Kim, Clark & Their Little People

A Grateful Moment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 May 2014 19:59:00 +0000

A Chick-fil-A play place on a Thursday afternoon did not seem like a likely place to tear up. But I did. Standing there watching my three little girls playing around in a germ infested play structure, with the back ground hum of lunch diners, my heart swelled up with joy and gratitude. I had a hard time keeping those tears from escaping.

I am SO LUCKY to be a mother to these five awesome, incredible and precious children!! And it hit me so forcefully at that moment, in that place, on that day.

It was a sweet reminder that though things don’t always work out as I may hope and pray I know that I am truly blessed. Especially to be a mother.

Cora & Mommy - May 11, 2014

Afton & Mom - May 11, 2014

Eliza & Mom - May 11, 2014

Russell & Mom - May 11, 2014

Mom & Jaron - May 11, 2014

Being silly, accept Cora. She's never silly.

What?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:34:00 +0000

You haven't "seen" me in a while you say. What?! I've been busy!
In fact, I've got to get back to folding my 6 loads of laundry.

She's Three

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:33:00 +0000

Afton's three and as cute as can be! She was thrilled it was her birthday. And even though it was a school day and truthfully other than opening presents it was probably pretty boring, she was thrilled. We did go swimming together as a family (per her request) and ate ice cream cupcakes. We love our Afton!

The Baby Who Didn't Like Her Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:33:00 +0000

We celebrated little Cora's one-year-old birthday here recently. It came with presents, balloons, and a large personal cake to destroy and devour to her hearts content. Well, we've never had this kind of reaction before . . .

She hated the feel, look and taste of it. She was completely mad and upset until we got that thing away from her and gave her some little baby snuggles.

She was completely satisfied and content once we gave her a spoon and a fork. Go figure!

You Should Go to Wichita

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:19:00 +0000

A few reasons, shown in pictures, why Wichita, Kansas is a great place to visit with kids. (It must be noted that there are no pictures from the zoo, but it was awesome. Trust me.)

Expressions of a 1-year-old

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 02:18:00 +0000

Cora can pull a pretty good, "I'm-annoyed-face" all with flared nostrils and snorting. It's pretty great. We told the kids that instead of yelling or hitting when they are mad their options are either to pull a Cora face or rapidly blink their eyes to express their anger and frustration. For some reason, this edict isn't working. A parent can dream can't they?

Mother's Day Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000

As a gift to myself I'm hoping to make it a tradition to have a picture taken of me with each of my children individually every Mother's Day. I think I've done it at least three years and counting. It's fun and sometimes results in some funny photos.

Mommy and Cora

Eliza (who wore a flower in her hair! Her sister is sure rubbing off on her with the girly stuff!) and Mommy

Afton (still eating breakfast) and Mommy

Russell and Mommy

And the picture that will bring me belly laughs for years to come:
Mommy and Jaron
(Really I'm not attempting to strong hold him into a picture. It really was a very loving embrace I had around him, however, Jaron who resists smiling or looking decent in most any photo made sure to give me a prize of a picture.)

It's so awesome to be a mom!

Sleep Deprived

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Afton's at that in-between state where she won't really take a nap during the day. I doubt I have ever been at that state in my life, where I didn't need a nap, but of course, I'm a crazy adult who thinks sleeping is a luxury instead of a punishment. I digress.

After a few days sans nap the sleep deprivation sets in and she just conks out pretty much anywhere.

Looks soooo comfortable. At least she still had her pacy and treasured doll. (Which, by the way, that doll was mine growing up. She has latched onto that thing and funneled all her intense, baby-nurturing into.)

No time to even lick the spoon clean. She dropped off into a chocolate pudding induced slumber. Ahhh, so blissful. Except for the fact that she woke up wet and I had to emergency steam vac the floor. I'll have to put that on a resume someday, my ability to be flexible and make sleep inducing pudding.

