Acker Family

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Cruisin' with our old Wichita gang!

Not sure which was more fun, cruisin' through the eastern caribbean or reuniting with amazing friends that have all moved away from Wichita!?! It was such an incredible week to combine those two together!

First day of cruise with Miami behind us!

The Flow Rider, where we spent most of our time waiting in line and hoping to stay up for 10 seconds!

First Stop, St. Maarten(day 3)

catching the water taxi

Stacie's old stomping ground! Del Sol and the Belgian Chocolate Box

(delicious iced chocolate drink!)

Best beach in the world! Orient Beach!

This is what happens when you burn on the first day...will they ever learn??

2nd stop-San Juan, Puerto Rico(day 4)

Took a day trip to the Rain Forrest

our Royal Caribbean cruise ship

San Juan Fort built in the 1500's-has been used as protection, as a castle and as a prison

3rd stop-Labadee, Haiti(day 5)

Royal Caribbean owns their own island and employees over 500 Haitians. There was no earthquake damage on this part of Haiti (about 90 miles from Port Au Prince).

Jeep ride up to the top of the mountain for zip lining!!

View from the top...

View from the ship as we sail away. The tower on the left is where we zip lined from.

Rock climbing competition-I took 3rd place in female category! (day 6-at sea)

Derek goofing around during the dinner pictures!

Can't forget the pictures of the towels! So nice to have your room made up 3 times a day!

Thanks to Moses, the best room attendant ever!!

First formal night on the ship!

80's dance party..featuring...

Garrett as George Michael!!

Girls just wanna have fun!

(Karaoke)

Typical night, hanging out in pizza place talking or game room playing nertz!!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Renaissance Festival

It was a fun day with the Bulls, a little rain and a little sun, greasy food and lots to look at! Thanks to our good friend Danny Jacobs who won the tickets on a radio station and gave them to us!

My kids have never seen this much skin in their lives! Lot's of conversation went on this day! We still had a fun time and glad we got to see what it was all about! Not in a hurry to return however!

They were even turned into trolls by some scary looking dude with horns and giant teeth. They actually took the pledge, but I'm pretty sure it was out of fear not desire!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Talents

Two of the ways my kids are different than I was growing up. 1) They don't like showing off their talents for anyone other than family 2) They actually have talents worth showing off!! (or maybe I'm just a little biased;)

Thank goodness for video cameras!

Brock sings Justin Bieber

Grace and neighbor girls make up a dance

Bella dances to Justin Beiber

Jaxson learns how to play Journey from You tube! (for you Patti)

Bella's sunrise performance and spring science projects

There is one week in April that is very busy in our home. School science project time!

Bella did a collection of sea shells,

Grace did a project on the manatee

Jaxson did a project on the angler fish

They also do the sunrise (k and 1st grade) singing concert! Happy we made it through the week and made all our deadlines! The kids did a great job and Bella had a wonderful concert!

Bella's teacher, Mrs. Leeds

Grace's friends, Natalie and Randi

Isabella's best friend and neighbor, Kelsey

This is Bella's class performing the Boogie Woogie. Brock could not get over the name of the song...(we use those words for a different meaning;)

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Is it snow? Is it rain?

Following a beautiful sunny day came a storm I have never seen before. First came dark clouds, then really hard rain followed by hail! The kids loved it until they were pelted one too many times! It was pretty cool to watch so we had to get it on video! None of the kids had seen hail, ...looks like snow, sounds like rain...

Easter weekend

No school Friday or Monday so we had a long weekend to hang out together as a family! Soccer games, lacrosse practice, bike rides, Easter egg hunts and our church general conference broadcasted on TV, and 70 degree weather...ingredients for a great weekend!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Robbin's reception

Robbin and Eduardo were sealed in the Denver temple on March 6th while Derek and I were still in Myrtle Beach. She had her reception on the 19th which was the end of our spring break so we headed to Denver! Thursday was gorgeous and I went on a run with my niece Jessica and then met Dawnanne for a run up in Daniel's Park! I am really going to miss being able to pop in and see her every time we are in Denver! Friday, however, we woke up to the snow falling and it didn't stop all day! The storm tried to stop us as we headed to Castle Rock for the reception. After spinning out on a turn, getting stuck on a hill, driving backwards for a couple miles, and getting lost, we finally made it with just a few minutes to spare...oh ya and we had all the food! It was a quick blur getting everything ready, but the storm slowed down those that were able to make it out in the snow and the place was ready as guests started to arrive! It was such a fun night, one my kids will talk about for a long time! There is nothing better to them than cousins, food and a chocolate fountain! Robbin looked gorgeous and it was fun to have a night to celebrate their marriage! (I have no idea why this is all underlined or how to get it off???)

All the cousin..minus 6?

Saturday happened to be Mindy's bridal shower. Nate (my nephew) and Mindy are getting married in the Denver temple on May 1 and Derek and I will be on our cruise. I was glad I was able to be there for some of the events. I even got to try a bite of the wedding cake as they sampled their different options! It will be a wonderful weekend and we are sad we will miss it! Mindy will be a great addition to our growing family!

