Christmas Ornaments

Hey everybody, these all ended up with me and I was wondering if any had special memories for anyone. If there's something that is yours or that you want, let me know and I can send them over. Otherwise most of them will probably go to DI. I'm assuming Travis and Christy will want the ones with their pictures on them? Anything that doesn't get claimed is officially MINE!! Bwaa ha ha ha ha!!! ;-) Love you all!!!

The bell says Noel, 1986

I couldn't resist adding these pictures.

Scanners are so much fun.

This is Mickey after his appendectamy in 2004. A nice member family looked after him in the hospital and emailed it to me. I was recently scannning in some of his old photgraphs and found the one below; isn't that neat? I love the smiles.

This is Mickey and his sister Elizabeth

This is his niece Crystal. Doesn't she look like Kareli??

Mickey as a baby. He looks like Kareli too. :0)

Travis, come over and help fix up these old photos!! I have tons like that last one, and I know you can do it, so no excuses! Umm, I mean, perty perty perty please? See you in a week, right? I guess I can wait that long. That's what you get for being a computer whiz.

Howdy howdy. So I finally joined Facebook; now it's just up to Troy and Regina to join into the *cool* world! (anything is cool if I join it...) We haven't been doing much lately, just chilling out and surviving the beginning of winter. :) We had two rats pass away, both from cancer. I was a softy and took them to the vet to be put to sleep, instead of (as both Christy and Troy suggested) using a shovel. Sickos! ;-) Luckily Kayin handles it really well. So now we're just down to Chuck, since I haven't given in to getting another animal yet. Give it a month....

Poor Mickey was stuck on the highway for 3 1/2 hours coming home from work last night because the weather got so bad. He's not looking forward to commuting through the winter again, but I'm looking forward to snow days. Weren't those the best school days ever? Waking up early and watching the snow come down as you listen to the radio or tv, just waiting and waiting for those magical words. . . School's cancelled! Then of course you get all dressed up and spend the whole day outside anyway, because it's never to snowy to play. :) Am I right?

Kayin caught Pink Eye and an ear infection on the same day, and was really miserable until his ear popped and suddenly stopped hurting. Poor kid. We discovered that putting drops of contact solution in his eyes a couple times a day really helped too; it cleared the red and goobers and made it stop itching really quickly. It was mostly cleared up by the next day. Yay! He still loves preschool and comes home with new songs and words nearly every time. He loves helping with Kareli, bathing and feeding her, and his favorite time is when she wakes up and he gets to run in to her room, climb into her crib and snuggle. He's desperate to sleep with her and is constantly asking me, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. I know they'll just stay up and play. :-) Maybe when Kareli's naps aren't so important to me. *smiling*

Kareli pulls herself up now to standing, and crawls everywhere. She loves making faces at us and will imitate any look you give her. Kayin loves to wrestle with her and she's getting better at putting up with it, but he's in big trouble when she outgrows him! (and with how much that girl eats, she'll pass him in no time! We haven't found anything she won't eat.)

Here are a new bunch of pictures, again completely out of order. But cute... :-)

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-Treating down main street with Batman and Lovebug

Motorcycle mama! The first time I put her on this she fell in love, and immediately started rocking. Took awhile to get her off. :) I was amazed her balance was so good; she never did fall off.

Kayin loves 'helping' her ride

Wrestlemania!



These are pictures that we took while I was still pregnant with Kareli. Obviously we never followed through with our plan to send them out as Christmas cards, but at least now we can share them. :) The photographer supplied the clothes, we supplied the talent. ;-)

Hope everyone's doing great! Love you all!

I'm Back!

Wow, sorry guys I haven't been on here in forever! I was catching up on all of your old posts and MAN you guys do a lot of stuff! Obviously we need to move! Sorry about not commenting on each one, but just so you guys know . . . I love your blogs! Thank you for keeping us so up-to-date on your families, and I adore all the pictures!

Okay, so last night a skunk was raiding our garbage, but Mickey thought it was a dog and flipped the light on to run out and scare it. . . Skunks don't like to be scared. . . . Luckily Mickey didn't get sprayed or he would have slept outside. Unfortunately, that whole side of our porch (next to our bedroom) did. Blech! To chase it off Mickey threw one of my (yes, MY) nice tennis shoes at it; I haven't retrieved it yet to see/smell the damgage. Not really looking forward to it either. :-) Kareli had a bad (and I mean BAD) poopy diaper not long after that, so we stuck it outside to have a stink war with the skunk. I'm not sure who will win, but I don't think I'll go out there to find out for quite awhile.

Kayin is in Preschool two days a week now and absolutely loves it. He keeps cutting papers up to give to his teacher, saying "here, I made this for you because I love you!" She posted it on the bulletin board and showed me when I got there. I'm really enjoying the quiet time with Kareli, which I haven't really had before, and she loves the extra attention. She doesn't crawl yet, but gets around really well scooting on her bum, always with one leg extended in front and one behind her. She sits up herself if laid down and is getting good at pulling herself up. And we haven't found ANYTHING that she won't eat yet. We've already had to put her in Kayin's bigger convertible car seat. She's growing so fast!

