It's not Ace Of Cakes

(click on the image to see it larger)
Bryan surprised me with this beauty of a cake for my birthday. Although it is not a Duff creation, I thought it was pretty cool! I love the expressions on Little Buddy's face, I wonder what he was thinking?

Dance...it's serious stuff!

This year was The Chatterbox's first year in dance, and will not be her last. She loooooooves it! She has an awesome instructor and the director of the studio (who I had never met before last night) takes things very seriously! We were to start rehearsal at 4:00, The Chatterbox is in 2 dances and according to the schedule we should have been done by 7:30, but we didn't get home until after 10 p.m.! They ran through almost every dance twice, sometimes 3 times They would stop and Mindy or Ellen would go help the kids through the the problems, show them the steps. Although it did take forever it was nice to see good instructors who took their time to get it right and the kids were having a blast.

It was nice to not be "that mom with the camera", it seemed every mother there had a camera. I even saw 5-6 expensive digital SLR's, but I can be happy to say that from what I could see they were still set on Auto!

More of the zoo

Finally a shot of Miss Brainy on her crutches, less than a week left and we will find out if she gets the cast off. While we were at the zoo I overheard a funny conversation from 2 women behind us.

Lady #1 "When I was on crutches I could barely navigate my own house, let alone the zoo!" Lady #2 "If that was my child she would be in a wheelchair!"

I just turned around and gave them my fakest cheesy grin, just to let them know I COULD hear them. But what I wanted to say was something more like this "Yes if your child is the 5 year old in the stroller that looks like he weighs 90 pounds you probably would have him in a wheelchair. Don't YOU think HE can walk? " What they didn't know was that we offered her a wheelchair, but she didn't want to use one, and she didn't complain the whole time!

The eyelashes on this little beauty puts my kid's lashes to shame!

Look at the monkeys in the window!

The Zoo

We spent a couple days in Omaha last week, went to an Iowa Cubs/Omaha Royals baseball game and the zoo. If you ask Bryan he will tell you that it was for my birthday, but if the truth be told it was really his early Father's Day present. I mean do I look like someone who would ask to go to a ballgame for my birthday?? Geeesh! We had nice weather for the ballgame, a little chilly, cloudy, and windy, but I would prefer that to 90 degree, sweat dripping down your back, sun burnin weather. The zoo trip had a little more clouds, a little more wind, and a few sprinkles but the nice weather sure made the animals in a good mood. It was as if they were posing for the camera. I could have stayed in the big cat house all day if the kids would have let me.

Here's a shot of my little monkey's!
I have a ton of images to share so I will post again soon.

Today marks dooms day in our household!!

We officially have 2 teenagers in our home!!!

Happy Birthday Miss Brainy!

(sorry I don't have any new images to share I will have to work on that!)

Care for a Fudge Bar?

I'm sure he would have shared. He is definitely my boy, he would rather have any other sweet than ice cream. Bryan on the other hand could eat ice cream for every meal, and occasional he does have it a couple times a day.

Coachpitch Baseball

Badger Boy is playing coachpitch baseball this year, which he loves. He has a pretty cool coach!

Little Slugger!
Here he is sitting on the bench pouting because he was forced out at second base. He still doesn't quite have the grasp on good sportsmanship.
Most of the time he throws rocks and dirt clods up in the air or plays with grass and dandelions in the outfield.
Although he does have a good arm if he is ready when the ball come to him.
Safe!
He runs so fast his feet never touch the ground!!

At the park

Little Buddy and I ran to Lincoln today to scout out locations for an upcoming session. We went to Sunken Gardens, which are not the prettiest yet, but the tulips are in full bloom. Little Buddy loves to watch the goldfish in the ponds, and the little turtle we found. He asked to take pictures today so I couldn't pass up the chance. For this image he earned himself a new car!!

Miss Brainy is broken!

We finally know what is causing Miss Brainy so much pain. We had an appointment with the orthopaedic doctor yesterday and he immediately saw 2 breaks in the bones on the the top of her foot (these looked obvious to even me!) and also saw a break in her ankle. She is now styling a new bright purple cast that she will wear for 4 weeks and then they will repeat the xray. We had to go pick up the necessity for any kid with a cast..... a silver sharpie so all her friends at school can sign it. I'll try to get some images of her hobbling around on her crutches soon.

The Chatterbox has her school track meet today. I am hoping she does well, but she stubbed her big toe yesterday and has it all wrapped up so I don't know that she will be at her best.

I have seriously thought about investing in large plastic bubbles for these kids, or even bubble wrap.

More from the spring game

One of the great things about the spring game is Willie's Funzone. They have a bunch of activities set up in the indoor practice field for the kids to do. Some of the activities are obstacle courses, photo ops, dress-up with the cheerleaders, and autographs with some of the men's basketball players. The girls ran off with my little camera while we were there and these are some of the images that I saw as I was uploading to the computer.

Luis Colon

I'm pretty sure this is Dominique Sutton

Jacob Pullen
Jamar Samuels
Darin Kent, one of my favorites (I'm a total sucker for tall skinny guys! :} )
Denis Clemente
The Boss was so excited that they put their arm around her! She is such a teenage girl!

