I don't know if I'm ready for this...

This is Konrad. I don't really consider myself an overly macho-manly-man, but I still wasn't prepared for the overt femininity displayed in my house last night. Allison woke up with pink-eye yesterday morning. Get Out of Church Free card for me, so no complaints there. By the end of the day she was tired and not feeling too hot so got really whiny and cried at the drop of a hat. As we were wrapping up scripture reading, which Alli cried most of the way through, Samantha started crying too. Why?? Because she felt sad that Alli was so sad and crying so much. It was actually very sweet and Ash and I were happy to see how much she cared. So they all go off to bed and Alli's crying ramps up to a new level. Why?? Because Alli felt so sad that Sammy was crying for her!

Luckily it was bed time or the vicious female cycle could have repeated itself forever!

Senator Kimber

Kimber won the election for 4th grade senator. She is super excited. Especially b/c for all assemblies she gets to go on stage with the other ASB officers and do the pledge of allegiance. :) Her and her campaign manager (aka - Dad) both deserve a thumbs up!

Today was the last day of school for the girls and when I went to pick them up, Kimber handed me a paper that she had written for me to read. It just makes me smile - because it is SOOOO her - so I thought I'd share it will all of you.

(I am typing exactly as she typed it)

Kimberlynn Crabtree Report

Do you want to learn about a girl who loves to read and write? Well you have no choice! You already opened the book!

Who is nine, small, and talkative? Me! Kimberlynn Crabtree that is. What I am going to tell you about myself is what I look like, what I like, and how I act! Again what is nine, small, and talkative? Me!

Look

This paragraph is about how I look. So get ready for a girl with blond hair, and who is very short!

So I'll begin with my hair. I have short blonde hair and it looks perfect with my pale skin, green eyes, and light brown freckles. For your information I am very *petite! (*short!)

Act

Ok this paragraph is about how I act according to me I am very very smart! You might not think so, but who cares? My opinion, your opinion, whatever! As you can see I am very short tempered. The longest I've ever been mad is let's see 5 hours no oh I got it 2 months! Ok take me in to a restaurant were only cheese burgers are served id say no way get me out of here! Can you see I'm picky? Well I am! If you have payed attention to this paragraph you can like totally see I'm a drama queen! A nice drama queen to be exact!

Like

I'm going to tell you what I like! Ill start with my top two, reading and singing. Second I like writing and art! Third like every girl, friends and neatness! Last but, not least dancing! So I'll write them in order.

• Reading
• Singing
• Writing
• Art
• Friends
• Neatness
• Dancing

Well all those paragraphs were about me, me, and of course, ME! After writing all about me, I want to find out about my ancestors!

Don't you just love it? She has so much personality when she writes. I'll have to put more of her stories on here so we can remember them forever!

I should be going to bed....

But I'm stalling. Not sure why....I'll regret it tomorrow morning when I don't want to get up.

So what's new with the Crabtrees:

