The Life and Times of an Illustrious Family

Back at home

2011-07-08T20:03:00.001-04:00

The boys and I retuned home from Indiana on Wednesday. We had a wonderful visit and look forward to going back over the holidays. We were thrilled to have Kyle pop in and out during the month we were there. Seeing family and friends is always the highlight of our trip. Katy and Matt's wedding was a success and we were more than happy to be part of the event. Deciding to stay for fireworks was a great choice. We attended two organized displays; one at Patoka and the other at West Boggs. On our journey back, we traveled a different route through St. Louis and stayed the night in Oklahoma City. Before finishing our trip, I took the boys to the OKC zoo. We had a great time viewing the new elephant exhibit and seeing the Great EscAPE exhibit. Traveling is always a chore, but one well worth the hassle. Thankfully the boys ride in the car with ease. I, however, prefer to fly. If only we had unlimited funds to allow us to do so.

Until next time...lc

Armadillo Hunting

2011-04-02T19:55:00.001-04:00

The kids in our complex were super thrilled to find an armadillo in the loose. They set up a team and ran around snapping pictures. Unfortunately we were not at home while the hunt was on and were informed after the creature took shelter.

Kian has asked all day whether or not the hunt is still in process. I can only come up with so many excuses. Personally, I've never seen one alive and I have no desire to do so. They give me the creeps.

Until next time...lc

2011-03-17T12:49:00.001-04:00

Hiking on the Pedernales Falls Trail this morning.

2011-03-16T00:46:00.001-04:00

Some more recent fun times.

2011-02-13T20:34:00.001-05:00

Here's what we did this weekend!

2011-01-30T20:10:00.000-05:00

Eavesdropping

2010-12-01T21:09:00.002-05:00

There's nothing more fun than overhearing your children say phrases that you say. Case in point:

Boys are in the bath tonight playing with animals. Kian says to Jack, "This is not a choice, it's a demand!" I don't know who won, as I was laughing too hard.

I wish I could think up with some of the others, but I'm drawing a blank.

until next time....lc

2010-10-23T14:18:00.001-04:00

Lunch break, then another hike and swimming. Having a blast!

2010-10-23T14:14:00.002-04:00

Pics from the river path hike.

2010-10-23T10:53:00.001-04:00

Starting off Dudes' Day with some breakfast at Mama's Cafe. Heading north after this! We've got a fun day of hiking and hopefully swimming (if the weather cooperates) ahead at the Hamilton Pool Preserve between SA and Austin.

OCD: A Nature or Nurture Phenomenon?

2010-10-22T17:27:00.002-04:00

This was taken last week, at the Ed Franz Elementary bingo PTA fundraiser. I took it after pointing out to Laura that Jack had sorted the beans he was using as card markers. I made mention of it by nodding in his direction, looking at her, and saying, "That one's definitely yours."

(K)

If mom won't take me...I'll make my own

2010-10-12T14:01:00.004-04:00

Kian is obsessed with animals as we all have come to learn. He plays with his figurines daily and many times takes them along wherever we go. After begging me to take him to Wild Life Ranch today and being denied, he set up camp in our living room and made his own. All was well until the animals started attacking the vehicles that were perusing his ranch. Surprisingly, the Bat mobile survived and was able to drive off.

until next time...lc

Tech-savvy Tooth Fairy

2010-10-03T14:11:00.002-04:00

Jack pulled his third tooth tonight. Like the first one, this one was wiggling for over 2 months. Poor guy, nervous about pulling it out, but more than proud when it makes its departure.

There was concern tonight whether the Tooth Fairy was notified of our move. Kian told us not to worry as he thinks she has GPS.

She made her visit as anticipated. We'll never know how savvy she is, I suppose.

Here's another toothless grin for y'all.

until next time...lc

Sitiin' poolside

2010-10-01T19:13:00.002-04:00

So, it’s October 1st and we’re at the pool basking in the sun and getting a little red. Sounds like the impossible, right? That would be true if we were in Indiana. Not so much here in SA, Texas. It’s currently 87 degrees out and I’m on a mission to make sure the boys sleep well tonight. We have a big weekend ahead of us and a good night’s rest never hurt anyone.

Seriously thought, we are really enjoying our new adventure down here. The boys are both excelling in school like we could have never imagined. Kyle is working more than he’d like to, but has some help that alleviates some of those really late nights he was experiencing. We’ve met some really nice people as well. Of course, we’ve met a not-so-nice neighbor. Just ask Kian, she won’t let him pet her dog. That’s really low, I know. Anyway, back to the good stuff. We’ve met quite a few families from both schools the boys attend, a few from Jackson’s soccer team and a few in the complex in which we live. Thankfully Jack’s best friend lives a couple of buildings over from us. The boys ask daily if they can go over to his house to play. It’s nice to have someone so close. It sort of makes up for what we left behind.

I am sure the friendships will evolve over time. Until then, we are enjoying the time we have to spend together. It’s quite a change from the crazy-busy lifestyle we had back in Indiana. We still get out, but aren’t the social butterflies we once were. It’s forcing us to sit back and relax. I’m not much the relaxing type, but am making do.

Until next time…lc

Mobile Posting?

2010-09-24T12:21:00.003-04:00

This is awesome. Perhaps I'll use it as a means to keep this bad boy updated. Don't count on it.

Happy Birthday, Old Man

2010-09-24T11:50:00.004-04:00

You know the saying, "When I count my blessings, I count you twice"? This is how I feel about Kyle. He has made a million and one sacrifices when it comes to our family and I cannot appreciate him more than I do now. He's a great husband, father and friend. The boys are lucky to have a father that will do almost anything for them. They may disagree at times, but the lessons that come from his choices will weigh out over time. We've had so many memory-making moments in the 11 years that we've been together.

Happy Birthday,Kyle! I hope you enjoy your day and make the most of it.

until next time...lc

Happy Birthday, Baby!

2010-09-20T13:58:00.004-04:00

He's four? Already? Where does time go? Anyway, Happy Birthday Kian! In preparation for our move, we started celebrating Kian's birthday with family on July 31st. A total of 4 celebrations this year for this for year old. Never again will be receive such an elongated celebration. No worries though, he partied it up and made the most of the circumstances.

Facebook birthday wishes from mommy and daddy:

"Happy Birthday Kian!! It's hard to believe that our baby is four years old today. The dude and I are off to have as much fun as we can today." - mommy

"happy birthday to my little dude, kian. 4 years of living one of the fullest lives anyone could ever know. he's become such a dynamic person, full of piss and vinegar, yet sweeter than the purest nectar when he wants to be. i look forward to continuing life's journey with my little 'bess fren.' " - daddy

A photo from Mrs. M while they celebrated at preschool.

Much to our surprise as we drove home, we saw this on the display at our apartment complex. Thanks Kelly! You made his day!

until next time...lc

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch

2010-09-19T13:59:00.004-04:00

This year for the boys' birthdays we decided to gift them memberships to local attractions. Naturally, the animal lovin' fool we have for a son chose Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. It's an African Safari, Texas style. As you take a drive thru tour of the ranch, you'll have the opportunity to see and feed animals from six of the seven continents. This place is like heaven to Kian. While it's recommended to drop the food on the ground for the animal, it's often possible to see guests feeding the animals from the palms of their hands. Let's just say that the animals get a little up close and personal. Only Kyle has been bitten by a zebra, but we have all had the opportunity to see that some oral hygiene is much needed!

Kian enjoys going into the petting zoo to play with the goats. He's so gentle with them and loves to brush their fur. While they don't like to eat the food provided, he pays extra attention to them to make sure they find their mothers and get lots of exercise.

Baby Zebras are so cute! It's the older ones that you need to watch out for. They like to bite!

We've named this little donkey, Cutie Patootie!

until next time...lc

Where has the time gone?

2010-09-14T22:07:00.002-04:00

I know I've started a few posts like this in my day, however I hope this is one trend I can break. Come to think of it, I don't think I've posted since my husband decided to take a new position in SA and move our family down here. I know I could have said no, but I never thought it would come to this. Here's my side of the story: It all started back one day in January, 2010. Kyle called and asked if I cared if he applied for a position in SA doing roughly what he was doing in Indy at the time. Since I had quit my job/s at the hospital just six months before, and loved the new career I had chosen, I was hesitant to say yes, however I knew that this could be a good opportunity. I told him (though jokingly at the time) that if he could compensate my salary allowing me not to work in order to care for the boys and their numerous activities and allow me to travel back to Indiana when possible, that I would give him two years. If we are doing well after that, we'd hang for a bit longer. If not, back to Indiana we go. (Or at least closer to home.)

Once he applied and he hadn't heard anything for quite some time, I had written off the possibility of the move. I think nearly 8 weeks had passed since he heard the first response from them. After a couple of phone interviews and a scheduled visit (at their expense), I knew things were getting a bit more serious. Telling my family of the move was one of the hardest things I had done in a really long time. Granted, we weren't all that close to them in Indy, but we were moving an additional 15 hours away. At least we could make a day trip if desired. I nearly backed out a couple of times, but being selfish isn't something I typically do. And it certainly didn't feel right at the time. It was a difficult decision to move away and one that I think of daily. Did we make the right decision? Were we right to move the boys away from all they have known? Should we have waited for another opportunity? The questions are endless...and they still roam around in my mind.

Once we decided to move forward, and the time came to tell our families and friends, we did so with heavy hearts. This was not a small move. I had to close my business and say goodbye to all the friends with whom I've developed since moving to Indy. Saying goodbye to my family was difficult as well. I suppose you can say that I'd done it before when moving away to college, but nonetheless, it was just as challenging the second time around.

While separated from Kyle for three months, I tried my best to keep myself together for the boys. I had the sole responsibility of their care and needed to keep it at the same standards as Kyle and I strived to establish up to that point. Meanwhile, I kept the house in showing order and continued to provide care for the children enrolled in my daycare. If it hadn't been for the numerous distractions, I never would have been able to get through those trying times. We kept busy to say the least.

I know I am going on and on about my side of things, but meanwhile I kept Kyle's side in mind. I couldn't imagine being separated from my husband and children, in a strange city with a new job, and not knowing what the future would hold. We talked daily and held as many Skype sessions as we could. I could not imagine how long his nights seemed at times and how thankful he must have been to be able to come back for visits. We have always appreciated the technology that has been available, and this time was no exception. Kyle, thanks for making the move and continuing to be the rock that we have always known.

Fast forward a few weeks and we decide it's time to reunite our family. Granted, to this day the house is still on the market, but we're together and the kids are settling in nicely. We're nearly all unpacked, however what remains boxed may just as well stay that way until we move again. Knowing we are moving next summer sure has set a standard for what is necessary. We were never ones to hoard or to use an incredible amount of items, but I never would have thought that when it came to moving. I thought we did an excellent job of purging and riding what wasn't necessary. Man, we were wrong. Either that or I never really knew how much space/storage we had in our house. Goodness, I don't look forward to boxing things up again!

I cannot believe it's almost been three weeks that we've been in our new home. I look forward to the time we get to go back to Indiana to visit, but for the mean time, we are more than happy here.

I have lots of posts I'd like to make in the near future, so hang in there for more goods. Oh, and I may get some new photos up too! Let us know if you do not have our forwarding address. We'll be happy to share it with you.

until next time....lc

Kian - The Preschooler

2010-09-08T13:57:00.004-04:00

In an effort to give Kian and I time away from each other, and to have him around other adult figures, we decided to enroll him in a preschool program. There's also the fact that he'll be learning and furthering his knowledge of the real world. The search was on once we arrived. Not knowing a whole heck of a lot, I was nervous about the programs available. I asked around briefly (to the 3 or 4 people I had met in the week I was here) and called three different schools and only one of them had availability. He attends the 3 year old class on Wednesday and Friday mornings at UCUM Preschool. His teacher is adorable and loves what she does. He had a great first day of school and looks forward to attending each day.

until next time...lc

Jackson - The First Grader

2010-08-23T13:56:00.002-04:00

In preparation of making the first day of class, Jack and Kyle flew from Indy to SA on Sunday, August 22nd, in order for Jack to start class on Monday, August 23rd. With all the fun stuff we had to accomplish prior to their departure, time was at a minimum and sacrifices were made. We are quite sure Jack didn't get enough sleep prior to school on Monday, but the amount of adrenaline he had stored was enough to get him through the day. Unfortunately there is no "First Day of School" photo to share with you. Kyle did a great job with getting him up, dressed, fed and lunch packed. I shouldn't complain about the lack of photo. For all I know, there is one stored on Kyle's phone that just needs to be downloaded.

Jackson has and amazing teacher, Mrs. H. He adores her and she has more pleasant things to say about him than we could ever hope for. He makes us quite proud.

until next time...lc

Day of the River Rats

2010-08-01T14:15:00.002-04:00

Here are a couple of pictures I took when I visited Indy last weekend. The boys and I called a Dudes' Day on Saturday while Mom got some much needed solitude. We went to Hummel Park in Plainfield after getting haircuts and having some lunch. These pics were taken down by the creek that runs through the middle of the park.

(K)

It's The Final Countdown! (Do doo dooo...duhduh doo doo dooo...)

2010-08-01T14:14:00.004-04:00

Howdy from Texas! Sitting here, poolside at the apartment complex, scorching my fingers on this laptop's black keyboard which is absorbing every single bit of the pounding UV rays because there's no shaded spots in which I could sit today. No bother, though, it's a lazy Sunday for me - one of my thankfully few I have left in my faux bachelorhood.

That's right, we've set a moving day for Laura and the boys to finally join me down here! We've been apart for 8 weeks now - a couple of maddeningly short visits aside - and have realized that it's just too much for us to keep up this separation. I miss those three terribly, and it's been much more challenging for us to maintain our collective sanity as a disparate unit. So, August 25th is the big day. Well, it's a little more complicated than that (wouldn't be our lives if it weren't, I suppose) but that's the big shove off date for our belongings and the reunion of our gang.

