Kate's 6th Birthday!

March 13, 2009~The day started out with waking up our beautiful Kate singing, "Happy Birthday to You". Then we got her ready and out the door to school. Then we got ready at home, and went to get Kate Sonic, and brought that to her for lunch. After eating lunch with her at school, we went back to her classroom and handed out birthday cupcakes to her class mates. She had another 2 hours of school left, so we headed back home, and still had a lot to get done (for her surprise party that night). Brooke needed a nap, so Chris was coming home to work from home while Brooke napped, so I could go shopping with Hailey. Well, as I'm at home waiting for him to get home, I became impatient, and I called him saying, "Where are you at?" he said, "I'm pulling into Kate's school", me "What? What are you doing there?", him "I bought Kate a dozen pink roses and thought she might like it if I delivered them to her in class, and I even wrote on the little card, 'To my beautiful Kate, Happy 6th Birthday!", me "Oh....You're amazing! Good job honey! I'll see you in a bit!". I just wanted to share that story b/c it was GREAT, and it melted my heart to see him make his baby girl smile!! Anyways, so then he came home, and Hailey and I went and picked up her cake, bought all the last minute things we needed, and ran back home. Once we got home, we had about 15 min. till she came home from school. We had to decorate the house really quick, b/c that was one of her requests! So we decorated, and literally as I was putting in the last tack she walked in the door! Happy Birthday 6 year old!! Then we told her to get all ready b/c we had to go to 'walmart', Of course we really were headed to Pump It Up for her surprise party. As we got closer, I put a blind fold on her. Here's the video of her once we got there. She was VERY happy!

It was a GREAT party! We had a big turn out, and she had a great time. We went to 2 different jump rooms, then to the party room for cake, ice-cream, and of course presents. After her party, the Duhon's came over to our house till 11:00 that night. So it ended up being a full day of fun for her! I'm SO happy with the way her day turned out, it was a special day I hope she'll remember it for a long long time! Thanks to EVERYONE who made her day special! Enjoy all the pics........can anyone believe we have a 6 year old!!!! I can't!!!

Some pics, and an update

I thought I'd just post some pics for you all to enjoy with a little update on us. They are totally random, but I know those who don't live near us will enjoy them. Let me start with Brooke this time. Brooke is a great kid! Her smile is contagious! Here she is at the library climbing on the kid size chairs, which she thinks are GREAT! She's walking all over the place, and loves to play all day long. She's a very busy 15 month that's busy busy busy! She just watched Brainy Baby the other day, and as you can see, by the few pictures below, she LOVED it! She's reached that age where she's tall enough to see out the windows, and so I captured this shot the other day, and thought it was great! Her & Riley have nothing to look at, but are loving that they can just look outside! She loves to be outside playing in the sand box (as small as it is), which her and Hailey do almost every day together. Notice Hailey's bagged foot....to keep the sand out of her cast! And they also love to have picnics together, which is SO cute to me! Now we'll talk about Hailey. She's growing up SO fast and doing great! We are working on her speech, moving from baby talk to saying things correctly, it's not fun for her, but she's doing a good job with it. Her newest story is this: this last week, Hailey decided to get in the sand box without letting mommy know, and therefore mommy did not know to put a bag on her cast, to keep the sand out, so she got sand all up in her cast. At this point, I'm like, well, you'll have to live with it, b/c she only had 10 days left to go. Then 2 days later she had an accident and wet herself, and yes, that too got down in her cast. Well between the sand and the urine her leg was starting to chafe and burn, no fun at all! She didn't want to walk on it anymore, which I can't really blame her. So I called the doctor, and they told me to call back in the morning and make an appointment to take her cast off and put another one on. At this point she was 6 days away from getting her cast off, and I decided when I called back the next morning to beg them (and I had too) to X-ray it and see if we could just get it off early! So here she is the morning of her doctors appointment, happy as can be, she such a trooper! Well, it all worked out and she is now CAST FREE!! We are very happy! She's still very weary to walk on it, but she's making progress slowly. Here's the pics from her getting her cast off, she was a little concerned that day, and really shy, she said at one point, she was going to miss having a purple leg, ha. But she did get to keep her cast, so we can remember how small she was when this chapter happened in her life, but I'm glad this chapter is over! She said it tickled at first, but then decided shortly after, she didn't like it. She didn't know what to think of it all. She just wanted it to be over!

Finally her leg was FREE! Her leg is all dry and chapped, but still looked great!

A happy girl, all thumbs up! It's all over Hailey! You did it! She was happy to get to wear matching shoes again, and all she wanted to do was go home and take a bath, and that's exactly what she did, a 40 min. bath!

