Brianna was baptised by her Dad the beginning of December.  So nice to have all of our children meet this special milestone in their lives, though a little sad too.  We were so priviledged to have Mom and Dad B.  come be with us for this special occasion!!

We celebrated Brianna’s 8th birthday…all she really wanted was a guitar…she was very happy!

Brianna performs in her 2nd grade musical performance…she had a speaking part this year that she precticed for weeks to make sure she got it just right…they sang all of the favorite Disney songs, shich of course was right up Brianna’s alley since she knew them all by heart anyway!

 Trent recieved his First Class scouting badge…this is the point where he is now as tall as I am, and very embarrased to give affection to his mother in public!!

And then he tries to throw me in the river!!!

And again, I almost went for a swim courtesy of my sweet, darling, loving husband.  He just couldn’t resist!!

I should be pluggin my nose in this picture…

So the girls were all excited about the church party this year since that was pretty much gonna be Halloween for them, and talked about their costumes FOR-EV-ER!! 

Brianna wanted at first to be a pioneer…but after I thought about all the work to make everything just right, and since time is at a premium and I really needed to BUY a costume (ick I know, I haven’t bought costumes in years) we decided on the Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz costume.  Which she wears perfectly, she was definitley a little cutie!

She even had her little dog Toto in a basket and check out those ruby shoes!!!  she gots lots of comments at the church party, mostly that she looks so much like me with makeup on, and I agree!!

Courtney’s costume was easy enough…I don’t think she really had any idea what she wanted to be, until one of her friends from church decided that a poodle skirt and ponytails like the 50′s would be fun.  So us mom’s got together with some felt, scissors and sewing machines to whip upp a poodle skirt…which is super easy because it is basically a big circle with a waist!  she looked so cute and very authentic with her little shoes and everything!

When we arrived at the church we were able to visit with some good friends and just hang out for a while…the trunk or treating was fun too!  the rest are just pictures of us hangin out!  and you will see some bad photography here, so be kind!(mostly eyes closed, but there are some blurry photos too)

this is me and Joel, he’s the little guy that I babysat from 6 weeks, until about 18 months…I can’t believe he has gottne so big..he was a private investigator too cute!

cute girls out trunk or treating!

Brianna and friends…

Courtney and her poodle girl pal, Tori!

Brianna is so cute!!!

Courtney didn’t eat at home so she could partake of the chili fest…it looked good!

So that pretty much sums it up!  how many sets of closed eyes did you find?

now that Halloween is over we can move on to the thankful season and count our blessings…we are defintley blessed as a family!

at after hundreds of feet of hose, lots of dust..the machine not working at first,  stopping every couple of bags to let the dust settle, insulation everywhere, a major rainstorm before we finsihed…cleaning up everything and taking back 10 bags…we finally have enough insulation in out garage… WE WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN!!!  I hope I made myself clear

sorry about the crooked pictures…technical difficulties….grrrr!

anyhow…this is just the back of the house…after we put 10 bags in we moved around to the front to gain access over the garage to the rest of the attic, and put in another 10 bags…at that point it wasn’t funny ANY MORE!!!  Dexter couldn’t wear goggles because it was humid and they kept fogging up…so he was practically blind…we wore masks and everything, but were coughing up insulation dust and blowing out black boogers (gross, sorry) for a few days after wards…this is definitly a job to hire out…don’t try this at home!

dining room before

I have always loved this look…a few years ago I decided to go bold with the red wall and buffalo check curtains…all the accents are very country, very comfy and I loved it!  however just recently I had been yearning for a change, I wanted lighter, brighter, and bigger!!!  so this is what I did…

dining room AFTER

The major transformation was just paint…painting all the wainscoting white and the walls a nice tan color made the room much bigger…this picture doesn’t show the curtains I made…but I will post that in the “little details” post when I get those things done.

The kitchen transformation isn’t as dramatic…but it looks lighter and brighter too…previousl the wainscoting backsplash was tan..counters are tan…meduim oak colored cabinets and red soffets trim…

BEFORE

can you tell I as already in progress and stopped to take a before picture…I am usually so excited about my projects that I forget to take pictures because i just want to get it done…anyhow notice the soffet and backsplash…those are the big changes…

AFTER

Please disregard the toaster that Brianna forgot to put away and the can of stain on the counter from another project and the fact that my under cabinet light is practically falling down (another project in itself)…I painted the soffet and back hallway a very nice green color…very soft which I think makes a nicer contrast to the cabinets…I painted the wainscoting white and did a slight rub on the finish, just rubbing some of the tan paint into the crevices to make it look  a little worn  and make the grooves really POP!   A few years ago a friend and I created this treatment on the soffet…it goes all the way around the kitchen and previously I had berries and basket and stuff hung on the little knobs.  Now I am putting a vinyl saying around the board with a little something hanging here and there, I’ll post that later. I will also be changing the glass in the cabinet door…I haven’t decide on anything yet, but definitly something less clear…I hate seeing the things in there, but it is valuable storage space so a change there is a must!!  My kitchen feels so much larger and I love it!!!

