Six Flags

For our 7th Anniversary, we postponed our celebrating to make a trip to Six Flags. 3 other families were going and we were offered free tickets for Lamar and I--thanks Tina & Missy! I had not been since college and the girls had never been. I knew it wouldn't be like Disneyland, but we still had a blast! Waiting for the Spelunker Cave (not sure if that's the real name or not)

Joe, Emme, Karsyn & Landrie on the kid roller coaster. Landrie was nervous (no surprise), but ended up really enjoying it.

Campbell and Karsyn on the Spinning Cups. It is still one of Karsyn's favorites after Disneyland.

Missy and the girls on the trucks.

The girls also did the snow hill while Lamar and I went on the Superman Tower of Power. That was a crazy ride - freefalling over and over again. After a few more kiddie rides, I went on the Titan before we went home. That was definitely the best roller coaster I've ever ridden.

It was a great family fun day! We celebrated our anniversary the next 3 days while Gigi and Grandpa kept the girls! Thanks for giving us a break!!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was even more fun than last year! Santa left footprints with baking powder "magic snow" from the fireplace to the girls presents.

As we did last year, Lamar and I couldn't sleep, so we woke the girls up around 7-7:30. I walked in to their room to find them both passed out asleep. Karsyn looks like she's even faking she's laying so perfect. The second we mentioned Santa, she woke up immediately and ran down the hall. It was priceless! Unfortunately, it was too dark to catch her running to the living room.

Landrie was very impressed by how BIG Santa's boots were. She had to check them out in her new pink boots.

After we opened gifts at home, Landrie had a few minutes to check out her books from her stocking.

The girls gifts have already gotten great use over the last 3 weeks! The Leapster is probably the favored gift of '08, but the bean bag chairs and pink boots run a close 2nd and 3rd.

After our family Christmas, we headed to Pops and Lollys for even more fun. The girls' big present was a Barbie Jeep or "Beach" as Karsyn calls it. They were so excited to try it out! We took it outside and told them they could try it out after we opened their other presents.


Landrie was completely unimpressed with the clothes that she got, but we saved the present she had asked for most for very last...


The Puppy Grows and Knows Your Name! She had been begging for the dalmation since before Thanksgiving! No surprise, the girl was asking for another animal! :) You plug this puppy into the computer and program it to say your name and the dog's name. She named her puppy Lulu - which is also one of Landrie's many nicknames.



Karsyn got a Princess Bike for Christmas! She loved it and will hopefully encourage Landrie to ride her bike that's over a year old!

After breakfast and Christmas with Grandma, we came home for a long nap. We still had one more Christmas to go at Meme and Papa's with all of our cousins. Santa even came to visit!


The kids all had so much fun! It was a zoo as usual, but we tried to remember the real reason for Christmas by having a birthday cake for Jesus. All of the kids circled around to help blow out the candles.

We had a great Christmas season surrounded by all of our family and friends! 2008 was full of blessings and I can't wait to see what is in store for the rest of 2009!

Christmas Continued - Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve, we had a very relaxed dinner at our house and opened our presents from the siblings. Presents from Pops and Lolly had to wait until Christmas Day. After dinner and presents, we played some games - including Guitar Hero. We made Lolly try it, but she didn't think it was too much fun.

Lamar and Landrie decorated Christmas cookies for Santa.

Jordy and Landrie

Karsyn opening her present from Justin - a Barbie coloring game

The tree decorated WITH presents under it. That lasted all of 24 hours!

After everyone left, we took the girls outside so they could sprinkle the magic reindeer dust that Landrie got at school. It has oats and glitter in it so that the reindeer will smell the oats and see the shiny gold glitter and know to come to our house.

It definitely worked because the girls had quite the Christmas!!!

No surprise...

We failed at PT AGAIN! Karsyn is just not into it at all. I hate to keep writing about the details of her bathroom issues, but seriously I don't get it. She definitely has control issues...not sure where she gets that from at all! Haha!

Going back to school today wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. I'm guessing day 2 will hit me harder than today.

Off to bed to tackle another day...

PT Update (Day 2 Update at bottom)

Day 1 ended without much success yesterday. We went through 3 pairs of Dora panties and 2 pairs of Princess panties without ever going on the potty. Ugh! I'm hoping that Day 2 will be more successful.

As I've often teased...It's a good thing she's cute!


Update: Day 2 wasn't any better - maybe even worse. Without going in to details, I'll just say it was a messy day especially for Daddy. He was on duty while I worked out and he got the brunt of the work. I'm not sure what to do next. She recognizes what she's done after the fact. Any suggestions? Bribery and big sisters encouragement have not been enough. I've used the timer method too.

The BIG P.T.

I am up WAY too early on my last weekday of vacation. Landrie had a bad dream and I couldn't fall asleep after getting her and Karsyn back to sleep.

The girls spent 3 days with Gigi & Grandpa this week and while I loved my freedom, I am thrilled to have them back at home with me. All is right in the world now.

Here's a couple of silly Karsyn pictures from last week. She loved playing in Sydney's dress up clothes and Stacy caught some great pics!

Today is a big day for Sweet Karsyn...No More Diapers! We're making a really big deal about it this time and she seems excited. We took her to buy the panties that she wanted last night. No surprise, she picked out Dora. As soon as she wakes up, the training will begin. I'm praying for my patience and her interest in the matter. It's beyond time! Not to mention, her daycare Lolly doesn't want her to come back unless she's wearing panties. Wish us luck!

