Family Pictures

Good friend Jami Dean has taken our family pictures for the past couple years. She does a terrific job, and we are always very pleased. She is even very patient with my children (specifically Isaiah) who does not like having his pictures taken. So that's an extra bonus! :)

Love this "mommy pose" below =) Just wish Lilly was smiling more.....

To me, the one above and the one below, I don't really look preggo, I just look really really fat! =(

The one below is unofficially Isaiah's 4 year old picture.......

Do they look like brother and sister or what? ....wonder what #3 will look like.....

So what do you think? Which is your favorite?

Monkey Bizness.....here we come!

Happy Monday to all! Hope you all had a great weekend! We did, although I was sad to see Monday arrive again so quickly. But I guess I'm like that everytime Monday rolls around! We had a busy busy weekend. Here are some photos from Friday. (3/19/10). My sister-in-law dropped off her son, Braden at my house around 9:30am, for us to babysit him that day. Her and Ben (her other son) was going to Springfield for a JBQ tournament. So we got to hang out with Braden all day- which the kids just LOVE! They absolutely have a blast hanging out with their cousin! So we left right away (Jer had taken the day off work, to play with us! :) It was an extra special treat!!) and headed out to the Great Mall in Olathe, and visited a place called Monkey Bizness. A couple ladies from church was taking their kids there for a play date that morning, so we decided to join them in the fun. After all, it was the kids' last day of spring break :)


Monkey Bizness is a really cool kids place, with several HUGE inflateables and slides and jumpers for the kids to just monkey around on! :) If you go before 10:30am on Tuesdays or Fridays, it's only $5 for kids (normally its $7.50), so it was pretty cheap, and parents were free, so it was a fun, non expensive way to kill a couple hours in the day, and wear your kids out at the same time! It's a win-win situation! :)

Besides the slides, they also had a jumper with basketball hoop in it, which the kids spent quite a bit of time in.....

I think we were only there for about 30 minutes before Lillys face was all red and sweaty allready! She played hard!

Below- is a view of the whole slide.....can you find Lilly in her pretty striped pants? (BTW, she LOVES those pants that Grandma gave her. They had a tiny hole by the knee, but she didn't mind. However, by the end of the day, the hole had gotten quite larger. Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you want to look at it :) haha), now they are pants to just wear and play in at home, and no longer 'public' pants!

The boys were buddies, they hung out the whole time.......always going down the slide together :)

This is the "Before picture" lol...............

And below....is the "After picture" :)

Even daddy wanted to get in on the fun..... :) The fun part about this place, was parents were more than welcome to go down the slides too or play in the jumpers with the kids. Jer was playing with them in the jumper for a while, then got tired, and had to rest............. =)

Below, another fun attraction there......Again, can you find Lilly in her blue shirt and striped pants? :) (If you click on any of the pictures, it should show you a larger version....fyi)

After playing at Monday Bizness, from about 10:30 until 1:30 or 2, we went to another store in the mall that my friend had told me about. I think they were advertising a train expo or something. Not sure......but they had the whole store rented out, and at least 10 different trains set up and they were all going. Braden, being a train fanatic, just LOVED it! I love his "ooooo......wow!" face below :)

And they had Thomas the Train and Percy on one of the tracks. Here we tried to get the 3 kids looking at the camera, with Thomas going around in the background.....

Later that day, we had planned on picking up my other 2 nephews, Matthew and Jonathan so my sister and her husband could go on a date. So from the mall, we decided to go ahead and go by and pick them up for some more fun :)

We were going to go to the park, but heard a cold front was coming in, so we just took all the kids back to our house, to let them ride their bikes outside, while it was still nice out. Of course we got all the bikes out, and the kids wanted to ride their bikes to the neighborhood park that's close to our house. So off we went. After a collision between Matthew and Lilly, and Lilly "kissing" the concrete, and a few tears and a big band aid later, we were on our way!

Haha....not sure why we even bothered with the park, as soon as we got there, we all had a snack of cheez-its. So I think they spent more time there eating than actually playing! Oh well, the bike ride there was fun :)

They got to play a few minutes when they were done with their snacks, before the cold front came in. It was crazy, it was seriously like a light switch.....one minute it was beautiful and sunny and 60 degrees, 2 minutes later it had gotten cloudy and dropped at least 10 degrees! We headed back home quickly after that.

So we came in, and had some dinner, then after dinner, we decided to color some easter eggs!!! :)

They were all soooooo excited!

The only problem with this is, the kids were impatient, and didn't want to wait for their eggs to color, they kept wanting to take them out. So we took a short cookie break in between, and they each had about 4 or 5 home made cookies! Lol.....hey, my nephews were at Aunt Sheila's house! ;)

3 dozen eggs later, all the eggs were colored and the kids were done! Time to relax and watch a movie!

