My House

Wednesday

One more day until Brent comes back from camp. Praise God! ;-) I saw my Dr today and he asked how Brent was "holding up" at camp. I said, "you gotta be kidding me!" I guarantee he is getting more sleep and more rest than I am!
I took Amy to her Dr down in Tulsa today (right before I went to my Dr). He said all the bandages could come off and she can wear shoes now. I need to get some for her. One foot is 3 sizes smaller than the other so I am going to have to buy 2 pr in the same style. Amy was afraid to walk on her foot. At the Dr's office she wouldn't get off the table and kept pointing at the bandages so someone would put them back on for her so she could walk out of there. I picked her up and put her in the stroller since I didn't have a shoe to put on her.
At home, she just sat. I kept telling her to get up and go play and she'd point at her foot. I'd tell her it was ok for her to walk on it. It took a few hours but she is finally walking around on it now. She seems very proud of herself about it too. :-)

Took the girls to a water carnival tonight at a church that they attended VBS at last week. I got them all suited up, towels, change of clothes the works. We got there and they all screamed that they didn't want to get wet so we sat around and sweated for 2 hours. Crazy kids! Amy actually got wet, there was a little pool set up and she sat in it for quite a while. Karianne and Angie were content to eat watermelon and cheetos - they were a mess!

Flirty Girl

We were given some clothes. One of the little outfits has "Flirty Girl" writtten on the shirt. Karianne wears it to bed. She told me she wanted to wear it today. I said, well I don't really like the words on it. She said, "I know words, what does it say?" I told her what is says and said "do you know what that means?" She said no and I told her, "it kinda means you like to tease boys a lot." She thought for a moment and then said, "Daddy is a boy... Rocky (our dog) is a boy... I don't know any other boys."
Yea, my daughter is not a flirty girl. :-)

Now We Are Six

The day we left our house for China there were swallows flying around our front porch. By the time we got back there was a nest with eggs and a mom and dad swallow diving at us every time we went out of the house. Soon there were 4 little baby birds and a momma and a daddy bird. That little nest got really crowded, mom and dad swallow would sleep perched on the brick at night. I was really impressed when they taught them to fly all at the same time on the same day. One morning we woke up and they were all gone.
The momma either has baby blues or she decided she wanted more babies. She is still sitting on the nest.

I get asked all the time how is the transition to 4 kids.A lot of people have 4 kids, mine just happen to be all the same age- a really young age. It isn't really too bad. The transition of having another baby was harder than having another 3 year old. It is strange to be considered a HUGE family now. We didn't get much notice with just the two we had 6 months ago. Now we get a lot of stares and "whoa, look at all those kids!" Brent gets patted on the back I get told I am super mom. Weird. I realized recently we are now one of "those" families that people don't want to invite over to their house because we have too many mouths to feed. The other day someone came over to my house - didn't know her, she was picking something up I was giving away on freecycle. Anyway, she walked into our house and said, "Oh, are you watching someone's kids?" Uh, no they are all mine. Reminds my of my favorite quote from Cheaper By the Dozen, someone asked the dad "are these all yours or is is a picnic?" He said, "Sir, they are all mine, and it is no picnic!" :-)

Seriously, we have a lot of fun, being one of nine siblings myself I don't consider ours a huge family.

The only real problem I face is getting out and going to the store. Amy and Lucy don't walk, Angie walks slow, So they need to all get in the shopping cart which is tricky. No stores make carts for 4 little ones. Now when I have to go shopping I usually talk myself out of it until Brent can come home and help me. I had to go to Hobby Lobby yesterday. Those carts aren't even big enough to put a car seat in. I put Lucy in an umbrella stroller, and had the other girls walk. All my 3 year olds held hands and we all crossed the street. I thought that was a pretty good plan except Amy didn' t feel like walking and was getting farther and farther behind. So I asked Karianne to push Lucy's stroller and I scooped up Amy and put her and Angie in one of the little carts. Got a lot of stares, and I felt like some child labor master making my little 3 year old push a stroller that she could barely see over. I felt like saying to the lookers, "and what do you propose I do??"