Kayin got in trouble the other day for waking Kareli up while driving to Tri-cities, and said "You ruined my life!" Can you believe I'm already hearing that? Poor kid, only 3 and such a long, ruined life to live still. . . . I'm such a terrible mom! ;-) I have no idea where he heard that phrase; luckily he forgot about it 5 minutes later. Of course.

So I've already discussed with Regina and Denay how annoying moving all the pictures around in here, so hopefully you'll love me still, even though the order of these pictures don't make much sense. :) There's not much point to them anyway, I just wanted to show off my cuties and show how big they're getting!

Bath time is so much more fun with two!

We had a hotdog cookout by the pond here, just for fun. Kayin was REALLY keeping his eyes on his hot dog; we couldn't get him to look at us for more than a split second. :-)

The doctor will see you now!!

I could make some serious money off of his poses; next step, table top dancing!

Chuck learned to jump out of the play pen I made him, so Mickey jokingly suggested getting him a leash. You can't suggest something that fun to me and not expect me to do it! It worked out surprisingly well; Chuck took right to it!

So much better than sitting beside him in a pen.

Everyone up to keep me company! I knew people love me! Luckily Adam got to hang out for a couple days before running off to have fun with the guys in Alaska, but the other guys missed out on a fun couple weeks.

Out at the little fishing hole, having lunch after a long couple hours of fishing

Man we have cute boys! (Again, can Kayin pose or what?)

This is how my little Kareli slept in her bassinett, until we moved her to her crib. She loves having her legs propped up and a blanket on her face.

Such a funny sleeper :-)

Okay, now for those of you who weren't here, this is Kareli's infamous Little Old Man Bellybutton. He's starting to fade now (thank heaven's, for her sake!), but he used to have two little dark spots for his eyes. Hopefully you can still see him. With the first picture if you save it and zoom in on it you can see it really well. We tried with mom's camera when she was here, but I think we had more luck with this set. Mom, if you have a better one send it over! :)

You can make the face talk by moving her tummy - it's really creepy. Startled the heck out of me the first time it popped out! : -)

Love you all! Leave comments so I know you didn't give up on me completely!

Chucky Bun Bun!

Meet our newest pet, Chuck. Neither Mickey nor I have any willpower when it comes to animals, so when we saw this bunny at our Farmer's Market it was inevitable that we would get him. We chose this one over the babies because he's full grown (so he won't get any bigger, yay!) and already has a nice mellow personality. The lady says he's a mini satin. We actually walked away at first, made it almost all the way across the park, then in sync turned around and went back. We're hopeless. :) He loves exploring the house and being held, but he's not too fond of the 'catching' part to go back in his cage. I built him a little play pen that we can use inside or out, so that will make it easier to catch him and we won't have to worry about our cords. Kayin likes to follow him around, and Kareli is obsessed with him; she's always watching him in his cage, and gets frantic to pet him when he's on our laps. Luckily his fur is so short and dense (and like silk, so soft!) that she can't get a handful of it. We really don't like the name 'chuck', but it's what's tattooed inside his ear. Kayin calls him Bun Bun. I call him Chucky bun bun (go ahead and say it, it's fun.) :-) When we let him and the rats out at the same time they keep startling eachother by running out from under the tv stand; you should see Chuck jump! It's hilarious. Other times they'll get really close and sniff noses. It's fun to have a new animal in the house. I like that he's big enough to hold and pet like a cat, but we can put him back in the cage when we're done like a rat. Good combination. :-)

Kareli loves touching his fur

This is why we don't let Kareli hold him unsupervised: most bunnies don't like head locks and getting their ears chewed off.

Unrelated to the rabbit update, Kayin is impossible to keep covered up at night. Even when we tuck the covers in he still wiggles out. Oddly, he sleeps really still when he's in bed with us. He doesn't toss or turn at all, as long as he can tuck his feet inbetween our legs and wrap his arms around or under us. He's a wonderful snuggler. When he's in his bed I have to check him and tuck him back in every time I get up to nurse Kareli.

Kareli's First Dinner

Kareli has finally started eating baby food. She's been practically attacking us to get our food, so we decided to give it a shot, though she's not quite 6 months. She loved it! Yay! Maybe I'll have a kid who eats more than peanut butter sandwiches and cereal!

