Krebs Octoberfest 2015!

Almost every October, all of Chuck's siblings come from all over the US to play in Kentucky. This year everyone except the Japan brothers (Matt and Corinda and their family and Glen) made it out! It's like Christmas! We love having all of our family here and the cousins love the chance to play together. I count myself pretty lucky to have married into such an awesome family.

Tammy, Grant and Emma arrived a few days before everyone else, so they got to come play out our house a little bit. Grant and Jack are really good buds and I love seeing them play. At one point, Jack was saying good night to everyone and he walked over to Grant and said: "Good night, Grant. I love you," to which Grant replied, "I love you too, Jack." And then they gave each other hugs. It was pretty cute.

Because we can't be with each other on fun holidays, we decided to celebrate a holiday each day.

Thursday, October 8th: Valentine's Day!

We made Valentine's for each other and for the family in Japan. Then we played at a park and then came home and decorated sugar cookies!

These two always seemed to be missing an article of clothing ;)

Wrestling with Uncle Jeff!

This is Kate in her element. Eating an entire bag of candy and using someone else's lip balm.

Decorating sugar cookies for Valentine's day!

Since Grandma has an awesome music studio in the basement, she did a special music class time for all the grandkids. They were pretty excited about that.

Wrestling with Uncle Chuck!

Friday, October 9th: HALLOWEEN!

Jeff and Ashlee were in charge of Halloween and they planned an AWESOME Halloween party at the church with all kids of games. There was a donut eating contest, mask coloring, sticker faces, ghost bowling, and a dress up station! Then, everyone walked around to different doors and trick or treated! The kids had an absolute blast.

Saturday, October 10th: Temple day!

We got to go as a family to the temple in Louisville. It was a sacred experience to be together in the temple and to be performing ordinances for some of my ancestors. This day will always hold a special place in my heart.

 Sunday, October 11th: Christmas Eve!

Emma performed her Suzuki Book 2 Violin Recital for us! I'm super impressed with her skills and her discipline. Also, Kate pretty much cuddled with Greg the entire time, which was pretty much the cutest. That night the kids dressed up and acted out the Nativity story.

Monday, October 12th: Christmas!

That morning we went for a hike at Raven Run. I was super impressed with how well the kids did. Afterwards, we did a grandkid gift exchange. Each child picked another child's name out of a hat and got to go to the store and buy a present for them. I love seeing how excited they are to give gifts to each other.

All the kids with their gifts!

 Tuesday, October 13th: July 4th!

Orchard and swimming day! We headed over to Evan's orchard. We love this place. Awesome things for the kids to play and do and delicious apple turnovers and donuts. Need I say more? After that, we headed over to the Georgetown Pavillion pool. The kids had a blast swimming. After that we crashed the Marcums house for dinner and playing! It was a full and fabulous day.

Wednesday, October 14th: Birthday day!

Laura planned a fun birthday party for everyone! AND she and Tammy stayed home with all the kids and did the birthday party while the rest of the adults met the working guys downtown for some lunch. Laura got the kids "flarp" for birthday gifts and it was a HUGE hit. They wanted to play with it all. the. time. And there were funfetti cupcakes. So all in all a pretty awesome day. After that, we tried to go to Keeneland, but it just so happened that they weren't doing a 5:30pm race that day, so we just stopped at a park instead!

Thursday, October 15th: Easter!

Shilito park and Chick-fil-a. Then we headed to Keeneland in the afternoon to catch the last few races! John brought monopoly money for the kids to bet :) They thought that was pretty awesome!

Friday, October 16th: Thanksgiving!

We headed to the Kentucky Horse Park for the morning! That afternoon, I had to head home to get ready for my craft fair, so the kids got to play at Grandma's with all the cousins (Thanks to Tam, Laura, Ashlee and Mom for keeping my kids!) They had a thanksgiving dinner together and played for the last night! Tammy got 4 tickets to Big Blue Madness so she took the three oldest kids! They had a blast!

