On our walk this morning . . .

We are having absolutely wonderful weather this week. Actually, it's a little on the cool side, somewhere in the 60's all day. (I'm hoping this last week without the a/c turned on will reflect in our electric bill!)

After breakfast this morning I put jackets on the kids and we went on a little walk. We were out of milk so we needed to stop by the grocery store and since we were out we picked up the mail at the Post Office as well. We had only walked 2 blocks or so when my "sometimes Drama Queen Daughter" announced that "Whew, my legs are tired, I think they're running out of fuel!"

Thank goodness they had enough fuel to make it to town and back home!

Vacation Photos

We had a great vacation. It was everything a vacation is supposed to be. Lots of fun, and almost perfect weather, (which is almost unheard of in Fl. this time of year!). The kids were real troopers, they are so accustomed to a schedule here at home that they amaze me every year when they cooperate so well with our crazy schedule! Tyler was able to sneak in a couple little cat-naps during the day, but Brianna, poor little thing, by Friday she looked so tired and ready to collapse! Both of the kids slept one entire flight on the way home, I was ready to join them but why do airplane seats have to so uncomfortable? :) Here are just some random shots of our week of vacation:

The amazing Vacation Home that we rented for the week: 5 bdrms, 4 baths, and a private pool!

On our way the Disney's Magic Kingdom

This is what a 'chocolate chip cookie high' looks like!
Riding Brianna's favorite ride: Flying DumboThe fireworks that night were beautifulWe spent a partial day at Silver Springs, the kids really enjoyed seeing all the animalsFeeding the giraffe with a little help from Dad!My parents were able to join us for one day- Epcot was right in the middle of their HUGE flower festival- I wish my backyard looked like that!In front of Minnie Mouses' house- love the colors!Waiting for a show to begin - I believe they were getting tired at this point and acting crazy. I can't believe I actually managed to get a picture of both of them smiling so cute! :)

Saturday To-Do List

1. Sleep in. (Thanks to my great kids I was able to accomplish this quite nicely!)
2. Make Cinnamon Rolls. (They were delicious!)
3. Dig up roses from old, rotting flower bed, transplant them to the edge of garden with Tim's help.
4. Ask Tim to Rototill the flower bed.
5. Remove weeds and plant new flowers.
6. Help mow the yard.
7. Vacuum the house
8. Run to the grocery store to get hamburger and buns to grill out tonight
9. Enjoy my family and the beautiful weather we're having today! :)

Waiting out the storm

I'm interrupting the barrage of vacation photos that I had planned to tell you about our evening.
What started out as an innocent little trip to the dealership to test drive a new Toyota Pries, turned out to be quite a little adventure! The weather had been stormy all day and no sooner had we taken our little test drive than the salesman said that 3 tornado's had been spotted not too far away! He told us to call him the next day with our decision and he locked up the shop. Everyone else had left, we knew the weather was getting bad, just didn't know how severe! Now, keep in mind, we are 1 hr. from home, the tornadoes are headed right along the road that we should take to get home, the sirens are blaring in town, we didn't know what to do! Tim's suggestion was to head to WalMart, since I wasn't overly fond of waiting out the tornadoes in who-knows-where along with the rest of the customers and employees, we called up a friend who's mother happened to live in the same town we were in. You must keep in mind that we did not know this woman, we had seen her a few times, but that was all. In true Nebraska-Neighborly-fashion, she welcomed us with open-arms. Turns out that she lives only a couple blocks from the dealership, we got there very quickly and after some brief introductions, headed down to her basement along with her neighbors that didn't have a basement either!Mrs. Forbes had water, chips, cookies and pretzels, we were well taken care of! We ended up staying about an hour, until the tornado watch had expired, then headed to Pizza Hut and finally to Walmart! Purchased my flowers and tomato plants, thanking God for great friends and His safety, glad to be home! :)

Mothers's Day

For the past 2 years we've taken our vacation to Disney World in Orlando, Fl. This always works out great since my parents live just 2 1/2 hrs. from Orlando, we're able to spend several days with them and let the kids get reacquainted with their grandparents. Brianna always has so much fun and loves spending time with "Grammy and Grandpa". Tyler, on the other hand, wasn't quite so sure about them. He is happy to observe and grin, from a distance!

