K Kerr Six

Family Fun

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

All of Kelly's siblings came down for a week or two at the end of December. Bryan and his Family and Jodie and her kids were down for Christmas and Becky and her family came down a few days after Christmas. It was fun talking and hanging out. Here are a few pictures of the fun.

Kelci holding Skylar.

Great-Grandpa with 9 of his 12 great-Grandkids.

Christmas 2011

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

We had a very nice Christmas this year. We spent the morning at our house and the evening at Kelly's parents house. We spent Christmas Eve with my family this year. The story the kids loved to tell this year was that Kelly had made a mistake. Because he made a mistake it made Santa make a mistake. Kelly accidentally told Santa that the kids wanted small toys...not big toys. Hunter wanted a Powered Up Optimus Prime, Kora wanted a Hoola Hoop and Mylie wanted a Tinker Bell. When the kids woke up Christmas morning and opened up their presents from Santa, Hunter got a tiny little Optimus Prime, Kora got some metal bracelets and Mylie got a small Tinkerbell. After the kids opened the rest of their presents Kelly noticed a letter that was on the Christmas tree. Apparently Santa remembered last minute that Kelly called to tell them that they really wanted the big toys but by that time Kelly had already closed the glass to the fireplace and locked things up. Santa had to get creative and apparently climbed through the downstairs bathroom window and put their big presents in our bathroom. The kids really got a kick out of that.

This last picture is the kids with their cousins Preston, Mason and Taylor in their Christmas Pajamas. They came over to our house on Christmas Eve to play and hang out. We all had a great time with them. The kids love all of their cousins and it's fun to see them play together. It's too bad all the families don't live closer together.

Santa's Cookies

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

You can't let Christmas come and go without making at least one batch of sugar cookies. This has become a tradition of ours. Although, I usually do a lot of baking in the month of December this year was quite different. I was unable to eat sweets so I didn't bake so I could avoid having them in the house. If it was in the house I would eat it. After I had Skylar I couldn't do too much and Santa still needed some homemade cookies. Kelly made the dough and cut them out and the kids decorated them. Each child made Santa 1 cookie and I think it was Kora that made a cookie for Skylar to give to Santa. They turned out really cute and really yummy. I think Kelly should be on sugar cookie duty every year. Especially when he was able to get them rolled out and cut out faster than I usually do. I'm still amazed at how fast he was.

Hunter and Kora's Christmas Program

2012-01-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

I didn't get a chance to post about Hunter and Kora's School Christmas program before I posted Skylar's birth but wanted to include it.

Hunter and Kora had their annual school Christmas program. They did it according to grade. Kora was first because she was a kindergartner. Each program lasted about 20 minutes long. Even though there were a ton of kids I was able to pick out Kora's voice. She loves to sing and she has a very loud voice. At least there is a positive to that loud voice of hers. It's generally so unappreciated at home but when she's in a big group singing for all to hear it was a nice to actually be able to hear her. Don't get me wrong, she didn't stick out. You could just tell that she was singing.

Hunter was actually really nervous about his program this year because he was asked to do a dance. He danced with the little girl standing next to him in red. It was just a short little dance but it was just long enough to make him nervous. Hunter and Kora did really well.

Skylar

2011-12-23T20:35:00.000-08:00

The above picture is our final picture as a family of 5. We were on our way to church when we got a phone call from my doctors office asking us if we could move up the C-Section time to as soon as possible. We made it to the parking lot of the church and decided to grab our bags and head over to the hospital immediately. We are dressed in our church clothes, dropped the kids off at Kelly's parents house where we snapped this last picture.

It's official, we can finally change our blog title to "K Kerr Six". Our newest addition, Skylar Konalani Kerr was born December 18, 2011. She was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 19 inches long. This was the first year that we weren't able to get our first full family photo at the hospital. Because it is flu season all children under the age of 16 years old are unable to visit patients. The kids were able to stop by the hospital but had to look at their sister through a window. I unfortunately was unable to see them until I was discharged from the hospital. Skylar was a planned C-Section. Because I had Mylie as a C-Section I could not be given medication that would induce me without causing complications to my old C-Section scar. I was only dialated to half a centemeter at 39 weeks so it was very likely that I would have to have a C-Section regardless. In order to be home for Christmas I opted to have her on the 18th, which had to be planned anyways since Skylar had turned sideways. Even though she turned back at my last Doctor appointment I still chose to have the C-Section. Below is the first photo of Kelly, Me and Skylar in the operating room right after she was born.

Here is a picture of our sweet girl.The proud Daddy after we got her ready in her going home outfit. Mommy and her newest baby.The kids love their new little sister. They can't stop holding her, kissing her and hugging her enough. More pictures are to come. We still need a complete family picture which has yet to be taken but maybe on Christmas Day. Skylar is such a sweet little baby and we are so blessed to have her in our home. She is such a good little baby that hardly cries. She sleeps a lot, smiles in her sleep and has our entire little family wrapped around her little finger. We love her and are so excited to have her home and healthy.

Haircut

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Kelly was painting in the house so he asked me to take the kids out for a few hours. I took the kids to In-n-Out and noticed Mylie's hair looked really weird. When she got into the car she had a hoodie on so I didn't notice when we left. I thought she may just have hat hair from wearing the hoodie but when I looked closer I noticed it looked more like a mullet....yep, she now had a mullet.It's hard to tell from this next picture but the other side of her hair is barely 2 inches from her head. The story goes...Scissors are hidden in random places in the house because our kids, especially Kora likes to cut things up. Well, this particular week was the kids school break and Hunter decided to bring home his school box which had a pair of scissors in it. Kora got hold of the scissors and talked Mylie into giving each other haircuts. Mylie gave Kora a haircut, which wasn't good but it wasn't so bad either. I just had to shorten Kora's hair a bit. After Kora's haircut Kora gave Mylie a haircut and cut off about 4 inches on the sides only.
I tried to even it all out the best I could and this is the finished result. It has been about a month since this happened and it's finally growing out a bit. When I first cut it you really couldn't see how choppy it was but now that it's longer you can see all the random shorter chunks. She's going to need another haircut soon to even all the chunks out but it works for now.

Painting Pumpkins

2011-12-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry that they are all shirtless. I didn't want paint on their clothes and I have yet to make them little smocks. It's on my to do list...among millions of other things. I love the idea of painting pumpkins instead of carving. This is our second year painting pumpkins and I still love the idea. In past years we would buy each kid a pumpkin and they would help me gut the first one, get bored and I would get to do the rest of the work and carving. This way they can make their pumpkins all their own and use colors. They love it and I love it.

Halloween 2011

2011-12-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Hunter was Captain America

Mylie was her favorite fairy, Tinker Bell.

Kora was Rupunzel....after her haircut, thus the brown hair :)

I have been so busy that my blog has really taken a back seat. I was asked to post Halloween pictures so here they are.

Meet "Auto"

2011-09-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

Meet the newest addition to our family. After long multiple discussions we finally decided to get another dog. Here was the criteria the new dog had to fit into: small dog, a dog that doesn't shed too much, good with kids, preferably potty trained. This dog is 3 of the 4 but the shelter that we got him at taught us about crate training which helps speed up the potty training process. So far it seems to be working well.

We named him Auto after "Autobot" in Transformers. For those of you who don't know, the Autobots are the good guys. It was Kelly that came up with the name but Hunter who led us on the path in choosing his name. Hunter originally liked the name "Prime" as in "Optimus Prime" but Prime just didn't seem to fit. Auto is half Toy Poodle, half Terrier. The poodle in him means less hair to be shed. I love that. One of the biggest things I dreaded about getting another dog was having all the dog hair all over the house. Auto is a very good dog that loves to cuddle. He is very content sitting on your lap. Thankfully, he is very mellow but also loves to play with the kids. Mylie loves to lay down and let him lick her face. She tells him not to do it but she's the one that purposefully lays down and laughs the entire time. Hunter woke up early this morning so he could play with him outside. Kora loves being the boss and protecting Luke from the dog (who is terrified of the dog but for some reason calls him but freaks out when he actually comes to him).

Auto seems like a very good fit for our family so far. He's a sweetheart and we hope he stays that way. Lots of chew toys and a good brushing every night should help tremendously. It's nice to have a dog that can actually chew on toys rather than devour a toy in 5 minutes like our Carson. We loved him but he was more than we can handle. It's good for the kids to have a dog again. Auto is a little more fragile than our moose, Carson but they'll learn. They have been great with him so far. He is very smart and learns very quickly.

First Day of School 2011

2011-08-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

School Started August 1st. Hunter has started 2nd grade. His teacher's name is Mrs. De la Rosa. Kora has started Kindergarten and her teachers name is Mrs. Towne. It's interesting having 2 kids in school. It's amazing how quiet it is at home while they are both gone. I miss them tremendously, but I also enjoy the time with Mylie and Luke.

Beach Day!

2011-08-29T08:00:00.001-07:00

We took several trips to the beach this summer. Unfortunately, I rarely remembered to bring my camera. Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying the sand and water. Mylie still asks me almost every day if we can go to the beach today. Unfortunately, Hunter and Kora are both in school which means our beach trips for the year are over until next summer. I love the year round school system....but I hate that we miss an entire month of summer.

Camping 2011

2011-08-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

For the first time EVER Kelly told me that we needed to go camping. I immediately jumped at the opportunity and asked him when he wanted to go. The kids would be starting school August 1st so I wanted to do it before school started. So, this is our last hoo-rah before school started. We went up to our favorite spot up in Big Bear. Kelly took Friday off so after we were packed we headed up. It was a good thing we left early because as soon as we got our spot and started unloading things the campground was filling up fast.

This is the picture before we left. We pulled out the back seat and moved Hunter and Kora to the middle row with Mylie. As you can see, the van was packed full to the brim. We had 4 tri-folds with us that took up a ton of the space but the comfort they gave us while we were sleeping was worth the space it took up.

I am so sad that this picture came out blurry. It was the only one where all 3 kids are looking at the camera and smiling. I love it! The kids are cooking their hot dogs for dinner. The kids had such a great time. Hunter was so sad to leave. We had so much fun we are greatly anticipating our trip next year.

I have to include this last picture. Last year, I learned the hard way to not pack nice clothes for camping. For some reason, my kids love to roll around and play in the dirt. This year I packed grubby, play clothes that I didn't mind getting ruined by dirt. Which made it so much easier to let the kids get dirty.

It's a Girl

2011-08-19T14:05:00.001-07:00

Well, Kelly and Hunter are no longer "just" out numbered. They will now be "tremendously" out numbered with now 4 girls (including myself) to 2 boys (including Kelly). We got the news today that we are having yet another girl. We sort of predicted this. Why would things ever be easy for us? We like things difficult and we'll take the challenge head on. This newest baby...for those of you who didn't know I was pregnant...Oh wait, that should be all of you since I'm not that big and hid it pretty well and didn't really tell anyone. I am 5 and half months along and this baby is due December 24th, yes, a Christmas Eve Baby. As you know, babies never come on their due date and she'll come when she's good and ready. We figure it will be Christmas Day, just to make things fun. We're excited! We have already picked a name, so far it's just a first name, Skylar. We haven't told Hunter and Kora yet since they were at school during my appointment but we'll tell them tonight. Hunter was hoping for a brother...well, we were hoping for one for him too but we're excited for our Skylar to make her entrance....now to get things prepared for her arrival. Hummm, now to make a decision to cram 3 beds into the girls room or add a girly crib into Hunter's room? Poor Hunter.

Hunter turns 7

2011-08-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

We ended up coming home from our Vegas trip Sunday afternoon. Hunter's Birthday was on Monday so we had a nice quiet birthday for him at home. The picture above is Hunter with is first of 3 birthday cakes. I didn't have enough candles so we had to improvise and I got 3 normal candles so he could blow out 7.

Here the kids are getting ready to watch the fireworks that we bought to shoot off in front of our house. It was the first year that we actually lived somewhere that allows us to shoot fireworks from our own front yard. It was a lot of fun. Hunter has always hated fireworks. The loud noise freaks him out. This year for his birthday he asked for an MP3 player....we compromised by getting him a CD Walkman, which he loves. We told him he could listen to the music really loud and it was the first time that he enjoyed watching fireworks with us.

All of the kids got to help Kelly light some of the fireworks. It was fun watching them light them because as soon as the fuse was lit they would run to the safety of the blanket so they wouldn't get hurt. After our small pack of fireworks was lit we went into the backyard and watched as some of the neighbors shot off illegal fireworks. Later we went into Kelly and my bedroom and opened the windows and watched them from the higher view. The kids loved the fireworks. It was such a fun 4th of July that I know I'll remember for a very long time.

Above I had mentioned that the cake that Hunter was blowing out was only 1 of 3. We ended up having 2 birthday parties for him this year. 1 with our family (which I was too lame to remember to take pictures) and the second was a friends party.

When we had Mylie's Friends party for her birthday I had gotten a pinata. When I brought it home Hunter asked me why I had never gotten him a pinata for his birthday. Of course I felt guilty but I also made sure that I would get him one for his birthday.

Here the kids are waiting for their turn to whack the pinata. Surprisingly, it was a very sturdy pinata and all of the kids were able to take at least 1 turn.

After the pinata we had a slip'n slide. The kids had a great time. The one we got was a racing slide and the kids had fun racing each other to the end. Finally, Hunter's last cake. Yes, all 3 looked exactly the same. I was lacking in creativity this year. I can't believe my baby is 7 years old.

4th of July Weekend

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kelly had been waiting months for the third Transformers movie to come out. We normally stay home 4th of July weekend (which is when it came out) because of Hunter's birthday, but this year we went to Vegas with my parents. Thankfully, Vegas has movie theaters so Kelly got to see the movie the week it came out. We actually saw 2 movies this weekend. The first was Cars 2. The kids loved it. Unfortunately, Kora got really sick during the movie. She had an extremely high fever and ended up having one the entire weekend....and of course, later sharing the fever with her brother and sister later on. It happens. Hunter wanted to take a picture in front of the Optimus Prime poster they had at the theater. He loved the movie. It has been more than a month since he saw the movie but he still talks about Transformers all the time.

One of the days that we were up there we drove out to Lake Mead and rented a boat. It was a large Pontoon boat. We all loved it. The desire to own a boat is so strong while you're out on a boat, swimming and enjoying the day. Maybe someday...

Kelly and I were both excited to see Hover Dam. Both of us have seen the front side of the dam but never the back that is only accessible by boat. Of course we had to take plenty of pictures.

After the dam we found a nice boat free area and went swimming. The temperature was 108 and the water was a wonderfully cool 74. It felt amazing. The kids were afraid to get in the water. At the boat dock there were tons of extremely large carp. The kids knew there were fish in the water and were afraid the fish would bite them. Of course, 10 minutes before it was time to take the boat back all 3 kids jumped in the water and had a great time swimming. Too bad it took them so long to get in. Maybe next time they can enjoy more of the water.