Next we have Kate. Kate is turning 6 next Friday, March 13th! Can I believe it? NO!! There's one quick story to share about Kate. She knew that her birthday was after daddy's, so once daddy's was over, she decided to let me know exactly what she wanted for her birthday. She had it all planned out. I'm expecting, "mom, I want a princess party". I was totally wrong! This is what she came and told me, "mom, I want a surprise party at Pump It Up, I want to show up there and when I walk in, I want all my friends to be there to surprise me!", I'm thinking, holy cow girl, you're only 6, not 16! Anyways, the plan is all ready to go, so look for upcoming birthday pics soon. She's doing amazing at school! She's got friends that she comes home and updates me on almost every day. She has homework, and it's always so easy for her. She's really to smart for her own good! She comes home with her report card every 6 weeks with all excellents and they said she's more than ready for 1st grade. So we are very excited for this! She's truly mommies helper, when she wants to be. She helps me with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of her sisters. Sometimes I think I'm more blessed to have her as a daughter than she is to have me as her mom. I don't have a ton of pics of her, b/c she spends most of her days at school now. But here are a few!

Kate is doing just fine with her Asthma. She takes her 'puffer' as Aunt Mary taught her to call it every day, and hasn't had any problems. So thank you everyone for your prayers!

Kate's proud Valentine Box

Just had to post this story with a picture. As all kids do, at Valentines, they come home from school all excited to create their valentine's box for school, to receive all there valentines from there friends. So last minute, and I mean VERY last minute, the night before we hadn't come up with any ideas, so as we were wandering around the house trying to come up with something. Chris had a great idea, and it turned out to be the best one of the class! Kate was very proud of her valentine box and she wanted a picture with it so she could remember it always! So great!!

Marriage Conference 2009

I haven't really had a lot of time lately, but I wanted to write a few updates. Chris and I went to our first ever Marriage Conference at our church. We enjoyed it so much that we are planning to make it a yearly tradition! Thanks to Grandma Robyn, we got to go for the whole overnight process. We went Friday night to the dinner and dance, (this was the first dance I've ever been to really...and it took me a while to warm up to the idea, I'm not much of a dancer...ha) then that night we went swimming and relaxed in the hot tub. It was a WONDERFUL break to just be with each other and not have to be 'mom' and 'dad' for 24 hours. The next day we got up and went to the conference part of it all, and it was a WONDERFUL conference! We heard from Anna and Fred Kendall, Ted Haggard, and of course our amazing pastors, Keith and Sheila Craft. The talks were a great encouragement and we learned A LOT!! Anyways, we are VERY thankful for Robyn and her willingness to take on the kiddos for 24 hours while we got a much relaxed, and needed get-away. We got all dressed up and enjoyed the whole event. We looked great huh?

Prayer for Kate

I wanted to write a quick note, for those of you who read this, please keep Kate in your prayers. She had really bad strep throat 2 weeks ago, took all her medicine, and it went away. Then about 24 hours after that medicine ran out, she started wheezing coughing a lot!! So yesterday, we went back to the doctor and b/c she was wheezing and the doctor said she has asthma, and put her on 5 medicine, and wanted us to come back 24 hours later for a follow-up, hoping the wheezing would be different/gone due to the medicine. So this morning back to the doctor we went, and the wheezing was still there, so they had her do another breathing treatment, and then they sent her to get a chest X-ray to make sure it wasn't pneumonia. We just got the call and it's not pneumonia, PRAISE GOD!! This is something she can grow out of, and I'm believing she will! Please keep her in your prayers as we go through this together. I have a lot to learn about, b/c I know nothing about asthma. But I'm going to learn. Thanks for all the extra prayers!

Daddy/Daughter Dance 2009 ~ Valentines

So the girls got to go to the Daddy Daughter Dance this last weekend, and it was GREAT!! We went to the Little Elm Dance this year instead of the Frisco dance, which Kate and Daddy did last year, hoping that Kate would have more friends at the dance (b/c this is the school district she's in), and she did! We didn't want to spend the extra money on dresses and hair this year, so we used the fancy dresses that Grandma Lorel bought the girls for Aunt Mary's Christmas wedding this year. I did their hair, and makeup, and sparkles. Chris took them out to eat, then off to the dance they went. Hailey was very excited to go this year, b/c she was too young last year. Hailey was a bit nervous going with her cast on b/c she wasn't sure how much she'd be able to dance, but it turned out great! Once they got there, they got pictures taken, and then Kate was off to socialize with friends. She's a little social butterfly! Hailey danced with daddy, and has a great 'cast-dance' move. They had an amazing night, and it was a great time for all of them. Next year Chris said we'll have to do 2 different dances, b/c it's hard to slow dance with 2 girls. Before they left, Kate helped Hailey spice up her lip-gloss, it was precious. She wanted her to look perfect! And they both did! Finally, they are off to the dance riding in daddy's car, and all thumbs up. It was a great Valentines Memory for us all! The next day Chris and I got to go out kid free for 8 hours, thanks to Grandma Robyn, who watched the girls for us. We also had a great Valentines together.