I loved being able to be with my Mom on Mother's Day, I miss her so much, living so far away from my parents has been hard at time, especially since I've become a Mother myself. I so enjoy spending time together when we get a chance. Love you Mom, You're the best!

Below are some photos that we attempted, not much luck at perfect ones but who needs perfect? With 2 small children, perfect photos are just something to dream about! Give my the real life ones, they depict their little quirky personalities so much better!

My 2 little kiddos that call me 'Mama'

Back from Vacation -

3 HUGE suitcases to unpack, (we found out the hard way that most airlines only allow 1 measly suitcase per person now!) A moderate amount of laundry to wash, thanks to the Vacation Home we rented, I was able to keep up with laundry pretty well, lots of Disney souvenirs to put away, 450 photos to load onto the computer. Just typing that made me tired. I'm headed to bed, I have a feeling that my own bed will feel pretty good tonight!

Our little Preschool Graduate

Brianna graduated from Preschool last night. ( I pause here to wipe away a few tears, I'm so sentimental!) She did so well, we are so proud of her. I wasn't really sure how much she would really learn in preschool being that she only attended 4 hrs. a week, but she really has learned so much! She can write her name, write most of the alphabet, and recognize most letters and numbers. (When she gets into the 20's and 30's she has a few problems.) She really loved her teacher, I know she will miss her a ton.

Here she is 'strolling' down the isle, such a cute smile! :)

During the program, the kids sang a lot of songs. I believe this was in the middle of 'Deep and Wide'.
Brianna and her Preschool teacher, Ms. Cheryl
Both of the preschool classes singing 'God Bless America'. Some of them got a little crazy with their flags, waving them quite enthusiastically. I thought somebody was going to get hurt, thank goodness nobody did!Receiving her Diploma

And this is what Tyler though of the whole evening, he was just happy when it ended and the reception began! :)

Our 7th Anniversary

I'm a little late in posting these, our anniversary was actually on the 4th. With all of Brianna's end-of-year preschool activities and getting ready for vacation, I just haven't had the time to sit and scan the photos!

Our Wedding Invitation, the church - inside and out

Mom and I - almost ready for that big walk down the isle!

Our wedding party - minus the miniature groom who needed something to eat! :)

Some neat photos outside and one at the reception

The food was amazing, most of it was catered as the place we rented wouldn't allow outside food to come in besides the cake and mints. Mom and I made hundreds of those little mints, I don't think I even have one picture of those. There were some leftovers and you can be sure I was snacking on those for a while! The ice sculpture was so beautiful. My florist wasn't sure what I wanted when I told him that I wanted a huge arrangement for the top of the sculpture, he got it perfect though!
This is my favorite photo of the day! Out photographer was so awesome and did some really cool shots like this double exposure.
It was a beautiful wedding and everything I'd ever dreamed about as a little girl!
It's hard to believe that it's been 7 yrs. already, I hope we have many more happy years together, Tim!

A shopping day . . .

but surprisingly enough, it was a very good day! I know all the Moms out there know what I mean. Isn't it amazing how you can take the exact same children out the week before and they are well, terrors, and then the next week they are complete angels? :) It might have had something to do with a slight bribe of a cookie while I was bargain shopping at Walgreens. Some might call that wrong but I consider it "going into Mom Survival Mode." It worked like a dream, while we waited for our pizza to be made at Papa Murphy's Pizza, we marched next door and purchased a half dozen of snickerdoodles! They were sooooo good!

Earlier in the day we went to the mall and the clearance racks were calling my name. It's so hard for me to resist good deals on little girls clothes, they are just so cute! I found an adorable white and pastel-colored dress marked down to $12.00, I pulled it out and showed Brianna. Her response was, "It looks like a wedding dress!" I told her it would be a long time before she needed one of those and she said, "Yeah, we'll wait until next week when I'll be all grown up!" I know it will seem like only a week has gone by the time we get to that day, but I'm ever so grateful that we have at least 20 yrs! (if I have anything to say about it :)

* I must add that even though I wanted to buy that adorable dress for Brianna, I didn't. She has so many perfectly good hand-me-downs from her cousin that I just couldn't justify it. (I was mightly tempted though!)