spring break day 3...

at the zoo! we went to bagels and then straight to the zoo for the whole afternoon. phew! i am beat!!! we all had SUCH a great time!!! it was really the first time that wilson knew what was going on, and he was so excited!!! we got to see a baby orangutan and it was adorable! (thanks again, denise, for telling us about it!)

(these pictures are not the greatest. i really needed my other lens, which of course was in the car. bummer!)

zoo

(ps - sorry kelly - i will blog anna's bike tomorrow. we got home too late today. she reminded me many times, though! ;) )

happy birthday, anna!

i can't believe it's been 6 years since my little sweetheart was born. it seems like yesterday!

hee - ps - i made this collage with picasa and it repeated some of the images. oops! didn't know it would do that. back to lumapix for me. ;)

snakes and bird skulls...

oh my!!! day 1 of spring break. we went to fontenelle forest for "mud pies." it was so fun! the kids made little crafts to go with animal sounds - plastc eggs filled with bird seed to resemble rattle snake sounds, toilet paper tubes covered with wax paper that vibrate and sound like cicada's... stuff like that. fun times! after craft time a lady brought out a snake for the kids to touch. anna was so brave! she said it felt like a washcloth - actually soft, not slimy. as the lady was getting the snake ready to leave the snake climbed into her shirt and wrapped around her. holy smokes! i smiled and acted non-chalant trying to be a cool mom, but inside i was freaking out!!! lol! we grabbed lunch at mcd's and then went back to explore the trails. well we only made it around one trail because we had to stop and read EVERY placard along the way. anna is her daddy's girl! ;) we learned A LOT about lewis and clark. hee! the girls are outside enjoying what is supposed to be the one warm day of the week. and i'm about ready to drop. and it's only monday! eek! lol!

oops!

you know how when you start getting rid of things you have the urge to buy more to fill the space? well - i took more pictures - and they took up way more hard drive space than i managed to delete yesterday. lol! but i did get some fun ones! anna got to celebrate her birthday at school today so i brought the camera along just in case anything special was going on. she was too embarassed to let me take her picture with her teacher, but i finally convinced her to let me take some while they were looking for 4 leaf clovers. :) willsie wasn't so cooperative because he was ready for a nap. but i did get one of him with one of his favorite new expressions. i'm afraid he might give ella a run for her money!

get ready...

for a slew of blog posts. maybe even more tonight! hee! i am running out of hard drive space on my laptop so i'm finally forced to sort through pictures and delete some. what would really be a GREAT solution would for me to install photoshop on our new computer upstairs with a widescreen true color monitor and a 320 gb hard drive. but that would involve me finding the mysteriously vanishing photoshop disk. ;) so here come the pictures. hee! this one was taken of ella just a few days ago in her new favorite dress. she has worn it at least 6 times in the past two weeks. and not always clean, obviously. i even resorted to spraying febreeze on it one day. ew!!! it seems to have replaced the shredded pink nightgown for during the daytime, though, so that is a GOOD thing! ;) and also, her flip flops are 2 sizes too small and her little heels hang off the end. i haven't managed to get a picture of that yet. they are her absolute favorites, though. i took her to two shoe departments including von maur and shopped on zappos and piperline online with her, and i still can't find any that she likes more. that girl!!!! i do love her! ;)

eta - i did find flip flop pictures, but not a view of the back heels. hee!



ha! i did find a picture of her heels hanging over. see - i told you my pictures were unorganized! ;)

breakfast for two

this morning willsie climbed up next to anna at the table while she was trying to eat. so she so sweetly got some cheerios for him and they had breakfast together. but he kept trying to sneak a bite of hers. because, really, who wouldn't rather have lucky charms than cheerios? :)

bagel love...

i think the pictures say it all! ;)

vote for miley!!! again!

the next round of making memories idol has started and my friend miley has another AMAZING project!!! if you can please take the time to go vote. and tell your friends! :D
click here to vote!

addicted to actions...

i've finally found some actions that work in photoshop elements. i could spend all day playing with them. these use the orton technique. they are quite a bit overdone but these pictures were pretty blurry anyway. and i cut off the arch! ack! hee! i can't wait for spring to go back to that park to take more pictures!

bathtime for willsie...

our ducky bathroom has the worst light. it's on the loooooong list of things that need updated. so i had to take these with a very high iso. next time hopefully i can convince kurt to move the inflatable tub into a more well lit room. hee!

