Brooke - Voted most likely to need plastic surgery sometime in her lifetime

So Brooke has managed to scare me many times in her very short lifetime and today was one of those days. As I sat at the kitchen table eating lunch Brooke was headed up the stairs to go get something she wanted all of the sudden I see her hit the floor with her head. She hit it hard and fast. I don't know how she fell from the stairs or what happened. Brianna was up stairs already and said that Brooke was about 4 stairs up and had put on Brianna's shoes and had tripped on them as she was going up. I don't know. I just have this horrible image of my little girls head hitting the hard tile floor.

I picked her up and I knew things couldn't be right with her hitting that hard. I wanted to look at her but she just held on to me so tight and was crying. I figured crying was a good sign. But then she began to just fall asleep. This is Brooke who on new years eve night stayed awake till 3 am and on our camping trip outing didn't fall asleep until the tent was finished at 2 am in the morning. Brooke never has falling asleep in my arms. EVER! I tried to get her to wake up but she wouldn't she would just cry and go back to sleep. I sent Brian an IM at work and asked him to come home since the doctors offices were closed from 12:30-2:00 for lunch break. And it was 12:45. We looked up stuff on the internet and it said it was o.k. to let he sleep a little so we did since we knew we had to wait until 2 to get into the doctors office.

She started to wake up just before 2:00 but that is when the throwing up began. Lots of it too. We had to change several outfits before we could actually get out the door and over to the doctors. The doctor said she definantly has a concussion but he didn't think she fractured anything. But we have to wake her up every 2 hours through the night tonight to make sure she is o.k.

She was finally back to smiling again this evening which makes me feel better but it has been a long stressful day. I just keep praying this child makes it to her next birthday.

This is a picture of Brooke asleep on Brian. I told Brian to smile for the 2nd Picture but he just did a silly face instead.
Brooke is feeling better tonight, at least she was smiling. Here is a picture of her head. It is kind of hard to see the huge goose egg bruise on it but believe me it is there.

Brianna - my determined child.

Brianna has always been very determined and strong headed about lots of things. If she gets something in her head about what she wants to do and you ask her to do something else, getting her to change her mind is nearly impossible. Yesterday we went out for a walk and got home kind of late and we asked the girls to go straight up stairs and brush there teeth. Brianna came back down for some reason and we sent her up to brush her teeth and with in a few short seconds she started to declare her dress is stuck.

She was wearing a dress yesterday with a zipper on it. We yelled up to her, as we were cleaning up the Kitchen and trying to get ready for bed, that we didn't want her to take off her dress we wanted her to brush her teeth. We also told her that we would help her with her dress when we came up to just brush her teeth. But no, she just kept it up with my dress is stuck. Again we told her to stop trying to take her dress off and go brush her teeth. So then she switch to dutch on us and started to say "mijn jurk is fast". Which is my dress is stuck. Brian and I just started laughing down stairs with that child's determination. I was laughing so hard I couldn't talk. She is so determine and you just can not change her mind for anything.

Finally Brian and I got done with our stuff down stairs and we headed up stairs to help Brianna get into the bathroom and get her teeth brushed. And this is what we found.

Her dress was literally stuck to the stairs. How she did it? I don't know I haven't gotten it unstuck yet. I just took her out of the dress and sent her into the bathroom and told her to brush her teeth. Brian and I talked to her about using a few more words in her sentences like my dress is stuck to the stairs. Again when we found her we laughed really hard at our mistake. Our poor children.

Our first week of summer fun!

I know all of you have been on summer break forever but we just experienced our first week of summer break and we have been having fun!

We went to Bubble Jungle with some family's from our ward. It is a fun indoor play land for the kids. We played most the day there. The girls were so happy running around with there church friends. They are so happy when they get to just spend the day speaking English with friends.

Out side Bubble Jungle by our bikes. It was a long ride there because we kind of got lost and it took us a while to find it. But we made it. we were happy to be there. Especially Kaitlyn she hates it when I get lost and make the bike ride longer then needed she really wants us to get a car!