This last picture is of Kelly trying to feed Mylie to the large carp. We had such a great time that we are thinking of making this an annual trip. We stayed in my parents time share which didn't have a casino attached to it. It was so nice not smelling like smoke.

Dilemma

2011-08-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

What do you do when your daughter decides to play hair dresser on herself and cuts off a large chunk of hair?

You even it all out. Actually, Kora cut her hair about a month before we actually decided to even it out. Fortunately, I think we have found out that Kora looks great with short hair.

Fountain Fun

2011-07-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

We went to Victoria Gardens with one of my friends and her kids and had lunch then played in the fountains. For all of you who don't know, Victoria Gardens has a kids program that allows them to get discounts at different restaurants and stores. Chipotle actually gives your kids an entire kids meal for free with absolutely no purchase necessary. The kids each got Quesadilla meals and I got a yummy Chipotle Burrito. It's definitely worth signing up for.

This is the only picture I got of my friend, Julie's kids. I was trying to get a picture of them but every time I snapped they would turn around and I would get their back. I should have just asked them to pose...yeah, didn't think of that at the time...

Kora in the water.

Miss. Mylie...when she saw this picture she wanted to make sure everyone knew that she is wearing a Tinkerbell swimsuit. She LOVES Tinkerbell.

The Lukester! This boy LOVES the water. Although, once he noticed the stairs and the field of dirt right next to the fountains I couldn't keep him away from them. Go figure.

There were so many kids at the fountains. It was a hot day so I guess that everyone had the same idea. I definitely need to make another trip up there before school starts. Such a fun day.

Preschool Grad!

2011-07-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kora has endured 2 full years of Preschool. Let's just say that it hasn't been the easiest of times for her. Most of the time she didn't want to go and I would often leave her kicking and screaming....literally. I have really appreciated her teachers. I am sad that Mylie will not be able to go there this next year, but we are hoping that next year schedules will allow it. Once Kora got over the seperation issues (5 minutes after I left) she did fine in her class. She participated and had plenty of friends. Kora is excited for Kindergarten at her new school. So, here is our Preschool graduate!

These are two of Kora's teachers, Mrs. Crystal and Miss. Leainne giving her the diplomma.

We are so proud of our Kora and excited for her new adventure of Kindergarten!

T-Ball Pictures

2011-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hunter's final year in T-Ball has been fun. I enjoy T-Ball because they don't keep score. The kids learn the game and just have fun. I think it's so important for the kids to have fun. Although, now that the season is over it's nice to have our Saturdays free again. Kelly has been such a wonderful coach. Overall, the team did pretty well throughout the season. I don't have many, but here are a few pictures from this season. The picture above is Hunter's favorite spot in the Dugout. He loves to sit on the end.
A picture of our little batter!

This last picture is of the boys getting their participation medals. Hunter was so proud of his medal he wanted to wear it everywhere and show it to everyone. He kept telling everyone it was for being really good in baseball. We're excited to start on the Farm team next year. It should be interesting.

66ers Baseball Game

2011-07-20T09:37:00.001-07:00

I am a little backlogged with my blogging. I want to get all my posts in so you'll have to bear with me the next few posts as I go back a few months to capture them all.

First up was back in May. Hunter's T-Ball season hadn't quite ended but the team mom was able to get the kids free tickets to the 66ers Baseball game. It included free hot dog, drink and Ice Cream...along with the opportunity to walk onto the field. They got to each meet one player (the player in which position they themselves played) and get a signed ball. Because Kelly was the team manager, he too got to go onto the field with the players. Even though it was only a single A team, Kelly said the experience was amazing. The kids had a great time and were surprisingly very good on the field. The night that we went was Military night. They had free tickets for all the servicemen and even had a huge cannon that they shot off in center field. The cannon was louder than any firework we had ever heard.

Overall, we had a fun time. One fun thing that happened was the guy that Hunter got to meet and get his autograph was the person who ended up with the winning hit of the game. It was such a neat experience for all the boys. I know Hunter will remember it for a long time.

Easter 2011

2011-05-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Easter was very simple for us this year. We stayed home and colored eggs a couple days before Easter. The kids LOVE dying eggs, who doesn't? We were having so much fun I even dyed a couple of my un-hard boiled eggs. I didn't taste any vinegar when I cooked them but the kids had to be very careful with them. Hunter had to dye use all the colors. This is the first year he had enough patience to let the eggs sit in the dye a long time so the colors were dark and beautiful.

Kora was insistent on using the little plastic covering on the eggs but I think I bought too big of eggs and the plastic cover didn't fit.

Mylie had a great time dying eggs and was the first one done with her batch of eggs. Although, when she realized there were no more eggs for her to dye she asked for her eggs back and put them in different colors. She had a lot of brownish/green eggs but had a great time so there was no harm.

Because we had 9 o'clock church we decided to do the Egg Hunt AFTER church. Because we were waiting until after church we told the Easter Bunny to hide the eggs outside so the kids wouldn't get tempted with the eggs hidden inside the house (like we normally do). This turned out to not be the best idea we have ever had. Because the new plastic Easter eggs have little holes on the tops and bottoms most of the eggs got invaded by ants. I guess it wasn't so bad because that just meant less sugar for the kids. It was a fun day. The bottom picture was the only picture I got of the kids in their Easter clothes. Kelly's mom made the dresses. I just LOVE the fabric. They turned out adorable. Because the kids were anxious to hunt for eggs they weren't in the mood to pose for too many pictures. I'm just lucky I got this one.

Cousin Fun

2011-04-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe I forgot to post about this. Kelly's Sister, Becky came to visit with her family a few weeks ago in March. The kids just LOVE their cousins and have such a fun time playing with them. So, when any of their cousins come to visit they are in heaven. It's sad that all of them live so far away, well, all but 1 cousin, Luke who they see almost every day and they love it.

The girls were pretty much inseparable the whole day. While we were getting dinner ready we looked at the girls sitting at the table and they were all holding hands. It was so adorable. I'm really sad this picture came out blurry because it was the only one I took where all 4 of them were smiling and looking at the camera.

Great-Grandpa with 6 of his Great-Grandchildren.

I love this picture. My Husband is such a ham. Tylie the cutie in her Uncle Kelly's lap. Kelly is ever the teaser and was constantly telling Tylie to stop wearing his clothes and jumping out and scaring all the children when they thought he was done playing with them. They all loved it.

Shaving

2011-04-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hunter wanted to shave just like his Dad. So, Kelly put some shaving cream in his hands and let him put it on. Here is how he did it. Please know that Kelly has to shave his beard AND his head. So, when the kids see him when he's shaving it probably does look something like this....except the shaving cream on the nose.

New Laundry Room

2011-04-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of you have seen or remember our laundry room....but disgustingly ugly and messy are 2 words that would fit it quite well. Thankfully it's toward the back of the house and the only people that saw it were those who went through the garage. Unfortunately, people saw it when they went through the garage. The biggest problems with our laundry room is it had wire racks. I LOATH wire racks. I know they are cheap and that's why the builder installed them but it just can't carry much weight. Most of our closets have these and if you have kids, you know they are going to try to climb them to get to something and of course they are going to break. Hate these things! There was no way I was taking a picture of our laundry room with the junk and mess on the racks so here is a picture of just the racks.

Another problem with our Laundry room was way back in early December we had a leak in our laundry room floor. The plumbers had to jackhammer our floor out and put a hole in the wall to repair the pin size leak in a pipe. Please know that I am totally embarrassed by this picture. Who knew that in a year so much lint and junk could accumulate under and behind a wash machine and dryer? Yuck!

Yet another problem with our laundry room was the lack of light. Who would install such a tiny microscopic light in a laundry room? Well, it certainly wasn't a genius....or anyone who actually did laundry. I guess this picture doesn't do much justice. Imagine the size of a salad bowl...yes, that is how small this light fixture was.

So, you have seen the problems, here are the fixes. This project was one of my favorites (my most favorite project was working on our kitchen). It's one of my favorites because just like our kitchen remodel it has been such a huge improvement. First up, New Flooring. We had some leftover Vinyl tile from our bathrooms. The reason this has taken so long to repair was that we just couldn't agree with what to put in. I didn't want the Vinyl, I wanted to put Pergo flooring back in and Kelly wanted the Vinyl. We are contemplating maybe putting Slate in (some day in the far, far, far, far, far, far off future) after seeing some friend's beautiful Slate floor, but it's just not doable right now. So, as a temporary flooring option until Slate is doable or until we decide we want something else the Vinyl Tile was installed. It actually looks amazingly better than it did and goes with the rest of our house. You really can't tell in the picture but we grouted the vinyl tiles and they look a lot like real tiles until you step on them in bear feet in the winter and your feet aren't cold.

Second Fix, new bigger brighter light fixture. There are now 120 watts of bright light. Woo Hoo! It's amazing that I can actually see stains on clothes now and pre-treat them. Even our clothes are looking better because we have more light. Who knew?

Third and biggest fix, We installed a cabinet door to hide the kids games and added wood shelving for the cleaners and chemicals. We did add the bead board to the cabinet doors to match the kitchen. We bought door pulls but just haven't put them on yet. I love my new laundry room. No more messes. Things are more organized. What could be better? Oh, we also put crown moulding as well. Amazing how much more beautiful a little crown moulding can make a room. Love it!

The Toothless Smile Expands

2011-04-18T09:46:00.001-07:00

Here's a picture of Hunter's latest smile. We think he looks a lot better now that 2 teeth are missing rather than just 1. I love the way he talks. If you listen really carefully you can hear a slight lisp. So cute! He pulled this one out all on his own. It wasn't even wiggly until the day it came out. It also looks like the new tooth is ready to come in. You can see the tip of it. Big tooth stage here he comes.

He lost his tooth on a Saturday. When he woke up he came to me and said the Tooth Fairy forgot to come. I told him that maybe the Tooth Fairy doesn't work on Sundays.....oops. When we got to church Hunter told Kelly that the Tooth Fairy forgot to come and Kelly told him that when he gave him a hug and kiss in the morning before his meetings he found a dollar on the floor from the Tooth Fairy and wanted to keep it safe for him from the girls. Wow, what a save Dad! Hunter actually thought Kelly was holding out on him because the last time he lost a tooth he got $2. I think the Tooth Fairy forgot she came and maybe the Daddy and the Mommy Tooth Fairy both left him money...unknowingly.

New Doors

2011-04-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kelly came to me the other day and told me that we paid off our Lowes Credit card. He then told me that they included a brochure for interest free financing for 18 months. So....how did we celebrate paying off our card? By putting more on. We are FINALLY changing out our doors and our moulding. Here are 2 doors side by side so you can see the before and after. The one on the left is the after and the one on the right is the before. The ugly plain door and plain moulding is gone and so is the nasty gold ball door handle. Gone! Gone! Gone! yay!!!!

St. Patty's Day Green

2011-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Aweful picture, but it was the only one I got with all 4 kids. St. Patricks day isn't a big holiday but I decided to try to follow other mom's green examples and make a green breakfast....instead of just wearing green and doing nothing else like we normally do. So, our St. Patricks day breakfast menu was Green milk, Green eggs and Toast with Green butter. The kids loved it. Afterwards we watched the King of Green, The Grinch. Yes, it's a Christmas movie but he's also green. The kids don't mind watching Christmas movies in March. I do like the idea of catching leprechauns so I do want to try that next year. Have to save up my oatmeal canisters so we can make leprechaun traps next year.

Disneyland 2011

2011-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

For Christmas, Kelly's parents gave us a gift certificate for a day pass to Disneyland. Kelly's brother and his family were planning a trip to California in March so we decided to go with them when they came down. We went on Tuesday, March 15th. If you read our previous post, yes, we spent 2 days at Disneyland. Couldn't ask for a better vacation. Here are a few pictures of our Disneyland adventures. This was actually the first year that 2 of our children were tall enough to go on most of the rides. There are only 2 rides now that the kids aren't tall enough for...Indiana Jones and California Screamer, but Kelly and I had done those the day before so we were here for the kids on this trip.

Since Kelly and I had gone to Disneyland that day, when we got home we gave the kids our Disneyland maps and they proceeded to plan out the day at Disneyland for "tomorrow". Showing each other what rides they were going to go on and where they were going to go...so fun.

Kora is truly our only brave child. She was the only child that was brave enough to go on Tower of Terror with Kelly, Bryan and I. The only thing she had to say after she was done was that her bum-bum hurt from falling down so much. I think she liked it. This next picture is of her and Kelly waiting in the Tower of Terror line.

Did you know that Bryan is also a chair and a backrest? Well, here is the proof....Uncle Bubba the chair and Daddy the backrest. Those long lines are really brutal on the kids legs. What a nice Daddy and Uncle to sacrifice his body so the kids could get a small break.

You can't ride on the Toy Story ride without getting the classic 3D glasses picture.

After Kelly's Dad got off of work he met us at Disneyland. So fun to spend time with him and Susie both. The kids had a great time with them.

The next picture is us sitting on Big Thunder Mountain. We actually got seated on the last 3 rows. Bryan called it "Baptism by Fire". This was the first time Hunter, Kora AND Bryson had ever been on this ride. Amazing that we got seated in the very back for their first time. I really wanted a picture of not just us, but all 3 kids. When I asked the ride operator to take a picture for us he said one minute, walked to the front and never came back. What a bum! It's not like it would have taken more than 3 seconds to snap a picture and hand the camera back. Oh well.

Kelly's family has a joke that Nani Susie is a part of the Big Thunder Mountain attraction. It was Grandpa's job to ride on the ride so he could point out Nani to the kids when he saw her on the ride. Here is a picture of "Nani Goat" or as Hunter kept referring to her as "Nani Goose".

This was the only picture I got of the boys on the ride. Looks like both boys needed cuddling. When Hunter got off of the ride he called it "weird". Funny because he said the same thing after riding Space Mountain too. Don't know what it means. I think he liked Big Thunder Mountain....Space Mountain...well, didn't like it as much.

Kids waiting for the Casey Jr. train to show up.

I don't know why this is the only picture of Kelci that I got. Luckily however, it is a really cute one of her. She is so adorable.

I didn't get a picture of the kids in the line for Space Mountain. We had to trick Hunter by telling him we were going on Star Tours to get him to go on it. Star Tours happened to be closed. Unfortunately, Hunter can read and kept seeing the words Space Mountain everywhere. Oh well, we got him on it. Just to let all of you know, we also found the BEST place in Disneyland to watch fireworks. On top of the roof while waiting in line for Space Mountain. There are NO crowds at all and you get a front row seat to the amazing fireworks and could still hear the music. Kora and I got to sit down in the middle of the roof while Kelly, Hunter, Gene and Bryan stood in line. I don't think I ever got to thank them for that...thank you guys! I really wish we had gotten the picture from the ride. Hunter's face was incredible. There was NO emotion on his face. There was no fear or excitement, it looked like he was sitting in math class bored out of his mind....amazing!

