Friday, August 29, 2008
Need another blog to read?
The first one is Heather Ann Melzer. She is a mom, wife, scrapper and owner of heatheranndesigns.com. Her blog sorta kinda reminds me of Sherelle Christensen's blog My Crazy Life, which I love reading. Heather's blog is mystories.photos.life. These blogs, as well as the one below, are more like life journals with some scrapbooking stuff added in instead of just layout after layout and product pitch after product pitch...not that either is good or bad, but since I don't have enough time to scrapbook as much as I would like, and since I like so much of the stuff on the market (both print and digital) sometimes it gets a little overwhelming to read those blogs until I am actually ready to do some shopping! Does anyone know what I mean?
The other blog is Heidi Swapp...another mom, wife, scrapper and owner of heidiswapp.com, not to mention everything else she has her hands on in the scrapbook world. Heidi's blog is Still Me/Happenings. One really neat thing is that she moved with her husband and FIVE children to Beijing last September. If you were as into the Olympics as I was, then you will enjoy reading Heidi's first hand accoutns of living in China. What an awesome experience and one that I would jump at if given the opportunity (for maybe like a year...not too long!)
Oh yeah, and incase you aren't using some type of RSS reader yet (kind of like an e-mail account for blog, news, etc. updates) then I would highly recommend Google Reader. You just put in the addresses of the blogs you like to read and then log in to Google Reader and it will automaticaly tell you which ones have new information. You can then read the updates right inside Google Reader or click through to the real site. So much better than trying to check every site everyday...why not let the info come to you! Give it a try if you aren't using something similar already!
Happy reading!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Complete Randomness!
Hadley so proud to be momming her woolly worm!
Monday was my mom's birthday, so we had her and Jon over for "breakfast for dinner"...one of our favorites! It was nothing compared to the surprise birthday bash we threw her last year, but we still had a great time! Being with family is what matters most!
Seville offering up her bacon to the birthday girl! Seville loves her bacon...she gets that after her Mom AND Dad!
Seville has totally mastered all levels of this playhouse...NOW WHAT?
Scott took these next two. I have to say that because there are flowers coming from the side of the picture and a light hanging down from the top right above my mom's head. See why he is never allowed to have the camera...just kidding honey! And this is after cropping them down some, but there really is no quick fix for these!
I never thought I would be able to post pictures of balloons flying over our house again, but I am starting to think we live on balloon alley. Monday night we had two more land right within walking distance of our house! This first one is looking out our front door to the left. Close up!
Directly across the street! This one ended up landing in the second phase of our neighborhood.
This one landed right out the front entrance of the neighborhood. Hadley, Attey and Cooper ran to see it! A little close to the power lines don't ya think!
On the way back from watching the balloon!
These are my other two favorites. This is from tonight. We have discovered that Seville just loves corn on the cob. Too cute!
Look at her go after it!
Well, that is all for now. I need to go to bed. More pics to come next week from when my mom and I took Hadley to the tea room! Have a great holiday weekend!
Watch Week at Dance...thanks to Kristi!
Anyway, Kristi was loaded up with her camera and camcorder and put together the awesome video below! Thanks, Kristi!!
As a little background, since Hadley enjoys dance so much I wanted to find her a dance studio that she could grow with, and the result has been well worth the hunt! We are so happy with her new dance studio, and so happy that Alyson ended up deciding to join us a few weeks into the summer session! The teaching method is totally different (not that the other one was bad because I loved her first teacher too), but the girls just seem to be learning so much more at the new studio and they just LOVE their teacher, as Kristi and I do too! She is so animated with the girls and they look up to her so much! She is a very excellent ballet dancer! At the new studio there are several levels of classes for each age (even 3-4 year-olds) and I think this helps them learn a lot more because everyone is going at the same pace. Their fall session starts next week and the girls will now be with 5 and 6 year olds, so we will see how that goes! Fine I'm sure, plus Hadley looks like she could be 5 easily!