The complications, while minor, are present. The plan is for me to fly back to Indy on the 17th, help with the last bit of preparation and packing, then Jack and I fly back to SA on the 22nd, just in time for him to start school down here on the 23rd. Laura's brother and mom will be helping out with the actual move, and they're scheduled to depart Indy on the 25th. We have someone interested in the house, but we're not sure if they're going to qualify for a big enough loan to buy it outright. If they don't, we're hoping they're able to do a lease-to-buy contract with us. If not, no bother, we'll keep the house on the market, and keep our fingers crossed for a qualified and capable buyer to come along soon. Things will be a bit tight if we have to do that, but what we have to do more is resume life as a cohesive unit in our new base of operation.

So, that's the update. It's been a pain putting these out on the blog, for me, without an internet connection, and, of course for Laura, who's wrangling the dudes and preparing the house for the move. Of course, it's sad to be thinking that our last tangible roots to Indiana are soon to come up, but we'll always have family and friends there to visit and remind us of why we've called it home for so long. But, adventure in a new place awaits, and I'm as excited as I've been in some time to get it all underway.

Together.

(K)

Jack-o-Lantern in the making

2010-07-12T14:13:00.003-04:00

Jack made it all the way through Kindergarten without losing a tooth. Yes, he was disappointed as the other children were losing their teeth and earning rewards for it. We reminded him that his teeth would eventually fall out and not to be discouraged. So after months of wiggling the same tooth (he started wiggling it in August of 2009), the tooth finally came out on July 9, 2010. With the amount of time we had to prepare, you would have thought we'd be ready for this to happen.

As he anticipated, the Tooth Fairy came through the night and left him with a letter, $10 in cash and a Kit-Kat. He was quite happy with the loot and looked forward to the next pulled tooth. His uncle Joe said he should be a Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween. Chances are they'll be grown in next year.

The wiggly one

The after shot

July 12th, 2010: Two down....many more to go.

until next time...lc

2010-06-14T22:54:00.001-04:00

Perfect NE Bexar county skies. <3 SA. These while Indy gets pounded with rain and gross weather. Laura and the boys were hunkered down in Target with tornado warnings and intermittent power outages. Weather's so fickle. (K)

Despite Her Appearance in this Picture, Dessie was ACTUALLY Enjoying our Visit.

2010-06-03T22:22:00.002-04:00

Kian and I went to visit Nonnie one more time before I left for San Antonio. She was doing really well that day. I think she's gonna be around for lots of my return visits.

(K)

A Second Final Goodbye?

2010-06-03T22:21:00.003-04:00

One of my last days in Indy, Kian and I made an important stop to say goodbye to my family residing in The Hill. I felt kinda bad, I started crying, which triggered Kian bawling his eyes out. It was cathartic for us both, but I didn't intend for the visit to be so sad.

They were what I hope to someday be.

(K)

Movin' On

2010-06-03T22:16:00.003-04:00

My boys, before Jack's last day of kindergarten. So proud of these little dudes.

(K)

IN SR 37: Where the Glum Piled On

2010-06-03T22:15:00.002-04:00

This was taken on my drive back from dropping off the boys w/ Laura's brother, the day we left for San Antonio. Pretty much was a nice scoop of depression heaped upon my sadness pie that day.

(K)

Foodies

2010-06-03T22:12:00.002-04:00

Lunch for Laura and I at Crabby Jack's in San Antonio. Those are Gator Bites in the background. Not all that tasty.

(K)

Workin on my 12 oz. curls

2010-06-03T21:52:00.001-04:00

I'm a lazy, worthless ass.

Thank the Universe for Technology

2010-06-03T21:04:00.002-04:00

***WHEW***

Now THAT was a whirlwind couple of months.

Since last posting on here, I've accepted a new job in San Antonio, Texas and have moved down here as our family's scout team. Testing the waters of a new city while Laura and the boys hold down the fort - for the (hopefully) short amount of time it remains our fort - in Indianapolis. It's only now sinking in, after nearly 2 weeks off work, that I no longer live in Indy. And, that soon, none of us will live in Indianapolis. I still refer to it as home, speak affectionately about it and about all the people who remain there, probably much to the chagrin of my new employers.

But, I'm able to keep tabs on the family with daily phone calls, text messages, and Skype video sessions. I hope that anyone in our friends and family list who read this will reach out and add us as Skype contacts so that we might get the chance to talk here and there through a truly fun and amazing advent in technology. It's soothed my aching heart by giving me little bursts of time to look at everyone's smiling faces and get to talk to them with what feels like much less physical distance between us.

Things are going well down here: signed a lease on an apartment, met my new bosses and got to hang out with them the last couple of days, and am getting to know the people in the office with whom I'll be working closely in the coming days, weeks, and months. I just wish the damn house would sell already, but I've got to maintain a realistic mindset about it - it'll sell when an interested person lays eyes on it, and that'll have to be good enough.

Hopefully, with my newfound "bachelorhood" I'll make some more time to blog. Big plans, likely to be followed up with unimpressive efforts, but that's what I have for now.

Much love, and hit me or Laura and the boys up sometime.

(K)

Multimedia message

2010-04-29T20:51:00.001-04:00

Dusk from the Oriole Trail

SATURDAY SATURDAY SAAAAATUUUUURRRDAAAAAYYYY (part 2)!

2010-04-10T16:12:00.002-04:00

Lunch, finally! Sorry, mom, we hit India Garden without you.

Indian food buffet kicked the crap outta little dude.

SATURDAY SATURDAY SATUUUURRRRRDAAAAAYYYYYY!

2010-04-10T16:04:00.002-04:00

Kian gets a bionic upgrade.

Cool dudes, post-pupil dilation.

Chillin at the fountain at a park in downtown Indy. Kian's doing his best impersonation of a whale.

Striking out trying to find lunch at the City Market. The place is a ghost town on the weekend, if not outright closed. We got inside, but were the only ones in there, as far as we could tell.

More in a bit...I've reached my picture limit for mobile blog messages.

(K)

Spring Break

2010-03-29T08:33:00.004-04:00

Spring Break is the schools way of conditioning parents for the summer break. The volume levels will be turned up a few notches this week as there are 3 six year-olds here full time. Add that to all the little ones running around and you'll have one exhausted provider. I know I will sleep well this week!

Although we'll have more energy to burn around here, I am very thankful that it's supposed to be nice all week. There's nothing like some warm weather to shed those cabin fever blues.

until next time...lc

Toy Story

2010-03-25T20:52:00.002-04:00

I am currently watching Toy Story with boys in our bed. What a great time!

We made a run out in the cold, windy, rainy weather tonight to get Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on Blu-Ray/DVD tonight. For many reasons, I let the boys stay up past bedtime and watch the first movie. Kyle was out of town, Spring Break started, and I needed some peace and quite were a few of the reasons I obliged.

There's nothing like putting on a movie to get the boys to be quiet. That is one great ability that they inherited from their father. I wish I could have the patience to sit and watch something all the way through, but no dice here.

until next time...lc

Goodness Gracious

2010-03-13T15:53:00.004-05:00

Where has the time gone? We've had every intention of keeping this darn thing updated, but it's taken the back burner yet again. It's been so long since I have logged on that I just realized today that we can blog through our mobile devices. Wow, I'm truly behind. Here's to many more posts!!!

Overall, we're doing quite well. Family time is at an all-time high and we could not be any happier.

until next time....lc

With a Tip of the Hat to Blatherskite and Derek Black, Here's Our Little DUDEFEST 2K9

2009-10-30T21:21:00.000-04:00

One of the minor downsides to Laura starting her own daycare is that she's only going to be able to take off a single week each year for vacation. She doesn't HAVE to limit herself to a week, per se, but that was one of the aspects of Michelle's care that we truly appreciated, and so Laura's decided to adopt the policy as well. That leaves me with an extra week - soon to be 2 extra weeks, when I hit my 5-year anniversary with Baker & Daniels - of vacation that we all can't enjoy as a family. Certainly to be classified under the, "Small Price to Pay..." category, but still a bit of a bummer.

So, since I had this extra week to do something with this year, I decided to pack up the boys for a few days and take a Guys' Trip to have a manly-type adventure. Our destination: Cave City, KY. Cave City is probably best known as the "Gateway to Mammoth Cave." I have fond memories of Mammoth Cave, as my Grandma and Grandpa Keller took my brother and I to tour it when we were probably 8 and 6, respectively. I remember having a great time walking through it and discovering something that was fairly foreign to me at the time: a cave. I'd read about them, seen them depicted in movies, but hadn't been in one at that point, so I was hoping that, even though our boys had been to Marengo Cave, it'd still be an exciting trip for them.

As I researched Cave City, I found that it's a bit of a touristy destination, as well, so there would be plenty of activities to keep us occupied. There were riding stables (which, if you've read anything else I've posted recently, you know was a big hit with the boys), there were tons of hiking trails in the National Park surrounding the cave, and there were little parks/attractions like Dinosaur World and Guntown Mountain that would likely provide at least a bit of entertainment.

I tried booking us rooms at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Resort Park and the Wigwam Village, but neither had any availability. Sure, the more manly thing to do would've been to rough it at a campground, or rent a cabin; however, there are certain limitations to "roughing it" you have to observe with a 5 and a 3-year-old, and a campsite for 4 days in late October almost certainly exceeds those limitiations, and the "cabins" that seemed available in the area were most likely going to exceed those limitations (not to mention my personal limitation on being within a certain number of feet of some creepy, sketchy-looking and sounding people). So, we toned down the manliness a smidge by reserving 3 nights at the Super 8 Motel in Cave City. It was a decent spot, clean, reasonably priced, so I was happy with the compromise.

Here are a few pictures taken during our trip together...

We arrived in Cave City around 1PM CST Thursday afternoon, and immediately made our way over to the Jesse James Riding Stables at Kentucky Action Park. The boys were stoked right away due to the fact that they got to play with a kitten and its mother for a good 20 minutes while we waited for Brian, the ride guide, to make his way back from the Outlaw Cave tour he was conducting and down to the stables to lead us on our hour-long ride. Below is a shot of the woods in which we would ride, you can make out the trail that leads into them in the lower-left corner of the picture.

Jack getting his horse-management instructions from Brian the Cowboy (as he would become known by the boys), and then Shadow, the horse Kian and I got to ride. Jack got to go alone by virtue of his being *AHEM* "six years old," while Kian got the shaft and had to ride with boring ol' Dad. Jack's horse's name was Paris Hilton, and Brian made sure to make plenty of off-color (but, thankfully, nonsensical, to the boys) jokes about "pulling Paris' hair and tell her who's in charge." He actually was pretty funny and really engaged the boys, putting up with Kian's constant barrage of questions regarding the various wildlife that may or may not live in the woods, and whether or not they were afraid of the horses or if the horses were afraid of the wildlife.

Brian was kind enough to take the camera from me and snap some pictures of us all mounted up.

In probably one of the greatest moments of Kian's life, Brian offered to let him ride with him for about the last 1/3 of the trip. He galloped his horse, Dixie, several times which Kian went nuts over, constantly telling Brian they had to pass up the girl who was leading the pack of riders. Brian let Kian take the reins several times, and direct Dixie around the trail, which he also loved.

After the ride, we got ourselves checked into the hotel, and I unpacked our gear while the boys ate microwave popcorn and watched cartoons. This was one of the first areas in which they had the, "Oh CRAP, we're not at home right now" realizations when I informed them that there were only a limited number of kid-friendly channels we could watch, and none of them were airing Dora or Diego at that moment. The settled with Animal Planet, which I felt was pretty fitting.

We ate dinner later that evening, and I made another point to which I would stick during this vacation - NO corporate bullcrap restaurants. We were going to eat locally as much as we could, and eschew McDonald's, Wendy's, or any other restaurant we'd seen in Indy. We ate at a Mexican restaurant right by the hotel, which kinda felt like cheating this rule, because it was one of those universal Mexican restaurants, but since it didn't have a larger parent corporation as it's overarching operational entity (at least, not that I could tell) I felt the decision OK.

Friday morning, we got up, had breakfast at the hotel (one of those horribly unfulfilling breakfasts that are supposed to act as an allure to paying $35/night for your stay at a mediocre hotel), and made our way over to Mammoth Cave. Of course, it was raining the entire morning, with wavering intensity, but since we were going to be primarily in the cave, I didn't think it would be too big a deal. Well, little did I realize you stand outside waiting for the tour to start, and also make a half-mile hike down a path to the entrance of the cave. Oh well, still worth it, and we wouldn't have gotten as wet as we did had I tried to keep tighter reins on the boys and prevented them from splashing out in the rain puddles while we awaited the start of the tour.

The pictures above were taken as we waited, and directly below here is our descent into the cave entrance. That's Jack's hooded figure walking in front of me, so it gives you some perspective as to just how large this cave entrance is.

Just a little way into the cave, and already, Kian's taken off his hoodie and face-planted several times in the dirt. Oh well, we're men, right? A little dirt-stained outerwear is to be expected!

Here we are traversing a section of the cave known as "Fat Man's Misery." As a fat man, let me tell you, this portion of the cave is aptly named. We had maybe a 28-inch wide path cut from the stone through which we had to meander for a good 100-200 feet, all while ducking due to the 4-foot-tall ceiling. Combine those facts with the additional fact that you're in a tour group 120-people strong, and you get the idea why I started to wonder whether or not my clausterphobia was going to allow me to finish the tour without bashing my face against those tight-fitting walls.

Candle writing that used to be allowed by the African-American slaves who would guide tours through the cave. They allowed this as a means by which they could get some money, because they were unpaid for their guide services.

