Happy Birthday Kimmie!

Kimmie turned four years old last week! She's getting so big. For her birthday she wanted a caterpillar cake and a party at the park. Fortunately the weather cooperated so we had a fun night at the park with grandparents, three uncles, and next-door neighbors. Earlier, I took her to the Build-a-Bear factory to make a special stuffed animal for her. She, of course, chose the sparkly pink unicorn. I warned her that we would not be able to get any clothes for it if she chose that one, but she didn't really care. Both she and Emily like it a lot. Our neighbors gave her a soft bride doll, that she absolutely loves and takes with her everywhere. The two girls are allowed one toy to sleep with at night and they have been taking turns with those two things ever since Kimmie's birthday. So, here's pictures:

Dinnertime

The birthday girl

Cute sisters!

Three munchkins, impossible to get all three looking forward at the same time!

The birthday haul. There were stick-on earrings and a cool lollipop and a disney princesses balloon in there too, but it's obvious what the favorites where...

10 things about Kimmie, age 4:

1. Spunky: she knows what she likes and it not afraid to let it be known.

2. Observant: Kimmie is very visual and picks up on the littlest details. Not much escapes her.

3. Frank: she will voice said observations exactly as they appear in her head. If you want an honest opinion, she's the one to ask. If not... well, she might tell you anyway.

4. Friend: she plays so well with both Emily and Calvin. Calvin adores her and it is so fun to listen to the two of them giggling over who knows what. She and Emily will play for hours with their stuffed animals, usually some variation of mommies and babies.

5. Mischevious: Kimmie will dare to do things that the others will not. In some ways she and Calvin are a troublesome pair because Kimmie will think things up and Calvin has no fear in following and taking it a step further. If those two are together and it is quiet, then there is definitely trouble.

6. Sweet: Kimmie loves bedtime stories, songs and hugs. She always wants me to kiss her on the forehead after she gives me a kiss goodnight. And sometimes, she just needs a hug.

7. A flair for fashion: Kimmie always notices what earrings I'm wearing or compliments a dress I'm wearing. She loves skirts and jewelry. She has a definite taste in clothes that I have yet to figure out. She has some pants she wears all the time, and others she refuses to, and I am not sure what the system is. Maybe there isn't one, and it's just little girl capriciousness.

8. Games: She loves games. She loves to play them with you whenever you can. This I am not very good at. Sorry, Kimmie. I will try to be better.

9. Eyes: She gets comments on her sparkling blue eyes wherever she goes. And she has the Butler eyelashes that set them off perfectly. And the dimples. Man, Daddy better be ready when this girl is ready to date!

10. Kimmie is just, Kimmie. There is no one like her in the world. I love her laugh and her spunk and her wrinkled nose expressions that she saves just for me. She is as stubborn as I am which spells trouble sometimes, but I also love that she knows her mind and what she wants. I love you Kimberly Ann!

house update 2

As for the house...
Ceilings are done. John and I finished up the painting of ceilings late one night last week, I don't even remember which night. I just came home with white hair and paint all OVER myself, and aching shoulders and neck. Upstairs bedrooms are painted, except and master and the hallway, which I haven't actually picked up the paint for yet. But the trim is done, thanks to Dad, John and Gary. I am most definitely not a patient person: I did one room's trim and got so frustrated with how slow and tedious it was I had to go do something else--namely sanding down kitchen cabinets. I bought an electric hand sander, and it is SO much better than trying to do it on my own! The cabinets have this old, gummy-feeling finish on the inside that takes forever to get off and gums up the sandpaper, but it went a lot faster with the electric one. So, we have painting and more painting of walls upstairs, fixing of leaky faucets, painting the insides of cabinets, a deep cleaning of the carpets, general cleaning, and then I think we can move in! The rest of the painting downstairs, the outsides of the kitchen cabinets, bathrooms wallpaper removals and other home improvements (like a floor in the family room) will have to come more slowly.
Here's a few pics, although they were just taken with the camera phone so they are kind of fuzzy...