First we ate with Brianna, since her lunchtime is first.  She was not happy about the school lunch that day…So daddy wentand got some other special things for her to eat…she was so excited to have us with her!

She is not sure about the chocolate whips yougurt!!!

Brianna with her friend Lilly, so cute!!  After we ate, we headed outt to the playground to play…andof course Dexter broke some of the rules, which I thought was so funny!!!

And then we ate with our sweet courtney…They were having Chili and cinnamon rolls for lunch which is always a favorite!!!   We are so happy that we got to spend some time with her!!!  it was cute to see her interactions with her friends…we love our kiddos!!

The biggest thing I have been doing is preparing vinyl for school.  A few weeks before school started I cut out a teacher’s name in black vinyl and put it on the window outside her classroom. She wanted something that would identify the room as being hers….Then her neighbor teacher wanted one too…Well that started it!  pretty soon I was having teachers call me with their personal orders to have their names cut and applied outside their classrooms as well.  The Principal caught up to me and asked if I would be willing to cut the names of ALL the teachers in the building, that is 37 names!!!  It took me a couple of days to get everything cut out…and a couple more days to visit each classroom and ask the teachers where they would like me to apply their vinyl.  Because of this I have a few teachers that would like to have vinyl cut personally for their homes…so I guess that is good.  I am glad the kids are back at school so that I can have some quiet to work on these things.

I have also been busy with making hair pretties for teachers…I took some to school so Brianna’s teacher could buy some for her nieces.  I put a few different kinds in a basket so she could see what I had.  I never intended to sell all of the pretties in the basket!!!  Mrs. Haugen bought several and then asked if she could take the basket to some of the other teachers…by the time I got the basket back there were only a few items left and I had several teachers make special requests for more.  I started this just so my girls could have pretty things to wear in their hair, I realised it was fun to do and I made a lot of them… A LOT ( we’re talking more than 300)  thinking that I would have pretties to go with any outfit they might wear.  I never thought that other people would be interested in buying them from me!  so now that my big vinyl project is done I can get back to filling my special requests!!

As for home projects…I have some doors and trim to get painted…Hopefully thursday will be the day to get that done while Dexter is out of town. 

 One thing that I have really enjoyed is the fact that I can clean the house and it pretty much stays clean (if the kids do their chores before school)   it is nice to walk into the house and not have crumbs and such everywhere…which is nice since I have so much to do…cleaning just doesn’t fit into the schedule 

I cannot believe how tall he is getting…Reference pictures from past years to see the growth…I have taken his picture by this tree every year for 5 years now…it amazes me that I no longer see eye to eye with him…I am beginning to have to cast my gaze upward!!

A beautiful Daughter…I felt a little saddened that I was taking Courtney to the first day of her last year in Elementary school…she is becoming so mature and grown up now!

Mr. Lease is an awesome teacher…Courtney is going to love being in his class…Trent had him for 5th grade too!

I am so glad that Courtney has such good friends…she has always chosen to align herself with good people!!!

Brianna, my little sweetie ROCKSTAR!!!  she had to have the coolest outfit and hair for her first day!!

This is Mrs. Haugen…I am so excited that Brianna is in her class…Courtney had her for Kindergarten and 2nd grade…so we are thrilled to have Brianna get to work with such an awesome lady!!

the official hanging of the backpack!!!

and Brianna at her desk…I think she is excited about who she sits next to…let’s just hope she gets her work done too!

The kids all reported that they had great days…Trent got a little lost in the middle school, after all it is huge and very confusing…They did construction to rebuild it over the last year, so this is Trent’s first year in the new building.  I think he’ll get the hang of it pretty soon!

Courtney was so excited about a new book club the Librarian is doing after school twice a month..She can’t wait to check out books and get started reading so she can attend!

Brianna’s teacher reported that she had very nice handwriting on her first day.  Which honestly I was a little worried about, she usually just scrawls the letter uneven and not perfectly formed.  So I was glad to hear that she put in extra effort to make it nice and neat!

And as for me…left all alone in the house…AHHHHHHH!  It feels nice to be able to get back on schedule with things and actually feel that if I clean the house, it might just stay that way!  It is a little lonely and quiet around here, but I am thankful for the reflection time.  The time is not far off I am sure where I will again become a fixture at the school as I substitute and volunteer, but this week is all mine!!!

 Here we are waiting to enter the zoo.  They said we came at a good time since there were a lot of baby animals, and most of the exhibits were open.

