Lazy Sunday Afternoon.....

Enjoyed some time outside. Actually we spent a little quality time with our beloved generator (when I think of how many time it has made blog posts, its a little uncanny). But we decided that we should be safe of not needing it anymore this season and wanted to try and drain out the gas. Since we couldn't successfully undo the fuel line, we just started up the bad boy and ran it for the majority of the afternoon. We rolled it back behind our shed, (to minimize the noise hazard for us) but I don't think our neighbors had much of an appreciation for it. At least it is over for the season. (And that is what they get for me listening to all the generators last ice storm and I was cold and without one!)

When Cadee woke up from her nap, thought we would take a walk to the park, that was fun to get outside together and it is a nice stroll from here. Thought I would share some pictures from the park and some pictures of Cadee with her styling First shoes! My baby is growing up.

3 in 2 days ?

So now we've been through 3 haircuts in 2 days. Not really as bad as it sounds, but kind of a catch title for this blog. Zoey and I went to get our haircut yesterday afternoon. Zoey's first haircut, made me a little weepy, but had I not said anything about getting a haircut, no one would even know. We just took the ends off, enough to even everything off since it was her first. But she was excited and had a good time. She was such a good girl while I was getting mine cut, we had a great time. I was drastic enough for my own hair, need to spread these things out. :)

Got home and got my "fro" straigntened and realized that I needed some more layering on the sides, but couldn't reach the hair stylist, so this afternoon while shopping for Cadee's first pair of shoes, since her walking has really taken off, I got another quick haircut at Pennys. Worked out well.

Friday evening we went out to dinner at North Star and Laughing Matters with our friends Wayne and Kelly. Had a great evening out.

Saturday was the haircuts and didn't get much else accomplished, did watch KU win over UNC, that was a fun game to watch even though not much of a Basketball fan. For those who know Chris, be sure to ask him about the friends he found in the back yard while planting our bare spots with grass. :)

Sunday went to church, and Zoey went to Sunday school. Dad and Cadee did some much needed grocery, diapers, household shopping done. Had a good lunch with Haugsness family, and then went off to Pennys.

Cadee receently (and Zoey re-) discovered the great fun of the Fisher Price FP3 player that we have. Chris added tunes from a Raffi CD, and a Veggie Tales CD taht we had and the girls are really enjoying it, and learning about sharing in the process. Cadee looks adorable and is so good about leaving the headphones on and just swaying to the music.

Cadee is into wearing sunglasses in the car. She leaves them on well (zoey always pulled them right off). Can't believe it is already Sunday and work is just around the corner, better get back out to enjoying the wonderful weather.

April Fools?

I think not. I know so many of you out there who's world revolves around my blog HAHA thought that time may have stopped mid-January, but I was just missing in action! I was on such a roll there, I'm not sure what happened, but I did appreciate all the comments and suggestions that I re-continue! (if that is even a word)

Here I sit in a hotel in Colby, Kansas and thought I would take a minute to update my blog. Unfortunately I don't have my camera, so my pictures posting will be limited (definitely the favorite part of my posts), but I will take a few minutes to update on the past 2 months of our lives.

Shortly after my last post our fearless leader Christopher turned 28 years old! We had a good celebration at Kiku resturant, and the girls had a great time helping dad open his gifts of Gituar Hero, The Office season 3 dvd, and his Merrell shoes! Zoey loved helping me bake a cake and it was so fun.

Valentines day followed with our family "tradition" of eating dinner at Burger King, you'd be amazed how slow business is there on Valentines day! :) Zoey and Daddy got to enjoy the Sweetheart dinner date night at Awana's that same week. Cadee wasn't up to the late night so it went from family night to date night for Zoey and Daddy, they had a great time and it was a wonderful opportunity for us to branch out into the community a little more. I have to put in my plug for Chris, we did go out the following weekend and spent some fun times at Laughing Matters with Jana, Matt, Wayne, and Kelly.

Exciting news on Valentines Day, Sarah got engaged to Brad! Sounds like a June 2009 wedding, so we are very excited for them. 2009 will bring lots of wedding celebration!

Late February our family attended a wedding for friend's of Chris's from his work. Zoey had been to a wedding as a baby but didn't remember any of it. We were taking the opportunity to try and explain what a wedding was and about how Aunt Sarah and Aunt Jana would be getting married soon. Zoey obviously mis-understood as she announced so loudly "Aunt Jana is SOOO pretty" Aunt Jana wasn't in the wedding, but a brunette bridesmaid passed by and was mistaken for her! :) Gotta love a 3 year old!

