Adios Tooth

Sofia came home from school with another gap in her mouth, a cool sticker, and a new plastic tooth necklace.

She proudly smiled and then showed me her tooth inside the necklace.

Oh Happy Day. :)

Sebastian was excited for her too and showed his support by wearing her "I lost a tooth" sticker over his mouth. Notice the cool backwards hat look. He does that alot.

I better make sure the tooth fairy is prepared to pay up for another lost tooth.
She's been awfully busy around here the last few weeks!

Adventures With New Fruits

Kris and I have this wierd thing with trying new and "different" fruit. Have you ever had Lychee Fruit? I'd heard of it, and knew if was from Asia...but that's about it.

This is a Lychee. You peel this pretty red layer off to eat it. The inside looks kind of like an eyeball. Yum. The package said they were a mix between a grape and cherry, only sweeter. Not bad, right?

Online, it said they are from Southern China and are called "the King of Fruits" there. Mia doesn't seem to think they are very royal.

Looks kind of like an eyeball, right? I wasn't expecting them to look so gelatinous...but I figured I'd give it a go and try one. Not bad. A little sweet. A little sour. Pretty good.

Katryna was finally brave enough to give it a try. She ended up eating 3 of them, so they were obviously a hit.

Sofia gobbled hers down too. They have a pit on the inside. The girls wanted to plant one so we could have a Lychee Tree. I told them it's a little colder here than in Southern China.

So, the Lychee adventure was a success. I wonder what we'll try next time...

Rescue Mission

My friends know what a sucker I am for animals. We were driving home from yet another church that we tried out...and we almost drove over a turtle. I thought it was a cute little painted turtle, so I made Kris turn around to pick him up out of the road. When we went back, we realized he was actually a snapping turtle. Sadly, I think he was injured (probably from the storm), cuz he didn't put up much of a fight when we brought him in the car. Very uncharacteristic for a snapping turtle! We took him to a little stream by our house and put him in a nice shady spot. I think he's kinda cute, don't you?

Mac N Cheese ~ Good!

Bazzy has been learning to feed himself, now that he's a big 2 year old.

He loves Mac n cheese so much, there's no time for cleanliness.

He looks awfully proud of that orange, sticky face, doesn't he? :)

Sorry, it's for the kids...

I apologize for using this blog for selfish reasons, but I'm guilty of putting things on here so they're easier to find for my girls. Like Spider Pig....oh my GOODNESS~ the girls have watched that like 3,000 times! Fortunately they don't know what the Simpsons are...but you gotta love Spider Pig (in our opinion anyways).

So, I'm putting these ridiculous kitty videos on here so my girls can watch them and not go on Youtube on their own. Hey, maybe your kids will enjoy them too. Or maybe you love cats and enjoy watching them sing, dance, and morph. I mean, who doesn't. Right?

I do have to admit, when the singing kitty goes "AH-ha" in that one part, it cracks me up every time. I'm easily amused though. Probably why I enjoy hanging out with my kids. ;)

If you enjoy these, great. If not, I apologize. It's for the kids.

Commitment Issues

I have issues. Commitment issues. My issues revolve around never being able to choose a template for this blog. I can't decide which is my favorite. I can't decide if I want a white background or a color background or polkadots. I can't commit! I constantly change things. (Have you noticed? ) I need help.

Please, if you have an opinion. Help me. I need it. I have issues.

Kallupalik Duarte

The is Kallu ~ short for Kallupalik Duarte. Big name for a big dog! Duarte was his name at the animal shelter when he was just 8 weeks old. That's when we got suckered in by his sweet little face and his soft fuzzy fur. Never did I envision he would grow into such a HUGE clumsy beast.

I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to choosing names. They have to mean something or be chosen for a reason...not JUST because it's a cute name. So Kallupalik was chosen because he's a husky (or "snowdog" as the girls call him) and he was a terror as a puppy. Kallupalik means "monster" in Inuit Eskimo. As a puppy, Kallu ate most of our deck furniture, parts of the side of our house, and he chewed through the wires to our air conditioner not once...but twice. Monster.

Still, he's about as cute as they come! It's hard to resist his big squishy face and wagging back side when you see him. Katryna is one of his biggest fans. You have to be careful though, when you go in for a hug his giant body will almost always knock you down. After he calms down though, you can be sure he will roll over onto his back and wait for one of those great belly rubs.


