Leaves 'n cousins

Well, it's a little late to be posting fall pictures since it is now full blown winter here. My sister and her family came to our house for Thanksgiving and the kids were enjoying themselves raking leaves. Check out their little video.
Sure hope you're having a great Christmas season.

Game Day

Well, if you haven't already noticed, West Virginia is ranked #2 in the BCS. We play Pittsburgh today (an unranked team) and if we win, we WILL go to the National Championship! We are so excited. It's funny-the tradition here is to burn a couch in the street for a victory. I think we might have an extra couch to contribute to the tradition=). Good luck Mountaineers.

The name says it all!

So, for any of you ladies (or gentlemen for that matter) that LOVE Pampered Chef as much as I do, I am now announcing that I have joined to become a consultant. Rest assured, I will not hound you, hunt you down, make you feel guilty into buying ANYTHING! But if you need something, I am here. If you want to host a party, I'm here too, occasionally (wink, wink). I am going to make a separate blog for Pampered Chef but more for recipes and such. I signed up to do this as a hobby (and for insurance, I have to admit). If any of you know me well enough, I love to cook (except when I'm pregnant, of course) so this will be just a little way for me to get out, meet new people, cook and eat!!! ;) So, come one, come all and join me on my new blog for good looks, good cooks and a whole lot of cheesy fun:

Food for Thought

Food: friend or foe

Food is my nemesis right now. I feel sick thinking about it. And then I crave something VERY specific, like a roll. But not just any roll. A round one that's fluffy and warm. . . . . . . Rhodes. Yes, that's it. Oh, I don't have any in the freezer, bummer. So I muster the energy to make them homemade--even the Lion House recipe and the second they come out of the oven, I want to double over. I wanted this? I asked for this? Of course I did. And then when I do eat something perfect that I have been craving for three days, such as country fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and peppered gravy, I want to double over AFTER I eat it. Um, that's just not right. I love being pregnant.

hmmmmmm. . . . . . .

Fall happenings

Howdy! We are enjoying fall so much here in West Virginia. My parents just came out to visit. It was great and the weather cooperated for the most part. The leaves are absolutely beautiful right now. I just LOVE it! We went trick-or-treating last night with some good friends of ours. Except we didn't know that the city of Morgantown has "trick-or-treating hours" (or should I say hour) from 6-7 pm. We went about 7:30 and all the lights are out. Some people even made comments like, "Wow, you guys are out late," or "you sure know how to trick-or-treat." (Because people had so much candy left and no one else was coming. They were giving literally handfuls of candy to our 4 year olds!) Anyway, we had fun, nonetheless. Lydia was a fairy and Kate was a princess. Pretty unique, eh? Well, here's some pics:

Hiatus in blogging

Sorry about the pause in blogging for all those MANY fans out there hanging on the edge of your seats to find out what it is Kim is going to say next. ;) Well, life is happening; we are happy.
We are also painting our house. It WAS peach.
I know, I know; living in the peach house on Peach Street is a little too ostentatious; I KNOW! Someone had to tone it down a little. Grey is the new color of choice. So we now live in the "grey house on peach street."
Here's a little teaser for you.
(And NO it's not blue.)

The Wind

I thought since it was a windy day today, this was appropriate. So funny.

Family Pictures

Here are just a few of our family pictures taken over Conference weekend. Enjoy!

Kate is 2!

So Kate had a birthday, her second to be exact. She LOVED her cake! It was perfect. We made a huge chocolate chip cookie (she LOVES chocolate chip cookies). She had two friends over for her birthday. It was great. Notice how she blows her candles out. She blows through the gap in her front teeth. What a doll.

Spider? You mean MONSTER?!

This was living in my house. And unfortunately I fed it. I felt guilty, OK? I put it in a jar for Derrel to squash and he didn't get to it. So it sat in this jar and after about a week, it looked like it was about to die, and I FED it! I FED the thing, which I regret everyday. You really don't want to know how I killed it. Well, here it is:

School Picture dilemma

OK, so these school pictures were SUPPOSED to be SOOO cute! But Lydia's not even in the middle of the picture. OK, what kind of fool takes that kind of a picture. I mean, come on people. And I really don't even feel that bad putting it on my blog for a little while because they are so bad. So this is what Lydia's picture was supposed to look like:

Now here's the finished product.



I did PAY for these pictures, ya know! Wow. What a winner. . . . .

No, but what's really funny is that on the envelope the pictures came back in, the big advertisement was "Reordering is easy, order more pictures today!"
I don't think so.