We had a perfect, fun, amazing day. Thanks for the day pass Grandpa and Nani, such a fun present. Thank You!

Secret Date

2011-03-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Early in January Kelly told me that we would not be celebrating Valentines day on February 14th. We would in fact be celebrating a month later on March 14th and it is a secret. He told me that his mom would be watching the kids and we would be spending the night and next day together. For about 2 months I had no clue what we were doing or where we were going. The only clue he gave me was, "I don't know if you have ever heard of this place, but it is very exclusive and people will ask you how you got in. You need to bring 2 types of clothes, 1 for walking around a lot and another nice outfit, but not a dress. That would be too dressy for the time of day we are going but if we were going at night you would have to wear a dress." Have any clue where we went? To be honest, I was completely clueless practically until the moment we got there.

We spent Sunday night, March 13th at the Holiday Inn, in Fullerton California. Formerly known as Chase Suites. We had stayed there when it was the Chase Suites years ago but they have since upgraded and it is beautiful. Every room has a giant Jacuzzi. We had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, El Torito Grill in Brea then went to see Battle for Los Angeles. I would have been completely content with that but Kelly still had more.

On Monday, we woke up at about 6:30am and got dressed in our "walking clothes". Started driving, got off at Ball. Kelly asked me if I knew where we were going yet. I told him I didn't know what was out there. The only thing I knew that was in this general area was Disneyland. A few minutes later I asked him if we were going to Disneyland and he said, Yes. We had a great time. It has been years since we have gotten to go on any of the adult rides. We have been to Disneyland almost once a year but haven't been able to go on any of the "big kid" rides because our kids are just not big enough. We went on EVERYTHING we don't normally get to go on. The picture below is us on Small World. Yes, we never get to miss this ride when with the kids but hours in line and on our feet Small World is the perfect place to rest. I still can't believe the ride was 15 minutes long.

We had an appointment at 1pm for dinner at Club 33 at Disneyland. I HAVE heard of it and didn't even know it existed until a few years ago when an acquaintance of mine had gone and told me how exclusive it was. Kelly's work has a membership and Kelly was able to get us in. So fun. Here is a picture of us in our nicer clothes standing by the door. It's actually kind of hidden. People even laughed at us while we waited by the door waiting for our appointment...until we told them we were actually going in. There is a little buzzer by the locked door and someone on the other side has to open it for you.

Picture of inside the restaurant. I actually wanted to take a picture inside the bathroom but thought I would spare you. The toilet looked like a rattan chair. If the lid wasn't up you would never guess it was a toilet. I don't know why that was so amazing and interesting to me but I thought it was cool.

The last picture is us at our table. Dinner was wonderful and there was a small seafood/salad/appetizer buffet before dinner then after you ate your main dish they had a dessert buffet. We had such an amazing fun time. I do have to say that I enjoyed every minute with Kelly. I told him that we could have just hung out at home just the two of us and I would have been happy because I was with him. I hope he knows I really meant that. I love that he put this all together all on his own. It means so much. I love my Husband. It was so fun just not knowing. I never knew I loved surprises until this one. Thank you Kelly!

Hunter's New Smile

2011-03-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

I am so behind on blogging that most of you have already seen Hunter's newest toothless smile. Regardless, I'm posting it to mark the occasion. Here is a picture of Hunter's newest smile...along with a picture of his favorite little buddy and cousin, Bryson. Hunter lost his front top tooth early in March. It has been wiggly since December and was finally wiggly enough to be pulled out. He actually pulled the tooth out himself. Kelly's new nickname for him is "Toothless". Hunter equates the name to the dragon in the movie How to Train Your Dragon whose name is Toothless and doesn't think he looks like a dragon at all. It only makes the nickname that much funnier because he doesn't realize it means you're missing a tooth....regardless of how many time Kelly tries explaining it to him.

Kora's Black Eyes

2011-03-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

Kora is so accident prone. The other day she was holding herself up with one arm on the couch and the other on a chair swinging her legs back and forth. She lost her grip while her legs were behind her and fell onto the ground right onto her forehead. As I cuddled her I touched her head and noticed a golf ball size bump forming on her forehead. I am not exaggerating the bump...image a golf ball sitting on her forehead. That's really how big it got in a matter of minutes. Of course I was freaked out but a friend happened to be here and we gave her some Motrin to stop the swelling and iced it. It went down and by the next day it was almost all the way down. A few days later however, she started getting black eyes and the bridge of her nose started swelling. They got worse and worse until about the following wednesday. She still has a faint black eye almost 2 weeks later but thankfully they look so much better than they did. Kora's school teacher said that when kids get bumps near their eyes the blood drain into the eye causing a black eye. Good to know and also glad her teacher knew what caused it.

Tinkerbell Mylie is 3

2011-02-19T14:19:00.000-08:00

Our little Mylie is finally 3 years old. I decided to make things easier on myself and with a little push from Kelly we bought Mylie's birthday cake this year. Mylie didn't seem to mind, infact, she picked out the balloon birthday cake from Costco. The theme for Mylie's birthday this year was Tinkerbell. She LOVES Tinkerbell. We actually had two birthday parties this year. One for friends and one for family.

Here is a picture from the friend's party. The kids are decorating their cupcakes. I have to thank my friend Julie because she noticed we weren't taking any pictures and asked if we wanted pictures taken. I am so bad at taking pictures that I don't even remember to even take my camera out. Thank goodness she made a comment, otherwise I wouldn't have any pictures of Mylie's party. Thanks Julie!

Birthday pinata. When I got this, Hunter asked me why I never bought him one for his birthday. Talk about serious guilt trip. Guess what Hunter and Kora are going to have at their parties this year...yep, a pinata.

Sadly, this is the only picture I was able to take of Mylie in her new boots and her Tinkerbell costume. She was in heaven with her gifts this year. She really loves her boots. Kora and Hunter are both anxiously awaiting theirs when their birthdays come around.

Overall, we had a great day, both celebrations were fun. We can't believe our little baby is 3 years old. She still asks me if she's the baby and my reply, yes! She'll always be our baby.

Newest Improvements

2011-02-11T11:11:00.001-08:00

I realize that I have A LOT of blogging to catch up on. We got a new camera for Christmas (so no more dark photos) but this also meant I had to figure it out, download the software to our computer as well as figure out how to download it to my computer. I'm slow, I know but now that I have it mostly figured out I can start blogging again.

My first post back to our blog is about our house. We have made a few minor improvements and I wanted to share. It really is so fun to work on the house. I love that Kelly and I do it with our own hands because it makes it OURS! It also makes it fun to show off. So, any time you want to see our hard work come on over, we would LOVE to show you in person. Of course, a home cooked meal is also in on the offer. We love to have guests just give us a call.

Okay, first off, we have VERY high ceilings. When we painted our walls Kelly had to do all the high work on a ladder. I tend to have a smoother hand when it comes to painting and I was too scared to get up on the ladder to paint where the ceiling and wall met. It wasn't a perfect line, but it worked and if anyone complained about it....well, then they can come over to paint it for us. Needless to say, no one has complained so it has stayed as it was. Kelly was dying to put some crown moulding up to hide the imperfections but our ceilings are also sloped so the normal crown moulding wouldn't work. We had tons of base moulding left so we decided to take 2, put them together, add a smaller decorative moulding to hide the seam and....
I guess it is a little hard to see in the picture, especially with the moulding being white as well as the ceiling. The moulding is actually 8 inches wide.

We also wanted to show a room separation so we added a personal touch in the center. We have claimed the home as a "Kerr" home with a big "K" on the ceiling. I just love vinyl!

Our last improvement is in our living room. We have recently went crazy for Bead Board. I love the look of the stuff. We put some in the kids bathroom and we also put some behind our television. Amazing how one little change can really change the look of the entire room. I LOVE it! I really loved the white walls in this room because the wall behind me where I am taking this picture is a very dark blue. I was afraid by painting this wall yet another color it just wouldn't look good. Once putting the bead board up I noticed that it DID need a bit more contrast. We bought a grey color that is very light so that it gives just enough contrast. It's perfect!

Family Pictures

2010-12-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

We have finally taken family pictures. If you haven't already noticed them on the side of our blog...then here they are. We went to a park in Chino Hills. I really wanted our family pictures by the lake but it was a bit muddy and the geese and ducks insisted on being in all the shots. The geese would literally walk right in front of us looking for a handout. Any other time it would be cute...but it did start to freak Mylie out a bit. After the pictures just weren't turning out the way I wanted them we decided to take them on the steps close to the lake. They turned out nice. My Sister-in-law, Kristin took them for us. I took the individual pictures. I hate taking family pictures but I love to have them.

I realize Hunter and Kora aren't smiling that great in this picture but Mylie is smiling and the biggest one for me, was that Kelly had a great smile in this picture. Sadly, that's a rare find so although my oldest 2 kids weren't smiling, they still looked good. I love Kelly's smile, wish he would do it more in pictures.

Hunter's 6 year picture. I hate pointing this out but my little 6 year old is actually wearing a size 4T shirt in this picture. He's so little. I love it because he's perfect regardless but I do hope he grows some day.

Kora's 4 year picture. I actually love this picture of her. To me it shows her spunkier, 'I can do anything' side of her. To me, this picture shows her truest nature.

Mylie's 2 and 3/4 year picture. I already took Mylie and Kora to get their pictures taken professionally this year. In case you were wondering, I didn't take Hunter because he takes them as school now. There is something about a school picture that's just not cute. I just love that they wait till the end of the day, after they spilled their lunch on their shirt and their hair is a mess to take a picture. Mylie's picture turned out cute but she has a cheesy fake smile. I think by the time I took it she was done taking pictures. I was just glad to get this one.

What is it about taking pictures of my kids backs that I think is so adorable? I don't know but I love these shots. The fact that they are holding hands is a nice touch too. Who cares if I had to threaten lives to get them to do it. Just Kidding, my kids love to be nice to each other in public. Now, how to get them to be nice to each other at home...

Christmastime means Christmas Cookies!

2010-12-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas just isn't Christmas without making a batch of cut-out cookies. The kids love this because they LOVE helping. I tried something different this year with my cut-out cookies. I tried it one other time before and it worked out great. Instead of rolling the dough in flour I rolled it in powdered sugar instead. The texture or flavor of the cookie doesn't change and then there is no white flour mess on the cookie after you bake. I did find that the last batch of cookies didn't make it because I rolled it out too thin. Apparently, when you use sugar instead of flour and you roll it out too thin the cookie will be oversaturated with sugar and get tough. So, easy solution for next time...don't roll it too thin!

The kids helped me mix the dough and helped me roll it out and of course cut. The recipe made a lot of cookies so it was nice that Mylie was taking a nap while her brother and sister were helping me. By the time they had lost interest Mylie had woken up and helped me cut out the rest of the cookies. Once it was time to frost, everyone was interested in helping out with that...and of course taking a finger scoop for themselves every now and then. What's the fun of making cookies if you don't get to sample along the way?

Christmas Tree

2010-12-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

By looking at the picture on the right you would guess that I have never taken a picture with this camera before in my life. That's not the case but unfortunately, this is the best picture I was able to take while we were tree hunting. I was trying to get the night settings working and I guess our camera doesn't take night pictures without a tripod. So, ignore the blurry picture and enjoy the experience!

This year we got our Christmas tree at a Christmas tree farm. This farm is right by our house. If we do go again next year we might consider going during the day, but we were too anxious to wait until the weekend. The kids enjoyed looking for trees but were a little freaked out by the darkness. When you arrive at the farm they give you flashlights and you go out hunting. After looking at nearly all of the trees we finally found a good one. You pull a tag off, pay for it and give it to the cutters so they can cut it down for you. While you wait for your tree to be cut they had a metal trash bin with a nice warm fire in it. It was a fun experience. The tree lasted a bit longer than if we had bought it at a pre-cut lot but the experience was so much better....and the smell lasted so much longer.

In the next picture the kids are helping me decorate the tree. They did a GREAT job decorating the bottom half of the tree. I just had to just take a few and put them near the top to even it all out. What a fun time. Nothing better than Christmas and starting new traditions in our new home. Loving it!

New Kitchen

2010-11-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

Isn't the above picture the most beautiful kitchen you have ever seen? No? Yeah, we didn't care for it either. It's what came with our house so we were willing to deal with it for as long as we needed to. We went to Lowe's and got a quote for brand new cabinets and Corian counter tops....about $12,000. They called later that night and told us that they could do it for a little over $9,000. We knew it was going to be expensive so we were willing to wait 5....10 years until we could afford a new kitchen. We had accepted that, since we didn't have that kind of money to put into a kitchen at this time. We went to a friends house and I was in love with their kitchen. When I told them how much I loved their kitchen they told me that they had done it themselves. 2 weeks later Kelly and I were buying supplies and refaced our cabinets to look like new. Below is how each cabinet door now looks. We painted them white, added bead board in the center and put thin molding around the bead board to hold the board down and hide the seams. It took us about two FULL days to reface all of our cabinets. I LOVE it and am so proud to say that Kelly and I did it with our own two hands for the wonderful cost of about $300.
Since we were updating our kitchen we thought we should update our pantry door as well. Here is the before picture. Plain and ugly.
Here is our new decorative door. We pulled off the old molding and added a new decorative moulding. We plan to eventually change out all of the doors in our house to look exactly like this one. This is more of a very long far off project. We have such a long "to do" list when it comes to our home. Unfortunately, all it takes is money.

Here is our before sink. Notice the disgusting tile. I don't know who would put tile counter tops into their new kitchen. The grout is gross and uncleanable. Bleach doesn't even stand a chance against grout. This is actually a good picture of this sink. You can't see the stained porcelain or the black ring around the top of the sink. Even after I re-caulked the sink the black came up through the new caulk. Definitely gross.

Okay, here it is, our new sink and counter top. The sink actually came with the counter tops. I can't even tell you what kind of material it is. It's not porcelain. It's a Matte finish but I absolutely love it. I especially love my new faucet head. Kora asked me if she could take baths in our new sink. I told her it is certainly big enough.
Okay....drum roll please....Our new kitchen!

The countertops are granite. It isn't your standard granite. They actually put this over our existing tile countertop. There was no demo and it was done in about 4 hours. When we went to the L.A. County fair this year we saw a booth for this new counter top. What it is, is mashed granite and epoxy. The top looks just like a granite countertop where the bottom looks like it has all been glued together. It's stronger and cleaner than real granite because there are no natural cracks and crevices for bacteria to hide. I am in love with my new kitchen and more in love with my awesome, handy husband. I have to thank him for our kitchen as well as all the work he did so we could complete it. He really is amazing.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

This year was all about the store bought costumes. Hunter really wanted to be Iron Man this year. At first we told him "No" because we didn't want him wearing a mask. On his Birthday he got the entire costume...suit, helmet, blaster arm and battery center. So, we decided to give in and let him be Iron Man.