Cast Day

Today was cast day for Hailey. I thought I'd post a bunch of pics to tell the story. As we were driving to the hospital, she told me, "Mommy, I'm ok, I'm not scared, b/c I'm not getting any shots, so I'm ok", it was so cute. The first pic is of her right before her X-rays. Then she got to let her leg breathe for a few minutes, I know this felt good for her. As you can see she's wearing headphones in most of the pics, she had her daddy's I-pod and was watching Peter Pan through most of the appointment. Here she is starting the process. She was SO brave! You'll have to excuse the undies in the pics, but it's just how it ended up. This next pic is SO cute, I LOVE it, but her eyes are closed, but I still had to put it up, she did such a great job! Then she had to pick out her color, and that was an easy choice for her. I was surprised with how many choices there were, but she went with her favorite, Purple! Even the doctor said she did great, she sat so still, and just let her do her thing, Hailey made it seem easy, and even a bit on the fun side, she just about smiled in every picture....she's GREAT! Then it was all over, and back home we went, it went very smoothly, and we are just happy that the countdown is on. I'll end this post with this last pic, she's doing a good job, and handling everything really well for a 3 year old. Continue to keep her in your prayers as we push through these next 4 weeks. We are looking forward to this Friday, the girls are going to a Daddy Daughter Dance, and it will be interesting with a broken leg. I'll post pics from that event next week. Thank you everyone for your support!

Hailey's broken leg

So the updated news on Hailey at this point is that she gets her cast this Wednesday. Please keep her in your prayers. On Wednesday they will take more X-Rays of her leg and depending on how it all looks at this point, she might be able to walk on her cast, but if it's not where they want it to be she will still be immobile, so please be praying for her(and us)! She's a VERY active child and this has her activity level basically to nothing. She has a lot of pent up energy that she needs to get out, so we are trying our creative ways to entertain her. Here are some recent pics from this weeks adventures. This is one of her wanting to scoot around and play, but sorta gave up and just stayed there watching her sisters instead.....poor thing (at least she's still smiling)! This is another one of her, after she learned how to scoot around, we took her to the library and let her play with the puppets, this was fun for her.So once this whole process started, I began searching for a child's wheelchair, but had a very difficult time finding one. So then I started thinking of other options to carry this child around for at least the next week, and I thought of a wagon, so we have been borrowing my sister in laws wagon, and it's been great! Here she is helping me do the laundry with her wagon. She's been a trooper throughout the whole process, and we are very proud of her. She wakes up every morning saying, "can we take this off now" it's very hard for her to understand that it takes a long time for bones to heal back together. I will continue to keep you all posted as we go through this adventure. Thanks for all your prayers and support. A quick update on the other two, they are doing good now. Kate was home from school with really bad strep throat, but the medicine we got for her turned her around really fast, and she's doing great now. Brooke just cut 2 new teeth, so she's been dealing with that, but now they have come all the way through, so we are happy about that. At this moment, Kate and Brooke are both doing better and are helping me keep Hailey occupied the best we can.

Life's twists and turns

So it's been a few busy weeks lately, and we seem to be riding a roller coaster up and down. God has really been doing a work on us, and it's just amazing to see what He might put you though so you can become better. As most of the world, the economy has struck us pretty hard, and times are tough, but we are pushing through to the best of our abilities and trying to stay very focused and positive through it all and believe that God has a bigger plan for us on the other side of all of this, that we just can't make sense of yet. I know that you have to go all the way down before you can go all the way up, so Praise God, I think we've just about hit 'all the way down' (I can't imagine any lower really, but who knows what God still needs to teach me) and we are SO ready to start moving 'all the way up'!

Our latest news, and I will try to keep everyone posted as we go through it. Last night, I went in to work to fill in for the secretary who called in sick. Chris called me a few hours into my shift saying that him and all 3 girls were jumping on the trampoline together (he's such a GREAT daddy), and then Hailey fell and grabbed her shin, and wouldn't move and wasn't acting like her normal self. So of course he took her inside and tried to comfort her and help her calm down, but it wasn't working, so that's when I got the call. We called her doctor, who wanted us to go into the E.R. to have it looked at b/c Hailey wouldn't put any pressure on it whatsoever! After juggling the other 2 kids over to Aunt Amy's house, we were headed to the E.R. with Hailey. After a very odd conversation with a lady in the waiting room(that's a whole other story in itself), we finally got seen. She got checked out by the doctor there, and they couldn't tell by just touching it, and Hailey was being SO shy that she wouldn't even talk to them or tell them what or where it was hurting. So they came to take an X-ray, expecting to have to take a few more after looking at the first one, but they needed no more......there it was a Tibia Fracture. Basically, she broke her leg. So long story short, she is now in a splint, and scheduled to get a cast next Wednesday after the swelling goes down. It's NO fun for her, and it's especially hard, b/c she is our most active child and this has her down to basically zero movement. She's can't move her leg at all on her own, and she can't walk, so we have to carry her everywhere, and move her leg any time she's uncomfortable (including in the middle of the night). Put that next to still caring for 2 other children, and it's non-stop. Please keep her in your prayers as she gets used to this whole process, b/c she still has a long road ahead of her. Like I said earlier, I will keep you posted as we lean more, and I'll try to get some pics up soon.