Kian had decided this light needed to be cleaned, so he was scraping its surface with a rock he found in the cave. I just liked the effect created by the "night vision" mode on our camera when I snapped this. Shortly after this picture was taken, we approached the last part of the tour, in which we basically ascended back up the 340 feet we'd descended below the surface of the cave in approximately 1/8th of the actual distance it took us to make that descent. The elevation is made up through a series of steeply-inclined paths and approximately 200 steps up a couple of different stairways built back up to the cave entrance (not to mention the stairs back up to the trail that's depicted up above). Why am I bringing this up, you ask? Well, I had to make this ascent while I carried Kian, who'd conveniently fallen asleep just before we started making our way back up. This part would've been difficult without the additional 30 or so pounds being carried in my arms; AND, it was further compounded by the fact that the cold that I'd developed was pretty much at it's apex of affliction, making my lung capacity about that of a Ziploc sandwich bag. I got all gung-ho and did the stairs up to the exit, plus those stairs you see above, without stopping, and by the time I got to the trail back up to the parking lot, I seriously thought I was on the verge of cardiac arrest. I had to make Jack wait with me as I breathed harder than I'd ever breathed in my life, surely inviting concern from the other tour members who walked past us as I panted for that sweet sweet oxygen. Fun times!

Jack showing you where we were.

This crazy tree was across the street from the sign pictured above.

The photos above were taken during our hike through the cave park on Saturday. I really wanted to get to more of the trails, as the descriptions in the park maps sounded great, but the boys weren't really feeling it that day. The big hole in the ground is an Indiana Bat cave that was on the one trail we did hike. The boys were more interested in sweeping leaves from the stairs on the deck and built into the trail than they were actually hiking it.

These last few pictures were from Dinosaur World, which is a big park with a bunch of "life-sized" dinosaur statues and some fossil-dig sites. The boys really enjoyed this, and it was pretty interactive, which made for a nice wrap-up to our trip to Cave City.

Not depicted here are the trips to the Mammoth Cave Wildlife Museum (which, I guess, qualified, due to the number of dead, stuffed animals they had behind glass; it creeped me out, but the boys were into it), our viewing of Where The Wild Things Are (RULED!!!), and our 2nd horseback ride (on which Kian fell asleep about 15 minutes in, and I had to navigate the horse while managing a 30-pound limp dishrag in my lap). Again, the kids were great throughout this trip, and got many many compliments on their good behavior from people we encountered during it. I was proud of them for being so good for me while I made this solo-parent venture with them! I can't wait for Dudefest 2K10!

(K)

So, if I told you we'd been writing these upcoming posts the last 4 months...

2009-10-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

...would you believe me? If so, I also have this awesome bridge I could sell you...

So, yeah, the "Preview of Vacation Posts to Come" turned out to be the biggest misnomer since compassionate conservative, but oh well - I don't think we harmed quite as many people with our misdirections. Ha ha ha...

Well, I'm here to atone for the last 4 months of slackadaisical blog updates. I'll make no promises of future updates at this point, as I hate to make some I can't keep. Just suffice it to say that we're building up plenty of material to document on this thing; just lack the time to put fingers to keys and mouse to make the brain dumps to the blog official. I'm just glad I had a vacant spot in my day on this last day of vacation to get out of the house, hop on some free WiFi, and crank out some content.

Hope everyone's doing well, and you move into the holiday season healthy, happy, and ready for a great 2010!

(K)

Summertime Creature Encounters at Ye Olde Retention Pond

2009-10-28T12:59:00.003-04:00

Here are a couple of pictures from our encounters with animals found in, or around, the retention pond behind our house. We got full-bore into fishing this year, and while the fish below was NOT caught by one of us, it was caught by one of our neighbors who allowed Jack to reel him in.

These next few pictures are of a turtle that we found hanging out in the shoreline grass one morning. I decided to pick him up and let the boys check him out for a bit before we returned him to his home.

Also, I realize, now, that these recent updates are going to show up pretty out-of-order...one of the downfalls of the Blogger set-up: when you actually create the posts is the order in which they appear, regardless of the order in which you edit and finally publish them. Oh well, I'm hoping the content is descriptive enough for everyone to get the proper chronology of the events...guess that just means you'll have to read a bit more carefully!

(K)

Summer Vacation, Part Three: From the Kentucky Horse Park to King's Island x2

2009-10-28T12:40:00.008-04:00

So, here's the final installment of the summer vacation updates...final for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that our camera battery crapped out midway through our first day at Kings Island, so no more pictures were taken that day, or the second day we were there. Which, is actually for the best, because no one was picture-worthy that second day. The week's heat had taken a serious toll on all of our skin tones, attitudes, and appearances to where we all looked and acted like a haggard band of gypsies who've just had their butts kicked by the elements up one side of the desert and back down it again.

Anyhow, we start this final leg of the journey at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY. As you've already gathered, I'm sure, our boys (particularly Kian) have a slight obsession with animals, and especially horses. I thought it was little girls that got all bonkers over having a pony, but I'm finding that our boys are either very in-tune with their feminine sides, or that's a completely stereotypical myth. Anyway, the park is a great experience for kids who have obsessions like our boys have, and would enjoy spending a day seeing all different breeds of horses and learning more about the inner-workings of an operation centered around breeding and training racing and show horses.

Here we are with one half of the tandem "Thunder and Lightening." I forget which horse was brought out for the picture, but these Clydesdales were HUGE. I couldn't believe that a creature could get so big, it was amazing to me, and the boys were mesmerized by their hairy lower legs.

Silly faces as we await the start of the show horse riding exhibition.

The emcee of the riding exhibition, and then the boys getting a chance to pet and say hi to one of the exhibition horses.

Yes, that's right...ANOTHER pony ride.

This guy was training this horse just outside one of the stable barns we toured. He was working this horse hard, almost like he was trying to saddle break it. It was an interesting scene to watch unfold, for sure.

As we walked around the grounds, we saw this open pasture area in which a couple of horses were hanging out close to the fence. So, we walked over to try to get their attention, and actually spent a good 30 minutes talking to and petting these horses. The big brown male that you can see in the background of the top picture was really wily, and there seemed to be a bit of tension between he and the white female also pictured. The male would exert his presence whenever the female was shown attention, almost like some sort of bizarre abused spouse situation. It was neat though, and that male was also a really big horse that kinda made the boys skittish.

These were taken on a pair of giant chairs just randomly placed in the park. Jack was kind enough to snap the first photo, then I returned the gesture as he hung out on one solo.

The last series of pictures in this post were all taken at Kings Island. We had initially planned to visit the Cincinnati Zoo on the Friday of our vacation week. Then, Friday morning, we kinda decided to run an audible and let the boys make the call - we could either go to the zoo, as planned, or we could go to The Beach Waterpark. Of course, the boys chose the latter, so we purchased tickets online, via their website, and made our way to the water park. It had stormed the night before, which we thought was a bit of a blessing, in hopes that it'd break the heatwave that had badgered us the entire trip to this point. Unfortunately, the storm also caused enough damage to some parts of The Beach to make it so they had to close it for the day. Awesome - NO INDICATION of that whatsoever on their website. What was worse is that it wasn't like we could flip things up, go to Kings Island Friday then try The Beach again Saturday, because we'd already purchased our KI tickets as a special promotion, good only that Saturday. We again left the decision to the boys, and ended up shelling out an additional $180 to do Kings Island an extra day. Best yet, while we had every intention of returning to Cincy to use our Beach tickets, we never made it over there, and now they're useless since the season's ended. (Please visit SADTROMBONE.COM, and click the big PLAY! button at this point to appropriately punctuate the end of this sad sad tale...)

Well, we had a great vacation, and jam-packed just about everything we could into those 7 days. We ended up closing out Kings Island, as well, on Friday, then calling a fairly early end to the day Saturday when tempers, temperatures, and exhaustion had bested us all. Again, though, a truly epic vacation for the ages, and, as always, Jack and Kian prove to be 2 of the best behaved, most adventurous little kids on the planet!

(K)

Summer Vacation, Part Two: From Marengo Cave to the Louisville Slugger Museum

2009-10-27T01:22:00.007-04:00

Alrighty, continuing with the summer vacation pictures and updates, we hit the 2nd leg of our journey in which we visited Marengo Cave in Marengo, IN and the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, KY.

The cave was really fun, lots of great formations to see, and the boys' constant clamoring to spot a bat hanging from somewhere in the cave (sadly, there were none, and I think we pointed to a small ceiling formation and claimed it might be a bat just to satisfy their curiosity). I believe that Kian conked out partway through this cave tour, and had to be carried through the end of it (another theme you'll see repeated in the very near future) which was an interesting challenge. Nothing like lugging the equivalent of a 30-pound sack of sand through the twists and turns of a cave!

Awwww...family pictures at the little waterfall just outside of the cave entrance and gift shop. Those light-khaki shorts would never be the same after being gnarled up by Kian's mud-drenched shoes as I carried him around the cave during his nap.

The cave entrance, and our capable tour guide.

One of the only shots of any of us that was worthwhile from inside the cave...I think this is the beginning of the end for Kian's consciousness on this tour.

A couple of the formations present in Marengo Cave. The top one is called "cave bacon" (picture included here because, really, who DOESN'T love bacon?), and the bottom one is some form of a stalagmite that had a given name which is escaping me right at the moment.

Thus begins the next adventure, our visit to the Louisville Slugger factory and museum in Louisville. This was a pretty neat experience, one the boys really loved, although Jack started the trip in a bit of a bad mood - hence his absence from the above picture.

Jack brightens up long enough for me to take the "My Bambino with THE Bambino" picture.

That's more like it, a proper family photo op.

This is the little room in which the factory tour ends, and where they hand out the mini-bats to the kids. The boys were so geeked up for this portion of the tour, it's like the factory didn't even exist, nor had the tour through it in the ~30 minutes prior to this occur. Of course, the bats didn't survive long in their possession - they were placed in time out the moment one was used to threaten one of the boys with a knock to the head by the other boy (I forget who menaced who, but likely Kian to Jack).

Batting practice.

A couple of cute pics of the boys as we ended our visit to the factory and museum. It's amazing to me how quickly they can go from a crummy mood to a great one, then to somewhere in between and back to a great mood again. I mean, it happens with all people, I suppose, it just seems like the drasticness of their swings is both extreme and sudden. Regardless, we're quite lucky to have 2 guys who, overall, are a breeze to handle and are quite receptive to the parenting and discipline styles Laura and I employ.

(K)

Summer Vacation, Part One: From French Lick Resort and Casino to Holiday World

2009-10-27T00:54:00.007-04:00

At long last, here's the conclusion to that cliffhanger posted back in June...the summer vacation posts! I know, I know, the relief and excitement you feel after all these long months can hardly be described. It's OK, you can finally let go of that breath you've been holding - and, hopefully, start to recover from that nasty death thing you encountered from holding it for 4 long months. Ha ha ha...anyway, this is the start of our vacation - we spent a week travelling through southern Indiana and northern Kentucky hitting a bunch of little touristy attractions along the way. First stop, French Lick Springs Resort and Casino in French Lick, IN. We stayed there 2 nights, did a bunch of swimming, got some massages, rode some horses, and Laura and her step-mother did some gambling.

Remember the part, earlier, about recurrent patterns? Here ya go. This was my turn at the pony rides while Laura enjoyed a full-package massage and spa treatment back at the resort.

Kian says his goodbyes to his trusted mount.

After the pony rides, the boys were given cups full of goat feed, and we were allowed to go over and visit the pen of goats kept at the stables. This was one of my first experiences with goats in a more natural setting than the IN state fair, and I have to admit to something that freaked me out - WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME THAT GOATS HAVE HORIZONTAL PUPILS!?!?!?!?!? Argh, it was a bright day, so their pupils were constricted to their smallest, and, again, not having been around goats in any other setting than in the pens at the state fair, I'd not seen them in full light where their eyes were constricted. FRRREEEEEAAAAAKKKKKYYY! I'd fully thought these were some damned alien goats at first. I almost held the boys back from them! Those dudes went to town on that feed, though. Kian had to straight-up wrestle his cup from the goats' mouths on several occasions.

The pictures above were taken during Laura's turn at the horse stables. I also enjoyed a massage that day, and gave her the time to enjoy a blazing June day in the company of farm animals, cowboys, cowgirls, and our kids. Aren't I a sweetheart? It's all about reciprocity, isn't it?

Here's where we start our day on our annual trip to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN. This really is a great park, and a terrific investment for a family of our composure - with a couple of younger boys who enjoy a wide-range of experiences. Holiday World will likely be an on-going destination of ours until the boys just completely outgrow it.

One point of note here: it was HOT throughout this vacation. I mean, like 94-95 degrees everyday, I think. In fact, later this day, I'd suffer from a heat stroke or something, I think. I couldn't walk anymore, and had to sit under a misting fan in the water park to sleep for a good 90 minutes. The boys were total troopers, though, and I think that's in large part to another outstanding feature of Holiday World - the free drinks. Keeping hydrated is tremendously easier when you're not being gouged for bottles of water or Gatorade.

Kian handled those bumper boats like a pro! He was so jazzed to get to ride big kid rides this year!

Jack was also amped to get to ride some bigger rides this year, and this was his favorite - the drop ride. He rode this thing, no joke, like 8 times in a row!

As is probably obvious, we were WIPED after this day. We shut the park down, though, because we were all just having so much fun, and the boys were so well-behaved!

(K)

Here's the part where I make a publicly-broadcast apology to my lovely wife

2009-10-27T00:50:00.002-04:00

So, I'm sure Laura's going to be thrilled with the following information being made public, but it's crucial to issuing the mea culpa I'd like to make to her...

Laura hit the mighty Dirty 30 this year, and, I, as her loving companion and husband pulled the biggest bonehead move of the decade by COMPLETELY failing to plan any kind of a nice celebration in recognition of this major life milestone. Compounding the sadness factor of this failure pile is the fact that Laura went to great length to plan out a truly kick-ass party for me 4 years ago, inviting a bunch of my friends and family over to confirm the fact that I had, in fact, turned the corner into full-blown adulthood (and, apparently, started down the slippery descent into senility).

