What's New with BKIB

Not Much Could Have Happened. Right?

2011-02-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been months and months since my last post. In that time, we have had: 1. Brooks' 2nd birthday 2. Another baby! Gracen Margaret 3. Isabella started pre k4 and tested into the gateway (gifted) preschool in Shreveport 4. Isabella's 4th birthday and all the holidays! The kids have changed so much! I will post some pics soon. Life with three kids doesn't seem that crazy, but it will be 5:00 pm and I will look up and wonder where the day has gone. The biggest thing we have been dealing with lately is school. Wondering where to send Brooks for pre school and get Bella ready to test for kindergarten. Yes, I said test. They have magnet schools here in Shreveport and the pressure that puts on these poor little things is ridiculous! She took her test on Thursday and we will find out on April 15th if she got in. I never thought I would have to deal with this kind of thing so soon. Very stressful! I promise to post pics this week!

Isabella's Dance Recital

2010-06-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Isabella took dance (ballet) lessons for the first time this year. She really picked up on the moves quickly and was one of the best dancers in her class. Her favorite thing she learned was how to skip. I have to say, she is the best skipper I've ever seen!:)

Some Pictures Of Our Sweet Little Lion.

Here is a video of her dance. This is for Grammy, Daddy Ron, and anyone else who didn't get to see it. Hope you enjoy! She is the fourth little lion to crawl out.

Kristopher got Married!

2010-05-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well, we never thought this day would come, but Kristopher got married! He had a beautiful wedding in Seaside, FL. He married a beautiful girl Sara! We love her and welcome her to our family! All of these pics are out of order, but I will tell you what they are from.

The most handsome Ring Bearer Ever!!!!!

Brooks and Ben with happy cheesy faces at the reception
Groom and Mother of the Groom Dance "These are the words I would say"
Brooks and Bella having a blast dancing
Bubbles at the reception
Beautiful Bride and Groom's first dance "Sara's eyes"
Great pic of my baby boy.
My big girl dancing with her Grandaddy
Brooks and Mommy dancing
Dad and Kristopher walking my mom to her seat
Such a happy and handsome groom!
Beautiful Flower Girl
Handsome Ring Bearer
Bubbles at the reception
Grandmommy and Grandaddy with the kids at the rehearsal dinner
Ben and Kristen at R D
The family
Daddy and Brooks
Is she not the most beautiful flower girl you have ever seen?
Daddy and the kids walking on the beach
Bella building a sandcastle

The candy table at R D
Starfish cookies I made
Walking to the beach
Walking to the beach, Ben was pushing his tummy out to match mine
Two peas in a pod
Me and my Mommy
Watch out Brooks, that cold water will get you!

We have a climber, Easter, Peanut Butter Face, Running with Dad and Reading with Dad

2010-04-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

With baby girl Carothers arriving in a few months, Brooks will be moving to a toddler bed. I didn't want to move him until he was ready and I think he is! Who would have thought that he could get that chunky thigh up that high!

EASTER! Our neighborhood puts on a really great Easter Egg Hunt. There are so many things to do and fun games to play. Isabella found one of four GOLDEN eggs and won a choc. bunny the size of Brooks. This Easter was extra special because Isabella is really beginning to understand the sacrifice God made for all of us. I think we went through the Resurrection Eggs with her about 10 times. She is such a special little girl and it is amazing to see her spiritual growth!

Brooks and Bella with Grandmommy and Grandaddy
Family pic. with a real bunny.

The kids found lots of eggs...and I got stuck holding the baskets!
Isabella and her BIG bunny!
Family pic. on Easter Sunday. You can see my baby bump!!!!

SO...Brooks feeds himself every meal. Usually he does a really good job and sometimes we have days like this.
Look mom...NO HANDS!
What? You said I have peanut butter on my face?
Oh yeah!! I'm saving it for later!!

Ben has been waiting for Bella to get big enough to fit in real running gear. She is still so petite, but we bought her a little outfit anyway. We just pulled the draw string really really tight!
Bella and Ben running to the park
We love this pic!
Like father like daughter
She felt so sassy in her running gear. She couldn't stop jumping around.

Nothing like a good read with dad!! Notice all three have a farmers tan :)

Snow Day

2010-03-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

So Shreveport actually had a SNOW DAY! Unfortunately, it was on a day where Ben had to go to work so the kids were stuck with me. By the time Daddy got home, there was not enough snow to make a snow man.

