My New Camera

The new camera. It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-H50/B.
I love it.
I got my camera on Tuesday, but had to wait until this afternoon for the memory card to arrive. So, the first 2 days I had my camera, I had only 5 pictures I could hold on internal memory. Talk about a tease.
Anyways, I hope to have more pictures taken with the new camera up soon :) It's so amazing!!

Kailey's Haircut

You'll notice that Kailey has gotten a haircut. She decided one day that she wanted her hair cut. I was apprehensive at first, but thought of the fit she throws to have her long, thick hair washed or brushed, so I agreed.

She loves it. I love it. She looks so grown up now, and the attitude definately came along with the new haircut. Here's a few quick pictures of her new style.

Our Family Vacation ~ 5/10/08-5/18/08

Our Vacation we took as a family to Nebraska, Illinois and Indiana was wonderful! We had a blast all 3 places. We got to stay in Nebraska with my parents and go to the zoo, park, shopping, the Coco Key Water Resort and stay in the hotel for a night and tons of other fun stuff. The girls really had fun seeing Omaha and Gramma and Grampa. They were wonderful in the van on the way to Omaha. On the way to Lori and Jeff's, they got a tad bit worse. We had lots of fun the short time we got to stay with Lori, Jeff and the kids. The kids all got to go to the park and play in Lori and Jeff's new family room. It was nice to be able to stay there even if it was just quick-

The ride to Indiana was considerably worse. Last stop of the trip and I think the girls were just tired of driving. It was a lot of time in a vehicle.

Our hotel in Muncie was nice- it had quite a bit of cops action late at night, so Luke and I couldn't stand to go to sleep and miss a minute of that. We had a blast with Andrea, Dwayne and the girls! Kailey and Emmalee didn't behave too bad, which was nice. They sure enjoyed having a huge yard to play in at Andrea and Dwayne's house! Both girls did ok with the dogs too. The more they were around them, the better they were. We went to the Children's Zoo in Fort Wayne too, which the girls really liked. It was smaller than the Omaha zoo, but it had a lot of little kid things there.

I'm really shortening everything I wanted to say about our trip, simply because there is just too much to tell. In short, it was awesome. The ride home was absolute hell. I can't even begin to tell you how thankful Luke and I were to get near the back roads before we got home. It was unbelievable. And to drive in our driveway, excellent. Never been so happy to be out of the van in my life.

And, now, as we reflect on vacation we think next time we will only have one destination per vacation. It's just too much on both us and the kids, even though I wouldn't trade that vacation for the world.

So, what you've been waiting for, the pictures. There is a ton, sorry.

ENJOY :)

This was the Coco Key Water Resort. It was awesome. The girls had such a blast there!

Kailey on the right slide heading down. Her and Emmalee LOVED these slides. Fearless!

Daddy and Kailey on the tube river. That was fun!

Luke and the girls playing games in the arcade at the Water Resort hotel.

Luke and Kailey riding cycles in the arcade.

The girls. Pooped out from a day with Gramma and Grampa at the waterpark.

Kailey and Emmalee just beginning the Omaha Zoo adventure-

Luke holding Emmalee in the Jungle walk-through.

Emmalee checking out the polar bear. I love this picture!

Luke, Kailey and Emmalee looking at the fish in the Aquarium.

Luke and Emmalee. Emmalee spotted something exciting!

Gramma and Kailey at Gramma and Grampa's house-

Kailey and Alexi - I love this picture!

Luke watching Alexi, Bailey, Emmalee and Kailey play.

Emmalee enjoying Hannah's little 4 wheeler.

Luke better watch out - Kailey is a terrible driver!

Hannah, Kailey and Emmalee in Hannah's jeep.

Kailey riding the pony at the Ft. Wayne zoo. She LOVED this!

Kailey and Emmalee petting the goats.

I love this picture. Isn't he cool?!

Kailey going for her second carousel ride in a week.

Kailey and Emmalee on the giant tortoise at the zoo.

Hidey Don relaxing. She's so precious!

These three are trouble, but they sure had fun!

I know, I know...

It's been forever again. I'm terrible.
We've been so busy with Spring here, it's wonderful! However, hard to find time to update the blog. Great news though for the time being, before I update with vacation pictures, I got a new camera :) It's absolutely terrific!
I'm posting a few pictures of the girls from today, and a few of 2 of my flowers.

