One Year Later

Yesterday it was the one year anniversary of my mom's death. It has been the longest and shortest year of my life. I still can't believe that she is gone and that I won't see her again in this life. I miss her more every day.

Omaha Children's Museum

Back in July we went to the Omaha Children's Museum. It was Educator's Day and they let teachers and their families (including homeschoolers) come for free. I think hardly anybody knew about Educator's Day because there were probably only 20 people in the whole museum. The previous Friday they had also had a free day and they told me there were about 5,000 people that showed up. Glad we came on Educator's Day. Anyway, the museum was really neat and had lots of fun things for the kids to do. . but since you don't want to look at 50 pictures here are just a few of my favorites.
Before we headed into the museum.

Rafael is probably going to be a little late to the fire.

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? This was the coolest part of the museum, but it was a traveling exhibit so it's leaving. Boo-hoo. Hope they have something equally cool the next time we go.

The exhibit about digestion. Yes, that third one says "poo". It also had sound effects. ;)

La, la, la, la, la, Elmo's World. This was perfect and looked exactly like the show minus the talking furniture.

Massaging a brain.

Doing something in Elmo's world.

And serving some food at Hooper's Store. . . or is it called Alan's Deli? Who knows? Either way. It was fun. :)

Gretna Days

So we have done about a million things since the last time I posted and I'm going to attempt to catch up all in one night. Hmmmm. . . don't know how this one is going to play out. So Gretna Days is an annual event here in Gretna (duh). It lasts an entire weekend and there are tons of neat things going on. The parade lasted about 3 hours. . . it was mostly homemade floats, cool cars and big trucks, but the kids got lots of free candy and even popsicles. We also went to a little mini-fair, awesome fireworks and another kiddie ride thing. There were about 20 other events that we didn't go to. . maybe next year.

Checking out the parade.

One of our 2 firetrucks. . . aren't we cool?

A girl on her horse. . actually riding English. Pretty rare in this land of cowboys.

Humoring me by turning around for a picture.

Anastasia showing off her muscles.

At a funny little kiddie ride. They called it a "train". It was actually a man driving a tractor pulling a bunch of these little carts. But it was free and the kids got to ride around a ton of times.

A Very Late Birthday Recap

I'm so slow getting this stuff together, but I figured I better get the birthday pictures up before August. Of course, most of you will have seen all the pictures over on Facebook. . . so there's nothing new to see here.
Making cake (my attempt to take a picture without a flash in a dark kitchen). Still I like how they are smiling at each other.

The cake making picture taken with a flash.

Blowing out the birthday candles. It was night at this point, so all pictures had to be taken with a flash and hence are lousy. (I'm still trying to figure out which new camera to buy).

Playing with the train table. It was a hit. I tried to videotape his reaction when he saw it. Unfortunately, the basement was so dark the video didn't really turn out. Since I was busy videoing, I also didn't really get a good picture of his face. Oh well.

Eating cake. Gluten-free. Thank goodness I had a mix. I haven't tried making a gluten-free cake from scratch yet.

More train table pictures.

The better layout I came up with later. We have a ton of tracks, but it is hard to come up with anything really interesting. I think we need to buy a mountain or something. All in all, it was a great birthday and I think Rafael really enjoyed it.

Happy 3rd Birthday Rafael

I don't really have time to post but I wanted to put up one picture on his actual birthday.

The train table was a success. I took a bunch of pictures and hope to have a real birthday recap tomorrow.

Welcome to July

I'd be lying if I told you I'm never online and that's why I never update my blog. I'm always online, but I'm just too lazy to update the blog. I also just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. . . but anyway. Oh, and all these things happened in June. Hopefully I'll post our July happenings during July!

We went to Lincoln on my Dad's birthday to see him.


We saw Aunt Jo a few times. I kind of fell down on the job of taking pictures. We actually had tons of family at this get-together.


But the kids do LOVE Aunt Joe.



Anastasia put together a 100 piece puzzle by herself. I need to go buy another one.



And a picture of Rafael, just because he's cute.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Last week (as in Sunday the 8th), I took the kids to the circus. It was a last minute decision on Saturday night to buy the tickets. We didn't tell Anastasia until Sunday morning, a few hours before we were going to leave. I videotaped her reaction when I told her, but she was so shocked I didn't really get the reaction I was expected (screaming with wild abandon). Oh well.

Anyway, we went to the pre-show and saw elephants, zebras, tigers, ponies and horses up close. It was really cool to see the animals so close and the trainers interacting with them.

Then we went down on the floor of the arena and met a bunch of clowns, saw elephants painting, and some ladies juggling vases and tables with their feet. And this was all before the actual circus started.

It was extremely hard to get a decent picture in the arena because it was so dark and frankly my camera is lousy. So just a few quick pictures.
One in the hallway outside the arena with all the goodies (popcorn, cotton candy, and the wizard hat that came with the candy).

Munching on the cotton candy.


And one of the big elephant numbers. Well, I guess all numbers with elephants in them would be big, but you know what I mean. . .