C'mon...who can resist this face? Pet me. Love me. Scratch my belly.
Kallupalik Duarte. You are quite the dog.

Poor Trampoline

This is what our trampoline looks like now...after the great storm and it's impressive flip over into our neighbors yard. The actual "bouncy part" (that's a technical term) of the tramp seems to be fine. The net needs a little help though. Hopefully in a week or two we will be getting some new parts in the mail to fix that. One of the metal pieces actually snapped. Kris compared the "break" to a bone breaking at an angle. That's a radiologist for ya. ;) Sorry kids, no bouncing for awhile yet.

The Malaysian Mia

Most who know Mia know she loves to sing. She sings through most of her day. She sings like she's on stage in front of 10,000 people, at the top of her lungs, complete with hand motions and dance moves. She doesn't care when or where she is... she will sing if she feels like singing. Sometimes I wish I was a little more like Mia. I saw this little one on youtube, and wow did she remind me of our little singer. Especially when she was about 2. I think I need to get these two together. They could be international superstars! ;)

The Great Storm

We just experienced one of the worst storms I've ever been in. I've been in a couple really bad ones, but this was pretty intense. For those of you who have seen the other pictures or our new location...we live right next to a big open field. With no protection from trees or anything.

So what happens when there are tornado like winds and no protection? Well, I think you can see by looking at where our trampoline landed!!!!

Our trampoline is normally on the complete opposite side of the house in the lot next to us. There are several trees ,and our deck, and our house between the tramp and our neighbors ~ which means that our trampoline went airborne OVER our house and yard and landed upside down on our neighbors tree! Yeah, that's how windy it was. Also, notice the broken glass. More on that later.

This is more broken glass, and parts of Mia's birthday roller coaster (refer back to June and Mia's little happy face on her brand new toy. :( ), and parts of what was our new deck furniture.


Hey look... more broken glass!!! Ok, the reason I keep bringing up this lovely sparkly, sharp stuff~ some of you may remember me and Kris's story about arguing over deck furniture at the Mart in Omaha. I told Kris we should NOT have a glass table top on our deck furniture because of the stories we had heard about winds here. Kris told me I was being ridiculous and there was no way a table that big was going to flip. I kindly reminded him we live along an open field with no shelter. Kris told me I was being crazy. I finally gave in and said "fine, if you want it that's ok, BUT if it ever shatters YOU are going out to pick up all the pieces."

So anyways, Kris just got back inside after cleaning up the broken glass. ;)

The girls were not too happy to see their beloved playhouse in pieces all over the yard. Wow that wind was strong!

This is the park by our house. No, it's not a park with a lake. It obviously rained quite a bit too.

So we had an adventurous afternoon, hanging out in the downstairs bathroom until the coast was clear. Kris was still at work and I kept calling him with reports of what had just landed or blown away when I would sneak upstairs to see how bad things were.

The girls were pretty wide eyed when we went outside. Kris came home and we gave everyone a big hug and talked to the girls about why we could care LESS about that stuff that blew away and broke. We are all safe and that's the only thing that matters. Thank you God for keeping us safe! :)

First Day of School...

...and a NEW school at that! Both girls were so brave and even a little excited to start at their new school today. I was very proud of them!

Katryna is starting 3rd grade and was a little nervous,

but mostly excited to meet some new friends.

Sofia wust just fine with everything (as usual) and couldn't wait to begin 1st grade.

The girls were mostly excited about the fact that you get to eat a snack at this new school during reading time. Exciting, aye? I guess I'll be snack shopping a little more often. ;)

I have been home with strep and haven't been able to post for the past few days. My throat was on FIRE and I'm very thankful to be feeling somewhat normal again. It will be kinda nice to be back in the school routine once again.

I'm hot

This is Baz, standing in a water mister at the Lincoln Zoo. It was SO hot, and I think his expression says it all. He stood in that mister forever and was not happy when it was time to go. I think he was questioning our decision to be at the zoo when it's 100 degrees with no breeze.