Hopefully you'll hear and see more from us soon!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Sunday our weather started getting back to "normal." Luke and I took the girls on a drive to enjoy the nature and springtime, and then we headed over to his parent's house for a yummy supper. It was really fun! Kailey was really sad to leave. She's had really sensitive feelings lately, poor thing. We stayed there for about 5 hours, and luckily when we got home, the girls were ready for bed. It worked out well :o)

Monday Kailey had a dental checkup & cleaning. That didn't go too well. She has 3 cavities, all on her molars. The best way the Dentist could describe it was that her molars, instead of being rugged, were jagged with deep parts, therefore food tends to stick in there worse. I left there feeling like I did something wrong, but they assured me that she had wonderful teeth with no plaque buildup, and that the cavities were almost inevitable. They are very small, but they will be filling them. Hopefully with white tooth colored fillings. She'll be given nitrus oxide to be "asleep" and won't remember what happened. She still loves the dentist, and understands the cavities. We're changing our brushing habits to 3 times daily now, and avoiding sticky, sugary foods most of the time. We'll see how that goes.

Sunday night before that, we had some "April showers". Although, not the kind of April showers you expect. I posted a picture of that crap to show you. I hate snow. Hopefully, all my plants will be alright. So far, they seem o.k.. Except my tulips, they seem quite stunted, but I doubt the snow did it to them.

Tuesday, we went to story time to discover that it had ended the week before. Too bad I changed my calendar over too soon. Bad Mommy. We had fun at home and played out in the sandbox though, so that made up for it. We did our own storytime that day!

And today we did a lot more yard work. We spent 90% of the day outside. The girls got to play with Abby in the sandbox, and then we took all 4 girls to the park. We spent about 20 minutes at the park before we noticed a little girl sitting on the bench playing with an animal-type thing. Long story short, it was a baby squirrel. As most of you know, I rehabilitated a baby squirrel, one did not make it, but from that experience I knew it needed help. It's a bad time of year for squirrels to fall out of nests. So, we took the little boy home and I called June and John at White Pine Rehab. Center, and John met me in Cadott to take it back to the center. I put a few pictures of him up. He was quite lively, but thin. I hope he makes it. John said he was the 6th one they picked up today! After that, we ate a yummy supper, and the girls had a much needed bath after so much sandbox playing. I think we're all going to sleep great tonight.

Aside from all that excitement, the girls are doing really good! You can see on Kailey's picture that her cheek is healing quite a bit from her mishap with Emmalee. She has been really into counting lately, and is getting faster and more accurate. We read some counting books before we left the library the other day, and she did so good! She's been full of energy, jumping from high things that she probably shouldn't be on, but doing a good job at it!

Emmalee has now learned to say Kailey quite clearly. I also caught her today saying "Abby" when Abby wasn't outside. She's such a cutie! Her favorite thing to do lately is take her clothes off. It's such a pain! She's always so proud of herself though! I can't believe she's going to be 2 in less than 2 months. The time has REALLY flown by. How sad!!

We're all getting super excited for vacation - 10 more days to go!!! I've decided I pack way too much, and doubt we'll make room for it all. I'm trying to be really smart about what to pack, and where to put it in the van, so the things we need most will be within arms length. We'll see how it goes! Hopefully I'll find time to post before then~ Enjoy the spring weather!

Beautiful!

Our weather today was beautiful! I took the girls on a walk in their stroller this morning, and luckily, when we waved at Marge's window, she was there! We got to go in and visit with her for a half hour or so, and then she came outside with us for a bit. It was a really nice visit! After that we headed to the hardware store and to the post office. Last night Luke's brother brought over the awesome sand box that Luke's Dad had made for the girls. It works perfectly! It's a great size. Today Luke borrowed some sand from the neighbor's sandbox (the house is on foreclosure) and put it in our box. The girls had a blast! We spent a majority of the afternoon outside. When Luke got up we both took the girls to the park and let them play for an hour or so. When we got home, we did more yard work and cleaning. It's never ending. We found our first toad of the spring in the west window well today. He looked hungry. The girls chased him for awhile against my better judgement, and then I told them that we needed to get him to a shady spot so he could eat. I put him in the girls little hideaway in the evergreen bushes, and he hopped away. I hope he does o.k. I don't know why those darn things like the window wells so much, but they can't get out of them!
We brought in Emmalee's toddler bed the other day because it was getting wet in the garage, and we set it up in her room. She won't stay in it. I decided we'll leave it in there for her and Kailey to use for Doctor play, baby play and stuff like that. I'm sure they'll use it mostly for jumping.
Kailey is getting so excited for vacation. I took her special bags out today and Emmalee's pack-n-play, and Kailey just started talking and talking and talking about the zoo and Hannah and Alexi & Bailey and everything else. I hope she has fun!
Yesterday we had quite the afternoon. Emmalee and Kailey were standing in front of the couch where I was sitting talking to them and I turned to look at the news. In the meantime I thought Emmalee was kissing Kailey, and heard Kailey let out a blood curdling scream. Here I look and Emmalee has her big mouth clamped down on Kailey's cheek. I had to pry her little teeth apart. I don't know what the heck the deal was. They were getting along perfectly fine. Needless to say, Kailey has Emmalee's teeth imprints on her cheek, and it did bleed. I very calmly put Emmalee in her crib and shut the door. I was too mad to discipline her effectively at that point. After she got out of her bedroom, she didn't even want to say she was sorry. It was wierd. I still don't know why she did it. Darn kids.
We're supposed to have rain tomorrow and Friday, and possible snow on Saturday. I will be pissed if it snows. Really pissed. So I organized the girls' craft stuff to make some projects over the next few days. We have tons to do to keep us busy!
More soon!

