We finished planting our flowers!! Every year, Jim and I plant annuals in the front of our house. We love the way they bloom and they make the house look bright and welcoming. Jim came home last night with this crazy idea of going to the car races at the Grain Valley dirt track. I just wasn't in the mood. Mostly because Kayla has had very busy days lately and not napping for very long, so I knew that it would have been a tougher evening on me and her with all the noise and the dirt. We decided to go eat at Culver's instead and then run to Home Depot to buy some more flowers so we could finish the other side of the front of our house. I will have to add more pictures of them a few months from now so you can see how huge and beautiful they get. I have been blessed to be married to a man with a HUGE green thumb! It is very rewarding!!

Also, since we were in Florida on Mother's Day, I got to get my gift today as well. Jim hung these beautiful flowers baskets on the outside of my kitchen window. He did a little improvising, and attached little humingbird feeders underneath the baskets. He is so clever!!

The boys got to go the races tonight instead. The race got rained out in Grain Valley, so they got to go to Warrensburg. Kayla and I get to spend some girl time together.. although, she is pretty tired, so she might end up going to bed pretty early. That means I get a few quiet hours ALL TO MYSELF!! I can hear the tub calling my name!!

Here are some pictures of our flowers.

My neighbour Heather called me this afternoon to see if my kids wanted to go to the pool. During the summer my kids and hers spend everyday over there. They opened the pool last weekend (Memorial Day Weekend) and after thinking about for a minute I decided we should go, knowing that it would be pretty cold. I called over to Jamie's since Shane was playing over there (of course!) and to invite Ryan to come along with us. The kids were fired up and ready to go! They all had a great time despite the fact that the water was absolutly FREEZING!! They had a hose adding more water to the pool and that water was SO cold! But, I guess at their age, kids will do just about anything in the name of fun!!

Here are some pics of the kids. Shane, Ryan and Kayla at the outside of the pool and inside Daniel and Alison.





My daughter was so cold. She wanted so bad to go in the water, but everytime I would touch her feet to the water, she would get mad.. then she would get mad and point at the water! Here she is on the step.. at least she got a little wet!

My kids can make me laugh so hard sometimes!! My daughter has started acting really silly lately! I think she enjoys being a little clown sometimes! Here she is wearing pull up on her head and my tennis shoes!!



My son has this fascination with his stuffed animals. They are very close to him and with him all the time. If he could take them to school, he probably would! He treats them like living creatures!! As you can see, they are all watching TV with him! From left to right: Turtie, Beary, Pluto and Cow Cow!!

We had a pretty busy Memorial Day weekend. It was nice to have Monday at home a little more relaxed. We grilled some blue burgers and Mark brought over some hot dogs. We ended up taking them to Jamie's and eating dinner there since Mark is allergic to our dogs.. he is pretty good about it, but we felt that we would be able to spend more time with them over there. It was a fun time!

Shane is officially off of school, so he has a LOT of time in his hands! Good thing the swingset got put together!! Here are some official finished pictures!!

Here is Shane swinging away!!

And here is Miss Kayla playing in the sandbox under the tower!

If he could, Shane would spend every minute playing with his friends. He spent the morning at Ryan's house while Jamie and I went to the gym, and then Ryan came over to play in the afternoon. Little Kayla went with us to the gym. She does so well over there and already recognizes the girls that work there making it much easier to leave her for my workout.

Here are the boys being goofy. They love swinging as high as they can!

They also wanted to play in the sprinkler. Let me just say that the weather was nice, but the water was not that warm! I can not believe they wanted to get wet. But they did, and they had a blast!!

Its Memorial Day weekend, can you guys believe it? Almost the end of May! The weather is FINALLY getting nicer! One of the things that I have been wanting to get for the kids since we moved here in Dec 05, is a swingset! Our next door neighbours were kind enough to give us their old beat up, metal swingset, but it is time for a new one. It is a "birthday" present for Shane, or at least that is how we justify buying it!! His birthday is not till June 23rd, but we have had so many nice days that a swingset would be wonderful to have for the kids. Brian came over last night to help Jim start on it and is back again here this morning. Mark called this morning asking how come Jim hadn't called him yet? I guess he was also ready to get to work! Thank goodness for friends!! How else would anyone get anything done?!?

