It's Vewy Special

Bazzy got a watch this weekend from my dad. Not just any watch. A Cars watch. The boy LOVES Cars! He insists on wearing it now as soon as he wakes up and his favorite thing is to tell us the "time"...which usually seems to be either 2, 3, or 6 o'clock. He is also constantly telling me that he's "like Papa" (cuz Papa also has a black watch) and it's "ve-wy special".

Thank you Papa for the VE-WY special Car watch! :)

Omaha Olympic Swimming Trials

Has anyone else been watching these? I'm currently obsessed. We saw swimmers everywhere in the Old Market this weekend with my parents and I find myself being excited/nervous for these swimmers who have the possibility to be in Beijing in a few short weeks. Woah! I can't imagine being in the position to actually BE in the Olympics. What a cool thing. Even just to be in the trials!!! Amazing! I will definitely be glued to the TV (as much as I can now as the Mommy of 5) this week watching. Let me know if any of you Omaha-ans got to see any of the trials at the Qwest. I will be VERY jealous! :)

For My Darling Hubby

I know only you (Kris) may get this...but that is just what I wanted. :)

Thanks for 11 awesome years of being married and I can't wait to see what the next 11 bring. 11 years of marriage~6 different "homes"~5 kids....it definitely hasn't been boring.

I love you and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (one day early...cuz I wanted to let you know I remembered and I probably won't have a computer tomorrow! ;) )

An Armadillo-rific Birthday

So in the post below, I mentioned the Mia has 2 "friends" at the zoo she always has to visit when we are there. She loves them both and HAS to stop in and say HI. One is the Okapi, the other is the Screaming Hairy Armadillo in the Kingdoms of the Night exhibit. Mia loves this armadillo and we all crack up as he spastically runs quickly by with his tiny little feet going a million miles a minute. He's adorable and Mia absolutely loves him.

Of course we had to visit him for Mia's birthday and while we were in Omaha, Kris decided to get crazy creative and make Mia a birthday cake. Not just ANY Birthday cake though...

(on a side note~ I want to start a band called The Screaming Hairy Armadillos. Doesn't that make a great band name? Who's with me???)

... he has been really enjoying learning new cooking techniques, and he decided to branch out for Mia's big day and learn how to make fondant icing. Fondant normally tastes pretty nasty, but he found a recipe that is mostly marshmallows and powdered sugar...so it actually tastes pretty darn good. He thought for quite awhile about what he wanted to make for her, but when it came right down to it, it was pretty easy to decide. ;)

This is Mia anxiously waiting to see what waited for her under the big box on the counter.
OH the anticipation!!!

Oh my GOODNESS! An Armadillo cake! Now besides the movie Steel Magnolia, have you ever seen an armadillo cake?!? :) I was SO proud of my hubby. He was totally determined to make this cake super special for Mia and that Armadillo was the cutest thing ever!

Can you see the shock on Mia's face? She could NOT believe it! :)

PURE happiness!

Kris doesn't think he's a very creative person, but come ON! Look at that adorable little face and the tiny feet and the textured "skin". Man I was impressed!

Mia about lost her little mind she was so excited about this cake. Especially since her daddy worked so hard to make it for her. That smile says it all!

He's almost too cute to eat!

We had pizza and then opened presents before we at the poor little critter.

Kris said I was "mean" for giving Mia a present she can't play with until we move. ;) I didn't want to set it up and then take it down and then set it back up in a matter of weeks...so I told her she has to wait until she's in her new room and THEN we'll put up her fairy house.

Is that mean? Well...maybe a little.

Her favorite present was of course, a stuffed Screaming Hairy Armadillo. (again...isn't that the PERFECT band name? It would have to be a punk group probably, but I'm OK with that)

Katryna helped me to find this little guy at the zoo yesterday. Sofia distracted Mia and Katryna snuck over to the cash register and paid for him...it was all very stealthy!

Mia was completely in love.
His name is now "Perry"...cuz it rhymes with Hairy.
Mia is great at names!