Kora wanted to be Princess Aurora and on her birthday she got her entire costume. I thought I only had to make Mylie's costume but the closer Halloween got I just wasn't feeling it this year. I drove to the Disney Store to buy a Tinkerbell costume to find that I had missed the big sale by 2 days. The costume with wings was now $65....or I could have bought a wingless Tinkerbell costume for $40. I just wasn't feeling that either. For some reason the Alice in Wonderland costumes were a steal so Mylie was the cutest Alice in Wonderland that ever existed.

Funny thing about the above picture. Hunter really wanted to do the peace sign like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movie. After the girls saw Hunter holding up a "2" Kora held up a "3" and Mylie held up a "4".

This year we went trick or treating in our neighborhood with my Jeremy, Kristin and Luke. Here are the kids in all of their costumes. Mylie had just woken up from a nap so we hadn't fixed her hair yet. The other 3 were ready to go get some candy. It was fun going in our own neighborhood. There were quite a few kids out as well. Looking forward to new traditions in our new home.

After seeing my Sister-in-Law's Halloween post last year and seeing that they painted pumpkins instead of carved them I wondered why I NEVER thought of that. All these years I would buy one pumpkin for each child, they would help me clean out the pumpkins until they got bored and then I would have to carve them. They LOVED painting their own pumpkins. So fun.

Hunter decided to put faces all around the pumpkin. His was the only one that resembled a pumpkin face but they had a good time painting.

This is actually Kora's first coat of about 20. Her pumpkin ended up turning a nice brown color by the end. She LOVES to paint and color. She's our artist.

Our family right before leaving for trick or treating. You have got to love California weather when your kids are wearing shear sleeveless costumes and they aren't cold. We had a fun Halloween....now, on to Christmas...yay!

Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

October is here and it doesn't quite feel like October and fall until you take a trip to the pumpkin patch. We actually went with my brother and his little family. It was such a fun little pumpkin patch with inflatable slides and other rides. Here's a few pictures of the fun.

Hunter and the pumpkins! He had so much fun on the slides, swings and playing with the animals. It was difficult to pull him away from all the fun he was having to take this picture.

Mylie on the swings. She didn't really make the height for the ride but they had one swing chair that was made for smaller children. Hunter was able to swing on a bigger swing and Kora had to swing on the child swing chair. Since there was only one, Mylie had to wait until Hunter and Kora were done and swing by herself. She LOVED it. It would only make sense because her favorite thing to do at the park is being pushed on the swing. She could spend the entire time at the park on the swing.

The pumpkin patch had giant slides. Kora has no fear so she loved the giant slides. She had come down the slide so quickly the first time that I didn't even get a chance to get the camera ready. This picture is her second slide down.

This is the best picture I have of the 5 kiddos showing their pumpkins.

2010-10-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

I have contemplated changing our title back to K Kerr Five but find that I just can't. This last week has been a little difficult for us. Last Tuesday I started spotting a little and on Saturday I started bleeding heavily. I went to the doctor last Wednesday and was told a little spotting is normal but from the ultrasound I was either not as far along as I thought or the baby was not developing. I had 2 blood test last week to determine if the baby was developing or not. I had another doctors appointment set for Wednesday, today, so I planned to just wait it all out and find out how things were going to go. During the appointment we found that I have indeed lost the baby. We are both disappointed, sad...all those things that you would expect to feel in the circumstance. We are looking forward to expanding our family, unfortunately it wont be as soon as we hoped, but do hope that maybe in the near future we can call ourselves the K Kerr Six.

Anniversary Vacation

2010-10-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

My parents decided that instead of Christmas gifts last Christmas they were going to send us on a paid for Anniversary trip. Free Hotel room for 2 days and some spending money. Great idea, we LOVED it. Unsure where to go we decided to go to San Diego. The only thing I wanted to do was go Kayaking....Kelly chose golfing. We started our trip on a Friday. The kids stayed with Kelly's parents for a day and my parents for 2 days.

On Friday we dropped Hunter off at school then headed to a golfing range close to our home. I haven't golfed since Mylie was a baby so I was....a bit rusty. Kelly did great, as always. I love golfing. I really wish we went more. I think I finally figured out how to swing my clubs. Instead of my ball only going a few feet, they were going a good distance. Thanks to a wonderful golf coach, Kelly.

After Golfing it was off to Pete's for Lunch then on to San Diego. We explored our Hotel and found a pool table. Can you believe I actually won a 7 game tournament against Kelly? Well, I did...thanks to him scratching the 8 ball 3 times and me winning one real game...hey, but a win is a win, right? Right! Don't ask how I did the second night. We didn't even make it to 7 games because Kelly won 4 in a row.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel...which was wonderful and then it was off to our Kayak tour. It was so amazing. It was a sea lion tour but we got to see so much more. We got to see 2 naval boats headed out to sea as well as an aircraft carrier. Being in those small little kayaks made us feel extremely tiny next to those ginormous ships. We did get to see sea lions. It was a little scary to see these big animals swim so close to the kayak but it was fun. Something I thought was really cool was we got to see this area where they train dolphins and sea lions train for the military. They actually train dolphins and sea lions to tell their trainers if there are scuba divers...or bombs in the water. It was so neat. We even got to see the dolphins jumping. We really couldn't get too close without being arrested but we were allowed to be within 100 feet. It was such a fun kayak trip. I loved it. I only wish I brought a camera. Our guide took a picture for us but I can't figure out how to download them here...They aren't the standard file. Oh well, you'll just have to imagine how cool it was, lol.

After kayaking we went to a brazillian barbeque restaurant. So delicious. Our Christmas spending money went to dinner but it was worth it. We had such an amazing time together. I really love my husband. It's good to know we can spend 3 full days together and wish we had more time we could be together. The only good thing about coming home was finally getting to see our children. We loved our time together but we missed them. I am kind of hoping this will be a new annual Christmas tradition, but if not, I still think Kelly and I need to go on one of these weekend anniversary vacations annually. Let's see if I can convince him. It really felt like we were newleyweds....a VERY good time!

Temporary Change

2010-10-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to inform you that we will be making a temporary Blog title change , from "K Kerr Five" to "K Kerr Five...and a half", until about May 27th when we will be officially changing our Blog title to "K Kerr Six"!

FYI: We just found out. I think the Kerr Patriarch must have had some grandfatherly intuition that made him aware before the actual parents were.

New Deck

2010-10-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is a project we have been wanting to do since moving here. At first, we were thinking maybe we would cement the area in. I was concerned about cementing the area in because it just wouldn't match the other cemented areas. That is when we thought of making a little deck. This first picture is the "before" picture. Not entirely the before picture because I didn't think to take pictures before we cut the second palm tree down. This area has been such an ugly wasted space. Because of the 2 palm trees, there really wasn't anything else we could do with the area...until the deck!

Kelly placing the cement support blocks.

The frame.

Hunter helping build the frame. He loved helping. All of the kids got to help put in at least one screw so this is truly a family project.

Putting on the top planks.

After an entire Saturday of work we FINALLY finished. After a small dilemma with the lamppost, everything looks great. Okay, ignore the one plank on the bottom, that is our step to hide the cement support blocks. Our power drill ran out of power so we weren't able to put the step in until the next day. Okay, one learned lesson....did you know that a lamppost wont work unless it has 3 light bulbs in it? Yeah, neither did we. The instructions didn't tell us that either. Almost giving up we decided to try it and...voila!

Our completed deck with the barbecue! Kelly cut down the last remaining palm tree and added a table top. We had 2 extra barstools and now they fit perfectly on the deck. We just LOVE our new deck. Amazing how one little change can really make the backyard look so much better....now what to do with the hideous fence? I guess that will be another project for another time.

Front View:Side View:

Blessing Dress?

2010-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kora has recently found hers and Mylie's Blessing dresses. She kept asking me if she could wear it. After multiple NO's she finally took things into her own hands and put one on herself. This dress is actually Mylie's blessing dress. I never realized how big the dresses are. After laughing at her and taking pictures I had to tell her that they were special dresses that aren't meant for big girls to wear....and then move them to a hidden location (aka: my closet) so the temptation is permanently removed. Someday her daughters will be wearing those dresses. I guess she doesn't realize that or care just yet.

Kora is 4

2010-09-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

This post is long behind. On August 22nd Kora turned 4 years old. She decided she wanted a little Mermaid Birthday party this year. As always we just had a small little family party. Which, my goal this next year is to start doing friends parties and family parties. We never really had the room before and since moving here, we finally feel comfortable enough for kid parties.

Kora, is a girly girl who LOVES to dress up. If she doesn't have a princess dress on, then she's probably just in her underwear. She isn't our most modest child. She loves to sing, and dance and is such a ham. She loves making people laugh and has a beautiful smile. She is our only child to make it in the double digit percentage range in height and weight at a whopping 25% in both. We are excited about that, but she is also only about 2 inches shorter than Hunter.

This year Kora found a little handout in her Snow White movie and in it, they had little snow white toys. She was obsessed with a little vacuum (aka: Zoomer) and begged us for it. After checking out the retail online $69....we decided not to get it for her....but Kelly somehow found one in a different color for less than half the other price and still a princess vacuum. She loves it and often helps me "zoom" the house.

She got 2 more princess dresses, one of which I had to hide away until Halloween and a pillow pet...along with a few other things. Hunter and Mylie both got pillow pets for their birthdays and Kora was anxiously awaiting hers. Kora just loves her new dress up dresses. She's a princess every day of the week.

Dressing Herself

2010-08-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

Mylie woke up at 7am with me this morning. I wake up at 7am every morning so I can be ready for when my brother drops Luke off for the day. My first task is taking a shower. Since Mylie was up, she joined me (hence the straggly tangle of wet hair in the picture). After the shower I put a diaper on her and then got myself dressed. She disappeared for a bit and then came back with a shirt. I told her that was a jammy shirt and to go get something else. She wanted to wear the jammy shirt so she decided to put it on herself. She sat down on the floor and proceeded to put it on like a pair of pants. She got both legs through the neck hole and then pulled it up, upside down. She stood up, looked at me, put her hands in the air, smiled and said "I did it!" I'm so proud of my independent dresser.

Loose Tooth

2010-08-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this sweet baby toothed smile now because this will be the last picture of him with all of his baby teeth. He came to me yesterday morning saying that his tooth was wiggly. I took a look and sure enough his tooth is loose and not only that but the new tooth has already broken through and coming in behind his baby teeth. In the picture below you might be able to see the tooth coming in on the bottom.

When Kelly got home Hunter gave him the okay to pull the tooth. Kelly first tried to tie a string to the tooth but it just wouldn't stay put. He instead got some pliers out and pulled it out. I think that this tooth must have been wiggly for awhile because it was more than ready to come out.

This last picture is minus his baby tooth. Funny thing about this picture...because the new tooth is already growing in you can barely tell the baby tooth is really missing. Well, I guess if it wasn't for the red gap. Hunter put his tooth under his pillow and the tooth fairy brought him a dollar. He was so excited. He has big plans for that dollar and is looking forward to spending it when he gets home. His words to me when he left for school this morning "Don't let the girls touch it!" . This happened August 4th. Since I had a backlog of posts I had to put this one later.

First Grade

2010-08-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

On July 29th Hunter started his first day of school. Since moving out to Fontana we heard that it was a bit difficult to get into the schools out here because there are so many homes but not enough schools. There was a slight possibility that we were going to have to bus Hunter to another school. The very first day that we could enroll him into school I made sure I was there bright and early so that we were in a better position to get him into the school close to our home. We didn't even find out until the day before school started that he actually got in. We found out his teacher's name is Mrs. Fisk. She's an older lady but seems like a good teacher. We are excited for the school year!

Hunter's first day of school was unfortunately not an uneventful one. At around 2pm I got a phone call from his school. My first thought, "What did he do?". He is such a good boy that the thought of him doing something so bad that I get a phone call was kind of mystifying. The office proceeded to tell me that while Hunter was at P.E. they were playing Duck, Duck, Goose and Hunter happened to be sitting on a red ant hill. He got multiple bites all over both of his arms and a few on his legs. When I picked him up it wasn't too bad but he did have a lot of bites. He was the only child to get bit...of course it would be our son that this happened to. Thankfully Hunter has been going to school for a week now and no more freak accidents like the first day. At least this will be a fun story for him to remember when he gets older.

Camping

2010-08-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Growing up our yearly vacation was a week of tent camping. I have always loved camping and since getting married I had hoped to share that love with my children. After begging Kelly for years if we could go he finally gave in. The last time Kelly and I went camping Hunter was only 9 months old. This was our kids first real experience camping since Hunter was too young to really remember his last experience.

We left Thursday afternoon and headed up to Big Bear. We love camping up there since it only takes a little over an hour from our home. We ended up staying in the Heart Bar campsite #47. My brother and his wife came up later that night as well as my Mom and my Dad came Friday night.

We borrowed some kid size chairs from Kelly's parents and all the kids enjoyed sitting in them. We are definitely going to have to buy them some of their own.

Here Mylie is showing us what a mess she was the entire weekend. There really was no point in cleaning this little girl because minutes after washing her down she would be covered in dirt again. Her favorite spot the entire weekend was sitting on the ground playing in the dirt.

Hunter's favorite past time was playing with Kelly's BB Gun. He loved shooting at the cans and bottles. He didn't really have the power to pump the gun but he did try.

Here is a picture of my brother, the Pyro. He was in charge of the campfire and made sure it was blazing all night.

This next picture is a picture of Kora's hands. She had a bit of an accident while we were up there. The best thing that came out of it is that she has learned a healthy respect for fire. The first day we were there she kept putting wood into the fire. Kelly and I kept telling her that only the adults are supposed to put the wood in because it is really dangerous. Well, she didn't listen and insisted on putting more wood into the fire. On her way to the pit she tripped and tried catching herself on the metal pit. It burned her poor little hands. The entire weekend she tried her best to stay away from the fire pit. Sometimes lessons are unfortunately learned the hard way.

Here are the 3 kiddos in a forced photo. Don't you just love asking the kids to pose, you get the most random pictures sometimes.

This next picture is a beautiful gorge not too far from our campsite. Seeing nature like this is exactly the reason I love camping.

This last picture is my mountain men off to chop some firewood. We had a great time camping and I can't wait to take the kids again. I think the kids were a little disappointed because they never really got to see the "Big Bear" but overall I know that they had a fun time too.