Brooke came down this huge slide all by her self. She had to climb to the top and come down. No one encouraging her or helping her she just did it and when she got off she said... "WOW!" All my other girls I had to help and go down the slides with them and they were to scared but not Brooke, I turn my head for a second and she is coming down the largest slide she can find. Kaitlyn and Savannah are climbing up the shark. They are so cute when they play together. I wish we lived closer together so they could play more often. A closer picture of the 2 girls. Savannah's family is from South Africa. They are looking on moving soon, we will miss them also when they leave. After I took the girls picture -- Madison (Savannah's little sister) and Annalina (another girl from church) both wanted to be in the picture too so we took another. Brooke playing on the bouncing slide. She thinks it is so fun. She also stole Kaitlyn's hair band and put it on herself.

Brianna is going to steamroll down the slide. Kaitlyn is in the middle climbing up parts that weren't meant for climbing.

All the girls Brianna's age from church. Annalina and Shannia and Brianna are in front and in back up towards the top is Noel. Brooke is standing at the very top waiting for her turn and Kaitlyn and Savannah are lounging on the middle part.

Brianna thinks she is helping Brooke. Brooke decided to take this one, One bounce at a time. On the way down when she got to the bottom she had bounced so much and so hard her diaper exploded and all the inside absorbent stuff went all over the floor. I quickly grabbed a diaper changed her and cleaned it all up. That's my bouncing girl.

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To help my children enjoy the summer even on the hot days (Hot days means it is 75 degrees out and the sun is actually shinning.... a lot of the summer day are in the high 60's with high chances of rain.) I have purchase some cheep fun items to use out on the trampoline when has attracted every neighborhood kid into my back yard for the last few days. Here are some pictures to see how my girls and there friends have used them and if I can I will add a movie or two.

Shanella and I took our girls to a park near Shanella's house. Shanella is in our ward and only lives about 20 minutes from me by bike. It is so nice to get together with her and her girls and just play and talk. This park had a nice shallow swim pool for the girls to play in. The girls didn't want to play in the park very long they just wanted to get into the pool. We didn't have there swim suits so we let them swim in some of there cloths. They had fun. Brooke however when naked because of the diaper thing. She then escaped the pool and found the sand box. Yuck! sand stuck all over her wet naked body!... So here are some pictures of my girls and Shanella's girls (Annalina and Shania) all playing together.

I also bought the girls some really big water guns because other kids in the neighborhood have water guns and well I figured they need to defend themselves. These ones were on sale and they were really big! But maybe I bought them too big for my girls what do you think?

Our new addition---

So for years (8.5 to be exact)Brian has been telling me about the inefficiency of dishwashers and how you can hand wash dishes faster than a dishwasher could. How a dishwasher uses more water and energy and is just an overall waist.

For the first time in our married life we live in a house with out a dishwasher. And we have 3 children, none of them old enough to put their hands under really hot water to clean the dishes. So all cleaning responsibility falls on mom. It takes me over an hour close to 2 hours to do dishes each day by hand. It is frustrating. But what can I do we are renting this house.

So I have been trying to go out exercising each night but my biggest complaint is that I can't get all my house work done and go out exercising too so Brian said he would do the dishes each night if I wanted to exercise. After about 2 weeks of Brian doing the dishes he took us down to store and purchase a small dishwasher that he figured out how to rig up. Now we have a dishwasher in the house. It is so nice. Dishes take me 20 minutes each day. I love my dishwasher!

In the pictures we are really wet because it rained on us on the way home from the store. Really hard but it was a fun bike ride back anyways!

My new table cloth and Brooke being a camera hog

So a family in our ward moved back to America, it was the Larry and Jocelyn Denyer and we will miss them. He worked for the Consulate here in Den Haag and she was by far the most talented creative person I have met. Anyways, in there move they gave away a lot of the stuff they couldn't take with them and one of those things was a kitchen table with 6 chairs. We were so excited because we have been sitting around a little table for the last year which we have been making work but now there will be enough space for the sister missionaries when they come. We were just excited.

