Koria's New Room

Again, late on Saturday night, Jared and I found ourselves hard at work putting Koria's bedroom back together again. This is what it looked like as of midnight on Saturday. I'm reasoning that these pictures will work for both Saturday and Sunday due to the time that they were taken at.

I thought that this material that Koria picked out for one of her pillows was awesome. The only problem is that now Kimball wants one too, and we only bought enough material for one pillow. Guess we'll have to buy some more.

Jared's amazing skills are shown her in the pillows he created for Kor's bed. I made him teach me how to use the sewing machine, but let's face it, I lack talent when it comes this. The sewing machine is the equivalent of my arch rival. It beats me every time. I'd classify sewing as one of my phobias. This is coming from the woman who somehow broke two sewing machine needles trying to make felt Christmas stocking a couple years ago. And the sewing tsunami? Who can forget my nightmare of a shirt so apply named because of it's overall appearance. Forget it. I'll stick to painting.

On Sunday morning, we heard K&K charge into the room with shouts of approval. We were too tired to get out of bed to see their reaction first-hand. Jared spoke in one of the wards in our stake again for his high council assignment, so I took the kids to church in our ward and tried to contain them in the foyer. Didn't go so well ... the punks! I ended up subbing for Primary again, but this time with three classes to manage during Sharing Time and two to teach during the lesson hour. I prepared the lesson on Sunday morning. It was Koria's and Kimball's class, so between 14 3-5 year-olds, the second half of church was just as exhausting as the first. Jared returned from his speaking assignment to help me out with the lesson.

After church, the young women had their new beginnings program, and they had asked me a week ago to help out with it and decorate a room based on the young women's value for good works. It went well. I'm just glad I didn't have to teach gospel doctrine this week too.

Needless to say, by the end of Sunday, we were worn out. I think it's the paint fumes that got us though the day. They may just carry us through the rest of this week too.

From Red to Blue and Brown

I didn't take any pictures last Thursday. Lots of long phone calls to a few different branches of the government prevented much time for fun. AND it was just not the best day ever, so I decided to take a lot of pictures on Friday and Saturday instead.

For some reason, call it the middle-of-winter-syndrome, stuck-in-the-house-all-day-blues, whatever you want to label it, the creative wheels started rolling in my head during the middle of the week, and I came up with the idea to redo Koria's bedroom.

A couple of years ago, we decided to paint it all a deep red with a faux finish on the top. The pictures don't do it justice, but it turned out really nice.

Then, around May of last year, we decided that it was time to move Koria

and Kimball into separate rooms, so Koria ended up being moved into the red room. We just hadn't gathered up the energy to repaint it all, and didn't want to spend much money to redo it either, so it stayed red, until late Friday night.

I asked Koria what colors she wanted her room to be (with the instruction that at least the accent color be brown because our extra queen bedspread was that color and we weren't going to buy a new one), and she debated for a while between pink/brown, purple/brown, and blue/brown combos, but ultimately, she decided that blue/brown was what she wanted.

She and I headed to town to buy some paint and material for us to create her new room with. I helped her decided on the specific hues and some materials, but she really did most of the chosing herself. When we returned, Jared and Kimball had put the babies to bed and cleared out her room, ready for the painting to begin.

Jared and I worked until late on Friday night, taping and painting. This is what it looked like right before I added the strip of brown to the bottom third of the walls.

Saturday was spent, among the rest of our normal responsibilities, adding more coats of paint, and decorative touches. Jared helped out a lot by watching the kids and sewing the pillows. Mega-man, I'm telling ya. He's mega-man. He even came up with the idea to make matching pillows for Koria's dollhouse out of the scraps leftover from the pillows he made for her bed. Awesome. I'm going to add a few details to them to make them more unique, but they turned out great. That's me, tired from little sleep, no makeup, no hair done ... making some comps of what I was going to do on the walls.

This is the product, thus far. I plan on doing a bit more work to the top section with the mural and hanging up some pictures, but most of the hard work is done.

Koria loves it. I think it's kind of whimsical myself. It's different than I had visioned it in my head, but who cares. As long as she's happy, that's all that matters. She invited Kimball to sleep in her "new room" last night. It's amazing what a little paint can do to change to mood of a room. It was a fun weekend project.