Christmas Surprises Unveiled

For Christmas 5 years ago, my siblings and my family snuck off to Target to take a family picture for my parents and grandparents. Landrie was just 6 weeks old. Before that, we had not taken pictures since my wedding in 2001. We decided to do the same this year since we didn't have a group shot with Karsyn included. Instead of going to a studio, we asked Missy to take our pictures in her parents backyard. We surprised Pops & Lolly and Gigi & Grandpa with some new pictures.

Now that all of the surprises have been delivered I can post some of my favorites here.

I thought Karsyn would let me hold her on the bridge - WRONG! My normally brave child was scared out of her mind!

The whole fam - even Justin is smiling!

Landrie and Snoopy - She LOVES her dog!

The Kirk Fam - against my wishes Snoopy did in fact make the Christmas card.

7 Years

I started this post for our Anniversary yesterday, but we got a spur of the moment call to go to Six Flags with 3 other families. We postponed our celebration for that fun opportunity. Now - back to the anniversary post.

Today Lamar and I are celebrating our 7 year anniversary! I had a harebrained idea that it would be fun to get married 2 weeks after graduating from college and 3 days after Christmas. It was a crazy 2 weeks for sure, but I wouldn't change a thing.

In honor of our anniversary - here are 7 things from our 7 years together.

1. Lamar always makes me laugh. Our relationship started on laughter. We've always enjoyed eachother's company and cracking up together. He has a very dry sense of humor and keeps us laughing often.
   
2. We have lived in 5 different houses. I was also part of several moves while we were in college too!
   
3. We were in the planning stages of a June wedding - dresses picked out, church reserved, flowers bought and changed it to 6 months earlier and scratched all of our plans.
   
4. I didn't know that you had to get a marriage license in Texas 72 hours in advance. Because of Christmas, we didn't get ours until the 26th. Our legal wedding date is Dec. 29.
   
5. We didn't go on a honeymoon until the following May. Being a coach's wife impacts so much. 3 days after our wedding, Lamar had to coach a basketball tournament, so we postponed a trip to the Caymans until May.
   
6. I had originally thought I wanted to wait 5 years before we had kids. We were pregnant the January after our first anniversary. God had bigger plans and boy are we so thankful that we have Landrie and Karsyn.
   
7. These 7 years have taught me so much about being less selfish (I'm still working on that), accepting change, compromise and a greater love than I could have imagined 10 years ago when we met.
   

Happy Anniversary Lamar! I am so thankful for the ride we've shared for the last 7 years. I can't wait to see where the next 7 will take us! I Love You!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Christmas Wrap-Up Part 1

We have had such a great week! It's hard to know where to begin. After 8 different gift exchanges, it begins to run together.


Our first Christmases started on Sunday in Salado. We headed there to celebrate with the extended Kirk Krew. We had a White Elephant Gift exchange on Tuesday night that was pretty funny. Everyone tried to make their gift the most desirable. We had an 80s Rock CD, a dog puppet, a raunchy board game, Spanish Christmas cards, an African-American angel and more.


Here's the sign that I got:


Anyone that knows me and my feelings about having a dog will understand the irony of this sign. Pretty funny!!!


Grandpa opened the puppet and it was a definite hit with the girls. Gigi named him Fido and it "talked" the girls into singing Jingle Bells. It was really sweet to see them sing it all the way through and not be the least bit embarrassed.

And here's Gigi with her Bill Clinton Celebriduck. It was one of the more fought over gifts!


Round 1 - Complete! I'll post more later today. For now - It's time for a pedicure with my sisters and cousins!

I am finally finished my Christmas shopping! Yeah! This is the first year that I have started buying as early as October, so the shopping has gone on and on. The good news is that I feel like everyone got a really thought out gift and not gift cards. I'm not opposed to gift cards - I love to receive them, but I was really excited that I found creative gifts for my family.

Our Christmas festivities start tonight, and it should be interesting. We're going to have a white elephant gift exchange and with this side of the family - it's guaranteed to be interesting.

I'll post pictures soon!

Blogging live

from our new laptop! Thank you Gigi and Grandpa!!! Having this laptop will help Lamar with his masters and will be more reliable than our older computer. We are thrilled to have it!

Thanks for supporting us all the time - especially as Lamar goes back to school!

Recovered

I found the pictures in my Kodak!! I'm so relieved. Once I updated my Kodak software, the new default for pictures was not the same, so I didn't know where to look. It's fixed now though. Enjoy!!

The girls on the North Pole Express

Landrie and her favorite cousin Kade

Karsyn & Landrie at La Ha



Crazy cousins on Thanksgiving night



Karsyn doing cheer stunts with the cousins

Landrie & Snoopy in Salado - Love at first sight!

The only new Christmas decoration this year - a tree for the girls' playroom.

Daddy and his girls at the last football game.

Karsyn at Mommy's school for her first pep rally

Silly Landrie in the closet with all of her animals. She insisted on having the picture made.

Hustle & Bustle

I'm nearing my 200th post here at the Kirk Krew and was hoping to reach that milestone by the end of 2008, but with all of our running around, I'm not sure that will ever happen.

I finally downloaded 200+ pictures to my computer the other day that included Halloween, Thanksgiving, meeting Snoopy, Landrie's Christmas program and about 15 random pictures that my future photographer Landrie took.

I'll try to post the highlights here:

Scratch that...I cannot locate the pictures on my computer right now AND I deleted them off of my camera. I'm hoping that they are there and my computer is just not cooperating right now.

I'll keep you posted.