trick or treat practice...

at the zoo. we took the girls on sunday. the zoo was offering TONS of candy, ice cream, and even cereal boxes from various sponsors. we weren't really prepared for how busy it was. so we hit a few candy spots and headed to elmwood park to play. we found many beautiful settings for pictures. in fact there were quite a few photographers taking family portraits and senior pictures. it was just such a beautiful fall day. kurt and i enjoyed it as much as we could, although our hearts were (and still are) quite heavy. here are a ton of pictures from the day. not too many great ones but we were fighting the crowds and juggling the kids and the candy. :)

be sure to click on the picture below to see the full album. let's just say kurt looks good with pink hair. ;)

2006-10-29-1639-02

sweet elizabeth

our sweet elizabeth became an angel on sunday morning.

i hate cancer.

i really do. it shakes me to the very core.
please, please pray for stef.
and for sweet elizabeth. this is a picture of elizabeth taken in april. she's so beautiful and simply amazing.

happy anniversary!!!

kurt and i have been married 10 years today! we got a sitter for the girls and took wilson with us to granite city. ooooooh wow. yum!!! thank you bagel girls for recommending that place! now i wish i had gone there for lunch and dinner. :) but anyway. lol! i'm so lucky to be married to such a great guy. don't get me wrong, our marriage is far from perfect. i mean he is a cowboy's fan, after all. and he dares to like the american league. bleh! but he takes such good care of us. he works so hard at his job and then comes home and gives baths and gets the girls to bed. he's such a great father and so supportive of everything i do. here's to 10 years and hopefully many, many more. :)

journaling

i started this blog awhile ago mostly to use as a place to jot down things as they happen so i don't forget them and so i can use them for journaling on scrapbook pages later. but i haven't done a very good job of that lately! i need to get back to that. so here are a few things i need to keep --

for the longest time ella has hummed while she's eating. she hums the most if she is really enjoying what she's eating. she hadn't done it for a long time, but this morning while she was eating her granola bar she started humming again. she's my musical girl! she's always making up songs and she sings them out loud to us. she gets pretty upset if we interrupt her singing. which sometimes is hard because her songs are LONG!!!

usually i find it hard to write about wilson. i mean he is so cute and sweet. he loves his sisters, smiles a lot and likes to bob around. but tonight he made his mama fall even deeper in love with him. when i'm putting him to sleep he always grabs my finger and i lay my hand on his chest. sometimes he gives me the half closed squint to see if i'm still there i guess. i can rub the very top of his little nose and he usually zonks right out. but tonight he just had my finger grasped so hard that i couldn't rub his nose. so i bent down and gave him a little kiss. and he closed his eyes. and smiled. oooh how he melted my heart!!! i think he might love me almost as much as i love him! :)

i love these three!

aren't they cute? :) the girls love their little brother so much! i'm sure in a few years when they are pulling each other's hair out i will need to come back to this picture to remember how nice they were. lol! wilson's face just totally lights up when his sisters come in the room. he gets a HUGE grin and wiggles from the excitement. anna loves to hold wilson and cuddle with him, as long as he's not fussying or drooling. ella gives him all kinds of kisses and pats. she always walks up to him saying, "oh wilsie!" and speaking of the little man, he's waking up now so there goes break time!

(p.s. - this page was a lift of ames for the 2ps2sday challenge.)

two posts in a week!!!

wow, huh? ;) we had a busy day! ella had preschool so wilson and anna and i had a playdate with lisa and alex (and pictures from that can be seen on her blog --- just click on lisa on the list on the right). then we went to a cute little farm that had a huge pumpkin patch and two barns filled to the brim with pumpkins. the girls wanted to buy about 30 pumpkins --- they just kept picking out ones that were too cute to pass up, apparently. lol! we ended up with about 8. 4 are outside but the girls insisted that the small ones stay inside. so now i'm thinking we might need just a few more since 4 is such a weird number to work with. lol! we were all tired when we got home. ella just crashed. anna had to have a few snuggles with wilson, though. i don't think she likes him much. lol!!! ok - sorry for rambling --- here's a link to the pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/Holly.Koenigsfeld/20061017203835

BEAR DOWN!!!

:D i take it back about my bears!!! woooooohoooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

just a little bragging...

guess i won't be posting about the hawkeyes this week! or the bears for that matter! ack!
i'm going to brag a little about my sweet anna. she has this week off from school. yay!!! we had a wild day today. we did get to sleep in until 8 (i never thought i would think of 8 as sleeping in!). but at 8:45 the girls' little neighbor friend came for the day (i was babysitting). they had quite a full morning of waterpainting, computer playing, dancing, playing house, school and dress up, all before noon. they wore me out! the girls and i snuggled and watched a short movie, and just as it was over lisa and her boys came over for a playdate / babysitting (she had to babysit for me). phew! (wilson is notably out of all of the events. he was up almost all night and so he slept a lot today. he's having pooping issues. :P sorry if that's tmi! :D )

so lisa babysat while i went to anna's conference. i'm so proud of her! she has learned SO much since school started! she can write all of her letters, and she is starting to spell out words phoenetically well enough to write in a journal. and her math skills are very excellent. but most of all i'm impressed with how much her confidence has grown. the first few weeks of school were so shaky. she cried almost every morning. she cried almost every day at lunch. she was so nervous. but now she is a "shining star" in her class. those were her teacher's words. her teacher told me that she takes time out to help the other kids who are struggling in class. and she's very sensitive and sweet and great to have around. you know, i've always known that about her, but it's so great that her teacher sees that in her too. i'm so glad she shares her gifts with the other kids. hee! ok - i could go on and on. i just love that girl! and i couldn't be more proud.

(and you would think i would have a good picture of her to post with this! guess i better work on that one! eek!) :D

go hawkeyes!

we all went over to iowa city for the game this weekend. what fun! the moon on friday night was so beautiful! we had to get up EARLY on saturday to drive to iowa city from ankeny. it was beautiful watching the sun rise. i took tons of pictures, but it was a little hard to do from a moving car and through a windshield covered with bugs. :P as we got to iowa city we tuned the radio to our old college station just as it started playing the fight song. we started to change the channel after the fight song was over --- the station was playing a rock song --- but ella told us not to and that she liked that music. hee! our little rocker! everyone enjoyed tailgating --- even wilson! anna seemed to get the hang of it the most --- she was lounging on the lawn chair just munching away. the girls had a blast dancing to all of the different music around us. we met up with some old friends and had a great time catching up. the game was great! perfect weather and a big win!

this morning the girls and mimi made pancakes. yes that is a big glob of butter ella is eating. ick! anna did a lot of the cooking. she's growing up too fast!!! this weekend she printed her whole name for the very first time. she still needs a littel work on remembering how to spell koenigsfeld, though. :)

a few more pictures are here... go hawkeyes!

rosadita...

i have to write down a few rosadita stories before i forget them. rosadita is someone from ella's imagination. she has been a friend, a sister, and a babysitter at different times. most of the time we hear sweet stories involving rosadita. but last week rosadita died. apparently she was eaten by monsters. the next day she came back to life. but when we asked where she was ella screamed at us that she was, "locked in a cage. FOREVER!!!" the next day ella showed me her doll and said, "this is rosadita." i told her i was SO glad she got out of the cage! but then ella said, "NO! not THAT rosadita! you know!!!" sorry, dear!!! lol!!!

here are a few pictures. not sure if rosadita's in them or not. ;)