Katie's Favorite Things

I have found the greatest websites, both recently and previously that I absolutely love and I can't wait to share them with you.


Pandora.com
It's a personal, online free radio. You just type in a favorite song, or band and they instantly put together a play list for you including songs that relate to what you entered.


ldsjournal.com
It's new this year and it's a free. It's my new favorite way to journal, and the best thing is you can have it compiled into a book after a while. It makes keeping my personal history much easier. This site was suggested to me by my sister-in-law, Megan, and I love it! They even send you reminder emails if it's been a few days since you've added an entry.



sugardoodle.net
I love this to help with anything for church. I'm the primary music director and it's going to be a great help for music times.

I hope you enjoy checking out these fun websites!

More Pictures of Our New House!

I've been promising for a while now that I would get some pictures of our new house on my blog. Well the long awaited day has finally arrived. This is our new home. We love living here with all the space and beautiful scenery. The neighbors are really great and I've already been to 2 parties at our neighbors homes. They're all really welcoming and friendly.

This is a picture of our home from the road.

This is our family room. We enjoyed having our first "real" fireplace this Christmas so Santa could come down the chimney and see that our "stocking were hung by the chimney with care." No one received any coal in their stockings, though many threats were made.

This is my new kitchen. I love the color that Andy painted it. He spent so much time painting the whole main floor and did a beautiful job! In my new kitchen, the gas stove is on the island and the double wall oven (which I've always dreamed of) is on the wall next to where I was standing when I took this picture. These bar stools are great for when the kids grab a snack or a quick bowl of cereal in the morning. We have 4 stools so that each one of them has their own spot (we can't let Ben and Joseph sit next to each other on them because Ben fell off his stool yesturday under suspicious circumstances while Joseph was next to him.)




This is our bedroom. Can you believe it? There's a gas fireplace?! I love it! One of our favorite features is the laundry shoot that runs from my bedroom to the laundry room on the main floor. It doubles as a quick "toy elevator" and also works very well to yell for mom when she's in her bedroom. The intercom system has also become the kids own built-in walkee talkees. It just a big playhouse!

This is the view from the balcony in our bedroom. Isn't it spectacular? We own about 6 acres of the trees that you can see, which the children have great plans for. Tree houses, camping spots, hiking trails, secret forts...it's exactly why we fell in love with this home.

More will come as we complete more rooms. Soon you'll get to see the den (how exciting!)

House Pictures

I finally have a few pictures of the inside of the house that I can share with you.

Here is the Living Room and Dining Room.

I'll take some more pictures and post them soon.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Animal Science "Joseph Style"

I officially have the funniest kids in the world living in my house. I was cleaning the kitchen the other day while Joseph was playing with a truck in the family room. Out of the blue and for no reason at all he says, "Mommy, are snakes tails with faces."
I guess snakes do kind of look like tails with faces on them and I hadn't thought about it before. He'll probably grow up to be a famous snake scientist:-)

Ben's First Attempt At Cooking

I have a very independent, mini Emeril Lagasse on my hands. On Monday evening, an hour before Andy was expected home from work, Ben came to me with a box of Macaroni and Cheese and asked if I'd make it for him. I told him we'd have it for dinner (thank goodness I finally got the handyman to get our stove up and running just that afternoon). He seemed OK with waiting because he walked away and I didn't hear from him again. That is until I heard the microwave oven running. I quickly ran over to the kitchen and asked Ben, who was standing on a chair with his hand near the microwave buttons (caught red-handed). He said, "Me making Macaroni and Cheese!" with a huge, adorable smile on his face. I quickly opened the microwave door and took out the bowl of Ben's attempt to make his own dinner. He'd pushed a kitchen chair over to the counter, climbed up and took a small cereal bowl out of the cabinet. He then used the counter to open the box of Mac & Cheese, put about a dozen raw macaroni noodles in the bowl, then opened the packet of cheese and spilled most of it on the floor, and sprinkled the rest on top of the macaroni noodles in the bowl. He then pushed his chair across the kitchen, opened the microwave and put the bowl in. What I took out was burned, raw macaroni noodles sprinkled with orange cheese powder. Not very appetizing, but then again, it was his first attempt. All I could do was laugh and take a picture, then I immediately started a pot of water to boil for another box of Mac & Cheese. The positive side to his first cooking project? It can only get better from here.

