I'm jerked awake last night. Gunshots. The fog is so heavy. 4am. There it is again, gunshots. No. An intruder. An intruder shooting, no slapping my husband. Over and over. The fog is slowly peeling back. It's not an intruder. It is my husband. Clapping his hands. Slapping himself. Growling. The pitch black room is suddenly plunged into a bright white. I'm blinded. I slowly focus on the deranged, demented man standing over me. A wild, enraged look in my husbands eye. "Mosquitoes!" he hisses.

Why don't Europeans use screens in the windows?

An Experiment....

I have taken some video clips with my digital camera and unfortunately it doesn't have sound but you can see the kids in action. I'm experimenting with YouTube to put these on the blog because the size of the clips are too large to email. So here goes.....

Fun at the Park

We found a new park. It was on a side of town that we had not yet ventured into. Only a 5 minute walk. The weather was awesome, the kids were well behaved, Kelley had the day off. Everything was perfect!

This swing was so much fun. Notice how much fun Kori is having........

I was pushing too high and she wanted OFF!
I was able to talk her into getting back on with me though.

K.J.'s got ups!

Where is Kruz you ask? He fell asleep in the stroller literally within the first 30 seconds of walking through the gates of the park. He slept for the first hour but don't worry, he still managed to get in some play time. Tell me he's not the cutest thing in the world......

He can say "Ball" now. Go figure. When I tell him to say "Mama" you know what he says? "Dada!" No hesitation. Turkey.

He also has a fascination with Daddy's cell phone. Must be the cool ring tones.

Creepy Crawly Part 2

I received a couple funny responses to my Creepy Crawly post so I thought I'd add an additional story about 'creepy crawly' stuff. My friend Amy told me that a few months after her new house was built they found "...thousands of those creepy spiders in my basement." She said that she almost burned her new house down just to get rid of them. If you know Amy then it's not hard to imagine Kass and Steve running around hiding all the matches and lighters. Hey Kass, when Amy brings you out to swim this summer we can scare her with what Kelley and I found in our basement shortly after we moved in. She'd surely have succeeded in burning the house down if she found this:The picture above isn't actually the one we found as I didn't think to take a picture of it but we found a creepy snake's skin in our furnace room. A few minutes later, as Kelley is studying the cords and wires on the wall, I took a yard stick and ran it up the inside of his leg. (He was wearing shorts.) I still don't know how I escaped that room without a broken nose. His reaction reminds me of the America's Funniest Home Video below.

........Uh Mom, I'm stuck!

There's about 6 inches between the refrigerator and the cupboard. He went in wanting to play with the cord from the microwave.....

When I called his name he tried to look at me and then realized he couldn't turn his head.

He was stuck. And not happy about it.

Woe is me......

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Sunny

High 79°F Precip 20%

When the days are looking this beautiful, school is such a drag.....

Sir Mount Kruz

Kori uses a chair at the bathroom sink each night to brush her teeth. If you can get past all the clutter you'll notice a baby in the sink. He is the eternal climber.

Creepy Crawly's

This is a wolf spider. They are creepy, crawly, nasty, gross, little pests and they are extremely fast! We had them all over the new house when we moved in and tons of them in the skimmer baskets of the pool. We thought we left them behind - not so. The other night as the kids were going up the stairs to bed Kyran screams at Kori to get up the steps. This little guy was on the wall up by the ceiling. Kori panicked and wouldn't calm down. She was so hysterical I told her if she didn't stop screaming I was going to throw it on her! ha! I've never heard the child so silent. Anyway, we've seen 2 more since then and Kyran won't sleep in the attic anymore. It's funny to think how terrified we are of something that we are so much larger than. Creepy.

Happy, Happy Birthday Baby!

Somebody turned ONE today!!

Hey! Where's my birthday cake?!

Sneaking some frosting! YUMMY!

We bought a Betty Crocker Chocolate cake mix from the American Store for Kruz's birthday. The mix calls for 3 eggs, 1 and a third cup of water and a stick of butter. Simple right? Wrong. The eggs are easy, the water - easy, I have my own teaspoon and measuring cup set. The problem is the butter. Europeans use the metric system. You know - grams, kilo's, liters, etc. No sticks of butter here. They sell butter by the block. Usually 500 grams. Kelley and I spent an extraordinary amount of time taking a block of butter and measuring out as close to 113.398 grams as possible. Then, of course, it had to be softened so into the microwave it went. And stayed. Until well after the cake was cooled, frosted and decorated. And I spent all that extra money buying a mix from the American store. Grrr!

Kelley says to not worry about it but I say the kitchen is one of the areas I can pride myself in. He said to compare it to him missing a free throw. I say "UNACCEPTABLE!" I hate when he misses free throws! No excuse! Not for missing a free throw and not for forgetting the butter!

Darn Butter!

Cheers to another great year!

HAPPY 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY, BABE!

New Shoes

This post is dedicated to my sister in law, Trina. I remember her laughing once, uncontrollably, at a pair of shoes I was wearing. Shoes that I adored and cherished and wore as often as I could. They were these dark brown leather clogs with a light brown leather flower etched over the toe. They were so cute - I don't care what Trina thought - they were adorable. Well, Trina, I bought a new pair of shoes and I know you're going to love them too. If we wore the same size I'd let you borrow them.

*Update: Kelley is mortified by the thought of me wearing these.

After the years of torture because of having my birthday on April Fools Day I decided to turn the tables. If you noticed my post on April 1st you saw our "Latest News". Well here's my post to let everyone know it was a JOKE. We ARE NOT pregnant. And for those of you who don't believe me because of the convincing picture I posted along with our 'news' - here's a REAL picture of our negative test. Proof is behind the test - Kelley's picture in the local paper from Saturday's game.


Love you all and we're sorry for the range of emotions we caused you all to have. :) It's nice to know you're still reading our blog!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday for my birthday, Kelley took me to the 'American Store' and let me pick out all my favorite things from home that you can't get here in Belgium. Granted, the American Store carries it but everything there is SUPER expensive. Combo's and Dr. Pepper - man, it doesn't get any better than that! The only thing missing from the picture is 2 packs of Skittles and a box of Cracker Jacks. They didn't even last the car ride home!

We also got word that the furniture Kelley bought me was delivered yesterday. On my birthday! Yay! ......wish I were home to enjoy it!!

My third and favorite gift was from my younger sister Megan. She wrote a very sweet post on her blog to me. You can read it here: http://theadventuresoflukeandmegan.blogspot.com/2007/04/april-fools.html

Oh and these....I bought them for myself on ebay. I LOVE ebay!

Our Latest News

It's been a year since Kruz was born but still no Aunt Flo so I thought it'd be prudent to just make sure.....ooops!

This is how we're telling people. I'm testing the power of the blog (and the grapevine) to see who actually reads this thing and keeps up with us.