While it wasn't a complete bust - she and I worked together to plan a shindig to which we invited several of her friends and some of the daycare families - I still feel really bad about dropping the ball on this, and offer my sincerest apologies again to her. We did get some good pictures of the party we ended up having, but for some reason, when I was uploading a series of pictures the past few nights, only 2 of them actually saved to this post. Now that I'm away from home and typing this, I can't add any other pictures to it, but you'll get the point. We ended up having a great time, and everyone that was able to attend helped soften the blow of Laura's turning 30 and her further confirmation that she has a complete galoot for a husband.

Laura and some of the kids opening birthday presents...notice the quality gift the boys and I gave her - a cordless Hitachi drill. I'm the ultimate romantic.

(K)

GracePointe Summer Festival

2009-10-27T00:30:00.003-04:00

OK, the first of the time machine posts takes us back to the summer festival put on by the church adjacent to our neighborhood. Jack and our next-door neighbors' child, Kylie, attended Vacation Bible School a few days this summer, and at the end of the week, there was a big summer celebration to which we were all invited.

It was a great time! They had a little petting zoo (some chickens and a goat, I believe...I've slept since then, so the recollection's a little hazy) some games, food, pony rides, and a huge water slide they built by tacking a Slip-N-Slide to the side of a big hill. They then dumped a bunch of dish soap and water onto it, and let the kids go wild. The unfortunate consequence was that the hill lead down into a ditch, and the kids were sliding off the plastic into a sudsy muckfest - but, thankfully, not into the ditch proper. Besides, they were sliding in soap, so how dirty could they REALLY have been???

Below are some pics of the boys enjoying their evening at the festival.

Jack and Kian on their first pony rides. Now, if you continue to read these recent posts, you're going to notice a very recurrent pattern regarding these hooved beasts and our sons...

Jack and his buddy Grant after a good 10 or 15 slides down the water slide. See...they can't be really all THAT dirty, can they?

Jack and Grant again with the balloons they were given at the end of the night. We had a blast!

(K)

A Slight Preview of Vacation Posts to Come...

2009-06-27T00:41:00.002-04:00

I'm posting this as a result of some bizarre, inappropriate onset of insomnia after spending all day at King's Island. We closed the park out tonight, so I have no earthly business still being awake; however, I am, and I'm going to make a quick post about the vacation to-date.

French Lick was very nice, filled with plenty of pool time, relaxation, pony rides, goat feeding and spa visitations. Laura even scored a bit in the casino, which was a welcomed, if unexpected, surprise. Our day at the cave and the Kentucky Horse Park was a blast, as was our day at Holiday World (which we also enjoyed until it's close). Our day today was a juggle, ending with us spending the day at King's Island, as noted above, but it, too, was an absolute riot. The boys have done SO WELL considering how much we've jostled their schedules and have kept them in near-perpetual motion. Tomorrow is another day at KI, but sadly, our last day of vacation. We've packed this trip so full of fun, memories, and pictures, and I can't wait to get on here and share them all with everyone!

I should get to bed, as I'll likely regret being up this late tomorrow at wake-up time. Check back for additional posts, including pictures, in the coming days and weeks.

(K)

VACATION!!!!!!

2009-06-21T07:55:00.002-04:00

We are off on vacation this morning, well once everyone arises and we pack, that is. I've never waiting this long to pack and I am not enjoying rest assured. We've had so much crammed into this past week that I've not been able to get everything completed in an orderly fashion. However, this will not impact the fun we are about to have. Besides, I'm sure there is a Wal-Mart or Target near every town we visit for anything we leave behind. Here's a quick rundown of the fun we're about to have. I'm sure we will blog about it one day.

Sunday: Head out for some family and swim time at French Lick Resort. Thanks to Nana and Papaw Hop for this stay. It was a last minute add to our vacation, and it will be a great way to start it. We're looking forward to hanging out with the family for this afternoon and evening. And I'm looking forward to spending some time with the slot machines.

Monday: I get to start off my day at The Spa at French Lick, courtesy of Kyle and the boys. Once we have lunch, we'll head out for more family visits and a little fishin'.

Tuesday: This vacation wouldn't be complete without a trip to good 'ole Holiday World!

Wednesday: We leave Jasper on our way to Lexington, KY. We'll stop by Marengo Caves and The Louisville Slugger Museum.

Thursday: We're off to the races at The Kentucky Horse Park. Perhaps we won't see a race, but there will be pony rides! Later this evening we're headed off to Cincinnati.

Friday: We've decided to hit yet another zoo. This vacation: The Cincinnati Zoo. After dinner, we'll feed my addition to IKEA with a short visit, followed by a splash in the hotel pool.

Saturday: Our first visit to Kings Island! Once we're completely exhausted, we'll head home.

Again, we'll try to blog about this hopefully soon rather than later.

until then...lc

Home Renovations!

2009-06-17T23:53:00.007-04:00

Alright, so in an attempt to get back on track, I'm going to make this the first of a series of posts that are going to be way out of chronological order. However, in our defense, we've had so much insanity swirling about these past few months that, if not for the incremental fashion in which our camera stores the photos we take, we might well not remember the proper sequence of the events that have transpired!

Over the Memorial Day weekend - starting the Thursday before it, actually - we installed laminate flooring throughout the main floor areas of our home. The primary motivation for this was preparing our home for the start of Laura's daycare services; it seemed like hardwood flooring would be more damage-resistant than carpeting. Besides, the areas in which we had lineoleum, it was starting to peel away, and the carpet (as we really discovered upon it's removal) was getting beat down and gross as all hell in many places.

So, Laura's brother and mom came up that Thursday morning and got the installation under way. The week prior to this, and the few days leading up to it, we'd been ripping up carpet, packing furniture into the boys' bedroom and toy room, and any other possible storage location we had available. The boys took to sleeping on their bed mattresses on our bedroom floor during this time, and we had to institute a "socks-or-flops at all times" rule once we'd stripped the floors down to the concrete slab. It was a great adventure, and big fun to kinda rip up our home! Laura's younger brother joined the fray Thursday evening, and I was able to take off work that Friday to help wrap up the installation. We are so grateful for those guys' help, as well as her mom's help (as she also took the boys back down to Jasper with her while we worked through the weekend), in getting this major task done in such a quick, yet thorough, fashion. Big thanks to those three!

Oh yeah, not only did we knock out the flooring, we painted our kitchen, our dining room, re-applied a fresh coat to our half-wall and the back wall that spans the kitchen and dining room, and we painted most of our trim work in the areas where the floor was changed. Did I mention that my brother and I got a fence started, as well? No pictures of its progress exist, unfortunately, but I'll try to snap some of the finished product and throw down a few lines about that experience, as well.
In the interim, here are some pictures we took of the before and after look of our house through the floor transformation. Enjoy!

(K)

So, 150 posts became some sort of magical barrier for us, I guess.

2009-06-03T20:45:00.003-04:00

Laura and I have absolutely NOT intended to allow this much time to pass between our posts here. It started in late March, early April, with the two of us mentioning sporadically that we really needed to get on and blog something. April passed, as did May, and clearly, no posting occurred. We suck, I'll admit it.

But, we've not been without reason. We've embarked on some significant changes in our lives. First, we decided that Laura was going to start staying home with the boys, and take on the responsibility of watching some additional children to supplement the lost income from her job. Second, in light of that decision, we felt it'd be prudent to ready our home for the daycare initiative, so, we've replaced most of the carpeting in our home with laminate flooring; stored my grandmother's dining room set and china hutch; and, finally erected a fence around our backyard.

With the help of our gracious family and friends (Frank, Jacob, Patty, Ryan, Derek, Brandon, and Joe) we were able to get the boys out of the house long enough to work on these tasks and complete them! We'll get some pictures taken soon of the new digs, but suffice it to say we're proud of ourselves, the hard work everyone contributed to the job, and the look and feel of our home.

So, I promise, this marks the resurrection of our blogging. Pictures, various updates (to bring everything up-to-speed on here) and forthcoming events will be chronicled as soon as possible.

(K)

Bring on the Spring...Winter Can Get Bent!

2009-03-03T21:30:00.003-05:00

Let's face it. Winter in Indiana really bites. I mean, REALLY. I full accept it's not Montana or Canada or something of that ilk. But, for a non-snowbelt state, we get some rough treatment.

The worst part of it is the homebound, cooped up lifestyle it promotes. If we were more impartial to sub-zero windchills, 15+MPH winds and the proclivity to precipitate in a moment's notice, perhaps we could better-negotiate outdoor activity. As it is, though, we prefer to keep to the warmer clime of the homestead - or, other indoor locales - during this time of the year.Saturday, in the third leg of the "Wear Out the Boys Proper" Tour, we decided to give them a few additional minutes of clemency by stopping by our neighborhood park. It was cold and windy, yeah, but the boys nostalgically enjoyed the time they were able to spend romping about the park. We can tell they're ready to be outdoors more regularly, and we hope the weather cooperates with those desires, post-haste. If not, we may achieve a level of stir-crazy from which no one's nerves - not to mention household goods - may ever recover.

(K)

Ice Capades, We Were Not

2009-03-02T20:46:00.005-05:00

Saturday afternoon, following swim lessons, Laura and I set a goal to get the boys as absolutely wiped out and tired as we possibly could. I had plans to go to a show that night, and we thought that by running those two ragged, we could ease Laura's solo management and lower resistence levels to bedtime.

While the plan was nice in theory, in practice, it didn't really prove to be an effective strategy. However, it didn't keep us from enjoying some family time together ice skating!

Laura and Jack went skating together once last year, or the year before, and here she is giving him some helpful reminders.

Laura bravely takes both boys on the ice while I maintain my wuss status and document the adventure from afar.

Into the breach: I don ice skates for the first time in well over 20 years. My first, and only other time attempting to skate, I thought I'd twisted my ankles into pretzels and vowed never to do it again. Funny what domestication coupled with empathy for your significant other as she struggles to help your offspring enjoy themselves will do to a man. Isn't that what the look on my face, below, says, too?

Above and below: cute and cuddly. The boys look OK, too.

See, now this is much better...we did actually thoroughly enjoy ourselves. My real complaining only started as I tried to wrangle Kian out of his skates and then keep him nearby as I struggled out of mine, all the while sitting on the floor in front of our rented locker while a gaggle of pre-teen girls munched crappy snack bar delectibles and stared at the rage that hotly simmered beneath the surface of my countenance.

(K)

Embracing an Internet Meme: The Commode Session

2009-03-02T20:32:00.003-05:00

We're quite proud that, at just 2 years of age, Kian is fully potty-trained. In recognition of his achievement, we present the following montage of in-action potty shots. Guess which is the actual "poop face."

(K)

Against my better judgement

2009-03-01T21:02:00.005-05:00

Earlier this afternoon while I was prepping dinner, I decided to finish watching the rest of last weeks episode of Hell's Kitchen. Kyle had taken his car out for a wash, Kian was napping and Jackson was playing basketball in the garage. Jack came in at one point and asked to air up the ball. Unfortunately the air pump outsmarted me, so I asked Jack to wait on Kyle. We agreed that he should gather all of the balls that needed to be refilled to make the most of it. He was in and out of the living room, game room, kitchen and garage. I suppose I noticed that he was watching the TV off and on, but didn't think much of it. Kyle joined us a few minutes later and sat down to watch the show while pumping up the various balls. At this point, I noticed Jackson laying down on the floor watching the show. He had asked Kyle to go out and play with him and Kyle said that he'd go as soon as the show was over. During the highlights for next week's show, one of the contestants made the comment, "I'll kick her ass". I grabbed the remote and turned the show off. This conversation immediately followed:

Me: I'm sorry Jack, I should have turned this show off earlier. I didn't mean for you to hear that bad word.
Jack: What bad word?
Me: Never mind.
Jack: What? Ass?
Me: Yeah, buddy. That's the one.
Jack: It's OK Mommy, everybody's been saying ass the whole time.
Me: Please don't repeat that word outside of this conversation.
Jack: OK Mom.

I sometimes forget that he's just a little kid and I should shelter him. That taught me that even though the show is on DVR, it airs late at night for a reason. I know he'll use that word eventually, I just didn't want to be the one to introduce it to his vocabulary.

until next time....lc

VD Surprise!

2009-02-14T21:44:00.002-05:00

Not THAT kinda VD, you goons...Valentine's Day!!!

Laura shocked the Hell outta me yesterday afternoon. I was at work, and had taken a bathroom break. Upon my return to my office, my next-door neighbor and teammate, Josh, poked his head into my office and said, "Man, you've been paged twice, what's going on?!?!?"

"What? Really? Nothing I know of is happening...guess I'd better call the receptionist to find out."

Just as I turned to pick up the phone, it rang, and it was the receptionist again. She tells me I need to get upstairs to the reception area right away. When I asked if it something was wrong, she simply replied, "I just need you to come up here."

For some reason, I'm thinking I'm getting served a subpoena, or some thuggish mess is getting ready to transpire - that's how CLUELESS I am as to why someone would be asking for me at 5PM on a Friday afternoon.

I get up to the 27th floor, and start to look around to either side of the receptionist's desk as she greets me. To the right, I spot a familiar sight: Laura, and she's wearing a shit-eating grin and giving me this cute little wave. I instantly ask, "What are you doing here!?!?!"

"Taking you on a date!"

"...Whaaaat? Whoa...OK! C'mon downstairs for a second!"

I was TOTALLY surprised by this...and, what a great way to be surprised! We went to Fogo de Chao for dinner, then hit Circle Center to shop for new shoes (an established V-Day tradition for us), then out to Avon for a viewing of Slumdog Millionaire. I'm truly the luckiest sumbitch on the planet!

