Family Pictures

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.