Pictures of Rob and Laney

I love that you can see our wedding picture, now over fourteen years old, in the background. I wouldn't trade the last fourteen years for the world :)

Kiddos' Photo Shoot

While Becca and Kate were here we made sure to take advantage of it and take some family pictures (which Becca requested - awesome idea, Becca!). Kate has a wonderful camera and is a great photographer (thank you Kate!). We set up the area around our fireplace (well, Rob did most of it; he's awesome that way) and dressed the kids up in their Christmas outfits. It took quite a bit of finagling and alternating who was doing photos at what time as Eva was fussy through most of it. I think the highlight was when Jack and Kylie were wrestling and Jack slammed his face into the rug hard enough to get a bloody nose. At least we picked red for the outfits ;) He was fine by the way. It just took a bit to get the bleeding stopped. Plus, it was towards the end of the photo shoot, so the bruises didn't show up until after we were done taking pictures of him. I thought that was very considerate :)

Anyway, as usual we ended up with a few wonderful pictures and a bunch of photos that would have been wonderful if one or two people hadn't been making weird faces. Here are a few of the top ones of all the kiddos ~

And finally, the one we like the best ~

Kisses for Eva ~

Our three oldest girls ~

And our requisite silly picture ~

Grandma K's Cinnamon Rolls

Rob has always raved about his grandmother's cinnamon rolls. For years, she was a cook in a school cafeteria (back when school's had "real" food in cafeterias) and was an amazing cook. Every time we visited them, I meant to get her recipe, but never got around to it. We just got a package from Rob's parents, which included a recipe book from the assisted living facility his grandparents lived in for the last few years of their lives. It contained several of Grandma K's recipes, including her cinnamon rolls! Thank you Mom K!!! Below is the famous cinnamon roll recipe, now immortalized on our blog :)

1 pkg yeast
4 - 4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup melted shortening
3 eggs, well beaten
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup scaled milk
1/4 cup sugar

Soften yeast in lukewarm milk. Add salt, shortening, sugar, and egg. Add half of the flour and beat at medium speed until smooth. Add remaining flour until elastic. Place in greased bowl. Let rise until double. Work down. Let rise a second time. Roll into a rectangle and spread with butter. Sprinkle with sugar, roll, cut, and place on a greased baking sheet. Let rise. Bake at 375 degrees 15-20 mins.

2011 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas!

We’re changing things up this year and instead of writing our usual novel detailing everything that happened to us throughout the year, we’re focusing on individuals. If you want details on specific happenings as well pictures to go along with the stories, check out our blog (address at the bottom of this letter).

Eva (1) has grown so much over the past year! Last year at this time she was barely into newborn clothing (having worn preemie clothes for several weeks first). She is now about 22 pounds and is walking everywhere and climbing on everything. She brings so much joy to our lives and we can’t imagine life without her! Despite being our fifth child and fourth daughter, she will definitely never be overlooked! She is very vocal about what she wants and it’s very important to her to be included in whatever her brother and sisters are doing. In many ways, she is extremely independent (for example, she usually won’t let anyone feed her; she has to feed herself), but is also quite the Momma’s girl and Daddy’s girl. She babbles all the time and says Momma and Da and bye-bye. She has not only made up for being born so early, but is actually ahead of where she’s supposed to be in most areas. Her favorite food is cuties (the little oranges) and she will eat half a dozen a day if we let her.

Jack (4) stays at home with Laney and Eva. He has gotten very interested in superheroes this year and loves dressing up. Everywhere we go, he makes people smile with the outfits he wears. His favorite superhero is Captain America and for months he has been carrying the lid to a food storage container around with him, using it as a shield. He finally got a “real” Captain America shield for Christmas and has barely put it down since opening it. He loves being the oldest child at home and is a whiz at the computer (thank heavens for child-safe browsers!). He seems to have more energy than the rest of us combined and keeps us laughing with the things he does and says. His current favorite phrase is “oh crabcakes!” He is signed up to start soccer this spring and is very excited about it.  

Beth (5,almost 6) started kindergarten this past September. She loves being in school and is doing very well. She decided at the beginning of the school year that she was only interested in wearing dresses to school and has stuck to that. She’s only worn pants once, on Polar Express day, because she wore pajamas. She’s learning to read and loves writing letters to her parents and siblings. She took ballet this past fall and really enjoyed it. She has decided to take art classes this spring. She remains obsessed with all things Dora and Hello Kitty. She and Megan have decided they are twins. Eva recently moved into Beth’s bedroom, which Beth happily offered to share with her. Beth does an amazing job at helping with Eva and even sings to Eva (while still asleep) when Eva cries in the middle of the night.