Mommy's dinky snow woman. My hands got cold so I couldn't make her any bigger.
Feeling the snow
Yeah for snow! They both loved it.
Bella was the first one out.
The front of the house
Brooks crawling in the snow
Both trying to get up out of the snow. They had on PJ's plus jeans and a couple of jackets. You don't usually have to prepare for snow in Shreveport.
Bella's snow angle
Brooks not wanting to so a snow angle
Bella kicking mammy's snow woman
Are these not the most kissable cheeks you have ever seen!!!!
Tasting the snow
munching on the snow
My Beautiful Bella!
I think she was being a snow leopard.

This was our fun day in the snow!

Hangin' with Dad!

2010-03-04T13:10:00.001-08:00

The kids love their daddy so much they asked me to post a couple of pics of them with him.

Brooks feeding himself Chick-fil-A
Brooks feeding daddy Chick-fil-A
Isabella has started falling asleep on her daddy a couple times a month...
I think he LOVES it!!

Christmas 09

2010-02-22T10:56:00.000-08:00

We went to Germantown, Tn to celebrate Christmas with my family. All of Isabella's gifts have "bells" on them and Brooks' have "candy canes". Thats how they can tell their gifts apart.

Brooks and Daddy having a moment. Brooks wanting to eat one of his fake candy canes.
The family on Christmas morning. Isabella slept in her bow which is why she has one in her hair so early.
Opening her camera from Grandaddy.

So it's amazing how things have changed over the years. My mom always takes a picture of us coming down the stairs on Christmas morning. When I was little, the pictures were of me with a big smile and almost running down the stairs. As I got older, there was a smile, but my eyes were closed because the morning had come a little too early. Now...
Here is Brooks coming down Christmas morning. My picture (which is not shown) is me carrying Brooks down because he wouldn't go any farther than he is in the pic.
Bella was happy to get down stairs, but the best is Ben (not shown). His picture is him carrying a wet diaper down the stairs. Oh the joys of parenthood!!!!
Sneaky Pete and Sneaky Suzy with Grandaddy. It's a game that they play and the kids love it!
Bella and Brooks with Grandmommy. Mom had the awesome PJ's made for all the girls. They had our first initial on the shirt and the letter matched our pants.
Kristopher and Sara. They will be married on May 7th in Saeside, FL.
This was Ben trying to get Isabella off to bed. As you can see, it's not what she had in mind. She through a nice little fit!
Brooks on his new bike.
Bella on her new motorized bike.
My sweet little snow children saying "cheese". I'm trying to teach Brooks how to show his teeth.

2010-01-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

November: Thanksgiving with my parents!

Our sweet little Pilgrim and Indian. My parents were able to come in and spend Thanksgiving with us. It is always so fun getting to spend time with them.
We went to the park to play. Brooks has become a little dare devil! He has no problem going down the slide head first!
Grandaddy pushed the kids in the swing forever! We got some really good pictures.

November: ChristGiving

We went to Branson, MO for a week to have Thanksgiving/Christmas with the Carothers. The pics that follow are some of the fun things we did while we were there.

Norah Kate (NO Kate is what Isabella would call her) the cutest little panda I have ever seen!
We went to see Christmas lights. We let the older kids get in the back with Ron and Margie so they could see the lights better.
Ben was our driver. There was another light display that Isabella really wanted to go to but it $40 per person or something crazy like that. But if you hear her tell the story now she says I wanted to see the purple light tower but it was expensive. Like 40 thousand dollars! :)
Brooks and Mommy in the front seat.
Jonathan made these awesome wood figures to represent the Nativity Story. We had a lot of fun painting them.
Uncle David and Brooks watching Cars for the 10th time. Aiden eating a popsicle. Yes, it was cold there!
The kids painting the angels for the Nativity.
The car ride to Branson. TIGHT FIT!

OCTOBER

2010-01-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

I really have been trying to update this blog forever, but the pictures always took so long to download. I seriously thought about just deleting the whole account. Here is what happened with BKIB in October.

Ben Went to Chile. He had a wonderful time. He went with some really great people. From L to R: Keith, Ben, Beth and Beth. There was another man Keith, but he came a day later.
We celebrated Halloween. Isabella was a Beautiful Giant Pumpkin. My mom bought her a Tinker Bell outfit, but it was too cold.
Brooks was a Sweet Chunky Monkey. Shown above with the Man in the Yellow Hat. Brooks did not love him the way Curious George does!
Ben had his 34th Birthday! The kids got him framed pictures of themselves for his office.
I totally could have picked a better picture of Brooks. However, Ben looked HOT in all the pics I took of him that night!

November to come!

Reunions and Blowouts!

