we came, we shopped, we conquered...

and we had a blast!!!!!! i'm so blessed to be able to call these girls friends. i can't remember when i've had such a fun time. everyone brings something different to our group. it's just a perfect mix. with so many women together one would expect at least a little drama and conflict. but we didn't have any. i love that although we might have quite varying opinions on a lot of things, we all respect and accept our differences. i can't imagine a more supportive group. i'm so inspired by all of them in so many ways. i could go on and on about how much this weekend meant to me. i'm having a hard time putting it in words. and wilson's currently climbing on me ready for a nap. but i really want to say thanks for such a great weekend, girls!!! i love you!

(i stole our picture of kelly's blog.
our shopping included a few GREAT antique stores, nell hill's, curious sofa, paper source, and urban arts and crafts.

a little randomness...

all of these were done with the february it kit. i love it!!! i used the ki lace paper as a mask for the canvas and painted over it with watercolors. i can't wait to play with the prima paintable paper in the kit too.

i'm a little embarrassed to admit this, and i'm sure kurt will give me a TON of grief about this. but please tell me i'm not the only one that cries at american idol. when they get the gold ticket and walk out the door, the emotion of it all just chokes me up. i love seeing their faces and their joy of seeing their dreams realized. and i love the support their families show for them.

i'm reading the book Eat, Pray, Love, and denise and i were talking about our favorite quotes from it the other day. she posted two amazing ones on her blog so i thought i would share one of mine too:

• I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. I can select what I eat and read and study. I can chose how I'm going to regard unfortunate circumstances in my life - whether I will see them as curses or opportunities (and on the occasions when I can't rise to the most optimistic viewpoint, because I'm feeling too damn sorry for myself, I can choose to keep trying to change my outlook). I can choose my words and the tone of voice in which I speak to others. And most of all, I can choose my thoughts.

locks of love...

anna donated her hair to locks of love. she had a 10 inch ponytail, and had 11 inches cut all total. she loves her new hair! but it took awhile for her to get to that point. she was quite upset friday and saturday. in fact she threw quite the tantrum at the hair salon, and even suggested i should try to sew her ponytail back on. friday night she declared she wasn't going to leave the house until it grew back, or at least for a whole year. some time saturday afternoon she must have caught a good look at herself in the mirror, though, and decided she loves it! phew!!!! she was still pretty nervous to go to school today. but everyone in her class loved her hair (except kennedy. lol! i think kennedy just has a bit of a hard time adjusting to change.) i think she's going to really love not having kurt and i yank on her tangles any more. i love it too! except it does make her look quite a bit older. :( she's growing up too fast!

wilson had his first hair cut too. sarah gave him a squirt bottle and he did such a good job of sitting while she cut his hair. that was pretty amazing considering anna was still bawling and carrying on. he's quite the handsome little man! :) ella had her hair trimmed too, but to be honest i'm not sure if this is before or after. lol! after anna's reaction she wasn't really up for much change. lol! happy monday!

and here's jack...

her name was lola...

...she was a show girl. :)
this is uncle charley and mandy's dog.
what a sweetie!

merry christmas!

hope you all had a wonderful christmas!!! we had such a great time! we spent most of sunday with kurt's family. the kids and their cousins have a great time playing together. we all had fun playing uno attack and eating karla's wonderful food.

christmas eve and christmas day was spent at mimi and papa's. what a fun time! uncle charley and mandy brought their new puppy lola. she is such a cutie! anna got really attached to her very quickly. she did a great job of taking care of her, and even took her out a time or two. wilson loved yelling, "lola! lola!," but when she got close he said, "no no no" and ran away. uncle andy and diana brought their beagle jack a little later in the evening. jack is quite a bit bigger than lola and the kids were a little scared of him. but wilson loved yelling for him and running away from him too.

of course there was way too much food and WAY too many presents! the girls loved ALL of their presents! uncle charley and mandy gave ella a dress up bride gown. she didn't take that off all night. uncle john and aunt tall gave her a karoke machine. oh my. we are all having fun with that. i think wilson most of all! anna got not one, but 2 digital cameras. she had so much fun snapping pictures of everyone. wilson loves all of his toys and all of the girls toys and all of the boxes and wrapping paper and all of everything. he had so much fun! he's totally wiped and exhausted today!