Sisters

Lydia and Kate have been playing so well together lately. I LOVE it. They are best friends. They give hugs and kisses every morning when we drop Lydia off at school. Kate gets so excited to see Lydia when we pick her up.
"Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of. You know whatever you do, they'll still be there."
Amy Li

Leaf Hog

Have I ever shown you a picture of our yard at the peak of the fall leaves? Or should I say after all of those fall leaves have graciously fallen onto our lawn (and that's only a 1/4 of our lawn). Well, fret no more! I have just two words to say: this is the best thing I have ever bought!!!!!! I am so excited. After learning the hard way last year with having to rake every single inch of leaves on our lawn (we even left a small pile over the winter and it totally KILLED the grass) we decided to buy this:

Yup! It blows the leaves into a pile and then sucks them up. It also mulches 10 bags of leaves into 1 bag. You're probably saying, "OK, Kim this is OLD NEWS," but this is the first time we have owned a house and I didn't know it existed. So now I will have time to relax this fall and enjoy life instead of raking leaves every day=). Yeah!

School Pictures

Sorry about the pause in posts. Lydia started preschool. She even had a "picture day." So I took pictures of her in the morning so that when she took her picture after lunch and recess, I'd have a half way decent picture of her. I'm so happy that she let me cut her hair. The tangles in her hair were causing rifts in our relationship!=) Well, Lydia's in school, Kate misses her during the day and I am getting so much done around the house. Fall is soon approaching here. I'll definitely send you some pictures of the view. It's beautiful here in the fall!
Kate misses Lydia while she is gone but she finds things to occupy her time. This is one of Kate's friends, Elijah. He is a ball of energy and we love him lots. His dad just started medical school so we've been getting to know his family.

You know those really cheesy motivational posters that everyone has a calendar of? These came from a pretty cool website. I tend to be a pretty negative person, sometimes. I see it as being "realistic." Well these are just pretty darn funny. Check 'em out.

Hair

My sister-in-law has been begging me to put a picture of my growing hair. I really don't want to so I might just delete this post after she sees it. This is how long my hair is getting. And for any of you who don't know me very well, this is the longest my hair has EVER been in my entire life! So enjoy, Kira.

March of the Prunes

OK, so after bathing Kate I don't know how many times in her short life, Derrel and I have come to notice that her feet are extra sensitive to water. Even after 10 minutes in the bathtub, her hands and feet get REALLY wrinkled, I mean shriveled! Look at the difference between Kate and Lydia's feet. The picture doesn't even give it justice.

Lydia's creative outlet

It's actually pretty entertaining to give a camera to your 4 year old and see what she deems worthy of a photograph. As you can see, she absolutely LOVES her little sister, Kate, and her mom, of course. Her bike apparently comes in a close third.

Lydia also finds joy in many forms of art, some of which are edible, some of which are NOT!

Finally!

After months of waiting and wishing and hoping and dreaming, I have a special announcement to make to everyone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

drumroll please. . . . . . . . . . .

My tomatoes are finally turning red. I am SOOOO excited. Aren't they lovely? I don't know if this is normal but my tomato plants are shooting straight up. I feel like Jack and the Beanstalk. One of them is almost as tall as I am. Is that normal?

So our summer has been flying by more quickly than I ever expected. I don't really know if I am ready for Derrel to start school again, but like it or not, it starts in 2 weeks. I also can't believe that in June we hit our 1 year mark for living here. The girls are growing like weeds and Kate is starting to form sentences with all the words she knows. It's really very sweet. Lydia will start pre-school in August and is SOOOOOOOO excited. As for me, I am just trying to stay out of the WICKED heat. We are all doing well. Not much new to say for now.

Oh I guess my little brother, Sam, got married in Denver to a very lovely and sweet girl named Courtney. We were all going to drive out but we would have only stayed less than 48 hours and for 48 hours of driving and 48 hours of visiting, I think our little monkeys would have gone bizurk to say the least. So I sacrificed and took a plane ride (nonstop for extra sacrifice) and went to my brother's wedding. It was WONDERFUL! Here are some pictures:

Our newest addition

So there has been an addition to our lovely family but. . . it's not another human. It's a BUNNY! She was an Easter present for Lydia and Kate. Sorry it's taken so long to announce her arrival=). Here are a few pictures of her. She is mostly white with a few grey spots. She is very sweet and mild tempered. We swore we'd NEVER have an animal in the house but since we now have two of them already, we decided it was acceptable (except this animal lives in the garage). We even have a harness and leash to take her on a walk in the yard=).

Here's CHLOE!