(K)

Job Security

2009-02-11T12:33:00.001-05:00

Back in January I left Simon for good. For quite a few months I had been working part-time at Simon and part-time at Clarian West in the HR department. Believe me, I was ever-so-thankful that I was able to maintain employment at both locations. Yes, it was difficult to bounce back and forth between the positions, but I had to do what was necessary. I'll admit that it made the weeks go by very quickly! My last day at Simon was January 5th, and I was able to work full-time in HR at West starting January 12th. Given the fact that so many people are without jobs, I feel blessed that I've been afforded this stability over the past 5 months. I also want to note that Kyle and I thought it would be best that one of us move to work closer to home. Since it's a little easier for me to find something rather than for him, I opted to take over this role. I love that I can run home over lunch, or to Target, or to see the kids if needed. I recently drove downtown and can say that I do not miss that trip one bit. Sure the quite time was nice, but I like being closer to home. Perhaps that goes with age. Besides, it was tough for the kids to be bound down in the car for such periods of time each day. They are only 10 minutes from home which is proving to be a blessing as well.

Starting next Monday (2/16/2009) I will be taking on another role. I will be alternating days between the HR department and Case Management. Again, I am extremely thankful that I have the option to work at full-time status. Sure, I'd like to only work 20 hours per week and spend the other time with the kids and maintaining the household, but that's simply not in the cards. Perhaps one day I'll be able to work a limited schedule. Until then, I will enjoy my time at West.

A few things I love about working at West: it's only a 6 minute drive from home, about 12 minutes to daycare, the staff and culture are simply amazing and I love the work that I'm doing. I'm so glad to be back in HR working in a position that is rewarding and stimulating.

I promise to document more of my journey as it continues.

until next time...lc

First, an Apology, and then...Happy Birthday Sara!

2009-02-11T10:12:00.006-05:00

First, a quick apology...I've been so out of it lately. Not "out of it" in a literal sense (although I was a bit sick last week), but just not feeling the writing urge. I knew I should help in providing some updates to the blog, but still...writer's block or some such business. So, sorry for the lack of updates. It's a bit frustrating, but, if there's anything that can prod me to slam down a few keystrokes, it's celebrating OTHER people getting older.

Last Saturday, we celebrated my baby sister's 22nd birthday. This is very surreal to me - Sara was like my first child in some ways. I was 12 when she was born, my dad had recently died, and I was the primary care giver after school while my mom worked nights. Certainly not MY child, obviously, but caring for her was absolutely my first insight to what parenthood might be like.

So, I've now lasted long enough to see her become a full-fledged adult. And, an impressive one at that. She and my brother are the only 2 people that have maintained a steadfast unwavering presence throughout most of the years I've been alive. It's exciting to see her grow up and become such a wonderful person - I'm honored to have this experience. All this, despite having Ryan and I as her big brothers! At least we gave her plenty of indications of what she SHOULDN'T do with her life. Ha ha ha ha...

We went to Buca Di Beppo, downtown, for dinner Saturday night, then broke away from Laura, Miss and the boys for a Campbell Sibling Triumvirate bar bounce. Drinks were had (mostly by Ryan and Sara, I played the DD), stories were told, and probably a bit too many details were shared that remained obscured until drunkenly divulged. It was a great time, and I hope we get the chance to do it again some time - my turn to drink, next time!

(K)

Homemade Tattoos

2009-02-10T21:16:00.007-05:00

***NOTE: There are lots of new posts to read!***

For quite a while now, to keep our kids stimulated at the grocery store, we allow them to draw something small on the backs of our hands. I know it’s probably not the best example to set, however it passes the time and redirects their focus. We started out drawing smiley faces and have graduated onto bigger pieces of art. Jackson generally sticks to the rules, but on this particular day cabin fever set in and he was a bit ornery. He says it’s a shoe, but we think it looks a little different. At least his art skills are developing, right?

Kyle’s arm

I love their chubby little fingers.
An example of Jack sticking to the rules and Kian getting his turn with the pen.
until next time…lc

Poop Face

2009-02-10T21:13:00.001-05:00

Well, not in a literal sense, but every now and again Kian ends up looking like just sucked on a turd. In most cases, he’s just enjoyed some chocolate, but this looks appears more than we’d like it too.

until next time…lc

Appliance Overload

2009-02-10T20:31:00.004-05:00

We’ve been in our house for just over 6 years. It doesn’t really feel like we’ve lived here all that long though. A couple of weekends ago, our washer bit the dust, leaving us little opportunity but to stimulate the economy with the purchase of a new washer & dryer. We’ve, okay, I’ve, always dreamed of the day we’d be able to upgrade to a front-loading, high efficiency washer. I’ve always been excited by the little things in life, and this proves it. We spent a bit of time comparing prices at Lowe’s and hhGregg and settled in on this pair. And for hte record, hhGregg had the better deal...obviously. My new love affair:

Kyle thinks I’m a bit obsessed, however our laundry is clean. Enough.said.

Moving onto this past weekend. Our dishwasher ceased to function. So back to Lowe's and hhGregg we went. Thankfully we were able to have this bad boy installed on Monday evening. Too bad we don't have enough dishes dirtied to use it!

until next time…lc

All fall down!

2009-02-10T20:30:00.013-05:00

One night after dinner a few weeks ago, Jack and Kian entertained us with a few rounds of Ring Around the Rosie. When it was time to fall down, Kian was doing this thing where he would lift both of his legs into the air simultaneously and fall on his bottom. Thankfully he only had about 11 inches to fall. Oh, and that he still has a bit of padding on his bottom. I think it's the 3rd time that he gets it right for the camera.

Oh, and then there's the whole, "Let me see" episode that cracks me up. We made the realization a while back that our children will never know what film is. You know, like for a 35mm camera? I guess we're assuming they won't get into photography. Seriously, they may learn about this in a book some day down the line, but they've grown up with digital cameras. Yeah, new things are invented all of the time, but it cracks me up that they know they can see the image just after it's taken. Heck, I was excited back in the day that we had a microwave. I'm sure glad that stuck around. Speaking of microwaves, this past weekend while at hhGregg, we saw the first microwave drawer. Weird!

until next time...lc

Children's Museum

2009-02-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

Papaw and Nana Hop gave the boys a year-long membership to The Children’s Museum. We broke it in as soon as we had the opportunity, January 4th. Actually, we went the next weekend too. They boys absolutely have a blast there. (I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have fun as well.) The first time we went happened to be the final day of Jolly Days. They turn the grand staircase into a Yule Slide. We must have gone down that thing 6 times. Oh, and we packed a lunch for the first time. And along with the membership comes unlimited rides on the carousel. Again, another 6 rounds and we moved on to the next display.

Here’s the Yule slide….

And a photo-op at a display in the Jolly Days area…

No trip would be complete without a trip to the dinosaur exhibit.

We’ve all come to realize that taking a picture of Kian can prove to be quite a challenge. We ended up with 6 pictures of his silly faces. I guess 6 was the theme for the day, huh? I suppose this is where a digital camera proves its usefulness.

until next time…lc

Where, Oh Where has the time gone?

2009-02-05T16:31:00.002-05:00

Kyle and I have discussed many times of the past few weeks that we need to blog. It just seems as though we've stayed constantly distracted. Oh well, perhaps we'll get around to it one night. Oh, I'll have to write about my new love affair!

until next time...lc

A Kick to the Wingdings is No Way to Start the Morning...

2009-01-20T23:30:00.005-05:00

Today, on our typically-protracted exit to the car on the way to daycare, Jack and Kian were having a bit of an argument over who could carry out the sharks and who could carry out the alligator. They both knew they'd have the toy animals for no longer than the ride over to day care, but that mattered not to the 2 most stubborn humans on earth.

In any event, Jack yanked back on his alligator, only to have Kian make an attempt to slap him. When Jack dodged just enough to allow Kian's hand to breeze by him unscathed, he got overly-saucy and decided to smack Kian in the butt as he walked away, giving up on the situation. After Jack landed that blow, Kian just spun around, walked right up into Jack's face, and kicked him in the crotch!

Jack dropped to the ground like a sack of sand, and began whining immediately. Laura and I did the, "OH-CRAP-STIFLE-LAUGHTER-ENOUGH-TO-MAKE-DISCIPLINARIAN-ROLE-BELIEVABLE" look at one another, then Laura asks, "Kian, did you just kick him in the peanuts?"

To which he flatly responded, "Yeah," before carrying on like nothing had happened.

(K)

Updating "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow..." Post Below

2009-01-12T10:51:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, I dragged Jackson outside with me while we had some relatively mild weather, so that we could try to rake up some of the leaves in our yard. This is the first year in which our tree, and our neighbors' trees, have been at a maturity level to drop enough leaves in our yard to justify a full-blown raking.

I was raking on the side of the house on which Laura posted, earlier, where the boys had lost their gray horse, when I felt a bit more resistance to my pull on the rake than I would've expected. I picked up the accumulated pile of leaves, and felt something bulky and heavy buried within - the gray horse!

The beautiful thing: I took it inside to Kian, and because he'd received enough farm animals to replace that horse ten-fold, since losing it, it was no big deal to him that it'd finally been recovered. Ha ha...glad we didn't go through any monumental efforts to find the thing!

(K)

Happy Birthday, Brook-A-Lynn!

2009-01-05T23:20:00.003-05:00

It was Brook's big Third Birthday on Sunday. We got to party down and celebrate with her on Saturday night, and we were so excited to get to enjoy her day with her! She was absolutely adorable, showing everyone her age with her pinky, ring, and middle fingers on her hands. We had a great time, Brookie, thanks for inviting us to your party! Sorry we couldn't stay all night and help you celebrate it like the rock star you are!

(K)

And, Last, But Certainly, Not Least...Hoppy Christmas!

2009-01-05T22:30:00.004-05:00

Well, here it is...the post for our final Christmas celebration. As you can probably tell, Christmas is clearly not all about a particular day for us - as is likely the case with you, and your family, and nearly every family these days. It's about getting together with your friends and/or loved ones, the people that make your life what it is, and the people that motivate you to get up each morning, draw in that first breath, and provide the literal and figurative motivation you need to walk out the door and face the tidal wave of bullpuckey each of us face in order to chisel out lives for ourselves.

Laura, the boys and I have been so fortunate, and so grateful, to have the people about whom we blog - and whose pictures you see below - to play such major parts in our lives. We couldn't do what we do day in and day out without each one of you contributing to us your wisdom, your heart and your joy.

With that, enjoy these pictures from our gathering with Steve and Tammy - Papaw and Nana Hop.

This present excited all of us, Jack just portrayed that excitement best - even if he did leave Laura hangin' for a sec. It's a year-long membership to the Indianapolis Childrens' Museum!

And, that's it...that's the end of our Christmas and New Year's celebration blogging. Sorry it was super drawn out, and took way longer than it should've. But, once and for all...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, Everybody!

(K)

New Year's Eve with the Indiana Ice, Ryan, Miss, Ethan and Dylan

2009-01-05T22:19:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, Laura got the opportunity to buy some discounted tickets to the New Year's Eve Indiana Ice game at Conseco Fieldhouse; so, I called Ryan to see if he wanted to bring the boys to the game with us. He agreed, and we all attended the game together.

There was a DisneyRadio promotion and concert going on, as well, and the band that was to perform was also asked to drop the ceremonial first puck of the game. These little 18 or 19 year old geeks went slip-sliding out to center ice, and Ryan tells Ethan to ask me, "Uncle Kyle, do you think those guys have on white belts?" If you don't get that, don't worry...it's funny, but not.

Anyway, the game was a thriller! The Ice went down by 4 goals, heading into the final period, then proceeded to score 5 goals to win the game! It sure sounded like an exciting comeback - I spent the entire 3rd period walking around the club-level concourse with ol' antsy-pants Kian who just refused to sit in the seat and enjoy the game. He wasn't even engaged by the fights (there were quite a few, actually) like the rest of us - somethin' ain't quite right with the boy. Ha ha ha...

Well, below are some pictures we took that night...enjoy!

Jack took these last 2 pictures. I like the kid pointing out the 5-year-old with the expensive camera in the first one (yeah, dude, I get a bit concerned by it, too, but he's proven to be capable of handling it without breaking it). Then, in the second one, you'll notice the little girl in the lower-left corner. Jack was flirting with that girl all night long. I think that's part of the reason he asked to borrow the camera - to capture a picture of her for posterity's sake! We're gonna have to watch it with this one!

(K)

A Homestyle Christmas - This is How We Do It

2009-01-05T22:05:00.007-05:00

Not to insinuate that there's anything particularly special about the WAY in which we celebrate Christmas, but our time together is always special and fun. This has become our tradition - jet home at whatever hour we need to on Christmas Eve so that we ensure we all wake up at home to enjoy Christmas morning together as a family. Hopefully it's another tradition we'll be able to maintain for many years to come.

Our tree and the presents. This was actually taken Christmas Eve afternoon, after we'd gotten the boys into the car in preparation for the trip to Jasper. So, we cheated a little...sue us.

Jack came tearing into our bedroom (Kian had snuck into bed with us sometime through the night) and trying to quietly, but excitedly, wake us up to tell us a bunch of presents had just shown up under the tree. This is the boys running out to assess the situation.

Trying to determine to whom the presents should be given.

Let the ripping and opening commence!

One of Jack's requests for Santa this year was tennis racquets for he and I so we could play tennis together.

When Laura took the boys to Kiln Creations, they painted this pen and pencil holder for me to take to work! I love it! This little tidbit was conspicuously absent from Laura's blog post about their trip...sneaky!

Laura got a necklace from the boys, and a perfume/lotion/lip gloss gift set from me. I know she'll probably disagree, as this was like 7AM with no preparation, but this picture of her is outrageously cute.

Merry Christmas, Part Three! One more to go!