Summer Goals

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 03:07:00 +0000

Our kids are finally old enough to somewhat get the whole "goal" thing. In an effort to keep them occupied on worthy things we set some summer goals. There have been a few times, I must confess, I wish I had set the goals for my kids.

A few of them would have been things like:
*Don't drag dirt through the house.

*Ask mom if there are any jobs I can do for her.

*Smile and be happy and don't use a whiny voice about anything mom makes for dinner. In fact, beg her to make Brussels sprouts and other vegetables I turn my nose up to.

But yes, that is my wishful thinking. However, they have set some good and thoughtful goals. One goal Russell set I felt a bit guilty about. He wanted to learn to tie his own shoes. He's only been begging to learn for a few months. It probably doesn't help that really his only lace up shoes are his church shoes and well, we are usually in a rush to get out the door when he makes the request to learn.

So after designing, creating and donning his own pirate paraphernalia he was properly prepared to learn. (From Dad I might add who made the conscious effort to focus about 10 minutes of his time to the task.)

And success! He did it!!

Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 02:49:00 +0000

There is something magical when you have a baby in the house. Now Cora is far from being a "new" baby; she is 8 months old but she sure has a strong hold on everyone's hearts.

I wish I could clearly capture how the kids act and react to her . . . the best way to describe it is like magic.

Tonight Cora assisted me in putting all her siblings to bed. We had to move quickly because she was a sleepy baby rubbing her eyes and yawning but she kept a smile poking out from behind her pacy in every room. And more important than getting a hug and a kiss from me, they begged to snuggle Cora, kiss her, and even shake her hand. (Thanks for the laugh Afton.) How their eyes light up as they told her good night and how her eyes were shining right back at them.

What a gift it is to have a baby in our house. Such a truly wonderful gift. I treasure it. Every day brings such precious moments of excitement, smiles, giggles and love with a baby around. I've also noticed how it brings out my children's desires to serve, be kind, be tender, assist and love. With Cora they will do anything for her (or for me if it means for her). "Oh, she spit up, here let me wipe that up." "Oh, she looks hungry let me give her a handful of Cheerios." "Oh, she looks like she needs a toy, I'll dump the box out for her." "Oh, I think she poopy, let me sniff her and then get her diaper and wipes." "Oh, she is crying let me carry her to Mommy."

She brings out the best in everyone. Babies just have that natural ability.
Maybe it's because they were just with God.

Brothers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 May 2013 03:47:00 +0000

This little scene warmed my heart after a long frustrating day of having five young children home all.day.long. Not that I don't love all these children dearly, but having to attend to all their needs at once can be a bit taxing. I felt bad I wasn't present for any of their tuckings-in, except sweet little Cora. I was busy cleaning up the dozen eggs I dropped all over the fridge and floor. It was definitely a fitting end to my day.

(Hmmmm, I just remembered that urge I got at about 3:30 today to break something. Yeah, breaking eggs really wasn't what I had in mind.)

Anyway, it's a relief to know that tomorrow is a new day.

Baby Jokes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:04:00 +0000

Our little Cora is growing. She's doing all sorts of cute baby things that make me lament, "Slow down please!" Like rolling, grabbing, and attempting to navigate around the floor. In fact, she's mastered the backward scooting. I would almost feel bad for her that when she sees something she wants and scoots herself away from it, but she's pretty content to go any direction. And more likely than not, she'll find something on the floor to check out or "clean". But lately she has been threatening to crawl. Pulling up onto her knees and rocking back and forth. Or toes! Jaron thinks we need to help her. Once again, I think we need give her pep talks to slow down.

We made a recent discovery that I think makes her advanced for her age of only 5 months old. The scene is this: A frantic morning rushing the boys to school. Everyone is packed into the van and Cora is cooing and chirping away from her perch in the infant seat. Jaron comments, "Oh Cora. Are you talking to me?" Which was met with the very indiginant reply from Russell, "She's not talking to YOU!!! She's telling jokes!" So you see, our baby can tell JOKES! Amazing! I must confess I've had a pretty good laugh about it. It also helps that whenever Cora starts to talk, even if it's in the middle of the sacrament, Afton will loudly proclaim, "Cora's telling jokes!"

