Memorial Day Weekend

Last Friday my brother and his family and Mom and Dan came to Kansas for the weekend. We spent Friday night and Saturday hanging out and then drove to Kansas City on Sunday to go to the zoo. It was fun seeing everyone again and the girls always love seeing each other! Cameron is getting a little to old to hang out with the girls, but he brought a friend to hang out with this time.

Jamie and Anna

We tried to tell mom not to feed the goose, but she insisted! He wouldn't leave!

Morgan, Zoe and Ava in front of T-Rex at Legends! Love that place! Good food & great atmosphere!

After eating at T-Rex, Mom & Dan took Morgan and Ava back home and Dana and I stayed in KC until Tuesday. We enjoyed our first time alone since Morgan was born 7 years ago!!! We found some awesome antique stores and shopped at Legends, Zona Rosa, and ate a lot of yummy food! More pictures coming later!

Meet Swimmy

This is Swimmy. Swimmy was Morgan's new pet turtle (for a day). Swimmy was a rescue turtle (from the highway). A co-worker of mine thought Morgan might like a pet turtle. We were very excited to have a pet again. We quickly ran to the pet store to buy Swimmy some food. We ran to Wal-Mart and bought him some rocks and a box to put him in. He sat on our kitchen table all day. Morgan and Ava watched him swim and climb on his rock all day. They tried to feed him, but he wouldn't eat. By 9:00 pm he was persistently trying to escape from his box. It was kind of funny to watch him try to stretch his little body as far as it would go to try and get out. It made me sad to watch him.

I suggested to Morgan that maybe Swimmy wasn't happy living in a small box and that he might want to go live in the pond down the street. Morgan cried. Broke my heart. She didn't want to give him away. We really had good intentions of keeping him for at least a few weeks. She did the right thing though and agreed to release him to his new happy home, a great big pond where he can swim all day long and be with his new turtle and fishy friends. It was a sad, sad time for us all to have to give up our turtle friend that we had for a day. Morgan cried some more when she sat him on the ground and watched him jump into the pond and swim away. I smiled. It made me happy to see him happy. Morgan was sad because she really wants a pet. She loved that turtle after a few short hours.......she is too much like her Mommy! So sensitive, but a caring, loving individual!! Maybe we will see Swimmy again someday when we are walking at the pond!

I Wanna Be a Rockstar!

Morgan attended her first birthday party sleepover this past weekend! It was a Rock Star birthday which meant dressing up like a rock star before showing up! We had fun putting sparkles on her face and in her hair, putting on some make-up and painting nails. Let me tell you what, Lisa throws a great party! She had the party set up in the basement with strobe lights, stars hanging from the ceiling, lots of balloons and video set up on the TV so the girls could watch themselves dance! It sounded like Morgan had a great time, despite stepping on a push pin within minutes of arriving and getting it stuck in her foot! Leave it to my child!! She has big plans of being a guitar player now and REALLY wants a pink guitar with diamonds all over it! Maybe in between swimming practice, girl scouts, homework, and other activities she wants to try, we can add guitar lessons too!

Of course I couldn't leave Ava out of the post! She was so upset when I dropped Morgan off at Kaylen's house and didn't leave her there to stay the night too! She cried "Avery's house" all the way home. Avery is Kaylen's little sister :-) I couldn't even bribe her with ice cream to make her happy!! Only a few short years and I am sure Ava will be staying at her first sleepover too!

More updates soon!!

The end of the school year is winding down quickly! The kids have 4 more days and I am done on Friday! I am working part time this summer, but still plan to do some traveling and spending time with the girls. I have new pictures I took this weekend that I hope to get posted, but until then you will have to settle for this picture of me! Dana took this for me a couple weeks ago. Since I am always behind the lens I decided it was time to be in front of it! Not the best picture in the world, but not bad either. There is a reason I am the photographer! Things have been going good around here. I've been taking lots of time for myself, as previously promised, and have managed to lose 15 pounds. I injured myself this weekend though (tore a calf muscle) so will need to take some time off from walking/working out to heal. I am on crutches for now and let me tell you they are a pain! Dana has been in North Carolina so it was a challenge taking care of the girls and not being able to walk! He will be home today!

Our first trip is coming up next weekend. My brother and his family and mom and Dan will be here on Friday. On Sunday we are going to the KC Zoo (hopefully I can walk w/o crutches by then) and then mom is taking the girls for a couple days while Dana and I spend time in KC for our anniversary. On May 31 we have been married for 12 years. And....on our anniversary the girls and I leave with a friend and her kids for Chicago! We can't wait! I am sure I will have lots of good pictures to post after that trip. We will make a stop in St. Louis for 2 days and then Chicago for 4 days. We will also be going to Tulsa as a family sometime this summer and I am traveling to San Francisco in July for work. I took an extra day to do some site-seeing though! Morgan will also be swimming 4 nights a week as she has been promoted to the All Stars swimming team, which means eventually we will be doing swim meets on the weekends!

Hope everyone has a great week and a wonderful start to the summer season!

Prom Photo Shoot

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to help my friend, Angie, take prom pictures of her daughter and prom date! It was so much fun and I am pleased with how they turned out. I took 170 photos and narrowed them down to a few favorites! Megan is a beautiful girl and a perfect model! Now that I've had my first "real" (practice) photo shoot I wonder if Dana will let me buy new equipment!!! LOL! I also did these in black & white, but I think the colored pictures show how beautiful her dress is!

Spring Planting

It finally stopped raining long enough for us to plant our garden! After supper tonight we headed outdoors to put tomatoes, peppers, carrots, green beans, cucumbers and pumpkins into the ground. We haven't had a garden since before Morgan was born, so we started small and are hoping for the best! :-) We also planted a few marigolds, sunflowers and lavender just for the fun of it! I hope to get enough veggies to make a few jars of salsa too! The girls had a blast playing and digging in the dirt and then standing under the sprinkler! Dana is also very proud of his homemade compost. He has been working hard on the compost pile for over a year and finally had enough to fill our garden! I will post more pictures as our garden grows! I only have a few pictures tonight because both of my camera batteries were going dead!!

Ava also enjoyed swinging on the big girl swing tonight! We took the baby swing down and are putting it on our garage sale next weekend! We are also getting rid of the rest of her baby stuff (cribs, clothes, toys, etc)! She is no longer a baby and is our last.......lots of spring cleaning to do before next weekend!! :-)