of course there were quite a few hilarious moments during the weekend. wilson was the life of the party. he has everyone wrapped around his little finger. the most hilarious moment was when he and kurt were "sharing" chex mix. but apparently wilson didn't care to share, because when kurt put his hand in the bowl wilson pushed his hand out and said, "noooooo." ella had quite a few rare moments too, of course. she painted my nails for me yesterday. one hand is magenta and the other hand has alternating light pink and purple nails. as she was painting them this is what she said:
mom! when you go outside people are going to see your nails and say wow!
did you get those done at a makeover? and you can say no! ella did them!
she's so funny! and of course we've had hilarious karoke moments. i think my favorite was this morning. ella was saying, "give it up fooooor..." and then shouting an animal name. and then anna and wilson would make animal sounds. except no matter what animal ella said wilson said baa. lol! guess we need to keep working on our animal sounds, huh? :)

hopefully i'll have time to edit pictures soon.

busy, busy, busy!

it's been a bit crazy around here! we are having SO much fun! Christmas is just SO fun with the kids! we had a few of anna's friends over yesterday and made mini albums with them. oh! i forgot to take pictures of the albums - i'll have to show anna's in the next post. she's quite proud of it! she did a great job! i had the paper on the pages and they added all of the embellishments. one friend was hoping to add one of everything in her book. lol! she scraps like me! :) we took a few pictures beforehand to put in our books too. it was fun to have cooperative people to photograph! :) all i had to do was to remind them that no giggling was allowed in our house, and none of them could control themselves. lol! they had the most contagious giggles. we've also been enjoying the snow, doing a little baking and making TONS of paper snowflakes. we're so excited to see our families soon!






i've done a little scrapping of my own too. january's play it forward it kit is so fun! it gave me the perfect opportunity to print and scrap some of the pictures that becky took of us this fall.

snow day!!!

our first one this year! and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. we all need the day to rest and recooperate from our colds and coughs. i've always wanted to do an advent activity with the girls, so today we finally started using kate teague's advent fun kit at 2 peas. she has some really fun suggestions in the kit! we did 6 days in one today. lol! we read a Christmas story (the hat by jan brett), made snowflakes, had a bubble bath (with green and red color tabs. lol!), sang Christmas carols and decorated the tree with candy canes. the bad thing is that i only got one picture! it was nice to just enjoy our time without a camera in front of my face. just for today. ;) and i think you can tell that anna still isn't feeling great and neither are any of us, really. i think we could use a whole week of snow days! lol!

we're still here...

i haven't been able to bring myself to blog. i can't not say anything about what happened here wednesday. but i have so much to say about it. and yet nothing. i just don't understand. i love von maur. i can't remember one single time that i've been there and haven't been helped on by a nice, friendly person. i'm just so sad and sick for all of them and their families. and of course for all of the customers too.

on top of that stress we've all been sick. we mostly just have colds, but wilson was finally diagnosed with pneumonia and an ear infection on thursday. i say finally because he has had piggy backing colds (or so the doc said at our last appt not too long ago), and it seems like he's been since since october. this season has been the worst for us yet so far. it's just so hard to see them sick and tired and not themselves.

i haven't gotten much farther on my shopping or decorating. and i'm starting to panic just a tidge. i have so many projects and fun things i'd really like to do with the kids too. so i guess i should get to cracking!!!

