Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Bowling

As an "end of the summer" fun thing with Julia, we decided to go bowling. Julia has to go back to school on August 4th and so, while summer isn't really over for most of us, it will be for Julia.

Ankica had never bowled before and LOVED it! She cried when it wasn't her turn and said "Me bowl" all the time!

Julia did very well from the beginning and even better with some coaching :-)

Loran ended up with a 135, tied with Mike, and I had a 125 (would you believe that the bumpers actually hindered two of my spares?!). Kacie bowled a 99 and she was just happy to beat Ankica :-) Julia had 79 and Ankica had 72...not bad for her first game ever!


I love this shot! Ankica got a spare! Our friends, Kacie and Mike, went with us, and Kacie was smart enough to bring her camera :-) Thanks Kacie!!!!


Lillian was such a good girl. She got passed back and forth and just watched the fun. Soon Lilly, you will be up there too!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Weight Watcher Update

I weighed in this morning...down 1.6 # for a total of 23 pounds in 9 weeks (I am starting week 10 today). About 2.6 pounds per week isn't bad but of course, I WANT MORE! I have 6 pounds to go until I reach my 10% weight goal (the first goal they give you).

I have successfully walked 2 miles on the treadmill (at 3 mph) every day since last Monday and I am committing to continuing to do so until Thursday. I am amazed at how much easier it is getting every day.

We are leaving on Thursday to go to Wisconsin for vacation with my family. There will be 19 people (10 adults, 9 kids: there are 5 kids above 5 years and 4 kids under 27 months)!!!! It will be super fun though...and pictures will be posted :-) I hope that I can walk at least 2 miles a day while we are on vacation and I think I can do that plus play some tennis and, of course, SWIM! Plus play lots of games and eat some good food. If I can come away from vacation not gaining weight, I will be happy. Of course, my sister Heidi and I will be going to a meeting up there and my sister Jodi is doing WW online and will be give us lots of good recipes :-)

Okay, back to housework, etc.

Friday, July 18, 2008

A busy Friday

Our busy Friday included going over to a friend's house for playgroup. That was FUN! We made individual pizzas and Julia and Ankica had fun.

Lillian had alot going on seeing as she felt the need to make laps up and down the hall, crawling and pushing her basket with her bottle in it.


Julia was a little behind on her allowance chores this week so she was cleaning her room this afternoon.


While I was doing laundry, Ankica and Lillian decided to do a little light reading. EVERY magazine was pulled out. And I haven't had the time to put them back yet :-) The story of anyone who has young children. It takes them two seconds to pull stuff out and three weeks for Mommy to put it back :-)

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Just a Summer Day

The girls LOVE the pool! We got in the pool yesterday and I finally remembered to bring my camera with us. Julia didn't get to go swimming yesterday. It is a very effective negative consequence, because she really loves to swim and play. I think she will remember to bring the dogs back in from the hot sun next time!


Lillian likes to find things floating in the water...and pick them up and try to eat them.


Just like me, Ankica was born to love the water. She has VERY little fear. In fact, she climbs out of the pool using the ladder and jumps in on her own, with her wings on, goes under for a few seconds and pops up ready to go. She decided she wanted her "wing wings" off and so I took them off so she could play on the deck. She learned a lesson when she climbed down the ladder and let me know she wanted to get in, without the wings. Ankica soon discovered that the wings are what keeps her up :-)


Earlier in the day, the girls were playing in the kitchen, everyone's favorite place to be.


They all love to dance and be silly. Who doesn't?

Animals

We had a sad loss just a few days ago, though. Our ferret, Kiki, passed away. She was getting older and we noticed that she was eating less and less. Then Loran came home and found her leg stuck in part of her cage and she was hanging in a bad position. She didn't last long after that. She was alot of fun but...animals come and go.

Anyone who knows us, knows that Loran and I love animals. Recently, we had some major additions to the household. Julia's mother was moving into an apartment and couldn't take Loran's old German Shepherd, Leo, with her. So, of course, we took him in. Here he is with Riley and Indiana. Indy is in the background and Riley is sniffing Leo.




