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Walt Disney World 2008

Here are a few pics from the trip we took to the most magical place on earth! I can't even begin to tell you how much fun we all had, even with some mishaps along the way including losing my cell phone within only hours of arriving. Meeting Mickey and Minnie was definitely the highlight of the trip, especially for little Stellie, she loved them and gave them both kisses on the nose! Adorable! I will try to post more later! For now, we are trying to get back into the swing of things, even though we were only gone for a week, it felt like a month.

Happy 2nd Birthday Stella Rose!

Another year has flown by us. I know I've said this a million times, but why does it have to go so quickly? Their not babies long enough! Now I have a very active, adventurous and chatty two year old who will either give me a heart attack with her dare devilish ways or keep me younger longer because I'm forever chasing her! Thought I would share some pics of this shoe obsessed, dora/ariel lovin girl who will always be my baby! Love you little Stellie! And huge thanks to Jen for capturing such great shots of a very unwilling participant! 5 out of 200, not so bad, right?!?

Spring Break 2008~Branson

So our trip started with Lambert's Cafe ("home of the throwed rolls", yes that's what they call it) in Ozark, a family atmosphere with down home cooking, where they actually throw the rolls at you. The kids loved it. Food was good, but not great, all in all a really fun experience.

Then headed out towards Branson. The resort was amazing, and we will definitely be going back. Really peaceful setting just off the lake nestled in the ozark mountains. Just far enough away from the bustling city to enjoy a relaxing country evening with convenience to be back in the city in within minutes. I wasn't really big on taking this trip, thought it might be hokey and always thought it was an old person's dream vacation. I was pleasantly surprised. Downtown historic Branson had an upscale, outdoor shopping area with a variety of restaurants centered around this really cool water and fire show synchronized to music, a smaller scale of the Bellagio's (LV) water show.

Everything with the exception of Silver Dollar City was so enjoyable. Unfortunately, they had a record attendance (most in 15 yrs), normally expecting 3000-4000 and instead about 15,000. For example I waited in line for 2 kids meals for about 57 minutes, seriously people, a cheeseburger, chicken nuggets (that weren't even really chicken, ugh) and fries and 2 drinks! In an all day trip, the girls only rode three rides. Most of our day was spent standing in line. To top coming home cranky and tired, we all got a pretty good sunburn too. Every thing else was close to perfect aside from that semi-disastrous day, which happened to be my birthday.

We ended up staying another night, through easter sunday. And we were so glad we did, no rushing around and kind of went with flow and ended our last night there eating dinner together on our patio watching the geese on the lake. Needless to say, it really exceeded our expectations with the perfect mix of country and city. We look forward to going back at perhaps a less busy time, maybe the fall?

Happy 7th Birthday Anna Rylee!

Sure doesn't seem like it's been that long. Unfortunately it is has. Your celebration was perfect. Best friends, pizza, an ice cream sundae bar with every topping imaginable , the best chocolate cake ever, presents, awesome decorations , a facepainter, hannah montana cd blaring in the background.....what more could a seven year old ask for? (a huge thanks to wade for making it super amazing and so special! we love you!)









We love you Anna darling, and the amazing little girl that you are becoming.

Death from a 4year old perspective

Lily's assistant teacher in pre-k died about a month ago. She was in her later sixties, maybe even early seventies and Lily called her grandma Henderson instead of Mrs. Henderson. She had gotten sick fairly suddenly (stage 4 lung cancer) and hadn't been there for the few weeks prior. So when sitting at the dinner table a few days later, I had wondered if the teacher had told them about her passing. I decided to ask her in a subtle way , "Was Mrs. H at school today?" She looks back and forth between Chris and I perplexed, and then like we must be complete idiots and replies with all seriousness, "NO! She's still dead!" All while rolling her eyes. God, I love having kids on these days. Although I think it was sad that she died, the way kids phrase things is truly priceless. Of course we tried not to burst into laughter, but did a little, and she thought of course that we were laughing at her teachers death and we assured that there was nothing at all funny about that and quickly changed the subject.

Vegas

Back from Vegas. Totally kicked my ass. But it was worth every minute. Didn't win big, but hey we had fun, so what the hell. I had a blast learning black jack with the girls, thanks for teaching me, I vow to never waste my money on those damn slots again. I even played a little Texas hold em and did fairly well, there too. Looking forward to next year! You know it could take my 30plus year old body that long to recover after all that!

This was the last pic taken at 2:15 am, our last night there. As you can see, we were looking a little haggard by then, our plane was set to leave in only a few hours, needless to say we made every minute count!

blah, blah, blah

I have really non exciting news to report, haven't been in a blogging mode for a while....So here's the latest......

*Really glad the Christmas break is officially over, seemed like an eternity, could've had to do with fact that we were out for an entire week in the beginning of December for that damn ice storm.

*And speaking of ice storms, we are still staring at the massive heaps of limbs, and well, unfortunately whole tress that were uprooted all over my street, the damn city needs to get here soon, it looks as if beavers have tried to build dams all up and down the median. Ugly!