I actually have two really adorable videos of her eating, but they're just barely too big to put on here. Help me Travis!
Till then, here are some other pictures, just because I like them. :-)

Last week we went up to Tri-cities to spend the night, since I had a doctor's appointment early the next morning. In the morning we had just gotten on the freeway were only minutes away from the doctor's office when our transmission gave out. :( Luckily we were right next to a Petsmart, so wonderful Mickey stayed to wait for the towtruck, while the kids and I hung out for two hours looking at animals, over, and over, and over, and over again. :) It kept us entertained at least. Of course, you know me, so now I want a $300 bird, several rats, a chinchilla, baby ferrets, and snakes. Mickey said no, for some reason. :( Never leave me in a pet shop! So Mickey got the car towed, then had to get a cab to go rent a car, which we still have because the car is STILL getting fixed (it's been a week). This was one expensive trip. And I never made it to my appointment! :) We had fun though. What a blessing that it didn't go out on the way home, in the middle of nowhere. Can you imagine that with two kids? Ahhh! Besides, this way we had the fun of shocking the neighbors by showing up in a brand new PT Cruiser, with only 300 miles on it when we got it (the only one the rental agency had that could fit us). They came out cheering for us. :) It was really funny. We're going to try to squeeze a couple more years out of our Blazer though, then we'll upgrade to a van. We'll see how it goes. This reminded me of Travis' story though; we debated on just scrapping it then and there and getting a new van instead of renting a car. We're still paying on it though, so we'd like to be done with that BEFORE getting a new loan. I know, we're nuts. :) Loans are good, right?? Free money! Anyway, it was actually a really fun trip. Thank goodness for positive attitudes all the way around. Oh, the only problem I have now is that Mickey was proven right; isn't that annoying? I'd been insisting I could make this trip alone with the kids so he wouldn't have to miss work, or that I could leave the kids with him and just run straight up and back, because nothing EVER happens, right? But he'd insisted on coming, no way would he let me go alone, you never know what could happen. And of course he was right! He'll never let me live it down. :-) Thank goodness he was there! Can you imagine me alone with 2 kids, waiting on the freeway for a towtruck? Ahh! So it all turned out well, we had fun, and it's a nice memory. And I got to go to a pet store! Yay! Love you all!

Bye bye Hair!

Well, I did it again. After losing a few handfuls of hair to grabby little fists, I decided to chop my hair short once more. The extra incentive of donating to Locks of Love had me cut it shorter that I would have, but I really like it. Mickey loves it. :-) Yay! (Plus, all the waviness came back) What do you think? (14 inches off!)

Here's a short video of our kids. They're getting big so fast! Kareli's 4 months olds and getting close to 15 pounds now, and is in size 3 diapers. Kayin's 3 years old and in 4's! She's going to pass him soon, poor boy. :-) He still loves her though; they're very cute together. :-)

Say your prayers!

(These pictures have nothing to do with the story, but I think they're cute. :-) )

We went to La Grande to see Mickey yesterday and to run to the Summerville storage shed for Dad and Marcia. I decided to say a prayer for a safe trip, though I usually don't since it's such a short one. Turns out that that was a good idea, and a huge blessing. In Summerville it was freezing so Kareli was fussing while I looked for Marcia’s laptop, and Kayin played in the yard. I finally found the laptop and called for Kayin (who I saw still in the yard), then went back to get Kareli. When I came back to the front I looked for Kayin and was completely shocked to see him sitting next to the fish pond crying, soaking wet from head to toe. He'd fallen in, but luckily got himself back out (the pond is 2 or 3 feet deep. I thought it'd be empty so I wasn't worried about it. It was actually full to overflowing with melted snow water) The guy who lives there was working in the garage with power tools, so I hadn’t heard a thing. I ran and grabbed Kayin up and the poor kid was frozen, his lips were blue, and he couldn’t stop shivering and crying. I ran and asked the guy for some towels, then stripped Kayin on his porch and dried him off. I was near panicked from the thought of what could have happened and because he wouldn’t stop shivering. Luckily I had a blanket in the car so I bundled him up and put him and Kareli in the car with the heater on full blast. I started home but only made it to Imbler before Kareli was crying from being hungry, and poor Kayin was still blue. I pulled over and nursed Kareli, and had Kayin crawl to the front seat so the heater could be directly on him. Then I remembered that I’d packed spare clothes in an emergency diaper bag; what a huge blessing. So as soon as Kareli finished I dressed Kayin, then wrapped him in his blanket, Kareli’s blanket, and my coat and directed all the heat to him. Still, we were all the way back to La Grande (15 minutes) before he stopped shivering. What a terrifying situation, for both of us. I was shaking the whole way home, thinking What if… I called Mickey and told him, so he had hot chocolate waiting for Kayin when we got to his work (another blessing; he just happened to have cocoa packets and a cup in his car, that he kept forgetting to clean out. God was really watching over us). Kayin finally warmed up while we waited to go to lunch, but his hands were still freezing for over an hour. He told daddy what happened (he was crying too hard to tell me in the car); he’d been looking at the ice on the water and tried to push it and fell in on his head. He got water in his mouth but spit it out, then got out and called for mommy and cried. Thank heavens he didn't inhale the water from the shock of the cold. Hopefully hopefully hopefully he learned to NEVER go near any water unless we’re with him; we emphasized that repeatedly. My poor baby. This day was traumatizing for both of us, but full of enormous blessings. Always say your prayers!