We also added a kitten at the end of May. His name is Orion and, other than a few days of adjustment with the dogs, he quickly became a fun member of the family.




Unfortunately, Leo was over 13 years old and just was not getting any healthier. He was having an almost impossible time getting up and down the outside stairs and was becoming incontinent, even though I was home all day with him. So we all said our goodbyes and Loran and I took him to the vet to have him put to sleep. It was harder than I thought it would be.


We got a really neat sympathy card from our vet clinic, Animal Health Center. It was just written so well and really spoke to the heart of lifetime animal lovers. They come and go, and yet we still choose to care for them and love them.


Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Guitars

Guitars will be a staple of our house for the rest of our lives. Loran was hoping that getting Julia the specific guitar she wanted would help her stick with it. That didn't happen. After less than about three hours of practicing, Julia gave up and quit. Not just "I don't want to do it" but sobbing and carrying on about stomach aches. I think she was upset that she started the process in the first place.

Anyway, her is the guitar we bought her and we are now trying to sell it. It is listed on Ebay or you can email us if you are interested :-)

Ankica, on the other hand, has loved the guitars her whole life and plays and sings whenever she gets the chance.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Lucky Charms Room

Well, we finally got a big addition to the girls' room done today...the fan. So now I am going to show off one of my favorite rooms in the house. Because we didn't get to paint the "nursery" in the rental house we were in for the births of Ankica and Lillian, I went "all out" when moved in to our own house. I couldn't decide on a theme or a color so I figured a different color for each wall would be easy and cute. The more I thought about the colors, and after eating lots of Lucky Charms with Julia, I realized that adding some of the old Charm shapes would be really cute.




The first thing I did was paint the six "walls" pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Then I made a stencil for the top border and this is how those things turned out.




At one of the hobby stores, I found a bunch of plain wood extras for the room, painted them white and added the charms.

The girls have a few special things that I want to put up on shelves to keep them displayed but safe.


I originally was going to paint Lucky somewhere on the walls to let people know what the "theme" was but I got "lazy" and decided to just cut him out and tape him up. The curtains were a great find because each curtain has six tabs...perfect for the six charms.

My sister Jodi had made a very cute lampshade for Ankica that had animals on it (which I am saving by the way) so I had a neat lamp to use. One of the things I discovered was glow in the dark paint and I thought it would be neat to outline the shapes on the lampshade with glow in the dark paint. It gives a cool effect in evening.

Before I officially met Julia, I had painted her initals her favorite colors at the time (she was 4)...purple and pink. It turned out SO cool. But unfortunately, one of the letters had become a chew toy for Riley, our German Shepherd dog. Anyway, I was going to make her new ones when Ankica was born, and make Ankica her initials too. So far, I only have Lillian's done :-) I painted them white and then outlined them with dots of the charm colors.



I did the same thing for the white clock on the wall. (Can you say "obsessed with the theme"?)

The final addition yesterday. The original light in the room didn't have a fan and was old and gross. So I painted the white blades of this fan in the wall colors and Loran put it up yesterday. It makes a HUGE difference in the room. I must say I am proud of this room! Look for a post about Julia's Jungle Room in the future!


Saturday, July 12, 2008

A Typical Saturday

A typical Saturday tends to start with Lillian waking up before everyone else. Loran is usually kind enough to get up with her and they proceed to fall asleep on the couch :-)



Ankica likes to have her hair done but never keeps it in for more than a few seconds afterward. Anyone have any ideas?


I found this outfit in the piles of 6-9 month clothes that I had for Ankica. I had put them away thinking that Lillian would have already grown out of them. Not even close! I was happy to find so many cute summer clothes again though.


A typical Saturday also includes heading out somewhere. This morning I got back from my Weight Watchers meeting (a disappointing 0.6 lb loss; my scale at home said more than that) to find Mike and Kacie at our house already (awfully early for them :-)) So we went to the public auction and it really reminded me of the county fair and the meat animal sale. I miss going to a REAL county fair. Anyway, we then proceeded to a chinese buffet and ended up going to a guitar store. Go figure. So this is a picture of the three girls having a good time goofing off while Loran and Mike looked at guitars neither one of them intended to get...yet.