One of the first things I did was go looking for a nice table cloth for it. I was so proud of the one I found. I loved it. It was so pretty. Brian thought it was funny how happy I was with my table cloth so he decided to take a picture of me with it. The funny part about the whole thing was that Brooke was mad that dad wasn't taking a picture of her. So Brian took a picture of her. The first shows how mad she was. The second shows her happier now that pictures are being taken of her. She is such a funny child.

Pirate day at school

Last week on Tuesday July 15 it was Pirate day at school. Since it was the last week of school they did lots of fun things but this was the most exciting for the girls. All the kids got to go to school dressed up as pirates. Brianna was so excited to dress up as a pirate. She was talking about it the week before the event and telling us exactly how she wanted to look. Somehow, her pirate costume had to also be a princess costume which is why she is wearing her ballet tutu. It is what she wanted. It made her happy.

Kaitlyn did not want to be a pirate at all. She wanted to be a witch. It didn't matter that it was pirate day and everyone else was going to be a pirate she didn't want to be a pirate, she doesn't like pirates, she wanted to wear her witch costume so we let her. It made her happy.

Brooke of course wanted a costume on too.. she had to be a cat. She loves cats. So here is my Brooke being a cat here at home.
I went and got the girls after school and they had had wonderful fun. Brianna now had some wonderful stitches and other appropriate pirate paint all over her body. Kaitlyn had none. She said she didn't want any. She didn't like it. She is such a funny opinionated child. They had fun pirate items they had made. Kaitlyn had a bottle with a treasure map and a large cardboard looking glass. Brianna had made herself a parrot because every pirate need a parrot.

Going Down Memory Lane

(Shayleen and I 1994)

--HERE ARE THE RULES --

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

4th of July and Brians Birthday!

There were no fireworks for us on the 4th of July. However we always have Brian's Birthday to Celebrate on the 4th so it is never a forgotten day!

We celebrated Brian's Birthday all week actually. I figured he deserved it. He has worked so hard all year. He had his yearly review with his boss and his boss is so impressed with him and his work he gave him a 2 year pay raise instead of a 1 year pay raise. I guess that like never happens. I was proud of Brian.

So every day for the week before his birthday we gave him a small gift to let him know why he was special in our lives. He got some chocolate "smarties" and snicker "Delights" one night. We gave him some chilly peppers one night because he adds so much spice to our lives... you get the picture.

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner on the 3rd so we had BBQ chicken and chips and watermelon for dinner all in the name of the 4th and of course we had to have early birthday cake for Brian's Birthday.

On Brian's Birthday we did normal birthday stuff and just relaxed. We couldn't do much because it was Friday and Brian had to work and the girls had to go to school. So on Saturday we went to the beach to do something fun and to enjoy some time together as a family.

Below are some pictures. Enjoy. (Don't forget to press F5 to refresh the screan so that the pictures start from the beginning.)

Brians Birthday

4th of July and Brians Birthday!

Missing Camping Pictures

So in June I wrote about "Our first Camping trip" here in Holland. But I didn't have any pictures of the camping trip because our camera went crazy and lost all the pictures I took of Kaitlyn and Brianna's Birthday and of the camping trip. Our camera had been dropped a few too many times by our beautiful children and was causing some major defects. So we found a sale and bought a new one. When I put my SD car in the new camera the pictures from the camping trip showed up! None from the birthday but I was so excited to at least have the ones from the camping trip. So here they are in movie format.

So I'll have to tell you a little about them. First you will see us about 11pm at night strolling down a path in the middle of no where trying to find this camping area. Next you will see a pictures of the girls waking up after 5 hours of sleep in front of the tent. Then it was off to lots of fun activities.

