Such A Boy

After dropping Bug of at preschool this morning, T-man and I decided to go to the store on our never ending quest to find irish cream flavoring here in Omaha for some yummy hot chocolate. When we pulled into HyVee, T-man was very quick to spot the activity accross the street..CONSTRUCTION. I couldn't pass up letting him watch with as facinated with construction machinery as he's been, so I walked him over so we were just across the street from the construction. We sat there for about ten minutes just watching the digger dig it's hole, the bulldozer push dirt around, and the man on the roof walking around "really high in the air." T-man had a blast watching all the action, and it was just as fun for me to watch him! Random worthwhile stuff like this just makes my day. I'm glad we caught this on camera!

Trick-Or-Treat

Halloween was definately a success in many different ways. I successfully completed the rediculously frustrating dragon costume for T-man, we successfully handed out all the candy we cleaned out of our cupboards (don't worry it wasn't old...it just needed to LEAVE. We had so much we didn't even need to buy any UGH)..and the kids successfully brought more candy back home! SO... T-man got pretty excited about his dragon costume and was thrilled to show off his tail to anyone who even mentioned it. Bug was a princess and she thought it was pretty cool that I actually let her wear make up. We had several different halloween events, so here's a compilation of pictures through out the week, and again, they aren't in chronological order. There's alot. I'm sorry. They're just too cute not to post.

T-man didn't want to walk around the neighborhood, and I refused to carry him, so this was our compromise. He would go to the door to trick-or-treat, come back, stand in front of the stoller, wait for me to lift him in (because his tail was too big that he couldn't do it himself) and then he would patiently hold his tail in his lap until we got to the next door. It was hilarious!

LOOK AT HER!!! SHE'S FOUR!!! What the heck am I going to do when she's 16? YIKES!!!
note to self...ban Bug from make-up til she graduates...Highschool, that is!!!
Me and T-man before we went out trick-or-treating. I'm just glad to be done making that thing!!!

Daddy's little princess

Me and my creation! What have I done??? ha. (this was the outfit that people were asking me "so what are you dressed up as?" HUH??????)

Bug and her friend tallying their loot from the annual Ward Trunk-or-Treat

Grandpa made the blog! He decided to wear T-man's dragon hat and T-man thought that was hilarious!

Bug and T-man stopping long enough for me to take a picture at the Ward Trunk-or-Treat

In the process of getting his dragon costume on. (Chili was served for dinner and I would have gone ballistic if any spilled on his costume, so he wasn't allowed to wear it until all food was put away..lol)

The Chili Queen. She ate all her chili without spilling any on her dress..WOHOO ( I obviously didnt' care as much about her dress...lol. She's about to outgrow it anyway. )

Official picture with the pumpkins. We go them in their PJ's and then realized we forgot to take pics, so we just went outside and took them.

Final Tigger pumpkin

Bugs Cat and Moon Pumpkin

Way to go Justin!!! The pumpkins turned out great!!!!

ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT!!! I'LL UPDATE MY BLOG!!!

I've had several complaints about my lack of blogging! Since my last post was back in July I have quite a bit to catch up on, so bare with me...the updates may not come in chronological order, but they will come. It's been so long that I guess the best approach will be to work backwards from the NOW.

What has happened this week? We just put the kids to bed tonight after some fun pumpkin carving (Thanks to Justin's Grandpa for the idea, and to Justin's mom for the dremel tool). The kids got to pick their design and then daddy had fun with the power tool.

(Sorry the pictures are out of order, but I got tired of fighting with it, and I want to go to bed..so here's whatcha get!)

Justin with one of his final creations

I got the dirty job this year...

Things got a little messy and the kids got tired of pumpkin flying into their eyes...

T-man showing off his Tigger design

The kids with their pumpkins

Bug with her cat design

The beginning stages of dremel tool pumkin carving

Justin's grandparents came for a visit last week and stayed until this Tuesday(we were sad to see them go so soon). I FINALLY remembered to take pictures...kinda. I wanted to get pictures of them with our whole family, but I forgot and decided to go back the next morning right before they left to at least get pictures of them with the kids. Turned out GREAT!!! So cute. They had so much fun with them!

Well, that's all for today folks... (give me a break...I'm coming back from a four month deficite).

Agenda for tomorrow will be : displaying pumpkins (since we didn't get that far tonight) and the Play group Halloween party yesterday (Wednesday) when the kids got to test out their costumes for the first time!

