Dying Easter Eggs!

Before the Slumber Party on day 3,  we snuck in some Easter egg dying. Here are some pics to share of the fun.

Omaha Spring Break Day 1-3

The first 2 days of our spring break trip were spent primarily driving. The first day we left early and headed into Sidney, Nebraska where Grandma Braska and Aunt Kari met up with us to play with the boys. We swam at the hotel and wore them out then had a dinner at a local restaurant and went to bed. The next day we were able to space out between the 2 trucks and enjoy the uneventful 2nd leg of the trip. Once in Omaha we had a big family dinner at Great Aunt Sue's house and let the kids run in the yard and play with Grandma's big doggies.

 

Our first full day in Omaha actually involved another 2 hour drive to Des Moines, Iowa to meet up with some friends and go to the Iowa Science Center. We had fun visiting and the kids loved playing with all of the fun stuff they had.

 

After playing for a while, we all had lunch together at Spaghetti Works. Here's a picture of Caleb with his new friend Gabby. They had a good time together. Too bad we live so far away and he won't get to see her much.

 

After a 2 hour drive back into Omaha, we rested for a while then the kids all got to go to Grandma Braska's for a slumber party with their cousin Sam and us adult kids went out to dinner together and then played a  game at Kari and Sean's apt. We were pooped so we called it an early-ish night and went to enjoy some sleep in the quiet kid less basement of Aunt Sue's house. 



St. Patty's

Since St. Patty's was on a Sunday this year and I knew were weren't going anywhere, we kept things pretty simple around here. We focused the day primarily around green food. We started the day off with some special edition Lucky Charms.

After we were all dressed in some sort of green we just relaxed and played the day away. For lunch we were able to score some green bread from Macey's on Saturday and Mom made some green grilled cheese sandwiches with it. I think someone approved.

 

After more relaxing, watching some TV and reading while the kids played some more, it was time for dinner. We went with brinner and made green shamrock-shaped pancakes and green eggs along with some bacon and sausage.  It was super yummy.

 

All in all it was a nice day at home. I wish it would have been a little warmer as we had hoped to take the kids to play on the green playground in the neighborhood.  But I think they still enjoyed themselves anyway.

 

 

Plus, get a load of these two silly leprechauns after having some St. Patty's fun at school on Friday. What goof's. 

Hope you all had fun celebrating as well and hope you didn't get pinched.

18 Months!

Someone turns 18 months old today. Is that even possible? Where does the time go?

Limo Lunch

I'm a little late in posting this, but a few weeks ago Caleb was awarded a limo lunch at his school. He wasn't sure why but he was so excited to have won it. At lunch time the next day, he got picked up in a real limo and got to go with this group of kids for a real lunch at McDonald's. What a treat!

It just happened that it was also the day of parent teacher conference, so that evening we got to speak with his teachers and they told us that the got together and tried to come up with one student who they thought deserved it the most for making progress and behaving well in class.They both decided on Caleb.

The school only does this once a month and only 4-6 students at a time so that's only a handful that get the honor every year. He was pretty impressed and so were we. This pic was hanging in the hallway at his school as we left so we snapped a picture of it for ourselves. I love that he's the only one showing his enthusiasm.

2 thumbs way up for the limo lunch program!

Bag 'O Spike

 

We got a little more than we bargained for when picking up the twins from preschool today. Caleb went to the door to get them like normal on Fridays and pretty soon we saw his teacher walking toward the car. Once she got there she had a sad look on her face and said "I hate to tell you this but he cut his hair!" She then proceeded to hand me a Ziploc bag through the car window of one blond spike. 

 

His teacher thought we were going to be upset and told us in 35 years of teaching preschool, she has never had a kid cut their hair in class when they are supposed to be cutting paper. Mike and I weren't upset at all. All we could do was laugh. I guess it didn't really surprise us too much. Leave it to one of our kids to be their teacher's first.

 

And here he is at home later holding up his baggie full of spike. Oh Mr. Zaric! What are we going to do with this kid?



 

 

4 day weekend

I'm pretty sure all weekends should be a 4 day weekend for me. We didn't do anything extravagant or even really fun. But we did get things done around the house, run some errands and still have time to relax and finish reading a book, watch a few movies and have a real weekend.

 

Here's a cute pic of the boys riding our boxes at IKEA back out to the truck. As one of our errands, we stopped and got us some bookshelves for the basement to be able to unbox a few of the many many boxes of books  and games residing down there. Thanks again for the gift card Annie. It was put to good use. 

 

 

 

A very good weekend indeed. Can't believe it's almost over. 

Can't Wait!

Have you ever seen a concert as beautiful as this? ......No? Me neither.

 

And the best part is that my husband has agreed to not only let me go but to go with me to this concert in July (he's a brave man, I know). We are going to use it as a late anniversary gift to ourselves and spend a kid-less weekend away in Vegas having fun and seeing all of my boyfriends perform while they sing directly to me.

