I am....

Not doing For Keeps Design anymore. I know, not a very exciting change:) But for me, it's a big change.

Sarah and I started For Keeps right after I had Liam and opened for business September of 2007. We were super pumped and full of passion and optimism (and had more disposable time:). Now we are thrilled to be done with the money pit!! We believe that we had a great product but we just couldn't compete with our competitors pricing and website traffic. So we are both sad that it didn't end with us selling our booming business to Hallmark, but at the same time relieved to be saying 'adios' to the responsibility and stress. We learned SO MUCH throughout the process. We learned about strengths and weaknesses that we never knew we had.....I learned that I suck at writing and Sarah learned she could design when I forced her too!! We also learned what SEO stands for, how to file taxes for an LLC, learned what a comptroller is, how to run the administration side of a website, we learned about adwords, Xcart, the difference btw digital and press printing ($ is about it:), what EIN stands for, we learned the ins and outs of merchant services/credit card processing, and the list goes on and on. And I couldn't have asked for a better business partner either. She is an amazing business woman and friend.

Thanks for the journey Sarah!

Oh and by the way....we are selling our website. If you or someone you know is interested in an online retail store please contact me at lauramstaples@gmail.com for more details.

www.forkeepsdesign.com

Growing and Changing.

As you can imagine, we do a lot of growing and changing around here. I haven't posted about what the kids are really up to lately so I thought I share a few things.

First, this how much hair the girls have now.....ahhh enough for a real ponytail. I don't whether to smile or cry.

The girls are amusing us quite a bit lately with their interactions with us and each other. In this picture, Klaire is trying to get Kallie to stay put for the picture! Which is funny because this is the first time Klaire has ever held still for a picture when I wanted her to!
The girls are wanting to be very independent with certain things. Like feeding themselves for example, they want to use spoons and forks all the time now and get frustrated when we try to help them. Kallie is now taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to eat. She really does not want to be helped. I didn't think we could have another slow eater, but looks like Liam has some competition coming:) Hopefully he will snap out of it soon like Landon did at about four and half.

This picture below is a bit deceiving. They would actually much prefer to be riding this alone! They have just as many moments of loving each other as being jealous of each other. Trust me. Just this morning, Kallie saw me bending down to kiss Klaire's booboo and so she immediately stopped what she was doing and came over and sneakily tried to maneuver Klaire out of my attention and then when Klaire decided to go do something else, Kallie looked me straight in the face (like looky here mom, don't look at her) and proceeded to give me many hugs and kisses!

The girls are also talking a lot at home. They don't do it much when we are out and Klaire likes to talk more than Kallie, but Kallie is also quicker to sign for something. They have so many words now I have lost track of them, but my favorite thing to hear them say is probably 'daddy'. Something about little girls and their daddies:)

Liam is turning four this coming weekend): He is probably the one that I have the hardest time watching change for reasons that are hard to describe. He is just my little teddy bear and if you have ever spent much time around him you probably understand. Landon is a first born child to a 'T' with way too much brain in that head of his and so he is never lacking attention and the girls, well they get plenty too, so Liam is the one who will be off playing in his own world when all of a sudden he will come up and grab your hand and say, "I really like you. I'm glad God made you for me." Oh my heart. So anyway, I know now after watching Landon the last couple years, how quickly the innocence turns into knowledge and the comments and questions are still cute, but they just aren't the same. So I'm holding on....

Anyway, Liam wants to go to the circus so we are going to take him and Landon at the end of this month. I hope they like clowns more than me:)

I let Liam push the gas on the four-wheeler. Bad idea. We about popped a wheelie and I had to literally yank his hand off of it before we had a collision with the mountain! But the next time he was timid, so I guess it wasn't such a horrible idea!Then there is 'L-dog' or 'what?' is his new nickname! He wants to know everything that Kevin and I are talking about so if he doesn't hear a whole comment he will say, "What?" or "What we're you saying?" Anyway, he is really enjoying his summer off, don't get me wrong he misses Margo and Kiran like crazy, but summer has its bonuses too:) He is getting to stay up later and watch more shows and play the Wii and sleep in and enjoy leisurely breakfasts and spend more time his family. So he tells me that summer is pretty great too. He and Liam are thick as thieves lately. Liam used to be lost with out Landon, but now Landon seems just as lost as Liam when they are apart...which isn't often! But I have noticed a slight increase in the argueing btw the two of them since school let out, but we expected that.

We had two goals for Landon this summer: - To ride his bike with out training wheels - And to learn to swim

And we were nervous about being frustrated with him on both goals b/c he let us know that he did not really want to do either. So right after school got out, I decided that he was going to ride his bike everyday until he got the hang of it. Kevin predicted it would take at least six weeks and I thought a couple, but he did it on one week and loved (almost) every minute of it. He is so proud of his achievement and now we are working on pushing off and getting started with out help b/c that's the hardest part. He has stopping down thankfully!

And we put him and Liam in swim lessons that went for four days in a row for two weeks. The first day Landon was behind on floating on his back and by the end he was jumping off a diving board. Watching him 'get it' was AMAZING. He is a little fish. We have to tell him to calm down all the time when we go swimming now. I taught him how to dive and he didn't even hesitate, just did it. His swim teacher was so proud of him too and Landon has been asking to move up to the next class. We'll see!! Mommy and Daddy might be able to take it from here:)

He is also being a terrific big brother. He has a lot of responsibility and handles it so well. Below is pic of him with the girls reading them a book.

That all for now folks! Stay tuned for a post about my latest big change.

Happy Birthday America!

We were fortunate enough to celebrate today in Redstone Colorado. We are at my parents place and having a blast as usual. If Kevin gets offered a job up here, we may not come home:)

It's a hard knock life at the cabin.

Had some time in the car to burn:)

My dad road his paper-boy bike in the Redstone parade this year. And tossed today's paper!

Lorelai was grumpy at the parade but put on happy face for me when we got home.

Daddy and Landon were in the parade.

The girls weren't in the parade, but they might as well have been with all the attention they got:)