What do you mean, 'there is double-trouble on the deck'

Yet more proof that these two will climb anywhere. They have figured out that climbing up on this aircraft carrier they can see out the window. This comes in handy when AnnaLisa, Andrew, and JJ leave for school and catch the bus in our front yard or when we are having a rain storm.

These two are definitely our children. You can tell by their willingness to pose for pictures. They love having their pictures taken as well as seeing their pictures after they are taken.

Get around, get around, I get around...

William and Rosie are learning to climb. I was fixing dinner one night when I was called in to get the babies. I saw where they were and just laughed. They were both actually just sitting there smiling away, so proud of themselves. I have found William on top of the top bunk a couple of times now. Rosie is just started to venture this far.

In our boys room they have bunk beds too, but theirs has a ladder that is perpendicular to the floor. William tried to climb that one tonight, and did not get very far.

Another kid?

This is our newest addition to our family. Clarissa came to us by way of being my niece's friend. Clarissa was getting ready to go into college, but felt she needed a better environment to live in. She left the old one behind without having had the convenience of finding a new place first. She came to us with a few boxes of her worldly possessions. She is enjoying the opportunity to be smothered with children. Her aspiration is to be trained in a vocation for Early childhood. That is a very large arena, but right now she is focusing on the basics of college.

We enjoyed the first two weeks with her so much that we offered to let her rent a room for the next six months and possibly longer. We hope that she will continue to feel a part of the family and we hope to always have her as a part of our lives.

I got my first exposure to college as a parent of the student this month. I thought it would be at least a decade down the road, but this last month we have wrestled financial aid, looking for an apartment, looking for a job, helping her to locate important vital records as she had to leave those behind in her haste to leave. Did I mention having to figure out a schedule? Now, as a parent, I of course encourage her to take the lead in all of these whilst I stand behind her (often with the twins in tow) and remind her of questions to be asked. I really want her to gain her confidence in herself, but honestly I don't want her/us to have to wait in that looooong line again!

It makes me realize that I assumed that the seasons in life would come chronologically to me as a parent. However, it seems that is not always the case! Now I am trying to balance having an adult child/college student with 6 small kids. It is challenging but good.

Sasa is my nick name for Clarissa. It is taken from the end of her name and mixed with sis(t)er. The kids think it is great having a big sister. I was a little concerned about AnnaLisa, being the oldest, would feel kicked out of place. I asked AnnaLisa about it and she said she loved the idea of having Clarissa being our sister.

For me logistically it has been challenging. We moved AnnaLisa to join Maggie in the full bed on the bottom of the bunk beds and Clarissa is on the top bed. This is the easiest change. There is no real room for Clarissa in closets or dressers, so most of her stuff is in a corner in our family room. This is a spot where the kids, the boys especially, would hide and play. Another challenge is adding three eaters to my meal planning. No, Clarissa does not eat that much, but the twins are finally eating table food and the timing happened to be right when Clarissa joined us, so we went from six to nine eaters almost over night. That is a 50% increase! I am not use to having no leftovers and I am finding out that most of my lunches whether for me at home, or the kids packed lunches, were based off of leftovers. So now I am trying to make enough for all of us at dinner and suddenly I have to make lunches now too!

With all this said, we are tickled to have Clarissa in our home. She really enjoys being part of our loving family and when my niece asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she told her, "it is too late, I already have what I wanted...a family to be a part of".

Welcome to the Park Clan. We love ya!

This post is when Clarissa was playing "Candy land" with AnnaLisa. This is AnnaLisa's imaginary interactive game which only relies on the board game for inspiration. That is why Clarissa was wearing the crown. Rosie loves watching Clarissa send texts, especially when she sees the envelope icon. Clarissa loves to text, so Rosie gets that opportunity now and again.

MaggieMae's birthday cake

This was after I finished the cake. I am still learning the art of a four layer cake. The great thing is that you can peak at the inside.

This was after a half hour drive to my sister's house. Thankfully everyone was still willing to eat it.

This was me making the cake. Lots of fun, not nearly as hard as it looks.

And this is the half eaten cake. It was enjoyed by all and everyone really loved the colors. This picture does not do justice to it at all. This cake actually looks very vibrant and almost like a tie-dye shirt.

MaggieMae is three!

We had fun celebrating our MaggieMae growing up so fast. This last year has seen Maggie do a lot of amazing things. She started off last September with potty training herself while I was in the hospital delivering the twins. I was amazed and thrilled when I came home and found out that she had done this. She had talked a lot about doing it while I was pregnant, but I feared she would backslide when the babies were born, so I gently ignored her. Well, I guess she decided to go ahead without my knowledge and did a great job.

Maggie is a lot of fun and definitely has the stubborn, I can do it myself attitude that we "Williams Women" have. She is also such a delight and fun to be around. She really gets humor and enjoys saying funny things.