HSM2

Is anyone else as excited about High School Musical 2 as their kids are??? I should be embarrassed, but well ... I'm not! I'm so excited it's tomorrow night! We're having a party with one of our neighbors to watch it together.

Maybe it's cuz I LOVED doing musicals in high school, but I thought the first movie was great and I can't wait to see what's next. Yeah, I'm a dork. :)

Butterfly Hotbox

We went to the Children's Zoo in Lincoln on Tuesday, because Kris has the day off and we needed a little away time from the country. The zoo was great. I took a million pictures (of course) and the most memorable part had to be walking into the butterfly house (aka HOTBOX.)

The air conditioning is out in our van AGAIN, so we were already hot to begin with when we arrived. The zoo was about 100 degress with no breeze. Then I had the brilliant idea to go into the butterfly house with the girls. HOLY SMOKES was it hot in there. Felt like an oven!

Sofia, the beastmaster, didn't mind the heat. She quickly made some flying friends.

They were beautiful, but I was ready to get out by this time.

I snapped a few more pictures.

And it was time to leave the hotbox and return to a cool 100 degrees with no breeze. yippee.

playing paparazzi

Ok...so I have a confession to make. I've always secretly wanted to be a paparazzi. Not the crazy fly around in a helicopter and stalk people in their homes type, but a friendly type of paparazzi who would get phone calls from celebrities giving her tips on where they might be taking a leisurely stroll through some random park type. I think it would be thrilling and I truly have always wanted to do it. Surprisingly, with 4 kids, it wouldn't be the best career choice. Especially since we live in the country in Nebraska...but ya know.

So we're hanging out in the park across the street from Magnolia Bakery, happily munching on our cupcakes, and a bunch of guys like this fella with the giant camera lenses start showing up. Now, I've just recently acquired a large telefoto lens. Not QUITE like the one this guy has (that's about a $7,000 lens!), but it looks a little bit like it. I figure something cool is bound to happen and I quickly get my big lens on. A large body guard type is eyeing me from across the street. This did nothing but make me more excited, because I figured this guy MUST think I'm really paparazzi if he's giving me that warning eye! COOL!

This dude climbs out of an SUV and I continue to get eyed by the body guard guy, but I decide I'm gonna go for it and start taking pictures. If he comes at me, I'll put Sebastian in front of me. Who's gonna beat up a lady with a baby, right? I figure I'm good to go.


I'm happily snapping pictures from behind a tree, all the while having NO idea who this guy is. I'm also excited because the OTHER paparazzi types are starting to eye me and I figure I must look like competition. Again, COOL!!


Dude changes his bandana again, and I continue to take pictures. Hoping at this point that I can at least figure out WHO I'm taking pictures of. A few New Yorkers stop by at this point and ask me who I'm taking pictures of. I sheepishly say "I have no idea". Ah yeah, I'm from Nebraska and I just wanted to live out my dream here people. Back away.

Dude starts to head to another SUV, with bodyguard guy in tow. STILL eyeing us all. There are 6 actual paparazzi there now. And me~playing paparazzi (with my husband, daughter, and son sitting nearbye. Happily munching on cupcakes).

Dude gets in the SUV and drives off. Shoot, I still don't know who he is. THEN... one of the actual paparazzi approaches me. I think, oh crap...maybe THIS guy is going to beat me up. Where's Sebastian? BUT, he asks who I am and who I WORK FOR. Again, I'm doing a little happy dance inside my head, because he actually thinks I'm for real. I tell him I'm just visiting and I had to get in on the action. We chat for a bit and then I say "so who is this guy?" Paparazzi man says he had to call his son, who told him that he is Juelz Santana. He's an up and coming rapper and clothes designer and he's becoming quite famous. I was relieved that at least I now know who "dude" is. Juelz Santana. Cool!!!

Another dream fulfilled. Mark that one off the list. ;)

Baby Tigers

The doctor Kris works with told him there was a Tiger Rescue Society in the mall today. If you made a donation to the Rescue Society, you got 8 minutes in the cage with baby tigers to pet them and take pictures. It didn't take me long to get everbody to the mall. :)

Sofia and Mia were the only ones who wanted to go in (Katryna was scared from some reason, so she watched Bazzy on the outside of the cage), and the tigers were acting hungry, so the keepers even let the girls give them a bottle.