music, math, and munchies...

that was the name of anna's get together at school tonight. both kindergarten classes got together and sang some of their favorite fun songs and played math games and had yummy munchies. to sing the songs we all stood in a circle and all sang along. that was perfect for anna, who isn't always exactly excited about putting on a performance. ;) it was a fun, laid back hour. wilson was the life of the party. he was very enamored with mrs. anderson, the other kindergarten teacher. ella did a great job too - she joined in the activities and sang. i'm so proud of what a great job anna is doing at school. not only because of all of the things she's learned academically, but because of all of the friends she's made and how much she's overcome her shyness. saturday she is receiving an award for her writing. we're not exactly sure what that's about so i'll have to post more about that later. sorry, no pictures! no other parents had their cameras so anna asked that i didn't take any. :( maybe next time! ;)

ps - thanks to everyone that voted for miley! she made it to the next round! stay tuned for the next voting date! :)

idols all around...

ok. i know my friends miley and becca claim mr. chris daughtry as their own. but miley, kelly and i got to see him last night in concert, and i'm pretty sure i'm going to have to fight them for him. wow he is talented! and his band was great too! i guess if i can't have chris i could totally go for the guitarist with the mohawk. i'm not so much a mohawk loving girl but he has really nice eyes and plays the guitar great! :) we stood in line for about 3 hours to get in, so we were in the second row middle. wow!!!!!! we got sweated on by one of the opening band's lead singers. ok - that part was kind of gross. lol! but the rest of the show? fantastic!!!!!!! and we went to lincoln early for scrapbook shopping, lunch with stef, and anti-que shopping. does it get any better than that??? i think not!!! miley will be posting more pictures on her blog later (right??? :D) and since she is such a GREAT story teller i will refer you to her website to hear the hilarious details of our evening too. let's just say they involve a metal purse, a barbie and a tour bus sighting. :D (ps - i stole this picture and that last line from miley's blog - just so you know.)

and speaking of miley and idol, remember the last post where i asked you to vote for her in the making memories idol contest? (scroll down if not. ;) ) well... there was a glitch in the whole system and they are asking that everyone vote again. ack! so if you could would you please take the time to go vote? and tell your friends!

vote for miley!!!

for those of you that read my blog that are not scrapbookers, there is a scrapbook contest happening right now called making memories idol. kind of like american idol where you get to vote for contestants. my friend miley made it past the first round and now she needs votes!!! i think if you click here - http://www.makingmemories.com/mmidol/index.cfm?go=register you can register at the site, and then you will be allowed to vote. her screenname is baseballmom. and her entry is amazing!!!!!!!!

a sign of spring!!!

even though, as most of you know, birds kind of freak me out, i am always SOOO excited to see my first robin. and here it is! :D none too soon as anna and wilson have conjunctivitis - the beginnings of pink eye. holy freeholies! i think we've managed to catch every illness going around this year. ack!

cheesy french fries...

(one last post for the day.)
the girls LOVE to play this game called "cheesy french fries" in the tub. kurt squirts out long strings of foamy bath soap and the girls apparently think they look like cheesy french fries, i guess! i'm not quite sure what that means, but i know it's going to be an exciting, fun bath whenever cheesy french fries are involved. :)

button heart

i'm catching up on my blogging today - hee! sorry for all of the posts in one day! i was inspired by tia bennett's christmas button tree to make a button heart. anna was working on one too but she kept getting too many "holes" in her fingers. poor thing!

footprints...

i used to love looking out my window and seeing a perfect landscape of fresh fallen snow. but now i love this landscape so much more! :)

photoshop fridays

jessica sprague has a blog where she posts all kinds of great digital techniques on fridays. since there are usually at least 5 different ways to do the same thing in photoshop it's always intersting to see how otherpeople work. i have learned so much from her entries! here's a page using the technique i learned from this week's edition. sorry if you're seeing it everywhere - i had to much fun doing it that i think i posted it to every online gallery i have. lol! hope everyone is having a great weekend!!!!

free friday...