The time finally came to blow out the candle and dig into this yummy little critter.
It really did seem to be such a shame to hack this little armadillo to bits.

Wait a minute. What is that guy doing?
Don't do it! Put down the knife!

Not the head! OH the HORROR!!!

Don't look! It's horrible! An armadillo head on a platter. Oh the humanity!

Ok, I'm done being dramatic. Mia wanted to eat the head (of course!), so Kris and I had fun presenting his little head to her, because it really did seem VERY wrong!

The girls just thought he was yummy. Katryna and Sofia are munching on his little ears here. The fondant is tasty, but VERY sweet! CRAZY sweet actually!

So Mia had a very Armadillo-rific Birthday this year.
What a great and funny kid you are Mia!

KRIS~ I want to go on record and say YOU ROCK!
Mia has been talking about her cake all day. :)

The Birthday Celebration Day

We have a silly tradition of decorating the door of the birthday kid so they are greeted by "birthday" right when they wake up in the morning. We were at the condo yesterday morning though, so I decorated the hallway instead.

Mia had a special birthday crown and some
Dora Mermaid babies waiting for her outside the door this morning. :)

The balloons ended up being the perfect thing to distract the little ones while I was packing up too. We don't have any furniture in the condo yet, so there is a lot space to play balloon catch. ;)

Sebastian preferred to make his balloon a drum.

Mia wanted to go to the zoo in the morning to see a few of her favorite "friends". I think she truly believes these animals are her friends and we HAVE to visit them every time we go to the zoo.
This tiger skin is NOT one of those friends. But he was very cool to touch.

One of the two we have to visit is the Okapi by the jungle building. Mia has a stuffed Okapi (the one she took to Kndg Round Up) and just LOVES him! She's actually yelling "Okapi...it's my birthday today!" in this picture. LOL!

I'm not sure Okapi was too impressed that it was Mia's birthday though.
He was much more interested in leaves.

We had hoped to go to Tiny Town Village to continue the Birthday Celebration, but it started pouring rain and wouldn't let up....so we improvised and went to McDonald's playland instead.

Charlotte was not very happy that everyone else was getting their food prepared, except for her. Poor Katryna had to try to keep her happy while I was waiting for our food.
They both look distressed, don't they?

Mia's friends Sarah, Abby, and Libby even came and we had a very fun party!

We opened presents and played in the playland until the roof started to leak because of the rain. It's never good when McDonald's starts to leak!

Mia had a blast and she was SO happy she got to see her friend Sarah! :)

Thanks girls for coming to Mia's party and for the fun presents! Mia has been having SO much fun playing with them all. We can't wait to see you guys more soon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR SWEET MIA!
I can't believe you are 5 years old!!!
Where has the time gone?
You fill our lives with tons of smiles, adventures, and laughter and we love you SOOOOO much!
Happy Birthday! :)

(This picture was taken at the zoo today. I will post birthday celebration pics soon...)

Snacktime- VZ approved

Our kids LOVE this CD by Barenaked Ladies. I have to admit, it's pretty funny to see people's faces when Mia tells them how much they love "bare naked ladies"...so we'll try to refer to them as BNL. :) We(meaning Kris and I) have loved BNL since college and now the guys from the group all have kids and have made a children's CD that adults can enjoy as much as the kids. The group is Canadian and we saw them perform about 2 years ago in Omaha and it was one of the best concerts we have ever been to. They are very funny and talented individuals.

This is Mia's favorite song and she knows EVERY SINGLE WORD. Even the AWESOME Rasta-man part in middle. It's very funny. :) (I'm sure my Florida family remembers her singing this Pollywog song!) The video is just someone taping at a promotional show, but you can hear the song anyways. The little boy of the family who is taping is awfully cute too.

So...if your looking for music that won't make you crazy on those long car trips, the VZ family strongly recommends Snacktime. Enjoy!

Hangin' at Aunt Judi's Pool

This is how Charlotte likes to hang by the pool.
Comfy chair~cool breeze~and a nice long nap.

The other girls were ALL about the swimming.
They swam and swam and swam some more!