Kylie (7) is in second grade this year. She started soccer this past spring and was quickly promoted to goalie, a position she played all spring and again all fall. She is fantastic at playing goalie and at every game we hear comments (often from the other team’s parents) about how good she is. She loves soccer and is signed up to play again this spring. Her other favorite thing to do is play on the computer and she is better at computer games than anyone else in the family. She is doing very well in school and has straight A’s. She is a bit of a tomboy and loves playing with Jack. She also loves helping take care of Eva and has earned the title “baby whisperer” due to her ability to get Eva to sleep. This year Kylie seems to have become even more confident in herself; she is more extroverted and brings a lot of laughter into our home.

Megan (9) is in fourth grade this year. She has developed into quite the artist! She took an art class this past spring and produced some amazing works of art. She is also interested in sewing and has made herself pajama pants. She’s signed up to take a drama class this spring and will be performing in Peter Pan, which she is very excited about. She and Kylie have decided they are going to buy a farm together when they grow up and Megan spends quite a bit of time detailing their plans. She has a “farm file” with pictures of the house/barn they are going to build and pictures of each animal (which she has already named). She is learning to knit and wove potholders for everyone for Christmas. She is a voracious reader and always has her nose in a book. She never stops asking questions and we are often stumped by the questions she comes up with; thank goodness for the internet!

Laney is still in school and somehow maintaining her 4.0 GPA! She is also now volunteering once a month with a program called the New Life Opportunity/Prostitute Diversion Initiative as an advocate for prostitutes rounded up by the Dallas PD. The program is amazing and helps to provide a way out for individuals who usually have no other options. She is also working with another group associated with the NLO/PDI program that specifically addresses the transgendered individuals in the program. She completed the first of two residencies in her master’s program this past May and will be attending her second this coming June. She only has five classes left before she starts her internships, although she has added two minors to her degree plan (addictive behaviors and mental health counseling), which add an additional five classes. We’re deciding if she’s going to start her internships this coming fall or the next fall. She continues to love being a mom and is doing an amazing job balancing being a mom and wife, school, and volunteer work. She also works with the younger group of activity day girls (ages 8-9) at our church, holding activities twice a month at our home.

Rob just got a new job at Fidelity that we are quite excited about! He’s moving from working with 401k’s to mutual funds and will be working behind the scenes helping to develop new ways of doing things. This new job is absolutely perfect for him! He won’t even have to travel, which we are very thankful for. He is now working with the missionaries at church and loves being involved in missionary work again. He got the opportunity this year to be more involved in taking care of the kids than he has before, as he watches them while Laney is volunteering and doing school related things. He is an amazing father and does an incredible job! He did muay thai for several months at the beginning of the year, but due to time constraints, has taken a bit of a break. He plans to start boxing again soon.

If you’d like to follow our activities more closely, Laney maintains a fairly regular blog. You can read it at http://laneyandrob.blogspot.com/

We hope this letter finds you well and that you had a wonderful holiday season!

Love,

Rob, Laney, Megan, Kylie, Beth, Jack and Eva

I'm Still Laughing

Our doorbell rang this afternoon. I opened it to find Ashley and Caitlin standing on our doorstep with Betsy waving from her car. They were delivering our Christmas present - a waffle maker.

When we got married over fourteen years ago, someone gave us a waffle maker. I loved it, but Rob thought it was too little (it was a small one). He said that we should trade it in for a bigger one. Well, we traded it in, but they didn't have any bigger ones, so we got something else. When we discovered that they didn't have any bigger ones in stock, I decided we should keep it until we found a bigger one to buy. Rob vetoed that and promised he would buy me a bigger waffle maker. He still hasn't bought me one . . . Every time Rob suggests that we get rid of something I use, all I have to do is bring up the waffle maker and we laugh and decide to keep the item until we can replace it.

Well, we now finally have a waffle maker again :) I can't believe Betsy remembered that story and got us one! I can't wait to see Rob's face when he gets home and sees the waffle maker on our dining room table :)

A Few More Christmas Moments

The past two weeks have been so full of fun things that I forgot to include a few of them in my other posts. I was afraid this Christmas would be really hard, but it was filled with wonderful moments. Beth had her last ballet class the Monday before Christmas. We got a huge rainstorm that day that hit just as we were driving her to class. You know it's a Texas rainstorm when it's raining so hard that there is standing water on the top of the hill :) It let up just as we headed home and we spotted a beautiful double rainbow!