Maggie enjoyed starting her day off with our traditional "pick what you want for breakfast" which has quickly become "Dunkin' Donuts" for breakfast tradition. She kicked it off two years ago at her first birthday when a Dunkin' Donuts opened up near us.

Girl you are crazy...

I always enjoy a picture to go along with my posts, I saw this one and thought it described how I felt (I am not endorsing the company and have no idea what the company is that uses this logo). Wow, this last month has been crazy!!!! This is in part why my blog has been ignored by me, because it is something I can sacrifice to catch up later. At times like this, I feel like I am juggling fire balls...and I am not a good juggler! I will give you a brief synopsis, but each of these will get more special attention later.

What is this craziness and what happened to "once school starts things will really settle down"? Well, it started simple enough when a friend of my niece needed a place to stay for a few weeks until college started and she was able to find an apartment. We were asked if she could stay during the week (weekends were going to be at a different friends house) for a couple of weeks. Clarissa moved in with her four or five boxes of worldly possessions and her smile. She loves kids and is enjoying the opportunity to be so completely surrounded by them all the time.

This brings up the next exciting fireball of excitement...9 people living in 1600 sq feet. I know I sound spoiled when I say this (I have traveled through out the middle east where poor and small houses have a total different meaning), but we don't have enough room. For those who don't live in Arizona, you might not realize this, but summer time we Arizonians don't really go outside. Matter of fact, it is still over 100* on a daily basis. In addition to this we have two (almost) one- year old babies that require naps during the daytime which cuts down available space even more. In addition the boys have just been bouncing off the walls. Many of these factors and possibly the spirit as well, spurred Jeff into deciding it was time to go house hunting.

House hunting in this market is like going thrift store shopping for a house. It is crazy what some houses look like (seriously we have been in a few that would be better off to catch on fire, demolish, and start all over). I personally won't even give clothes to Goodwill if they have holes in them, I throw them out. That is part of the experience we have had at looking at houses.

There have been two birthdays this month, two baptisms of relatives/friends, several doctor's appointments, 6 immunizations...poor MaggieMae, and a host of other things. Did I mention that I changed my getting up time to 5:00 am instead of 6:00?

So yeah, I am feeling pretty crazy, a little stretched out (like not enough butter scraped over too much bread), and surprisingly enough very happy. Why the happy? Because while I am crazy busy, I can see how things are falling in place. I am feeling very guided on a spiritual level and things are getting back to the "old Kristina". And yes, I feel like I could wrestle a bear or even juggle fireballs...could I take a nap first though?

s'more vacation shots

There were a few requests by the kids for things they wanted to do while we were on vacation. One of these requests was to use the fire circle in Grandpa's backyard and make s'mores. It took us two nights to get it together, but we had a lovely evening of toasting marshmallows and eating way too much sugar (which could have summed up most of our vacation). We had lots of fun, but I am not sure the twins knew what to think of it. William finally gave it a try and mostly liked it.

My brother Jake and his family joined us. Jake's family lives a street over from my parents, so they often get the "leftover" visits from G'ma and G'pa. Jake is the good looking bald guy...ya know most people couldn't carry off being bald, but Jake...some how that works for ya! (inside joke - love ya man!)

One of the enjoyable things about vacation

It was so nice to be able to let the kids play in Grandma's family room. Grandma's house is really spacious. The kids also enjoyed toys that were new to them. For us it usually allowed us to chat with the adults in the next room while they played. There were lots of fun things to do. The kids spent most of their time playing in here.

For me this was a much needed vacation. This last year has been difficult and wearing on my heart. I needed a break and to be able to relax. This was a very refreshing vacation and it was hard to want to come back.

In the top three!

This is one of my top three favorite sisters! (I think all three of my sister's have wonderful qualities). This vacation I was able to spend a few extra days with Kaylynn. She too stayed a few days after the reunion at Grandma's and Grandpa's.

We are proving here that I was never meant to be a glamor model. I am OK with that.

I really enjoyed being with my sister. We grew up 9 years apart in age, so growing up we did not really spend a whole lot of time together, but as adults we have grown close. We do a lot of things similarly and we are always encouraging each other to improve on those similar things we both struggle with. She is a courageous woman and fun to be around. She also sells these wonderful books that are lots of fun (Usborne). It was lovely to be able to get so many fun books for my kids (and us parents too!). I had not realized the variety of books and my kids (especially Andrew) are really enjoying all the knew books (we came home with two large boxes of books, one brand new and the other from Grandpa's library).

Girls just want to have fun...what in the world...oh, girls

For some real crazy reason AnnaLisa and Sydney wanted to sing "Girls just want to have fun". So we turned on our portable stereo (also known as Dad's laptop) and all danced to this song several times. MaggieMae and I joined in, well...because "GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN...GIRLS".