Shane is finally playing with Ryan after a few days of Ryan being secluded from the world with Strep! Poor little guy. Lets just say that the reunion couldn't have come soon enough. Shane was going through Ryan withdrawl! It rained so much last night the ground is absolutly soaked this morning, so the boys played the Ben 10 videogame and hot wheels. Kayla kept bugging them!! Luckly, the weather changed and the kids got to try out the swingset! It figures that my camera died after they were finished! Oh well, the grand finale picture to come tomorrow!!

Bye Bye pityful swingset!

So much work...

Making progress before breaking for lunch!

Kayla loves going down the slide!

The boys put it to the test!

Here are the boys playing with the Hot Wheels and defeating the dragon!!

Grandma left today. It is so hard to say goodbye. It is so sad to see my son say goodbye to her. They are so close. These are the times that make us question where we should be... Here are a couple of pics of the kids with grandma.

Kayla helping grandma plant some flowers in the front of out house!


Here is Shane with his bestest bud, grandma!

My son graduated from preschool today. Made me a little sad. It didn't really hit me till the evening when I got really teary eyed thinking about it. He is such a great kid right now.. I wish I could just slow time down and enjoy this time even more. I don't want to think of him as a teenager or an adult and everything that may come with that. I just want him to be my little BOY!! Anyways, here is a picture of Shane at his little graduation. I had to take it with my phone since I forgot my camera at home and had a hectic morning and couldn't make it back home to get it.. :( At least my phone takes decent pictures!



Shane also had his soccer awards ceremony tonight. It was a fun time. Shane feels really proud when someone tells him he is doing a great job, and that is just what his coach did. Well, it was more along the lines of "This player scored lots of goals and ran some players over, which is alright to do in soccer!". Shane had a big smile of his face because I am sure all he heard was "lots of goals"!

Here he is with his trophey!

Summer is coming!! I love this time of year. Its not too hot yet that its unbearable, and its no longer so cold that we have to spend all of our time inside. The kids got to play outside today. Shane played at Ryan's in the morning till noon, and Kayla got to play outside in the swing with grandma. After she napped, we went back outside to enjoy the afternoon sun. I turned the sprinkler on for Shane, since Kayla is still not too sure about it, and off he went! He loves the water.



He found his water gun and we filled it up for him, and he went after grandma!! She was soaked!

So I ran back in the house and grabbed grandma a water gun so she could defend herself. They had a ball playing in the sprinkler and with the water guns.. thank God for grandmas!! I ran over to my neighbour and filled 3 pails full of sand to put into our empty sandbox so Kayla could play in it! Thanks Tiff!!

Jamie came over to visit a little bit later and David, Ryan and Shane got absolutly soaked playing with the water guns. It is so much fun watching them have so much fun! Next thing we knew, we had Kelli, Kayla, Miranda and Bailey over as well and the boys were trying to get them wet as well!

We are back from our trip! We had such a wonderful time! Time went by so fast its hard to believe that we were gone for a whole week! It was a great time of year to go, the lines were short and then weather was beautiful in the mid 80s and low humidity the whole week. On the first day we were there, we went to the Magic Kingdom. That is by far the kids favorite park. Shane got to ride Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, which are the biggest rides at the park and he absolutly loved them. He was so excited to ride a roller coaster! While Jim took Shane to the bigger rides, Debbie and I took Kayla to the smaller kiddie rides like Winnie the Pooh and Snow White. That evening we went back to the hotel and swam for a little bit. Felt wonderful to be able to get into a pool again!!

Here is Jim with Kayla in front of the castle. It was perfect timing, since the fireworks had just gone off!
Here is Shane with his favorite character Pluto

The following day we spend at Typhoon Lagoon, which is a Disney Water Park. That was SO much fun! We had never been to one of their water parks before. It was a great time.
Here are Shane and grandma playing at the water park!

Here is Kayla playing at the beach area of the water park.