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everyone had the day off today! yay! we had some much needed fun family time together. we had big plans to get everything cleaned since mimi and papa are coming tomorrow, but that didn't seem to happen. oh well! we did get a round of cheerios vacuumed up, so that was a good thing! :) (we have a central vac that isn't too, too strong and kurt is holding it up to wilson's pj's in that picture where wilson is giggling at some long metal pole thing, in case you were wondering. lol!) we also ate lunch out at red robin. we used to go there all of the time in texas, since it was close to our house, it was in the shopping mall with target, toys r us, old navy, and the pet store, and you get free balloons. (does it get any better than that? lol!) i can't even really say that we've done much of anything since we got home from lunch. but boy is that nice for a change!!! i'm so in need of trying to scrap again - i think it's been over a month since i've done much of anything. and we have so many home improvement projects that need done. we really need to kick it into gear! hopefully tomorrow. (i think i've been saying that or months. hee!)

happy day after valentines day...

anna had the day off from school but ella had to go to school. it was so great for anna and i to get to spend some special time together. i feel like i hardly ever get to have her almost all to myself. she asked for popcorn and a slushie from target for a special treat. :) then we had a blast shopping at the $1 spot and getting 1/2 price valentine goodies. we also stopped at the bookstore and bought a series of amelia bedelia books. i am so amazed at how well she's reading! and those stories made us all giggle so much! we brought ella the book "pinkalicious." she was thrilled! :)

ok - i guess i will try to get to sleep since it's almost 11, but i'm still just a tad freaked out from watching grey's! how could they do that to us??? they can't end it like that!!!!!!

further proof...

that i can't get a picture of my children without at least one tongue hanging out. ;)
happy valentine's day!!!!!

snow day!!!

wooooohooooo!!!
kurt's work called him at 5 am to tell him they were delayed for 2 hours. and that's when i saw that anna's school was closed! and i was so excited i couldn't get back to sleep. lol!!! we are a little sad that ella didn't get to have her valentine's party, but she'll get to celebrate thursday instead. so we spent our morning making chocolate covered bananas. mmmmmmm.......! they are delicious!!! now, unfortunately, i have a chocolate, peanut and sprinkle covered kitchen to clean up too, but it was worth it because they were soooo good!!! :D well, and anna LOVED the chocolate coating, but, she decided she didn't want to eat the banana part because they "looked gooey." sometimes she is too much!!! :)

i guess it's time for me to change my banner, huh? i left it up since i was still in mourning. :( lol! poor wilson is still sick. we took him to the doctor finally on wednesday (we couldn't get in until then unless we went to the er. ack!). by then he was really hacking and wheezing, so he had to have an x-ray to rule out pneumonia. oh my - i know there are so many worse things but that x-ray was soooo awful. i don't think it really hurt him but it was so hard for me to watch him while he sat there looking at me with his eyes saying, "why are you letting them do this to me?" they didn't find anything, thankfully, but they do think he has rsv or a virus similar to that. yesterday was a good day for him but he wakes up so congested in the morning. he's getting pretty tired of sitting in his carseat in the bathroom while the shower runs for steam. and i'm just tired of him feeling bad - i just feel so bad for the little guy. and the poor girls are ready for him to be well so they can get some more mommy time. it just stinks all around! we have been so, so blessed to not have many illnesses in our family so far! and this too shall pass. and we can't wait 'til it does!!! thank goodness for lunch with the bagels today!!! :) hope my flying monkey doesn't knock me to the floor! ;)

-ps - i'm still not sure if the girls managed to catch anything on their fishin' trip or not. ;)

struttin' our stuff like you knew we would...

we're so bad, you know we're good...

sickies...

are no fun!!! all of us are sick but kurt. poor kurt! he has done such a good job of taking care of all of us! anna isn't too bad so that's good too! poor little wilson didn't sleep much last night and is kind of cranky today. i gave him a cookie to cheer him up but even that couldn't keep him from drifting off in his swing. :) (thanks again, lisa, for letting us borrow your swing!)

relaxing weekend...

i have to admit i am quite a bit jealous of all of my friends in anaheim this weekend for cha! but we had a great, relaxing weekend at home too. lots of pajama wearing, blankie snuggling, book reading and cartoon watching. we spent a lot of saturday in the toy room downstairs playing in the pretend kitchen. the kids and kurt went to the mall and brought home new crocs. we almost never go to mass on saturday night but we tried this weekend and sure enough there was another event going on. so wilson and i had to stand in the back most of the time. well he is a good boy in church but he just gets so excited and when he's excited he's so noisy! hee! in the back of church he flirted with an adorable 18 month old little girl. he likes the ladies! ;) he and an older gentleman also talked stocks and bonds. hee! kurt made us a delicious breakfast on sunday morning. i think the pictures explain the rest of the day, besides a short play date and some shoe shopping later in the day. :) and note that i took at least 10 pictures in a row of all three of the kiddos together and i only managed to get them all looking once and ella had her tongue sticking out! ack! hee! ;)

