Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Brayden the Business Man

Yesterday Brayden asked me if he could have a lemonade stand. I was hesitant because I had my hands full with Brielle and I wasn't really in the mood to supervise and assist in such an undertaking. I told him he could go ahead if he could do it all by himself without my help. So perhaps this is one case in which I was a negligent mother but off he went and was outside on his own for about 20 minutes when I decided I had better check on him. What I found was that he was charging 1 dollar for lemonade (YIKES), that he had accosted several adults in the neighborhood including our basement contractor and the realtor from the showhome next door, and that he had sold four glasses of lemonade for a dollar each. The most troubling part was that he only had three cups.... hmmm 3 kids drinking/selling lemonade + 4 paying customers and only 3 cups....sounds like some shady business practices.
Well not that any of Brayden's "victims" will read this but to them I apologize that you paid a whole dollar for watered down lemonade from a dirty cup. I won't let that happen again!

Friday, June 27, 2008

New friends, new looks, new pets

Makenna has a made friends with a girl in our neighborhood who is 5 who also has an older sister. Needless to say when she goes over to their house to play she gets exposed to a few new things which we haven't quite come across yet at our house...
exhibit A:It's okay to be frightened by this, I know I am. :)
Of course I should mention that we do love all our new neighbors who seem to be great people and great friends for our kids!

As for new pets...
We have found numerous of these cute little frogs hiding amidst our grass. The kids kept one overnight in a watering can (which I did not know about) and needless to say it didn't survive the night. I guess they will just have to be our pets that stay in the grass- which of course is fine by me!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Oh What A Beautiful Baby!!! (thats not boasting is it?)

Here are some long overdue pictures that Julie took of Brielle while we were in Calgary. I had quite a good time with scenery and wardrobe changes and I appreciate my fabulous patient photographer.




Saturday, June 14, 2008

Settling In

This morning I woke up early (thanks to Brielle and a certain snorer whom I love) and decided this would be a great chance to do some blog updating. I thought I would go snap a quick pic of my garden (as this is my most significant accomplishment as of late). Anyways as I was going down the steps outside I stopped to look at the little birds nest under the deck which we discovered has tiny baby birds inside and thought for a moment if I should try to get a picture for this very blog when all of the sudden the bird owner of this nest flew RIGHT AT ME. I was so startled I ran down the steps INTO THE SPRINKLERS- got very wet in my pajamas- ran to the garden, took a quick pic and ran back up the stairs into the house as if I was being chased by a bear or something much more frightening than a little bird. Oh well- lesson learned- our birdy friend (or enemy) is tired of us gawking at her babies.Which brings me to my garden, to which I must thank Kevin for his hours of back- braking labor spent digging up the sod on what I think was probably our hottest day of the summer so far. I am by no means an expert at gardening. I really don't know what I am doing. In fact I think when I finish this post I am going straight to amazon.com to find the book "Gardening for Dummies." I planted one garden before in Calgary and learned a lot of what not to do- so maybe I will have some more success this time around. Probably not though, because I went a bit crazy at the Walmart garden center and bought some crazy things like watermelon, honey dew and cantaloupe. Don't worry, I also bought the easier more predictable things like beans, peas, cucumber, tomatoes, and a yellow pepper just for kicks. Consider this garden photo the before shot and stay tuned for hopefully a much better after shot later in the summer.
Yesterday we took the kids swimming at an outdoor pool and Brielle HATED it. We aren't sure if the water was too cold or the pool was too overwhelming but swimming is just not her cup of tea. That said she does LOVE her baths in our kitchen sink. It's just the perfect size for her and she could sit there splashing and sucking her washcloth all day long. Brielle seems to be settling in to our new house quite nicely. Besides loving the kitchen sink she also seems to love being in her crib because her second night here she actually finally started sleeping through the night. It has been a miracle. She wakes up once around 5 or 6 to eat and then goes back to sleep until 8ish. It's fabulous. I would be complaining about the 5 am thing but its now the only time of day she will nurse so I have to take advantage. She seems to want to grow up a bit faster than is good for her as she also refuses a bottle but gladly eats toast and crackers and anything else we let her.
And before I close this post I want to make it known to all that we are open for visitors. Anytime anyone of you passes through Omaha- PLEASE STOP IN. We love having company and we have a guest room now so please feel free to crash here. Jen and Bryce did on their way to Michigan and look how happy they were (and of course we were thrilled). You too could be that happy- just come and visit!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

We miss you daddy!

The caption of this photo should be "We miss you daddy" as I told them to smile for daddy when I was taking it.

Today is a big day for us-da da da da... We are now officially owners of a lovely home in Papillion Nebraska. (Technically, and frighteningly we now own two homes- yikes- as we havent sold our home in Provo yet--- anyone interested?) Kevin signed the papers for us today. He has been overseeing the move and doing all the hard moving stuff- like registering our cars, cleaning the old house and making sure everything is in place and he has been doing this all on his own. It's been hard and stressful and I am so lucky to have such a great guy handling it all while I chill out in Calgary. Thanks honey....we miss you and love you and appreciate all you do!

Calgary

Sadly, our fun days in Calgary are coming to a close. We sure have had a great time with our grandparents and cousins. Here are a few snapshots.
First he had a birthday cake in Utah, then another in PA and yet a third here in Calgary- what a lucky kid.
Brielle's big news is that she now sits up unsupported. Isnt she just so cute!

And here we all are (except our photographer extraordinaire Julie) at the zoo.



Monday, May 12, 2008

Pennsylvania

We had a great visit these past two weeks with Oma and Opa at their new place in Pennsylvania. It was a taste of well...country living I guess. We rode horses and went fishing and just enjoyed the beauty of nature. We were even lucky enough to see some old friends and meet some new friends. We had a great time and took about 200 pictures. I put them in a collage slideshow form just to give you a taste but first - here are a few favorites...
This is Brayden and his beloved Boomer. He rode that horse like a pro - a true cowboy.

While riding horses is something Kevin enjoys, what he really loves is riding this tractor mower thing- any excuse he could come up with and he would be out mowing or just driving it somewhere.

I think I can safely say that Kevin's favorite past time while we were there was fishing. He could do that quite happily ALL DAY long. I never quite caught on to the thrill (especially since we mostly just would catch em and let em go) but apparently for Kevin (and many other men) this is quite exciting. And I should probably mention that the beautiful fish featured above was one of the big wide mouth bass that seemed to be the most sought after fish in the pond. Way to go honey :)
Don't you love Makenna's "look-I-caught-a-fish" pose.

Why can't my kids just smile and say cheese? They always have to make some funky pose. They had a great time with these friends who came for a couple of days. We had a big marshmallow roast that night and the kids had a great time collecting firewood.

We also enjoyed a fabulous visit with the Bassetts- fun as always!

And we met up with some friends from the summer at Chocolate World. It was a great reunion.

And this picture shows the reason that I may (but probably not) be persuaded to get a dog. Makenna and Murphy were best buds while we were there. I especially appreciated Murphy taking over the role of Prince when Makenna needed a dance partner.