2ps2sday...

on tuesdays two peas does a fun challenge and chat on their digi boards and they release their new kits for the week. if you've ever thought about trying out digital scrapbooking you should really join in! there are usually 2 or more garden girls there to answer questions. but don't come hungry - we almost always end up talking about food! i'm usually starving by the end of the night. this page is the one i did for this week's challenge - use an overlay. i don't think i've done very many pages with so much white space, so i'm not quite sure about it. but i love this pictures. i love those jammies of wilson's (that the girls wore too.) and i love that he's holding his book upside down. lol! we'll be doing lots of snuggling and reading today - he has a fever and i'm not feeling great myself. :P is it too early to be wishing for spring? lol!

weekend pictures...

here are a few picts from our weekend and our trip to see george. i didn't get many good ones of george. wilson was so excited! he gave him a few pats at first, and then walked away. later i took wilson up to see george again and he gave him huge hugs and high fives. but i was holding him so i missed out on the pictures. bummer! we all had a great time at the children's museum, and i think wilson loved it the most! we'll be heading back there more often for sure. what a great place for learning and for the kids to burn up some energy! :D

i started using flickr for some of our pictures. (to see them just click on the little picture bar on the left.) i took a few for my brothers and a few at grandpa k's wedding. i'm trying to learn as much as i can before my brother andy and his fiance diana get married this spring. i'm really hoping to dive into it after the holidays. i have SO much to learn! i'm hoping to participate a lot more on a few photography boards and i really want to take some classes. i'm kind of freaking out about all of it already, if you couldn't tell. it's so scary to put yourself out there. and i'm not confident at all to begin with. but i know it's the only way to improve, and i have a LONG way to go! i'm always open for any constructive criticism and advice about it all. just be gentle! lol!

speaking of the holidays - i am totally unorganized when it comes to that too! i do have most of the kids' presents bought, but that's as far as i've gottten. well and we did make our chex mix and puppy chow. we do have priorties. lol! we tried to get our tree up, but a few strands of lights aren't working. and the girls decorated the tree themselves, and well, there aren't any ornaments about the 4 foot line. lol! so i've been trying to get it all fixed and to get the other decorations out. but i can't seem to make any progress. i know it's only december 4th, but we're usually so much farther along by now. hopefully we'll get more in the spirit and get to moving soon!

2 posts in 2 days!

is that a record? for me it is! lol! we are iced in today and having a great day. we've been baking and playing and i even got a little scrapbooking in. katja kromann has just released 2 new digital kits. they are available at ScrapScandiStyle.com and pages done with her kit can be seen at her website as well. i used her silver bells kit to scrap pictures from anna's school christmas party from last year. she has grown up so much since then!

an update...

since miley updated her blog (shocking!) i guess i better do mine! lol! we had a great thanksgiving with mimi and papa. our best cooked turkey ever! we have a saying in our bagel group about ovens. well mostly it's about cameras, but it refers to an oven. when people tell us our pictures are great just because we have a good camera we say, "no one would say our cooking so we must have a good oven." and i agree with that whole heartedly. especially since i'm a bad cook. but in this case our cooking was much better because we had a good oven. hee! well we were comparing to last year's turkey. which was not only not completely and totally thawed, but also was cooked in our old oven that took over an hour to cook a lasagna. so maybe our turkey wasn't so perfect, but it was compared to last years!

since then we've been trying to decorate for christmas, get our shopping done, and fight of colds and sickness. we haven't been very successful on either of those fronts. i think we're close to having gifts done for the kids. i wanted to get theirs done first since i was nervous about a few hard to find items. i still have the adults left to do though. and i know i still have a lot of time, but if i want to go during the week i have to take wilson (aka the world's worst shopper) with me. and i've tried bribing him, letting him ride in the front part of the cart and bringing snacks along. nothing will get that boy to want to shop. i think it's a guy thing!

we are expecting an ice storm tonight into tomorrow. that should be interesting! i'm glad for the chance for us to just be all home together without the pull for us to be out running errands. but we're also hoping to go downtown: me to see the denise at the hot shops open house, and the whole family to see curious george at the children's museum. so we're not sure how that will all work.