I Have Become the Little Mermaid

No, I have not sprouted fins or started wearing a shirt souly comprised of sea shells. Nor have I dyed my hair a very bright shade of red. But after trying to organize my kitchen, I can confidently say "I have gadgets and gizmos aplenty. I have whozits and whatzits galore. You want thingamabobs? I've got 20!"

Why is it that each and every kitchen chore has it's very own tool. I have succumbed to the pressure to be a Pampered Chef. Well, I am calling for a kitchen gadget revolution. After living for the last several months without these said gadgets and gizmos while we've been in the moving process, I have learned how to chop onions without the help of the Pampered Chef Food Chopper. I have learned to separate egg whites and yolks the good old fashion way like my Grandmother does it, without the help of an egg separator. I have become accustomed to washing spatulas and cooking spoons when they become dirty, instead of using 5 during the course of one baking session. I have used towels as hot pads & pot holders and forks as whisks. I have peeled and sliced my own apples without the help of the Pampered Chef Apple-Corer-Peeler-Slicer and sliced my own tomatoes without a Mandolin. I have come to the conclusion that we can successfully run our kitchen with 1 dish towel, 1 wooden spoon, 1 fork, 1 spatula, a very sharp knife and a can opener.

Housewives of the 21st Century, I say we throw down the shackles of gadgets that bind us!

(as soon as Christmas baking season is over:-)

Settling In

We live in the most beautiful place in the world. I woke up this morning to Emily pulling on my arm saying "Look Mommy, the sunrise!" Right out my bedroom window, over the Blue Ridge Mountains was the most beautiful sunrise I'd ever seen. The sunsets are spectacular as well. When there are wispy clouds in the sky, they'll turn bright pink and cover the whole sky. I love looking out my window and seeing mountains and trees. This is a great place to live.

We went to our new ward yesterday, and everyone was so welcoming. It seemed like everyone there came up to me at some point and introduced themselves. One wonderful woman offered to bring us dinner that evening (it was delicious!), and another family invited us over for dinner tonight. The women all organized themselves into an army and came over this morning and helped me get my home in order. The kitchen is set-up, the kid's rooms are getting more organized and even the Christmas Tree was put together. It's so nice to feel so welcomed and loved. I love this church-no matter where you move, you have friends.

A Quick Update...

Just to get you all up to speed. We're in Harpers Ferry drowning in a sea of paint, carpeting and soap suds. The kids are loving every minute and Andy and I are excited about this chance to make this house our very own. The pool has been power washed, and refilled and looks wonderful-we can hardly wait for summer. The boys actually ask quite frequently if we can go swimming-I think we have a couple of polar bears in our family. We've been quite the spot for fun for the neighborhood kids, and I'm so glad for it. Yesterday, the 10 year old boy up the street said, "The people who used to live here were really mean, but you guys are AWESOME!!" I'm glad the kids feel like they can come over and play, I'm sure to turn in to the true neighborhood mom, baking cookies and all.

I hope to add pictures soon. The movers are coming on Monday and we'll take pictures as rooms are set up. Until then, back to the cleaning bucket:-)

A Joseph Story

I'm not sure if Joseph is so entertaining because he was born that way, or because he's a 4 year old boy, but he sure makes me laugh. At church this past Sunday, we were sitting in a row next to one of Joseph's favorite friends, Ben Petrini. They were sitting right next to each other and were actually being pretty quiet. Well, Joseph was having a little snack of dry cereal and he says to Ben Petrini, "Do you want some Tutti-Fruities?" (This is the store-brand of Fruit Loops). Ben then says, "Those aren't Tutti-Fruities, those are Fruit Loops!" Joseph then says, "No, these are Tutti-Fruities, but they won't make you toot!" He actually said it loud enough that most of the row behind us heard him and were laughing pretty hard. You gotta love the funny things kids say. I'm just glad I have this blog to keep them and not forget them.