Stroller Repairs

I should have taken a picture of our double stroller before Jared took the padding off of it for a cleaning and to do some repair work. This blue moving machine has been my sanity since Becky gave it to us when Kimball and Koria were born.

We've discovered, though, that it was not meant to support the weight of two foure-year-olds plus two healthy one-year-olds. The seats were ripping under the pressure, so Jared, mega-man that he is, took off the cover, then proceeded to sew up the ripped seams -- with the sewing machine -- then hand-sewed what couldn't be done otherwise. Is my husband amazing or what? I finished up a few spots late last night. We washed it all to clean it up, then Jared reconstructed it this afternoon. It's quite a process, with screws and belts ... but he did a great job. My sanity is back, whole and shiny. Thanks again, so the stroller, Becky. It's wonderful.

FHE Sign Redo

After some work to age it a bit, add some name signs as well as a hanger for the back, our FHE sign is done. The kids asked me what we'll do when it gets to the closing prayer since no one is assigned that. They can't accept the fact that we'll just have someone do it, that it doesn't need to have a name tag to be done. Hopefully it won't end up in a debate on Monday night.

Pink Pancakes

What says Day of Love better than to start off with strawberry flavored, heart-shaped, pink pancakes, hot off the grill? This being Valentine's Day, I thought I'd make a special treat for the kids for breakfast. Kimball still wanted Cookie Crisp, until he saw all the powdered sugar I dumped on the top of these babies. Sugar sells just about any food in this house.

Ward Conference

Sunday was our ward's ward conference. I ended up teaching gospel doctrine, and, among other things, made up a quiz on our modern-day apostles. The stake president was there and he didn't oust me, so I guess I still have a calling.

The rest of the day was as busy as usual. Good Sunday.

Here are the kids, Koria and Kimball helping Luke and Layne eat their cereal. For some reason, K&K really enjoy feeding the younger two. When Kimball "finished" feeding Layne, Koria yelled out to me, "Mom! Layne's a MESS! Kimball didn't feed her right ...." Uh, yeah. She was right. I just laughed, then scooped up the oatmeal from her bib, and re-fed her. Best bibs in the world, by the way. At least they had fun. (Pics were taken Monday morning though, as Sunday ended up being another one of those, "Oh, I didn't take a picture today" days.)

Keni Uses Power Tools

I knew that you would be proud, Dad, so this post goes out to you. Yes, you read the title right. I used power tools on Saturday. I picked up this FHE sign at the D.I. in Provo on Friday. It didn't have any pegs to hang names from, so I headed over to Lowe's and purchased some black drawer handles. Total cost? About nine bucks. Not bad. I had to drill the holes into the wood for the pegs, then used an electric screw driver to screw them in. I worked on it while Jared was at the leadership training, and it's a good thing that he showed up at home when he did. I couldn't figure out where the drill bits were ... or what they looked like. Jared says that I looked like a natural after he helped me find the drill bits. At least I know what they are called, right? Anyway, this sign is a work in progress. I'm working on changing up the appearance a bit, to make it look a bit more rustic -- not so cookie-cutter, if you know what I mean. I'll keep you posted .... get it? Ah-ha! (I've eaten a lot of sugar today)

Last Friday

Last Friday I didn't get to take any pictures, so I figured that that these three from Saturday will have to work for both days. On Friday morning around 6:30 a.m., I took off for an appointment in Provo at the Social Security Offices. No, I'm not that old. Neither is Jared. We were trying to see if Layne could qualify for long-term disability benefits, which would greatly help us out, as a bulk of our funds goes to her medicinal needs and bills.

Denied.

I came down with a severe head cold.

Crappy day on my part.

Jared watched all four of the kids at home and said that they took a walk down to the park and had a good time. Kimball wishes that Jared was at home with his dad everyday. Whatever, dude. I know I'm not that cool, but I let you eat more candy ....

Saturday we cleaned house -- literally. For some reason, I've always enjoyed cleaning bathrooms. Yeah, yeah. It's just proof that I'm mentally not all there. Jared was in charge of one showing of the worldwide leadership training on Saturday, so he headed to the stake center for that. I worked on a project ... hey wait ... I do have another picture for Saturday. I'll add more details of the day onto the next post.