Come Home To Kanesville

Many of you know that I am going to be in a musical the last two weeks of July and rehearsals started this week. It has been SUCH a blast. It has been really hard to leave the kids for so long, and to not see Justin very much (if we're lucky we get an hour total between the morning and evening if he's still up when I get home). They are always on the back of my mind through rehearsals, but even though it's only day three, I've had a ton of fun. I was recruited to be a dancer as well as play the role I am playing, and that's been an experience in and of itself. I'm getting a crash course in Dancing 101. In three days, including travel time, I have put in close to 20-22 hours already, and we still have a week and a half of rehearsals....AHHH. It's a full time job. lol. Being my first play, though, I'll definately do it again. (we'll see how I feel on day 4...lol) So anyways, if ya'll are plannin on being in the mid-west in July, make sure you stop in and see "Come Home to Kanesville", not because I want people starring at me, the sore thumb of the dance team, but because it's a great message faith and endurance! YEEHAW!

My Garden

This year I have started my very first veggie garden, and I have to show off my progress. I obviously had to do a container garden, because with the possibility of moving next year, I kinda didn't want to tear up our grass and create a headache for ourselves when we try to sell...sooo.. Here is how my garden is doing so far....

This was right after I planted everything. The two big red pots in back are beefsteak tomatoes, the white one next to them is a roma tomato plant, next to tht is a cantelope plant. The two front red pots are both bell peppers, and not shown is a pot with carrot seeds (didn't think a picture of dirt would be that exciting) and an upside down tomato planter with Roma tomatoes.

Here is the upside down Roma plant as of today. (the last time I checked it a few days ago it didn't have any fruit. Today it has clost to 15 tomatoes...YEAH)

The carrots. Standing about 8 inches tall (not like that really tells me how big the carrots are going to be, but hey...)

Here are the two pepper plants and the cantelope. Ther are both doing very well and have about 6-8 peppers on each plant right now. Here are some of the itty bitty peppers. The biggest one is about 3 inches long.This is the first and only cantelope fruit that has developed thus far. ( I didn't really check that closely this morning, so who knows. There are lots of flowers ready and the vines are starting to crawl over the side.
The three potted tomato plants. So big and heavy that we've had to bungie the cages to keep them from tipping over :)

Bug next to the tomato plant. Tall plant 'ey?

(notice the bungie keeping it from topling over)

some healthy tomatoes comin' in. Each Beefsteak tomato plant has about 10-15 tomatoes. We are going to have plenty. Any one need tomatoes?

We found on this morning that is starting to turn red....YIPPEE

If I Can Just Survive Summer....

Summer has been busy....VERY busy! After we got home from Seattle in May, we had to start preparing for J and I to go on a Pioneer Trek, where we re-enact the trek that the early church members endured when the were moving west to the Salt Lake Valley. J and I were a "Ma and Pa" to the 14 to 18 year old teenagers that were participating. I made my pioneer dress and Justin's pioneer shirt (which was actually very fun). We had nine "kids" in our family, and we pulled our loaded handcart 22 miles in two very rainy and very muddy days. I participated in trek when I was a teenager, but our circumstances were VERY different (as in DRY). There was no way of escaping the mud (and keep in mind that it was Nebraska mud..which ultimately translates into clay). To give you an idea of what the trek felt like....think of "The Never Ending Story" when Atrayu is trudging through the swamp of sadness with his horse Artax. While looking for the Ancient Morla, Artax is overtaken by the saddness of the swamp and slowly sinks pittifully into the mud.....ok...now you know how Trek went,except it was a tad happier. LOL. The experience has definately helped me understand a lot more clearly what pioneers went through to move their families accross the county, and I am VERY thankful for our modern conveniences of cars, airplanes, and shelter, and......plumbing. It was a great experience though. For family night the Monday after we got back, we took Bug and T-man to the Mormon Trail Center by the Winter Quarters Temple to teach them about what mommy and daddy had done. Bug loved dressing up as a pioneer girl and we took some pictures of her with a handcart.

Me sewing up Mary Jane, our pioneer baby. I had to perform surgery because she was so heavy that she split a seam. The rule was that she could NEVER be put down. Someone had to hold her at ALL times, and the little stinker was HEAVY! No one complained about the weight she magically lost. :)

This is how muddy I was after the first day. By the end of our 22 mile journey the next day, the mud went ALOT higher! lol (notice my muddy sock line)

Me 'm Pa with Mary Jane

Bug at the Mormon Trail Center learning about the pioneers.