Weekend Excitement!

We all had a wonderful weekend! On Saturday, Luke, the girls, and I went up to Timm's Hill in Prentiss, WI. It's a "mountain" I guess. Or the tallest point in Wisconsin. I sure wouldn't call it a mountain. Anyways, It's tall either way. We got there, and the road going up to it was closed. We were bummed, but we had a Plan B. We drove the girls up to Luke's Dad's cabin and we all walked around in the wilderness checking for fun spring-like nature. We took a walk down the road to go look at the Green Creek (I think it's called) and it was flowing pretty fast. The girls
like looking at water things like that. And of course, on our way down the road, Kailey and Daddy had to stop and look at all the deer and turkey tracks, and Emmalee was fascinated by all the leaves and nuts she found along the way. We went back to the cabin and Emmalee stepped in a half foot deep puddle and was soaked halfway up her legs. Needless to say, I wasn't prepared and hadn't brought any extra

shoes. Thankfully we at least had extra socks, so she stayed bootless the majority of the rest of the day. Kailey was excited to try out the potty at the cabin. I'm glad to say that she is not afraid of outdoor toilets!

After that trip to the cabin, we took the girls up to Big Falls Co. Park. They loved it! The falls were quite high, and the water was moving scary fast. We held on really tight to the girls since the whole side by the falls is big rocks. We stayed by the falls for awhile enjoying the scenery,
and then decided to head over to the park.

Of course, most of that was soggy and muddy. Emmalee put her wet boots back on at that point. The girls had fun going down the huge slide and swinging. It didn't last long there since Kailey was hungry, so we headed home. The ride home was terrible. Both of the girls were way hungry and way over-tired. Thankfully we had ribs waiting in the crock pot when we got home!

On Sunday, Luke's parents came over to visit, and his Dad helped us get our big root from our evergreen bush out of the front of the house. It was a pain. I'm very thankful his Dad was here to help us! The girls enjoyed playing with Nana, and of course, the chocolate cupcakes she brought over for them! We had a nice visit. We spent most of yesterday outside, took a few walks, played in the yard, cleaned the yard, picked weeds... all that fun stuff that comes with springtime!
Today we took a walk up to the post office, and then headed to the hardware store to get some grass seed and a sprinkler for the hose. We came home and played outside and got some new rock for the front of the house where the bush was. It turned out pretty darn nice. Tonight after supper we took a walk down to Jilly's house and the girls got to play with Charlie, Gracie and Olivia. Mommy got somewhat of a break! Yeah! It was nice to talk to Jilly and Laura while the girls behaved quite abnormally well!!!! We came back home and Luke took a bike ride with my bike and Kailey followed on hers. She's getting really good at riding that thing! Emmalee and I followed them, and we ran into Deeann and Nate and Wyatt. So they stopped by for a little bit and the kids played together. After they left, we planted some sunflowers and some organic strawberries that Kailey got with her Strawberry Shortcake DVD. We also filled up the bird feeders in hopes that we will have tons of birds like we did at the old house. Although, as Luke pointed out, we may not be able to afford to feed them this year... Yikes! We'll have to figure out something because the girls LOVE birds!

By this weekend the girls will have their sandbox that Papa is making them filled. This will be their first sandbox, and Kailey is thrilled! I'm going to have it very strategically placed so that while I'm in the garden, or anywhere in the yard, I will be able to see them in either the sandbox, or on their swingset. It will be exciting I'm sure!

There is only 18 days until we leave for Vacation! I'm packing a little day by day. I think our breaks on the van need to be replaced before we go, but Luke thinks they're fine. I think I'll take the van in and just have Tom look it over and make sure it will withstand a 9 day long trip halfway across the US. Hopefully everything is A-OK!

Tomorrow is story time and the girls were pooped tonight. All this fresh air leaves lots of Mommy and Daddy time at night, which is nice and very needed. Too bad I can't do any outside work when it's pitch black out!

Enjoy the pictures.

Happy 2 Year Anniversary tomorrow Mom and Dad!! We all love you both!!!!!!!