A Night Out, And Quite the Adventure

I've been trying to post everyday, so here we go. In my opinion, it's still Thursday because I haven't been to bed yet. Technically, though, it's Friday at 3am. I know what you're thinking-"What in the world is she doing up at 3am?" Well, I just got home from a VERY fun night out with my friends. It was quite the adventure. I'd spent the whole day cleaning our new house with Andy, and came back to Germantown just in time to jump in the shower and get ready for my fun night out. We all met at my friend Maricelle's house for a book discussion (The Goose Girl-very cute). We were have a great time, when the discussion suddenly went to Saturday Night Live skits they'd seen recently that were especially funny. We pulled out the computer and started watching some clips on the Internet of SNL doing Sara Palin and Hilary Clinton (hilarious). Well, I guess some of us were laughing too hard, because all of a sudden, one of the women (who happened to be 9 months pregnant) said that her water just broke. Thank you SNL. If you ever talk to a very pregnant woman needing a tip to go into labor, just show them some clips of Saturday Night Live. That'll do the trick. She wanted to just drive herself home, but the 10 mothers in the room wouldn't hear of it. I drove her back to her house in her car while a friend followed. It was pretty exciting. After we got back to the house, the rest of us went out to The Green Turtle and had the yummiest chocolate fudge brownie sundae, and other fantastic appetizers and desserts. This was all leading up to seeing the movie we'd all been waiting for-Twilight-which opened at 12:01am. We all loved it and had so much fun. The only thing I didn't like about it was the previews before the movie-they were pretty scary! I loved Twilight, though, of course. On the way home, we had some more excitement, but for my dear friend Allison's sake, I won't give any details. Let's just say the police were involved but she didn't end up getting a ticket and we'll leave it at that. All in all, it was a very fun day.

PS While at the theater, we took guesses on when we thought Carrie's baby would arrive. He ended up being born at about 1:30am and his name is Isaac (thought we think he should be named Edward since he was born during the world premier of Twilight:-)

THE BIG DAY!

I did the title in all capitols because I feel like jumping around and yelling. I'm so excited that the day has finally come that we are buying our new home. We're going up to Harpers Ferry to order carpeting at noon, then we're doing our final walk through at 1pm, and we'll close on the house at 3pm. We're going to go out to dinner with the kids to celebrate, then "camp out" at the new house tonight. We'll build a fire and have a fun first night in our new home.

Tomorrow, we have the satellite company hooking up the TV (top priority:-) and some guys coming to clean out all the air ducts in the house. The previous family had cats, and since the kids and I are allergic, we're having the ducts cleaned, too, to be sure all the cat hair and dander is out of the system. We're having a cleaning lady come to clean the kitchen and bathrooms on Friday, and new carpeting going in on Saturday while we start painting. It's all so busy and exciting!

Tomorrow night, we'll come back to Germantown because I'm going out with the girls! We're meeting for a book group, then we're going out to a restaurant called the Green Turtle for dessert and going to the midnight showing of Twilight. Oh, boy! I hope I have time to run to the mall to get my "Edward" shirt:-)

Winter's Just Around the Corner

We saw our first signs of winter today. When we woke up, Andy's car was covered with ice. Then, at around noon, the kids started yelling "It's snowing! It's snowing!" I looked outside and low-and-behold, there were flurries. They wanted to go out and play in the "snow" but it stopped quickly. Joseph started crying because he wanted to play in the snow with his Daddy. I promised them that before they knew it, we would be in West Virginia with all the snow we can wish for.

The day has finally come. Tomorrow, November 19, we buy our new home in Harpers Ferry. I can't wait! I'll take before and after pictures so you can see what we do with paint and decorating. What an exciting time!!!!

Presidential Security According to a 4-Year-Old

Have you heard that President Bush spends a lot of time at Camp David? Well, he does (and I would, too if I were him). We often see the presidential helicopters passing over Germantown on Fridays and Mondays from the President's weekend break. On the way to Burger King today, we saw the president passing over on his way back to DC. I pointed the helicopters out to the kids and told them that the President was in one of them and the other had a bunch of Secret Service security guards. They asked why the president had guards, and I told them that some bad people want to try to hurt the president because he's such an important man. Joseph then said, "I want to be a guard! I want to be in the Secret Service!" I told him he'd be a great secret service agent and that he could definitely do that when he grew up. He them told us all, "When I'm a secret service agent, I'll just walk up to the people and say, 'Are you a good guy or a bad guy?' If it's a good guy, I'll let him in and if it's a bad guy I'll fight him." If it were only that simple.

Raising Children is Like...