Myrtle Beach

Derek and I got to get away to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a Chem-Dry convention! My parents stayed on with the kids after Grace's baptism while we took off for the week! We had a great time, learned a lot and made some great goals! Derek's Chem-Dry qualified for the 6th year in a row for the Presidents Club Award! So the small group of Chem-Dry's that were in Presidents Club were taken out for one of the nights and we went to Ripley's Aquarium and had dinner in a tunnel with sharks and fish swimming all around us! It was pretty cool! Although it was cold and rainy for most of the week, we still found time to walk and jog on the beach. We rented a car a couple of the days and drove along the coast line, up into North Carolina and through the little beach towns and saw the movie Avatar too! We went to a local seafood restaurant named Bimini's and had our first conch shell fish and hush puppies! Great food! It was a great time and we are lucky to have such great family that love spending time with our children and that the kids love being with! Thanks again mom and dad!

our hotel on the left

night on the pier

view during dinner

View from our hotel window

Funny moments in the Acker home!

Sooo many eggs were colored here on Easter and I am really into eggs right now. I was so excited to eat hard boiled eggs and cracked one of the colored eggs and it was raw! I guess Brock got excited and got into my fresh eggs too!

We were reading through these and Grace wanted me to tell the story of when she was about 6 and Jaxson 7 and I was pregnant with Brock and they had just learned about the birth canal and we were at a closing for a business loan with several professionals signing papers and Grace says, "ok I get how the baby comes out, but how does it get in there?" completely out of the blue.
A few weeks later, we were at the dentist (a good friend of ours) and he was looking at my root canal and Grace was watching very intently. After a while she exclaims, "How does the baby fit through there??" Ha Ha...that was quite the explanation to the Dentist and hygenist!
Jaxson wants us all to make sure we remember Brock's last and most memorable imaginary friend was and sometimes still is Orange, that lives in Mississippi where he swims in the pool and drinks hot chocolate(must be memories from our Mississippi/New Orleans trip and hot coco in the French quarters). Brock is now moving up to real friends, his first pre-school at the YMCA, his best friend was a little girl names Erin. Now he is at pre-k at Earhart and just can't get enough of Sara Bull!!
Derek was gone this week and Grace had state assessments every day but Friday so we all were really diligent in getting to bed early and up early for a good healthy breakfast! The kids must have seen it was taking a toll on me because they kept telling me, "Mom, it will be all worth it Friday morning, we have a surprise planned for you to help you relax since you have been working so hard this week." After Grace did amazingly well with a 93% on her tests, Friday morning came and went and they were actually more grumbly than normal. After they got home from school I asked them what happened to my "surprise". They told me they were going to get ready on their own, let me sleep in and make me breakfast in bed before they left for school, but I didn't wake them up early enough...ha ha! Well, I guess it's the thought that counts! LOL!

I tend to burn the most calories on my elliptical when I watch biggest loser while I work out and Brock is never far from me playing with his toys. He woke up one morning and said he had a dream about biggest loser and he was 16 pounds!! ha ha...he picks up more than I realize I guess!!

Grace came home from school saying she got the melted hershey award? When she took out the certificate, we realized it was the Milton Hershey award(founder of Hersey's chocolate) and it was given to her for being the most generous, nominated by teachers! Way to go Grace!

Brock looked at me the other day and said, "Mom, I love you", then he looked up and said, "Jesus, thank you for making my mom!" awww

Kids are all playing a game downstairs and I hear Bella yell, "The ghost is clear", Jaxson says to her, "It's the COAST is clear" and in her know-it-all voice she says, "No, it's the GHOST because it means you can go because there are no ghosts around anymore!" So Junie B. Jones that girl is!

Isabella is a very good student, not at all interested in the social aspect of school like Grace. Each they start at a color and work their way up through 5 colors, with purple being the highest. Only once in the the first year and a half did she come home with the second color and that was because I forgot to put her homework back in after checking it, every other time it's been purple. So, today Isabella comes home telling us what a mean substitute teacher they had and she tried really hard to be extra nice so the teacher would be nicer, but said it didn't work. She then explained that the teacher gave her a green(second highest color) but when I looked at her paper she had colored in purple. When I asked her why, she said she knew the teacher had meant to give her purple, so she made the change for the sub!
"I may be small, but I'm still the boss" (t-shirt from daddy)

Grace was riding in the car with friends on her way home from achievement days and they were all discussing what they wanted for Christmas and all the kids were naming expensive electronics etc. and after being asked what Grace wants, in her very timid, high pitched voice, she says, "All I want for Christmas is a pair of shoes"! Sweet girl! As a side note, she has plenty of shoes and has requested many other items already, but the shoes are one item I didn't like...so she's pushing that now!

When Sophie first got here, Brock was really giggly and the kids said, "Do you think Sophie's cute?" and he emphatically says, "NO!!"...and then a few moments later he says, "I think she's beautiful!"