So here Courtney is checking out the baby giraffes…they were so cute…but we wanted to move on into some shade somewhere.

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We found the Polar bears out having a great time…we thought the water looked nice and cool to take a dip in.  It was so cold you could feel the coolness just being near the water.

Courtney has a squirrel on her shoulder…a black and white one…crazy!

This was the rainforest exhibit…of course this would be Trenton’s favorite because of all the snakes and creepy crawlers.  It was however our least favorite because of the humidity.  They had misters that put the water into the air regularly…it was almost so foggy it was hard to see at times.

a BIG snake…who’s excited here?  not me!

You can’t really tell in this picture, but these fish were HUGE HUGE HUGE…Brianna was amazed!

My little mermaid girl loves fish, she loved the aquarium exhibit and was happy to see many of her favorite Disney friends, Sebastian, Flounder, even Nemo and Dori were there!!

Of course we saw many different animals… I saw things I never knew existed like the Okapi, the 3rd picture here, its closest relative is the giraffe, but it has stripes like a Zebra  weird. 

another moment in the shade.

I  loved looking at all the different plants they had…I wish I had the climates and abilities to grow some of these things.  Look how big this flower is.

We went into the Lorakeet Adventure which is a place where you can feed the birds little cups of nectar.  The girls had a great time, but it was really a sticky mess…thankfully they had a cleanup station close by!

This Lorakeet took the cup right from Brianna…he didn’t seem willing to share.

Well we were pretty much done by this point…just making our way back out…Everyone was feeling a little exhausted from the heat, and the excitement…Time to go find some FOOD  to re-fuel!

At the gate we bought Brianna and Courtney a little animal to remember the zoo…Trent felt like he was to old (mature) for stuffed toys and opted out.  This pink monkey matched Brianna’s outfit perfectly, her new best friend!!

Courtney chose a purple and blue snake…she still hasn’t chosen a name for it yet and is open to suggestions.

We got in the car and decided to get out of downtown a little ways before we stopped to eat…Dexter got so excited as we passed Invesco Field, this is where the Denver Broncos play, and Dex is a huge fan!!!

We hadn’t been in the car for more than 10 minutes and Brianna was out.  She bumped her head on the car door getting in, and at first I thought she was suffering from a concussion, But really she was just so tired!

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We found a Chili’s and stopped to eat…we found a big corner booth where everyone could have some space to relax and just chill before we headed home…good food, good times!!

We had a really great time in Denver.  We thought about staying over night and hitting something else the next day, but we have dogs to take care of…so we headed home…plus everyone was so tired that the thought of seeing or doing anything else just wasn’t very appealing!

While Dexter was on vacation the middle of August we decided to make some memories with our family and do things a little out of the norm for us.   One day we had this “brilliant” (note the sarcasm, please) idea to take the dogs with us up to the Wildcat Hills and have a picnic and some hiking.  Now let me preface this by saying that riding in the car with dogs, our dogs specifically, is NOT fun!!!  Woody shakes nervously because he doesn’t know what is coming at the end of the car ride, and Chelsea is just a spaz who roams around the car looking out each window and climbing over and drooling on EVERYONE!!!   so we got all packed up with plenty of food and water for people and dogs and headed out.  When we got there we realised that the temperature had climbed quite a bit and we were looking at the mid 90′s.  so it was hot, and dusty…and everyone seemed a little cranky.  But we had already decided to do this so we found a little shade with a picnic table and let the dogs roam while we ate.  THE DOGS WERE EVERYWHERE!!!  it was fun for them to be outside of the backyard, but I was a little stressed thinking for sure that one of them would find a snake or something.  After we ate we thought it would be best to drive the dogs home before we did some hiking.  That way we could talk and visit with the kids and not be yelling after the dogs the whole time.

All packed up and ready to roll…

This is the view of us hiking back up to the car with the dogs…they are of course leading the way!

After we took the dogs home and arrived back at the hills…we decided to take the northern lookout trail, which would take us about 2 miles to a lookout area.  This was a little scenery as we hiked northward, and when you live in Western Nebraska, this is about the best view you are gonna see   

Taking a little break on our path, shady spots are few and far between..so you rest in them when you find one.

 We found that we were hiking in very deserty conditions with all the yucca plants and cactus to dodge along the way.

We finally made it to the Northern lookout.  it was beautiful, but it looked out over the highway.

 We had to take some time in the Nature Center and check out the cool things to do there…the kids always love this!

Courtney is making some leaf rubbing here…she even looks like she got a little too much sun.

 It wouldn’t be a family activity if we didn’t end it at DQ!!!  it felt nice to have milkshakes and sit in the AC after our hiking expedition…

We had a great time…these kids look a little tired…