(K)

Up Next...Christmas with the First Group of Kiefers

2009-01-05T21:34:00.008-05:00

So, here's Xmas, Part Two - our Christmas celebration with Laura's mom, brothers, sister, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephew. We always wish we could spend at least a day or two down in Jasper with our family there, but work schedules and our own family unit's Christmas celebration usually makes that a logistical impossibility. Oh well, we're happy we get to spend whatever time we get to spend with our family - be it an hour, or several days, like we were able to do in Tennessee. The boys adore their cousins, and the adults all get along quite well - it's usually a great time.

Kian picking on Aunt Adie's glasses (which, at Brooklynn's birthday party, he continued to do, and eventually popped the lenses out of her glasses) which we're going to have to break him of, post haste. Sorry, Adrienne!!!

Captain Goofball, Nolan.

Brook, Kian and Mel doing their best Gene Simmons impersonations. Now, to convince them not to make videos, later in life, that get spread around the internet...

Jackson excitedly opening the Eve to accompany his Wall-E toy.

Brook, Jack, Adalyn, Ashley and Nolan having fun.

It's usually in the third year that the kids lose all sense of propriety in opening presents, and begin to go into full-blown rip and reload mode, Ashley. Hang in there!

Nolan creeping out the baby.

Brook calculating the risk/reward of snatching something from Jack's present pile.

Mel got pretty jazzed over this one...I think maybe it was the American Doll set we got her?

Brook's thrilled with yet ANOTHER Dora-related toy...mom and dad, not so much.

EXTREME CLOSE-UP!!!! Hi Adalyn!

Katy and Matt

Way to be the odd-man-out, Joe. Two pretty girls' faces, then your mug.

Behind me snapping this picture, someone threw a whole pile of free bowling passes in the air, eliciting these reactions from J and Frank.

King Kian, Master of All He Surveys From His Poppa-San Chair.

Merry Xmas, Part Two! To Be Continued, again...

(K)

Have A Jolly Campbell Christmas

2009-01-03T00:41:00.009-05:00

Alright, so it's finally time for me to get off my duff, edit some pictures, and throw these bad boys up on the blog. This is the first of a series of holiday-related posts that you'll see over the next day or so. I don't think I'll get to them all tonight, so consider the holiday blogging a work-in-progress.

This first set of pictures was from the get-together Laura and I hosted for my family: my brother and his family, my sister and her boyfriend, my uncles Chris and Steve, and my grandmother. This was a great night, although we missed my Aunt Jean, who was home, not feeling well. Of course, we really missed all our extended family, who weren't able to attend for various reasons, but we certainly enjoyed the time we were able to spend with everyone who could make it. Great food, great people, gifts all around - can't ask for much more!

Here's the table setting for dinner. We got out my grandma's Noritake China and her crystal glassware for the occasion. It was a gorgeous set-up, much fancier than we're accustomed to!

The homemade lasagna Laura prepared...this was OUT OF CONTROL! So good, I was rather upset with myself when I said, "Ah, yeah, one will be more than enough, we'd have too many leftovers if you baked two."

The troublemakers, at their table...notice the distinct lack of niceties in the dinnerware department here.

While this looks like Kian's in a mild state of shock over something going on, I actually just caught him mid-yawn.

AND LET THE SANTA'ING OF THE PRESENTS BEGIN!
If I remember correctly, here, Chris was asking Dylan how he felt about being duct taped to the wall... Still handing out presents.Sara and Dan eagerly await their bounty.
I'm sure one of the boys did something ridiculous here.

Ryan and his boys testing out the goods

Kian didn't nap all day, and was pretty active, so we knew he'd be in trouble when he started hitting the beers at like 4PM. At least he's wearing the properly-identifying t-shirt.

Ethan ended up staying over that night, so here's the boys in their typical sleeping arrangement. As you can see, Kian caught his second wind just in time to enjoy some popcorn and a movie!

Merry Xmas, Part One, Everybody!

(K)

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T07:51:00.000-05:00

Oh, and Merry Christmas too! That's right folks, we allowed this bad boy to take a back seat while we enjoyed time with our families and friends. We'll get around to updating it one day. After this weekend we don't have much planned for a while.

until next time...lc

Birthday Finale

2008-12-14T20:58:00.005-05:00

Our morning started off with a pancake breakfast. #5 pancakes in fact. Along with some turkey sausage, blueberries, kiwi and milk duds. Mmm, Mmm good. The breakfast of champions, or at least the breakfast of the birthday boy. For the record, he requested pancakes for his birthday breakfast, however he only consumed a tiny bite about the size of a dime. The fruit and candy were down in 2 seconds flat. That's my boy!

Within an hour or so we were off to Chuck E Cheese. We arrived just before 9am. Yes folks, CEC opens at 9am. And might we say that it's the best time to go! There's no one there, allowing you to have more than a 2 inch leash on your children. And the staff is super friendly. (Could be because the kids haven't grated their nerves quite yet.) Even if you don't have an organized party, they will still give the birthday child a sticker and a couple of tokens. Sweet!

This is Jack's absolute favorite game. The one where you get to kill spiders. I love S's face here. It's priceless.

Check out that form! He's a big fan of the green machine on the end. It has an alien who swings its hand back and forth. You have the opportunity to hit it while rolling the ball into the machine. Jack gave the 5 balls a whirl and missed. He looked up and said, "I don't understand Mommy, I was able to hit the target when I was 4. Now I'm 5 and I can't do it." After a "Try one more time Buddy", he hit the target 2 of 5 attempts. He did a little dance and played 3 more times.

Another one of his priceless faces! That's our Jack. Always livin' it up!

A group shot of the party-goers. Thanks M, E & S for spending the day with Jack, he had a blast!

Now that this birthday weekend is over (it was at about 8:15pm when Jack finally fell asleep), Kyle and I agreed that we couldn't be happier. It's not that we wanted to rush the time along, it's just that we are completely worn out. Kyle is back at work tonight for a couple of hours trying to prep for trial and in much need of some sleep. I'm off to bed hoping the boys will rest peacefully all night. (Hey, a girl can dream, right?) We love you to the moon and back, Jack. We hope you continue to grow and be as brilliant and entertaining this year as you have in the past.

until next time...lc

And the parties continue...

2008-12-14T06:55:00.010-05:00

This year we allowed Jackson to have total input on his party. Down to each and every detail, including the color of his plates. This year he chose to have a nacho bar, grapes, mixed veggies with dip, tootsie rolls, candy cane mints, York peppermint patties and an ice cream sundae bar in lieu of cake or cupcakes. His choices were enjoyed by all. I do want to take a second and apologize to all who attended and witnessed Kian's 101 meltdowns. He was in rare form last night and I do want to say sorry.

I wanted to get a shot of our Nacho Bar set up, but we jumped right in and enjoyed the dinner. However, we did get some fun shots of the present opening. Since Jackson is reading, I wanted to give him the opportunity to read his cards. He did pretty well. Although when he came across one that was written in cursive, he'd say, "This ones in fancy, Mom." Too cute!

I wish that our camera would have cooperated and taken nice pictures. I'm sure you can tell from the picture below that Jack's expressions are priceless. He seemed genuinely surprise and pleased each time he opened a gift. I love that dropped-jaw look he has.

It seemed as though they had a great time building their own sundaes.

Jackson had to load up on the whipped topping to support all of his candles.

And the day wouldn't be complete without a "cheese" shot.

We started the tradition of taking a picture with each family/person that attended the party with the birthday child when Jack had his first party. Over the years, Jack has been fairly cooperative. Years one and two are difficult, but it did improve. Last night he was a bit of a challenge. He always wants to be the center of attention, and what better day to be so clown-like than his birthday, right? Here he is with his Uncle Joe, Aunt Adrienne, and cousins Nolan and Mel.

Here he is pictured with his Uncle Poo Poo, Aunt Ashley, and cousins Brooklyn and Adalyn.

Hammin' it up with Uncle Ryan, cousin Ethan and Aunt Sara. Sorry you couldn't make it Aunt Miss, cousin Dylan and ~~Uncle~~ Dangle.

Last but not least, Nana P, Aunt Katy and Uncle Bo.

Jack received a few Bakugan toys.

And what kind of party would it be if someone didn't get naked? Just kidding, Frank and Ashley changed the girls into their PJs before taking off. Once Kian saw that someone was naked, it was only appropriate for him to strip down too. We did fight to keep the diaper on though. Most nights you can find our two hooligans running around being "nakie boys".

until next time...lc

Let's get these parties started, let's get 'em started now!

2008-12-13T08:25:00.006-05:00

Birthdays are quite special and deserve much attention. Jackson's family party is later this afternoon, and since his Nana and Papaw Hop are not able to attend, they took us all out for dinner earlier this week. Jack's choice: Red Robin. We had great company and great food!

Jackson was very happy to get Lincoln Logs. (Secretly Kyle and I were too! A great childhood memory.) He did not want to pose for a picture though.

Kian chowed down his dinner and thought he could steal Jack's toy. He tried to make a break for it, but didn't succeed.

A little play time

We hope to have a great birthday weekend. More pictures and stories to follow.

until next time...lc

p.s. on a side note, I blogged quite a bit this morning. Please continue to read on.

Painting Pottery 101

2008-12-13T08:02:00.003-05:00

Needing to burn some time with the kids and finish some Christmas shopping, I decided to lump the two together and take the kiddos to paint pottery at Kiln Creations in Broad Ripple. What a fantastic place I must say! We had a great time and didn't pay for anything we didn't paint. (That was my biggest fear taking Kian along.) However, we survived, and so did they. Some photos to document the fun had...

Jackson thought it would be a great idea to take a family picture. He's so thoughtful!

Jack was absolutely fabulous. He sat there and took his time painting, nearly 2 hours. He was very serious when considering what colors to put together. He amazes me daily. Not sure if you can tell that he has blue hair. He and a couple of his friends at day care sprayed their hair blue and spiked it up. He really enjoyed his new look and referred to himself as a "rock star".

Again, Kian taking a priceless picture. He didn't eat the paintbrush as it appears in the photo. You'll also notice his black eye, taking forever to heal.

until next time...lc

Let it snow...let it snow...let it snow

2008-12-13T07:50:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday we were surprised when the snow accumulated as much as it did. Okay, we wouldn't have been as surprised if we watched the weather report, but who has time for that? First rule instituted, no throwing snowballs at each other. Second rule, don't eat the snow, especially if it's yellow. Lastly, have fun. And boy did they! Kian didn't want anything to do with the snow last year. This year, he couldn't get enough of it. Of course it was much more fun with his beloved horses. Seriously, we cannot go anywhere without taking them or talking about them every few minutes. Limited to 2 horses, he had a great time. He since has learned that the horses aren't great at playing hide-n-seek in the snow. Once the snow melted, it was confirmed that they gray horse did run away. Please don't worry, he's making do with the 101 other animals that he totes around.

With only one pair of old snow boots in the house, we resorted to rain boots. Hey, they worked just as well.

As I finished up in the front of the house, I heard lots of squeals and laughter coming from the back yard. Below is a video of the boys playing a game of chicken...in the snow. Thank goodness they had on a mass amount of padding. I was ~~not so~~ shocked that Kyle allowed this to happen, but no one ended up leaving injured. We are in for it once they get a little older.

until next time...lc

St. Nick's Day

2008-12-13T07:14:00.005-05:00

Growing up we celebrated St. Nick's Day. I knew it would be a tradition that I wanted to carry on with my children when the time came around. When I was in college and away from home, I'd receive a package via USPS from good 'ole St. Nick. (Thanks Mom!!!) Even while Kyle and I were dating, he took it upon himself to carry out the tradition with me and made sure I was never let down. Now that Jackson is a little older, I think he's starting to enjoy it more. This year was no exception. A couple of weeks ago, we sat around and wrote out our lists to Santa for St. Nick to pick up.

Jackson's Letter:

Kian's Letter:

That morning they woke up and went about their normal morning routine...running straight to the kitchen to get something to eat and drink, completely bypassing the set-up. Once we pointed it out, they were more than thrilled.

His favorite....York Peppermint Patty Snowflakes.

We are having quite the issue getting Kian's picture without some ridiculous face in return.

Don't mind their lack of PJs. They both fell asleep in the car on the way home the night before and I was flying solo. I didn't want to risk them waking up and not going back to sleep, so in their outfits they slept. Besides, the next days agenda included washing bedsheets.

until next time...lc

Obviously

2008-12-13T06:42:00.001-05:00

They mean it when they say it...dryer sheets belong in the dryer, not the washer. Espcially a half-full box of dryer sheets. What a mess!

until next time...lc

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-10T19:41:00.004-05:00

First off, we hope everyone has a very happy, health, and safe holiday season. We tend to cram as many events/visits into the six-week span between mid-November and the end of December as our schedule allows. While we often think of ourselves as absolutely insane during the said time frame, we never regret the memories we take away.

If this is the first time you are visiting our blog, welcome! If not, thanks for stopping by again. We started this blog about a year ago as an online journal for ourselves and to also share with our family and friends that we don't have the opportunity to interact with as often as we'd like. So, welcome/welcome back, and enjoy! We promise to keep you updated on the never-ending happenings in our lives.

Also, in our Holiday Letter we failed to congratulate the Cuadros family on the little boy Anthony. We tried to recall the events of this past year, but didn't succeed. Regardless, we wish you the best of luck as you continue to grow as a family.

Until next time,
Laura & Kyle

This Ain't My Tempurpedic, but It'll Do, I S'pose...

2008-12-08T23:27:00.002-05:00

Saturday night we were out and about, and decided to go ahead and eat dinner at a restaurant somewhere in Plainfield - where we'd done a majority of our errand-running just before dinnertime. Laura and I debated whether to eat at a trusted, good ol' stand-by like Culver's or Chili's, or branching out and trying something sort of new.

We opted for the latter, and settled on Logan's Roadhouse. We'd considered going there before, and many of my friends had told me it was a good place to eat, so we went with it.