Amazing What a Little Paint and New Hardware Can Do

2010-07-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to find that once you FINALLY have a home you realize that the list of "to do" projects is really never ending. Kelly and I have decided to break up projects into rooms. Our goal is to complete a room in a weekend. Yesterday our goal was our Master Bathroom. A few things that needed to get done was touch-up painting, baseboards, caulking, painting cabinets, putting a wood border around our mirror and installing new faucets. Originally we thought this was going to be a 6 hour job so we designated Saturday to get everything done. Plans got a little distorted when we decided to let the missionaries come over and wash their car....Kelly got them to do a little service for us and had them install the ceiling fan we bought months ago in Hunter's room. Then Kelly asked me if I wanted to see Eclipse....ahhh, yes! He is dying to see Predators but because he promised to see Eclipse with me he said we needed to get Eclipse out of the way so we could see Predators. So we got as much as we could done on Saturday. We finished all of the painting and got 1 faucet installed. Yesterday we installed the last faucet, put up the cabinet doors and it looks amazing. When you can't really afford to put in new cabinets it's nice to know you have other options as cheap as a can of paint. So, here are a few before and after photos.

Before:

After: (We also got new knobs and a drawer pull. The other ones were so ugly. Love the brushed nickle look)

Before: You can't tell from this picture but the knobs actually turned the wrong way when you needed to turn the water on. I think this might have been the way they were designed but why would you design something to turn a different way than what EVERYONE is used to? We have lived here for 5 months now and the day we took them out I would still try to turn it the "right" way.

After: So glad I can turn the knobs in the "right" direction now to turn the water on. And it looks so much more beautiful than the other faucet head.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get to the baseboards or the border around the mirror. Regardless, it was a successful project weekend!

Answered Prayer

2010-07-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting experience last night that was too good to not write down. Since I don't really have a journal and I use my blog to record all of my special moments I thought I would share. Last night I was saying my prayers and while I was praying I noticed how loud the crickets were outside. I was slightly annoyed because they were so loud and was worried that they would keep me up and I wouldn't be able to sleep. So while saying my prayer I asked Heavenly Father to please bless me that I could sleep through the noise the crickets were making. Literally 2 seconds later they stopped. It was dead silent outside. I have never had a prayer answered so quickly. After I finished my prayer I stayed up about 10 minutes longer just to see if something startled the crickets to make them stop temporarily, but they never started up again. I was amazed and at the same time my testimony has grown. My Heavenly Father loves me enough to answer even a simple prayer. He listens to us and he loves us and answers all of our prayers as I was shown last night, if I only listen (literally in this case) the answer will be given to me.

Riding Higher

2010-07-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

We have finally made that step from car to mini-van. Kelly had a meeting 2 Fridays ago and before we went he said that we should go to the car dealers and "just look" at vans. This was the very first time he had mentioned this. We have long ago outgrown our Camry. Since watching my nephew, every seat was taken. Kelly took the day off one day and we realized he was going to have to take his own car if we wanted to go somewhere. Hunter was in the passenger seat and Kora, Mylie and Luke were in the back. Kelly had been researching vans for awhile. I had done my own little research months ago and really liked the options available for the Toyota Sienna. After the meeting Kelly asked me which dealer we should go to first. He had narrowed it down to the Dodge Caravan, Toyota Sienna and the Honda Odyssey. Since I knew I already liked the Sienna I asked him if we could go to the Toyota Dealer first. We looked at the Sienna. Something we were looking for was Automatic sliding doors. This meant we had to at least go with the LE and above. It was beautiful and had so many standard options. We took a test drive and were hooked. We got into the office and sat down. Kelly told them that it was late so we weren't going to make a deal tonight but if they gave us the very best deal that they could tonight, we would be back in the morning. They came back and Kelly wasn't happy with it so we started to leave. They stopped us and Kelly told them that he told them to give us the very best deal that they could and if that was the best deal then we were done. They told him they could do more and next thing you know we are signing paperwork and cleaning out my old Camry. We left the dealship at midnight. I'm so proud of Kelly. I have never seen him negotiate. He's a tough one to deal with. Those guys had no chance.

I have had my van for a little over a week and I love it. We considered buying a van a year or two ago because we always knew we wanted a bigger family (okay, no this isn't an announcement....no plans yet.). At that time, the idea of me getting a van freaked me out. I must have grown a lot in the year or two since last time because I was actually excited this time. I LOVE my van. It's amazingly fun to drive and actually handles better than my car did. The kids are loving the extra space....and the van actually seats 8. One thing I am loving is how much higher I sit in the van. Cars are so low to the ground. I feel like I can see everything and don't have to position my car to see around large vehicles. Love it!!!

To Cover or Not to Cover, That is the Question

2010-07-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

We have a large rectangular window over our main window in our Living Room. A big dilemma that we had was whether or not we were going to put a covering over it or not. Kelly was all for putting up something but I was more hesitant because I LOVE the light that the window lets in. Because it's so high we don't have to worry about privacy. A big problem was without a covering, at around dinner time the window would let in light right at our dinner table practically blinding and roasting people from the heat. Since summer has only barely started I decided to give in and cover the window. After talking to my Interior Designer Brother-in-law, Gus, he suggested a sheer fabric. The whole time I was thinking I had to cover it with a thick fabric. I actually went with a fabric slightly thicker than a sheer. I picked white so that it would still be bright. I'm still not sure what I think about it but it does make a big difference. As you can see in the after picture below it still lets in light...in fact, you may not even be able make out the fabric, but it's there. Thank you Gus, for guiding me to the right fabric. I would have never thought of it on my own.

Before:

After:

Baby Horses

2010-07-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we met Kelly's Sister's Family and his Mom at Rodeo Burger out in Norco. Kelly's family has known the owner for years and after he sells a restaurant and moves on, somehow they find him again at a new location. This year he's in Norco. It's a fast food restaurant and the food is great. Kelly's Sister, Becky and her family were headed back home to Utah but wanted to make a stop for breakfast at Pete's restaurant.

While we were there taking pictures a man offered to take a picture of the whole family. My Mother-in-law, Susie started talking to him and next thing you know he has invited us over to his house to see miniature horses. The picture with the kids and the white horse is the smalled horse that he has. He stands no taller than 22 inches. He is so tiny and spunky. He's a beautiful white with light blue eyes. This horse was actually too small to ride, even for our little Mylie. The couple that owns this horse owns 12 horses in total, 3 normal size and 9 miniatures. They took nearly all of the horses out for the kids to walk around and for the smallest 2 kids (Mylie and Tylie) to ride. Mylie was so cute. She had to give each of the horses a hug and a kiss on their nose. She would say "Baby Horse" in such the cutest way. The owners were the nicest people. I never knew such tiny horses existed. Of course after we leave the kids asked if we could get a baby horse.....ah, no!

Beach Fun

2010-06-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

My niece Taylor came down from Colorado to stay with her Nani and we got to do a few things with her while she was down. One of the things was to go to the beach. We went down to Huntington Beach. It was a perfect day with just a little breeze. The kids had a great time. They loved digging and playing in the water. Here are a few pictures of our beach adventure.

Of course a day at the beach wouldn't be complete without someone being buried in the sand. Once one child did it, they all had to do it. Kora wanted me to make her Ariel. It took me awhile to figure that request out but it meant that she wanted me to bury her legs and make her a fish tail in the sand.

This bucket of sand with shells is actually a bunch of "sea creatures" as my kids put it. This was the first time I have ever been to the beach where they had real animals you could collect off of the beach. The kids found a ton. After the sea creatures sat for a bit they would open their shells and put their tongues out. If you look closely you can actually see some of the shells opened. The kids had fun touching them and watching the creatures go back and hide in their shell. This is our niece,Taylor. She loved playing in the water. My kids were too little and scared to really play in the deeper water with her but I think she still had a good time.

As always, Mylie did her own thing. She had fun eating lots of sandy Cheetos, sitting in the sand, digging and hiding in the beach blanket. I tried to get her to play in the water but I think the water was too strong and scared her. She wouldn't go out without holding my hand. I didn't mind this so much because at least I didn't have to worry about her being swept away by a wave.

Hunter had a great time too. He loved playing in the waves. When I told him we were going to go to the beach he told me that we HAD to build a sand castle. We built a good one...and of course didn't take any pictures before Godzilla...a.k.a Mylie jumped on it. The kids loved the beach and since I am always a fan of anything near water I had a great time too.

Disneyland 2010

2010-06-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last year we purchased Disneyland passes. Of course they were the cheap passes but I don't mind so much. Since our passes are going to expire this month we decided to make a trip. Yes, this is our first trip since August. I bet Disneyland LOVES pass holders like us. The reason why I didn't go was because 3 children at Disneyland by myself is a less than pleasant thought. I asked Kelly's Mom if she would go with me and it made for a very fun time. I really wish I had asked her to go with me months before so we could have enjoyed our passes. Nevertheless, we had a great time. On this trip I had my nephew Luke with us for the first half of the day. He is such an amazingly easy, happy baby. He only cried once and that was when we were on the ride Small World and I was singing to him. I guess I was ruining the ride for him and he really wanted to just listen to the ride music and not me. I guess he can't appreciate a good voice when he hears one, ha ha ha.

I believe that Mylie's favorite ride was small world. She pointed out every little doll. I tried to get a good picture but it was so dark in there that this was the best one I took...and still not that great.

Hunter's favorite ride was Star Tours. This was the very first time he ever got to ride it. Last year he was too small and actually afraid of going on it. I was worried he was going to get scared but throughout the ride he was "woo hoo'ing" as we rode. He couldn't wait to tell his Dad how much he loved the ride. Because of this alone I was very glad Susie came with me because had she not and I were with my kids alone, we wouldn't have been able to ride the ride because Kora and Mylie are still too small to ride it. I'm glad he got the experience to ride it.

In this picture Kora was in the Celebration Parade. Actually, all that she did in the parade was joined a group of kids in a konga line around a float. They asked that an adult go with her because she looked a little scared. She did fine though. I can't really say what Kora's favorite ride was. If you were to ask her she would say the Hook ride....A.K.A. the Peter Pan ride. We didn't get to go on the Peter Pan ride because by the time we were headed that way it was closed down so they could prepare for the fireworks show. I guess she remembers it from last time and it's still her favorite. The next time we go to Disneyland we will make sure to get on that ride first.
I understand that this last picture is a little blurry. It's because the ride is in motion and the ability to get a picture on a spinning ride is near impossible, at least for me. This is the ladybug ride in Downtown Disney. I actually really liked this picture despite it being blurry. It shows the girls and Susie having a really good time. We had a great time at Disneyland and can't wait to go again. I'm contimplating getting passes again but still have to talk to Kelly about that. We would have to go more often in order for them to be worth it. There is nothing like taking your children somewhere and watch them marvel at everything that they see. Disney sure takes advantage of that but as a parent it really does make it worth it to see their bright smiles.

2 Car Garage

2010-06-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we have finally done it. We have officially cleaned out our garage and can now fit 2 cars in it. We got rid of a ton of stuff, went through the last of the boxes in the garage and rearranged what needed to stay in there. We had to get creative with our second fridge but in the end it all fit, as well as both of our cars. It's a happy day!

We must have been feeling like doing home improvements this day because after we cleaned out the garage we installed our chandelier. Here are the before and after pictures. We had to call my Dad over to help because the chandelier that came with the house was really heavy. We also changed out our ceiling fan over our dining room table too so that the lights would all match (brushed nickle look).

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Birthday Party for Mylie....a little late

2010-06-21T08:00:00.001-07:00

Mylie's real 2nd birthday was February 2nd. So much was happening around that time that we decided to postpone her big family birthday party until we moved into our new house. Little did we know that it was going to take us months to get settled and feel our house was clean and fixed "enough" for us to entertain. So, we FINALLY celebrated her 2nd Birthday. It was just a small little party but Mylie had a good time and that is all that matters. For those of you wondering, No, this wasn't the only party we had for her. We did have a small little party for her on her actual birthday with cake and presents. She wasn't forgot about.

One of Mylie's new favorites this year is Curious George. Since moving we had spent a lot of time at Steve and Carolyn's house while Hunter and Kora were at school near our old apartment. They would turn on Curious George for the girls and they love it. When we went to pick out party decorations Mylie saw the Curious George decorations and headed straight towards them. So, we had a Curious George birthday for Mylie with a Banana Cake. When I told Kelly I was going to make a banana cake his first reply was "No". Once I told him it would only be in the shape of a banana and have no banana in it he didn't have a problem with it.

Here is a picture with Great-Grandpa and the kids.

This is the party girl, passed out on the couch. Sadly, the nap made her a little grumpy when she woke up.

This last picture is the kids with Grandma and Nani. It was a fun party. There was even a little neighbor boy who celebrated with us, but we have no pictures of him. Kelly and the kids were playing baseball on the front yard and a little boy, about Hunter's age came over to play and watch. Kelly invited him to Mylie's party. His mom wasn't too sure about letting him come over to a stranger's house but she eventually let him and he was so cute. Kelly said he would imitate Michael Jackson and dance. So, now the kids have a new little buddy in the neighborhood.

A Bit More Color

2010-06-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a few new pictures of our house. The picture on the right is the new color we put on our walls. Both of the colors are colors we already have throughout our house. These walls were originally white but we thought it needed a bit more color. We haven't finished the wall leading up our stairs because the wall is so tall. We have a tall ladder but it's definitely a 2 person job. Kelly did the painting when the kids and I were out of the house. We are in the process of painting all the bathroom walls. I have also started decorating. I enjoyed having nothing on the walls for a bit but now I'm ready for a little change.

The second picture is the outside of our house. We....or I have been wondering what color we want to paint our house if we do. I would absolutely love to do a grey with white trim and black accents. The only problem with these colors is that ALL the houses in the neighborhood are some form of brown or tan like ours. Should we venture out and keep to the brown but just make it a bolder brown so it still fits in but not totally stick out....or should we go with the grey and make it stick out? Suggestions???

Fire

2010-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

I really should have put this post after the Angel's Game post because it actually happened the same night. The other events I posted after were just more important so I thought this one could be postponed a few days. The picture on the right is from our backyard. As we were driving home from the Angels game we saw a huge orange fire from the freeway . The whole time I remember hoping the fire was some other mountain and not ours. Once we got home I realized it WAS our mountain that was on fire. Here are a few pictures. I still don't know how the fire started but there were plenty of news helicopters and it did get some news coverage. The only thing that made this fire not SO scary was the fact that there was no wind. If there had been wind it might have been a lot worse. This last picture is from our Bedroom window. It's a really pretty view normally but as you can see it's a little blackened. When we first moved here is was a beautiful green. The only good thing that came out of the fire was the fact that now it's done and we really don't have to worry about our mountain catching fire again during this years fire season.

Kindergarten Graduate

2010-06-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hunter's last day of school was May 25th. His school had a little promotion ceremony and he sang a few songs and then the principal handed out diplomas (little pieces of paper rolled up to look like diplomas that said "You did it") We are so proud of Hunter. The picture on the right is a picture with Hunter and his Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Harford. She was a wonderful teacher. I only hope that Hunters next teachers will be just as wonderful. I still can't believe an entire year has flown by.