 

Aren't they still sooooo incredibly handsome?

 

 

VDay- Ouren Style

We had a very fun Valentine's Day this year. It started off by Grandma Judi and Papa Ringo giving us some VDay candies and goodies while visiting them in Price last weekend to include this cute outfit for Miss Faith.

Throughout the week, the boys have come home with numerous Valentine's from school and the babysitter and other kids at the sitters house. 

Yesterday was our turn to give them each a little Valentine. They woke up to these cute little boxes in the morning.  

 

Zaric and Zaden's each had a new pair of Vday jammies in them, a heart of bubble gum and a chocolate mustache. 

 



Caleb's had this cute Darth Vadar mug full of conversation hearts and a chocolate mustache.

Miss Faith had this on her high chair when she got up. It had a John Deere Tutu, some owl leg warmers, 2 new headbands and an elephant marshmallow pop.

 

They all love their goodies as you can tell. 



We Mustache you to be our Valentine!

 

I put Faith in her new outfit I bought her just for Vday a while back. It was so cute. I particularly can't get enough of the tights. 

When Caleb went upstairs to get ready for school, he came back down with this Lego Valentine he made for  me. Such a sweetie!

After a few hours of work and picking up Caleb after a short day at school we came home and I was greeted with these from Mike. He also let me order another gift for myself that's still on the way. 

 

I spent some time making some pink chocolate chip cookies. They were super good (sorry no pic). And we had enough that I even had the boys take a plate of them to our new neighbors to tell them Happy Valentine's Day. They thought that was so fun to do. Hopefully the neighbors don't think we are too nutty.

Once Mike got home we had a heart-shaped pizza for dinner like normal and had mostly a normal Thursday night with the kids. We watched our favorite shows and got the kids ready for bed.



 

One they were in bed, my sweet hubby came upstairs and surprised me with some chocolate covered strawberries and drew me a nice, hot, candle-lit bubble bath the relax in. It was wonderful.

 

Best Valentine's Day ever!



 

 

Truck Wheels?

Long Story, Not So Short

We have known it's been time to replace the Durango for quite a while. I mean the thing was 13 years old and all. But we have liked it so much for the past 8 years we've had it, parting seemed like a bad idea. Plus we've enjoyed not having a car payment for a while as well. That being said, we decided with some upcoming road trips and whatnot coming up this summer, that the time was right to invest in something that would more safely and reliably get us to our destinations. So after much discussion we narrowed down our choices to either a newer Durango or a Honda Odessy and started searching.We were trying to give vans a chance with the Odessy and at least researching it, but in the end he just couldn't do it.  We finally found a couple Durangos online at a dealership that we wanted to look at so Mike called them up and made an appt. Of course the one we were most interested sold the very day we came in (we were told 2 hours before our appt) but we looked at what else they had in stock. First we drove a Durango Citadel, it was fully loaded with all the bells and whistles,  but the interior was a terrible color that I just couldn't live with (picky, I know). Then they showed us a new dark brown one, that we weren't real fond of. Next we drove a white one and while it was nice and again had many of the features we were looking for, it seemed that the newer models were more van-like than truck-like anymore and not really in the end what we were looking for. Not to mention it was white, which is the big no-no color for us (merely a personal preference).

 

Anyway, while waiting for keys to the white one, Mike hopped further down in the lot to peek at a truck. The salesman asked if we might be interested. We sort of laughed and said "sure if it will fit us all" and gave him a list of a few must haves. So while we were off in the white test drive, he pulled up a black extended cab Ram. We drove it and Mike fell in love with the feel of the truck. It was a pretty standard model. No bells or whistles but it still seemed a little cramped. When we voiced our concerns, the salesman immediately knew the model we needed and found this beauty. 

 

 

We took it for a spin and he was like a kid in a candy store. There was just one hurdle....the price tag. Total sticker shock. And a lot more than we were thinking we were going to spend. After a lot of negotiations, they let us bring it home overnight to think about it some more. We thought about it and in good conscious just couldn't pay that price so we went back with the intent to tell them thanks but no thanks and keep looking. So that's what we did. We told them it just wasn't going to work and that we were ok with walking away. They asked us to stay a few minutes and "see what they could do" and after about another hour or more of negotiating and us standing our ground and not budging, they came down a ton on the price to make it work and there we were, with a brand new truck.

He is one happy guy this afternoon. Caleb had deemed it a dream truck of his and the twins are so excited. Zaric even offered up his crayon piggy bank to help us pay for it. So cute. Here's a cute pic of them in the back of it.

We took it out for a family spin this afternoon and found it to be pretty comfy and surprisingly roomy even with us all in there. Score! Now we are ready to get this thing out there on the road and some miles under it's belt. First big trip, Omaha for Spring Break.