A little help with the candles

Sebastian could NOT figure out what we all expected him to do with these little fire sticks coming out of his cake. All he really wanted to do was EAT CAKE!!!

We finally had to ask for a little help. Mia was more than happy to help out! ;)

Happy Birthday Sebastian!

Bazzy LOVED his Birthday Cake!!!

" Don't you try to take away my cake! "

He got just a TINY bit messy! :)

Off to the bath tub before we open presents...




Bazzy LOVES Mickey Mouse (whom he actually calls "don-a duck". Every Disney character he calls Donald Duck. It's quite funny!) He also loves "la la's", which are anything musical.

We figured this Mickey with a Piano (aka: Don-A Duck with a La La), would be a big hit! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEBASTIAN!!!!!
I can't believe you are 2 already!!!
We love you SOOOOOO much!!

Bazzy's Popsicle

Sebastian LOVES his popsicles! He goes wild when he sees me get out the box. It was REALLY hot today, and well... the popsicle didn't quite make it.

Poor Bazzy! :(

Toad in the house!

I went outside to let the dog out and I noticed a toad on the deck. As I came back to the house, the toad was gone....BUT the door was open a bit. Hmmmmmmm. Yeah, I walked in and there was a toad jumping around on the kitchen floor. Of course I had to call for Kris to show him, and then take a few pictures before setting him free through the sliding door. Only in Hastings! :)

Fun with Eggplant

Mia, very excited about her eggplant

Picking eggplants from the garden

Mmmmmm.....eggplant parmesan!

The refugee family was very excited to show us their garden on our visit trip and before we knew it, we were headed home with about 6 eggplants, 2 huge zucchinis, and a ton of peppers. I laughed, because they kept saying "no hot" about the peppers...but I've learned that Kar-en hot and American hot are VERY different. Haven't tried those peppers yet.

We made eggplant parmesan on the grill 2 nights ago and a huge batch of zucchini bread. Way yummy! Thank you friends for the veggies. I wonder what they would have thought about Eggplant Parmesan. Probably not NEAR spicy enough! :)

SO cute!

Hser Eh Moo (pronounced "Ser-aye-moo") is maybe one of the cutest kids in the whole world. I just can't get enough of her when we go to visit. Look at that smile! It just makes you grin, doesn't it? I love it!

She has become quite the camera hog when I'm there and it cracks me up. The whole time she tugs on my clothes and says "me...PLEASE?" and then grins huge. And of course I can't say no to that smile. What a doll. I want to pick her up and smooch her, but I'm not sure that would be culturally acceptable. LOL

We had a quick one hour visit with them when we made our quick trip back to Omaha. I'll post some more pictures, but I just had to post these. Honestly, I think she is just too adorable!

The toothless wonder

Sofia Finally lost her other front tooth. I LOVE those toothless smiles!!!

Our 8 year old

I really can't believe I have an 8 year old! 8 just seems so old to me. Definitely not a little kid anymore. Wow.

Katryna had a really fun birthday. The girl across the street, Tasia, turned 8 the day after Katryna. Tasia didn't start Kindergarten right away, so they actually are a year apart in school...but they've become very good friends. Tasia had a sleepover and was nice enough to "share" her sleepover with Katryna. They picked out a cake together and everything. It was very sweet.

My parents were here and we celebrated Saturday morning with a little Pirate Party of our own. Katryna is still a big Pirates fan and she was very excited to see all the pirate party favors and her new Will Turner outfit from Grandma and Grandpa.

We couldn't do our traditional hallway birthday decorating, because Katryna was at her sleepover the night before her birthay...so we had to decorate by the front door so she was surprised when she came home. :)

Happy Birthday Katryna!!! I can't believe my first baby is 8!!!

The Urban Cottage

The building to the left is "our" building. We are on the third floor, which is the second set of windows and third window from the right. Can you see Bazzy walking by Upstream? :)

I apologize for being MIA for so long! We had to make a very quick trip back to Omaha to try to finish things for the loft. We really want to get things rolling so we can start coming back! I'm sorry we didn't get to see everybody when we came back and we're hoping we can make a trip back soon to visit everyone and go to Westwood on Sunday. We REALLY miss Westwood!

Anyways, here are a few pictures of our "Urban Cottage" as we've started to call it. It's still a big empty hole....but hopefully that will change very soon. I'll post more soon. It's been too busy. Katryna turned 8 on Saturday. I can't even believe I have an 8 year old! Woah! My parents have been here visiting in Hastings, so it's been a busy week.

My girls LOVE this group!

I just wanted to share this group that we've come to really like. If you have young girls especially that like Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls....this is a Christian group of two young girls and a boy and the songs are really catchy. I was sure it was going to be cheezy, but I was surprised that it was not and that I find myself singing the songs throughout the day.

The group is called PureNRG and the attached clip is a song by them, but for some odd reason it features parts of the show Hannah Montana. It's not one of our favorites on the disk, but at least you can hear them. :)

Would you eat this?

I mean, REALLY....would you eat this??? This is what they made in Kool-aid camp today. WE (Mia, Sebastian, and I) canned pickles in Strawberry Kool-aid. I was completely disgusted the whole time we were doing it. I'm not a big fan of pickles to begin with. We had to poke holes in the pickles, mix the kool-aid and then put them together in a jar and shake the jar and let them soak. We decided to try them tonight at dinner and I just couldn't get myself to eat one. Kris couldn't either. Look at them!!! Honestly, would you eat that??? Strawberry PICKLES? Come on! Yuck!

OK- enough ranting. I think Katryna's face after trying a bite sums it all up! :)

The many faces of Mia (and her kool-aid shirt)...

I wanted to take a picture of Mia in her new tie dye kool-aid shirt that she made in her camp this week....and this is what I get. What a crazy kid! :)

(I thought the shirt turned out pretty cool!)

Sofia's missing tooth

I was awakened this morning by Sofia tapping me on the shoulder and then giving me a HUGE cheezy grin to show me that she had lost one of her front teeth. They have been loose FOREVER and she finally got one of them out. Now we have to remember to remind the tooth fairy to make a visit tonight. No going to bed early for us!

I love when kids are missing their front teeth. I'm hoping she will lose the other one soon. Too cute! :)

Where in the World is Matt?

You'll see the real name of this clip at the end of it... but I didn't want to swear on my blog. ;)
This was too cool not to share. Kris found this while playing with his iphone. I love this guys silly dancing and I'm terribly jealous of all the places he's been able to visit. We were excited to see him dancing in front of one of the temple's WE were right in front of in Tikal, Guatemala! So amazing! I hope you find it entertaining. :)

I love a good silly dance!

Our new toy

I was truly amazed when Kris decided the other day that the girls should have a trampoline. He's read a few too many x-rays of kids with broken bones, etc. from trampoline accidents. BUT, we saw this tramp in Sam's Club and it really does seem safe. We didn't want to spend the money to buy a big playground structure, and we're not 100% that we're going to stay in this house forever, so this seemed like a good, movable option.

The thing is HUGE! It's on the lot next door to us and the girls and the neighbor kids have been having a blast. They bounced for HOURS yesterday. That was nice for Mommy too! :)

Bazzy's "Weeeeeee"

Sebastian is not as impressed with our new toy as the girls are. He prefers the "Weeeeee" way over the trampoline. He will grab my hand and pull me over to the slide and say "Mama, Weeeee". Quite cute. We've had that little slide forever, but he suddenly loves it and has been spending a lot of time sliding and smiling.