Once we got home I had a week to prepare to go to Girl's Camp for a week, which was very fun, but we had the opposite problem as Trek. We arrived early on Monday morning at around 8 am, and we were completely drenched in sweat just from setting up our tents. It was rediculous. The first two days of camp were so rediculously hot that we had to cut back activities to 50% the first day, and the second day was so hot that we were limited to "essential activity" and we were supposed to be drinking 2 quarts of water PER HOUR!!!! GEEZE! The GIANT slip 'N slide got ALOT of use those two days! (with heat index it was close to 110 degrees...which, in AZ isn't a big deal, but in NE with humidity...it'll kill you...as we now know looking at the death tole of cattle that week. Close to 4,000) I'm not quite sure how we survived..OH WAIT...yes I do....that afternoon when we all thought we would wither to nothing, a thunder storm that hadn't been predicted randomly formed out of no where over Little Souix (the scout ranch we were camping at). The thunder, lightening, and rain lasted probably about an hour but cooled down the temperature by TWENTY DEGREES..Folks...that was quite literally HEAVEN SENT. Maybe our Heavenly Father knew that he would be 300 virtuous women shorter on Earth if he didn't send that rain storm. lol. I am sincerely convinced that it was an answer to alot of prayers for relief. Again, I wouldn't change the experience. Once the weather cooled down the girls came to life again and the rest of the time we had at camp was great. The camp Ranger also enlightened us on him and his family's experience a little over a year ago when the tornado hit little souix head on, killing four scouts. It was a miracle he and his family survived. He described his house as looking like it had been put in a blender (and they were burried underneath it all) and they lost 95% of their belongings. It was mind boggling to listen to his descriptions. It was very humbling to listen to him tell what he could remember of the tornado and the tramatic experiences with his family that followed. Everyone at camp was given a flower and we laid them at the spot the 4 scouts were lost.
I don't have any pictures of Girls Camp because I kinda forgot my camera at home and have to rely on what other people took. (I've gathered a few on facebook, but I'm still sad that I don't have my own) Now, I've had a week and a half break since camp and it's on to "Come Home to Kaneville" a play about...you guessed it...PIONEERS...lol. They stayed in Kaneville for a while until it was safe to continue their journey to Salt Lake. We have our first rehearsal tonight, and I'm excited (and very nervous) since I've never been in a play before. It will be a new experience. The practices will be pretty intense considering we only have nine days of rehearsal before it opens...yikes. So once I survive this months adventure, it will be on to another and I'm sure you'll hear about it!!!

Last weekend in Seattle...and so much more

So I have a bit of catching up to do....hmmm where to start. I suppose I should go back a few weeks. The last weekend we spent in Seattle was a blast. We definately put a big kink in the "biggest looser" contest...especially since four of the six contestants were all together and not exercising any restrain. The Friday before we left my sister wanted to take us to The Melting Pot. She's been wanting to take us there for over a year now, so my parents, my sister,Justin and I all went there to eat. Definately a cool place. Afterwards my parents took Justin and I to Benaroya Hall to enjoy Marvin Hamlisch conduct the Seattle Symphony. Pretty cool....there was even a bit of Dueling pianos in there too.

Enjoying the final course at The Melting Pot....hmmmmm....desert!

The next day, after taking the kids to the Factoria Mall Children's Museum so they could meet up with one of their neighbor friends that they played with through out our stay, I FINALLY took Justin to a Mariner's Baseball game with my dad and my sister. It was perfect weather. I've heard of a new food that had become quite popular at Safeco field...but unfortunately I resisted getting the Garlic fries. I would get a whiff of them and think "that smells good" only to realize that it was 50 ft away when I smelled it. When it got closer the garlic was so strong it almost made me want to cry. WOW. I did have to fight some curiousity though.

Watching the game

Dad being.....well....Dad

The after game photo!

So the whole Seattle trip turned out to be a great success and it was actually very bitter sweet leaving. I really could've stayed longer, but then, it's always better to end on a good note, right? lol. Not one person got sick while we were there (it must have all happened in Utah..ugh). I'm really glad that the kids were able to get to know my parents better, and they still ask for Bama and Papa Foli... :)

SOOOO...we got home just in time for Memorial Day weekend, and got to go to the pool with Grandma Lynne and Grandpa Kent. Bug took right to the pool again, like usual...but Tman thought it was too cold and stuck with squirting everyone with water toys on the sidelines, while mommy got FRIED!!!! I'm still dealing with the lovely sunburn.

Last but not least, this last Thursday, Justin and I We SO excited to go to Wicked, and Justin won "The Wicked Lottery" so we got to go with our good friends/neighbors and we had a great time with them. I LOVED the play. I highly recommend it. I'm SO glad we went. So now I think I'm caught up.....sorry to have to cram.