March brought some tougher times for me. Early in March my Grandpa Krien had a heart attack and was admitted to the Northern Colorado Medical Center. From there we found out that he had many other serious health conditions that made everything hard to treat. He passed away a few short days after finding all of this out. It was hard for me to loose my last grandparent, and yet at the same time it was a mixed blessing, he didn't have to suffer and it didn't get drug out, which would have been so hard on a man like my Grandpa. My sister and I took a trip to St. Francis for the service, and it was a healthy time for me to be able to focus on my family and what was happening.

My mom was able to come up for Easter weekend/my birthday. Jana, Mom and I had a fun girls day to Kansas City where we got to enjoy some shopping and a fablous meal at the Cheesecake factory, so that was fun. After attending a 9:30 service we joined Chris's extended family at his Dad's house for Easter lunch and birthday celebrations. My birthday fell on Monday, the day mom had to leave to go home. That morning she asked, how old are you? 27? I said no mom, I'm 28. She said, You're almost 30!! I said, mom, you are not helping! haha :)

Diane, Dave, Sarah joined us for a tasty birthday meal at Kiku resturant. Following the dinner, I attended my second meeting of of the ladies Auburn Christian Bible Studay. We meet on Monday nights and I am so excited to be a part of this. Their commeradery is great, and I am excited to be growing in my walk with Christ! I used my Barnes and Noble Gift card that I received from my father-in-law to buy a new Bible recommended by one of the ladies there. It is a New Living Translation that I was not formerly familiar with and it is so wonderful. It is a translation done in 1996, and it is such an easier read than anything I have attempted to read before and it is so helpful to have explenations, background, and timelines as I go along. Our Bible study is focusing about Celebrating Life and Living in the moment, not in the future or the past, which is a good focus for me, as I am terrible about doing both.

The day following my birthday I was excited to be able to get together for dinner with a dear friend of mine. We used to work together, and don't see each other that often, but are excellent pen pals and support each other through that. Hope we will be able to do that more often.

Trying to think what else I need to include to bridge the gap and go from here....

Poor Barney. Ever since our journey to western Kansas, he has been suffering from a limp. I had taken him to the vet several weeks ago and their suggestion was to confine him best we could and give him some pain med. We tried that for several weeks and unfortunately the limp has not subsided, so this Monday we decided to bite the bullet and take him in for Xrays. Took him in at lunch planning to pick him up after work and know what we could do from there. Got a call around 4 pm and their equipment had malfunctioned so the pictures they took did not turn out good enough. So despite the fact that he had been sedated, the pictures were no good and we'll have to redo later in the week. Bummer for Barney, he was so sleepy and out of it on Monday night, he looked so pitiful! Now we are patiently waiting to hear that their equipment has been repaired so we can take him back in for new Xrays.

Never fear I have big plans of posting more pictures when I have them available to me (i.e. Easter, etc). Now the real question is how many of you will even check this without me spreading the word, or have you all given up on me!

Till next time, hope you are well! Love to all!

Happy Birthday Nana

Wanted to wish Nana a happy birthday this since her birthday was earlier this week. We went to Kiku love this picture that we got with Cadee and her.last night to celebrate and had a great time. I just

Quick update on my washing machine. After a month of no washer, I am doing the happy dance with my repaired washer! I have never been so happy to do laundry. Laundry life is good again!

Now if everyone could kick our colds, we'd be even better! TGIF.

Zoey's First trip to the Dentist!!

I am so proud to be writing this post because Zoey had her first trip to the dentist this morning and she did awesome!! She was so brave and not shy and did everything that they asked. She held her mouth open so well as they counted her 20 teeth, she let them clean them, polish them, and floss them. Everyone was so happy with the way things went today.

Zoey loved "riding" in the special chair, she loved that Sponge Bob was on above her so that she could watch, and she loved the "spit sucker." She got her mouth rinsed several extra times just so she could use that. She also enjoyed that special small mirror that she got to hold several times, wearing the special sunglasses. She choose the vanilla flavored polish, and liked that the hygenist's gloves smelled like grape! When I was busy scheduling the next appointment, she crawled right back up in the chair so that she could watch some more cartoons!