Kelly took the day off so he could be there for the promotion. Afterwards we went to a place called John's Incredible Pizza. It was our first time going but definitely not our last. What made it cool is they had a pizza buffet. The pizzas were really good...and also interesting. I had to try their "spicy peanut butter" pizza, the word interesting is the first thing that comes to mind. Another thing cool about the place is they have 5 different themed rooms you can sit in to eat. Since it was our first time we had to check them all out. They had a cartoon room, surfing room, sports room, music room and a lodge room. Each of the rooms had big screen TVs playing something that went along with the room theme. Kelly and I decided to sit in the lodge room. This was the only room without a TV and clearly for adults. As we are about to sit down Kora states "This room is boring." Interestingly enough this was the first time I had ever heard her use that word. We ended up eating in the cartoon room, which happened to be a great choice because the kids were entertained while Kelly and finished eating. Afterwards we went and played games in their game room, think ChuckECheeses but for kids and adults. They actually had a full size ride in there. The kids had a great time and overall it was a fun day.

New Daytime Addition

2010-06-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

We have a new little addition to our family during the day. My Sister-in-Law, Kristin, went back to work on May 3rd and I have been watching my nephew, Luke, during the day. I had to add a picture of Kora with this post because she can't get enough of the little man. She is always asking to hold him, feed him and makes sure he is never cold by putting a blanket on him whenever he needs one. She's quite the mommy. We have really enjoyed having him stay with us. It's great to get to know one of my nephews. I only wish it were the same with all of my nieces and nephews but unfortunately, Luke is the only one that lives in California. For now, we'll enjoy him as long as we have him.

Angels Game

2010-06-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

A new tradition of ours is going to an Angels game. What makes this game so fun is we usually get free tickets once a year from Kelly's work which usually includes free parking and dinner. We always look forward to it. Something that made it a little extra fun this year instead of using the money for dinner we got to use it on anything at the park. We decided to get the kids a few souvenirs instead of getting food. The girls got rally monkeys and Hunter got an Angels pennant for his bedroom wall. I realized this year that this will be our last year we go as an entire family. Mylie will no longer be free and will need a ticket from here on out. Kelly's company only gives out 4 tickets and where we sit we couldn't pay to add on additional tickets.

Here is a picture of the kids sitting below our seats. There is a table above their heads that provides good shade. Which was a good thing because it was hot that day.

No game would be complete without the Angels Tattoo. The kids always get a tattoo from the staff. Gotta love the fake tattoos.

This last picture is my favorite. In what we thought would be excitement, Mylie showed complete fear when the Rally Monkey started jumping on the large screen TV. Around the 6th inning they have a video of a monkey wearing an Angels jersey doing back flips and jumping on the screen. The kids usually love it. It has been a year since Mylie saw it last. Apparently a year has made all the difference and the one-time smiles for the jumping monkey is now terror.

New Lights

2010-06-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

All of the lights in our house are ugly. We are working very slowly at changing them. This was our first try. Kelly changed 3 lights. They all looked like this one here. You may look at it and think it's not bad....but in all truthfulness, it really isn't, it's just not us. Plus, it was a bit too small.

In this picture Kelly is working his magic and changing out the old fixture for the new one. In case you were wondering, yes, the ceiling was a hideous green. Who paints their ceilings green?May I also add that although when we bought this house it was all white you could tell when we were repainting that the hall that this light fixture was in, the walls were also this nasty green.

Here is the finished product, yay! So beautiful. Kelly did a great job. He also changed the ceiling fan in the girls room. The fan that was in there had flat blades that wouldn't push the air down no matter which way you moved the switch. Who would install a ceiling fan that didn't work when you bought it? Oh well, not our problem but we did have to fix that problem and now the girls have a working ceiling fan.

Old Posts to Come

2010-06-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

If any of you faithful friends and family are reading this, thank you. The month of May has been a busy month. Regrettably, I have yet to document any of it. I just want to let you know that I will be releasing a back log of May events until I am caught up. So, stay tuned and enjoy! Thanks for bearing with me.

Batman

2010-05-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

The other day Hunter came up to me wearing all of this garb and asked me what he looked like. I said....a swimmer(notice the swim goggles)? No, I'm Batman! Well, of course he is. Gotta love a child's imagination.

"Shoe On!"

2010-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I apologize that I couldn't get a better picture. Mylie just refuses to cooperate. She has a love of shoes. She loves to try on shoes. If we go over to someones house and they have a pair of shoes laying out she will put them on and walk around. She doesn't only love other people's shoes but she also loves her own shoes. If she can't just slide her feet in the shoes she'll come up to me with the shoes and say "shoe on!". Something funny about her though is that she's also a true Hawaiian. Wherever we go she'll make herself at home and take her shoes off almost immediately after going to someones house. Apparently her feet need to breathe...or maybe she's just taking them off so she can find someone else's shoes to put on?

Jammies for Kora

2010-04-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

Back in January I was cutting out fabric to make Kora a pajama dress. As I was cutting the fabric, our dog who was snooping around for crumbs under our kitchen table got tangled in my sewing machine cords and yanked the sewing machine off the table, breaking it. After moving Kelly got me a new machine and we also got a new table for our bedroom so I no longer have to sew on our Kitchen table. My first sewing project was to finish the last project that I started. When I went to the store to buy her fabric I had seen a ton of adorable fabrics and was just going to choose one when I decided to let her choose. After looking at everything she decided on a pink fabric with dolphins. I thought it was hideous so I attempted to persuade her to choose something else. I failed. Normally when you go to the cutting counter, if the lady is friendly she'll ask you what you are going to make with the fabric. I told her I was going to make my daughter a pajama dress. Her response:"Don't you think this fabric will give her nightmares?" At least I wasn't alone in thinking the fabric was ugly. So, I made her jammies and I actually think it looks cute. I guess I couldn't envision it and Kora could. She loves it and I love that she loves it.

Working Hard

2010-04-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

As we have been working hard on the inside of our house we have recently started working on the outside of our house. Since I generally kill all living plants, I asked Kelly's Mom who always has a beautiful planter in front of her house, to help me plant a few flowers in my entry way. The picture on the left is Mylie's way of helping out. The picture on the right is what we had to work with. I should have taken the before picture of the huge mess of dead ugly plants but instead it's a picture of a cleaned out planter with one rose tree left. I attempted to transplant it into the pot that Mylie is sitting in but it looks like the transplant didn't take. In fact, my poor rose tree looks dead. See, I kill all plants. Kelly's mom helped me pick out flowers that would survive under my care. Before she left she told me I still needed to buy miracle grow and put it on the flowers not too long after planting. A few days later she asked me how my flowers were doing. I told her a few of them looked good but a lot of them looked like they were dying despite my efforts to keep them well watered. When she asked me if I had bought my miracle grow yet I had realized the reason for my flowers poor growth. After buying the miracle grow, spreading it on and watering, the results were almost instant. My flowers looked better and are growing beautifully.

I realize now that I should have removed my sign so you could see all my flowers...I make myself laugh sometimes.

Angels T-Ball

2010-04-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Before we moved out to Fontana we knew that the Little League Season would begin shortly after we moved. We decided to sign Hunter up to play. Kelly was an assistant coach last year and loved it. When we signed Hunter up he informed the person we registered Hunter up with that he would like to assist coaching. Next thing you know Kelly gets a call that his first meeting is Tuesday. They actually made him a manager. He's a wonderful manager and does well with the boys. The cool thing about him being a manager means he got to pick what his team was going to be. Luckily the Angels weren't taken so of course he picked the Angels. We have games 2 times a week. It keeps us pretty busy...I guess I should take the word "us" out and replace it with "Kelly and Hunter" because all I do is take myself and the girls to the games. It's fun to see the kids out there playing. I have to admit that I am a horrible picture taker. I can't believe I haven't taken one picture of Hunter and Kelly together. That will obviously change. I'll post one soon!

Easter

2010-04-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a few days late getting this up because we have been busy. Hunter got to play with his favorite little buddy and cousin for almost 5 days straight. I think he was a happy man...although, they went home today and when Hunter asked if we were going to see Bryson today he was a little disappointed. It always amazes me how we wont see them for months and when we get together you would think the kids had just seen each other the day before. They just play so well together. So, here was our Easter weekend in a nutshell.

Kelly's brother, Bryan and his family drove down Wednesday night last week. Kelly had Friday off, which was good Friday, so him and Bryan went golfing. Bryan spent the night at our house and Saturday morning Kelly, Bryan and I went to see the new Clash of the Titans movie while the kids spent the morning at my parents house. I think we all really liked the movie. Lots of action. They changed the story a bit but overall...loved it. It's always a good time when Bryan and Kelly get together. The stories are always hilarious and the company is always great!

Saturday night, the kids colored Easter eggs. They love painting eggs. Originally I put one color in front of each child so that there would be no fighting. When they wanted another color they would swap for a new color. I put yellow in front of Mylie. Before I knew it ALL of her eggs were yellow. She put as many of her eggs that would fit in the little cup as possible. Once I took the first ones out and began explaining it to her the rest of her eggs were in the yellow dye. I guess as long as she's having fun, right?

On Easter Sunday the kids got their Easter baskets and did their little hunt. Hunter woke up at 7am. He was so excited...I told him he needed to go back to bed. He did actually fall asleep but Kora came in at 8am with 2 eggs that she found downstairs. It was time to wake up. I think I was too exhausted to take pictures because I actually forgot to take pictures of the kids and their baskets. I never forget to do that. The kids got dressed in their Easter clothes that their Nani made. Aren't the dresses adorable? She made 6 dresses in all for all the her girl grandbabies. She's amazing! We spent the rest of the day with family just hanging out as the kids played. Overall, we had a very nice Easter and a fun weekend.

Projects

2010-03-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, we have purchased a home last month. It's still mostly work in progress but we are hopefully nearing an end soon. Here are a few pictures to show you some of the work we've done so far.
The entire house was painted white and after living in a mostly white apartment we decided we needed a bit of color. I have always loved blue and white so I decided to go with a deep blue accent wall and keep my separator wall white.

This was the only room in the house that was not white. This is now the girls room which is now a beautiful purple color. We also decided that we wanted all of the bedrooms to have carpet so it was up to us to pull up all the existing flooring in preparation for the new carpeting....Lots of work. There is also a hall right outside of the bedrooms that had a whitish/pink tile....that had to go. We were hoping they could carpet right over the tile but to our dismay they told us it all had to go. Kelly wasn't too thrilled but I talked him into it. After 2 days of destruction we go it all out. We felt a bit over our heads with that project but now the hall is all carpeted and I am loving our choice and loving my hubby for all the hard work he has put into "our" home.

This is our dining room/living room. It had tile and it wasn't really that bad but it just wasn't us. We decided to install laminate. Actually, it had a bunch of pits in it that trapped dirt and made it look really dirty. This too was another decision I'm loving. After attempting to save the baseboards we realized that whoever installed them, didn't do it correctly, therefore making the attempt at "saving" the baseboards impossible.

In this picture, Kelly is prepping the flooring for laminate. The floor took us a few days to finish but I think Kelly and I are now masters at laminate installation.

We have most of our big projects completed. We are still finishing up 1 more bathroom and need a new hose for the downstairs bathroom and our final project is installing baseboards throughout the house. We have a few rooms officially completed but our house still looks like a war zone with boxes strewn here and there. The baseboard project was put on temporary hold after Kora knocked Kelly's nail gun down the stairs and we thought it was broken. Surprisingly, after a few days, Kelly tried it again and it worked. "It's a miracle!" So, we can start working on baseboards again. It has been a long tiring process and many times both Kelly and I have wondered why we wanted to become home owners so badly but at the end of the day we look around and we see that this is ours. We can paint it the colors we want, we can pick out the flooring we want, we can destroy and repair anything we want, because it's all ours. I'm so grateful for my sweet Hubby. I really couldn't ask for a better man. Love that man!

Update

2010-03-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. We have been a bit busy getting things organized and ready in our new house. Unfortunately we have just found our camera last week so we are lacking pictures. I am hoping to get a post or two out this week. Since moving, things have been a bit hectic with schedules. Spending the day out in Chino while Hunter is at school makes the days go by so fast. Hunter is on Spring Break this week so I am hoping to get a lot done. Hope all is well with each of you. Love you all!

No! No! No!

2010-02-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

Last night Kelly made a sandwich for himself. He asked the kids if they wanted some and of course they did so he proceeded to cut small sections from his sandwich for them. When he asked Mylie if she wanted some she said yes. He cut the same size piece off that he gave to Hunter and Kora and handed it to her. Her response: "No! No! No!" and pointed to the left over sandwich in his hand (the much larger piece and HIS sandwich). He handed it to her and she handed him back the small slice of sandwich and then started eating the sandwich. I was surprised Kelly handed it over but it was so funny how Mylie reacted I would have done the same thing.

Cooking Companion

2010-01-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

I have great little helpers whenever it's time to start cooking. Hunter loves to help but usually he's too busy playing. Kora on the other hand is always the first one to move her little stool over to help me cook. A few months ago I made her a little apron that she just loves to put on. She is always so excited to help me in any way she can. I have to often find little things for her to do so she doesn't get burned or hurt. Her favorite thing to do is stir or mix. I have a feeling she'll be quite the cook when she's old enough to do it on her own. It always amazes me how intently she watches me and asks me what I'm doing and why.

Mylie is just itching to help out too but she is still too little to help just yet. She'll get upset when she sees her big sister helping and she can't. I try to let her help me in other ways. She is my best little helper when it comes time to put things in the dishwasher away. The spoons and forks may just be thrown in the drawer but she is proud and happy when she can help. She also loves to help me wrap up my vaccum cord. That has become her permanent job. If her brother or sister offers to take over she wont hesitate to put them in their place. My next little project is to make aprons for my other 2 little helpers. I love that they love to help out.

A Little Snack

2010-01-15T08:51:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday, right before they started passing the sacrament, Hunter came and sat on my lap and announces "It's time for the snack now!" I guess I never realized that the passing of the bread and water would be viewed to a child as a snack. I had to then try to explain to him what it all meant. I am not sure if he fully understood but hopefully he realizes it's not "just" a snack. It did however put a smile on my face regardless.

Hippopotamus

2010-01-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Hunter and Kora have found a new fascination in Hippos. I guess this isn't too new because they first became interested when we went to Disneyland back in August after riding on the Jungle Cruise. Hunter was scared of the hippos when they came out of the water wiggling their ears. He was also impressed at how large they were. Now, whenever something is big he calls it "Hippo-ca-ma-mus". Kora has now adopted the term but pronounces hers as "Hippo-ca-ta-mus". I find it funny that each child pronounces it differently. After we got a Christmas Tree last month, Hunter told me we got a "Hippo-ca-ma-mus tree". Kora also told me that we don't have a little dog, we have a "Hippo-ca-ta-mus dog".