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cake...

the girls are very into baking and cooking these days. maybe it's because santa brought them a kitchen for christmas. or maybe it's because we've been watching a lot of the food network lately. whatever the reason, we are having so much fun! today's creation was a heart shaped cake. i have to say the girls are excellent bakers. it's delicious! :)

heart cake

(the album has a few pictures of wilson in it too - we couldn't leave him out! ;) )

it's starting...

anna asked for a cell phone of her own tonight. yes, she is in kindergarten. apparently a boy in her class already has one. of course i have no idea if maybe this kid has medical problems or some reason why he might need one. but she thinks she needs one. and is very adamant about it. eeek!!!

God bless wilson!

wilson was baptized today! my brother john and his wife tall anna are wilson's godparents. he was such a good boy! he slept through mass and woke up just in time for his part. he actually wanted to dive into the baptismal font. :) he didn't cry a bit and even gave father a hug after the ceremony. he's such a sweetie! after church we had gabby's coke cow for lunch while we watched da bears!!! superbowl bound!!!! wooohoooo!!! :D

wilson's baptism

still busy!

i thought once christmas was over we could all catch our breath and relax. that has yet to happen! we had a GREAT christmas (pictures soon!!!), other than having the sickies the whole time. :( and round 2 of them has started today, i'm afraid. :P the girls got almost every single (reasonable) thing on their lists. so you can imagine the past weekend was spent finding room for everything and letting go of a few oldies. we spent new year's eve weekend with my brother charley and his girlfriend mandy (pictures of that soon too), as has become our tradition --- we've spent the past 3 new years with them, kind of coincidently. since we were all sick none of us actually made it to new years, though. next year we have vowed not to be party poopers (as ella says.) hee!!! and speaking of uncle charley, he turns the big 3-0 today, so happy birthday!!!!! :D here's a totally unrelated picture of wilson eating cereal for the first time. hopefully next time i won't take a month to post. ;)

making christmas cookies...

kurt took the last set of pictures! :) what a mess! but we had sooo much fun! :D

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christmas program and grandpa k's

anna had her christmas program at school on friday. they all did such a great job!!! they sang a song to the tune of jingle bells to help them learn how to spell december (dec - dec - ember), feliz navidad, and they sang and signed rudolph. i was seriously so impressed! we had cookies afterwards and they all got to show off their gingerbread houses. they were so cool!

we spent the weekend at grandpa k's with aunt debbie, uncle corey, chloe and caleb. it was grandpa k's birthday and for a birthday / christmas present we got him a mac mini. now he can surf the web without having his computer lock up on him!

here are a few pictures! none of them edited yet - no time to edit! ack! hee!

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christmas lights...

we drove and looked at christmas lights for a bit tonight and came upon a house that had lights made into a big red N. (for nebraska of course). i asked the girls if we should do a black or gold I and ella said, "no! we need a big pink E." heeeeee!!!! yes we do!!! :D

happy thanksgiving!!!

hope you all had a great one! we are having a lot of fun, despite the fact that anna's poor tummy is bothering her. she just can't shake the icky feeling she's had since being sick last monday. but otherwise we've had a great time! mimi and papa came on thursday morning. we had a great dinner! and of course black friday was SO fun! we found most of our great bargains at the bx. i'm almost done with my christmas shopping -- just 4 or 5 more people to buy for. friday afternoon kurt got almost all of the outdoor lights put up. we had to add a few more this year to keep up with our enthusiastic neighbors. ;) today we put up a few of our decorations. the tree is up and the girls got a tree from the target $1 spot for their room. tomorrow we'll finish decorating and pray that the kids let us take a nap! ;) well after da bears game, of course. here are a few pictures (click on wilson's picture to see more)...

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bathtub swimming pool :)

is it a turkey? or.....

a cheerleader??? we had to disguise a turkey for anna's kindergarten class. hope ours doesn't get recognized! :D

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just a quickie

i've been so bad about updating! i've been taking too many pictures with my new lens and i haven't had a chance to sort through them all. but i just had to share this one ella took with our old little sony. she's pretty talented! lol! she came up with the pose, of course. ;)