2009-09-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

What's new with BKIB? Ben is leaving for Chile in October. He has a great team put together of about six people and he is really looking forward to it. Work is good. I think he is really getting into the swing of things because we see him a little earlier in the evening then when he first started. We went to the Guatemala Reunion in Tyler, TX and he had a great time catching up with aunts and uncles. We were trying to explain to Isabella that she was going to be meeting a lot of aunts and uncles, but she couldn't understand why we were going to visit "ants"! We brought our camera but the only picture that I took was this one of Brooks having a staring contest with his cup!

Kristen has been very busy. I can't imagine what it will be like when Isabella and Brooks are old enough to be in extra curricular activities. I already feel like all I do is run from school to dance to the church. ESL started last week and it is a lot of fun. They have asked me to run the new class and though I was a little surprised, I gladly excepted! The ladies are so sweet, and they really want to learn English. I am trying to finish the last few things for Isabella's "Imagination Movers" birthday party tomorrow. I can't believe she will be three on Sunday! These pictures are of the family at the Tyler zoo.
Isabella will be THREE on Sunday. Time has really flown by! She is quickly losing her baby features and becoming a beautiful little girl. We went in for her 3 year old check up last Friday and she is exactly 3 feet tall. That puts her in the 25% for height, she is 50% for weight and thankfully that have stopped measuring her head! She still loves school, dance and choir and has learned all of the songs fast.
Brooks went to the doctor for his 15 month check up and was about 2 1/2 feet tall which is 75% for height, he is 75% in weight and his head went from 75% to 99%! He has that CAROTHERS head! It's funny, before Brooks came along, we thought Isabella was our strong willed child! BOY were we WRONG! Brooks does not pay us one bit of attention when we are telling him NO. He gets something in his head and he is going to do it no matter what you say! We are going to have to find out what really gets his attention as far as punishment goes. We are trying to be patient!
That's all for now!
Funny Story: The kids and I went to lunch with some friends a couple of weeks ago and Brooks had a major BLOWOUT! I didn't have any of his stuff with me so I had to borrow. None of the moms that had boys there had an extra set of clothes, so we borrowed one of Meredith's outfits. We started calling Brook, Mooks for the rest of the afternoon. I needed to run into Target for a second and on the way our a lady driving by stuck her head out to comment on Isabella's outfit. When I turned around to thank her, she saw Brooks in my arms. She said "Woo that's a BIG girl!" Poor Mooks! :)

I can't believe I'm doing this!

2009-09-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

So... Ben has been telling me that I should start a blog for our family for a while now. Why I am choosing to do it (now) when our life is so crazy busy I don't know! But, this is what's new with BKIB: BEN is the purchasing manager at the IP mill in Mansfield. He has had this job for a few months now and is really starting to get the hang of it. This new position should put us here in Shreveport for a couple of more years. Ben ran his first triathlon sprint last month. He did not like the swimming part of the race, but finished in the time he wanted to. The family is so proud of him! KRISTEN is teaching two year old Sunday school on Sunday mornings. I really feel like even at the age of two, these precious gifts from God can learn scripture, bible stories and songs. All they need is someone to teach them! On Wednesday nights, I teach three year old choir. I have high expectations but I know this will be a great year. The songs are easy and so sweet. On Thursdays, starting on the 10th, I will be teaching beginner ESL. I am taking a bigger role this year and I am looking forward to it. I am on the steering team this year in MOPS (mothers of preschoolers). We meet two Mondays a month. ISABELLA is growing up so fast! She will be three on the 27th and we are having an Imagination Movers party for her. She has three year old preschool on Tuesday's and Thursday's. She calls it "the white school" because the building that she goes to school in is white. It's only been one week, but she loves it. On Tuesdays, she also goes to ballet. She looks so sweet in her all pink ballerina uniform. She is almost old enough to be in the three year old choir on Wednesday nights at the church. She gets to go early because I know her teacher really well! It's me :). She has started cutting out her naps which is hard on me, but that just means she goes to bed earlier at night. BROOKS is a climber! He likes to climb on or in anything. I pull him of the kitchen table multiple times a day. It rally scares me because I know he is going to hurt himself one day, but he is a boy! It is fun to see the differences between him and Isabella at his age. He has the most beautiful dark red curls and big brown eyes. He gets all the women talking about him when we are out in public. He doesn't smile or laugh a lot but when he does, it is so genuine. My favorite is when I am able to catch it on camera. The pictures to the left are of Brooks in Isabella's shoe drawer, Isabella on the first day of preschool. Her shirt says "preschool rocks" and has her name on it, Isabella in her ballet uniform and the last one is of the family after Ben's triathlon.