Needless to say, by the end of the day, Jer and I were just as exhausted as the kids, I think. We all slept like babies that night!! =)

Happy St Patricks Day to all you Irish out there - and everyone else. St Pattys Day doesn't really mean a whole lot to me. I just wear green to avoid being pinched. That's about the extent of my celebration! Other than that, I've always thought of it as an excuse of a holiday for people to drink and get drunk. Um, no thanks. But anywho, hope you all had a good day!

Today is also my dad's birthday! (which BTW, means a LOT more to me than st patricks day....) We celebrated his birthday at mom and dads house last Saturday with a big turkey feast (it's like Thanksgiving all over again......hallalujiah :) ) So here are a couple of my "better" pictures taken. Yea, this is the best I could come up with. Thank you to Isaiah for being SUCH a good sport and cooperating while taking the pictures. Note the sarcasm. :/

Hope ya'll had a great day! More pics to come of some Easter egg coloring fun!!!!!

Mondays Random Musings

* It's official. Spring break has sprung. I'm looking forward to the upcoming week and dreading it all at once.

*Spring break Pros: not being so rushed in the evenings, and being able to stay out later, not having to put the kids to bed at 7:30 or 8. And the best part of all - - - sleeping in!!! (that's my goal for the week at least- we'll see if the kids agree.....)

*Spring break Cons: trying to come up with something, from morning til bedtime, to entertain the kids, or at least occupy them for 30 min at a time. This should be interesting. Prayers appreciated!

*Our week of spring break is allready filling up, so that should help some. I'd be REALLY worried if I had NO plans this week- - eek!

*Is it just me, or are spring breaks lasting longer than they used to? I seem to recall, when I was in school, getting off on a Friday and Monday only for spring break. Why do kids nowadays get the whole week off? Seriously, what does a kindergartner (or in my case, a preschooler) need a whole week off for?

*It's not like I'm taking Lilly to Tahiti or the Bahamas for the week - geez.

*ooooo......Tahiti........the Bahamas.......doesn't that sound simply divine right now? =)

*I must get off here now, and quit drooling over a vacation that will probably never happen, and get started on all our spring break fun. =)

Hope your week is great!

32 Weeks

Today marks week 32 of my pregnancy. Only 8 more weeks to go until my due date! Wanted to share a few photos with you today. These were taken last Friday, in my 31st week. The kids had to get involved too, of course, then they wanted to take some pics. The one of me and Jer is taken by the one and only Lillian. She actually takes pretty decent pictures if she slows down and doesn't hurry.

I have been blessed with this pregnancy - I must say. I was nauseaus some in the first couple months, but only during mealtimes, and I could fix that by munching on crackers or pretzels. Once that phase ended, it seemed pretty smooth sailing. I am now getting to the point where I am more uncomfortable sleeping. I wake up every couple hours or so, and have to switch sides and rearrange my pillows (you know, the one I'm laying on, the one between my knees and the one behind me - to keep me from rolling on my back). And if I sit in the same position for too long, or am sitting funny (like on my feet or something), sometimes it is difficult for me to walk once I get up.....it takes me a minute. And my hips hurt occassionaly. That's a new one for me - never had that with my other 2 pregnancies.

But I just had another OB visit this past Monday, and my belly is measuring right where it should - at about 31/32 weeks. Got to listen to the heartbeat again, sounds perfect :) And my weight is good. I think I've only gained like 13 pounds or something like that. Definately more of a pregnancy like I had with Isaiah!

Jer is taking SUCH good care of me, I must say! :) He is absolutely the best husband and daddy in the world. I would be lost without him. I love you, Jeremy! XO

the birthday boy

It has been a couple days of birthday celebrations over at our house this weekend. Isaiah turned 4 years old on Saturday. After the week I had with him, I told Jer he was lucky he was getting a birthday party at all. I threatened to cancel his birthday several times. He just asked me "what is cancel?" Hm. That threat didn't quite go as I planned.

Needless to say, we had his birthday party on Saturday. (not without a time-out in his room that afternoon though, of course). Oh dear Jesus..........please, please let his 4 year go much smoother and easier than his 1st, 2nd and 3rd year! I see a pattern developing here, and I. don't. like. it!!!

However, come 5:00 on Saturday, the cake was bought, the Diego decorations were up, tables ready, balloons in place, and food warming in the oven. We were ready!

The "kids table" - hungry and ready to eat!

Present time. He asked for 3 things- his Buzz Lightyear action figure, a sword, and a gun. Thanks to MeMa, Grandma and Aunt Jen, he got all 3. Plus many more gifts. That I'm sure will be put in "time out" in our room sometime in the near future.....

I should have gotten a picture of it, or him holding it up, but Isaiah even got a shirt from Aunt Jen that said "I'm the big brother" that her son used to wear. Very cute - and his first shirt like that.......

Here's a Cars racetrack from mommy and daddy

And all the kiddos - the birthday boy, his sister, and his 4 cousins

He blew out the candles.........my baby boy is officially 4 years old...........

Happy Birthday to Isaiah Masami!!!!

Hope your weekend was just as fun and exciting as ours! =)