The girls' room, painted green. You can't really see the color, but I love it! At some point here I'm going to paint a pink and white border around the room. Calvin's is the same color, but his will have a blue border, maybe brown too.

Front door and hallway, ceilings are done. The stairs are just to the left of the door, the front room to the right, and the bathroom is that doorway you can see.
Hole in the kitchen ceiling is patched, and painted! 30 year old stove I dream of getting rid of but will have to save my pennies for a new one. That window over the sink is like four feet long, maybe five. I had this idea of doing pendant lighting over it.. would that look weird or get in the way over the sink?

Family room, I think the ceilings look so great! John, you worked so hard and it looks fabulous! Thank you thank you thank you, I love you! BTW, that's the fireplace under all the plastic.

Tag-ged... ABCs

Since this is the first time I've ever been tagged (by my sis) I thought I'd actually do it.

A: Attached or Single: Attached

B: Best Friend: John, followed closely by mom and sisters

C: Cake or Pie: Cake, even if it's just for the frosting. Though cherry pie drenched in vanilla ice cream is pretty darn good too.

D: Day of Choice: the day the house is done and we are moved in. Or Sundays.

E: Essential Items: sleep. Oh, items? Uhhh.. diaper bag, I guess, if I remember it.

F: Favorite Color: plum

G: Gummy Bears or Worms: depends on my mood. I like them both

H: Home Town: Ferndale, WA

I: Indulgences: far too many, too often, of late. dove dark chocolate, blue bunny ice cream

J: January or July: July, definitely. I hate being cold!

K: Kids: Three, though sometimes it seems like more. Emily is 5, Kimmie almost 4, Calvin 20 months.

L: Life is incomplete without: family

M: Marriage Date: Dec. 22, 2001

N: Number of Siblings: 4 — 2 sisters, 2 brothers

O: Oranges or Apples: apples, honeycrisp or pink lady. good oranges are just too rare.

P: Phobias: housefires, any kind of major disaster

Q: Quote: The one about how life is supposed to be full of joy by Pres. Hinckley.. I'm too tired to look it up at the moment.

R: Reasons to smile: three little monkeys, Calvin's cute voice saying "nee-nock" (his word for donkey) or "kiss, Kimmie? Kiss, Em-lee?" at bedtime. John trying to be funny, spring flowers, the pretty green paint in the kids' new rooms. The fact that my own home is about a week or so away.

S: Season: spring in Kentucky, I miss all those gorgeous blossoms, especially the weeping cherry trees, and my tulips! It was even worth all the allergy problems!

T: Tag: Brianne, Amber, Wendy, Lisa... if you want to.

U: Unknown fact about me: I don't like pudding. Or Jello, or yogurt.. or anything of that particular consistency. Are you supposed to drink it or eat it?

V: Vegetarian or Meat Eater: Balance, mostly. I suppose I should be eating more veggies.

W: Worst Habit: Procrastinating everything I don't want to do but need to.

X: X-rays: umm... what? Maybe when I broke my arm as a kid, maybe lungs since then. I dunno.

Y: Yummy favorite food: Yeah, that would be pizza. I made this delish pesto pizza with lemon chicken and mozz. cheese and fresh tomatoes. Better than papa johns, except it takes two hours for me to make and 15 minutes for them...

Z: Zodiac sign: Leo, though what that's supposed to signify, I have no idea.

photos!

My friend Meredith took some pictures of the kids while we were in Washington, and I wanted to post a few of them. I think they are so cute! But then, I am sort of biased...

Washington

The kids and I went to Washington for a week and a half to see my parents. It was a great trip, I very much enjoyed it. It is also good to be home with my hubby again. I think he missed us. :) Emily came running to him when she saw him in the airport and I swear I saw tears in his eyes. Kimmie broke into the biggest grin ever when she saw him, and even Calvin dropped everything and started yelling, "Daddy, dada-dada-daddy!!" and gave him a huge hug. So did I, by the way.

Anyway, I did enjoy seeing my parents and the ocean and believe it or not, the rain (which there was plenty of, and snow too!). In this case pictures definitely speak louder than words, so... here's a bunch.