Jan Prins in our ward does Team Building activities for companies as a business. So he brought lots of his stuff for activities we could do. It was a lot of fun. Kaitlyn was brave enough to climb 1/2 up a climbing wall. Brian climbed up it so fast that I had to tell him to stop at the top so I could take a picture before he came down. They had bows and Arrows to shoot and that was fun for the girls. Some of the people in our ward were really competitive with that one. It was fun. Then there was the tug-o-war. Brian's team won they decided to do it again and put Brian on the other team and Brian's new team won again. I think I have a pretty strong husband. I was proud of him.

At noon everyone left and took our luggage home but we just got there so we decided to take a walk through the woods and have an adventure and enjoy our time. We slowly made our way back to the train station. The forest was beautiful. So was the farmland along the way. There was a sign just before we headed into town that we took a picture of. One arrow pointed right and said Harbor and England. The other arrow pointed left and said "other harbors, other cities". We laughed and thought it was a funny sign. It didn't show up so well in our photo but we had to share it anyways.

Missing Camping pictures!

So in June I wrote about "Our first Camping trip" here in Holland. But I didn't have any pictures of the camping trip because our camera went crazy and lost all the pictures I took of Kaitlyn and Brianna's Birthday and of the camping trip. Our camera had been dropped a few too many times by our beautiful children and was causing some major defects. So we found a sale and bought a new one. When I put my SD car in the new camera the pictures from the camping trip showed up! None from the birthday but I was so excited to at least have the ones from the camping trip. So here they are.

Embarrassing but must be shared...

So Brian did the most embarrassing thing yesterday! But it was too funny not to share it with everyone so I'm going to post it on here so you can all enjoy in the fun of his embarrassment.

Brian was at work and he was sending me an email while at the same time he was replying to his co-worker. To his co-worker he was suppose to be sending information about an experiment. To me he was sending me this link to this interesting science daily article... His email is quoted below...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080630165707.htm

"You might want to get me a watermelon. My desire is outstripping my ability. I am taking tomorrow off by the way, I cleared it out -- Brian. "

Brian never addresses his emails or says who he is sending them too... he just writes them and signs his name.

Well he got his emails mixed up and he sent my email to Yuana (his co-worker) and I got her email about physics stuff.

She replied confused... "Watermelon? I thought that you forwarded MPs article.." It was at this point Brian realized his mistake and we all had a really good laugh. We are still having a really good laugh. I think that it is only fair that you should have a really good laugh about it too.

--Enjoy --

chewing the wood

So we had some friends from church come over for dinner on Monday night and we had such a fun time. Jan(Yon or John said with a Y)and Leah Prins. Jan is a native Dutch guy and Leah is from England. Which is why they come to our ward. Jan and Leah are some of the most enjoyable members of our ward. We always love getting to talk with them. Brian home teaches them and forgot this month. He regularly forgets but on Sunday the 29th he remembered he forgot and in a last minute effort invited them over for dinner on the 30th and for family home evening. We played don't eat Pete with the girls. Jan was the most enthusiastic player. I think he enjoyed watching Brianna fall to her knees every time he yelled it because it scared her so badly.

As part of the fun treats for the night they brought some traditional old Dutch sweet wood. I guess it is more then just a traditional Dutch thing to chew on this sweet wood but it is an old European thing. We checked out the ingredients list and indeed this is only a stick. Nothing added. So we had our first experience to try it. It was sweet, like really sweet. It was weird. Unfortunately, it still tasted like wood. We all lasted about 5 minutes chewing on our sweet wood. Then the wood had to go away. Sometimes you just have to try it so you can say you did it. If anyone would like to request some I can bring some back to you. :-) Thank you Jan and Leah for such a fun night!

This is Jan and Leah. This is there first time with the wood also.


Brian and his stick


Chewing on his stick


Kaitlyn said the stick tasted "umm umm good."


Brianna was a bit more honest about how it tasted. Although when hers dropped on the ground she did come back and ask for another one.


Brian and Jan and Leah all together enjoying their wood.