And now on with the show...enjoy Kristi's hard work!
I will have to post some more updates soon, but for now I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! We are really looking forward to it!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fun Friday Night
The weather in KC has been a bit cool for August (not that I am complaining), but it makes it a little cold to go to the pool in the evening. We weren't able to stay too long since the babies were shivering, but we had a good time anyway. Then we went back and played in the basement which is always a hit!
Hadley has gotten so brave in the pool the past few weeks. She always liked to swim, but never got her head under a lot. Now she is a full blown fish!! Last month she started swimming in the deep end with no help or floaties, and now she is jumping in and going fully under, doing belly flops and even loves for her dad to spin her in the air! She does the back stroke too! Watch out Michael Phelps!
Seville loved kicking on the edge!
The babies were COLD!! Isn't this a cute picture...all bundled up!
The Luckiest Girls
Well, now Francesca is 19 and the tables are turned! Now I have a little girl who adores her “Aunt” Francesca (she is really a cousin, but I think of her as an Aunt to my girls!) and Thursday Hadley and her best buddy Alyson got to reap the rewards of having a wonderful older Aunt!
Around 10:00 a.m. Francesca picked-up the girls at their preschool and took them out for a day they will never forget and haven’t stopped talking about since! First they went to Wonderscope (a children’s museum), then to Rainforest CafĂ© where they got to sit by the big elephant for lunch, then they went to Build-A-Bear where they made adorable stuffed bears dressed in Hannah Montana outfits, and finally they got a cookie (and I think even rode the carousel) before returning to school. According to Francesca the girls kept telling her that they were the “luckiest girls” and Kristi and I totally agree! In fact, we think they were spoiled rotten and cannot thank Francesca enough for treating them to such a wonderful day!!
Hadley named her bear “Miley Cyrus” and Miley has been an integral part of our life ever since she came home. She gets dressed in the mornings, wears jammies at night, sits in a car seat in the car, gets her hair done in the morning, goes to school, etc. It is so cute!
Oh yeah…one last thing…the girls got their picture taken in a photo booth! I haven’t done that since I was a freshman in high school! I don’t have a scanner at home, but I took a picture of it so that everyone can see! I think it is really cute and such a neat memory of the day!
Our Little Gymnast
The lake really can be relaxing...
Now the trip didn't get off to a great start! We were about 1.5 hours into our drive down on Friday night when we got a call from Scott's brother Craig saying that his car had broken down on the way. It was the first time in more than two years that Uncle Craig, Shawn and their dog Leeroy were going to be able to come to the lake and since his car broke down they weren't able to make it. It was very sad for all of us since we were really looking forward to it, but we understood that he wanted to stay in KC to make sure his car got all fixed up before the work week started. Hopefully we will be able to plan another trip down with them soon! We sure did miss them! Here are some pics from our weekend!
Practice makes perfect!Seville wanted to give it a try too...in her true "I can do anything sissy can do" fashion!
Lipstick anyone?
Seville and Grandpa Jim!
Hadley and Scott on the Sea-Doo!
Hadley was letting Scott do donuts with her! So brave!
Sweet girl!
She just loves the lake!
What a doll!
Another pretty shot! Seville's very first Sea-Doo ride! She loved it!
Hadley and Grandma Sue Sue on a more relaxing "girly" ride! (as compared to daddy's rides!)
Seville and Mommy...I know, you were probably beginning to think I didn't exist since I am never in any pictures, but that is because I am ALWAYS behind the camera!
Me and my girls! I cannot tell you the last time I got my picture taken with both of my girls...when we weren't paying a professional to take it!
Playing ring around the rosie! We finally found a way to keep Seville happy and her head dry in the water. Wings PLUS a little inflatable ring! She loves the water, but she loves it so much that we have a hard time keeping her head dry and since she has tubes that is important. This worked perfect and she was sooooo happy! If we try baby rafts she just climbs right out because she wants to be big like sissy!
"Hi Daddy! We love you!"