Dancing with grandma

Participating in the little girls class--for a little while anyway

A video of dancing with Grandma. They loved the one on one time, but the whole class together was a little more than they could handle. I don't think they are used to that much chaos... 8 4-5 year olds in tap shoes on a wood floor. Though it actually went really well. I am a little worried about Em in kindergarten, she doesn't like loud noise at all. I guess we'll see.

At the ocean: Grandma, Kimmie and Grandpa

Calvin found a shell!

Me and the kids (it was windy, bright, and a little cold)

Calvin and I playing in the water

Kimmie was having fun digging her shoes into the mud

Grandpa and Emily watching a flock of birds on the water

Calvin had fun just tromping around on the wet sand. He looked like a little old man out on a walk. :)

Emily stayed pretty close to Grandpa the whole time. She wasn't feeling good and Grandpa was only too glad to hold her. Thanks for taking some time off to come with us, Dad!

Much to Mom's chagrin, we had a little get-together (NOT a party) to celebrate her birthday. Doesn't she look thrilled to be the center of attention? ;) Love ya Mom. The black forest cheesecake was yummy, too.

Can you hear Calvin saying, "See Coby doggie?" Grandpa earned Calvin's affection by being willing to take Calvin to see the dog whenever he asked. It worked so well that at the airport Calvin went to Grandpa and waved good-bye to me!!

Kimmie plays hide and seek

Calvin, Em and Grandpa watching the dog. You can just see the top of Coby's head at the bottom of the window. He loved watching the dog, but refused to go within three feet of him, even through the window. He prefers to love dogs from afar. He got jumped on and licked once by a dog, and that ended that.

This one is after we got home. I thought it was funny because this is where Calvin settled himself in after I told him it was time for bed.

Sidenote: I saw this blog background and thought it was perfect. I have three little monkeys who love to jump on beds, the youngest of which is the biggest monkey of all! Fitting that it's also his favorite animal.

house update

So here's the progress on the house:

John and I are both frustrated with how slow it is going, but John really is putting a lot of time in and working hard, with the Butler work crew pitching in when they can (thanks a billion guys!!). It's just slow-going right now. So far, he's ripped out the nasty calcified-pet-urine-stained subflooring in the family room and replaced it with new plywood (just a couple of large spots, not the whole floor), sealed it with primer, and painted it quite a few times. They've scraped all the old popcorn off of the ceiling, patched it in places upstairs, and as of this weekend have sprayed the new texture on the upstairs. There's a couple spots to go over again, but over all I am thrilled with it. It looks so so SO much better!! Next up, the downstairs. And then the painting begins.

I believe I have decided to paint the kitchen cabinets white. I just think they will look a lot better. I am going to try to go for a french countryside effect, or at least that's what I call it in my head. A sophisticated cottage style, with white beadboard-ish cabinets, bronze or wrought-iron hardware, and hopefully someday a dark wood floor. With plum and sage accents and beige walls. Hopefully some darker brown accents in a backsplash as well, if I can figure that out. Anyway, that's the idea right now. I am a bit worried about having white cabinets and a white countertop (though the counter has a wood border to separate it a bit) since we're not going to be replacing it for a while, but hopefully it will look all right it the meantime. Someday I'm hoping it will be a light brown marble look. We'll see.

So... pictures!

Before picture: Nasty floor

Middle picture: hole in the floor

After picture: painted floor (we haven't decided what to put there yet)

Before picture: scraping the popcorn (go Richard!)

Evil popcorn, say goodbye!

Middle picture: the drywall exposed

Middle picture dos: spraying the texture (go John!!)

After picture (sort of, it's not painted yet): the finished texture--you can sort of see it...

Tulips!! I'm so excited to have tulips! John says there's a lilac too...

One of my favorite parts of the yard: the giant willow tree in the back corner (if you can see the red shed in the background, that is the yard of the big noisy evil dogs--one's a doberman. We will be putting in a higher fence.)

In like a lamb...