I have a love/hate relationship with Sharpee Permanent Markers. On the one hand, they're really useful for labeling everything from lunchboxes to pool toys, and the writing will never come off. But that's the problem, the writing will never come off. My dear son, who shall remain nameless but his name starts with a "J" took a permanent black marker and made a very thick line across his bedroom wall and closet door. When Ben did this on my new office desk, it came off pretty easily with Windex. Windex doesn't work on walls and doors as well. We scrubbed at it with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and it may look OK after some paint for the walk-through tomorrow for the family buying our house.


My mother used to have a sign hanging in her house that said "Raising children is like being pecked to death by a duck" I would like to add that trying to keep a clean house while raising children is like trying to build a sandcastle while the waves are crashing in. Or trying to shovel snow during a blizzard. Or trying to bail out a sinking boat. You get the picture, and I'm sure you all can sympathize. Suffice it to say that the only time our house is truly clean is when I take the kids to visit my mom in the summer and Andy is home alone. But, a wonderful and very wise mother sent me this poem once, and I'll share it with you.

Some houses try to hide the fact that children shelter there.
Ours boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere.
For smears are on the windows, little smudges on the door;
I should apologize, I guess, for toys strewn on the floor.
But I sat down with the children and we played & laughed & read;
And if the doorbell doesn't shine, their eyes will shine instead.
For when at times I'm forced to choose the one job or the other;
I want to be a housewife--but first I'll be a Mother.
author unknown


So while I'm at this time of motherhood, I'll just focus on the most important thing, and that's loving and enjoying the children. One day, I'll have a very clean house, and I'll wish I had children around to mess it up.

Does anyone need anything from K-Mart?

I am amazed with technology. You can buy anything you want or need by just sliding a plastic card through a machine and signing a piece of paper. You get into Disney World with a thumb print scanner (after you've mortgaged your house to pay for the tickets first, of course). It blows my mind. Today, I had two close encounters with amazing technology. I was on the phone with our satellite TV company and asked them to upgrade our DVR. I don't know how I ever watched TV without a digital video recorder. I've thought the one we have is amazing because it could store 25 hrs of TV shows, but the one we're upgrading to has the space to store 150 hrs! I was shocked! I'll never have to erase an episode of NCIS so Andy can tape the WVU football game again. Hurray!

My other brush with the future was at K-Mart. I know, not the place you'd first think to come in contact with the latest technology but I am living in Montgomery County, Maryland (for now) so stay with me. Many of you are familiar with the ultra-fun shopping carts they have at grocery stores that have a car on the front for your kids to sit in and pretend to drive while you push the cart through the store. At K-Mart in Gaithersburg, Maryland they have gone one step further. They have shopping carts with cars on the front for your kids to sit in, that have a built-in television for your kids to watch while you shop. I guess this is the byproduct of DVD players in every mini-van so kids can't be brought to school without watching a movie on the way. Now, we need TV for them to watch while we are shopping. Personally, I think it's the best idea to come to shopping since debit cards and I'll shop there everytime I need to take my children along. I actually want to come up with an excuse to go there so I can just walk around the store while they watch the cool car-TV. Does anyone need anything from K-Mart?

Joseph "Martha Stewart" Kennedy

I am up to my eyeballs in paint samples. I love it when I walk into a house and you see color on the walls. Well, the new house has nothing but white walls-to me, a blank canvas. Now I just need to decide what colors to paint them. We've had light tan walls for about a year now, with a red living room and tan & red dining room.


I've loved it, but I don't want to just do the same thing in the new house. I'm sure that as soon as I walk into it on Wednesday, the walls will speak to me (creatively speaking of course) and I will know exactly what to do.

As far as the kids rooms go-they don't like white walls either. The only problem is getting them to make up their minds. Emily and Jenna will share a room, but Jenna wants her half to be Tinker Bell and Emily wants her half to be High School Musical (you gotta love Disney). We'll see how that turns out. Hopefully I can convince them to agree on what they've had for room decor in their current room, a light blue wall with a tree and flowers.


The boys are a whole other ballgame. Ben will go along with whatever Joseph wants, but Joseph wants too many different things. The downfall of being able to paint just about anything is that the kids end up wanting just about everything. Joseph wants a camping room, with outer space on the ceiling, with talking race cars, Transformers flying and a Lightening McQueen bed. Ben just says "Me Too!"

This is what their room looks like in our Germantown house.