• My Healthy Lifestyle challenge ended this past Sunday. I tied for 1st place, only missing 3 points the entire 5 months. What's cool is that I really changed some eating habits, that will hopefully stick around, helping me to be happier and feel better. It was nice rarely feeling full or sick to my stomach b/c I ate too much. I haven't been the best with my sweets the past two days off - but I took the girls out for treats last night at Costco to celebrate my win, then tonight I am baking for an end of the year aerobics party tomorrow (I know, it sounds weird, but we work out first and then eat :)). I made some peanut butter mousse that you put on chocolate cupcakes - the mousse is soooo yummy. I also tried out a new banana muffin recipe that has coconut and a lime glaze on them. Hopefully those will be good as well. If you want to try either you just have to come do my workout tomorrow at the church first - then you can have your cupcakes :)
• Kimber is going to try out for her first play. She is really excited. I hope it goes well for her. It is the Music Man, which is being put on by our church.
• I finished the preschoolers portfolios - well almost. I just have to put the rings in that hold them together - but they are all laminated and cut out. What a relief. Graduation is this Thursday - the kids are excited, as am I. I have summer-itus and am ready for summer.
• We got the results from Sam's tests a couple weeks ago. She is going to have a non-evasive surgery in a couple months to hopefully stop urine from traveling up into her kidney's before exiting (shouldn't it be exitting - spell check didn't like that though - and really doesn't look right, but exiting should be pronounced with a long i....I'm confused!) her body. We are waiting until the end of the summer so that in case something goes wrong she can still enjoy Hawaii, camping, her birthday, and a week at her aunt Michelle's. We will keep her on antibiotics until she has the surgery and then for a couple months after. She will have to do the same yucky test she did two weeks ago again, but I think she'd tough enough to go through it again.
• I am going to attempt to do some gardening tomorrow. My mom is coming with me to the store to tell me what to buy and then we'll hope it grows after I plant it. My backyard is so ugly - it needs something to spice it up. I guess we'll have to find someone to water it though when we leave...man is it worth it? All though I will admit that was one of my favorite "jobs" I had growing up...watering the neighbors plants when they left town. Guess I'll make one of the neighbor kids in my neighborhood happy by having her water our plants.
• I got my hair trimmed today. I typically grow my hair long, cut it short, grow it long, cut it short. This is the first time that I can remember not doing a drastic chop-off, but just a trim. Doesn't look all that different, but I can feel the difference. Yeah for happy hair.
• Um in 3 weeks and 2 days I'll be in Hawaii. Whoo-hoo!

Okay, I should go to bed. Good night!

p.s. As I'm listening to the news they are talking about whether that cop should have punched that girl - I have to say absolutely not. Did you see it? It was awful. I don't care what she did - he had no right to punch her in the face! She is a teenager - just cuff her and put her in your car, don't assault her!

Wheel of Fortune

Darcy, Tami, and I attempted to get on another game show last night. Wheel of Fortune came to the EQC last night. The were basically doing auditions to play the real deal sometime in the future. Unfortunately we didn't make in on stage, but there is still a chance - they will randomly select a few more names from last nights show for a try-out later on this summer. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hopefully remember to check my 2nd email address (the one used for all those things you have to sign up for, but don't want a bunch of random emails in your regular inbox) so I'll know when to show up and demonstrate my skills.

We all ended up in pink. Some lady said she figured we were supporting breast cancer - which we do - so that's what we decided to go with.

No Wheel T-shirts, hats, cooler bags, blinky pins, or cash - we just came home a with a nasty smoke smell. I bet Tami's car still stinks. Sorry about that!

The next question is - which game show will we hit next????

She Did It!!!!!

Allison was completely tired of hearing me say "Girls let's go for a walk/bike ride" which meant she had to sit in the stroller and her sisters would ride their bikes. She refused to go on our walk this afternoon, said she WAS NOT sitting in the stroller, and convinced Konrad to stay home with her and teach her to ride her bike. We've been practicing on and off for a few months. So it wasn't her first attempt.

But today it worked.

She is officially a bike rider.

Between her sisters, her cousin Makenna and her friend Gavin (who both just learned to ride), she was determined enough to do it!

Konrad took her up to the high school parking lot and with in 30 or so minutes she was riding. Yeah!

Showing off for her sisters (this was taken right after she crashed into the garbage can :) )

Riding around the circle (I love "our" park!):

Super Proud!

She can't wait for our first walk/bike ride! All though now we can turn it into a full on bike ride - which means I better get my bike down from the garage ceiling! :)

This Weekend

On Friday I took Sam to get a test done at the hospital. She has been getting UTI's, with pain in her kidney's, so they wanted to do an x-ray to see how it's all working. She has had this test done before, when she was 3, so we knew what to expect. This time however they gave her a little sedative to help her "not care" - the nurse called it the "I-don't-care-medicine". I am really grateful for that medicine. There were times during the procedure that I know she would have been freaking out, but because of the medicine she was pretty calm during all of it. Basically what they do is put in a catheter (yuck!), fill up her bladder with some special liquid that will show up on the x-ray, then she has to release the liquid (go to the bathroom) on the x-ray table. Sounds easy enough, right? Poor girl - it is very hard to convince your body to go to the bathroom when it is trained to only go when you are on the toilet - she was in pain (bladder so full) and crying for the 5+ minutes it took her to be able to relax enough to release the liquid. She was very relieved when it was all over!