Spring Game

We took all the kids plus one (Rissa) to the K-state spring game last weekend with Grandma, Grandpa, Carin, Bean Pole, and AlleyCat. The weather was perfect and there was a ton of activities for the kids to do.

Little Buddy enjoyed playing with his cars during the game!

AlleyCat took a little snooze
Bean Pole focusing on the game, focus Bean Pole focus!!
After the game all the kids went down on the field for autographs. Badger Boy asked one of the players ( #92 Brandon Balkcom) where some of the other fans got the footballs they had. He told Badger Boy he didn't know but he said Badger Boy could have his glove, so he unwrapped all the tape and handed his glove to him. Later Grandpa took Badger back to have him sign it. Badger Boy has worn that thing everyday since, so much so that the signature has worn off. As I was downloading these images I noticed that #92 is in this image so I thought I post it and say thanks Brandon, you made an 8 year old very happy!!
Badger Boy being a goof

No surgery today!

We went to Omaha yesterday to have the pre-op procedures and found out The Boss has an infection so the Doctor wants to reschedule surgery. The earliest he thinks this can be done is in July. She is not a happy camper, first she had to go through the painful pre-op procedures and now she has to go back to school. I will be talking to the nurse today to see about rescheduling, and I will post an update as soon as we know anything.

Miss Brainy is still unable to walk on her foot or bend her ankle upwards so I will be getting her in to our family doctor for more x-rays.

When it rains it pours!

The Boss's surgery

We are at the final week before The Boss's surgery, getting a little nervous, and excited for the huge change this surgery will hopefully bring. We will be at Children's Hospital in Omaha, for probably a week. I am hoping that we can stand each other for that long, just her and I in a hospital room, since reaching the teen years it is sometimes a struggle to not get on each other's nerves. She is worried that no one will come visit, her last surgery and week long hospital stay 4 years ago, she had very limited guests (I think about 8, not counting the family that was there during the operation). So if you are in the Omaha area I'm sure she would love if you stopped by or give her a call. If you would like to send her a card that would be great also, send me an email and I'll get you the information, I would rather not post the info here for safety reasons (you never know whose reading this blog). I will try to post updates after her surgery here, but I will have limited internet access while in Omaha. I'm sure she would love to here from you so if you would like to leave a comment on this site or send an email we would really appreciate it.

"Mom, How do I work this thing?"

I have been sick over the weekend and haven't gotten any work done, so I was downstairs on the computer this morning when I heard Little Buddy hollering, "Mom help me, help me. How do I work this thing?". I told him to come show me and I would help him. He came down stairs with a very funny hat on. I happened to have my little camera sitting on my desk and I hurried and took a quick shot, but he had gotten embarrassed from me laughing at him and he took it off. I tried and tried to get him to put it back on, he finally did with payment of $1. I really hope he doesn't come back in 15-20 years and ask me to show him how to "work that thing".

Post-Easter sugar coma

The title is no where near the truth, but it was my first thought when I took this picture. Actually Little Buddy only had 1 Hershey kiss from his Easter basket. Poor little guy had a bit of a stomach bug on Easter and didn't get to enjoy his basket or the yummy dinner at Grandma's.

We went to the church Egg Hunt on Saturday and he found a basket full of eggs, but again he didn't get to enjoy any of them, as they were all chocolate and with his peanut allergies we had to give them away. He is so cute when he asks if things have peanuts, I'm sure he has no idea what a peanut is but he knows not to eat them. He says" Peanuts Kill me."

For the first time he noticed that the kids were gone to their dad's house. We were driving by The Chatterbox and Badger Boy's school on Friday and he asked if they were at school and I told them they were at their dad's house. He said " I hate they go to their dad's house."

He uses the word hate quite a bit though so I don't know if he understands what it means. So far he has told us that he hates Sprite, Milk, Shrek, Dad-d, food, and shoes.

He also uses the word love alot. I have a 16x20 of a little girl I took pictures of this past summer in my office and last week he told me he loved her. He also told Miss Brainy and I that a little girl at the kids school was his girlfriend and he loved her. Both girls are adorable so I guess he has good taste!

What are little brothers for?!!!

It's good thing The Chatterbox doesn't play with her Barbies much, because Little Buddy has decided they are

all better off with no heads! He scares me a little, I'm afraid he will turn out like the little boy on toy story, with all the decapitated and dismembered toys. When I ask him why he did it he said "I'm just a bad boy."

Caught red handed

We took Little Buddy's pacifier away during the day quite a few months ago and he is only allowed to have it at bedtime. So what do you think I found hiding under this "huge" box?

He had gotten into the drawer in the kitchen that holds his cup lids, pacifiers, old bottle nipples, etc... and found a nipple and a pacifier "leash" and was sucking away on it.

He looked so guilty when I looked under the box!

Little Leprechauns

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The Boss

Your Irish Name Is...

Maeve Moore

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Miss Brainy

Your Irish Name Is...

Caitlin Clarke

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The Chatterbox

Your Irish Name Is...

Chloe Fitzpatrick

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Badger Boy

Your Irish Name Is...

Aidan Ahearne

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Little Buddy

Your Irish Name Is...

Quinn Hughes