Baby Bathtime

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:20:00 +0000

We can't get enough of this darling girl! And she loves bathtime!

New Year's Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:17:00 +0000

When you have 5 kids under the age of 7 New Year's Eve can be quite the party. Of course, maybe not the type you would attend in your more (adult) youthful days. But we pulled out all the stops! I had the grand idea to make party hats at about 7 pm. What works of art they are:

Cora was a bit overwhelmed by them. Well, she was confused by the strange things we were all sporting on our heads.

Jaron our master artist embelished from my original design and even went to making bracelts.

I can't even begin to explain how thrilled the kids were with these creations. They kept them days and days (and probably longer if I hadn't gotten sick of them and thrown them away.) I am constantly impressed and reminded about how we can find happiness in the simple things in life. I'm so grateful for my children teaching me that lesson again and again.

So yes, we all donned our party hats and played some rousing games of "Don't Eat Pete". (Though we design our own game board and use whatever candy is on hand.) Afton won; figures she would be able to figure out how to eat the most amounts of candy. At that point, the kids tuckered out after consuming bowls of popcorn. We "celebrated" at 8:30 by banging pots and pans (for some reason the suggestion my mom always gave me when I was young sounded so much better in theory than practice) and then put the kids to bed. Clark, Cora and I lingered until about 10:30 pm after watching a Psych episode. You don't know what you are missing until you celebrate New Year's this way.

When Things Break

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:10:00 +0000

This is how our Christmas tree currently looks. Pretty pathetic. This seemed to be the year of malfunctioning lights. Within minutes of my completion of lighting the tree (it only took about 3 hours and maybe 12 strands of lights) one of my darling children fiddled with the lights and knocked out a strand in the middle of the tree. "Not to worry." I told myself. "I'll fix them in a few days." It never happened.

We had lights that fell from the roof. And then more lights that went out on the stairs. By Christmas, another strand of lights has burned out on the tree. And on Christmas Day I watched another strand burn out. Oh well.

Maybe all the lights going out sent bad vibes to our other things. Our van wouldn't start up when we were headed out for a trip the day after Christmas. After a prayer, Clark managed to get it started and to the repair shop. We were on the road 2 hours later. During those two hours, we discovered the TV was not working. It took it upon itself to turn off whenever we turned it on.

The kids decided to then entertain themselves playing the piano. I discovered another broken note (in addition to the one we already have) while attempting to practice the other evening. Our piano is definitely on its last legs. It is only about 65 years old.

When we got home from our trip and plugged in the Christmas tree this is how it looked. The kids still insist we need to keep it up and turn on the lights.

The kicker for me is this: the kids just think we can easily replace a broken TV or a breaking piano just like we replaced the toaster that broke this month. Buy a new one.

Outtakes from Christmas Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:42:00 +0000

Setting the scene:

It only takes 201 pictures to get a decent Christmas card photo.

You catch a sneeze in process.

Sometimes can only round up a child or two.
We only need four more to actually take the picture!

Some awkwardness . . .

And a little bit of attitude . . .

get you to . . .

Picture #201! Success!

Life As a Baby . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:33:00 +0000

Brought to you by Cora.

As child number five you learn and experience many things:

You make sure you are soothed at all times.

You always keep your ear tuned to the happenings of the household. Maybe its the rustling of candy being unwrapped; the proximity of siblings; or quite possibly Mommy catching a spare moment to get something done.

You learn how to smile BIG.

Tummy time is a rare event.

Multi-tasking: sleeping and blowing bubbles.

Christmas lights, smimas lights. They all look the same to you.

Always someone who wants to hold you.

Little green frog toys really make you smile.

Daddy can easily be suckered into napping.

Siblings are always a good source of entertainment. That, and singing and dancing snowmen and dogs too.

A Little Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:17:00 +0000

We enjoyed a laid back - although not "quiet" Christmas. A few shots from activities at our house.