Mia was SO happy to be petting a baby tiger.

This tiger was very happy to be eating. Sofia was a great "mommy tiger."

Mia's tiger got hungry too and she thought this was the best thing EVER!

What a cool thing to be able to do. Mommy enjoyed it too! ;)

This was a 4 week old tiger cub. Could he be any cuter???

We couldn't pet them because they were too young. :(

The sanctuary takes in Tigers that were once kept as pets. They said lots of people think they're great as babies and then they realize they suddenly own a full size tiger. Smart, aye?

These guys were part of a breeding program I think.

Never thought we'd be petting tigers in the mall.

"I can even smell it from the computer!"

The title of this post is a direct quote from Mia as I was uploading the pictures!

Guess what this truck is spreading ALL over the field RIGHT behind our house?!? I'm sure you can guess!!!!! Outside smells like, well....again, I'm sure you can guess!

I walked outside this morning to let out the dog and THE SMELL hit me and I said out loud..."you have GOT to be kidding me!" BLAH!!!!!

Mia's other funny question when we went outside was "WHY are they doing that? To make it smell bad?" No honey, but it sure does smell bad.

Yes, I'm a city girl. I supposed I need to get used to this.

Snack Attack

My one requirement for visiting NY was we HAD to make it to The Magnolia Bakery! This is the place that Katie Holmes and tons of celebrities come for cupcakes and people wait in line just to get in. It took us forever to get there (a very long walk, a couple buses, and then lots more walking through the village), but we finally made it! Now where are all the celebrities?

The line curved around the building to get in and the guy in the hat would open the door every once in awhile and let a few chosen people inside...

Whew, we made it in. Now we have to decide what to get. They had all these amazing cakes to choose from, but we felt we had to get the legendary cupcakes. We chose four different kinds and a lemonade and walked across the street to sit in this cute little park to eat our snacks.


Katryna chose this yummy chocolate one. It was GOOD!



This is Kris's "snack attack" face. Have you seen Lazy Sunday from Saturday Night Live? I'll attach it so you all can see it.
They stop off for THESE cupcakes!
Another reason we just had to try them!



Munching on cupcakes in the park. The pigeons enjoyed them too!

Shortly after this, I got to play Paparazzi when a famous rapper (who I hadn't heard of) was suddenly across the street, and Kris and I were interviewed by a film crew doing a documentary about World Health stuff. I bet it's never boring in NY! :) More on that to come...



Dislcaimer:

This Saturday Night Live skit has some bad language (kind of)...
so if you're easily offended, you might not want to watch it.
Kris and I, who are not easily offended, find it hilarious!
They go to the bakery and are walking around right where we were.
Man I LOVE cupcakes!!!

Kool - Aid Days

It's Kool-aid days and we had fun yesterday visiting

the World's Larget Kool-aid stand!

The girls drank A LOT of kool-aid!



Notice the Kool-aid mustaches! :)

Bazzy was more excited about the gardening gloves he was given

from "Daddy's hospital's" booth.

I've been working as a photographer for Kool-aid days, the past couple days. I've enjoyed it and today I will be taking pictures of the Kardboard Boat Races. The website of this years Kool-aid Days is http://www.kool-aiddays.com/

Look for Sofia and Katryna on the front page. :) Sof is giving the Kool-aid man the official first drink of Kool-aid to kick off the festival. ;) Mia is on the front of the brochure too. We are definitely a family of Kool-aid kids right now. LOL . Ironically, we haven't ever had Kool-aid in the house. Until now, that is.

I have a lot of NY pictures to post and pictures from the Guatemalan Adoptive Families Event. Hopefully I can get those up soon. Until next time...

Project Runway

Does anyone else watch Project Runway on Bravo? Definitely one of my favorite shows. Which is kinda funny, since I'm not terribly fashionable, but I love the creative process of clothing design and I think the show is very entertaining.

I was very excited to stumble across Parsons on our long walk in a quest for Cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery in the Village.

They had this GREAT wall that I had to take pictures on. I took a bunch of Katryna and then looked down the road and realized someone was taping a music video on this wall also. Great minds think alike? ;)

Katryna played model for awhile.

I was thrilled to have found this building and now I can feel like I've

"been there" when I watch next season.