how many carrots can you fit in your mouth

We were having a snack and I turned around and Betsy and Sam had their mouths full of carrots, I guess Samuel had been taking Betsy's carrots so she hurried and stuck as many in her mouth as she could before Samuel could take any more. I declared Betsy the winner and took some pictures. Poor Betsy, samuel is always taking her stuff

the garden

Here are a few pictures of my garden, I took a couple pictures of my onions becuase a couple of them are flowering on top, I have never had onions do that, so I'm not sure what is going on. Anybody got any ideas?

making videos for Daddy

For a sunday activity we were making videos to send to Travis via our web cams. Austin and Joseph were recording and Joseph told her he had stopped recording, this is what followed. he he he

date with the girls

Last night I got a babysitter so I could take one of the kids on a date. Austin ended up earning the date, and her friend Carriane was going to come with us, and betsy was so devastated that she wasn't coming, that Austin said she could come with us. So, Austin decided that she wanted to go to the mall and get pretzels and play at the playground, then go to wal-mart and buy something, then go to costco and get salmon (she has been begging for salmon for dinner) and then have hot dogs and ice cream. So we arrived at the mall, and we must of been quite the sight. We we're all holding hands at Carriane's insistence, so we made a long line of mom, and three little girls who all looked about the same size. We got our pretzels and went to play, we'd been in the playground about 5 minutes. When Carriane came up to me with her mouth bleeding, she had tripped and bit her lip, so we got everyone's shoe's on and took her to the bathroom to clean her up. We went back to the playground, and this time after only 2 minutes Carriane again came up to me crying with her mouth bleeding, she had bumped her mouth again, poor girl. So we got shoes on again and headed to the bathroom, and we cleaned her up again. I decided that we'd better not play anymore at the playground since Carriane kept getting hurt, so the decided to go to Claire's and look for something to buy (carriane brought money with her) so we looked and finally each of the girls picked out something in their price range. Carriane got swirly lip gloss, and betsy and austin shared sticker earrings. we decided to skip wal-mart and go to costco since we were running out of time. When we were walking toward the car in the parking lot, again with our long line of girls holding hands, austin wasn't looking in front of her and ran into a pole. Poor girl, she was so sad, although nothing was bleeding so I calmed her down and we made it back to the car without any one else getting hurt. So we got ice cream from costco and I put all the girls in the shopping cart and went to go get the salmon, they were all out, but austin was consoled with getting strawberries and bananas. So we came home and watched a movie and ate popcorn, and Betsy and Carriane stayed up for hours playing barbies in their room till I don't know how late, becuase I finally fell asleep exhausted. But we had fun.

morning adventures

This morning I determined that even though my house is a mess (I don't clean on sundays) my yard really needed some work, normally all my time outside is spent on my garden, so the other areas of the yard are very neglected. I moved all the toys and junk off the porch and swept it off, then moved stuff back on so I could mow the lawn. I dragged the lawn mower out of the garage and tried to start it. I primed it and held the bar down and yanked on the cord...nothing happened, I tried again and again and again..nothing. Now just before Travis left he took it to the shop and got it serviced and made sure it would start. I waited a few minutes then tried again, still nothing...I tried for another 10-15 minutes to get it to start and nothing happened...GGRRR. Finally I pulled it back to the garage and pulled out the weed wacker which is electric so I knew it would start for me. It would take a lot longer but my grass is out of control. When putting the shield on, I realized a piece of it was broken, but I got it on as best as I could and started it up. When it turned on the shield flew off and a piece of the cutter cut my leg (just a little bit), I tried using it without the shield but stuff kept flying and hitting me so I stopped. So my lawn is still out of control. I turned my frustrations to washing the car, and scrubbed and scrubbed while samuel stripped naked and jumped around in the "shower" and peed in the driveway.

Travis is off to Iraq

Well that time we knew would come finally came. Travis left for Iraq, and is probably in Kuwait right now. He checked in monday night and we haven't seen him since. If anyone is interested in writing him a letter, here is his mailing address:

1LT Kirkman, Travis

B co, 121st BSB

APO AE 09331

the letter is sent to New York, then to Iraq so you only need regular postage.

Samuel seems to be taking it the hardest, he is crying and calling for Daddy a lot, but hopefully he will adjust well. We are very proud of Travis, of the person he his, and for what he is trying to do.

Samuel threw up

Good news, Travis was going to leave today or tommorow, but it got moved to Monday or Tuesday, so now we have the whole weekend with him before he leaves. We went out to dinner at a buffet place, and Samuel had a ton to eat, and in the car he got a little too excited, then started coughing and threw up his entire dinner. It was gross, we opened all the windows and headed home. When we got to our house, Travis pulled the car to the side of the street in front of our house, and unhooked samuel's car seat and pulled him out and sat Samuel down on the sidewalk still buckled into the car seat. He grabbed our water hose, and began hosing Samuel down. I can just imagine what our neighbors and cars driving by thought when they saw Travis hosing down Samuel on the sidewalk, and stripping him naked too. Luckily since we live in El Paso the water was warm, so Samuel didn't mind too much. Once he was thoroughly hosed down, I ran and put him in the tub. Samuel kept saying"Daddy....seat...water" over and over again. Travis finished cleaning up the van, while I got samuel all cleaned up and dressed. It was an interesting little adventure, but man...I sure hate all the clean-up involved when you have kids.