty scenic view

Derk, Asher and Bri each found walking sticks


Kyrie kept finding quartz that she couldn't leave behind


A couple of self-portraits with my Asher


There was also a neat little cemetery that had some cool headstones

After that, we came back home and watched Miracle on 34th street. Derk made us pepper steak for dinner (so good!). Then we cleaned up the house a little bit. After that, we sang a couple of Christmas songs, then we opened our Christmas Eve jammies. I snapped a picture, and then we read the kids the story of the birth of Jesus. Bedtime came next, and let me tell you, I wish I had the "Santa won't come until you go to sleep!" excuse every night of the year! They went to bed so easily. Which is great, because Derk and I needed time to set up the trampoline for tomorrow.

I've decided being sneaky is way too much work. Every little clang the metal made during assembly made me so nervous the kids would wake up. I lost count at how many times I ran inside to make sure they were still asleep. We got it all set up without any problems, though, and now I cannot wait to see their reactions in the morning!

We wish all of you a very merry Christmas!

You really can paint laminate furniture!

Derk says I'm way too anal. Maybe he's right. But it seriously bugs me that my girls don't have matching furniture. For example, Cambria's bookshelf and her toy box are white while her bed and dresser are wood. It just drives me up the wall. Since Derk wouldn't go for the idea of buying them all new furniture (I was only half serious when I suggested it anyway, lol), I decided to paint instead. I chose to tackle Cambria's furniture first (we're buying Kyrie a new bed soon, so I want to wait until after we get that picked out). I read up on how to paint laminate furniture, and despite Derk telling me it was a bad idea and wouldn't work, I went for it. And it turned out pretty great! There are a few small things I need to touch up, but it actually worked!

We took the drawers out and then moved it into the garage. I took all the hardware off the drawers, and then we sanded everything down. You have to be careful not to sand all the way through the laminate to the particle board. You just sand until you get the shiny finish off. Then you prime. I did 2 coats of primer, just to make sure it was really well covered. Once that dries, you're good to paint.

The drawer pulls gave me some serious grief. I thought having a white dresser with pink drawer pulls to match her walls would be really cute. So I got some spray paint and thought that would be super easy. Well, apparently I really suck at spray painting. Or something. Because it didn't work at all. I ended up having to soak them all in paint thinner and then spent a good amount of time today scrubbing all the paint off. And let me tell you, breathing in all those fumes wasn't good. I felt so loopy! At least Derk had fun making fun of me. ;)

Before

During

After

Next week, I'm doing her bed!

Christmas decorations

Next year, I plan to be a lot more festive. As the Christmas season has gone on, I have come up with a lot more ideas that I wish I'd done/thought of, so I'm recording them for next year. Here are the few things we did do this year.

Luckily the previous owner already had the screws in place for the Christmas lights, otherwise I am certain Derk would not have accommodated that item on the list. ;)

The kids decorated a wreath for the front door. My awesomely smart hubby thought to hang the wreath on the right side of the double door, which would prevent it from banging around every time we open the door. He is so smart! I never would have thought of that.

I put lights around the window in my kitchen. I love how they look! So cozy and inviting. I told Derk I wanted to leave them up all year, but he's not going for it.

And then there's the one Christmas craft that I made. It's a centerpiece that sits on the dining room table. I was inspired by a decorating blog I read, and I decided to make my own. It's simple, but I like it.

Making our house our home -- Part 4

I decided I didn't like the yellow in our kitchen and dining room. I liked the color by itself, but I didn't like the way it looked with the other 2 colors. So I decided it was getting changed to green, and it looks so much better! Derk was not on board with painting again, so I did most of it myself. He was awesome, though, and painted all the high parts for me. After I promised not to change the color again. ;)

Before

After

My 27th birthday

My morning started off with Kyrie making me breakfast. She made placemats for everyone out of construction paper. This was mine:

She also had the table all set, complete with tablecloth, and thought of everything! She had butter, peanut butter and strawberry jam in little bowls with knives to spread on our toast, 5 cups of yogurt and spoons, cups for everyone, apple juice, a bowl of ice for the apple juice, milk, chocolate syrup (in case anyone wanted chocolate milk) and even remembered a spoon so we could mix our chocolate milk.

After breakfast, I opened a present from my mom. It came several days ago, but she made me promise not to open it until my actual birthday. I resisted the temptation until today, despite Derk and the kids trying to convince me to open it early. She got me some gorgeous jewelry -- 2 pairs of earrings and 2 bracelets. My girls were both begging to wear the jewelry, and Kyrie even tried to convince me that my mom had included a note telling me that one of the pairs of earrings was actually for Kyrie, not for me. :)

After that, I got a call from my cutie nieces (okay, and their mom ;) ) singing me happy birthday. That put a smile on my face for the rest of the day! During that conversation, my niece Abbie (who's 4.5) asked me how old I am. When I told her I turned 27, she gasped, "TWENTY-SEVEN?!" Thanks for making me feel old, Abbie! ;)

The rest of the morning and afternoon were just any other day. I babysat and did my normal domestic diva stuff while Derk went to work. He came home a little early, and then we headed out to have some fun. We went miniature golfing, which was way fun. Well, if we're being perfectly honest, it was mostly fun. Asher and Cambria had a little too much fun running off and being distracted by everything. :)

After that, we were going to go eat at Red Lobster. On the way there, I had a wicked craving for steak come over me. So instead of going to Red Lobster, we stopped at Sam's Club for some steak. Derk took Kyrie and Asher in with him, and Kyrie came out with her hands full of these:

We came home and made the best steak I've ever had (seriously, it was amazing!!). Derk also made twice baked potatoes, and we decided to make our own blue cheese dressing to go on the salad (check out my recipe blog for the recipes!). Derk put a pound cake in the oven for dessert (pound cake with strawberries and homemade whipped cream, YUM!), then he went into our bedroom and brought out 2 more gifts. I was so surprised because I wasn't expecting anything else. He let me buy a new comforter a few weeks ago, which we agreed was my birthday present. I got a really pretty new jewelry box (mine has been totally broken for months now) and some massage oil that smells like mint. M'mmm. Then he gave me a really romantic card that made me cry. After dessert, we tucked the kids into bed, and they were all so pooped that they went right to sleep with no fighting at all. Love those nights! :) Then Derk and I crawled into bed to watch a movie.

It was really a great day.

What a great helper!

Kyrie's new job is to unload the dishwasher. She hates it, I love it! ;) I asked Kyrie to please come unload the dishwasher for me today, and little Cambria jumped right up and insisted that she be the one to do it. And bless her heart, she did the whole thing! She was so cute and kept handing Derk or I a plate or cup, saying, "Please put this away for me?" (since those cupboards are up too high for her to reach). She didn't stop until it was all done, and it just melted my heart to see her so eager and willing to help.

Cambria sings the ABC's

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Isn't she the cutest?!

Static

Dominoes

We had a super fun game night tonight. First we played a few rounds of Sequence for Kids and then dominoes with all of us, then Phase 10 with Kyrie after the others went to bed and then Derk and I played a Lord of the Rings game that we've had for 8 years and haven't ever played. ;)

As we were waiting for Derk to finish doing the dishes, the kids and I had some fun with the dominoes. :)

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