Princess Luke And First Haircut

Luke's first haircut

We should have known that Luke was in for it when he was born a redhead. Koria and he shared an instant bond that goes beyond gender. On Wednesday afternoon, Koria was complaining of being bored, so when I suggest that she dress up in all her costumes, she wasn't too excited ... until I suggested that she do the dressing up to Luke. He's going to kill me sometime in the future, but until then, we had a great time laughing at our newest queen. Here he is, in all his fairy-winged, tiara-donning beauty. I'm also including today's picture, as I didn't want people to forget that Luke is all boy. Today he received his first real haircut, and although you can't tell that very much was cut off, .... well .... neither can we.

But hey, it counts. Almost 18 months in, and he's had the first of many haircuts to come.

Creation Books Project

We actually worked on these books on Monday, but didn't finish up until Tuesday, so I'll count this as Tuesday's post. For family home evening, we've decided to focus on the lessons from the Gospel Principles manual, used to teach Relief Society and Priesthood meetings on the second and third Sundays in each month at church. Every Monday, we cover another chapter, and this week, we were on the lesson about the Creation.

The kids always like to do projects, so this is the latest one that I've come up with. We spent time going through old magazines and cutting out pictures to go along with each phase of the creation of the world. I think that they turned out great. I made one for Luke and Layne, combined, and Koria and Kimball put together their own. I put each page in a sheet protecter, then bound it together using ribbons. The kids had fun helping to teach their dad about the creation process and how the Lord did it all. We'll work on covers when we get another chance.

Monday Morning Breakfast

Who wants food when you can play games instead?

Luke and Layne almost always opt for the food. Monday's choices consisted of Honeycombs and Cheerios.

Bored

This is what you end up taking pictures of when you are home with two sleeping, sick babies on a Sunday afternoon.

Valentine's Day Boxes

Kimball and Koria's teacher sent home a note for the events of February this last week and part of it included instructions for the parents that we were to make Valentine's boxes for the kids to put their treats and cards in on the big day. Jared took the older set of twins down to Richfield for the morning to meet Jana and her kids at the Home Depot. Every first Saturday in a month, they sponsor free kids projects that can be built quickly and easily. Kimball chose to build a boat, while Koria chose a decorative heart shelf with a hanger. They had a good time with their cousins.

I took advantage of the down time while Luke and Layne were taking their nap. Last night, when we ran into Price to run some errands, I ran into a department store and asked them if they happened to have any empty shoe boxes that they were going to throw away. They were glad to give me a couple. I purchased some pink ribbon at the dollar store, then we headed home. All of the rest of the materials I already had, so for the cost of some ribbon from the dollar store and some modge podge, I made these boxes up for the kids to use.

Here's what the shoe boxes started out looking like ....

And here are the finished products. Koria told me that she wanted one with hearts and flowers that was pink (shocker), and Kimball wanted to do a Scooby-Doo one.

I had taken the pictures this past fall, so I just printed a couple out, then mounted and glued them down. Using our computer, I printed up their names, then did the same with them as I had done with the pictures. Mom gave me a bunch of buttons a couple of years ago so that I could use them to make hairbows with, which I do, but I thought that they'd make a nice touch on the boxes also.

I had Jared pick up some ribbon that would match Scoob's collar at Walmart on his way home from Richfield, and then I designed the dogtag out of some cardboard boxes that I was just about to trash. My favorite part is the back of the tag. I gave it a Kimball twist with his initials.

I painted the inside of Koria's box (which I did second) to match the outside paint job, but on Kimball's I used modge podge to line the inside with decorative paper. I recommend just painting. It'll save you a lot of time and glue. Looks cool though.

The only other thing that I still want to do is to create a list of things that they both love, then mount the lists on the inside of the lid. I'll work on that later on next week.

In other events, the sister missionaries were just moved to our area this past week and their dinner appointment happened to be in Florida tonight (random), so with an hour or so of notice, we threw together a dinner. It's great to have sisters back in our area. We hope they'll get to stay for awhile.