The next 3 days we spent each day at the other 3 Disney Parks. We had a great time at them as well, although they didn't have as many rides for the kids. The day before we left, we went back to the Magic Kindgom so the kids could ride some more of the rides again and then we went to a "Pirate Dinner Show" in the evening. What fun that was. Shane got to participate on the show and he had an absolute blast. It was wonderful to see him so happy!!

Here is Shane with Chef Mickey the night we ate at Chef Mickeys!


This picture was taken at the Animal Kingdom.


This is a picture taken at Hollywood Studios. We all had our faces painted. Kayla had her hand painted.


Here we are the the Luau at the Polynisian Resort. It was a great dinner show!!

We are on our way!! Sitting here at the airport waiting for our plane. The kids are very excited. I think even Kayla knows something is going on and she is having a great time pointing at all the planes landing and taking off. Shane has already made a friend and they are sharing his VSmile games.
I can't believe how cold it is today.. makes us really happy to think that in a few hours we will be in 95 degree weather!!

More updates soon!!

GRANDMA IS IN TOWN!! Party time for the kids, especially Shane! We picked Debbie up from the airport yesterday and he just had to sleep with her on the spare bed. He needed her as close as he could get her!! He LOVES having her around, its wonderful to see the bond they have with each other. I am sure that the fact that she goes along with ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he wants to do, helps!! Here she is even playing "bideo games" with him!!



Shane wanted to stay home from school today, but we sent him because grandma and I wanted to go shopping before our trip, and it is easier to have one less kid to keep under control! Kayla did wonderfuly!! She was such an angel and everything "Nina" (grandma) tried on, she loved and said looked "pre pre" - which is her way of saying pretty. Tonight, Debbie and I are going to get pedicures before we leave to Florida on Saturday. I thought it would be a wonderful treat before we have to officially wear flip flops!!

Here are some pictures of the kids with Grandma!

Yesterday was another beautiful day. I met Jim for lunch and when we got home, Shane went over to Ryan's to play. I brought Kayla home for a nap, and she slept for 2 1/2 hours! When she woke up, we too went over to Jamie's. The kids all played kickball on the street. What a great neighbourhood we live in!
Yesterday was also 5 de Mayo.. Jamie, my friend Katie (who works at Jim's co. and is in from Omaha to help him with the storm claims) and I, went to El Maguey, because we felt it was necessary for us too to celebrate. Celebrate what, I am not sure, but we each had a yummy Margarita and a lots of laughs. So maybe we just needed to celebrate happy times! :)

We had a great weekend. The weather was beautiful!! On Saturday morning Jim got up and ran a 5k! I am so proud of him!! He has been preparing and training at the gym for about a month now. He was a little sore later in the evening, but I think that also had to do with the fact that we did a lot of running around soon after he got home. We also had our long awaited call from Mickey Mouse! It was really cute. My kids wouldn't sit still long enough to listen to it though it seemed! Here they are Saturday morning just chillin on the on the couch.. the look like such angels, but they really kept on pulling the blanket off each other!!


On Sunday we went to church and after church Shane had a birthday party to go to. He had a great time. Jim did some yard work until I left with Jamie for Jodi's birthday at Dave and Buster's. We had a really fun time. After Jim picked Shane up from his party, he took the kids to the park and then to Culver's for some time with daddy time. :)

Well, we are all sick! We all got some sort of bug and good thing we caught it now and not a week from now or we would all be sick during our trip. Kayla caught it first and had it the worst.. she was miserable for the first few days.. which in turn meant that I barely slept! Last night was the first night in 4 nights that she slept all night.. well, that was after we had to wake her up to run down to the basement after the sirens went off!! Shane and I are both feeling better after just a few days of this bug... but now Jim has it.. and when Jim is sick, I have 3 kids! He was so tired and upset this morning though that I actually felt really bad for him.. he has so much work when the storms hit.. this vacation will definetly come at a good time. :)

I took this picture last night when we got home from the Chiropractor.. it was around 8tish.. isn't it just beautiful? Hard to believe that after something so pretty came something so harsh and destructive. Amazing how things can change so fast.