By the Way, I get to be a REAL super mom next week. Brent is taking a group of kids to church camp next week... all week... not coming home until friday. I'll let you know how long I can go without shopping. :-)

Slumber Party

Every night is a slumber party with 3 Three year olds sleeping in the same room. But tonight I let them all get pillows and blankets and watch a movie in their room.

Angie's boo boo

We recently found out Angie has Sensory Integration Dysfunction. It explained a whole lot of things to us. Basically her Central Nervous System cannot prioritize all the stuff the senses are sending it. One effect is that things touching her body don't bother her and she barely feels it. It usually takes a hard fall to make her cry. Yesterday she and Karianne were running around with little American flags and they crashed into each other. The stick of the flag cut Angie's face right below her eye. She insisted on a bandaid. Proof positive that she has SID, this bandaid is actually on her lower lid and she could care less! I would be blinking like crazy. When Brent got home from work yesterday he asked how she got her boo boo, She looked all around and said, "where's my bandaid?" She didn't remember where she got hurt and didn't feel that bandaid on her eye!

Lucy 5 months old, Karianne at 7 months. We've been told Lucy looks like Brent and Karianne looks like me, so there you are, what do you think?

The Peaks!

Here's the photo we took yesterday

Happy Father's Day!

To an awesome Dad, we love you!

Karianne's photography

Karianne was snapping pictures tonight here's some of her work appearing soon at an art show near you!

I was trying to get a picture of Lucy's profile, she was really staring hard at something outside. But when she saw the camera she stared at it, and followed it wherever I moved it. Doesn't she have the craziest hair? it is so long and whispy. Not at all like Karianne's curly hair.

Tuesday

We had a good day. Amy is slowly working on words. She has our dog Rocky's name down. Our little dog is called Dinky but she calls her stinky- mostly true. :-) Caught her petting Dinky for the first time today. She usually keeps her distance from our dogs.
We all went out to eat tonight, kids eat free, big draw for us! :-) The girls had a lot of fun and they all got ice cream at the end of dinner.

Looking pretty

Amy was a little clinging and sad today. I got out the nail polish and I was an instant hit!

Lucy's first bite

Lucy took her first bit of food today. She liked it, just couldn't figure out how to swallow it. I remember when Karianne took her first bite there was quite an awful face that accompanied the taste! :-)

Happy Birthday Jason!

Just want to say happy birthday to our son Jason Benjamin Peak. He would have been 5 years old today. We miss you so much baby and look forward to our reunion in Heaven.

Today is Children's Day in China. It is supposed to be a happy celebration for Children and their parents. I know there are many parents in China grieving for their children today as well, in most cases, their only child.

A little more excitement

We had yet another big storm blow through here last night. The winds did some damage. When we woke up this morning the awning was ripped off our swing in the back yard. I showed it to the girls and said, "look what that storm did last night, it ripped our swing". The girls have a Little Tykes plastic slide that was tipped over and Angie yelled, "Oh no, look at our slide!" Sheesh!
I heard on the radio that a hotel that was almost finished being built was leveled last night so Brent and the girls drove by to look at it, along with everyone else in town, he said it was like a Chistmas light tour, all these cars driving by slowly to look. :-)
Karianne calls Tornadoes "tortillas". It's weird because she calls tortillas the same thing and doesn't seem to notcie that she is using the same word. Anyway, it's funny to hear her talk about hiding from the tortilla, people getting hurt and buildings getting knocked down from giant tortillas. She saw a lady on the news who had bandaids on who had rode through the storm and she prayed for the 'grandma who was hurt by the tortilla and had bandaids on her face'.

BTW, we did get our Travel Approval today. Our agency is going to try to request a May 28th Consulate Appointment in China!

Karianne rides a bike!

Found a bike and a helmet for $5 at a yard sale today. I brought it home and Karianne jumped right on it and didn't take long at all to figure out how it works and she was cruising in no time. Here she is in front of our house with her daddy.

Happy *0th Birthday Marielli! We love you so much!

24hrs

In the last 24hrs We went to Cicis and took our picture in the parking lot because the flowers were so pretty, I made Angie a princess skirt because she thinks she is a princess and Lucy helped us plant some flowers in the back yard!
And my Grandma had a birthday! happy birthday Grandma, I love you!