I can't believe it's March. No, I'll rephrase that: I can't believe it's March and we are still not moved into a house of our own. What the heck were we thinking in buying a house that we'd have to spend a month+ fixing up?!? Oh yeah, we got a good deal... d: Meanwhile, John is trying to spend evenings over at the house ripping out disgusting subflooring and putting in new stuff, continuing the popcorn battle, and hopefully having the family room ready to move all our stuff out of storage and into that room on Saturday (yeah, that's the one that currently has holes in the floor and views down to the basement). I'd like to be up helping, but hauling three kids up there just incapacitates someone so they are watched over, so I may as well stay home with them. Meanwhile, Calvin has a cold that developed into croup and after a couple of days nervously watching him I took him into the doctor and got some meds. He's breathing much better, though still has a cold, which I have now caught. Probably because he hasn't let me out of his sight for a week. Meanwhile, we're enjoying 75 degree weather and the kids spent all day yesterday outside... hallelujah. Weird to be worried about sunburns in March.

Here are some random pics of the kids, just for kicks:

The girls at the lake in Feb.

This one really was taken in January, we've had a weird winter.

new old home

We finally closed on our house!! Yay, hooray, and all that stuff! It as a very long, very weird closing with a mountain of paperwork, a selling agent who was a no-show, and walking out at the end without the keys... but we did get them eventually. So we own a home. Today John is spending the day ripping out carpet, spraying stuff to kill pet urine odor (yuck), and getting started on taking off the popcorn ceilings that are all through the house. Fun, fun. Hopefully in two or three weeks we can get it to where we can move in.

Here's the pictures, finally...

Here's the front of the house, up close. The bushes are majorly overgrown, but the yard will probably have to wait until spring to get fixed up... I really like the brick on the house, and the large porch. The two upstairs windows you see will be the kids' rooms.

Here's the family room, this is the nasty smelling room--it's carpet will be the first thing to go. We'll also be taking out the weird half walls. The picture is being taken from the eat-in kitchen area.

And the kitchen... I have big dreams for this area that involve ripping out cheapo old wood cabinets and redoing the whole thing, but we'll have to see how feasible that will be. The fake wood floor will also be coming out at some point--anybody have input as far as tile vs. laminate flooring?
Ok, that's all. Au revoir.

ps..

John just told me that the real estate agent called and we are not closing on our house now until next Friday. The reason? Who knows. I'm ready to just walk away, this is getting ridiculous.

talkin' the talk...