I'll let you know how this all turns out-at least it will be interesting, and I love interesting.

Carpet Shopping or The Kennedy Kids Home Depot Experience

When I was a kid, I used to love watching those old Bullwinkle cartoons from the 50's and 60's with my Dad. I always loved how they gave two options for the title of the episode. One old episode that would be appropriate for the weather we've been having is "Below Zero Heroes or I Only Have Ice for You."



Which brings me to the title of this blog. "Carpet Shopping or The Kennedy Kids Home Depot Experience." Last night, Andy and I ventured out to Home Depot to decide on which carpeting we would like in our new home. Since Emily is not yet 12 and I gave our full time nanny the evening off*, we loaded up the mini-van and headed to the store. It was surprising to me how many comments I received about the number of children I have "Wow! You brought the whole family didn't you? or Boy-you have quite a few kids!" I actually have never thought I had that many children-when you go to church with the Vincents who have 9 kids, 4 doesn't seem like that many. Plus, I have a whole 2 years between each of my kids, unlike my saint-of-a-sister-in-law who had 4 kids in 3 1/2 years (I love you Megan-you're amazing!)



So anyway, we made it to the carpet section and finally found someone who worked there (I know, a small miracle). My boys were thoroughly entertained by the giant machine that moves the rolls of carpeting around. My girls had a lovely time choosing small 4 in square carpet samples to take home for their Barbie dolls, and Andy and I chose some really nice, squishy carpeting that passed the stocking feet test. Yes, we actually put a sample of carpet padding on the floor with carpet samples on top and took off our shoes to have a feel-it's the only way to really know what you'll be walking on in your home. We successfully chose all of the carpeting with only minor bribery of McDonald's ice cream on the way home, and one stop at the Christmas section to set off every musical/light up decoration they sold.



If any of you have never had such a fun experience at your local Home Depot, I'd be glad to let you bring my 4 kids next time to help you in your shopping. It will probably only cost you an extra $6 in McDonald's ice cream.



Until next time...

Katie





*Blog Note: Yes, you remember correctly, Emily is only 8 and no I don't really have a nanny (though if any of you want to suggest it to Andy, and I would much appreciate it)



I'd like to oppologize for any spelling errors in this blog. My spelling skills are nothing compared to my vocabulary and it's impossible for them to keep up.

A New Chapter

How exciting! I've always enjoy reading my dear friend Corinne's blog, and now I've taken her example and have started my own. The thing that really encouraged me was when I just read her blog about turning it all into a book and how her children enjoy hearing about what they've done in the past that was exceptionally funny. (And Corinne's kids ARE exceptionally funny). I want to have all of these wonderful things recorded, too. I think it's a great thing to keep these thoughts and memories to always look back on, and whether or not many people read it (though I'm sure the grandparents will:-) I'm sure these ramblings will be treasured in time.



Now, for the title of this blog. "A New Chapter." We're taking a huge step in our lives and have sold our home in Germantown, MD and are buying a home in Harpers Ferry, WV. I think what ended up pushing us to this decision was that our children are getting older. They're now 2,4,6 & 8, and we needed to decide where we are going to raise them, in the city or in the country. Andy and I are country folks at heart and given the choice, we want to raise them in the country. We'll be 40 minutes from where we live now, so hopefully will keep in touch with the dear friends we love so much.



We've lived in Germantown for over 10 years now. When we moved here, Andy and I were newlyweds, and Andy was starting his first "grown-up job." I graduated from Montgomery College and we started our family. Emily was our first and when she was 6 months old we moved into our brand new home. Jenna, Joseph and Benjamin each came along every two years, keeping us busy and very happy. I feel like I've grown up here, because I really did. I came here a kid and now I'm a wife, mother, friend, daughter, sister. I've served in callings that have pushed me forward spiritually, like Young Women's President and wife of a seminary teacher (yes that's a calling, too:-) and Primary Presidency Counselor. I've learned from truly great priesthood leaders and have had my testimony of our church blossom and grow. I am so much a better person for having lived in the Quince Orchard Ward, and I'm so grateful for everyone I've served with and known there.



And now for a new chapter. Next week we buy our house in Harpers Ferry, WV. It has a breathtaking view and all the fresh air you could ever want. There are more stars there at night than I knew were up there-it's amazing. It will be an adventure. I'll keep you posted...