Gingerbread house decorating. The best part about this, they mostly used their Halloween candy. What a great use for that.

Cut out sugar cookies. Lots of hands involved with this one.

Eliza demonstrates how Clark and I feel by the end of Christmas. Most likely she was demonstrating her exasperation in having to wait her turn. So hard being a middle child!

And now time to decorate those cookies . . .

Eliza decided to use her hands instead of a knife. Yum, yum. Santa probably was sure excited to eat those.

Opening presents

I'm not sure who was more excited about this gift, me or Cora. But I finally got around to making her what I call, "Burp in Style" burp cloths. Fabulous!

Hope your family had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

How to Tell a Story

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 16:51:00 +0000

I adore Russell's kindergarten teacher. She is fun and creative. She has books the kids can bring home to write about experiences they have had like getting a haircut or getting hurt. The Ouch Book is a coveted book and Russell on several occasions has been desperate to bring it home. Well, he finally had an injury to warrant the book.

Here's how Russell told the story:

He wrote: "Mrs Boyle kicked me in the eye."

Now isn't that an awesome story? It really gets you thinking. As you can see he depicted the scene so clearly giving himself a third eye which is supposively a black eye.

How he told the story to me when he came home from school that day was a tad bit funnier. He ran into the house and was anxiously running to the bathroom he called out, "I got a black eye at school." The wait to not only inspect his eye and hear the story was a little unnerving to me. Finally he emerged and I inspected his eye. It looked ok, maybe a teensy bit "black".

So I asked him, "Russell how did you get a black eye?" He casually responded, "My teacher kicked me." And off he went to play.

I finally got the full story via his teacher a hour later. He sits near her during circle time and he happened to lean forward just at the moment that she crossed her legs which resulted with a swift kick in the eye. Of course she felt terrible. It was iced and things were fine. My response to her was, "Well that is definitely one for the ouch book!" Happily Russell brought it home the next day.

Our Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 16:33:00 +0000

This is our kids on Halloween night. By this point they had dressed up for four separate occasions. Hence, Afton was done being dress up until later she realized that was her ticket to getting candy. So on goes the costume and out goes the pacy. Russell changed it up every time being a mail man, construction worker, and a baker. (He was excited I finally finished his apron that I started in February.) I'm just glad we made everyone happy costume-wise without purchasing or making anything this year.

Cora was sporting our favorite bear hat. Halloween went by as a dream to her.

It's fun to watch the kids' excitement and enthusiasm for everything. We had fun at a neighborhood party. They were having money prizes for things like scariest house, etc. Jaron was determined to win it. I wasn't much interested in putting the time in. Every day he was outside working on our yard "decorating" it with trash he found in the construction lots next door. Real spooky if garabage terrifies you.

Fake Mustaches

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:18:00 +0000

A dear friend showed up at my home one day shortly after Cora was born. She came bearing gift bags for each of the children then proceeded to scrub and sweep and clean my house. That was awesome. I was so exhausted I couldn't object. I enjoyed those scrubbed floors, well until we had the next meal.

The gifts bags were awesome. My kids' total enjoyment of the fake mustaches was awesome. I need a stash of these things. (Note to self: Ask friend where she got them.)

Eliza believed she was following the crowd because her brothers said they were going to wear them to bed. They didn't. She did however. Funny, funny.

And just to throw a random picture in there . . . our sleeping Cora. This is how we see her most days. (Not always the same way at night however.) But they are precious, sweet, darling newborns so you can't blame them too much. However, I do try to reinforce to her when I see her shining eyes during the day how much I enjoy seeing her awake.

A Girl!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 15:59:00 +0000

We are thrilled to introduce
Cora

Born Friday, September 28th
Weighing 8 lbs 2 oz
Length 21 inches

When we expecting this little tie-breaker we really had a hard time guessing if she would be a boy or a girl. Sometimes we leaned boy, sometimes we leaned girl. I credit my mother-in-law for giving me more surety; she enjoys predicting and for some reason is always wrong. I had been thinking I was going to have a boy and a few months back I asked her for her prediction. She predicted boy. I think that's a pretty amazing track record!