A New Year!

2010-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

The month of December has flown by. With many intentions of posting on our blog, things were just too crazy to sit down and type. As a result we have what has become a standard catch-up post to summarize the last month.

Something I also meant to do for the month of December was make Christmas cards. The photo above was the picture I meant to use. My goal #1 for 2010 is make my Christmas cards early this year so all we have to do is address them and mail them.

December was actually pretty eventful. Earlier in the month my brother and his wife asked us if we wanted to go to Mission Inn to see Christmas lights. We had never been there before so we thought we would check it out. The lights were beautiful and it was a fun evening.

2 Days before Christmas we found out that Kelly's sister, Jodie and her family were down for a little over a week. We spent a fabulous Christmas Eve at Kelly's parents house visiting with his parents, grandfather and the Hendricks and enjoying each others company. The kids had a great time with their cousins. Hunter's highlight was tracking Santa's progress as he delivered presents. There is a site online that shows exactly where he is delivering presents and how soon he'll be in your area. All day Hunter had to drag someone over to the computer to show us that he has moved along. Very cute!

Christmas was a fun day. Santa had made his famous visit. Kora helped me make cookies the day before and it took some convincing that only 3 cookies were meant to be for Santa. For some reason Kora insisted the entire batch was for him. Hunter got a stern scolding from Kora after he tried to swipe one of "Santa's" cookies. On Christmas Day We went over to Papa Spuds house to spend time with him. He was all alone for Christmas and we thought a visit from the kids would cheer him up. After the visit we headed home and my family came over to spend Christmas with us. It was a fun day with family, good food and games.

When the Hendricks come in to town we plan a date night sans kids. This has been the 2nd year we have done this and as always we had a great time. One of Kelly's old friends happened to be in town with his girlfriend and they came along as well. We went out to dinner and spend about 2 hours just talking and reminiscing....I did more listening than reminiscing...but I enjoyed the stories.

For New Years we drove on up to Arizona to spend 2 nights with Kelly's Brother and family. We had such a great time we ended up spending a third day. Going up to AZ New Years weekend has become a tradition of ours for the past 3 years. We always have such a great time and really enjoy their company and wish we didn't live so far apart. On the right the kids are in their swim suits getting ready to leave for the heated pool. Yes, a heated pool. It was wonderful. If only all pools were heated in the winter time I think they would get more use.

We saw our newest little niece for the 2nd time and boy is she beautiful. We can't wait to see them again. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family and are excited to see what the new year will bring. Goal #2 for 2010, keep up on our blog. Happy New Year to all!

A Little Peek at December

2009-12-10T20:18:00.000-08:00

Just a little peek to how the month of December has been going.

.....well, things could be better. Ha ha ha.

Actually, things are going well for the K Kerr 5. We have all been busy with various church activities, work and school. As always I am amazed at how quickly time is flying. The kids are anxious for Christmas as are both Kelly and I. As for now we are enjoying Christmas music, cookies, the cool weather and watching TV with all the lights off so we can enjoy the glow of the Christmas tree lights. It's fabulous!

Tag Team Quilt

2009-11-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

I am finally finished!!! When my Sister-in-law, Kristin found out she was pregnant she asked me to help her make a quilt for her baby. Once they found out it was going to be a boy we went to Joann's and picked out fabrics. Jeremy and Kristin wanted a Volcom blanket so we cut up about 6 of Jeremy's shirts to make this quilt. I drew out a pattern of different size squares and rectangles. Kristin cut out the patterns, I layed it out and pieced it together and then she sewed it. I sewed on the backing and "quilted" it. I love it. I am so proud of it. The picture actually does it NO justice whatsoever. I really love this pattern. I want to make a quilt for our bed using this pattern....of course not the same fabrics and not a Volcom blanket. Now to look for fabrics...

The Tinkerbell Song

2009-11-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

We were out running errands today and Kora asked me if I wanted to sing the Tinkerbell Song with her. I told her, sure, but I don't know how it goes. She starts singing it...

Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell, Tinker all da way.
Oh what fun we ride in a sleigh.
Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell...

I ask her, "Don't you mean Jingle Bells?"

Her reply, "No Mom, it's Tinkerbell!"

I guess I have been singing it wrong ALL these years.

Surprise Haircut

2009-11-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

As I was making dinner the other night the kids were quiet. Normally when kids are quiet you know they are doing something they shouldn't be. I should have checked it out....but I was busy and thought they were just being good. Kelly got home and went upstairs and brought down a big clump of hair. Kora had cut her hair a few months ago so I suspected she had done it to herself...again. Not So. When I asked her why she did it she told me "Hunter did it". Hunter cut off about 3 precious inches of just one side of her hair. I straightened it out but her once long beautiful hair is now much shorter. She had been bald for so long that we were excited that she was finally getting some length. I guess we start all over.

Halloween

2009-11-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Halloween was interesting this year. Normally I am stressing out the week before Halloween trying to get costumes sewn. Fortunately, our ward Halloween party was the Saturday before Halloween so I was rushing two weeks before trying to get costumes made. This made for a stress free week before Halloween, which was very nice. The kids chose what they wanted to be for Halloween months before so all I needed was the desire to make them. Having to get them done the week before made it really nice. Sometimes I need that push to get things done. So, here are our little munchkins Halloween night. The pictures are a little dark because I took them at night. Sorry.

First up is our little Mylie. When she first started sprouting hair we would clump it together on the top of her head to make a little ponytail. Kelly started calling her Pebbles and so we decided for Halloween the only fitting costume for her would be pebbles.

Next up is Kora. She surprised us this year by suddenly liking Snow White. When we asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween she said Snow White. For some reason I kept expecting her to want to be something else since she has never seen the movie and at that time had never been on the ride at Disneyland. She didn't change her mind. About a month ago Kelly was at Sam's Club with his mom and saw a Snow White dress with shoes a crown and a little wand for an awesome price. We cheated this year on her costume and bought the dress. She was happy...and so was mom. I take pride in making my kids costumes. It has become a tradition that I LOVE but it was really nice not having to make her dress and since it came with shoes, even better! Okay, I couldn't have her be the only child that I didn't put work into her costume so I broke down to make her a cape. Snow White can't be Snow White without a cape.

Finally, is Hunter. He decided he wanted to be Anakin Skywalker for Halloween. I searched everywhere for a pattern but they didn't make any his size so I made my own pattern for the shirt and belt and altered a pattern to make his cape. He loved it...therefore I loved it.

We continued our tradition by going to Steve and Carolyns house to trick or treat. We went out with Colt again which the kids love. Kelly set up a new rule after going to a few houses because Hunter was so much faster than Kora. He made them hold hands so they couldn't go ahead of each other. Who would have guessed so many people thought it was so adorable that they would give them more candy? Overall, we had a wonderful time. The best part was that the weather was so nice that the kids could walk around without jackets. It was perfectly pleasant. Hunter is already planning for next year and secretly, I can't wait!

I had to add this last picture because I just love it. I love Mylie's smile...so cute.

October

2009-10-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

It seems that September was only a few days ago but in reality October is more than halfway over. This month started off with 3 very sick kids. With fevers reaching 104 and a visit to the doctor the kids have found themselves competing in sleeping marathons against each other. The first weekend they were sick they slept the "entire" weekend waking up for a few minutes to only fall back asleep a short time later. It was a very quiet weekend. We knew the moment they started to feel better because suddenly someone was sleeping too close to them or taking all the blankets where hours ago they didn't know the difference. They have been better now for a week or so and it's nice to have them all feeling better again but I can say that it was nice to have such a quiet house for those few days.

As for the week following illnesses we have just been preparing for Halloween. The kids are anxious to go trick or treating and wearing their costumes. A day doesn't pass when Hunter will ask me how many more days until Halloween. It makes it exciting to know he's so excited....so we are anxiously awaiting the end of the month, ha ha ha. I'm sure it will be here before we know it.

Writing Words

2009-09-25T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hunter has been learning how to write his letters for the last 2 years but something just clicked this year and he loves to write his letters. His teacher gives him homework at school and he can't wait to do it. You can often find Hunter walking around the house with a notepad and pencil in hand. Although, the notepad has to have lines. He asked for paper to write with the other day and I found an old notebook without lines(plain white paper) and I found out you can't write words in a notebook without lines. His favorite thing to do is copy words he sees and write them down. He doesn't always know what he's writing but that doesn't stop him. When I ask him what he's doing his reply, "I'm writing words Mom."

Out of the Mouth of Kora

2009-09-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Kora has been a talking machine lately. You would never guess it if you asked her a question. She needs a good 20 minutes to warm up to you before she'll talk to a stranger, but being her Mommy I get to hear her talk non-stop. Here are 2 separate conversations that got me laughing so I thought I would share with you.

Kora: Oh my gosh! There is a car flying on a truck.

Me: What? Where?

Kora: There, on my side.

(And there it was, a car "flying" on top of truck. It was a truck transporting a car on the top level)

Kora: Mommy, look at your head.

Me: What's wrong with my head? (of course I look in the mirror thinking I have something in my hair)

Kora: It's getting big.

Me: It's getting big?

Kora: Yes, big like Daddy's.

(Not sure what she meant by this. I tried to ask but she didn't explain. Since Kelly is a genius I'll take it as I'm getting just as smart as him. The idea that my head is actually growing larger is a bit frightening.)

Preschool for Kora

2009-09-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

The time has finally come where two of our children are officially in school. Since Hunter started school on August 10th Kora has been anxiously waiting for the day she's a big girl who goes to Hunter's old school (preschool). Hunter started school at 7:45 this morning so when all the kids woke up they all got ready, including Kora(I usually just drag them to the car in their Jammie's on Tuesdays). She was very excited to go to school today asking if I was going to be sad. When Hunter started Kindergarten I told him I was sad because he's growing up. Kora must have heard me and asked me if I was sad she was going to school. Of course I'm sad but excited that she's so excited. After we dropped Hunter off we had about an hour and a half until we needed to drop her off so we went back home to wait. She didn't want to go home, she wanted to go straight to school. I had to convince her that we needed to take pictures and that worked. When it was finally time to go she was ready.

On Hunter's first day of Preschool he had slight separation anxiety. I calmed it by staying for about 10 minutes and usually built a puzzle with him and that seemed to cure everything so I could leave. Kora was the complete opposite. She walked in already knowing the routine and got a puzzle out and started playing with one of the girls. I kept trying to get her attention to say goodbye but she just ignored me. Funny how different kids are. In fact, when I picked Kora up her teacher pointed out how very different Hunter and Kora really are. They said Hunter was always so quiet and Kora was...ummmm...not. She would listen when they told her to do something but even they noticed how different siblings can be. Kora had a great first day of school and can't wait to go back on Thursday.

.....in other news....the cake bandit attacks left over birthday cake. After we got home from Church on Sunday we all went upstairs to get out of our church clothes and change into comfy clothes. When we got downstairs Mylie had climbed on the kitchen table where we left Kora's birthday cake and was eating it. She didn't like being separated from the cake and made sure to let us know it. I just wish I had gotten the chance to take her church dress off first. Oh well, that's what kids do best...make a mess.

Happy Birthday Kora!

2009-08-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

Kora's birthday was actually last Saturday, the 22nd. We were in Oceanside last weekend so we planned on celebrating her birthday on the 29th. While we were in Oceanside we took her to Chuck E Cheeses for the first time and she loved it. To top the day off we went to Toys 'r Us and let her pick out a toy. When we asked her what type of Birthday party she wanted she wouldn't hesitate to say "Cinderella"...well, actually pronounced "Si-le-la". In fact, every stranger we met for the last month has been told that she was having a Cinderella party. Well, guess what type of toy she picked out at Toys 'r Us...Snow White. Yeah, never saw that one coming. Even after she picked it out I kept showing her the Cinderella doll thinking she had to be mistaken but no, she wanted Snow White. She loves it and that's all that matters. In fact, she also recently told us that she wants to be Snow White for Halloween. Maybe I'll actually get her costume done early this year since I know so far in advance....lets hope!

As for Kora's party, it was just a small family party. I wasn't sure what kind of cake to make. I thought, maybe a doll cake...didn't know how to do that...then maybe a shoe...hummm...no and then Kelly told me I should make a castle. I had to go online to get some ideas on how to do it and I think it turned out ok. Kora and Hunter actually passed up the cake and ate the frosted ice cream cones instead.

This picture is Kora in a princess dress that she got. I apologize at how blurry and dark it is. I think I need to change the settings on our camera. She loves dressing up. Kora is such a girly girl she loves to be pretty.

Hard to believe my little baby is 3...and starting Pre-School next week. Cherish every minute with your children because they grow up so fast.

Legend of the Ghoulies

2009-08-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

So, what do you do when you have a child that refuses to listen and you have tried all of the conventional forms of discipline ie: time out, yelling...? Well, you create a fictional character called a ghoulie and if they don't listen they will come and pinch them. Okay, we have probably traumatized our children for life but it works for us. Actually, this all came about quite by accident. Kelly was changing channels and stopped momentarily on the old Ghoulies movie (corny and lame 1985 "horror" film). Kora took one look and came screaming upstairs where I was. Ever since it has become a threat. Although, I don't know how you can truely threaten when you are laughing because it's too silly to really threaten with. But laughing or not it works.

Ghoulies have been known to take kids toys at night if they don't get put away. They have also been known to come and pinch you if you don't listen. Kelly and I have been in contact with them quite often over the phone when the kids don't listen and sometimes they wait outside on our patio and wait while the kids eat their dinner. If it's not all eaten then they will get pinched by a ghoulie. Ghoulies have one downfall, they are terrified of dogs. It's a good thing we have one and even more lucky for the kids that Carson sleeps in the kids room at night to protect them....but doesn't always protect their toys. If anything happens in the house it's surely a Ghoulie up to no good again.

Yes, this all sounds ridiculous but why is it that if me as "Mom" asks my Kora to do ANYTHING she just sits there and looks at me as if I hadn't said a word? Yet, mention the ghoulies are coming if she doesn't listen and she runs around cleaning her room or eats her dinner? You've got me! So, if my kids ever ask you about Ghoulies you will know what they are talking about and can maybe even embellish if you want...but Ghoulies never hurt kids, they only pinch!

Oceanside

2009-08-20T09:25:00.000-07:00

This last weekend we spent 4 days in Oceanside for a little vacation. My parents and Jeremy & Kristin have a sort of timeshare and they invited us along with them. The picture above sort of sums up the whole trip...a lot of swimming at the beach. This picture was taken right after we got settled in our room. We headed to the beach because Hunter couldn't wait to see the beach. I told the kids to not get wet. Next thing I know Hunter fell in face forward and Kora was running into the water. Oh well. That's what vacations are for, having fun.