Most memorable moments:

• Grandpa's cannon ball
• Kate's obsession with hugging and tackling Laney and her disdain
• The stomach bug that took down almost everyone
• Sumo wrestling
• Late night Laney and her slap happy self
• Watching Jimmy Fallon videos together
• Spencer and Ethan's battle over the baseball bat
• Flarp and all the potty jokes that came with it
• Playing psych on our phones, even with Matt in Japan
• Emma organizing all sorts of activities for the kids
• Dodgeball on the trampoline
• Singing in church
• Big Blue Maddness!
• Kate stripping down in the middle of the Nativity play, during the Valentine activity, and lots of other times
• Ethan: "Hey, Emmy! Your baby doing that!" Showing me that Kate was filling up John's shoes with unpopped popcorn.
• Emma's Suzuki 2 concert!
• Jack asking to play Uncle Bubby's phone
• Me ignoring Jack sobbing in bed because I thought it was Grant
• Kate always drinking everyone else's drinks 
• The soccer ball game show that the kids organized
• Making music videos
• The temple together as a family

All in all, we had a fantastic time together. I'm so grateful for family. Thanks for making the trek everyone!! We sure enjoyed having you here!

Starting anew.

I'm back.

I'm not going to think about the year and a half that I haven't blogged. I'm not going to worry about all the photos and memories that I didn't record. I'm just going to start right now and move forward and when I have an extra 12 hours (when I'm 80 years old), I'll go back and fix it ;)

So, here are what my sweet kiddos look like at this exact moment:

Church, Sept. 27th 2015

Things about Jack that I absolutely love:

He is the most curious child I know. My mother-in-law sent me a meme that said the average 4 year old asks 437 questions a day. I wanted to see how many Jack asked a day, so I did an experiment. On a 15 minute drive, Jack asked 24 questions. That's 1,152 questions a day. I thought that it must be a fluke. He was just really curious that day. So, on a 12 minute drive the next day, he asked 26 questions. That's 1,560 questions a day. Sometimes it's exhausting and sometimes it is amazing to watch him discover.

He is loving. I was making beds at my mom's house and Jack was cleaning up the toy room when we both her Kate start crying. Without any prompting he immediately stopped and ran to find her and I heard him say, "What's wrong, Kate? Are you okay?"

He loves to help me with my chores. When I ask him to do something on his own, he has a hard time, but as long as we are doing things together, he loves it.

He loves to play games and do puzzles together.

He says, "hey, mom?" about 800 times a day. Truly. I'll do an experiment on this and count and report back.

He is currently: in preschool once a week, taking gymnastic classes and music classes, loves building things and practicing soccer and baseball.

Things about Kate that I absolutely love:

She is talking up a storm and her voice is the sweetest sound. My favorite things she says: "I yub you, Mom." "Tanks, mom." "tan I, mom? Pwease?"

She loves Jackson. Every time he is at pre school she says: "Where Jackie go, mom?" about 100 times.

She is just learning how to pray and it is the sweetest.

After her nap, she will lay on my lap so still for 5 minutes or so. If you know Kate, you know that she is never still. ever. So, these few minutes of time with her just resting her body on me is my favorite moment of the day with her.

She knows exactly what she wants and how she wants it. People tell me that I'll be really happy about that in about 15 years.

She is excellent at helping and picking up. She even sings, "clean up, clean up!" when she does it.

She LOVES to sing. She will sing very loudly to all the hymns in church. She even sings when she holds a hymn book and the rest of the congregation is not singing...whoops.

She LOVES her snow boots that we just got and will wear them anywhere. 

This. My heart might explode from happiness in these moments.

This past week we were at my mom's house helping her as she is recovering from her second back surgery. These photos are from that week:

Homemade playdoh and some new playdoh toys from Mimi! 

Cupcakes courtesy of Mimi and Aunt Karen.

After nap snuggles. The absolute best.

They sure love their Aunt P and Aunt Sarah.

Some other things that happened this month:

1. We had about a week together as a family after we got back from Europe and before Chuck started his job. So we spent as much time together as possible.

Hiking at Cave Run!

Hiking at Cave Run

 Camping at Laurel Lake and boating the next day!

2. Chuck started his official job! I can't believe we have moved on from student life.

3. Talk like a Pirate day! Also known as Jack's favorite day.

4. Jack's first time being a part of the Primary program! Seriously melted my heart. He had his line memorized, ran up to the mic and said: "God has called prophets in our DAY." I love to hear the children sing about Jesus.

5. My kids just being the cutest. I sure do love them and how much they love each other.