A LONG Christmas Story!

So I figured it's been long enough. I thought I'd get back on track with our blog. For Christmas we flew to Colorado and had a very busy but fun adventure. Kate's last day of school for the semester was the 19th of December, and we picked her up from school and headed to the airport. Our flight went great except for the landing, I thought I was going to loose it, the turbulence was TERRIBLE! Brooke fell asleep in my lap for most of the flight, and the girls had their movies and coloring that kept them plenty busy. We were greeted at the airport by my mom, my sister, Mary, and her boyfriend, Trevor. To our surprise, my cousin, Emily was also flying through Denver, so we got to see her for a few minutes, which was nice.

Once we got settled in, the non-stop adventure began. With the 11 adults and the 13 kids, you can imagine all the planning and craziness that came along side with the normalness of life on this trip. The celebrations began right away, as Papa Dan came and delivered presents to our girls. Here's Hailey with her purple Baby Alive, that she LOVES!! Papa got Kate one of her favorite presents, her Sleeping Beauty Horse, that walks, bows, and it's tail spins, she LOVES her horse!! That night we also celebrated Brooke's 1st birthday. So it was a busy night, but a fun one! As you can see there were plenty of kiddos to eat up the cake. (Starting in the left corner working clockwise, Josiah, Tristyn, Kate, Joshua, Nathaniel, Joseph, Faith, Joshua, Rebekah, Brooke, Hailey, and Naomi, Samuel was being held) After a full night of fun and presents. The adventure contined. Here are a few pics of the Asimus girls all dressed up. Brooke, now 1. Hailey, now 3 and1/2. Kate, almost 6. Next on the agenda was to head up to Estes Park for a few days. We all stayed in one 8 bedroom 'cabin', it was GREAT and it was HUGE!! We had a 'surprise' wedding for my sister, Mary and her boyfriend, Trevor on Christmas Eve. Well, the only one surprised was Mary, but she basically played that one off for us by this point, between all the decorating going on and everything else that was 'secretly' going on throughout the trip, she had a pretty good idea. But none the less, it was a wedding, and it was a beautiful one!! Here are some pics from it. After the wedding, we had a day filled with fun events. I decided to give all the little girls in the house a pedicure, they had a lot of fun with this, and Kate was VERY happy that her momomy did this special event for the girls, see the picture of them all lined up ready to get their toes painted, Tristyn, Kate, Faith, Hailey, and Naomi. After the pedicures we all played duck duck goose, then charades, then we sat around and sang Christmas songs, and had a few special solo performances from the some of the kids, it was great. To end that evening Santa came to the cabin and delivered presents that us parents left outside for him to carry in. It was awesome! Especially for my girls, who are the only kids in the house that believe Santa is real.....well, they might of changed some of the other kids' minds now.....hehe. But none the less, it was great! The next day was Christmas, and what a Christmas it was. We all started the day by making Christmas cupcakes to celebrate Jesus' birthday (see picture). There were SO many people, SO many presents, SO many memories, and SO much fun!! It was a Christmas to remember...FOREVER! We ended out the day doing bon-bons, per our Austalian families request, it was fun to get a joke, toy and hat, and again, it was another memory. After our few days up in Estes Park, we headed back down to Denver, and the adventure continued. We had a fun adults night out, we all went to dinner together then went to a comedy club, which was a lot like Who's Line is it Anyway, it was a really fun evening. Then the next day we all went to The Heritage Square Playhouse and saw a Christmas play with the kids, we had AMAZING front row seats (well, with as many of us as there were, we actually had the front 2 rows), thanks to my mom. It was great, the kids got pulled up on stage at different parts of the play, and it was just a great time. My girls still sing one of the songs from the play. One of the last things we did on our trip was drive up to Chris' highschool, and show the girls daddy's name in one of the bricks out front of his school, Kate especially thought this was GREAT. I could go on and on with pictures and stories, but I'll end it with this. As our trip ended we said our goodbyes, but we have SO many memories, and we truly had a GREAT Christmas with everyone. This is our goodbyes to my new Australian Brother in law, Trevor, and my sister, Mary, I hope it's not too many years till we see Mr. and Mrs. Radburn again.