Labor and delivery was relatively uneventful. Well, if you can call delivering a baby while on Pitocin without pain meds uneventful. Hey, I just want to keep the nurses and my husband from being bored. She was earlier than we anticipated. My doctor has been itching to induce me and well, he got his answer in the form of an itch. All over on me, that is. I was itching like crazy which apparently was a possible sign of liver issues with me which could potentially adversely affect that baby. So off to induction I went. Clark and I were a bit panicked since we were not prepared on who would take our kids. Miraculously it all worked out. And I am so, so, so grateful for the two women who at the last minute took my children. So grateful!

And now, we are doing it solo with five kids and happily anticipating Grandma coming next week. I have decided that sleep is overrated but babies are so worth it!

Daddy Dressed Me

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 23:53:00 +0000

And I thought I was feeling lazy these days!

Creepy Crawlies

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:09:00 +0000

I learned several years ago that Oklahoma grows some big spiders. Moving back this past June I was pleasantly surprised when we barely had any spiders in our house. I naively assumed the spiders (and other bugs) knew that there was a large water source, in the form of a pond, not more than 30 yards from my house. Why bother with coming into my home and risk death when they could meander a bit further for water. Oh yes I was in a state of ignorant bliss.

Then the scorpions showed up. I had heard rumors that they were in our new neighborhood here but didn't really believe it.

The couple scorpions in the garage I could handle that. The one in the upstairs bathroom . . . well it was on the wall and "tiny" according to Clark.

My bliss was rudely shattered a week ago while making our bed. A 2 inch long scorpion had attached itself to the quilt that had fallen onto the floor and decided to make the trip to the top of the bed. My screams brought everyone running. Somehow in the process the scorpion slipped away unnoticed. Now instead of making the bed I was dismantling it as quickly as possible. We couldn't find the scorpion. All day our room was on quarantine. Clark practically fumigated the entire house and yard per my frantic request.

By evening I was so tired I decided that my room had to be safe. I ventured in and out twice before I discovered the scorpion I nearly stepped on. The kids were oddly fascinated as they watched Clark kill it. Yuck!

At this point I'm terrified to walk around at night because if you didn't know, scorpions are nocturnal creatures. We told that to the kids in an attempt to placate them. I think that scared them more than anything. I want to install flood lights in my bedroom and bathroom for those eventual night time visits to the toilet. Clark was hoping I would find comfort in a black light that makes scorpions glow florescent green. That creeped me out even more.

All had been quiet for a week until this morning I found a scorpion attempting to hid by my shoes. I think Clark was a bit put off when I told him I smashed the thing repeatedly with his shoe. Hey, they seemed heavier.

Surprisingly, I've been managing to keep any bladder issues under control today. I learned the rumor about tarantulas in our neighborhood are true too. I walked out my front door and found a large black one crawling up my front steps. [Insert shuddering here.] I'm pretty grateful for the painters who were here at that moment. They excitedly checked it out then scooped it into a bucket and carried it across the street and dumped it in a vacant lot. I should have taken a picture but I was too busy trying to keep my body under control.

Hopefully we won't hear rumors of snakes.

School

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 00:40:00 +0000

The first day of school was a few weeks back. It's hard to believe I'm sending my boys to school when the temperatures still reach triple digits. I have a hard time even waiting at the bus stop because it's so hot. Jaron's in 2nd grade and Russell in Kindergarten. I especially love that Russell went to school the first day with toothpaste on his shirt. The boys love being able to see each other in the hall way almost every day and riding the bus home. It's a strange, sometimes quiet day with just the two girls home.

The girls felt as though they needed to have backpacks and lunches because the boys were. Thankfully that has finally worn off - for the most part.

Random shot of Afton here. She loves her goggles (which she wears as an accessory) and of course, her sunglasses too.