So what's the point of a blog if you can't brag about your kids a little? Since this is kind of a family journal I'll justify it by saying I'm documenting Calvin's growth and progress. I wanted to post a picture of him but it's not letting me, so we'll have to be pictureless. Calvin will be going into nursery beginning next month and I can't believe that he's already a year and a half. I know John is probably thinking, "Finally!" since he is the one who has to entertain him all during church while I'm playing piano. To me, it's gone fast. He's so big already, at least tall.. though I don't know how he is in the percentiles since we haven't been to the dr. in a long time. He's losing his baby fat, darn it, the thunder thighs are slimming down, but he still has the adorable cheeks that jiggle when he runs. Which he does a lot. He has this funny little jumping run so he moves almost as much vertically as he does horizontally. He is a good jumper too, and clears two inches off the floor. I don't think my girls cleared the floor at all until after they were two. Maybe later. I wondered, with Calvin being male, if he would not be as verbally strong as the girls were. I don't think he was talking quite as soon as they were, but the past couple months he has really taken off. He has been learning new words every day and can verbally communicate what he wants now, in so many words. Just now he came up to me and said "where's gon-kie?" (donkey), I stood up and he ran back to the bedroom, making sure I followed, and pointed into his crib, where he had dropped it into. I got it out for him and he took it, saying "Gake-oo!!" (thank you) and took off running. At dinner he asks for a spoon "poon!" and bowl "Boh!" and "wah-tee" (water). He's learned "no!" and "ess!" (yes) and "book" and "sooz" (shoes) and "beh-kess" (breakfast--blasted kid wakes up every morning at 6am ready to eat); and surprises us sometimes by saying new words spontaneously like "stop!" and "Let go!" and "my hair?" (actually pointed to his hair and wanted a hair clip in it like the girls...) He will repeat every word you give him, especially animal names (even attempts "elephant" though it kind of comes out in a jumble), of which his favorite (and mine) is "mon-key!" "Mah-mah" is grandma and pa-pa is grandpa and Mommy and Daddy he has down pretty good. Kimmie is "Mimmie" and Emily is "Eh-lee" (he really does the L sound!) and uncle Richard is "Rich-ee" and we can't for the live of us get him to say uncle Gary's name. Not sure why. He answers my questions, usually with an "mm-mmm" (foreshadowing of things to come I'm sure), though if the answer is yes he will usually repeat the last word or two of my question.
He loves to play chase with the girls, and today the three of them were wrestling on the floor and giggling hysterically. It was really cute to watch. Then for a minute or so he was just standing there watching the girls run, and I was watching him and then he turned those big brown eyes on me and gave me his most impish grin, and my heart was just full. Do you ever get those moments where you are watching your kids and you see for am instant into their souls? And you think, "they are so beautiful, how can I possibly be the parent that they deserve?" Do you ever think of the path of life that is stretched before them, of the pain and sorrow that is just inherent in growing up and a part of life, and want to wrap them up in your arms and never let go? Do you ever think, "what would I give to keep them from hurting, to save them from all the things that are out there waiting to destroy the precious light they hold?" And then, is it any wonder that the great plan of happiness' central feature is the family, is the potential for each of us to become a parent, that we may come a little closer to understanding the love of a Savior who gave Himself for us? Could God possibly love me even more than I love these little people that have been placed in my care? Somehow, in some incomprehensible way, the answer is Yes.

miscellaneous

So I've been thinking of many things lately, most of them stemming from frustrations with my female brain, and female hormones. I'm noticing a trend where one half of the month I'm miserable and crabby, and the other half I bounce back a lot better and am happier. I hate it. You'd think that once you know why your cranky it would be easier to just ignore it, but no. At least for me, it is not so easy. How do you just turn off your emotions?

The other thing that bugs me is my female mind, that just can't turn off that comparison litany that keeps going and going in my head. Why are we, as females (hopefully it's not just me) so darn quick to see where we are falling short and compare ourselves with others' strengths? This has been difficult for me lately living with my mother-in-law who's very very good at getting a lot done in a short amount of time. This is not a strength for me. I also compare myself with others who are good at home-decorating, gardening, deep thinking, and several other things. I know I am good at some things, and yet, somehow my mind drives me to conclude that I'm not good enough. I notice this trend more also during one half of the month. Blargh.

One thing I am learning is good to combat all this? Gratitude. I have a great many blessings, and would be a lot happier if I spent more time remembering them. I will work on that. I will think of something right now that I'm grateful for...

My kids. I am grateful for three bright spots in my life named Em, Kimmie and Calvin. As much as I get tired of cleaning up their messing and dealing with whining and constant demands, they give my life purpose and meaning. They make me laugh and make me see the joy in life. I love watching them learn new things, laugh together, chase each other through the house, and how they love me even when I'm not holding it together completely. They bring light to my life.

Also, what is a post without a picture? So I will post this pic that I stole from my sister-in-law's blog. The whole Butler clan, together at last at Christmas. If you can't tell from the kids' expressions, it was a bit cold...

update, if you can call it that

Well, the one bit of paperwork finally came through, so we got the inspection and appraisal done, and now we have another bit of paperwork we are waiting on. I'm developing a distinct dislike for Fannie Mae. So... we've made progress, but not much. Still waiting. Hopefully next week, but we've heard that one before. Other than colds and other such nonsense, we don't have much to contribute to the blogosphere.

Oh, here's a couple pictures, for grandparents' sake, of the kitchen they got our kids for Christmas without actually seeing. It's a big success!

My sympathies for friends in Kentucky dealing with nasty ice storms. My congrats to beloved cousins who just gave birth to twins!! And happy February to all as we strive to remain sane during the winter doldrums.