Croquette always makes me think of Alice in Wonderland...

My brother Mike and my sister Kaylynn and her cute son.

JJ meister learning how to play the game.

Andrew is getting the hang of it.

Croquette is actually an interesting game and I'd love to try and play it again on a freshly mowed, flat lawn. We all had fun, but I think I'd like to see if I could learn to play it for technique purposes as well as for fun.

More lake shots

Jeff and RosiLee relaxing, AnnaLisa and JJ (or Andrew) playing in water, MaggieMae posing for us, Halle and JJ playing with the "sand" toys, my sister Keileen and I were simultaneously taking pictures of the kids playing and then we discovered each other, MaggieMae with twin cousin (they were born within months of each other and always have a blast when they get together)

...the other twins

These two cute guys are my cute brothers' sons. They are three months older than our twins. They are so adorable. They reminded me a lot of my kids - sort of hesitant at first, but by the end of our vacation they were seeking me out and snuggling up. I miss these cute little guys...and of course they great parents - Jared and Taralee.

Steak and Kidney Pie - part 2

Well, pictures don't lie. This was loved by my family. Two of my kids asked for thirds. JJ initially did not want to eat it, but then we figured out he just did not want to eat the crust (it was a one crust pie). We reminded him of the fact that it was his idea. When he found out he only had to eat the meat and potatoes, he went for it.

Even the babies liked it.

I made a few modifications - 1) I only put in half the amount of kidney it called for, 2)half the onions (which I would put in the correct amount of onions next time). The kidney does have a distinctive flavor and smell, but it is not overwhelming. I think because it was "outnumbered" (I put in two pounds of steak to half a pound of kidney), it was mellowed out a bit. With Kidney only being $1/pound, it is sort of tempting to try again, but I think I learned that my family is open to beef pot pie (and chicken too), so I think that while I will probably not repeat making Kidney pie again, I learned a lot and it was a good experience overall.

I think for me it was mental. I did it because it was a good learning experience, to support JJ in reaching beyond his comfort zone, and because JJ challenged Jeff to give something he had never eaten before a try. I did not care for the smell cutting up or browning the meat and the taste was OK. I think it is one of those things that I would be open to if it was part of a meal, but not expecting it to resurface on my menu selection.

Ukranian hairpiece

Grandma Park brought over a project to our last family reunion that was making "Ukranian hair pieces". This is basically a headband that has silk flowers hot glued to the band, and long ribbons that hang down to the waist glued to the end of the headband. These are used in traditional dances there. All the Granddaughters got one. This morning AnnaLisa came out of the bathroom wearing this. I loved it. I caught a picture of her reading her scriptures while wearing this.

Williams' Family Reunion...we are everywhere!

Grandma and Grandpa Williams have claim on 37 grandkids. When you add in parents as well as G'ma and G'pa you get over 55 total people. We spent the first day out at the lake on paddle boats and a canoe. We Parklings spent most of our time wading in the water and hanging out on the shore. Several adults were really good about making sure all the grandkids got turns on the boats and of course all eyes were on kids to make sure of safety. Luckily the only accidents were minor inconveniences such as the canoe tipping over with teenagers in it and one or two paddle boats treading slightly below water level due to too many picked up passengers.

Let the vacation begin...or in other words...we want out of here!

Our vacation started a day early as our AC broke and we were going to have to spend a night someplace other than home. Other than packing very quickly, it was nice to start our vacation a day early. We tried a different route than we normally do, we went by Tuba city and through Monument Valley. We stopped in Monticello, Utah at my Aunt Anna's house for the night. The idea was to try and split the trip in half to make it easier on the babies (twins make you do all sorts of different things. The idea of possibly two babies having a difficult time traveling made us more cautious).

This is a picture of the kids in a loft at my aunt's house. They had been dying to get up there so we told them after we were all packed and ready to go, they could climb up to the loft. It was fun playing for at least ten minutes or so. Then I think the dust and lack of toys got too much for them and they came down and we left. Next stop - Grandma and Grandpa's!

Heart hangers

My kids have robes that often get left on the floor of their room. I have tried to find someway of hanging them from their bunk beds so that they would still be accessible, but also out of the way. One day I ran across these at Micheal's. Not sure what they are really for...but they work great for me. I bought two and tied them together and hung them around a slat. I wrote the girls name on each so they'd know which one is "theirs". The boys thought it was so cool, they asked for their own. So I got another and did the same basic thing in the boys room.

Finally to G'ma's and G'pa's house

This is Jeff and Maggie relaxing on a favorite couch of Grandma's.

MaggieMae and AnnaLisa have found a pool in Grandma's backyard. Mommy was with them originally, but it was too cold of water (who knew that water actually come out of the hose cold when you don't live in Arizona?). The girls toughed it out.