We drove down Saturday afternoon and just hung out and got settled. On Sunday morning Kelly drove down and joined us. He went to a soccer game with a buddy of his on Saturday. We later went to the beach and attempted to body surf. The waves were pretty small and hard to catch...although, Jeremy caught a few. Kelly was even out there with us. I love hanging out with my hubby. The kids stayed on shore building sand castles and burrying themselves and taking walks with my parents. Mylie enjoyed all the birds.

On Monday we went to Sea World. The kids loved looking at all the animals. Hunter liked the "sharkfish" (sharks) and Kora liked the dolphins. It was a long day but we had a nice time.

Tuesday was our final day. We started off by playing a few rounds of tennis. I don't know why we don't play more because we all had such a good time. After tennis Jeremy, Kristin and I drove down to La Jolla and snorkeled. We actually swam with a swarm of leopard sharks. Needless to say I was a little freaked out swimming with 3-4 foot sharks but once I realized they were more scared of us than we were of them and they really wouldn't come near us it made the experience a fun one. I would actually love to do it again. Kelly stayed back at the room and took the kids swimming in the pool and then we headed back home. It was a great trip. The kids had a great time and when we got home I think everyone was exhausted.

Kindergarten

2009-08-10T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Hunter's first day of school. When Hunter woke me up this morning it reminded me of the movie Finding Nemo when Nemo jumped on his dad saying "First day of school, first day of school." Hunter was so excited. He didn't quite jump on me but instead he looked at me from the edge of the bed with little eyes peeping over the mattress saying, "I go to school today, right?" Because Hunter has already gone to 2 years of preschool it didn't feel much different...until I actually dropped him off. He looks too tiny to go to school but he's certainly old enough. There was so much going on that he seemed a little frightened but off he went with the rest of his class and then came the tears I didn't expect. My little boy is now a kindergartner.

When I picked him up he was excited to tell me about his day and show me his new folder. As we walked by his class he showed me the playground he played on. He was so excited and I was excited to hear all about it.

A Very Happy UN-Birthday

2009-08-05T11:27:00.001-07:00

Mylie turned 18 months on Sunday. It's amazing how fast time flies. It seems like it was only a few months ago that I was holding a tiny baby in my arms and now she's an independent toddler.

As with each child you have, you realize that no two personalities are alike. Mylie is a very fun, happy baby with a mind of her own. She has a very funny personality and often pulls funny faces. She doesn't talk much but still uses sign language to help communicate what she wants. It has been a challenge to get her to talk with her hands rather than just crying until we run down a list of what she could possibly be crying about. She continues to be our most challenging child but we love her and are so glad that she's part of our family.

Mylie loves the water. If there is any puddle on the ground or a bowl of water for the dog on the ground she'll find it and be covered in water before you know it. She loves her baby dolls and when she wakes up in the morning she wont leave her crib without taking one of her stuffed friends with her.

Words she can say:
More "Moe"
Please "Peea"
Dad "Da"
Mom "MaMaMa"
Bye "Bye"
There it is "Day yiz"
Hi "Hi"
Airplane "Pay"
Bird "Burr"

The last thing about her being 18 months is she finally gets to go to nursery. I was able to go to Sunday School and actually pay attention and enjoy the great lesson this last sunday. As I was walking past the nursery to go to Young Women's I heard crying. I went inside and of course it was Mylie. Apparently Kora tackled her. She calmed down and I went to class and when I went to pick her up she was asleep in a corner with blankets on the floor and over her. She may be old enough for nursery but she's still a baby who needs her naps. I'm going to enjoy every minute of it while I can because she's growing up so fast.

Disneyland

2009-07-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Kelly's parents and sister gave Hunter a Disneyland ticket that still had 2 days left on it so we decided to buy myself a 3 day pass and take the kids. Kelly was unable to come with me so I took Hunter and Kora and left Mylie with family. Let's say that it was no simple task but I quickly realized what great kids we have. Don't get me wrong, there were moments they wouldn't listen but overall, it was a great experience. I still doubt that I would have ever been able to make it if Mylie had been with me but who knows...maybe in a few months. I was grateful at how well Hunter and Kora behaved. The only time I was pulling my hair out was when we decided to stand in line to see the Disney Princesses. We waited in line for an hour. Hunter didn't want to see the princesses so it made waiting in line that much more miserable but after we were done he did well. Of course, once we got to see the princesses Kora acted shy and almost made it not worth that hour wait. She got to see her favorite princess, Cinderella. After we walked away she was so excited that she got to meet her that it made it all worth it. She kept saying, "Mommy, I so essited"...too cute!

Hunter's favorite rides were Pirates of the Caribbean...which we rode on twice...both days we went and the Buzz Lightyear Ride which we also rode on twice...both days we went. Kora seemed to panic every time we got in line for the Pirates ride. She didn't like the dark too well or the drops. I can see how a talking skull could be quite terrifying as well. I just held her close and once we got to the fleshy characters and music she would be singing "yo ho, yo ho a pirates life for me" along with the ride.

Kora's favorite ride was Small World. She loved the dancing and singing dolls. I was amazed to find that they changed the ride to add a bunch of Disney Characters like Alice in Wonderland, Jasmine and Aladdin, Ariel, Cinderella, Dori and Nemo and a few more. It was really cute.

Overall, we had a great time. It was a bit hot but bearable. The only time I thought we were going to melt was when we were waiting for the parade. Unfortunately all the shade seats were taken so we sat directly in the sun. The kids enjoyed it but boy was it hot. Thanks to sun block and an ice chest filled with waters and capri suns we made it through! I have one more day left on my pass so I will be taking Kora for her Birthday. I upgraded Hunter's pass to a season pass so that he can come along with us. The kids are anxiously awaiting our next trip. I missed my little Mylie and my Handsome Hubby but we had a great time so I'm excited for our next trip as well.

Graduation and Birthday

2009-07-06T10:57:00.001-07:00

The last week has been a crazy one. Hunter has officially graduated from Pre-school and had a little diploma ceremony. Kelly took half day and it was fun getting to spend the morning with him. It's still hard to believe our little boy is going to start Kindergarten this August.

Hunter's 5th Birthday was on Saturday...July 4th. The great thing about having a birthday on a Holiday is that family that isn't usually in town tends to be here for the holiday. We decided to have Hunter's Birthday at the park. The weather couldn't have been greater. It wasn't more than 96 degrees with a wonderful breeze and shade that made it so pleasant. The park that we went to was empty except for our little group which meant we had our own private park for the afternoon. Hunter asked to have a Star Wars party. Above is the cake I made for him (R2D2). Unfortunately, Kora decided to get a few samples of icing before I got pictures...not much you can do about it once the damage is done so I'll just say he has a few battle wounds.

Hendricks Kids were here and got to spend the day with us. Hunter, Kora and Mylie had a great time with their cousins.

After the park we headed over to Kelly's parents house and the kids played on their new water slide. The kids had a great time. When night time arrived Grandpa bought some party poppers and the kids got to shoot off 1500 poppers. The mess left over on the grass was crazy. It was a fun day spent with family. Hope all of you had a Happy and Wonderful 4th of July!

Here's our little Mylie enjoying some fun in the sun.

As we were about the leave Nani's house she asked if we could sing to Hunter one last time. When we were at the park it was too windy to keep the candles lit so she placed 5 candles in 5 Oreo's and we sung to him and he finally got to blow out his candles.

This last picture is our nephew Mason. He fell asleep about 6:30pm. He was wiped out. We thought he was only napping but apparently he slept until 8am the next morning. He missed...well slept through party poppers and fireworks. He must have been extremely tired. Actually, us adults were just envious of him because he was doing exactly what we wanted to be doing.

End of T-Ball

2009-06-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

T-Ball season is officially over. It's a little sad to know that we don't get to wake up on Saturday morning and head out to a T-Ball game. Although, the opportunity to sleep in on Saturdays will make up for it. Hunter had a great time. He even got a little trophy yesterday with his name on it. He was so excited. He showed it to everyone he saw and wanted me to share it with everyone else. Kelly was an assistant coach and since he got a little plaque too, Hunter wanted his Daddy to show off his little trophy as well. After we took pictures he wanted to put it somewhere his sisters couldn't touch it and break it. So, it's up on a shelf high above his bed. He had me take it down this morning so he could play with it. I love how easy it is to put a smile on a child's face. Can't wait till next season!!!

Potty Training

2009-06-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

Kora has been potty training this week. It was a little slow getting started but it has been one week and yesterday was her first accident free day. We are so proud of her. She is finally able to tell us she has to go instead of us asking all the time. We now have only one baby in diapers...yay!!!!

This picture above is Kora's latest "thing" to do. She takes the towels out of the bathroom and asks me to make her a dress. Don't know where she comes up with this stuff. Especially when she's already wearing a dress.

On a side note...my brother and his wife, Kristin are expecting their first baby at the end of January. Can't wait!!!!

What's Going On?

2009-05-29T22:25:00.000-07:00

The month of May has somehow come and gone. When I started our family blog my original intention was to keep a scrapbook of sorts to help remind me of all the fun things that happens in our lives while at the same time share with family and friends. Somehow our blog is being neglected as much as our real scrapbooks. So, here is a month in review...

In the beginning of this month my parents took us bowling. This was the first time for the kids. They loved it. Hunter being "Mr. Independent" decided he didn't need our help and bowled on his own. Kora needed a bit more help but overall, they had a really great time.

The month of May has also been filled with T-Ball every Saturday morning at 9am. Can you believe I forgot to bring a camera to his first game? Here is the baseball star in his full getup. He loves it. He can't wait to play. The games have been fun to watch. It's great to watch the boys (and girls) learn the sport and just have fun.

The rest of the post is pictureless. I can't seem to remember to bring my camera with me lately. It's a habit I would like to improve.

Over Memorial Weekend we decided to go up to Minden, Nevada and visit with Kelly's Nani & Papa. The kids had a great time. This was the first time we went up when the weather was warm. It was a different experience for the kids to actually be able to play outside. The kids love visiting with Nani Jo and Papa. One of the days we were there we decided to walk to the park and play baseball. We kept telling the kids it looked like it was going to rain so before we left Hunter ran to the garage and brought an umbrella. About 20 minutes into playing at the park it started to sprinkle. By the time we picked up our blankets and balls and started to head back it was no longer sprinkling, it decided to rain. Thanks to the prepared Mr. Hunter some of us had an umbrella to stay dry under. As we were walking back there was a loud shot of thunder. I looked back at Hunter and with eyes wide with terror he whispered "RUN!" I know he was terrified but it was hard not to laugh. I told him it was alright but I don't think believed me.

As for the rest of our little family...Mylie has started signing a few more words. She now signs "More", "Please" and "Thank You". She speaks very little. She says "Hi" and "Da". Mylie is also an official weened baby. I'm loving it! My other 2 weren't quite as hard to ween. I guess she needed the bonding a little more which I was happy to go along with.

Kora...well, Kora is Kora. She is a little pistol. She is a great little girl but sure knows how to test the limits. A few days ago she decided to cut her hair. I tell people this and they tell me I should cut it all the same length. Well, if I were to do that her hair would be as short as Hunter's. She cut a bunch of it about an inch from her scalp. You can't really tell when her hair is down but when I put it in pig tails it pops up. Oh well, it will grow eventually.

Okay, I think that's about it for the month of May. Hope I can keep up a little better from here on out. I hate missing out on the memories and pictures. Every Mom says they will never forget....but some how....we do unless we record it somewhere.

Knock, Knock

2009-04-28T07:50:00.001-07:00

Hunter's recent thing is to tell knock knock jokes. After I picked him up from school last Thursday he told me his first one. It's hard not to laugh when he tells a joke because it's not funny. In fact, they really don't make any sense. After he tells a joke he busts up laughing and it's hard not to join him. Here are 2 that I remember:

Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Strawberry
Strawberry Who?
Strawberry Cake!

Knock, Knock
Who's there?
Kitchen Light
Kitchen Light Who?
Turn off the kitchen light!

We have tried to get him to tell us more but now he's embarrassed. I'll have to keep working on him to tell me more. I don't know if these are parts of jokes that someone has told him and he's forgotten the big punchline or if he's just making them up. I think I'll go with the second answer. Regardless, I love it. He makes me laugh!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was a fun, family weekend. Kelly had Good Friday off so we decided it would be a good day to dye eggs. The kids enjoyed dying eggs but of course they didn't have the patience to leave them in the dye for more than a few seconds. They had a good time regardless.

Later that night the kids went to my parents ward Easter party while Kelly and I had a little date night. We decided to go bowling. Let's just say that both of us bombed and prefer to think that our Wii Bowling scores are just as good as our real scores.

We have family in town so we asked the Easter Bunny if he could come to our house a day earlier. He hid our dyed eggs along with plastic eggs throughout our family room. The kids had fun finding eggs and only needed a little help with a few eggs that were a little more inconspicuous than the rest. Hunter is helping Mylie find an egg in the picture above.

The Easter Bunny put the kids Easter baskets on a bench in our room so the kids wouldn't be distracted with the eggs hidden around the family room while the saw what the Easter bunny brought them in their baskets. Hunter thought it was pretty hilarious that the bunny "hopped" into our room without us hearing him. I told Hunter that he must have tiptoed but Hunter insisted that he hopped.

Hunter and Kora are both showing the eggs that they found.

On Sunday the kids got dressed in their brand new Easter clothes that their Nani made and got for them. Hunter refers to his suit as his "Missionary" (suit). He had to try it on numerous times throughout the week. He loved it. Kora LOVED the big fluffy dress her Nani made her. Every time Hunter tried on his suit she HAD to try on her dress and they HAD to dance together. Hunter likes to spin her around. I guess you can only dance like that when you are wearing nice clothes (according to Hunter).

Church was nice, then it was off to Nani & Grandpa's house for Easter dinner. We enjoyed a fun day with the Zamora family (Kelly's sister, Becky's family) who happens to be down for the week and Great Grandpa.
To all our family and friends we hope that you had a wonderful Easter!

T-Ball

2009-04-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

Hunter has finally started T-Ball. His first practice started last week but this was my first time at his practice and I made sure to bring the camera...if only I had thought to check the battery. I apologize that the picture isn't that great. I tried taking as many as I could before the batteries died but all of them were fuzzy because I was trying to take them from far away so I wouldn't interrupt the practice.

Hunter is on the Diamondbacks. They haven't received their shirts and hats yet but we'll make sure to take pictures once they do. This is a city league rather than "Little League" but little league doesn't allow 4 years olds to play. Hunter would have had to wait an entire year. Since this is more of an educational/social experience for him we thought it would be fun to sign him up. Kelly has signed up as an Assistant coach. It was fun to watch Kelly teaching the kids. He's a great coach and despite how frustrating it could get with all the kids chasing the ball and then dog piling on it as the ball was hit, he has surprisingly great patience. I'm glad that the boys have this time together to bond and share in the wonderful sport that is baseball.