"Just gotta get out of this prison cell,"

"One day I'm gonna be free!"

--Queen, From the song, "Somebody to Love"

I thought, hey, if Scott can post pop comments this month, then why not me? Hence, the title and opening line from today's entry.

It was just one of those days that I had to get out of the house. After making up all of the Valentines card for family members, the kids wanted me to start putting together there Valentine's gifts for school. I'm glad that I started a week or so early. It's a big job!

After that was all done, I hauled the kids out to the car, then headed for a nearby park after making a quick stop at Jared's office to drop off a few things. The kids actually talked me into letting them play outside at this park as we were driving by, and since I needed a break from them (and vice versa), I agreed. They didn't seem to care that it was 38 degrees outside. Felt pretty great, actually. The following are a few pictures that I took of them. I used a Seventies action+ boost, on all but one of the shots. Just experimenting.

Wasting Money on Food ... And Rock Stars

Koria Vi Black

Diva, Extraordinare

Girl After My Own Heart

How do you describe our four-year-old redhead? She's just that hard to define. This morning she explained to me that one of the other preschool girls talked her dad into letting her wear a dress to school yesterday. She asked if she could do the same, and I agreed that she could wear a skirt if she also wore shorts underneath. Koria wasn't too pleased with the shorts idea, but as long as her other demands were okayed, she was willing to comply. She, of course, wanted her favorite hula skirt, paired with her "rocker jacket" and black leather boots. I think she looks great.

Last week while watching me change Luke's diaper, she became quite interested as to where all the mess in his diaper came from. I briefly described how the digestive system works, not thinking much of it, until Monday morning as I was doing her hair for the dinosaur museum field trip. Koria asked if we could go to the museum's store afterward to buy a few treasures. Not wanting to pay for overpriced junk, I explained to her that we would be going out to eat at a mexican restaurant afterward, and a quick trip to the dollar store (for appropriately priced junk that I can handle).

After throwing her hands on her hips in disgust, her response was something like this:

"I'm tired of wasting all this money on food when all it does is go into our mouths and come out as stinkies and wets anyway!"

She's a thinker, that one.

And by the way, she really does come up with all these poses on her own. I know what some of you are thinking .... "Does Jared stand around all afternoon and train her in the arts of modeling?" That's only on the weekends, folks.

I still claim it comes from the hair. IT'S THE HAIR, PEOPLE!

Whatever it is, we love her. Wouldn't be nearly as funny or educational without her in our family. Here's to one rockin' redhead.

This One's For Mom

The highlight of Wednesday was the fact that I finally got down to business with the twelve loads of clean, yet unfolded laundry that has been haunting me on the guest bed. It took me two hours of folding, and another to put it all away, but by the time K&K had to come home from preschool, it was done.

Mom, this one goes out to you. I happened to take this picture on Labor Day Weekend up at the cabin last fall, but just haven't posted it yet. I thought of you, and how much you love flowers. Sure hope you are feeling better and that you can overcome your pneumonia as soon as possible! We're all praying for you.

Visit From The School For The Deaf

On Tuesday night, we had a two-hour visit from a couple of reps from the School For The Deaf. I can't even remember all of the details and information that they went over with us, to tell you the truth, so I'll spare you all a recounting of the meeting. Basically, there are two languages for the deaf: one that focuses primarily on the listening and spoken language, and the other that focuses on ASL (American Sign Language). ASL is quite a bit different than English also, and has it's own culture. They'd like us to make a decision ASAP,regarding which language she will "speak," but without knowing how Layne will react with hearing aids and her cognitive abilities to comprehend and see signing, we don't feel that we can make that decision just yet. Regardless, we have a lot to learn. One of Layne's E.I. therapists loaned us these books to study in the meantime.

Oh, yeah. I forgot the true highlight of the day. At around 9:00 p.m., Layne's ENT doctor from Primary Children's called to say that he'd just received notice that the RSV tests he'd order a week prior turned out to be positive. So, one week after we find all this out. Good thing she's doing well and hasn't needed any hospitalization this time around, or Luke, as he has it too. We're being greatly blessed. Sure would have been nice to know this about a week ago though....