 

I have never seen a rainbow at sunset before, but here's the view out the other side of our car ~

I also forgot to include my afternoon with Allison. The Tuesday after Christmas, Kate and Becca watched the kids so I could spend some time with Allison, who was visiting for Christmas. We started off by stopping off at Pei Wei for lunch. The restaurant was packed, so we decided to get our orders to go. I think they forgot to place our order as it took a while for it to come up. We didn't mind and enjoyed talking to each other. Because it took so long, they gave us both gift cards :)

We took our food out to a hill by some townhouses. The temperatures were in the 60's and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. We sat and ate and talked for about an hour. It was the perfect afternoon - until Allison noticed a spider on my leg. I looked down and discovered it was a black widow. Fun! Allison knocked it off with her shoe and squashed it as I jumped away. We decided it was time to leave. And for some reason, I decided not to take the kids there for a picnic another day as I had been planning to do. Pedicures were the next stop and this time both of us opted to get ones that included hot stone massages and reflexology. It was wonderful!

Post Christmas Activities

I forgot to include a picture of my favorite present from Rob on the last post. He surprised me by getting me a beautiful set of earrings and a matching necklace with my birthstone :)

Rob had Monday off work and we had planned for him and Becca to go to the shooting range as Becca and I got the two of them an all expense trip to a shooting range near our house for Christmas. Becca woke up feeling under the weather though, so we decided to change the schedule around. Kate and Becca had offered to watch the kids one night that week so that Rob and I could go on a date (and they could spend time with the kids), so we thought about going out Monday night. At that point Kate told us we had one more Christmas present to open. She handed me a piece of paper. When I unfolded it, I found a picture of a hotel room with a huge jacuzzi in it and a note saying that hotel room was booked for us for Friday night! We were blown away!

Needless to say, Rob and I decided to wait for our date night. Kate and I went out instead. We went to Sam Moon, a Chinese import store that sells all sorts of accessories. I bought a new purse and Kate found some items she'd been looking for. I also found Becca a watch that looked just like one she found at the mall the week before at a high end store, but was considerably cheaper. We had dinner at Chef Pointe Cafe, a five star restaurant located inside a gas station that has been featured on food network. We hit several other stores afterwards. One of the items I found was a kit to build a huge cardboard rocketship that could be colored on. We set that up as soon as we got home. All five kids can fit in it at once and they had a blast!

Tuesday Becca was really sick, so we stayed home. Wednesday Kate was sick too, but it didn't hit her as hard as it hit Becca, so after sleeping all day, she felt much better. Becca was feeling better as well, so the three of us went out to dinner at BJ's Restaurant, then grocery shopping. Thursday we finally got around to making Christmas cookies. This year we decided to do something different and attempted to make "melted snowman cookies" (idea found here ~ http://www.crazydomestic.com/2010/12/melted-snowman-cookies.html). Ours didn't turn out quite as perfectly as the ones on the cooking blog I found them on, but they were pretty cute! We ended up making 8 dozen of them. They were fun to make, but I don't think we'll make them to hand out again. They are too much work! The kids helped frost them and put the marshmallow head and m&m buttons on and Becca and I drew on the arms and other decorations. By the time you draw four dozen sets of arms, the snowmen don't seem quite as cute. Maybe we'll let each child make one for themselves every year.

We made peanut butter fudge as well and tried making homemade caramels. The caramels didn't quite work out. They never got hard enough to cut; every time I tried, they would seal back up again before I was done, even when we froze them. They also stuck to the wax paper to an extent that I would have had to pull them off one at a time, then reshape them. Oh well :) We handed out our cookies and fudge without the caramels.

Kate and Becca headed off to the stockyards on Friday morning, but were back by the time Rob got off work around 1pm. Rob, Megan, Beth, Eva and I delivered cookies that afternoon, picking up BBQ for dinner on the way home. When we got home we checked the status of Kiki's flight (we were picking her up at the airport on our way to dinner as she lent us her car for the week so Becca and Kate could use it) and discovered that her plane was coming in 30 minutes early. Rob and I quickly finished packing for the night, kissed the kids good-bye and headed off!

We had dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, one of our favorite places to eat, then headed off to the hotel. The traffic was horrible and it added almost an extra hour to our trip. It didn't matter though as we didn't have to rush home and get a babysitter home or get the kids to bed or anything else. We had a wonderful time talking :) We stopped at Braums and picked up ice cream just before getting to the hotel. The next morning we slept in, then went shopping and picked up lunch on the way home. We had a wonderful getaway; it was one of the best times we've ever had! Thank you so much Kate for the hotel room and both Becca and Kate for doing such a great job watching the kids!

We had my grandfather's fettuccine alfredo for dinner on New Year's Eve, then snacked on smoked salmon with cream cheese and crackers, cherries and strawberries, Danish butter cookies, and Brazilian wafer cookies. The kids watched Enchanted and the adults played a game together. We got to skype with Nona and Papa for a while as well.

Today, Rob, Becca, and the four older kids went to church. Eva has a fever (we think from teething), so she and I are home. I drove Kate to the airport this morning. We're having finger foods like shrimp cocktail, guacamole and chips, a fresh fruit tray, fresh vegetables, and more smoked salmon for lunch/dinner.