*Christmas was nice, but this year I decided I am not a huge fan. I think it's more stress than it than it's worth, some of this could be due to the fact that we don't have any sort of "real" relationship with my family (you know the ones) and I see no point in pretending for such a special day. I almost backed out and then decided what the hell, we'll give it a go and spend time with them and it wasn't quite that bad, but still a little strained. They were certainly on better behavior this year compared to the last.

*There was a manhunt on my street yesterday morning, that was crazy, about 25 police cars, K9 units, helicopters, motorcycles, undercover suvs, the whole works, lasted for about an hour. I had gone out because I kept hearing the ghetto bird circling and saw all this commotion and this officer zooms up and tells me to get inside and lock all my doors, there is an armed, dangerous suspect in the area. Alrighty then, hello ghetto! They finally found the seriously scary looking guy in my neighbor's garage. So all ended well.

*Anna has a majorly swollen lymph node, that the doctor is concerned with and wants us to keep tabs on.....scary, but sure it's probably fine.

* Going to vegas with some of the hens and hubbies in like 9 days. Christmas surprise from Chris, so looking forward to that! Words cannot describe my excitement!

*And some of the biggest news of all is that little Stella Rose is officially not taking a bottle anymore and is drinking milk from a cup like a big girl, tear tear, sniff sniff.

That'll be about it for now or all that I can think of anyways, see not very exciting I know, sorry.

2nd annual outtakes

Like Ginny, I am posting my out takes as well. Because they are funny and so I can prove to the non believers on what a little witch Stellie really is. Now, let's start with saying that Anna and Lily know how serious I am about having the perfect card and they are 4 and 6. Stella damn well better figure it out by next year or she'll be voted out. I felt really bad after the whole process was over because the older girls tried so hard to cooperate and even tried to make the demon child do so too, all while showing their best smiles in the process of the me battling Stella to stay still, crap at that point I didn't even care if she even smiled! And of course I got irritated and maybe even yelled a little. I mean some people only see us through our Christmas card, so it damn well better be good! ..... on with the show.... enjoy! Needless to say, we never did get that perfect pic and I really am okay with that, because the one I got is funny and well, let's face it we're not perfect.

Cheese

This is the face that instantly appears if the camera comes out! And it's so cute because, she actually says cheese! Let's not let this innocent face fool you though, this child is almost what you might call hell on wheels, wow! Totally throwing me for a loop. The other girls were so not like her, this one is crazy. Gets into Everything. While I cleaning up one mess, she has started another. From taking everything off the magnets on the fridge and swallowing a magnet in the process, to taking out every cd or dvd we own out of the cases and spreading them all over floor, or maybe dumping out a whole bag of flour and powdered sugar, like that one? It was a joy to clean up! I need to say that we never even had cabinet locks when the other two girls were little. They were by no means perfect, but not a holy terror like this one at times is! Although, now looking at these pictures as I type, she totally has a little sparkle of mischievousness in her eyes, anyone else see that?

The Hannah Experience

As most of you already know, Hannah Montana, aka Miley Cyrus has been a huge favorite of Anna's for quite sometime. And so this obession eventually trickled down to Lily and in our house you can almost bet your going to hear one of them singing her songs at least once a day. So when news that her tour was making a stop in OKC, we were determined to get the best seats we could! This is a long drawn out story that I am sure none of you want to hear or already have heard, so I won't go there. Well, maybe a little. First off, we bought our tickets in august during the pre-sale for Miley world members. It cost us an extra 30 bucks to get in on this sale. Alot of good that did us, NOT! We ended up with pretty awful seats, the top of the arena to be exact. So when general admission went on sale a few days later, we tried again, but couldn't even get through to ticketmaster. They claimed it sold out in 30 minutes. After much searching on ebay and seeing that so so tickets were going for thousands of dollars, we gave up and decided we were lucky to be going at all. To make an extra long story short the day of the show, a few hours before to be exact, I logged onto ticketmaster and ended up getting 4 tickets on the 6th row! Unbelievable! It was a really good show, with lots of costume and background changes. And the band that opened for her The Jonas Brothers, an up and coming boy band, were pretty good too. The girls were beyond excited and had an amazing time.
































These are the faces that made it all worthwhile.

fall pics

These are from the pumpkin patch about three weeks ago. I figured everyone was tired of looking at that ugly ugg boot, I was. Note how happy Stella was in the group pic, NOT! I think the pile of pumpkins freaked her out or something! Stellie went to her 15 month well child yesterday, and was in the 40% (21lbs) for weight and 75%(31 1/2 in) for height, very unusual considering we're all shorties around here! The four shots she got yesterday are really taking their toll, she has been so super fussy all morning. Wanting to be held, so not like her. Lily has been loving school and has come so far, just since the beginning of the year, she finally calls letters "letters" and not numbers, hahaha! Anna has had a great year up until last week, she was having some issues following directions and was being easily distracted, we're chalking it up to that damn time change because she's back on path this week and because it's just another thing I can blame on the time change! That's about all from this house at the moment. Looking forward to turkey day and all the yummy food! And maybe, just maybe the fall weather will come with it!

New Best Friend

Yep, here they are. My feet have a new best friend. They're kind of ugly, hence the name Ugg, but they are soooooooo super comfortable and oh so warm! I heart them! And as I am typing this Anna is putting in a request for a pair of her own. Guess her $50 gapkid boots aren't doing it for her.