If you've ever been to a Texas Roadhouse, you've been to a Logan's. Same idea: steakhouse, buckets of peanuts, country music, but not enough Patrick Swayze.

Anyway, it's been bitter cold and snowy all day long. The parking lot at Logan's was pretty well covered in about an inch of snow in most parts. We pull into a spot at the end of a bank of parking spots, and proceed to extricate ourselves, and the boys, into the frigid, blowing air. Laura's out first, and at Jack's door in seconds. I shut off the car, open my door, then plant my foot on the ground below and start to hoist myself out.

Only, my foot doesn't properly plant on the pavement.

I never feel a bit of traction, yet continued to jettison myself from the car door. Well, it doesn't take a physics whiz to figure out that inertia, minus friction or resistance, plus fatassery (aka significant mass) is an equation wrought with unhappy results. I just kind of slid under the door, smacked my hand/wrist and shoulder on the ice-covered blacktop, and just crumpled the rest of the way out of the car. I let out a loud groan, accompanied by a profane word or two (I'm sure, though I don't clearly recall, now), and just lay there in shock, embarrassment, and a bit of pain.

I hear Laura yell, "Are you OK? What happened?!?!?!" Then, she begins to run over to my side of the car, around the back-end of the car.

"Yeah, ooowwwww....I'm fine," is my response.

Laura gets to my side, and is staring at me writhing on the ground, then asks, "Did you slip?"

I layed there for what felt like 30-45 seconds, asking myself if I'd actually heard her ask me if I'd slipped. Finally, I look up at her and say, "Well, no, actually, I figured this was just about as good a place as any to take a goddamned nap."

Ha ha ha...seriously? We both had a good laugh at that one.

(K)

Tennessee Thanksgiving Vacation!

2008-12-06T00:53:00.013-05:00

Last year, around this time of the year, Laura's brother, Frank, proposed a vacation idea to us. We'd join he and his family, along with all of Laura's other brothers and sister, her older brother's families, her mom, dad, step-mom, and her sister-in-law's parents and sister and that sister's family, for a 5-day stay in a cabin down in the Tennessee hills. Sounds like a potential powder keg just itchin' to be detonated, doesn't it? We agreed, and, we're REALLY glad we did - this ended up being a tremendously fun time for everyone - especially Jack and Kian.

We left in the afternoon on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and drove as far as Corbin, Kentucky. There, we met Frank and his family, along with his sister- and mother-in-law and his nephew, and stayed in a hotel for the night. The main goal was to try to break up the car time a bit for the kids, because we knew the trip home was going to be a straight shot. So, we swam and did all the fun hotel stuff (including a highly-welcomed surprise serving of milk and cookies that night before bedtime), and made the rest of the trip Wednesday afternoon.

The cabin was a part of the Black Bear Ridge Resort, down in Pigeon Forge, and it was really nice! The rooms were spacious, there were garden tubs with jets in each bathroom, a TV in each room, a large-screen with a projector projecting TV and DVD feed, a pool table, airhockey table and a foosball table. Seriously, this cabin had it ALL! Oh, yeah, and a hot tub.

Pigeon Forge, the town, is pretty tourist-trappy, but it had plenty of activities and things to keep us all busy, as a large group, and as individual families. We took the boys to play miniature golf one day, we tried getting out to a nature reserve Thanksgiving afternoon, we took Jackson to play LaserTag and to drive go-karts one night, we visited an aquarium, and we went to the Dixie Stampede - a Dolly Parton-owned western-themed dinner theatre. I used the word "tried" in describing our trip out to the nature reserve, because the drive out to it took three times longer than we thought it would, leaving us with just a short time to get out of the car, stretch our legs, then make the trip back to the chalet for Thanksgiving dinner.

We have to thank all the Kiefers, the Breedings, and the Meyers family for inviting us and helping us have a wonderful time in Tennessee! We're hoping to make an every-other-year tradition of this trip, and anxiously await the next installment!

Here are some of my favorite, selected photos; and, then a slideshow of the remaining pictures, from our trip. We hope you enjoy viewing them as much as we enjoyed taking them. There are some captions with the pictures, too, so turn them on, if you'd like. You do that by hovering your mouse over the slideshow, and then clicking on the word bubble in the lower-left corner.

Sunset from the back deck on our chalet, Wednesday afternoon/evening

Our chalet, in the foreground, on the right, as Laura photo'ed it from across the ravine

Kian, in the aforementioned nature reserve, showing he's master of all he surveys

Mini golf air guitar, part 1

Mini golf air guitar, part 2...the apex of the solo

These next couple of pictures were taken at Patriot Park in Pigeon Forge. The first one, Jack and Kian show us what they really think about the Liberty Bell re-creation; in the second, we had to go all the way to Tennessee to get a pretty shot of the Indiana state flag.

These last few are from the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Aquarium over in Gatlinburg. I swear, Mr. Ripley has a stranglehold on that whole area - the name's on freaking EVERYTHING. An aquarium, a gift shop, a miniature golf course - Hell, I half-expected to see a Ripley's Believe It Or Not restroom with a gargantuan floater hanging out in a commode!

Anyway, look at the second picture - it was too funny not to point out! Mason's face got all distorted, then the reflection of my hand makes it look like the boys have been shrunk to fit in a test tube or something...this picture should be viewed with caution by anyone reading this blog while in a chemically-altered state!

Oh, and by the way, a big THUMBS DOWN to the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, for their respective drivers' education programs. Driving through these states was maddening! People on the interstates BRAKING for no apparent reason, drivers who'd apparently disabled their turn signals, and just general buffoonery on the roads! During the 10 hour drive home on Sunday, we dealt with that crap, then, shortly after crossing the Indiana state line, traffic becomes more stop-and-go than northbound Meridian out of downtown Indy on a Friday evening. It got so bad, we got over to US-31 just outside of Edinburgh, and took that the rest of the way up to Indy. That was easily the roughest drive I've made in a long, long time.

(K)

How Our Life, for a Moment, Resembled "White Men Can't Jump"

2008-11-11T08:45:00.003-05:00

So, hopefully you're familiar with the now nearly-ubiquitous 1992 film "White Men Can't Jump"...if you are, the following will make a bit more sense. If not, well, maybe it'll at least be humorous.

For the past couple of weeks, Kian's protestations of bedtime have returned anew, to the point where he's been up until nearly 10PM fighting our insistance he go to sleep. As is well-documented in this blog, when the kid sets his mind to something, he's rather difficult to deter. Couple this with the fact that, at daycare, Michelle is working diligently to get him to potty-train, particularly in the number two department. He pees pretty regularly in the toilet, but poops, not so much. She's figured out his routine, though, and she's apparently making him poop before he lays down for a nap. Last night, this really created a big obstacle for us.

Laura's prett much the only one Kian will let put him to bed, if she's around. If it's just me, solo, with the boys, he does pretty well going to bed for me. If Laura's in the house, though, he'll have nothing to do with me. So, last night, she gets him in bed, then takes a break, telling him she has to go take her medicine, and will return when she's done. This is her way of kind of easing him into bed. Upon her return to his bedside, though, he's grunting and groaning and says, "Mommy, I go poop."

To which Laura replies, "Did you already poop?"

"No, I trying."

"Well, come on, let's go poop on the potty!"

So, she gets him up, takes him to his bathroom, and positions him on the throne. During this, I'm getting the boys' laundry going, and straightening up things from our post-dinner shopping trip. I go in to the bathroom to see what's going on, and see Laura sitting on the floor and Kian just kind of piddling around on the toilet. Laura relays that he's trying to poop, and pleads with Kian to hurry up because she's tired and wants to go to bed. I offer some words of encouragement, but it appears to me that he's more interested in playing around, so my mind begins scheming: how can I get Kian off the toilet, get Laura to bed, and de-fuse this situation?

"He's not pooping, just ripping some farts, right?" I think to myself. "Maybe we can trick him into thinking he's pooped...Trick...Trick...Trick or treat! Halloween! There's leftover Halloween candy around here!"

Quickly, I walk over to the kitchen to find the boys' bags of Halloween candy they were allowed to salvage before the balance was set out for the Halloween Fairy. I look in Kian's bag, and find my saving grace - a mini Almond Joy bar.

I rip open the package, re-shape the candy bar to look like a little 2-year-old's turd, then go back over to the bathroom, where Laura's continuing to admonish Kian to poop so they can both get to bed. I walk in, look at her and smile. I then ask Kian, after another fart, "Can Daddy look in the toilet, buddy?"

"Yeah!"

I scoot him forward on the seat a bit, then sneak the candy bar into the toilet, and exclaim, "Oh, look Kian! You did it! You pooped in the potty!" I take him off the toilet, and he looks in, a bit befuddled...clearly he doesn't think he's pooped, but he's having trouble denying the faux-fecal evidence staring back at him from the bottom of the bowl. He finally accepts it and says, "Oh, Mommy, I pooped."

I look over to Laura, probably with an inappropriately-smug grin on my face, only to see her glaring at me in disbelief. Thinking I've been a great dad and husband, and have arrived at an acceptable solution to everyone's problems, I walk out of the bathroom and say, "Almond Joy."

In this Billy Hoyle-esque moment, I think I'm the righter-of-wrongs. I've provided an answer, and should be exalted for my quick resolution to an obviously-challenging situation. Not so much, because I then hear Laura ask, "Kian, do you still have to poop?" The incompletness of his actions are clearly coming back to him at this point, because he answers, "Yes, mommy, I still poop."

Why did I not take to heart the lesson Gloria tried to teach Billy? I should have sympathized with her. Instead of fashioning a fake turd out of a candy bar, I should have sat on the floor with her, and said, "I, too, have felt the frustration of a child keeping me from bed because he insists on pooping. I will sit here with you and extol this poo from our child's behind as a team mate, a partner, and as a father, dear."

Instead, I formed a hand-made child-sized Cleveland Steamer and try to trick my son into thinking he's accomplished something significant, all in the interest of the quick resolution and exhibiting control over the situation.

Well, anyway, Kian eventually gave up, and I got him to sleep by taking him on a car ride with me as I went to put gas in my tank. Lesson learned. Billy Hoyled.

(K)

Remember...

2008-11-04T11:48:00.011-05:00

That is, if you haven't already!

or...if you're in Chicago, go ahead and vote again. And, again. And, maybe a third time, just for good measure. Just be sure to vote the same way each time, or it loses its efficacy.

(K)

Seeing Stars

2008-11-03T21:03:00.003-05:00

While Trick or Treating on Friday evening, Kian looked up and said, "I see a star Mommy." He immediately started singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Melissa said that she thought that was adorable. I agreed and said that each time we see a star, we sing the song and watch for more songs to appear. He and Jack are very much into looking for stars and for the moon.

Again tonight he spotted the moon and stars on the way home from day care and started singing again. Once we were home and settled in, we headed out back and looked at the hundreds of stars in the sky. Kyle tells the boys that some of the brightest stars are planets. I think Jack must have seen 25 planets. We didn't see the star where people go to heaven though. Perhaps we'll get to see it tomorrow night.

until next time.....lc

Misc. Sayings

2008-11-03T20:35:00.002-05:00

The boys continue to entertain us on a daily basis. Here are a few recent exchanges:

We took the boys with us this past Saturday to early vote. Due to long lines, and Jackson's horrible timing, we ended up leaving Kyle with the intentions of picking him up in a couple of hours. While at home, Jack and I had this conversation:

Me: Hey buddy, can you go put your shoes on so we can go get Daddy?
Jack: I don't want to go voting.
Me: You don't have to, but we still need to pick up your Dad.
Jack: I don't want to go.
Me: C'mon Jack, we need to go get him.
Jack: He should have thought about that before and drove his own car.

Kian and I went to McDonald's to grab breakfast on Sunday morning. As I pull up to the window I hear:

Kian: Trick or Trear. Give me candy.
Me: Kian, we don't say that. What do you say?
Kian: Um, give me chocolate?

until next time...lc

C.L.E.A.M., the Re-Mix

2008-11-03T00:27:00.002-05:00

My brother and I went to the Colts game tonight (a WIN, thank you!), and as we were walking back to my car, this dude drops $2 from his pocket or something.

Take 3 guesses as to who swooped in to give those neglected Washingtons a safe, warm, cozy home in his hip pocket.

$47 and counting this year...

(K)

Happy Halloween!!!

2008-10-31T23:16:00.000-04:00

We had a great Halloween. It started out on Thursday evening when we decided to "practice" Trick or Treating. Practice you say? Well, we're working on using manners. And do you really need an excuse to put on costumes and burn off energy? Yeah, I didn't think so. We let the boys go from bedroom to bedroom in our house and the front door was our last stop. Once they gave their formal "Happy Halloween...Trick or Treat" they were allowed to pick on treat. After all, the hands on method is the best, right?

Friday evening we had Ryan, Melissa, Ethan and Dylan over for dinner and then a night out in the neighborhood. Being craft, I decided it wouldn't be the best Halloween ever unless we took it to the next level. Here's a snapshot of our menu.

Thanks to Pillsbury for this great idea. Mummy Hot Dogs...need I say more? They were very yummy!!!!!

Kian didn't fool around. He saw Melissa and I putting plates at the table and he helped himself. I love that we can all fit around the table and enojoy our dinner.

Jack & Dylan

Dylan - I think he was making sure I got all of his Halloween shirt in the shot!

Ethan, what a character!

Kian, not allowing anyone to out-do his silliness.

Don't worry mummy, I'll take it easy on you. - Kian making nice with his food before tearing it apart.

Kyle, what a cutie! His costume this year....Colts fan. Hopefully he and Ryan can cheer a win for the game on Sunday.