Signs of having an older sibling!!

-I scored a great parking place at preschool today and Brock said, "You Rock mom!"

-Brock says, "Mom, I love you, you know why? Cuz you're hot!" (then he lays he cheek on my arm)-"See..touch your arm, it's hot!"

-I was painting the bathroom and leaning over and Brock says, "Mom, your bum looks like a hippos!!"

None of my kids have been into imaginary friends until Brock! Poor kid is alone all day while his siblings are at school so he has come up with many friends and it cracks me up to hear him having conversations with them! His first friend for many weeks was Wagon, then after awhile Watermelon joined him. They both live in Heaven by Jesus! Just this week he has added two more, they are Dorn(door), Penny! All boys, but Penny is a girl! He is such a funny boy with such a creative imagination and I want to make sure we remember these things long after he's advanced on!:)

Yesterday driving home from stake conference Brock says to me out of the blue, "Mom, you have the same backside as Grandma!" Everyone laughed, but me, I was a little curious exactly what he meant as I questioned him and then he pointed to my hands and said, "that backside of your hand looks like Grandmas!" Ha ha, we all got a chuckle, not sure if that's any better or worse, I'd really rather not any front or back side of any of me looks like any grandma!!

When something would scare Brock he used to say, "that freaks me out", well he must have heard us using the word scare instead of freak lately because now he says, "that scares me out!"

When Derek encourages me to go out for the evening, there is usually a price to pay...disaster tends to strike when dad's in charge. So last night was my monthly book group and I came home to a clean and quiet house! I was so thrilled and jumped in to snuggle in bed with Derek and asked him about what seemed to be an uneventful night. Like it was no surprise to him he calmly says, "Brock locked us all inside his room (yes we have his lock on backwards for emergencies) and after trying to break down the door, Bells finally came up with a solution. We took off the screen and I lowered the kids out of the window." Pause..."Derek, did you get the screen back on?"..."Kris, I saved that for you!" Well, I guess putting a screen on is easier than putting 4 kids to bed or cleaning up after one of their typical moms gone parties!! No wonder the kids think he is so cool!!

Brock is laying in bed crying out our names and Derek and I kept telling him to go to bed! After repeating our names and in full tears for a few minutes this was our conversation:

mom-What do you need Brock?

Brock- A towel

mom- You have your bath towel hanging in your room

Brock- That's too big for me!

mom-What do you need a towel for?

Brock- To cry into..I need a little towel to cry into!

dad to mom- What kind of things do you teach him during the day?

mom to dad- I have no idea where he came up with that!

So dad takes him in a little hand towel...

Brock- Thanks dad!

He buries his face in the towel and goes to sleep!

Derek and I don't know if we should laugh or cry! He is too sweet!

Grace and I have been sick in bed for a couple days now and we've had lots of good talks and snuggles! Today she was talking about having more brothers and sisters and I asked her why she thought I would have more and she looked at me surprised and said, "why, ...are you retired?" LOL!

Grace came home from school saying that her homework was to show me her "Reverence Book", I was a little surprised and curious to see what the school was teaching her about reverence. So she hands me a math book and I'm trying to make sense out of it and under Mathematics it says "Reference Book" ha ha...I explained to her the difference, I wonder how she was putting it together this whole time...how confusing is language!

After cheerleading practice, Grace informs us that the cheer coaches(teenagers) said if they get in trouble or fight at school or at home that the parents can tell the coaches and they will make them run extra laps. Then she said, "They can't get up in our business like that, don't ever tell them if I do anything wrong!" She is so cute!

After the kids got home from school, I was super tired and just sat down on the floor by the wall to fill out some papers and Grace came walking around the corner and said in the most surprised voice, "Why are YOU in timeout?" LOL...reminds me of something I said when I was little with Dad sitting in my timeout spot!

Last night at football/cheerleading practice, Derek and I sat in the car watching the other kids and Brock stayed in his car seat watching a movie. As we were talking Brock yells out, "shut-up", we thought we heard him wrong but he kept yelling it. So Derek gives him a little lecture on that is not a nice thing to say and we continue talking. Then after a moment he yells, "shut-up please" as we try and keep ourselves from smiling too much I turn the volume up a little and he says, "thank you", then I realized he might have been saying, "turn up" this whole time. I guess we'll see when he uses it again! LOL

So after cheerleading practice one day grace says, "I little(yes she says the t's) mama, she is so cute" (Grace is one of the very few white girls!) and few days later Grace asks me if she can have a nick name, sure of coarse, what do you want? And she says with a smile, "lil' mama"? She's got it down now!!

So after football practice this week, Jaxson says, " I feel like some fried(carry that out) chicken"! Ha, we never eat fried chicken...again, he is one of few white kids on his team!! Funny what they pick up.

Reminds me, when Jaxson was in Pre-K, he was the minority and came home from school one day asking me why he doesn't get to watch BET!!(Black Entertainmant Television!)