Here it is...

The girls admiring the Great Arkansas Snow Storm of 2011, Feb 10th.

...the happenings of our lives. Ed and I are feeling a little lost not having a foreign culture to explore. We're trying to remember what Americans in America do. I know there is plenty to see and do here, we just have to find it. Time to make our Arkansas bucket list I guess. In the meantime you get our less-adventurous selves.

Ed just turned "old" (his own words). His birthday was yesterday and we celebrated with a homemade Cafe Rio Sweet Pork Salad.

The girls hated it and Ed and I were bursting. Later we tried to find room for some lemon bars. When Ed isn't growing old, he's learning his new plane. He's tired of flying the simulator and ready to hit the flight line. Only a few more rides. Surprisingly he's been home quite a bit the last several weeks and his girls are not complaining about that at all. He spends that free time taking care of the lawn and shopping for a boat. And cooking for me.

Kimberlee is about to grow a little older herself, but we'll save that for another post. Kimberlee is our busy bee and wants to be involved in everything! She joined a running club that meets before school, goes to Activity Days (a program for 8-11 year old girls in our church), and has a newfound interest in piano (yay!). She also just started soccer, and while she is one of the only inexperienced girls on the team she seems to be picking it up pretty quickly. And more importantly, she enjoys it so far. Kimmee also wants to do 4-H and Girl Scouts and dance and anything else she happens to notice, but I think her messy room shows she's doing plenty already.

Keira is still trying to find her niche. Her teacher gave her rave reviews at her parent-teacher conference, and one of Keira's proudest accomplishments is that she has never received a tally mark (for bad behavior) at school. Singing her heart out at her 1st grade Music Performance.

At home, however, she gets bored pretty quickly, which leads to mischief. She likes to tell us that she wishes she could live at school because it is more fun there, and that she likes "Japan so much more than Arkansas...except our house is better here." One of the things she misses most about Japan is her Rylissa (who is now in California), and some of Keira's happiest times are when she is talking on the phone to her BFF.

Krista cannot wait to go to school. She will miss the cutoff for Kindergarten this year, so we just signed her up for Pre-K and are crossing our fingers she gets in (and will go to the same school as her sisters). In the meantime, she suddenly feels the pressure to get ready for school by learning her "ABCDs". She spends most of her days copying words from her play computer. Her handwriting isn't too bad either! She likes to tell us how things are spelled, and is constantly asking how to spell other words. Krista also loves some ABC videos my mom made for her and likes to make the letter shapes with her body. Such a smarty pants!

The letter "n"

Kassie decided being toothless was no longer cool and proceeded to pop out 8 teeth at once. Well, not quite at once, and they are not all technically out yet...but still, they are all coming pretty fast. You would think that would be quite painful and would make her extremely cranky...we haven't noticed a difference. In fact, in the midst of her tooth explosion she finally started sleeping through the night - hooray!!!!

See that little chomper?

Kassie is constantly singing and is picking up new words all the time. Her recent favorites are "cracker," "go," "nooooooo," and "poop." I'd blame my girls for teaching her that last one, but I'm pretty sure it was me. Oops. I blame Ed for creating another type of monster though. Kassie likes to sit with us at the computer, and was super fast at getting at the keyboard or mouse (always at the most inopportune times), so Ed got out an old keyboard and mouse for her to play with. She LOVES them. She has to have them.

I am hesitant to post anything about myself, mostly because it's a little pathetic. I have never been crafty, and I've accepted that. But with a new house to make cute, and being tired of spending money, I've had a crafting itch. Again, I KNOW my attempts are pathetic. Don't mock me too much.

My first "project" was finally finishing a washi box from years ago. It's now in the display case of our entertainment center. Check.

Next came Kimberlee and Keira's dressers. Ed's mom gave us the dressers and had cute teddy bear knobs made for them when Kimberlee was born. It matched her crib bedding.

That crayon on the 2nd drawer? Yep, been there since Ohio. Apparently I was too busy to wash that off before it went into storage.

But now they needed a new look. I scrubbed the things down with a Magic Eraser, and then looked online for cute knobs. There were some adorable ones, but people were charging $10 for one knob. I bought a whole set of plain ones for $10 and figured I could make them cute myself with some scrapbook paper and mod podge. I'm a little annoyed at how Kimberlee's turned out, but she likes them.

For Keira's I used the original knobs from Kimmee's dresser and I'm much happier with her end result.
Finally, I FINALLY did Kassie's baby cross stitch. Funny, I don't really like the pattern, but I've done it for every other girl, so... With that done, I finally hung up pictures in Krista and Kassie's room, and their bedroom is about as done as it's going to get, so you get pictures of that too.

My favorite part of this room is the HUGE window - it is the warmest place in the house on a sunny day.

Of course, I have other things I might add later (some sheer curtains, a bedspread for the top bunk once Kassie leaves the crib, and maybe the purple wall that Krista has been begging for - even though I really like the clean look of the white walls), but I love that there is one room of the house that is mostly put together.

Next on my crafts list: another cross stitch (this time for Keira's room), a dining table centerpiece, and some quilted placemats and table runner. And finally getting all the pictures hung. And somewhere in there we need to get to work on our backyard. Fun stuff!

"Look Daddy, we made a sandwich! The purple pillow pet is the bottom piece of bread, the red pillow is the tomato, Kimberlee is the meat, Keira is the lettuce, Krista is the cheese, and Buster (Krista's pillow pet) is the top bread."