Ryan and Miss

Courtesy of Jackson: a shot of Mommy & Miss modeling our Jack 'O Lantern Fruit Cups

Once dinner was gobbled up, we dressed the boys and headed out the door. Kylie, our next door neighbor, joined in on the fun. (L to R: Kylie, Jackson, Kian, Dylan & Ethan)

All of the candy was dumped onto a community pile. Each boy was allowed to have a sandwich bag that he could cram full with whatever he chose. All the leftover candy was set outside for the "Pumpkin Fairy" to pick up and take to children who didn't get a chance to Trick or Treat.

The boys with their acquired stashes.

Since it wasn't too late, they boys played until they couldn't play anymore. Evidently Kian was jealous of all the other boys having masks, so he grabbed Ethans and ran around with it. He loved chasing the older boys!

The night was topped off with a good 'ole fashion sleep over.

We cannot wait until next year to do it all over again.

until next time...lc

He's too scary

2008-10-25T12:00:00.004-04:00

While at the store and wanting to keep the peace - oh, and lessen the load of my purse - I allowed each boy to have 2 turns at the prize-winning contraption (aka Claw Machine). You know, something like this....

I was assisting Jackson with his second failed attempt when Kian took his turn, putting his coin-inserting skills to the test. Once I realized he'd started his side of the game, I ran over and tried to help him get whichever toy seemed possible with only 12 second left on the clock. Much to my surprise, that pesky little claw grabbed ahold of the creature pictured below. Just as we thought it was another failed attempt, the claw somehow looped one of its hooks into the little circle his hand forms, and we'd won. WooHoo! I have never been so lucky as to win something out of one of these machines. I guided Kian to the retrieval door and let him pull out his prize. He was surveying his winnings while Kyle and I stood by, in disbelief. As this was happening, I hear Kian say, "Put him back. He's too scary. I don't like it." Then he shoved Santa Taz back in the door and walked away. He didn't (and still doesn't) want anything to do with this guy. Jack looked over and gave me the "I'll take it" look. Let's just say Jack is quite pleased. Here's the scary guy...

until next time...lc

You can't go wrong with...

2008-10-19T07:49:00.001-04:00

Crockigator. At least that's what Kian calls them. Too cute!

until next time...lc

Pancake Breakfast

2008-10-19T07:30:00.004-04:00

We haven't had a pancake breakfast in quite some time, so in honor of our beloved Indianapolis Colts we had horseshoe-shaped pancakes. Jackson wasn't feeling the best, so he spent the majority of his time coloring in the book Nana P gave him for Halloween versus eating breakfast. He did so at the table, so we were happy with that.

until next time...lc

Unveiling The Fruits of Indiana's Taxpayers' Investments

2008-10-12T08:02:00.011-04:00

Yesterday, the new Indianapolis International Airport terminal hosted a Community Day during which the public was invited to take self-guided tours of the new airport terminal! It was a pretty exciting day, and we all had a great time, thanks to Mommy's planning of the event. A little family tension aside - due, in part, to a certain big brother's decision not to nap earlier in the day - we really enjoyed seeing the results of all the hard work and investment put in to building this new facility. We even got to explore the guts of the baggage-handling area, where your luggage is unloaded from your plane and carted over to the appropriate baggage claim carousel. It was cool as all get out to get to see the inner-workings of the operation! Here's a slideshow of the pictures we took during the tour...

And, here's a video of this art piece (I think that's what it is, anyway) that's hanging between the garage and the entryway to the terminal. We only noticed it on our way out, so we're unsure if we were just in too much of a hurry, going in, to see it, or if it was only activated after we'd finished our tour. Either way, it was pretty neat!

(K)

Pumpkin Patchin'

2008-10-12T01:53:00.009-04:00

Well, we've managed to do it again - our family, along with Ryan, Miss, Ethan, Dylan and Sara - hit Beasley's Orchard last weekend for the opening weekend of their annual Apple Festival. It's a 4-year-strong tradition we've established to get out to the festival, take a hayride out to their pumpkin patch, and pick out our respective families' pumpkins. We also typically take in the orchard's other offerings - apples, popcorn, cider, music, puppet shows and various craft and food stuffs. It's always a blast to get everyone together and take in all the harvest colors and goods! The boys always enjoy themselves, as do we adults. It makes me proud to have gotten this family outing organized, and revisited each year - hopefully we'll keep it running for many more to come.

Here are some pictures we took...thanks, especially, to Sara, who took over photography duties for Laura and I. Sis, you really took some great pictures for me to play with and put up here - THANK YOU!!!!

(K)

C.L.E.A.M. (Cash Lies Everywhere Around Me) Get the Money, Dolla Dolla Bills Ya'll

2008-10-09T23:30:00.006-04:00

For someone with such horrific natural vision (my eyesight is -50000/20, or something), I can spot cash laying on the side of the road as I drive by it...literally.

Wednesday night, we were leaving day care, and as we crossed over an intersection, I spied something green and papery in the corner of the yard out my window to the right. Seconds after getting through the intersection, I told Laura to stop the car, that I'd seen money out on the road. She scoffed at me, but pulled over. I ran over to the spot where I'd seen the money lying, and, sure enough, it was a $5 bill.

Laura asked me how much I'd found this year - I didn't realize it was $45 until she asked about it. She went on to say that I'd better stop finding money on the ground, or I was going to have to start reporting it as taxable income.

(K)

Misc.

2008-10-05T22:13:00.002-04:00

Not sure what to title this one. Kyle and I were discussing last week one day as we were taking the boys to daycare that we only have 2 free weekends until next year. Granted, there's still 3 months left, but we have something going on what seems like all of the time. I think to myself that we are someone insane for rushing around like we do, but when we do have time to sit around and relax, the boys continue at full speed ahead, not allowing us to sit and enjoy some free time. I guess it only makes sense to keep forging ahead.

Take for example the weekend we're coming off of. Friday evening was met with dinner on the run, followed by shopping for some last minute things for our pictures today. Oh, and getting some fall/winter clothes for Jack since it seems like he's growing out of everything we saved from last year. Saturday morning we actually slept in until 715am. What a relief. Good thing, since we had a busy day planned. We went over to watch the Ben Davis Center Grove Freshman football game. Mark emailed me last week and let me know that he and Molly would be coming up to watch Jon play. We had a great time catching up with them even though it felt like it was 2 degrees outside. Shortly after the first quarter ended, we left for Jackson's soccer game. He played better than ever. He improves more and more as the weeks pass, but yesterday's game was case in point. He played great defense and really enjoyed himself. Too bad someone skipped out on snack duty though. Oh well, just after that, we headed over to Cajuns Cafe for a quick bite to eat. Sara met us at Jack soccer game and had lunch with us too. It was great to have some time to spend with her. Once lunch was wrapped up we stopped by Target and then went out to Beasley's Orchard for our annual pumpkin pickin' event with the Campbell's. We met up with Ryan, Melissa and their boys. We had a great time as usual. (We'll get those pictures posted one day, I promise.) After a short nap at home, we went to the grocery store, picked up a pizza for dinner and came home for a camp-in in the living room. The boys watched The Simpson's movie and eventually fell asleep on their air mattress. We all 4 ended up in our bed this morning. Kian and I ran a few errand this morning while Kyle and Jack did the yard work, ate some lunch, grabbed a short nap and then went to Forest Park in Noblesville for our family pictures. We had a rocky start with Jack, but he turned his frown upside down when we told him that we would buy him a new football, give him $5 and let him pick where we ate dinner. Hey, who said bribery doesn't work? He was quite the ham after about 15 minutes and posed like a champion. We look forward to getting the CD back with all of our photos. Angela, our photographer was completely awesome! I'll have to ask her to link her website on here so she can get some more credit. She did a great job catching the boys' expressions and attitudes even though they both seem to want to go in different directions. Oh, and the park we went to (her suggestion) was awesome! They even had a carousel for us to enjoy. What a way to top off our weekend. We ended up driving home around 7pm. Jack fell asleep on the way and went straight to bed. Kian on the other hand continued to be the challenge he always is. We still love him nonetheless.

I haven't mentioned on here before either that I've accepted a PT position at the Clarian West Medical Center in the HR department. I'm going to continue at Simon for a while working PT as well. So long as I wake up and go to the right place on each given day, I'm doing well. It was a difficult decision to leave Simon, but I think it'll pay off as time goes along. I've hesitated saying anything on here mostly because it seems so official when you put it in writing, even though I've been doing it for 3 weeks now.

I have about 200 other thoughts running through my head now, but I know I'm only going to ramble if I continue typing. And Kyle is making some fresh salsa and my eyes are watering from whatever it is he's putting into it. I have to stop or I'll likely be crying here soon. I'll get more family stuff up and pictures posted as soon as time allows.

until next time...lc

Kian's 2nd Birthday Party

2008-10-05T21:40:00.005-04:00

We're a little behind in posting, so there may be more pictures than words for this post. We had Kian's birthday party at our house last weekend. He asked daily leading up to his party, "It my Birthday Party day?" He was a little upset when we told him the Wednesday of that week that it was Kyle's birthday. Oh well, he understand more as he gets older. All he really wanted for his birthday was a cupcake. He was quite pleased when he was rewarded with one. Enjoy the photos. Also, thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed the day with us.

The morning of, we were finishing up the cupcakes. This was a failed attempt on my part to make strawberry icing. Kian did not mind one bit as he rather enjoys licking the beater from the mixer. He was on quite the sugar high all morning. Thank goodness we had lots to do as he ran off the sugar.

Everyone started arriving during his nap time. Here he is with his Uncle Joe getting in a last minute snack.
Lots of presents. He opened the first one and would have been more than happy with stopping there so he could play with it. He finally caught on to the fact that ALL of the presents were for him and he could keep going.

A (not so great) pic with Jack.

And the long awaited cupcake. We forgot to practice blowing out the candle. We talked about darn near everything else that would go on that day, but failed to do this one. Oh well, he still enjoyed the attention. He even sang to himself. How sweet!

Here's a picture of one of the cupcakes. I made strawberry cupcakes with chocolate syrup icing. YUMMY! We all love them. The icing was literaly the icing on the cake, even though it was a cupcake. Super delicious!

until next time...lc

Birthday Buddies

2008-10-05T20:53:00.000-04:00

Kian and his cousin Mel share the same birthday. Jack likes to refer to them as "Birthday Twins". He's starting to become more aware of relationships and tries to apply his knowledge whenever possible.

Kian and Mel will always have a special bond due to this, but I don't think they'll mind. We were off to Mel's party on their actual birthday, but stopped to celebrate our family meal at El Rodeo on the trip down. Oh, and that was only after we went to Jackson's soccer game the morning of. We've been quite busy here lately, cramming everything possible into our schedule. The boys love the hustle and bustle all while Kyle and I lose more and more sleep. Oh well, we will catch up on that sleep one of these days. Until then, we'll just have to learn to live it up!

I just realized that we failed to take a picture of Mel and Kian together. We'll have to put that on the list for next year.

Even though Kian and I are attached most of the time, we don't have many pictures together. Here's a decent one.

Papaw Hop was so nice to sit with Kian as he ate some birthday cake and ice cream. Oh, and he made sure Kian had ever bit of icing possible. This included letting him stick his finger in the cake prior to it being cut. Sorry Mel! I wasn't sure this was the best idea since we had a 2.5 hour drive back home, but he passed out within 5 minutes. Thankfully he slept the entire trip home. Not a fun drive with all of the storms we encountered.

A silly picture of the girls surrounding the cake. (L to R: Katy, Brooklyn, Mel & Sydney)

Jackson and Bo are very good buddies. They grew quite close last summer when Jacob spent the summer with us. It seems as though they always pick up right where they left off. And that usually involves being silly!

Jack grabbed the camera to capture a few pictures as well. Here's one of the birthday girl with her mother, father and cousin Sydney.

We had a great time at your party Mel and look forward to many more.

until next time...lc

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2008-09-24T21:48:00.007-04:00

Another year has passed, however we are so happy to have you as part of our lives. Jackson, Kian and I are extremely lucky that you are such a great husband, daddy and friend. We could not ask for anything more.

I know you are a little sad that it's your birthday....

but we all age as the years pass on. So smile, life is short.

That's more like it.

We cherish each day we have with you and look forward the years to come. Your hugs warm our hearts and keep us safe.

Whatever the occasion, we love to have you by our sides sharing each and every moment with us.

So, here's to many more birthdays to come.

Lots of love,

Laura, Jackson & Kian

2 Happens

2008-09-20T23:50:00.005-04:00

I'm stealing the title of this blog from what's printed on a t-shirt we bought for Kian as one of his second birthday presents. We've developed a bit of a tradition, ordering the boys cutely-sloganed shirts memorializing their birthdays, and Kian's, this year, says "2 Happens."

So, our baby turned 2 today (or, at the time I'm writing this, technically, yesterday). We're learning more and more just what a different - but, of course tremendously special and amazing - person Kian is from his brother. Jack is generally pretty easy-going, follows direction and discipline pretty well. Kian can be a bit more hard-headed and driven about the things he wants to do, even when he fully recognizes mom or dad do not approve. Quite honestly, we sometimes wonder if the boy has a compliant bone in his body. He's also much more of a mama's boy than Jack's proven to be. Kian has to know where Laura is most any moment she's not in his immediate field of vision.

None of these are bad things, at all, simply nuances of his personality we're still learning to manage and understand. He's definitely his own little person, and he's just as thrilling and exciting a person to be around as Jack is. We've been so unbelievably fortunate to parent these amazing, articulate, and intelligent children; and, Kian reinforces those fortunes with every minute he graces us with his presence.

Happy birthday, big boy...your journey's really picking up steam now!

(K)

By the way...

2008-09-14T00:22:00.002-04:00

These two boys groan and talk and shift more in their sleep than anyone I've ever seen!

It's at once funny and disconcerting: what's ripping through those little developing brains of theirs? They frighten me with their astuteness and acumen when they're conscious, I can't fathom what those minds are processing in the subconscious.

The trick is to properly harvest and nurture that power...something, I think, we've got a damned good start doing!

(K)