They are concerned that she might have a bit of an crossbite and that they might want to put a pallet-extender in the next year and a half. I guess your pallet stops growing at age 6, so if we wanted to help this we have a limited time frame. Her teeth are a little mis-aligned from her finger sucking so braces are probably inevitabled but if we can do the pallet extender and curb the finger sucking now, we will be much better in the long run. Lot for me to take in this morning as the mom of a 3.5 year old! :)



Zoey was very proud too, everything went great, so we got another appointment scheduled in 6 months, picked out our Dora toothbrush, Sponge Bob toothpaste, and because it was our first time, we got to pick out of a special drawer, there were stuffed dogs, and stuffed bears, and lots of cuddly things, but Zoey went right for the temporary tattos in shapes of scars and lizard eyes! I couldn't belive it. I'm thinking (or mentally justifying) that she is really into stickers right now and she thought they were stickers? :)



Anyway, till next time!

Weekend

We have not had a quiet weekend since before the holidays began, so it was great to be able to spend some time at home and get some cleaning done before Chris gets ready for a spell of work travels.

Sunday morning there was a Baptism Birthday part held at Faith for all of the baptised babies of 2007. So we gathered our family after Sunday School and service, and decided to attend. We were the only ones who showed up! Couldn't believe it. I know when we went to Zoeys several years ago, we were 1 of like 3 families, but we still had a good time. They gave Cadee a picture Bible, and we talked about all of our baptisms, went through some prayers and did a rememberence with some water and candles that were provided, singing this little light of mine. I think that Zoey enjoyed it as much as anything.

I have some great Daddy posts to share in this one as well. Last night right before bed, Daddy had gone to play some computer games and was quickly joined by the girls who were just mezmorized by the screen. Daddy also painted Zoey's toe and finger nails this evening, and that just really made her day. Then I got a great picture of Daddy reading Cadee her new pictuer Bible for her good night story. I think this just means that Daddy needs to get some more pictures of me! ;) haha

This afternoon our neighbor who helped us install the switch for the generator came back over and walked us through a test run of the cutover. He did such a great job, it will be very easy during our next outage to get us back up and going again. I was thankful to go through that with him. We also spent some time practicing with Barney on a leash, walking down the block, between that and all the running in the yard, he was one tuckered puppy this evening!

Earlier this week I found out that I was elected to be a part of our profit sharing board at work. I had put my name up for the election last year but didn't have any luck, so I was thrilled to win the vote this year. Martin Tractor has a 401k managed plan with trustees and several elected and appointed board members. I will serve a 3 year term, and I very much look forward to learning more about our plan, and I feel honored for those who voted for me. Of course they asked for a picture, so they could post it, and it is so hard to just stand there and get your picture taken like you are going in for a drivers licens pictures, so I had Chris take some before I had left that morning and this was the best we could come up with, nothing to brag about, but better than what they took at work, so what can I say. :)

Last July when we went up to the Johnson family reunion, I had talked to my cousin Krystal in Minnesota about coming to see her, it seems to get so long in between our visits, we talked about me coming up after the first of the year. (she did come to visit me last). I did some ticket price searching this week, and came accross a ticket deal I couldn't pass up (only $217 round trip!), so looks like I will be going to visit her for a weekend in April. I am very excited, it should be a really fun weekend.

We experimented with some crockpot ribs today that just turned out fablous.

It was such a nice quiet weekend at home, I'm always amazed how fast time goes. Till next time!.....

Washing Machine

I am quickly realizing how spoiled I was amongst birthday's and the holidays how easy it was to come up with topics for blogging, now I am focusing back on the entertaining basics of everday life. :)

I know that I have so much to be thankful for, but if you had asked me a month ago, I would have come up with quite the list, I know I would have missed the washing machine, but my eyes have been opened to a whole new light!!

A few days before we left for our Krien Christmas our washer stopped spraying water into the tub, so we called Factory Direct to get repairs, and despite us calling so early, the earliest we could be seen was the 1st Thursday in the new year. I'll leave a lot of the ugly out, but needless to say, this Tuesday (Jan 15th) we are hoping that they will back out with the part that will fix us up for good. A month without a washer is a LONG time with a family of 4, but we've survived amongst the oceans of dirty laundry, generous family letting us use their machines, and only 1 trip to the laundry mat.

Kind of a dreary post, so I thought that I would include some entertainig pictures of Barney. He sure is growing fast. I just love this yawning pictures.