tonight we got a call from uncle charley (my brother chuck) who lives in connecticut. i'm so glad christmas is almost here and we'll get to spend some time with him and my whole family. chuck was asking ella about presents, i think, and she was telling him a few things on her list. but then she said, "but christmas isn't really about the presents." and he asked what it is about. and she said, "it's about love and God." isn't that sweet?! anna had ccd this week and they talked about that in class. i guess ella was really listening to her sister and i discuss that. now know i'm not naive enough to think ella really would be ok without presents. but i'm glad at least that thought is in her head somewhere. and since she is the one who thinks her bosses are, "God, Jesus and Santa," we do know where her priorities lie. ;)

anna is doing great too. i'm so amazed at her reading. i have a few sets of american girl books and she can read one a night without any problem. when i worked in school there was a girl who started reading those in second grade and we were in awe. and now here anna is in first and able to read them so well. and i know quite a few kids in her grade read chapter books too. it's amazing what is expected of them in school at such a young age. she has no problem stepping up to the challenges they give her. she's really enjoying all of her extracurricular activities and is asking to sign up for more. for our own sanity we've decided to limit her to just a few things. we feel like we barely get to see her anymore already! first grade is too young for that!

hee - well and now that i've written a book and a half i'll sign off. hope everyone has a great weekend! and that everyone here in omaha stays safe!

a picture is worth a thousand words. :)

no pictures...

wilson has an elmo book with a camera on the front. (actually i think uncle charley gave it to one of the girls for christmas awhile back. but anyway!) elmo says, "can elmo take your picture? say cheese please!" and wilson yelled back, "NO!!!" so now i officially have 3 kids who hate having their pictures taken. wonderful! if elmo can't get wilson's picture then who can?! lol! well i should say becky can! she got this wonderful one of him about a month ago. and she got a few other great ones too! but she's so amazing! i have no hope. stinkers!!!

the december it kit...

is my favorite yet! i know i always say that, but it's true! they just keep getting better and better! this month's kit has a tag shaped stamp with little journaling lines that fit inside it. and the cutest snowflake and heart stamps too! i still have so many ideas for the kit in my head! i just wish i could find time to do them!

a few more halloween pictures...

happy halloween!!!

pooley's pumpkin patch...

well i keep calling it that, but it was more of a farm i think. they did have pumpkins and a big pumpkin patch area, but we must have waited until too late in the season because there weren't many left. unless we were looking in the wrong place, which is entirely possible. wilson was in total awe of everything there. it was so cute! except that he was running around like a mad man, and wow, is he FAST! the morning started off chilly, so we started off all bundled up. but of course it got warm, so as i was chasing wilson i was also juggling jackets, money, and of course our "treasures" to take home - bare corncobs, walnuts, rocks, dandelions, important stuff! i almost always bring a big bag but not yesterday. oh well! hee!

the kids all had a great time. anna is such a sweetie, always so gentle and kind to the animals and all of the little kids there. she's getting so brave, too! she was a little nervous picking up the chicks at first, but she just kept trying until she figured it out. and she didn't even hesitate to get up on the pony. she's growing up so much!

ella liked everything too, i think. she was very quiet and reserved the whole day. i wonder if she's sick?! lol! no - i think she does get nervous and shy in new situations. and there were quite a few strangers around. she's definitely going through a stranger hating phase.

wilson. hee! he is learning his animal sounds so they were having great conversations. and when ever he gets excited he says, "ooo!" so that's why he's making that face in so many pictures. lol! a lot of the animals were licking his fingers and that was making him belly laugh each time. he must have loved the pigs, because all afternoon he was going around snorting just out of the blue. he's so funny.

we were all so worn out at the end of the day, but yet no one wanted to leave (except me. ;) ) i think we're all still kind of tired. here's hoping for a kind of relaxing morning so we can all catch up on some rest.

(ps - the pictures looked great before i saved them as jpg, and now some are not half as crisp and some are grainy. i know jpg does wonky things, but usually not that wonky! well and for the first few i had my iso cranked from the last time i took picts. whoops! i'll have to use a little noiseware on them later. and hee - click on the big picture to see more. i can't figure out how to embed the album without it being a slideshow now.)

more ella and rosadita..

"rosadita's name used to be grondo. she was the CUTEST baby with pink cheeks and she loves me." it's so sweet when ella is enchanted. i was so glad to see just a glimpse of that side of her tonight, because the rest of the day she was anything but! i think having anna home for fall break has been hard on all of us. not because of anything anna has done, but just that our whole routine is off. and of course ella's not a big fan of having to have to lose a little piece of my attention. ;) i still would love to know where in the world ella comes up with these names! lol!