Now we are at home doing housework and Loran is putting up the ceiling fan in the girls' room but that is for a different post because I want to show off my Lucky Charms theme.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Sisters

I started this game and thankfully Julia thought it looked like fun and took over for me. Ankica was having such a good time that it was hard to get them to stop for supper :-) We are going to miss Julia when she goes back for school :-(


And yes, Ankica has a nuk. She has been battling a nasty case of diaper rash and an upset stomach so Mommy has been a bit lax in keeping the nuks put away. Does anyone think I can get her (read: me) broken of the habit by vacation in two weeks? (I hope so!!!)

Always a fun time

We went over to Jawan's house yesterday for a much needed time of chaos :-) So many kids, so many conversations, so many unfinished sandwiches :-)

Lillian loves playing with some of the older girls and she discovered the tunnel. Lillian is going to miss L.G. when she leaves.




She looks so grown-up in a booster seat and is having a blast playing with L.M. The last playgroup that we had she wasn't very mobile yet or even very interactive but yesterday was a whole different thing.


Ankica gave up her chair and so she had to share with a very understanding A.C. Of course, what she REALLY wanted was to sit with "Buddy" (her current name for Julia), but Julia was on the other side of the table with the "big kids" :-)

Thanks Jawan for a great time! And a cool idea for stenciling on clothes, etc. Unfortunately, when we got home, I discovered that I hadn't brought both dogs back in and poor Indiana was panting like crazy! But, being the good girl she is, she was still here! Yeah!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Lilllian

Lillian is very musical just like her daddy :-)


She is a little over 10 months old and is amazing me every day. Just a little while ago, she pulled herself up to standing near the little table we have and proceeded to play peek-a-boo with me! I didn't even know that she knew how to play peek-a-boo!

Lillian may not walk as early as Ankica did but she certainly is advanced in different ways over what Ankica could do at the same age. We were looking through "old" video of Ankica and it was so much fun to see her advance. I need to remember more often to catch Lillian on video too.

Ah, the poor second child :-) Anybody know what that's like? :-)

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Cool deal

I just had to share this cool deal that we got. I was at a local consignment store looking for a pack-n-play for vacation (which I did find, for a great deal also). I found the Little People toy pictured for what I thought was $10 for the whole set. Turns out that it was listed for $18 but I had inadvertently convinced the store gal that it was $10.


When we checked out what a new one would cost on Amazon we saw it for $58 plus shipping or $70! Wow! It is in perfect condition and has all 26 of the animals.

Ankica already knows the Alligator and the Iguana and Loran and I have taught her hand motions and sounds for both of them. It is too cute!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Weight Watchers

One more post tonight, then off to bathe the kids for bedtime. I am in my eighth week of Weight Watchers and doing well. I have ALOT of weight to lose (over 100 lbs more) but I have lost 20.8 pounds so far. Last week I lost 2 pounds that brought me over the 20 lb mark. I want to keep a tab on it on the blog, for accountability and encouragement for those who might need it :-)

My sister, Heidi, is also doing Weight Watchers and she is in her third week and doing VERY well! I would say how much but I haven't asked her permission yet :-) We are going on vacation in a few weeks and she and I are already excited about going to a meeting together up in Wisconsin.

Okay, time to give the girls a bath!

Cakes

Just wanted to show off two of my more recent cakes. This first one was for a baby shower for a lady from church expecting a boy in September.





This next one was for the pastor's daughter who turned one on Saturday. She and Lillian are good friends :-) The idea for the cake is actually from some of the napkins that Jawan bought for Abigail's party.



"Tattoos"

Loran and the girls were playing around with drawing so Ankica and Julia got "tattoos".


Ankica looks WAY too proud of hers :-)


First Blog Post

Hey everyone!

This is my first blog and the first post on my first blog :-) I just figured that with our family scattered across the country that this might be a fun way to keep caught up and share some stories and pictures.

Ankica wants breakfast now so I can't make this long but I wanted to get started.

More soon!