Mia was SO excited that she could jump off the side all by herself.
Here she is, mid-action, with Sofia about to catch her.

Way to go sister! :)

They also realized they could jump together.
The girls were having the time of their life in this beautiful pool!

Mia's swimming improved a lot on this trip,
and she was quite the little fishy by the end of the week.

Chalottes favorite place to be was on my Grandma's lap.
She would instantly calm down and snuggle in when Grandma was holding her.
I don't think she could be any more relaxed in this picture. ;)

Uncle Dan...if you're reading this, Mia wanted me to say "Hi Uncle Bologna" and "1-4-5".
I know only you guys will understand that. :)

Whenever we could drag the girls out of the swimming pool, they spent time chasing lizards (this is only one we could catch and it was a TINY baby. SO cute!)...

...eating popsicles...

and relaxing by the pool with Grandma and eating "snow" that Aunt Judi made.
Uncle Dan and Aunt Judi's house is WAY fun! :)

Check out these...

CHEEKS!

In the grand tradition of VZ kids, she has the chubbiest little cheeks!
All 5 of our kids have had these and I LOVE them!
Don't you just want to smooch 'em? :)

To the Beach with Grandma

Mmmmmmm....look at this amazing plate of
yummy, crunchy, clam-my goodness!
I dream of these clam strips from time to time when I'm here in the Midwest and thinking of sitting on the beach and eating clams in the sunshine with the ocean air gently blowing on me. Ah, I can imagine it again now. Good stuff!

We picked up my Grandma after the girls finished swimming in Scott's pool and headed to the beach, cuz all of us REALLY wanted to see the beach. The girls wanted to look for shells, but I really wanted to eat clam strips...and I'm the Mom~so we at clam strips BEFORE we looked for shells. It's good to be the Mom.

They also have amazing lemonade at the beach, and Mia was really loving that. Can you see the Ocean in the background? Does it get ANY better than that?

The thing with clam strips is that you really don't want to fill up on the french fries that surround the clam strips. So there are always a TON of fries left when you are finished. So what do you do with all those french fries? You feed them to the seagulls, of course!

I was a little hesitant to let them do this, because about 2 years ago when we were at the same beach with Katryna, we saw 2 girls try to order a plate of fries and ATTEMPT to walk across the beach with them and they were literally almost carried away by frenzied seagulls. It was crazy! Like that scary movie The Birds! Katryna still talks about that and it was 2 years ago!

Everyone pretty much understands that you stay in the cafe area with your food, because they have wires over the seating area to help you avoid being carried away by birds.

So my rule was that they could only give the gulls one fry at a time and I had to hold them until we were far enough out on the beach to not tick off the people who were trying to have a nice lunch.

Sof decided to stick her fry in a coconut she found on the beach. Mia just tossed hers, because I think I had freaked her out a bit about being carried off by birds. ;)

Those gulls can sense food like none other and instantly they were there...

...LOTS of them. These are just the ones that landed.

I think the girls finally understood what could happen if they were standing out there with a plate full of fries. Yikes!

Grandma was watching baby Charlotte, so we headed down to the water to look for shells. Sofia doesn't remember the beach, cuz she was a baby the last time she was there...so she couldn't get over how many shells were just lying around. She was in heaven!

She also learned what happens when you crouch down right before a wave comes. :)

After the beach we went to a big fishing pier that I've been going to with my family since high school. I also have pictures with Katryna and Sofia when they were little babies, just about the same size, in front of this pier. So of course I had to have Sofia take a picture of us here with baby Charly.

I love this pier because it's so interesting to see all the fish people are catching. When Katryna was with us last time we saw a little boy catch a baby shark! That was something!
There are dolphins here a lot too. We didn't see any this time unfortunately and if you can tell by how dark the sky is in this picture, we didn't stay very long this time because a storm started to roll in fast and furious. I'm terrified of lighting and as soon as we saw the lighting starting to hit the water in the distance, that was enough pier time for me!

I was brave enough to get a quick picture of Charlotte sticking
her little toes in the ocean for the first time though.

I think she liked it. :)