spring break day 5...

thank goodness. ha! we've had a blast, but my patience ran out, some time around about 2-ish. hee! we skipped the art museum because everyone was still tired and wilson was quite a bit cranky. well and me too. ;) anna had a playdate, too, so that was good for her. she let me give her a french braid this afternoon and i think she was just a little proud of it. she let me take her picture and gave me all kinds of poses. i'll post a few more later, and pictures of her on her bike, but this is my favorite so far. except that she looks sooooo old!!! :( :( :(

spring break day 4...

well, no pictures from spring break day 4. mommy needed a jammie day. ;) i've been so tired lately! so we didn't make it to the art museum as planned. hopefully tomorrow! i did get to go to dinner with the bagels and it was soooo fun. those girls are just the best!!! becky novacek took pictures of kurt and i before our ball on saturday. she brought them to me tonight and it made me teary seeing them again. she's sooo talented and has such an incredible knack for capturing people's personalities through her lens. here's a picture of my dad and wilson that i just love. i love them all!!! (thank you so much again, becky!!!)

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!!!!