I also videotaped a few things at the pre-show. I hope I can get around to posting those soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Fun with Friends

Saturday we had a nice surprise when we received a phone call from the Krogmans asking us to meet them at the zoo! Sadly Jordan and Hudson weren't able to come - we missed you guys! But Anastasia was so excited to see Peyton and Emmy. We hadn't seen them since we moved back in March. I didn't get any great pictures but at least the kids had fun. I have a few more photos posted over on Facebook if you are dying to see them . . . ha.



The elephant had these cool metal caps on his tusks.

Random

We went out to eat with the kiddos last night. I thought I was going to get a really good deal because we had this certificate from Restaurant.com. In reality, we ended up spending about twice what I thought we were going to spend. Oh well. I brought a camera to take pictures of the kids and thought I'd share a few.

I think this picture is a little blurry and I had to crop it close to get rid of the strangers in the background. And I may have over edited it a bit, but I still thought Anastasia looked grown-up and pretty.

Rafael just being his silly self, with a dirty face. Some things never change.

Slip n Slide

We got a Slip n Slide the other day and the kids LOVE it. I took a whole bunch of pictures but then decided that you get a better idea of how much fun it is from a video. The little hill in the back yard really helps them slip down . . well it helps Anastasia anyway. As you can see, Rafael still hasn't really figured it out. But if you can't figure out how to slip then just shoot your water gun at the slide. That'll work!

Visiting with Jennifer

A few weeks ago (yes, I am extremely behind) we got to see my cousin Jennifer for a few hours. Growing up, I was always excited to go visit our family in Nebraska and spend time visiting Jennifer. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she is my closest cousin (after all we are only 2 weeks apart) and I've certainly spent more time visiting her than any other cousin. Anyway, somehow it had been nearly 2 years since we had seen each other. Not sure how that happened. (Oh yeah, Jennifer has been busy moving all over the country and traveling the world). But she's getting married in a few months and settling down so maybe we'll be seeing her more often. (Although she's moving to Ohio, bummer). I'm glad we got a chance to see her and hopefully we can see her when she swings back through NE in a few months. Love you cuz!

The Garden

Just a few shots of the garden.
I built the bed myself with my trusty drill/cordless screwdriver. That was actually the easy part. Filling the beds with soil was a total pain. Thankfully Joe carried and dumped most of the soil. I still don't think I have enough soil, but I was sick of buying dirt. I should probably go and get some compost or something else this week.

My crazy fence I put up around the garden to keep the dog out. So far it works (most of the time). This is what I have planted - tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, small pumpkins, cucumbers, lettuce, peas and beans. I have no idea if I actually have room for all this stuff, or if it will all grow. I'll let you know if we harvest anything. :)

Just one

Just thought I'd post one picture of the kids that I took tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about our trips to the zoo, our garden, and whatever else might be interesting around here. But for now, just a picture taken with too much sunflare. But I still like it.

Hoping to Catch Up

I keep telling myself I'm going to blog and post pictures. Shame on me for letting the weeks slide by. Maybe by posting that I'm planning to blog will actually force me to do something. Later. Today. I promise. Maybe.

A Note about Charlie

Thought I'd do a quick update on Charlie. Okay, so can I just say we have the most perfect dog ever? I really think an angel helped us pick out this dog. He is still technically a puppy (he's only about 4 months old), but he acts all grown-up. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he doesn't hit some sort of adolescent crazy stage or anything. He is pretty much house-broken at this point, can make it all night without going out (thank goodness), and only has accidents when we leave him for more than a few hours. (He stays locked in the kitchen while we are out of the house so it's easy to clean up). He is teething, but for the most part chews on his own toys (just a few small kid's toys have been the victims of his chewing, but nothing serious). The best thing about Charlie is that he is totally laid-back. I had heard that Airedales can be kind of hyper, but Charlie is just a cool customer. (Maybe he isn't Airedale). He loves to sleep, doesn't get startled easily (even when a certain little boy lands on him), and puts up with said little boy picking on him. So all in all we love Charlie. And who can resist this scruffy face?

If only he had a clean face . . .

Took this random shot in the backyard last week. Too bad someone's face is so dirty. . . Oh well.

Trying to Catch Up

So it's pretty pathetic that it's taken me 2 weeks to post these pictures.

My dear, sweet sister Andria came to visit way back the first week of April. I think the dog likes her better than he likes any of us. It figures. But anyway, we were so glad to see her and have her as our first guest in our new house. So just a few pictures from her quick visit.
P.S. Andria is expecting her 3rd child for anyone who doesn't know already.

Our New Friend

After going to 3 different Humane Societies, we finally found him. He is a super sweet terrier mix puppy that Anastasia named Charlie. So far, he has an amazing disposition - lets the kids pick up his feet, play with his ears, hasn't nipped anybody yet and seems to listen when we tell him "no". We aren't quite sure what breed he is, but we are suspecting mostly Airedale, which means he won't be a tiny terrier, but could weigh-in at 70 pounds when he is done growing. So much for getting a small dog. But seriously, we fell in love with this scruffy face and couldn't leave him behind. So just one unedited photo, the first one I took. Hopefully the weather will improve and we can get some good outdoor shots!