In her room where she watched a Scooby Doo movie. It was so nice being in a pediatric center - everything was geared to children and she was so well taken care of. They were backed up in the lab, but b/c of Scooby Doo the extra hour, of waiting, didn't seem to bug her.
The other difficult part of the test was that she had to fast for it. She woke up around 1:00 in the morning Friday morning, and Konrad gave her a bagel and cream cheese. That was all she had to eat until Friday afternoon around 1:30. She barely complained though - I was starving by the time we got lunch, but there was no way I could complain to my 6 year old who went 12 hours without food and water!

Sam received a coupon, from school, for a free kids meal at the Rain Forest Cafe so we headed there for lunch. She has been waiting months to go - so it was the perfect ending to a semi-traumatic morning.

Saturday Kimber and Alli had their dance recitals. Both girls did really well and loved being on stage.

Before the show:

Allison's ballet dance (she also did a tap number)

Kimber's dance - this was her favorite move of the whole thing

After the show with flowers from Gpa and Gma Crabtree

Sam and her sisters - Sam is showing off her new sparkly flip flops :)

Other things we did this weekend:

-attended the school carnival - I got to run the bean bag toss - quite exciting

-washed cars

-played at the park

-walked (since that's the only exercise I can do with my STUPID ankle!)

-attended 4 Primary children's baptisms

-watched my nephews and niece

-cleaned the kitchen floor (FINALLY)

-cleaned out the coat closet (one of the girls fav. places to play now - but they destroyed it, now it is in better condition :))

-worked on portfolios

-attended church

Only 2 more weeks of school. We are soooo ready for summer! Bring on the sun, sleeping in, cartoons in the morning, Wild Waves, park days, camping, Hawaii!!!!!, days of staying home and doing nothing but organizing my house that appears to have blown up, free movies, and hanging out with my girls!

I Get Paid for This . . . .

Too bad your car wasn't parked in my drive way today - we're talking about things we do in the summer....like washing cars! :)

Memorial Weekend at the Lake

Once again, we headed up to "the cabin", as the girls call it, with the Molen family. Once again, we had a great time. We didn't get the sun that we wanted, but everything else was great!

Konrad and Al taking a break

Kimber and Sam going down to check out the waterAaron sporting a nice hiking outfit Alli, Kimber, Christine (Melody's niece), and Sam before the hike

Konrad and I on the bridge

Nice, huh?

The Molen's

Christine was so nice to our girls. These 3 held hands the entire hike.

Mel and Lily

Kimber

Check out Sam

Can you see where she climbed to?

Kaya and Aaron

The girls loved the paddle boat this year

They also love the fact that a weekend with Aaron = root beer in bottles (Sam's face was priceless this year though - "What is that?" - you could tell she thought it was a beer) which = bottle caps

Allison at the park

The girls convinced Aaron to take them to the park in the paddle boat. It was a long trip, in the rain, but they made it.

6 girls swinging

Allison, Aaron, and Kaya

Aaron convinced Konrad to take the girls back to the cabin in the paddle boat....

Checking out the comfort level of the hide-a-bed

Because of the rain we got to watch lots of movies - every morning was Barbie movie time....they are all entranced

Things to change for next year:

-only bring 2 watermelons :)

-the sun is a must

-no deleting pictures while hiking (leads to missing important signs)

-no trail-running for Ashlee, which will equal no sprained ankles

-bug catchers need smaller breathing holes so the bugs don't escape

-invest in more Barbie movies

-find a new Moron test that we can spend the weekend passing

Thanks again Molen's for a great weekend!

Ballerina Girl

Allison's last day of dance class. The recital is this weekend. Should be pretty cute!